Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III 0813233550, 9780813233550

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
I. Aquinas on Separatio and Our Discovery of Being as Being
II. Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith
III. Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and Composition of Essence and Esse in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas
IV. Cornelio Fabro on Participation and Aquinas’s Quarta Via
V. Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith
VI. Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form
VII. Thomas Aquinas on the Separated Soul’s Natural Knowledge
VIII. Metaphysical Themes in De Malo I
IX. Metaphysical Composition of Angels in Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III

Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy General Editor: John C. McCarthy

Volume 63

Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III

John F. Wippel

The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2021 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ∞ Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress isbn 978-0-8132-3355-0

Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations

Introduction

vii ix

1

I. Aquinas on Separatio and Our Discovery of Being as Being

42

II. Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith

73

III. Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and Composition of Essence and Esse in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas

98

IV. Cornelio Fabro on Participation and Aquinas’s Quarta Via

117

V. Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith

142

VI. Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form

174

VII. Thomas Aquinas on the Separated Soul’s Natural Knowledge

211

VIII. Metaphysical Themes in De Malo I

244

IX. Metaphysical Composition of Angels in Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines

268

Bibliography Index

303 317

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Permission from the respective ­­copyright-holders to reprint here the following previously published material is gratefully acknowledged: Ch. I: “Aquinas on Separatio and our Discovery of Being as Being.” In The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas, edited by Christopher M. Cullen, SJ, and Franklin T. Harkins, 11–42. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019. Ch. II: “Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith in Thomas Aquinas.” Doctor communis. Nova Series 12-2 ­­ (2008): 38–61; reprinted, with editorial revisions, under the title “Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith” in The Science of Being as Being, edited by Gregory T. Doolan, 196–220. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012. Ch. III: “Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and Composition of Essence and Esse in the Metaphysics of Aquinas.” Review of Metaphysics 68 (2015): 573–92 (English version of Italian original published in 2012). Ch. IV: “Cornelio Fabro on Participation and Aquinas’s Quarta Via.” In Cornelio Fabro: Essential Thinker, edited by Nathaniel Dreyer, 41–65. Studia Fabriana, 1. Lanham, Md.: IVE Press, 2017. Ch. V: “Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith.” The Thomist 78 (2014): 1–36. Ch. VI: “Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form.” In Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, edited by Kent Emery, Jr., Russell L. Friedman, and Andreas Speer, 117–54. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Ch. VII: “Thomas Aquinas on the Separated Soul’s Natural Knowledge.” In Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth, edited by James McEvoy and Michael Dunne, 114–40. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002. (Aquinas Lecture at Maynooth, 2002.)

  vii

viii  Acknowledgments Ch. VIII: “Metaphysical Themes in De malo 1.” In Aquinas’s Disputed Questions on Evil: A Critical Guide, edited by M. V. Dougherty, 12–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Ch. IX: “Metaphysical Composition of Angels in Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines.” In A Companion to Angels in Medieval Philosophy, edited by Tobias Hoffmann, 45–78. Leiden: Brill, 2012. I would also like to thank in a special way Dr. Trevor Lipscombe, director of the Catholic University of America Press, for his generous cooperation in accepting this volume for publication; Theresa Walker, managing editor, and Brian Roach, sales and marketing director of the Press, for their care in seeing it through to publication; Susan Needham for her fine work in copyediting the manuscript; Dr. John C. McCarthy, dean of the School of Philosophy and general editor of the series Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, for accepting this volume for inclusion in the series; and Michael LaChimia and Joseph Gazailli, my research assistants in two different academic years, for their valuable assistance in my preparation of it.

Abbreviations

BDT

Super Boetium De Trinitate

CC [CCSL]

Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina



CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum



DN

De divinis nominibus

ENC Enchiridion

PG Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne



PL Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne



QDM



QDP

Quaestiones disputatae De malo Quaestiones disputatae De potentia Dei

QDV Quaestiones disputatae De veritate

SCG



ST

Summa contra Gentiles Summa theologiae

  ix

Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III

Introduction Introduction

S Introduction In this volume I have gathered together a number of articles and book chapters that I have completed since the publication of my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas in 2000 and in most cases since the appearance of my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II in 2007. As in my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas of 1984 and in my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, the studies assembled in the present volume originally appeared in various journals and books published in several different countries, and in accord with many different editorial styles. As a consequence, I have judged it necessary to impose a single editorial style on all of them. I have introduced other changes into many of them including some stylistic revisions, an updating of bibliographical sources in the notes, and on some occasions textual changes and revisions when I found this appropriate. It is my hope that interested readers will find it easier to read these studies in a collection rather than to have to search for each of them in the scattered sources in which they originally appeared.

S

Chapter I of this collection is a considerably lengthened version of a paper that I originally presented at a conference on Aquinas’s Metaphysics sponsored by the Philosophy Department at Fordham University and that was most recently published in the Proceedings of that conference. In it I was asked to present as completely as possible my current interpretation of the role of the intellectual process known as separatio in Aquinas’s account of our discovery of the subject of metaphysics—being as being. While I had already discussed this issue at some length in earlier publications, in the present study I have also developed more fully textual support for my understanding of his thinking on this and on some related issues such as the need to distinguish between a primitive or prephilosophical notion of being and the metaphysical notion of being as being—the subject of meta-

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2  Introduction physics. Accordingly, this chapter in my collection is divided into two major parts corresponding to these two notions of being. In part 1 of this chapter an effort is made to fit Aquinas’s account of our discovery of a prephilosophical notion of being into his general theory of knowledge and his insistence that all of our knowledge begins with sense experience. The role of the intellect’s first operation, whereby we know what something is, and of its second operation, judgment, in our formulation of judgments of existence is developed, together with the need for the intellect to reflect back upon phantasms produced at the level of the imagination to render such judgments possible, with all of this resulting in the intellect’s discovery of a general notion of being as “that which is,” that is, a prephilosophical notion of being. In order to account for our discovery of being as being, that is, a notion of being that is not restricted to the material and changing things we encounter in this world on the strength of sense experience, Thomas appeals to another kind of judgment. He describes this in some detail especially in question 5, article 3, of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, and contrasts this with the way in which the intellect’s first operation and judgments of existence enable us to discover the prephilosophical notion of being. It is through this second and negative kind of judgment, he maintains, that the intellect can discover the subject of metaphysics by recognizing and asserting that being, in order to be realized as such, need not be restricted to material and changing being, as physics is, or to being as quantified, as mathematics is. Aquinas refers to this negative judgment as separatio. In part 2 of this same chapter, I examine in some detail the textual evidence in Thomas’s writings for his development of this intellectual process and then turn to some competing discussions by other Thomistic scholars who ignore the presence of this doctrine in Aquinas, or minimize its role in his account of how we discover being as being, or maintain that in order for us to discover the subject of metaphysics, and to justify the judgment of separation, Thomas holds that one must have first demonstrated the existence of a positively immaterial being or beings in physics, that is, in the philosophy of nature. My own study of the relevant texts leads me to reject each of these interpretations as I indicate in my present and past responses to these accounts.

S

Introduction  3 Chapter II of this volume is entitled “Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith.” It begins by turning to one of Thomas’s best discussions of the harmony that, he holds, should obtain between philosophy and certain truths that are implied by divinely revealed articles of the Christian faith but which can also be demonstrated philosophically by purely natural reason. This discussion is found in q. 2, a. 3 of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, in the course of Thomas’s effort there to show to what extent one may use philosophical arguments and authorities in the science of faith, that is, in theology. His defense of harmony between faith and reason and then between faith and philosophy is based on his conviction that both philosophical reason when used correctly and religious belief may be traced back to one and the same source, God himself as the creator of natural reason and as the source of divine revelation. He reasons that when both of these are rightly exercised they cannot contradict one another without making God himself the author of falsity. In this same discussion he singles out three ways in which one may appeal to philosophical argumentation in theology: (1) to demonstrate preambles of faith which, he writes “are proved by natural reason about God, such as that God exists, that God is one, and other things of this kind concerning God or concerning creatures which are proved in philosophy, and which faith (pre)supposes”; (2) to illustrate by certain likenesses things that are held on faith, as Augustine does in his De Trinitate; (3) by appealing to philosophical argumentation in resisting attacks against faith. My concern in the major part of Ch. II is with the first of these—preambles of faith. With respect to these, Part 1 of this chapter is devoted to developing a fuller understanding of what Thomas means by the preambles of faith, and Part 2 is concerned with his view about the number of preambles of faith since he never offers a complete listing of all of them. Thomas’s Commentary on the De Trinitate may be dated in 1257–58 or even as late as the beginning of 1259. But the fundamentals of his position concerning preambles of faith may already be found in some form as early as in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard in Bk III, d. 24, a. 2, sol. 2. There he writes that there are certain matters that are “prior to faith” and that are matters of faith only per accidens in that, while they surpass the learning capacities of certain individuals, they can also be demonstrated philosophically by some human beings. These he distinguishes carefully from others that cannot be demonstrated philosophically

4  Introduction and can be known only by faith. And in a. 3, sol. 1 of this same distinction he adds that natural reason can demonstrate truths such as the existence of God, that he is one, incorporeal, intelligent, and other things of this kind which, he says, “stand under faith.” As regards the terminology “preambles of faith,” in addition to q. 2, a. 3 of his Commentary on the De Trinitate, Thomas uses it again in the later (1266) ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1. And so, in spite of some fluctuation in terminology, his understanding of preambles of faith is essentially the same throughout his career. In this same part of Ch. II, I then turn to Bk I of Aquinas’s Summa contra Gentiles which, without using the terminology “preambles of faith,” nonetheless offers much helpful information about this topic. In cc. 1–2 he draws heavily upon Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, cc. 1–2 in writing that in this work he has assumed the office of the wise person and that wisdom itself involves pursuit of the ultimate end of the universe which is a good of the intellect and, therefore, truth. But the pursuit of wisdom and hence of truth also leads the wise person to reject falsehood against the truth. Since in this work Aquinas wants to manifest the truth that the Catholic faith professes and to refute opposed errors held by unbelievers including Muslims, pagans, Jews and Christian heretics, he concludes that he must appeal to natural reason in dealing with all of these. In c. 3 he recalls the distinction between truths about divine things that can only be known by revelation, and those that reason can discover, and in c. 4 explains why it was beneficial for God to reveal even truths that natural reason can discover along with revealed mysteries (see c. 5). In c. 7 he again defends the harmony that must obtain between naturally known truths and the truths of faith, and in c. 9 indicates the order he intends to follow in SCG, namely by offering demonstrative arguments for naturally knowable truths, and by answering the arguments of unbelievers against Christian faith. He will devote Bks I, II, and III to naturally known arguments, and Bk IV to defending revealed truth. But in a remark that is both a warning and a challenge to his readers, he indicates that in defending naturally knowable truths, he will use both demonstrative arguments and probable arguments, often leaving it to them to discern when he is offering one or the other. For he then also comments that in considering God himself, the necessary foundation is a demonstration that God exists. In Part 2 of this chapter I then make an effort to calculate the number of preambles that Thomas proposes. As already indicated, this is difficult

Introduction  5 because in no particular passage does he offer a complete list of these. He always begins with the existence of God, and usually adds that God is one. Beginning with c. 15 he begins by employing the negative away, and follows this consistently into c. 28 (on the divine perfection), thereby setting the stage for his treatment of what appear to be some positive attributes after his defense of analogical predication of such names of God in cc. 32– 34. Thus in cc. 37–41 he argues that God is good, and goodness itself, completely devoid of evil, and the highest good. In cc. 42–43 he reasons that God is one, and that he is infinite, and in c. 44, that God is intelligent. In a long series of articles thereafter he draws out a series of consequences following from God’s intelligence, and concludes in c. 72, that will is present in God. After noting some chapters in Bk II where Thomas considers God’s operations ad extra, I offer a list of what Aquinas appears to hold as preambles of faith whether concerning God or creatures, and end with 14, but I do not regard this as a complete list.

S

Chapter III presents the argumentation offered by Cornelio Fabro in defense of a real distinction between and composition of essence and esse (act of existing) in beings other than God according to Thomas Aquinas. Fabro is best known among students of Aquinas for his truly groundbreaking work on the central role played by participation statically considered in the metaphysics of the Angelic Doctor, especially as found in his first major book on this topic, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo San Tommaso, published in the first of its three editions in 1939, and followed by an even larger volume on participation considered dynamically that appeared in French and in Italian in 1960 and 1961. While Fabro touched on this issue in a number of other publications, his first and most fundamental presentation continues to be that in La nozione metafisica, now reissued according to its third edition along with variant readings in the earlier editions. Because it was written in Italian, it has unfortunately until recently been largely neglected by many North American Thomistic scholars, and one hopes that it will eventually be translated into English as part of the reedition of Fabro’s numerous writings, now well underway by EDIVI Press. According to Fabro there is a very close connection between what he calls transcendental participation and the real distinction of essence and esse in the metaphysical thought of Aquinas. Basing himself largely

6  Introduction on Aquinas’s Commentary on the De Hebdomadibus of Boethius, lectio 2, Fabro proposes that participation may be divided into logical participation—such as that of a less extended concept that shares in but does not exhaust a more extended concept, such as one’s understanding of an individual as participating in a species or a species participating in a genus— and real participation. Real participation involves some kind of real composition and distinction between what participates and that in which it participates. This in turn may occur on what Fabro calls the predicamental level such as when a subject (substance) participates in an accident or an individual instance of matter in a substantial form, and on what he terms the transcendental level, as when an effect participates in its cause, especially if the cause belongs to a higher level of being than the participating effect. It is here that Fabro finds Aquinas placing the participation of finite beings in esse and closely connecting this with a real composition and distinction of essence and esse (act of existing) in every such being. Given this, one can easily understand how important this distinction and composition of essence and esse is for Aquinas and for his solution to the problem of the One and the Many. In his first book on participation in Aquinas, Fabro himself singles out five different ways in which he finds Aquinas arguing for this distinction and composition of essence and esse. Fabro emphasizes the importance of a distinction made by Thomas though missed by many of his interpreters between esse as simply signifying the fact that something exists as expressed in a judgment, and esse taken as signifying an intrinsic act that accounts for the fact that something exists, with the fact of its existing in actuality following from that intrinsic act; he cites a number of texts from Aquinas to support this understanding. At times, as Fabro shows, Aquinas moves from a prior knowledge that certain beings are caused to a distinction within them of essence and the act of existing, although some of the texts offered to illustrate this procedure do not, at least in my judgment, really fall within this group. At other times he finds Thomas moving in the opposite direction, that is, from the presence of a real composition and distinction of essence and esse in such beings to their caused character. As a third approach Fabro borrows an interpretation offered by André Marc, based on the truth of an existential judgment affirming that something exists and moves from this judgment to a real distinction within any such being of essence and esse. As I point

Introduction  7 out, however this approach seems very weak since it seems to involve an unjustified transition from a mental or logical distinction to a corresponding real distinction. As a fourth approach to establishing the real distinction between essence and esse, Fabro proposes an argument based on the similarity that obtains between diverse beings. And finally, Fabro proposes as the fifth general approach to argumentation for the real distinction, and one that he strongly favors, that one should begin with a recognition of static participation and proceed from there. Fabro finds a steady process of increasing simplification in Thomas’s presentation of this approach and attributes this to his gradually deepening appreciation of Neoplatonism, especially based on Thomas’s study of the Liber de causis and, after its translation into Latin, of Proclus’s Elementatio theologica. But before presenting Aquinas’s mature argumentation for this approach based on participation, Fabro here turns to the early well known if often disputed approach presented in De ente et essentia, c. 4 and then to some arguments offered in SCG II, c. 52. In his interpretation of De ente, c. 4, Fabro distinguishes three arguments, the first of which he terms logical, and the second and third, metaphysical. The first is based on the difference between one’s knowledge of what something is, and that it is. The validity of this kind of argument has often been challenged, not only by medieval and modern critics of Aquinas’s views on essence and esse, but also by many of those who defend the presence of this doctrine in Aquinas’s texts. The most obvious criticism is that the argument moves without sufficient justification from a distinction in the order of thought to a distinction in the order of reality. Thus in my own presentation of Aquinas’s argumentation in this text, I propose that the so-called ­­ logical argument should be viewed as an opening of a ­­three-part or three-stage ­­ argument that culminates by using the second stage to establish a real distinction between essence and esse in all beings with only one possible exception, and then in its third stage goes on to reason from this to the existence of God as subsisting esse and as the cause of esse in all other beings and then finally to the composition of essence and esse as potency and act in all of those beings. Fabro then introduces what he calls the first metaphysical argument in this text (corresponding to what I regard as the second stage of the argument) where Thomas reasons that there could be at most only one being in which essence and esse are identical. He does this by distinguishing

8  Introduction three ways in which esse might be multiplied. And after showing that two of them cannot be accepted, Thomas concludes that the only possible way in which this might occur would be that in all other cases, with only one possible exception of pure subsisting esse, it can be multiplied only by being received in a distinct subject, that is, by an essence that is distinct from it. Fabro must be given credit for being one of only a few interpreters who have correctly understood and appreciated the importance of this argument (or stage) in De ente, c. 4. Thomas introduces what I regard as the third stage in this argumentation of Stage Two as the starting point for a brief and metaphysical argument for the existence of God. Curiously, Fabro omits this part of Thomas’s text and turns immediately to what he calls the second metaphysical argument for the essence-esse ­­ distinction and composition of finite being, where Thomas correlates them as potency and act and holds that angels are composed of these but not of matter and form. Fabro then turns to the arguments in SCG II, c. 52. He singles out the seventh of these and includes it in the section of his book where he introduces it as an argument based on participation as the ultimate metaphysical foundation for Thomas’s defense of a real composition of essence and the act of existing. Among the various texts Fabro cites from Aquinas’s works, especially interesting is that found in De substantiis separatis. He concludes his presentation of such arguments by offering a synthetic version of Aquinas’s argumentation based on participation for the real distinction and composition of essence and the act of existing in all beings other than God.

S

Chapter IV of this collection is devoted to Fabro’s interpretation of the “Fourth” of Thomas’s “Five Ways” in ST I, q. 2, a. 3. After offering my own translation of this Thomistic text and dividing it into two stages that can easily be distinguished, I note some of the criticisms that have been directed against the first stage. Perhaps chief among them is the claim that the more and less of a given perfection such as good, or true or excellent necessarily entails positing a maximum for each. One might also ask whether this claim can be extended to varying degrees of all the transcendentals, or only to those singled out here by Thomas. My own recommendation is that it be limited to those named within this text by Thomas himself. Among various efforts to defend this part of the argument, one of the

Introduction  9 most interesting is proposed by Fabro in two articles on the fourth way, dating from 1954 and 1965. In his 1954 article he begins with Thomas’s Commentary on Book I of the Sentences (Distinction 3, Division of 1st part of text), where he offers four arguments for the unity of God which prove to be arguments for his existence. Three of these involve reasoning somewhat similar to the Quarta via in that they reason from degrees of a certain characteristic in different things to a maximum of that characteristic, but they offer no argument to justify this move. Proceeding forward chronologically in Thomas’s texts, Fabro then briefly considers an argument based on degrees of perfection offered in Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 13 where Thomas moves from degrees of truth present in different things to that which is maximally true, and cites texts from Aristotle’s Metaphysics II and IV in developing this argument. But once again no justification is offered here by Thomas or by Fabro for the move from things that are more or less true to that which is maximally true. Fabro then turns to a text from Aquinas’s De potentia, q. 3, a. 5. There Thomas offers three arguments to prove that nothing could exist that is not created by God himself, but which, according to Fabro, are really arguments for the existence of God. While this claim on Fabro’s part is debatable at least as regards the first argument, Aquinas identifies it as seemingly offered by Plato, and the other two respectively as by Aristotle and by Avicenna. The first argument begins with the point that esse is common to all things, and rests heavily on Plato’s view that before every many there must be some unity not only in the case of numbers but also in the natures of things. But it seems to involve reasoning based on efficient causality rather than formal exemplar causality. The argument Thomas attributes to Aristotle actually begins by appealing to the participation of something in diverse ways as entailing that it be given to those that possess it imperfectly by that in which it is present most perfectly. But subsequently it then appeals to something completely immobile and a most perfect mover to support the claim that there is one being that is the most perfect and truest being from which less perfect beings receive their existence. And the argument Thomas attributes to Avicenna reasons from that which is by reason of something else being traced back to that which is per se as its cause. And it claims that some being that is its esse must be posited which is proved from the fact that there must be some first being which is pure act and in which all other beings

10  Introduction participate. Fabro comments on the dominance of Platonism in the second and third arguments and also observes that the notion of participation is explicitly present in them and, while not named in the first, is also present there. In accord with his following the chronology of Aquinas’s treatments of the argumentation based on degrees perfection, Fabro briefly considers ST I, q. 2, a. 3, the text with which my chapter IV begins. He acknowledges the division, whether real or imaginary, of it into two stages, and regards the first as formal and the second as causal. He also comments that the references to Aristotle dominate both stages of the argument, and that the term “participation” does not appear in its text, important though it is for the argumentation itself. Fabro next considers what he regards as the most important text for a correct understanding of the Quarta via, presented in Aquinas’s Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel (Lectura in Evangelium Ioannis, ca. 1270–72). This is the third of four arguments for God’s existence Thomas offers there and, he writes, is based on the dignity (excellence) of God and was offered by the Platonists. They held that everything which is according to participation is reduced to something which is that of its essence as that which is first and supreme. As in the “Fourth Way” of ST I, q. 2, a. 3, he recalls the similarity drawn by Aristotle between this and things that are fired by participation being reduced to something that is such of its essence. And then he resumes the argument from participation. Since all things that exist participate in esse and are beings by participation, there must be something at the peak of all things that is esse itself. Fabro regards this as fully recapturing the “Fourth Way” and improving it. In his article he reinforces his claim that this is the definitive version of that argument, although he then offers two other late texts to support this. One is a more popular version offered by Thomas in his Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, and the other is from c. 3 of his Treatise on Separate Substances. Fabro stresses the importance of the last mentioned text. He finds that here Thomas gives a slight but explicit doctrinal priority to Plato over Aristotle. Moreover, instead of the Aristotelian analogy with heat, here the text draws upon the Platonic image of the sun. And owing to the influence of the Liber de causis and its source in Proclus, Fabro maintains that this text overcomes the difficulty in the Fourth Way of accounting for the

Introduction  11 transition from the formal fullness of the Maximum that it posits to the conclusion that the Maximum is the cause of the varying degrees of the perfection in question and so of the participants. And in light of this development, Fabro singles out the Fourth Way from the other four ways in ST I, q. 2, a.3 in that it offers a radical explanation of a creature both in terms of its dependence on the Creator and the different metaphysical structure of any creature and the Creator. In developing the final point Fabro identifies three steps in Thomas’s procedure. The first he describes as the metaphysical emergence of esse understood as the act of existing and which he again carefully distinguishes from existence as merely expressing the fact that something exists. Fabro acknowledges that Aristotle should be credited with asserting the primacy of act over potency but now points out that Aquinas was influenced by Neoplatonism in his later writings by recognizing the primacy of esse over all other acts or forms which are in potency with respect to it. Fabro also refers to this as intensive esse and finds Thomas describing other forms and acts as participations in it. Fabro entitles the second step in Aquinas’s procedure as the Principle of Separate Perfection and finds Aquinas basing this again on the notion of act as pure and absolute perfection, which is verified in reality only in the case of esse itself as subsisting in itself as pure actuality and thus is unique. This principle of Separate Perfection, Fabro points out, is Platonic and is completed by the Aristotelian notion of the emergence of act and both are grounded in Thomas’s synthetic principle of participation. And this Principle of participation is the third step that Fabro singles out, and which he maintains, finds its fullest exposition in Thomas’s late (1270) Quodlibet II, q. 2, a. 3. Fabro concludes with the observation that the three steps or principles he has distinguished on this issue are really three moments in the emergence of act in Thomas’s thought, and also maintains that they supply the metaphysical framework for the version of the Fourth Way offered by Thomas in his Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel. He also remarks that rather than dwell on different levels of existing in successive fashion, that argument concentrates on the finite, the composite, the limited, or what it means to be a being by participation, and moves from this to the existence of one being that is subsisting esse itself, and is the cause of beings by participation. In the following section of his article entitled “The Value of the ‘Quar-

12  Introduction ta via’,” Fabro returns to his discussion of that argument and reduces it to three steps: (1) Everything that exists by participation is reduced to something that is such of its essence; (2) Since all things that exist participate in esse and are beings by participation, there must be something at the summit of all things that is esse of itself; (3) This is God, who is the most excellent and most perfect cause of all other esse. Fabro also offers what he calls an indirect (and much briefer) argument: “Because beings by participation exist, esse of its essence must exist, which is God, as the first cause of every (other) reality.” I myself am concerned with how either Fabro or Thomas justifies this seemingly immediate move from participated beings to the existence of ­­self-subsisting esse. In addressing possible objections to this kind of argument, Fabro first develops Thomas’s understanding of beings by participation. Both corporeal beings and spiritual beings are finite or limited either in the formal order as are corporeal things, or at least in the order of esse, as are spiritual beings, as Fabro points out. He also maintains that in his mature writings Thomas appeals to the notion of participation, joined with the existence of God, to establish the dependence of any creature on God known as creation and the real distinction between essence and esse. And while he recognizes that this real distinction is widely recognized as the central truth of Thomistic metaphysics, he maintains that the notion of participation underlies that distinction. At this point in his 1954 article Fabro touches on the concern I have raised in the previous paragraph by noting Aristotle’s view that the universe is hierarchically structured from the bottom upward thus leading one to posit a Maximum. But this of itself does not prove, or so it seems to me, the necessary existence of such a Maximum. As a consequence I suggest as a friendly amendment to Fabro’s discussion that one introduce a point taken from various texts Aquinas’s view that participated being is efficiently caused being and insert this into the argumentation from the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, and into the first Stage that I have distinguished above for the Fourth Way in ST I, q. 2, a. 3.

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Chapter V (“Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith”) is an expanded version of a paper originally delivered in a lecture series in honor of Robert Sokolowski’s 75th birthday, and was subsequently published in its present form in The Thomist. It begins with a reference to what he has

Introduction  13 called the “Christian Distinction,” meaning thereby that this world might not have existed and its nonexistence would not have resulted in any loss in God’s greatness and his goodness. My treatment of Aquinas’s views on creation concentrates on Thomas’s general understanding of creation and seeks to determine which of his views on creation he regards as philosophical and which as purely theological and held by Christians only because of their religious belief. In other words, my goal here is to determine which aspects of his understanding of creation are preambles of faith and thus philosophically demonstrable, and which are not and are therefore articles of faith. Part 1 (“The Meaning of Creation”) turns to a very early text in Thomas’s teaching career in Bk II, distinction 1, q. 1, a. 2 of his Commentary on the Sentences. There he discusses whether things come forth from one principle (God) by way of creation. In proposing his own position Thomas states explicitly that not only does faith hold that there is creation, but “reason also demonstrates this.” In support of the last-mentioned ­­ point, and in apparent anticipation of a theme he will develop much more fully in his later texts, he argues that every individual thing, and all that is present in any such thing, participates in esse in some way and is mixed with imperfection. It follows from this that every such thing and all that is within it arises from the first and perfect being. He then remarks that the notion of creation involves two features. It presupposes nothing preexisting that would persist in the thing that is created and from which it was made, and it thereby differs from all motions and changes. And so creation is said to be “from nothing” (ex nihilo), meaning thereby that it is not made from any kind of preexisting subject. And in whatever is created, nonexistence (non esse) is prior to existence (esse) not necessarily in the temporal sense but in the sense that without the continuing influence of its creating cause, it would fall into nonexistence. Thomas then notes that if these two characteristics suffice for one’s understanding of creation, then it can be demonstrated as philosophers themselves have done. But if creation is also thought to entail that what is created must have been brought into existence only after having not existed, then creation so understood cannot be demonstrated and was not granted by philosophers. That the world began to be can be held only on faith. And so one can see that for a complete treatment of creation, both philosophical and theological factors must be considered.

14  Introduction Part 2 of this same chapter takes up the possibility of eternal creation, an issue much disputed by Christian thinkers in Thomas’s time and in the following decades. In article 5 of this same question Thomas takes up this issue. After presenting many arguments for opposed sides in this dispute, Thomas distinguishes three different views concerning this: (1) the position of the philosophers who held that certain things in addition to God were in fact eternal, a view that Thomas rejects as false and heretical; (2) the view of those who hold that the world began to exist after having not existed in the temporal sense, and that God could not have created an eternal world because this is impossible; (3) the view that every thing other than God began to exist, but that this cannot be demonstrated philosophically and can only be known by means of divine revelation. Thomas defends the third position and here asserts that it cannot be demonstrated that the world began to be or that the world is eternal In later treatments of this issue, at times he does slightly change his formulation of his own position. For instance, in Summa contra Gentiles, Bk II, cc. 31–37, after refuting arguments in support of the eternity of the world, he considers and rejects arguments intended to prove that the world began to be and concludes that this position has not been demonstrated, but he does not here state that this cannot be demonstrated. In his De potentia, q. 3, a. 14, he concludes that to hold that something that differs from God has always existed is not impossible in the sense of being ­­self-contradictory or because God lacks the power to produce some effect from eternity, although he does not here state that such is possible. But in his very late treatment of this in his De aeternitate mundi (probably in 1271) he writes that an eternally created world is not impossible, which is to say that it is possible. And as he had always held, he still maintains that Christians believe that the world began only because this has been revealed by God. Part 3 of this chapter briefly recalls that if creation is restricted to the first two characteristics Thomas had singled out already in his Commentary on II Sentences—namely, the production of something from no preexisting subject and that in this production nonexistence is prior to existence in the order of nature though not necessarily in the order of time—philosophical argumentation can establish this. Part 4 explores the question whether Aquinas always regarded creation so understood as philosophically demonstrable and hence as a preamble

Introduction  15 of faith or whether there was any development in his thinking concerning this. In order to clarify this I turn to a disputed issue among contemporary Thomistic scholars concerning whether Thomas attributed a doctrine of creation to earlier ­­non-Christian philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Thus Gilson denied that he did and on this point was followed by one of his former students, Anton Pegis. But more recently Mark Johnson in an article published in 1989 assembled twelve texts in which he claims that Aquinas attributes, although not explicitly, a doctrine of creation to Aristotle. And in another study published in 1992, Johnson concludes that, according to Thomas in his earlier writings, Plato denied that matter was produced by his supreme generating principle and hence held that it was not created, but in his later writings Aquinas presents Plato as defending the production of matter and therefore a doctrine of creation. And Johnson’s claims, especially the attribution by Thomas of creation to Aristotle, have been supported by other scholars. After considering a number of what appear to me to be the strongest texts cited by Johnson to support his claim about Aristotle, I conclude that some of them do indicate that Thomas attributes the causation of esse to Aristotle and, in some later texts, also to Plato. But one may still ask whether proving that things other than God receive their esse from him is to prove that they are created from nothing. Caution is required in interpreting Aquinas’s thoughts concerning this, because in his Summa contra Gentiles Bk II, in cc. 15–16 he distinguishes these two issues, and he devotes c. 15 to proving that God causes the esse of other things and c. 16 to proving that he creates things from nothing. And in ST I, q. 44, a. 1 he argues that God is the efficient cause of all other things; here he appeals to the metaphysics of participation and the contrast between beings that participate in esse and their unparticipated source—subsisting esse itself (God). In article 2 he proposes three stages through which previous philosophers have passed in discussing this and places both Plato and Aristotle in the second stage. Philosophers placed in this stage considered being in some particular way either insofar as it is realized in these individuals or insofar as they enjoy this or that kind of being; but he notes that they did not arrive at the study of being insofar as it is being. This was reached in a third stage by some who considered being insofar as it is being. Surprisingly, he does not cite any particular philosopher who reached this stage, although, as suggested by Gilson and others,

16  Introduction here Thomas may have had Avicenna in mind. In any event, he assigns a doctrine of creation of matter to those who reached this third stage. But since Thomas himself has distinguished between proving that things other than God receive their esse from him and proving that they are created, I devote Part 5 of this same chapter to some additional texts in order to cast light on this issue. In certain texts Thomas clearly distinguishes between the proper efficient cause of esse, which is God alone, and the instrumental or secondary conservation of less perfect beings in esse by certain created causes. This is in addition to their proper causality of effects which are perfections that determine and particularize esse through a process of change or becoming. And since God is the sole and immediate cause of the creation of all other beings, he has established an order between lower and higher causes in accounting for their being conserved in esse. In Part 6 of this same chapter, I turn to Thomas’s De substantiis separatis, c. 10. There he criticizes the Avicennian view that God can immediately produce only one immediate effect, which is the first intelligence, and all subsequent effects only mediately through a descending series of caused agents. And he distinguishes between two kinds of production, one that involves motion or change, and another that does not. With respect to the first kind, Thomas observes that other things may proceed from God by means of ordered second causes. In this way plants and animals are brought into existence by the intervention of higher created causes which themselves are subordinated to still higher causes and ultimately to God. But as regards the second kind of production, which does not produce through a process of change, what is produced in such fashion becomes a being in the unqualified sense (an ens simpliciter). Production of this kind is known as creation and, as we have seen, is reserved to God alone. And now Thomas adds that it is only in this way that immaterial substances can be produced, along with heavenly bodies, since Thomas and his contemporaries viewed them as being incorruptible. This implies that for Thomas these substances can be brought into existence only by being created. And therefore, for him to maintain that such entities do receive their esse from something else is to hold that they are created. It follows from this that for Thomas to give credit in some texts to Plato and to Aristotle for having held that separate substances and heavenly bodies receive their esse from

Introduction  17 God is also for him to attribute a doctrine of creation to them, at least in the case of such substances. It follows from this that at least in some texts Thomas attributes a doctrine of creation of some substances to Plato and Aristotle as well as to Avicenna and, therefore, this conclusion serves as additional evidence that he regards creation taken strictly as a preamble of faith. And since Thomas has distinguished in some texts between proving that something receives its existence from something else and proving that it is created, I would suggest that he regards both of these points as preambles of faith.

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Chapter VI deals with Aquinas’s ­­much-contested view that there is only one substantial form in a human being. Many of his contemporaries rejected this claim on philosophical and theological grounds, and theological concerns about this view resulted in a series of local ecclesiastical condemnations both in England and in Paris in 1277, 1284, and 1286. Because Thomas correlates the soul and body of a human being as substantial form and prime matter, Part 1 of this chapter recalls some of his views on matter and form and the ­­potency-act relationship between them. Because he views prime matter as pure potentiality, he also maintains that it can never exist without some substantial form informing it, not even by divine power. As we have already seen in preceding chapters of this collection of essays, he also defends a real distinction between essence and an act of existing in all created beings. This implies a twofold composition in corporeal entities, that of matter and substantial form constituting the essence of such beings, and that of essence and the act of existing constituting the concrete existing entity (ens). And since Thomas rejects the ­­matter-form composition of angelic beings (created separate substances), only the second kind of composition just mentioned applies to them. Part 2 of this chapter concentrates on Aquinas’s view on the ­­matter-form composition of living beings and especially of human beings. Thomas frequently argues that because a substantial form communicates in some way substantial existence to a substance and because the substantial unity of a substance follows from its act of existing, there can be only one substantial form in any substance. Some scholars, however, have maintained that in his first treatments of this issue, in his Commentary on the Sentences, Thomas may have allowed for a second kind of sub-

18  Introduction stantial form in corporeal beings—a form of corporeity. I myself, however, offer two texts from this same work which make it clear that even in this work he defended unity of substantial form in all substances. Moreover, he also credits Avicenna with one of his arguments against admission of plurality of substantial forms in any substance, namely, that since the first substantial form gives substantial esse to a substance, any additional form can only give accidental esse to it. And in his De veritate, q. 13, a. 4, he applies this same thinking to the unity of the soul and body. There can be no intermediary between a substantial form and prime matter. And in q. 16, a. 1 of the same work, he applies this to the human soul. There are not two forms within the human soul, he argues, but only one—the essence of the soul itself. And it is of the essence of the human soul to be a spirit and at the same time the substantial form of the body. A series of later texts are then considered that show that Thomas always subsequently defended unicity of substantial form even though his argumentation in support of it became more developed. A series of interesting texts from Bk II of his Summa contra Gentiles show that he pays close attention to Plato’s views concerning the human soul but strongly rejects the notion that a human being is a “soul using a body.” And against any kind of dualism, he argues strongly from his conviction that a human being is not two distinct entities or substances, but is essentially one. Hence he reasons that the human soul must be united to the body as its substantial form, and must therefore be the (formal) principle of a human being’s substantial act of existing. He also argues that there is nothing to prevent the human soul from being incorporeal in itself and also the substantial form of a human being. At the same time, he maintains that there can be only one substantial form in a single substance or a single human being, and that a plurality of substantial forms would undermine the individual substance’s essential identity. And in Bk IV of SCG, c. 81 he returns to this argument against plurality of substantial forms. In later texts such as his Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, ST I, q. 76, Disputed Questions on the De anima, qq. 9 and 11, and Disputed Question De spiritualibus creaturis, Thomas continues to develop his argumentation against plurality of substantial forms. Finally in a very schematic way in his final Quodlibet XII, q. 6, a. 1 he was asked whether the human soul perfects the body immediately or by means of a form of corporeity. In responding he reduces this to the issue of unicity versus plurality

Introduction  19 of substantial forms and then offers three ways of arguing against plurality of forms. In brief, such a position would mean that all forms that come after the first substantial form could only be accidental forms and hence could only give accidental esse, and second, the acquisition of a new substantial form would not be substantial change but only accidental change, and third, the composite of soul and body would not be one being essentially, but only an accidental aggregate. In Part 3 of this chapter, I then consider some of the many objections that were raised by Thomas’s contemporaries against his defense of unicity of substantial form, especially in human beings. I briefly present some historical background to help one understand the vehemence of this dispute, especially during his second teaching period at Paris (from late 1268 until 1272). This was an especially stormy period at the University of Paris, resulting in part from certain positions proposed in the Arts Faculty by Siger of Brabant, Boethius of Dacia, and some of their colleagues in that faculty owing to their defense of a radical kind of Aristotelianism often referred to as Latin Averroism. Much of the controversy concerned Siger’s adoption of an interpretation proposed by Averroes according to which there is only one separate thinking Intellect for the entire human race; implied thereby is a rejection of the immortality of the individual human soul. In December 1270, Stephen Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, condemned 13 propositions, many of which had been defended by Siger and/or his colleagues in the Arts Faculty, including the claim that the intellect of all men was numerically one and the same (the Averroistic view of unicity of the intellect); denial that this individual human can be said to understand (an implication following from the Averroistic position, as was pointed out by Thomas in his treatise On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists written earlier in 1270); and the claim that the soul which is the form of a human being disintegrates with the corruption of the body. Aquinas’s doctrine of unicity of substantial form in humans, however, was not included among the 13 prohibited propositions. Nonetheless, there is other evidence that indicates that this was also viewed as erroneous by some of his contemporaries by this time. For instance, in a treatise entitled Errores philosophorum that is doubtfully attributed to Giles of Rome and seems to date from around 1270, Aquinas’s doctrine is rejected as an error defended by Aristotle and Avicenna. Moreover, a letter was sent to Albert the Great by Giles of Lessines, a Dominican studying at Paris, which

20  Introduction lists fifteen seemingly dangerous propositions that were then circulating at Paris. The first thirteen are identical with those condemned by Bishop Tempier in 1270. The fourteenth states that the body of Christ when lying in the tomb and when hanging on the cross was not numerically one and the same. This proposition bears considerable similarity with a position defended by Thomas himself at about that time in connection with his defense of unity of substantial form. While the degree of its similarity with Thomas’s teaching continues to be disputed by contemporary scholars, this reminds us that opposition to his defense of substantial form was based on theological as well as on philosophical grounds. Whether or not Giles of Rome was the author of the Errores philosophorum mentioned above, recent research especially by Robert Wielockx and Silvia Donati indicates that his views on unity of form in human beings changed considerably during his career. Undoubtedly, the inclusion of this among 51 propositions taken from his writings and censured by the Theology Faculty in March 1277, and his suspension from teaching in that faculty until his reinstatement there in 1285, contributed to his fluctuations concerning this issue. I also suggest in my discussion that there seems to be a close connection between defenders of plurality of forms and those who posited some type of universal hylemorphism even in spiritual beings or at least assigned some minimum degree of actuality to prime matter, against Aquinas’s view that prime matter is pure potentiality. Since many of those who defended plurality of substantial forms in human beings belonged to the Franciscan Order, I have singled out two of them for special consideration, namely William de la Mare and John Pecham. William de la Mare intervened in this controversy ca. 1277–78 by composing a detailed critique of many of Aquinas’s writings entitled the Correctorium Fratris Thomae. This text was officially adopted at a Franciscan General Chapter held in Strasbourg in 1282. In his text William singles out 118 propositions from various writings by Aquinas which he regards as objectionable and assigns to these propositions different degrees of unacceptability such as “erroneous,” “against faith,” “against philosophy” or as “giving rise to error.” He condemns Aquinas’s position on unity of substantial form on a number of occasions, but especially in articles 31 and 107. In article 31, after presenting Thomas’s view in ST I, q. 76, a. 3, William counters that it is rejected by the Masters of Theology, first because many things follow from it that are contrary to faith, second because it contra-

Introduction  21 dicts philosophy, and third because it is opposed to Scripture. In support of his first charge, William counters that faith holds that it was numerically one and the same body which the Son of God received from Mary, which Mary gave birth to, which hung on the cross, and which was buried in the tomb. But if there was no other substantial form for the body of Christ but the intellective form, after his soul was separated from his body by his death on the cross, either prime matter alone remained, or another substantial form was introduced. It would follow from either of these alternatives that it was not numerically one and the same body that died on the cross and that was buried in the tomb. Thus if only prime matter remained, then it was not a body. And so many other errors against faith would also follow, he continues. Or if a new substantial form was introduced into his body to replace his substantial from, it would follow that the living and the dead body of Christ were not numerically one and the same. To show that unity of substantial form is against philosophy, William reasons that if the intellective soul alone perfects prime matter, then in a human being there would be no form of an element or of a mixture, about which philosophy says much. I do note here that Thomas considered the issue of the continuation of the properties of elements in compounds and finally settled on what he regarded as a virtual presence of the properties of elements in compounds that are formed of those elements. In support of his claim that unity of form is contrary to Scripture, William cites from Scripture (Jn. 2:19 and 21) where Christ says “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” and where John comments that he was speaking of the temple of his body. William writes that Christ was speaking of numerically one and the same body both as living and as dead. In article 107 William cites Thomas’s Quodlibet II, q. 1, where Thomas was asked to determine whether during the three days in the tomb, Christ was numerically the same man. William rejects Aquinas’s comment there that during that period Christ’s body was not one and the same in the absolute sense (simpliciter) but only in a qualified sense (secundum quid) and also not one and the same in (another) qualified sense (secundum quid). John Pecham officially incepted as a Master of Theology at Paris in 1270, and would emerge as a strong critic of Thomas’s defense of unity of substantial form in humans. After completing his time as Master of Theology at Paris, he served as Master of the Sacred Palace in the Ro-

22  Introduction man Curia and in his Quodlibet IV (1277–78), he attacked the unity of substantial form thesis on theological grounds. He would eventually become the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity in the year 1284 he renewed the prohibition of 30 propositions by his predecessor in that see—Robert Kilwardby—including unity of substantial forms. And then, in April 1286, Pecham issued his own much stronger prohibition of unity of substantial form at a meeting of bishops and abbots wherein he listed eight different articles which either defended unity of substantial form or followed from it. At least three of these dealt with the relationship between Christ’s body while living and while lying in the tomb. And in article 8 he explicitly rejected unity of substantial form in human beings, and observed that from this view seemed to follow all the other heresies he had listed. Given the centrality of the issue of the identity of Christ’s body while lying in the tomb among the theological objections to Thomas’s position, his answers to questions concerning this raised in four of his Quodlibetal Disputations at Paris from 1269 to 1271 are then presented. For instance, in Quodlibet II, q. 1, a. 1, Thomas was asked whether Christ was one and the same man during the three days in the tomb. Thomas responds that when we speak of Christ during the three days in the tomb, we may do so with respect to the divine person, or with respect to his human nature. As regards the divine person, this clearly remained one and the same absolutely during this period as before and after. But as regards his human nature, if we refer to his entire human nature (his humanity), Christ was not a man during this period and hence not the same man or another man, but he was one and the same person. If we refer to the parts of his human nature, his soul remained entirely one and the same, and his body remained one and the same by reason of its matter, but not in terms of its substantial form or soul. Therefore, Thomas concludes that it cannot be said that Christ’s body was one and the same in the unqualified sense; nor can it be said that he was not one and the same in the absolute sense. Rather his body was one and the same in one respect and in another respect it was not one and the same. While there is evident similarity between Thomas’s position as expressed here and the fourteenth proposition in Giles of Lessines’s letter to Albert the Great, Thomas has added an important qualification in his statement of his own position that is missing from Giles’s letter. In Quodlibet III, q. 2, a. 2 (Lent, 1270), when responding to the ques-

Introduction  23 tion whether Christ’s eye after his death may be called an eye equivocally or univocally, Thomas defends essentially the same position. Just as when the soul is separated from the body, what remains is called a human being only equivocally, so too what remains of the eye can be so named only equivocally. But in his Quodlibet IV of Lent 1271 and therefore after Stephen Tempier’s prohibition of thirteen propositions of December 6, 1270, there is an apparent shift at least in emphasis from his earlier responses to the question whether Christ’s body when hanging on the cross and lying in the tomb was numerically one and the same. Thomas replies that in determining this question he must avoid two heresies, that of the Arians who denied that Christ had a human soul and held that the Word was united with the body and separated from it by his death, and that of the Gaianites who held that in Christ there is only one nature, composed of divinity and humanity, which was absolutely incorruptible, and so his soul was not separated from his body when the latter was in the tomb. From this it would follow that Christ did not really die, which claim Thomas rejects as “impious.” In order to avoid the Arian heresy Thomas defends the identity of Christ’s body in the tomb by reason of its continuing union with the divine Word, and in order to avoid the Gaianite heresy, he must maintain that Christ truly died. But because the first union with the divine supposit is greater than the second difference between the living and the dead Christ, Thomas now concludes that it must be held that the body of Christ when attached to the cross and when lying in the tomb was numerically one and the same. Here, unlike his conclusion in Quodlibet II, he does not say as he had there and also had implied in Quodlibet III, that Christ’s body was in these two situations not numerically one and the same in the absolute sense but only in a qualified sense, and that it was the same in one qualified sense and not the same in another qualified sense. There has been considerable disagreement among contemporary interpreters concerning whether this marks a substantial change in Thomas’s thought, or is only a change in terminology. After considering some who deny that it was a substantial change, and another who holds that it was, I myself favor the latter interpretation and suggest that Tempier’s condemnation in 1270, even though it did not include unity of substantial form, may have influenced Thomas’s thinking on this issue. And I find reinforcement for this judgment from Thomas’s discussion of this in his still later ST III, q. 50,

24  Introduction a. 5, where he distinguishes two ways in which the term simpliciter may be taken. In the final part of this chapter I raise a question to which I have not yet found an explicit answer in the works of Thomas himself. It has to do with the ontological status of the matter of Christ’s body during its time in the tomb. Aquinas maintains that prime matter is pure potentiality and that so true is this that it could not be kept in existence without some substantial form even by divine power, as for instance, in his Quodlibet III, q. 1, a. 1, because this would be contradictory. How, then, could the matter of his body have continued to exist without some substantial form? Awareness of this difficulty seems to have been in part behind an objection against Aquinas’s position raised by William de la Mare. As he put it, during the time in the tomb, only prime matter would have remained in the tomb, or else another substantial form would have been introduced. William rejects both of these as possible explanations because, he claims, neither could account for the numerical identity of the living and the dead body of Christ. But William does not cite in support of this Thomas’s view that pure prime matter cannot be kept in existence without some substantial form even by divine power. Some years before William’s intervention in this debate about unity of substantial form, during Thomas’s second teaching period in Paris, Giles of Rome had addressed a closely related issue in the oral version of his Commentary on Bk III of the Sentences, q. 34, d. 21. There he considers whether another substantial form was introduced into the dead body of Christ. Judging from the reportatio of his response, he notes that some hold that no other substantial form was introduced, but they account for this in different ways, each of which Giles rejects. He comments that he himself does not know how to resolve this, but then proposes another solution which, he says, is in accord with the unity of substantial form, but which he does not propose as definitive by determining it, but only as probable. According to this explanation, another substantial form was temporarily introduced into the matter of Christ’s body because the corruption of one form is naturally the generation of another. But after pointing out some difficulties with this solution, Giles ends by repeating that he proposes this only as a probable solution. Some contemporary scholars have maintained that Thomas himself did hold that the matter of Christ’s body was informed by a new substan-

Introduction  25 tial form during his time in the tomb, and in medieval times Pecham included this proposition among those he condemned in 1286. It had indeed been defended by Richard of Knapwell, and would some centuries later be attributed to Thomas by Cardinal Cajetan. But so far as I can determine none of these has cited a text from Thomas himself where he defends such a view. Moreover, Alain Boureau denies that Thomas ever defended this position, and he cites Robert of Orford’s Correctorium in support, who explicitly denies that this can be found in his texts. While I myself think that this latter view is correct, this leaves unanswered my original question: How can this be reconciled with his denial that prime matter could ever be kept in existence without some substantial form? I have not found an explicit answer to this in Thomas’s texts themselves. What is clear is the fact that Thomas never abandoned his defense of unity of substantial form in human beings.

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Chapter VII deals with Aquinas’s views on the natural knowledge enjoyed by the separated soul, as distinguished from his views concerning the beatific vision. He is often given credit by students of his thought for having overcome Platonic dualism in his understanding of human nature by correlating the human soul and body as substantial form and prime matter, although it is also widely recognized that in doing this he introduced some fundamental changes into Aristotle’s theory of form and matter. But a number of his more recent interpreters have concluded that certain tensions remain in his views about the state of the separated soul when it is separated from the body by death. Some German scholars hold that there are inconsistencies in his treatment of the soul’s cognitive activity in its state of separation from the body, while other scholars maintain that a radical change occurs in his views on the degree of perfection to be assigned to the soul’s intellectual activity in its state of separation. And on this side of the Atlantic, Anton Pegis pointed out what he regarded as a fundamental change in Thomas’s understanding of the separated soul’s cognitive activities, from what he proposed in his earlier treatments of this issue, including SCG II, c. 81, to what is presented in ST I, q. 89, a. 1. In brief, Thomas first held that the separated soul understands in a mode proper to separate substances, that is, by means of infused species. But, Pegis argues, in ST I, q. 89, a. 1, Thomas assigns to the separated soul a mode of understanding that seems to be less perfect than that it

26  Introduction had enjoyed when embodied. And Thomas remarks that for the separated soul to know by means of infused species is beyond the nature of the separated soul and even against its nature. Therefore, Pegis concludes that the separated soul is less perfect in terms of its natural knowledge than it was when united to the body. Pegis finds this view confirmed by Thomas in his Disputed Questions De anima, qq. 15–20. But Pegis’s view seems to be undermined by Thomas’s position in his Quodlibet III, q. 9, a. 2, which according to the Leonine edition must be dated in 1270 and therefore some years after ST I, q. 89, a. 1, and which defends what Pegis regards as Thomas’s earlier position. In order to attempt to determine what Thomas’s thinking was concerning this issue, I then consider a number of texts taken in chronological order in order to find his answers to five related questions: (1) Can the separated soul understand at all, and, if so, how? (2) Will the separated soul enjoy knowledge of itself and of other separate substances? (3) Will the separated soul be aware of individuals it knew when embodied, and of other individuals? (4) Will it retain the scientific and universal knowledge it acquired in the present life? (5) Will it be aware of what continues to happen here on earth? In his very early Commentary on Bk III of the Sentences (d. 31, q. 2, a. 4), Thomas considers whether in our life after death, scientific knowledge will be removed from the separated soul. In his Commentary on Bk IV (d. 50, q. 1, a. 3) he asks whether the separated soul will know individuals. In his De veritate, q. 19, a. 1 he defends the separated soul’s ability to understand and distinguishes three ways in which this may happen: (1) by means of intelligible species which were originally formed by abstraction from phantasms based on sense experience when the soul was united with the body; (2) by divinely infused intelligible species during its state of separation from the body; and (3) by seeing separate substances themselves and intuiting in them intelligible species for other things (although in subsequent texts he seems to find it unnecessary to appeal to this third way). In article 2 of this same question he defends the separated soul’s ability to know individuals and he appeals to the first two of the three ways he had singled out in article 1, but he omits the third way there and thereafter. And in SCG II, c. 81, while responding to an objection against the soul’s immortality, he maintains that the operations of the soul that are not exercised through bodily organs will remain in the separated soul, that is, to

Introduction  27 understand and to will; but their mode of operation will differ from that of the embodied soul, and will depend upon infused species to enable the soul to understand more perfectly than when it was embodied. Pegis insists that this text, along with those mentioned that preceded it, differ radically from Thomas’s view in the later ST I, q. 89, a. 1 and in the Disputed Questions on the De anima. Before turning to these later texts I first sum up Thomas’s answers until this point to the five questions I have raised above about his position. But in this Introduction I will bypass that discussion and turn immediately to the major later texts just mentioned to which Pegis appeals in support of his interpretation. It is generally agreed that these two texts are chronologically very close to one another, dating from 1266–68, and so I treat them together in their ways of responding to my five questions. Regarding question 1 (Whether the separated soul understands and, if so, how?), in Disputed Question 15 on the De anima Thomas first presents some positions that he regards as unacceptable and then both there and in ST I, q. 89 he grants that recourse to the sensitive powers and to phantasms is necessary for the embodied soul to understand and also for it to use previously acquired knowledge. In developing his personal answer in ST I, q. 89, a. 1, he introduces an important principle. A thing’s mode of operation follows upon its mode of existing. But the human soul has one mode of existing when it is embodied, and a different mode in its separated state even though its nature remains the same. Accordingly, while its mode of understanding involves the role of phantasms when it is united the body, this is not true of it when it is separated from the body, for then it will understand by turning directly to intelligible objects owing to infused intelligible species. And just as for the soul to be separated from the body is beyond its nature, so too for it to understand without turning back to phantasms will also be beyond its nature (praeter naturam) as realized in its embodied state. Hence, against Pegis’s interpretation, it does not seem that the kind and degree of knowledge Thomas assigns to the separated soul in these two discussions is significantly worse than his description of this in his earlier writings. My second question asked whether the separated soul would know itself and other separate substances. In his Disputed Question De anima, q. 17 and in ST I, q. 29, a. 2 Thomas asks whether the separated soul understands separate substances. In the first of these texts he notes that, ac-

28  Introduction cording to our faith, one should hold that it may know angels if it is just and demons if it is damned. But he also states that it is in accord with reason to hold that it knows separate substances. He recalls that when embodied, the soul cannot know either itself or other things except by means of species that it abstracts from phantasms. But when separated it can receive an influx of intelligible species without the assistance of phantasms. For it will then know itself directly by intuiting its own essence. He adds that one separate substance knows another by intuiting its own essence, because there is in its essence a likeness of other separate substances. And the separated soul, by directly intuiting its own essence, will know separate substances by means of infused species it receives from them or from God, although it will not know them as perfectly as they know themselves. Thomas’s discussion of this in ST I, q. 29, a. 2 is brief but in agreement with Disputed Question q. 17. He also points out that the separated soul will have a perfect knowledge of other separated souls, but only an imperfect and deficient knowledge of angels. Hence his answer to our second question is not significantly less optimistic than his earlier discussions of this and presents the separated soul’s knowledge of itself more optimistically than he had in his earlier texts. In preparing to answer the third question (“Whether the separated soul will be aware of individuals it knew when embodied, and of new individuals and events”) in Disputed q. 18 and in ST I, q. 89, a. 3, Thomas first asks whether the separated soul will know all natural things. In this Disputed Question, Thomas responds that in a qualified sense the separated soul will know all natural things, but not in the absolute sense. He then notes that because higher separate substances enjoy greater intellectual power, they can grasp the ultimate species of things by means of fewer universal forms; but if lower and less perfect substances were to use equally universal forms, by means of these they would not grasp things in terms of their ultimate species but only in a more general and confused fashion. As the lowest of intellectual substances, the human soul receives intelligible species by abstracting them from material things. When separated from the body it will receive infused universal intelligible species, but only in a certain universal and confused way, and not in terms of its ultimate species. It is only in this way that it will know natural things. In briefer fashion Thomas makes the same point about the separated soul in ST I, q. 89, a. 3.

Introduction  29 Thomas considers the separated soul’s knowledge of individuals in Disputed Question 20 and in ST I, q. 89, a. 4. In this Disputed Question he comments that the separated soul will know some individuals, but not all. It will know some of those individuals it already knew when embodied, and it will acquire a knowledge of certain other individuals after it is separated from the body. He observes that this question raises two difficulties. The first concerns how God and angels can know individuals, since they have only intellectual powers, and the second is to determine how the separated soul can know individuals. After considering several inadequate accounts of how God knows individuals, Thomas explains that through his intellect God produces not only the form but the matter of things and therefore by his art knows both universals and individual things, since the divine likenesses (or ideas) are likenesses of things in terms of both their matter and form. But the separated soul by means of infused intelligible species will not know all natural things in determined and complete fashion even in terms of their species, but only in a confused way. Nor will it know all the individuals within a species, but it will have knowledge of certain individuals to which the soul bears some special relationship. In ST I, q. 89, a. 4 he more briefly defends the same position and holds that by means of infused species the separated soul will know individuals to which it bears some determined relationship or by reason of previous knowledge or by divine ordination. Thomas’s discussion in Disputed Question 20 is in fundamental agreement with what he had stated in De veritate, q. 19, a. 2, but with one change. There he seems to have held that a separated substance, including the separated soul, could know all the individuals within a species, but he has now qualified that remark. Regarding my fourth question (Whether the separated soul will still be aware of the scientific and universal knowledge it possessed when embodied), Thomas does not devote an individual question to this in his Quaestiones disputatae De anima. He does, however, ask in ST I, q. 89, a. 5 whether the habit of science acquired by the soul in its embodied state will remain in it when it is separated. While granting that anything connected with science that resides in an internal sense power will not remain in the separated soul, what resides in the possible intellect will remain. Hence so will the habit of science. Thus Thomas’s position on this is in agreement with the view he had already defended in his Commentary on Bk III of the Sentences and would again defend in his late ST ­­I-II, q. 67, a. 2.

30  Introduction With regard to my fifth question, concerning whether the separated soul will be aware of what continues to happen here on earth, in his Disputed Question 20 On the Soul, Thomas remarks in passing that according to Augustine, the souls of the dead are ignorant of what happens on earth and he seems to agree with this. In ST I, q. 89, a. 8 he writes that, as regards natural knowledge of events here on earth, separated souls are ignorant of these. For in accord with their mode of existing, they are cut off from the society of those living on earth and share in that of spiritual substances. Thomas cites passages from Gregory the Great and Augustine in support. But he then raises a theological point. As for the souls of the blessed in heaven, Gregory explicitly denies that this restriction applies to them, while Augustine is hesitant in his statement that the souls of the blessed are ignorant of events now happening on earth. Thomas finds Gregory asserting his view with authority and because of this, Thomas favors his opinion concerning souls of the blessed. In concluding this study, regarding the separated soul’s natural knowledge, I do not find a radical downgrading from the knowledge Thomas assigns to the separated soul in SCG II, c. 81 and his earlier treatments, on the one hand, and in ST I, q. 89 and his Disputed Questions De anima, on the other. While he does restrict the separated soul’s knowledge of individuals within species to certain individuals in his later treatments of this, he also assigns an intuitive ­­self-knowledge to separated souls in his later discussions of this issue which seems to be superior to the kind of ­­self-knowledge he attributes to embodied souls. Hence the earlier and later accounts of its knowledge seem to balance out rather well.

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Chapter VIII originally appeared as the opening chapter in a volume edited by Michael V. Dougherty and dedicated to Aquinas’s Disputed Questions De malo. In it I was asked to concentrate on question 1 of that work and to deal with the metaphysical themes in that question. One should recall from ST I, q. 2, a. 3 that Aquinas was well aware of the problem of evil and that its reality might be used as an argument against the existence of God. His answer to this objection is largely based on a text from Augustine and responds that God is so good and so omnipotent that he can draw good from evil. And while there are theological aspects in Thomas’s treatment of evil, here I concentrate on his philosophical discussion of it.

Introduction  31 For this is the part of his treatment that he maintains can be established by unaided human reason. Part 1 of this chapter considers certain metaphysical presuppositions that Thomas brings to this discussion. First and foremost is his conviction that God’s existence can be established philosophically and that this is also true of many of the divine attributes. Hence his discussion of these comes after his demonstration of God’s existence in both his ST I and in SCG I. And extremely important for his reflections on evil is his argumentation to show philosophically that God is good. Thus in ST I, q. 4 he argues that God is all perfect and then moves from this to a discussion in q. 5 of good as a (transcendental) property of being. He also takes from Aristotle the notion that the good is that which “all things desire.” Then in q. 6, aa. 1 and 2 he concludes that good applies to God in a primary sense and that he is the supreme good, and in a. 4 that all other things are good insofar as they participate in the divine goodness. In part 2 of this chapter Thomas is shown in his Quaestiones disputatae De malo (QDM) to have followed Augustine in viewing evil not as something positive but rather as the negation of something that should be present in a given subject. In his QDM, q. 1 Thomas asks whether evil is “something,” that is, a particular being, and in ST I, q. 48, a. 1 whether it is a particular nature and he goes on in each text to deny that it is either of these. In the latter text he also quotes Pseudo-Dionysius ­­ in the sed contra in support of his conclusion to the effect that evil is neither an existent (thing) nor a good. And in QDM, q. 1, a. 1 he offers three rather full arguments to show that evil cannot be a particular thing (hoc aliquid). But that in which it inheres is some particular thing, such as an eye in which there is blindness. In Part 3 Thomas is shown to hold that although evil is not a particular nature or entity or thing, it does exist. To set the stage for his discussion of this, in QDM, q. 1, a. 1, he first distinguishes different kinds of evil. He notes that something may be said to be evil either in the absolute sense (simpliciter) or in a qualified sense (secundum quid). It is evil in the first way if it is evil in itself and is deprived of a particular good that is needed for its own perfection, in the way that sickness is evil for an animal. But it is evil in a qualified sense if it involves the privation of something that is necessary for the perfection of some other thing, either in a physical thing,

32  Introduction or in the moral order. Thus Thomas distinguishes between physical evil and moral evil. In replying to the fourth objection in this text, Thomas comments that evil is said to be contrary to the good even more so in moral evil than in natural or physical evils. In supporting his claim that evil is real or exists, in ST I, q. 47, a. 1 he had already argued that the perfection of the universe requires that there be inequality among different things. Since God willed to communicate his goodness to creatures in order that they might reflect it, no single creature could adequately reflect the infinite goodness of God. Hence God produced many and diverse creatures so that what was lacking in one’s reflection of the divine goodness could be made up for by different perfections realized in others. In article 2 of this same question Thomas had concluded that just as God is the cause of the distinction found among different created things, so is he the cause of the inequality that obtains among them. If evil is not a being or entity, how can it exist? In both ST I, q. 48, a. 3 and in QDM, q. 1, a. 2, Thomas explains that evil exists in something good as its subject. In the first text he explains that not every absence of a good in a particular subject is evil, for then every absence of a higher perfection in a given being would be evil. Evil is rather the absence or negation of a perfection in a subject that ought to be present there, which is to say, it is a privation. In the second text he responds that evil can exist only in the good. And in both of these texts he argues that whatever is in potency also shares in the nature of the good. In QDM, q. 1, a. 2 he also finally distinguishes three different ways in which good may be taken: first, as the very perfection of a thing itself, such as sharpness of vision or the virtue of a human being; second, as the thing itself that enjoys its perfection, such as a virtuous human; third, as the subject itself that is in potency to a certain perfection. Part 4 of this chapter takes up Thomas’s account of the cause of evil. His most thorough discussion of this is offered in QDM, q. 1, a. 3, especially with respect to moral evil. There he considers whether good is the cause of evil. He begins by denying that evil can have a per se efficient cause and offers three arguments in support of this claim. Nonetheless, Thomas grants that evil must have some kind of cause. He reasons that because evil exists in some subject as a privation, for it to be present in such a subject is beyond the nature of that subject (praeternaturaliter). And if evil cannot

Introduction  33 have a per se cause, it can only have a cause per accidens. But such a cause must itself be traced back to a cause per se, which itself is some good. To explain how evil can be caused by some good, Thomas proposes two ways in which this may happen: (1) a good agent may be deficient in some way and as a result causes evil, or (2) a good agent may produce an evil effect per accidens. Thomas then gives examples of both of these situations, and likewise applies this explanation to physical evils and to moral evils. As regards moral evils, Thomas notes that there are similarities as well as differences between these and physical evils. If something that gives pleasure to the senses were to move the will with the same force as a natural body is moved by a natural agent, the cases of physical and moral evils would be identical. But Thomas argues that no matter how much a pleasurable sensible object may attract someone, one’s will retains the power to acquiesce or not acquiesce. Thomas holds that the will may cause a moral evil either as a cause per accidens or as a deficient good. It may be cause per accidens because it is attracted to something that is a good in a qualified way but is conjoined to something that is evil in the absolute sense. Or it may be a cause of a moral evil as a deficient cause insofar as there must be some deficiency in the will prior to the deficient choice if it chooses something good only in a qualified sense which is evil in the absolute sense. To account for this, Thomas argues that in situations where one thing should serve as the rule and measure for some action, good results only if what is regulated and measured conforms to the rule and measure. In illustration he cites the case of a craftsman who wants to cut something along a straight line, but does not use the appropriate rule or measure, resulting in a crooked or evil line. In like manner, human acts must be measured in accord with the rule of right reason and divine law in order to be good. Morally evil acts result from the will’s failure to consider the appropriate norm while making its choice. Thomas writes that there is no need to look beyond the freedom of the will to account for this nonuse of the appropriate moral norm. Nor is someone obliged to always think about moral norms, but only when faced with a moral choice. Because this moment of ­­non-consideration is negative, no further cause need be sought to account for it beyond the human will. Maritain describes this ­­non-consideration as a certain nothingness, and hence not something caused by God. And so God should not be viewed as the cause of the immoral aspect of the immoral act.

34  Introduction No matter how interesting this proposed solution is as an explanation of the cause of moral evil, certain problems seem to remain in Thomas’s explanation of physical evils that strike human beings. Those human beings are not merely parts of the universe viewed as a whole but are also individual persons. It is difficult to explain how and why they are subjected to horrendous evils such as massive earthquakes that take the lives of hundreds or thousands of human beings, including many children who are too young to be guilty of grave sin. One approach is to reply that we must have confidence in divine goodness and divine providence even though we may not be able to understand how this happens, so that even horrendous evils afflicting the innocent may be viewed as contributing to the greater good of the universe viewed as a whole. For a fine presentation of God’s providence over all creation including individuals, one may turn to Thomas’s SCG III, cc. 76 and following. And we may recall Thomas’s acceptance of Augustine’s argument in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 about God’s drawing good out of evil. Yet, from the philosophical side, it is still difficult to understand how the suffering of those who are innocent contributes to the greater good of the universe. At this point philosophy seems to have reached its limit, at least according to Aquinas’s approach. In fact, that Thomas seems to have realized this is suggested by his discussion in QDM, q. 1, aa. 3 and 4, where he introduces an important distinction between evil of fault and evil of punishment. Thomas explains that this distinction applies only to intellectual creatures, since it is the nature of fault to arise according to one’s will, and the nature of punishment to be against one’s will. As regards the latter, Thomas writes that evil of punishment consists in the privation of a habitus or a form or of something that is required for a person to act well, and that such an evil may apply to the body or to the soul or to extrinsic things. He also cites the tradition of Catholic faith according to which a rational creature could suffer no harm with respect to the soul or the body or with respect to external things unless there was some preceding sin committed either by that person or by his or her sharing in (human) nature. Here he has in mind his religious belief in an original fall on the part of our first parents. And he has now offered a theological explanation for many of the physical evils suffered by human beings. By doing this he has also moved beyond the limits of metaphysics.

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Introduction  35 Chapter IX deals with three different responses offered by three different medieval thinkers of the thirteenth century (Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines) to a serious metaphysical question. Their common concern was to explain how the divine simplicity differs from the seeming simplicity of angels and of separated human souls. One approach maintained that in all created substances there is some kind of composition of matter and form—of a corporeal matter and a corporeal form in corporeal entities, and a spiritual form and a spiritual matter in angels and separated souls or, according to some, the same kind of matter in both corporeal entities and separate substances. Another approach proposed some kind of composition and distinction in such entities based on Boethius’s claim that in creatures there was some kind of composition of esse and id quod est, although this distinction and composition was interpreted in very different fashion by thirteenth-century ­­ thinkers. Still another approach maintained that one could defend the unique simplicity of God without appealing to any kind of real distinction and composition in angels and separated souls. St. Bonaventure is an excellent representative of the view that all created beings are composed of matter and form. In his Commentary on Bk II of the Sentences, dist. 3, part 1, he raises three questions concerning the simplicity of angelic essences: (1) whether an angel is simple or composed of matter and form; (2) if it is composed of matter and form, is the matter found in spirits essentially the same as that present in corporeal entities; (3) is the matter present in both numerically one and the same? In responding to this question Bonaventure offers four opening arguments in support of the matter-form ­­ composition of such beings and four arguments against this. Then in his formal response he argues that it must be held as certain that an angel is not completely devoid of composition. It must be composed in different ways, such as in terms of its depending on its cause, or as itself causing something else, or as falling within a genus and therefore, according to the metaphysician, as composed of act and potency or, according to the logician, of genus and difference, or finally as a being in itself and hence, as regards its actual existence (esse), as composed of being and of esse, as regards its essential existence (esse) as composed of quod est and quo est and as regards its individual or personal existence as composed of “what it is” and “who it is.” But Bonaventure does not regard these kinds of composition as sufficient to show that an angel is composed

36  Introduction and therefore falls short of the divine simplicity, and so he goes on to offer argumentation to prove that there is matter-form ­­ composition in angels as well. He recalls from some of the opening argumentation that mutability is present in angels and therefore, to account for this, that composition must be present in them. And so he concludes that there is no reason to deny that the substance of an angel is composed of diverse natures, and that these natures are related to one another as the actual and the potential, that is, as form and matter. He concludes that this view seems to be truer than any position that denies it. With this much established, he turns to the second question—to determine whether the matter of corporeal and the matter of spiritual beings is essentially the same. Bonaventure comments that concerning this question, the wise seem to differ from the wise, and that profound clerics in theology and philosophy have disagreed. Thus some have held that the matter of spiritual and the matter of corporeal things have nothing in common except by analogy. Others think that the matter of both is one and the same essentially. He accounts for this diversity by noting that matter can be known by privation or by analogy. In the first case, one arrives at knowledge of matter by removing from matter any kind of form and then anything that disposes it for a form, and finally by considering its naked essence as an intelligible darkness. But knowledge by analogy is based on a similarity of relations between matter and form and potency and act either insofar as matter offers a support of form in terms of being and is so considered by the metaphysician, or insofar as it supports form under the aspect of being mobile, and is so considered by the natural philosopher. Those who viewed matter as the privation of every form thought that it is the same essentially in spiritual and in corporeal things, while those who considered matter by means of analogy insofar as it is potential with respect to being, denied that it is one and the same properly speaking in the two kinds of beings. Because the metaphysician judges in a more excellent way than the natural philosopher, Bonaventure concludes that those who defended the same kind of matter in spiritual and corporeal things held the better position, even though both arrived at the truth according to their own sciences. Regarding the third question, concerning whether, if the matter of corporeal and incorporeal things is essentially one and the same, it is numer-

Introduction  37 ically one and the same, Bonaventure concludes that if matter is entirely being in potency, it must be numerically one and the same in all cases. Thomas Aquinas is surely the best-known ­­ representative of those who defended a real composition and distinction of essence and the act of being (esse) in angels. In this chapter, three texts have been picked from three different periods in his career to illustrate his thinking concerning this issue. The first of these is from the beginning of his teaching career at the University of Paris (from 1252 to 1256) and is the ­­well-known small treatise De ente et essentia. In chapter 4 of that work he wishes to indicate how essence is realized in separate substances including the human soul, intelligences (Christian angels), and God. Thomas observes that while the simplicity of God as the First Cause is granted by all (participants in this discussion), some would introduce ­­matter-form composition into intelligences and the human soul. And he identifies Avicebron as the likely author of this view in his work entitled Fons vitae (Source of Life). Thomas rejects this opinion as being opposed to the view of the philosophers and observes that their strongest argument against such a proposal is based on the power of understanding present in intelligences. After agreeing with them that neither the human soul nor intelligences are composed of matter, Thomas proposes that there is a composition in them of form and of esse (the act of existing). Hence they are not perfectly simple as is God. They are not pure act but have some degree of potentiality within them. He then offers what I present as a ­­three-stage argument to prove this point and finally that in them their essence is related to their individual acts of existing as potency is related to act. The first stage of the argument rests on the difference between knowing what something is and that it is. This step is much disputed and with good reason, I maintain, if it is separated from what follows. The second stage begins by his writing: “Unless, perhaps, there is some thing whose quiddity is its esse itself.” He reasons that, if such a being exists, it could only be one, and considers three different ways in which esse could be multiplied: (1) by the addition of some difference; or (2) as a form is multiplied by being received in different instances of matter; or (3) if in one case it would subsist in itself and be unreceived, and in all other cases it would be received in distinct receiving subjects. He then eliminates the first two ways of dividing and multiplying the act of existing and concludes therefore that in all cases, with only one possible exception, it is multiplied by

38  Introduction being received in a distinct receiving principle which he refers to as its essence, or nature or quiddity. This would be enough for Thomas to account for the composite character of intelligences without holding that they are composed of matter and form since, whether or not the one possible exception actually exists, everything else must be composed at least of essence and a distinct act of existing. He is not content with ending his argument here, however, but offers a third stage. Now having established the composition of essence and the act of existing in every other being, he shows that such beings must be efficiently caused, and offers this as the point of departure for a metaphysical argument for the existence of God. And he then concludes by showing that in every other being, essence and the act of existing are composed and related to one another as potency and act. In another text in his Summa contra Gentiles, Bk II, c. 52, dated ca. 1261–62, Thomas is discussing created intellectual substances and has just recalled that they are not bodies or composed of matter and form. But he maintains that they are not equal to the simplicity of God because their esse and their quod est (what they are) are not identical. Here he uses the terminology of Boethius to signify their act of existing and their essence. And in his first and third arguments to establish this, he again reasons from the uniqueness of God as subsisting esse to the conclusion that in everything else their essence and esse must differ, as he had already done in Stage Two of his argument in his De ente et essentia, c. 4. And in still another very late text taken from Thomas’s treatise On Separate Substances (ca. 1271–73), after presenting and refuting Avicebron’s defense of universal matter-form ­­ composition, in chapter 8 he presents and refutes some arguments the Spanish Jewish thinker had offered. The fourth argument claimed that in order to be distinguished from the divine Creator, every other substance must be composed of matter and form. Thomas rejects this argument and counters that if there is no matter in separate substances other than God, another kind of potency is present in them because they are not identical with the act of existing found in each of them. In support of this he again argues that there can be only one case of subsisting esse and therefore in everything else there is a composition of essence and of esse united as potency and act. I have selected Godfrey of Fontaines as a leading example of a third way of defending the non-simplicity ­­ of angelic beings. A secular priest, he

Introduction  39 served as a Master in the Theology Faculty at the University of Paris from 1285 until 1303/1304 and during this time conducted 15 quodlibetal disputations at the University, which constitute his most significant contribution to the philosophical and theological literature of that period. He left a large and valuable personal library to the Sorbonne, which included many works by Thomas Aquinas and by many others, and he was obviously quite familiar with Thomas’s thought. But in order to appreciate Godfrey’s immediate opponents concerning this issue, one should take into account the views of Henry of Ghent, another secular who taught in the Theology Faculty from 1276 until 1291/1293, and the Augustinian Master Giles of Rome, who was studying theology at Paris during Aquinas’s second teaching period there (1268–72), but whose academic career there was interrupted in 1277 when he refused to retract a number of theses for which he had been censured by the Theology Faculty. Giles was readmitted to the Faculty in 1285 and served as a Master in Theology there until ca. 1291. Giles is well known for having defended a real distinction between essence and existence in all created being. His position on this is fully developed in his Theoremata de esse et essentia (1278–85) and in his Quaestiones disputatae De esse et essentia (1285–87). In defending his position he at times refers to essence and existence as “things” (res) and distinguishes them as “thing” and “thing.” For Thomas essence and the act of existing are not things or beings but principles of being, and so many Thomistic scholars have criticized Giles for having distorted Aquinas’s understanding of this. But it is not all that clear that Giles was presenting Aquinas’s position; he may have simply been presenting his own view. His choice of language was unfortunate, however, for it could and did lend itself to easy refutation by opponents. Henry strongly reacted against Giles’s view and rejected any real distinction between essence and existence. But not wanting to grant that they are merely logically distinct, he invented an intermediate kind of distinction between a real and a purely logical distinction which he named an intentional distinction, and he applied it to the relation between essence and existence. Godfrey considers this issue in his Quodlibet II, q. 2 (Easter 1286), while preparing to answer a question concerning whether the essence of a creature is indifferent to existing and not existing. He connects this question with the dispute concerning essence and existence and notes that

40  Introduction there are three choices: (1) essence is really identical with existence (esse existentiae); (2) essence and esse are intentionally distinct; (3) esse is a distinct thing from essence and hence really distinct from it. Here we can see that Godfrey is referring in option 2 to Henry’s view and in option 3 to that of Giles. And in Quodlibet III, q. 1 Godfrey again refers to existence as something (aliquid) and then in the short version of this same question, to existence and esse as diverse “things.” Again his target is clearly Giles of Rome rather than Thomas Aquinas. In this same question Godfrey presents a series of arguments that have been offered in support of a real distinction between essence and existence. He concludes these arguments by noting one that had been offered based on the need to distinguish purely spiritual creatures from the divine simplicity if one rejects their matter-form ­­ composition. His response is offered in the shorter version of this question. To maintain that a created essence is less simple than the divine simplicity, one need not posit a plurality of distinct natures or principles within other beings such as angels. One may merely appeal to their essence, which is act when considered in one way—that is, as existing and as superior to lower beings—and potential when considered in another—that is, as less perfect than any higher being. Godfrey develops this point more fully in his Quodlibet III, q. 3, while responding to a question about whether an angel is composed of true matter and true form. He presents an opening argument that claims that an angel must be composed of potency and act in order to differ from Pure Act and the divine simplicity. And where potency and passivity are present, matter must be present. Having rejected both any real distinction between essence and existence as well as Henry of Ghent’s intentional distinction, Godfrey cannot appeal to either of these solutions in responding to this opening argument. Instead he argues that angels fall short of the divine simplicity and are therefore potential and at the same time actual to a certain degree. Not all of Godfrey’s contemporaries at the University seem to have been convinced that Godfrey’s solution was sufficient to protect the divine simplicity and to distinguish it from that of all creatures including angels. And so in Godfrey’s later Quodlibet VII, q. 7, he was asked to determine whether an angelic essence is composed of genus and difference. He responds that to raise this question is really to ask whether an angel falls into any genus univocally with corporeal substances. He distinguishes be-

Introduction  41 tween a natural genus and a logical genus and proposes to place angels in the same logical genus as corporeal substances, but not in the same natural genus. To account for this he again argues that angels or created separate substances include potentiality insofar as they are below the First Being, and this suffices for them to be included in a logical genus. He also appeals to the hierarchy of beings, according to which higher level beings possess a degree of perfection greater than that present in less perfect beings and are therefore actual, and yet when compared to higher beings or to God are less perfect and therefore potential. This means that angelic beings enjoy a kind of composition of act and potency, not a real composition, however, and yet one that is not purely imaginary (fictae rationis). In sum, three very different views concerning the ontological structure of created spiritual beings have been considered in this chapter. For Bonaventure, in order to protect the divine simplicity, one should posit a composition of matter and form in purely spiritual creatures. For Thomas Aquinas, there can be no matter-form ­­ composition in angelic beings, but there is a composition of two really distinct principles, essence and the act of existing. And for Godfrey of Fontaines there is no need to posit either of these kinds of compositions in created spirits. He maintains that their very essences can be viewed as actual from one perspective, and as potential from another.

I 

Discovery of Being as Being Discovery of Being as Being

S Aquinas on Separatio and Our Discovery of Being as Being

My purpose here as in my earlier discussions of this issue is to offer an account that is historically accurate insofar as this can be derived from Aquinas’s texts, and one that is in accord with his general theory of knowledge and his understanding of being as being as the subject of metaphysics.1 This is easier said than done because nowhere in his writings does Thomas offer us a complete account of all that is involved in this. One is required to draw on texts scattered throughout his corpus and then to try to bring them together in a coherent whole that will be historically accurate and philosophically sound. In certain cases one may have to supply material not explicitly addressed by Thomas as best as one can to complete the account. As is well known, according to Aquinas’s theory of knowledge, all of our knowledge derives in some way from sense experience.2 Presumably this must also apply to his explanation of how we come to know being as being. This would seem to rule out as historically unreliable any account that appeals to an a priori knowledge of being on our part. At the same time, it is well known that Thomas often refers to being as that which the intellect first discovers. At times he indicates that this pri1. See my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), ch. 4; The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), ch. 2. 2. See, for instance, Super Boetium De Trinitate VI.2, editio Leonina, 50 (Rome, 1992), p. 164, lines 71–76: “Principium igitur cuiuslibet nostre cognitionis est in sensu, quia ex apprehensione sensus oritur appreensio phantasiae, que est ‘motus a sensu factus’ . . . a qua iterum oritur appreensio intellectiva in nobis, cum phantasmata sint intellective anime ut obiecta;” Quaestiones disputatae De veritate XII.3, ad 2, ed. Leonina, 22.2 (Rome, 1972), p. 378, lines 379– 382. “Sed quia primum principium nostrae cognitionis est sensus, oportet ad sensum quodam modo resolvere omnia de quibus iudicamus.”

42

Discovery of Being as Being  43 ority of being means that whatever other concept or notion we may examine, if we analyze it or, as he puts it, use the process of resolutio, we are ultimately going to be driven back to recognizing it as in some way involving being. Here I have in mind especially his language in De veritate, q. 1, a. 1, and the discussion of resolutio and compositio that he works out in his Commentary on the De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 1. Thus he writes in the first text: “That which the intellect first conceives, and into which it resolves all of its other conceptions, is being (ens).”3 And in the text from the De Trinitate commentary he points out that when we are following the path of resolution and reason from more particular to more general concepts, the last we discover by using this process is being. While this is for him to say that a knowledge of being is implied in our knowledge of less extended conceptions, it is not for him to assert that an explicit knowledge of being is present in our minds before we can form any other concept or notion.4 More important for my immediate purpose is the contrast between those texts which imply that a knowledge of being is available to everyone and other texts where Thomas stresses how difficult it was for the first philosophers to arrive at a knowledge of being as such. Indeed, in one text whose interpretation continues to be disputed, he seems to say that along with all the other earlier philosophers, even Plato and Aristotle failed to reach this level of understanding (Summa theologiae I, q. 44, a. 2), even though in a slightly earlier text from his De potentia q. 3, a. 5, he does attribute such knowledge to them. Thus in the De potentia he writes: “Still later philosophers such as Pla3. De veritate I.1, ed. Leonine, 22.1, p. 4, lines 100–102: “illud autem quod primo intellectus concipit quasi notissimum et in quod conceptiones omnes resolvit est ens.” 4. Super Boetium De Trinitate VI.1, ed. Leon., 50, p. 162, lines 372–82. “Quandoque vero procedit de uno in aliud secundum rationem, ut quando est processus secundum causas intrinsecas . . . resolvendo autem quando e converso, eo quod universalius est simplicius; maxi­ me autem universalia sunt que sunt communia omnibus entibus, et ideo terminus resolutionis in hac via ultimus est consideratio entis et eorum que sunt entis in quantum huiusmodi.” For further discussion see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 42–43 and n. 62. Also see Jan Aertsen, “Method and Metaphysics: The via resolutionis in Thomas Aquinas,” New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 405–18; Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 130–36. While my account will differ from that offered by Jacques Maritain in various ways, I find him making a similar point when he is describing being as the “first of all concepts.” See his Existence and the Existent (New York: Pantheon, 1948), p. 25, n. 12. After referring to the idea of being as implicitly present in the minds of the primitive men who use languages that do not possess the word “being” he remarks: “The first idea formed by a child is not the idea of being; but the idea of being is implicit in the first idea the child forms.”

44  Discovery of Being as Being to, Aristotle, and their followers came to a consideration of universal esse itself.”5 But in ST I, q. 44, a. 2, as part of his effort to show that prime matter is created, he finds earlier philosophical thought passing through three stages: (1) the earliest philosophers, being “grossiores” in their thinking, posited only sensible bodies as beings, and thought only of accidental motion and causes of the same; (2) others reached a higher level and distinguished between form and matter (both of which they viewed as uncreated) and posited more universal causes such as Plato’s ideas or Aristotle’s ecliptic circle of the sun. But both groups still regarded being in some particular way, either as “this being” (hoc ens) or such being (tale ens); (3) finally, some arrived at a knowledge of being insofar as it is being and hence they investigated the causes of beings not only insofar as they are “these” or “such,” but insofar as they are beings.6 The surprising thing here is that Thomas does not include Plato and Aristotle within this highest level, where being as being was discovered. While some have tried to show that this text does not exclude them from belonging there, that is not what the text says.7 But for my purposes, however this particular text may be interpreted, it, along with many others, proves the point that in Aquinas’s eyes philosophical thinking only gradually succeeded in discovering being as being. Moreover, in SCG I, c. 4, while arguing that it was fitting for God to reveal truths such as his existence and his unity (which in other contexts he refers to as praeambula fidei) even though they can and have been discovered by human reason, Thomas emphasizes the difficulty of such reasoning and of metaphysical thinking in general. So true is this that he makes it clear that the majority of human beings would never arrive at metaphysical knowledge by relying on reason alone.8 5. See Quaestiones disputatae De potentia Dei, ed. Paul Pession (Turin: Marietti, 1965), p. 49: “Posteriores vero philosophi, ut Plato, Aristoteles et eorum sequaces, pervenerunt ad considerationem ipsius esse universalis; et ideo ipsi soli posuerunt aliquam universalem causam rerum, a qua omnia alia in esse prodirent.” 6. Ed. Leon., pp. 457–58. 7. On this see Étienne Gilson, The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), pp. 439–40; Mark Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 129–55; Lawrence Dewan, OP, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation and Two Historians,” Laval théologique et philosophique 50 (1994): 363–87; Jan Aertsen, “La scoperta dell’ente in quanto ente,” in Tommaso d’Aquino e l’oggetto della metafisica, ed. S. Brock. Studi di filosofia 29 (Rome: Armando, 2004), 35–48; J. Wippel, “Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith,” The Thomist 78 (2014): 1–36 repr. in the present volume as ch. V below. 8. See Summa contra Gentiles I.4, Editio Leonina Manualis (Rome, 1934), p. 4. Note

Discovery of Being as Being  45 In order to reconcile these two seemingly divergent lines in Thomas’s texts—(1) that being is that which the intellect first conceives, and (2) that relatively few humans arrive at philosophical knowledge of being as being—and along with a number of other interpreters of Thomas’s thought, I maintain that we must credit him with making a distinction between the knowledge of being that is available to everyman, on the one hand, and the knowledge of being as being that is the subject of metaphysics, on the other hand.9 Given this conviction, I propose to make some remarks here about how, in light of what Thomas does explicitly state, one can offer a coherent account of how one discovers both of these notions of being, what I will call a primitive or prephilosophical understanding, on the one hand, and a metaphysical notion of being as being, on the other.

1. T  he Primitive or Prephilosophical Notion of Being First, then, I turn to an account of a prephilosophical notion of being in light of Thomas’s theory of knowledge. I have already recalled that according to Aquinas all of our knowledge must in some way be derived from sense experience. I would also like to recall that, for Thomas, being (or ens in Latin) is not a simple but a complex notion. He refers to it as id quod est (that which is) or as quod est, and at times as “that which has esse” (habens esse).10 I take it that these descriptions should apply both to especially: “Ad cognitionem enim eorum quae de Deo ratio investigare potest, multa praecognoscere oportet: cum fere totius philosophiae consideratio ad Dei cognitionem ordinatur, propter quod metaphysica, quae circa divina versatur, inter philsophiae partes ultima remanet addiscenda. Sic ergo non nisi cum magno labore studii ad praedictae veritatis inquisitionem perveniri potest. Quem quidem laborem pauci subire volunt pro amore scientiae.” 9. For others who distinguish in various ways between a primitive notion of being and a philosophical notion see Henri Renard, “What Is St. Thomas’ Approach to Metaphysics?,” New Scholasticism 30 (1956): 73; A. M. Krapiec, “Analysis formationis conceptus entis existentialiter considerati,” Divus Thomas (Piac.) 59 (1956): 341–44; George Klubertanz, Introduction to the Philosophy of Being, 2nd ed. (New York: ­­­Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963), 45–52; Robert W. Schmidt, “L’ emploi de la séparation en métaphysique,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 58 (1960): 377–80. 10. See, for instance, In de Hebdomadibus.2, ed. Leon., 50, p. 271, lines 57–59: “ens, sive id quod est;” Summa theologiae ­­­I-II, q. 26, a. 4, ed. Leon., 6 (Rome, 1891), p. 190: “ens simpliciter est quod habet esse;” In duodecim libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio IV.535, ed. M.-R. Cathala and R. M. Spiazzi (Turin, 1950), p. 151: “dicit quod ens sive quod est dicitur multipliciter;” Quaestiones disputatae De potentia, 7.7, ed. Paul Pession (Turin, 1965), p. 204:

46  Discovery of Being as Being his prephilosophical notion of being and to his notion of being as being. As regards the prephilosophical notion of being, when it is described as “that which is,” a question may be raised about the meaning of “is” or est as it appears in this description. Does it simply refer to our recognition of being as “that which exists,” or does it include something more—the intrinsic actus essendi that Thomas posits in every existing entity to account for the fact that it exists? This is an extremely important distinction within Thomas’s metaphysics, and one that is often blurred or confused, and I would give credit to Cornelio Fabro for having emphasized its meaning and importance, even though my subsequent account will differ from his in various ways.11 If we follow the order of discovery and concentrate on the awareness of being that is available to everyman, then I suggest that we understand “that which is” as simply referring to a notion that recognizes both the quidditative aspect and the existential aspect of the notion of being. If at some further point within one’s development of Thomas’s metaphysics one shows that there must be a real composition of essence and a distinct actus essendi within all finite beings, then one may also understand “that which is” in a fuller sense, as including the act of existing in its meaning. But this should not be assumed at the beginning. Accordingly, in discussing a prephilosophical notion of being, one must account for the content found in that notion. Here Thomas provides some helpful and ­­­well-known texts, especially in his Commentary on I Sentences and in his Commentary on the De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 3. In these texts he distinguishes between two operations of the intellect, one called the understanding of indivisibles, and the other referred to as composition and division. The first operation, often referred to as simple apprehension, is directed toward the nature or quiddity of a thing, while the second, often referred to as judgment, is directed toward a thing’s esse. It follows “substantia est ens tamquam per se habens esse”; Summa contra Gentiles I.22, p. 12: “Amplius, omnis res est per hoc quod habet esse.” Also see In 12 Met. n.2419, p. 567: “Nam ens dicitur quasi esse habens, hoc solum est substantia quae subsistit.” 11. See, for instance, his “Elementi per una dottrina tomistica della partecipazione,” in his Esegesi tomistica (Rome: Libreria Editrice della Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1969), 435: “Perciò l’autentica nozione tomistica di partecipazione esige di distinguere l’esse come atto non solo dall’essenza ch’è la sua potenza, ma anche dall’esistenza ch’è il fatto di essere e quindi un ‘resultato’ e non un principio metafisico: di qui nasce l’errore di quei tomisti i quali, seguendo la spinta dell’apriori di Kant, fondano l’esperienza o l’apprensione dell’esse nell’atto del giudicio (Maréchal, Lotz, Rahner . . .) e parlano perciò, con espressione assai equivoca, di un ‘esistenzialismo tomistico’.”

Discovery of Being as Being  47 from this that in order to account for the quidditative aspect of our notion of being—“that which”—Thomas would have us appeal to the intellect’s first operation, and in order to account for our inclusion of the fact of existence within the same notion, he would have us appeal to judgment. This, of course, is the judgment of existence that has been discussed and utilized to good effect by Gilson, by Maritain in a somewhat different way, by Joseph Owens, and by many of Gilson’s other followers. And I myself acknowledge my debt to Gilson for the valuable work he has done concerning this in various writings, especially in his Being and Some Philosophers.12 In brief, therefore, I would agree with Gilson that it is only through judgment that we first come to a knowledge of anything as existing and that as a result of one or perhaps a series of such judgments we are then in position to formulate a general notion or conception of being as “that which is.” Among Thomas’s texts, one may begin with one taken from his Commentary on I Sentences, dist. 38, q. 1, a. 3, sol.: Since in a thing there are two [factors], the quiddity of a thing and its esse, to these two there correspond two operations on the part of the intellect. One which is called by the philosophers formatio whereby it apprehends the quiddities of things, which is also called by the Philosopher in De anima III the “understanding of indivisibles.” The other grasps (comprehendit) the esse of a thing by composing an affirmation because also the esse of a thing composed of matter and form, from which it takes its knowledge, consists in a certain composition of form with matter or of an accident with a subject.13

In this text Thomas assigns to judgment an apprehending (or to transliterate, a comprehending) grasp of esse, although a certain ambiguity remains about how esse itself is to be taken here. I would think that at the very least it refers to the actual existence of a thing and would acknowledge that it may also refer to the intrinsic actus essendi from which its actual existence results (to use Fabro’s description of this). For earlier on in this same work 12. See Étienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952), c. 6. 13. “Cum in re duo sint, quidditas rei, et esse eius, his duobus respondet duplex operatio intellectus. Una quae dicitur a philosophis formatio, qua apprehendit quidditates rerum, quae etiam a Philosopho, in III De anima, dicitur indivisibilium intelligentia. Alia autem comprehendit esse rei, componendo affirmationem, quia etiam esse rei ex materia et forma compositae, a qua cognitionem accipit, consistit in quadam compositione formae ad materiam, vel accidentis ad subjectum.” Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, vol. 1, ed. Pierre Mandonnet (Paris, 1929), I.38.1.3.sol., p. 903. For Aristotle see De anima III.5 (430a 26–28).

48  Discovery of Being as Being Thomas had already introduced his view of composition (and hence distinction) of essence and esse in creatures, for example, in distinction 8, q. 1, a. 1; q. 5, a. 1, sol.; a. 2.14 A second well-known ­­ description is found at the beginning of question 5, a. 3 of the corpus of Aquinas’s Commentary on the De Trinitate. Here he is addressing the question whether mathematics treats without matter and motion what exists in matter. The question is occasioned by the Boethian text on which he is commenting, and in order to answer it Thomas finds it necessary to explain how the intellect is able to abstract, that is to say, how it can distinguish intellectually. Here, too, he recalls from Aristotle’s De anima III, ch. 6 that the intellect’s operation is twofold—one whereby it knows what something is, called the “understanding of indivisibles” and another whereby it composes and divides, that is, judges by forming affirmative and negative propositions. Then he writes: And these two operations correspond to two [factors] that are present in things. The first operation looks to (respicit) the very nature of a thing, according to which the thing understood holds some grade among beings, whether it be a complete thing, such as some whole, or an incomplete thing, such as a part or accident. The second operation looks to (respicit) the very esse of the thing, which results from the union of the principles of a thing in composites, or accompanies the simple nature of the thing, as in simple substances.15

Here Thomas uses the verb respicit (“look to”) to refer to judgment’s grasp of esse (which I will take here as referring to actual existence = facticity). This might seem not to be as strong as the term “comprehend” which he 14. For the first of these texts see Mandonnet ed., Vol. 1, p. 195: “Cum autem ita sit quod in qualibet re creata essentia sua differat a suo esse, res illa proprie denominatur a quidditate sua, et non ab actu essendi”; for the second (q. 5, a. 1 and the sed contra) see pp. 226–27; and for q. 5, a. 2 see pp. 229–30. For texts where Thomas uses esse in judgments of existence see Expositio libri peryermenias, revised Leonine ed., 1*1.II.2, p. 88:36–40]: “hoc verbum ‘est’ quandoque in enuntiatione praedicatur secundum se, ut cum dicitur ‘Sortes est’, per quod nichil aliud intendimus significare quam quod Sortes est in rerum natura”; also see Summa theologiae ­­II-II.83.1, arg. 3: “secunda vero est compositio et divisio, per quam scilicet apprehenditur aliquid esse vel non esse” (ed. Leon. [Rome, 1889] 9, p. 192). See ad 3 for confirmation that Thomas accepts this. 15. “Et hee quidem due operationes duobus quae sunt in rebus respondent. Prima quidem operatio respicit ipsam naturam rei, secundum quam res intellecta aliquem gradum in entibus obtinet, sive sit res completa, ut totum aliquod, sive res incompleta, ut pars vel accidens. Secunda vero operatio respicit ipsum esse rei; quod quidem resultat ex congregatione principiorum rei in compositis, vel ipsam simplicem naturam rei concomitatur, ut in substantiis simplicibus.” Super Boetium De Trinitate V.3, p. 147, lines 96–105.

Discovery of Being as Being  49 applies in the text from distinction 38 of his Commentary on I Sentences. Nonetheless, in the present passage he also uses the same verb (respicit) to refer to the intellect’s first operation whereby it understands the nature of a thing and apprehends this. Moreover, in his Commentary on I Sent. dist. 19, q. 5, a. 1, ad 7, he writes: “the first operation looks to (respicit) the quiddity of a thing; the second looks to (respicit) its esse.”16 Hence it seems clear that he is assigning an apprehensive role to judgment in the case of judgments of existence. But this is not enough to explain how one reaches a prephilosophical notion of being since, as has already been mentioned, according to Aquinas all our knowledge begins with sense experience. It follows that collaboration between the senses and the intellect is required for judgments of existence. While I cannot treat of Aquinas’s entire theory of knowledge here, I would like to single out the following steps. First of all, according to his theory, sense perception requires that a sensible object must act on one or more external sense powers. This is important for our purposes because it assigns an active role to the object perceived and implies that in order for an act of perception to occur, a sense power must be acted on by a sensible object. The sense power itself then reacts to this and, by means of what Thomas calls a[n impressed] sensible species, enables the form of the object perceived to take on a new mode of existence within the sense power, an esse immateriale or an esse intentionale, while retaining its physical or material esse within the sensible object.17 16. “Ad septimum dicendum, quod cum sit duplex operatio intellectus: una quarum dicitur a quibusdam imaginatio intellectus, quam Philosophus, III De anima, nominat intelligentiam indivisibilium, quae consistit in apprehensione quidditatis simplicis, quae alio etiam nomine formatio dicitur; alia est quam dicunt fidem, quae consistit in compositione vel divisione propositionis: prima operatio respicit quidditatem rei; secunda respicit esse ipsius” (Mandonnet edition, I, p. 489). 17. See Sententia libri De anima II.24, ed. Leon., 45.1 (Rome, 1984), p. 169, lines 45–56: “Quandoque vero forma recipitur in paciente secundum alium modum essendi quam sit in agente, quia dispositio materialis pacientis ad recipiendum non est similis dispositioni materiali quae erat in agente, et ideo forma recipitur in paciente sine materia in quantum paciens assimilatur agenti secundum formam et non secundum materiam; et per hunc modum sensus recipit formam sine materia, quia alterius modi esse habet forma in sensu et in re sensibili: nam in re sensibili habet esse naturale, in sensu autem habet esse intentionale sive spirituale.” It is interesting to note that the Latin translation of Aristotle’s De anima used here by Thomas refers to a sense power as susceptivum specierum sine materia (p. 169), but Thomas takes this as meaning that the sense power receives the form of the thing known without its matter. Unlike some contemporary interpreters of Aquinas, M. F. Burnyeat gets this point right in his interesting

50  Discovery of Being as Being Aquinas, of course, posits four internal senses, and the first of these— the common sense (sensus communis)—is important for our purposes. He assigns two functions to it. The first is a function whereby individual sense perceptions as reported by different external senses are distinguished appropriately, such as this sound from this color or odor, etc. The second function is that it is by means of the common sense that a higher animal or a human being is made aware that a given external sense is perceiving a certain sensible object. While no organic power can immediately know itself, the common sense is aware when the external senses are actually perceiving.18 Also at the level of the internal senses is the imagination which, of course, produces phantasms or sense images of appropriately organized perceptions delivered to it by the common sense. The imagination submits these to the abstractive power of the intellect—the agent intellect. The agent intellect then renders actually intelligible the potentially intelligible content conveyed by phantasms, and, impressing this upon the possible intellect by means of an intelligible species, moves the possible intellect to understand this abstracted and universalized content.19 But since judgments of existence are directed to individual things, in order for the original object to be understood as this individual, the intellect turns back to a knowledge of its own act of cognition, then to the species that serves as “Aquinas on ‘Spiritual Change’ in Perception,” in Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, ed. Dominik Perler (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 129–53 (see 149). 18. Ibid, c. 13, p. 120, lines 99–105: “circa ipsas inmutationes sensuum propriorum a suis obiectis habet sensus communis aliquas operationes proprias quas sensus proprii habere non possunt, sicut quod percipit ipsas inmutationes sensuum et discernit inter sensibilia diversorum sensuum: sensu enim communi percipimus nos videre et discernimus inter album et dulce;” c. 26, p. 178, lines 8–14: “huiusmodi autem actiones sunt duae: una est secundum quod nos percipimus actiones sensuum propriorum, puta quod sentimus nos videre et audire; alia est secundum quod discernimus inter sensibilia diversorum sensuum, puta quod aliud sit dulce, et aliud album.” Also see c. 27 for more on the common sense. See also Summa theologiae I, q. 78, a. 4, ad 2, ed. Leon., 5 (Rome, 1889), p. 256. 19. On this see Quaestiones de quolibet, VIII.2.1, ed. Leon., 25.1 (Rome, 1996), pp. 55–57, lines 74–104. In terms of context, here Thomas is responding to a question about the need for the soul to depend on species (here he is not speaking of forms) derived from objects of cognition outside the soul. In answering he discusses both sensible and intelligible species. These species should not be viewed as the forms or objects of cognition but are rather likenesses of such forms or objects which are required for the forms or objects themselves to be present to a cognitive power. Also see, for instance, Quaestio de spiritualibus creaturis, IX, ad 6, ed. Leon., 24.2 (Rome, 2000), p. 97, lines 427–435. Note in particular: “unde species visibilis non se habet ut quod videtur set ut quo videtur. Et similiter est de intellectu possibili, nisi quod intellectus possibilis reflectitur supra se ipsum et supra speciem suam, non autem visus.”

Discovery of Being as Being  51 the principle for that act, and then to the phantasm preserved in the imagination, and reunites the abstracted universal content with the individual differences preserved in the phantasm, thereby recognizing the abstracted universal content, of dog, for instance, as realized in this individual dog.20 At this point Thomas does not explicitly tell us how the intellect then moves on to judge that this originally perceived object actually exists. Here, or so it seems to me, the common sense plays a critical role because it is by means of this internal sense power that one is aware that the external sense power is actually perceiving something. At this point, I suggest, the possible intellect is also aware that the common sense reports that one or more external senses are perceiving the individual sensible object and are acted upon by it. Being aware of this, the possible intellect judges that this particular thing is or exists, or that “this x exists,” or makes an existential judgment to the effect that this particular thing exists.21 As the knowing being encounters other external objects and perceives each of them through one or more external sense powers, this process is repeated with the consequence that a series of existential judgments will be made. Perhaps as a result of the first judgment of existence, or perhaps as the result of a series of such judgments, the human being in question will formulate a vague general idea or notion of the real or “that which is”—in other 20. Note how Aquinas describes this in De veritate, q. 10, a. 5: “Et sic mens singulare cognoscit per quandam reflexionem, prout scilicet mens cognoscendo obiectum suum, quod est aliqua natura universalis, redit in cognitionem sui actus, et ulterius in speciem quae est sui actus principium, et ulterius in phantasma a quo species est extracta; et sic aliquam cognitionem de singulari accipit” (ed. Leon., 22.2., p. 309, lines 73–81). For a very similar presentation see his slightly earlier In IV Sententiarum, 50.1.3, ed. Roberto Busa, S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia, 1 (Stuttgart–Bad Constatt, 1980), p. 704. On this see George P. Klubertanz, “St. Thomas and the Knowledge of the Singular,” New Scholasticism 26 (1952): 135–66, especially 149– 51; ­­François-Xavier Putallaz, Le sens de la réflexion chez Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1991), pp. 118–23; Camille Bérubé, La Connaissance de l’ individuel au Moyen Âge (Montréal: Presses de l’ Université de Montréal; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), 42–64. See also Quaestiones disputatae De anima, XX, ad 1 in contrarium, ed. Bernardo C. Bazán (ed. Leon., 24.1), 174–75, lines 465–476. There, after again repeating the solution he had presented in the previously mentioned texts, Thomas adds this remark: “Set hec reflexio compleri non potest nisi per adiunctionem virtutis cogitative et ymaginative, quae non sunt in anima separata.” Bérubé notes this and, after considering Thomas’s fuller discussions in ST I, q. 85, a. 1 and q. 84, a. 7, remarks that a number of modern scholars have rediscovered the role of the “forgotten sense”— the cogitative power, in Thomas’s account of knowledge of the individual (pp. 60–64) (but see below). 21. For a good albeit brief description of this general process see De veritate X.5, as cited above in n. 20. Also see ST ­­II-II, q. 173, a. 2 (ed. Leon., 10, 386), within the context of a comparison between natural knowledge and prophetic revelations.

52  Discovery of Being as Being words, of being—probably without having ever heard of the term “being” itself. This notion of the real or of “that which is” is what I mean by a primitive or prephilosophical notion of being. Various questions may be raised about this procedure as I have presented it. For instance, some interpreters such as Jacques Maritain and especially A. M. Krapiec emphasize the role of the internal sense known as the cogitative power in humans as playing an indispensable role in the formation of individual judgments of existence. Krapiec goes so far in stressing the role of this internal sense power that he at times refers to it almost as though such judgments should be attributed to it. Yet he does not deny that existence as such, and hence the notion of being as “that which is,” can be grasped explicitly only by the intellect.22 In my view he overstates the role of the cogitative power in his very interesting account and neglects the part played in it by the sensus communis. This, I think, is because he has misinterpreted an important text from Thomas’s Commentary on De anima II, c. 13, where Thomas is not really discussing how we discover existence as such, or being as existing, as Krapiec thinks, but rather how the human knower goes about applying an abstract and universal notion or concept or principle to an individual in the case of practical action. It should be noted that Thomas also brings out very clearly the difference between these two procedures in De veritate X, q. 5, that is, between the way in which the motion of the sensitive part of the soul terminates in the mind as happens in a motion running from things to the soul whereby the mind knows an individual by a certain reflexio or turning back, as outlined above,23 and the way in which the motion runs from the soul to the sensitive part of the soul and thus the soul uses particular reason (the cogitative power) which, while it is a certain power of the sensitive part with a determined organ in the body, composes and divides individual “intentions” and thus plays an important mediating role in enabling the soul to apply the universal knowledge possessed by the mind to individual actions.24 22. Cf. A. M. Krapiec, “Analysis formationis conceptus entis existentialiter considerati,” Divus Thomas (Piac.) 59 (1956): 320–50 (see 331–36). For Maritain, see Existence and the Existent (New York), pp. 26–29, n. 13, and p. 27 in the note for his reference to “ ‘judgment’ (improperly ­­so-called) of the external senses and the aestimative.” 23. See the text partially quoted above in n. 20. 24. For Thomas’s text see Sentencia libri De anima, II.13 (Leonine ed. 45.1 [Rome, 1984]), 120–22). Note p. 122:206: “nam cogitativa apprehendit individuum ut existentem sub natura

Discovery of Being as Being  53 But this second procedure or motion is very different from that involved in individual judgments of existing. In discussing these we are concerned about one’s discovery of an individual as existing and hence with the first kind of motion that runs from things to the soul. In accounting for this, therefore, I prefer to emphasize the role of the common sense. Because the intellect at the terminus of its turning back upon a phantasm must also be aware by means of the common sense that an object is being perceived by an external sense, it appears to me to be best suited to assist the possible intellect in judging that a given object exists. Another question may be raised concerning whether this prephilosophical notion of being is gained by some form of abstraction. Because its content is complex—that which is— abstraction or the intellect’s first operation is not sufficient for the intellect to recognize that something is or exists. As we have already seen, Thomas at times states explicitly that judgment is required for this. Nonetheless, after one has recognized that a given thing exists, or that “x exists,” one then is in position to formulate a complex notion of being as “that which is.” In order to form a general notion that may be applied to anything about which one can judge “it is,” one may still ask whether abstraction of some kind occurs here. On the one hand, as Klubertanz maintains, it may suffice for the intellect to recall that it has made such judgments about a number of other objects perceived by the external senses and simply on the strength of these judgments to recognize that the “is” is common to all of these judgments, whereas the subjects of the judgments vary. Then one will realize that the subject of “is” in such judgments is not restricted to any particular subject and recognize that “something is,” thereby reaching the prephilosophical notion of being as that which is.25 On the other hand, if such a notion is formed by abstraction, it is not an abstraction of essence or quiddity from existence, since existence must be retained in the resulting notion of being, even of a prephilosophical communi, quod contingit ei in quantum unitur intellective in eodem subiecto, unde cognoscit hunc hominem prout est hic homo, et hoc lignum prout est hoc lignum.” 25. Introduction to the Philosophy of Being, 2nd ed. (New York, 1963), 45–47. Klubertanz insists that this is not a process of abstraction. He argues that abstraction “leaves some part of our initial reality out of consideration.” If being is reached by abstraction, there is something in the real thing that is left out, and this will be ­­not-being, or nothing (45–46). We have not abstracted “something” from anything, but, as he puts it, we have a “negative judgment of generalization.” Thus we move from (1) “this is, “that is,” etc., to (2) “is” is not necessarily identical with this or that to (3) “something is” and hence we form the notion of “that which is” (47–48).

54  Discovery of Being as Being notion of being, as “that which is.” And the grave concern would then remain about how the differences from which one would abstract this notion of being could still enjoy being or be real. For Thomas has denied that being can be divided by adding differences to it from without. Hence we should not conclude that a prephilosophical notion of being is reached by abstraction.26 Next, there is a question about which comes first in a judgment of existence—one’s discovery of the subject of the judgment through the intellect’s first operation, for instance, “this x,” or of the verb “is” through the intellect’s second operation. While I have outlined a series of steps involved in one’s discovery of a prephilosophical notion of being, these steps apply to the order of nature, but perhaps not necessarily to the order of time. Accordingly, since I do not find an explicit answer to this in Thomas’s texts, I am sympathetic with Maritain’s (and Owens’s) suggestion that the intellect’s apprehension of the quidditative content expressed by the subject through its first operation—the understanding of indivisibles— and the resulting judgment of existence are in fact simultaneous, with the understanding of indivisibles being first in the order of nature in terms of material causality, and the judgment of existence being first in the order of formal causality.27 Finally, how can this account be reconciled with Thomas’s frequent references to being as that which is first discovered by the intellect? As I have briefly indicated above, in some texts Thomas refers to being as that which the intellect first conceives in the sense that it is that into which it “resolves” all its other conceptions. On the other hand, there is the need 26. De veritate I.1 (ed. Leon. 22.1), 5, lines 105–114: “Sed enti non possunt addi aliqua quasi extranea per modum quo differentia additur generi vel accidens subiecto, quia quaelibet natura est essentialiter ens, unde probat etiam Philosophus in III Metaphysicae quod ens non potest esse genus; sed secundum hoc aliqua dicuntur addere super ens inquantum exprimunt modum ipsius entis qui nomine entis non exprimitur, quod dupliciter contingit;” In V Met., lect. 9, n. 889: “Sciendum est enim quod ens non potest hoc modo contrahi ad aliquid determinatum, sicut genus contrahitur ad species per differentias. Nam differentia, cum non participet genus, est extra essentiam generis. Nihil autem posset esse extra essentiam entis, quod per additionem ad ens aliquam speciem entis constituat: nam quod est extra ens, nihil est, et differentia esse non potest. Unde in tertio huius probavit Philosophus, quod ens, genus esse non potest.” On this see my Metaphysical Themes (1984), 80–81, and references concerning this point in notes 33, 34 to Robert and Geiger. 27. See Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 26. Cf. Owens, “Judgment and Truth in Aquinas,” in St. Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God: The Collected Papers of Joseph Owens, ed. John R. Catan (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1980), 43–44.

Discovery of Being as Being  55 of sense perception of some existing thing and, as a result of abstraction, grasp of its essence in universal fashion followed by reflection back on the phantasms if the notion of being is to have both existential and quidditative content. In light of this, and in agreement with some other scholars, I conclude that an explicit notion of being need not be that which is first conceived in the temporal sense. It is first in this sense that, no matter what conception may be explicitly formed by the human knower, the process of resolution (analysis) will ultimately lead one to recognize whatever it is as real, that is, as being.28

2. F ormation of the Metaphysical Notion of Being So much, then, for my account of Thomas’s views on formulating a prephilosophical notion of being. Such a notion, I have contended, is not identical with the notion of being as being, which is the subject of metaphysics for Thomas. Because the subjects of the existential judgments one may formulate based on sense perception are all material and changing, one has not yet arrived at an understanding of the kind of object of theoretical science he assigns to metaphysics in q. 5, a. 1 of his Commentary on the De Trinitate. There he indicates that a theoretical science must have a distinctive object of speculation, and that depending on their degree of freedom from matter and motion, there are three distinctive kinds of such objects: (1) those that depend on matter and motion in order to exist and in order to be understood, that is, those whose definitions include sensible matter, and which are studied in physics; (2) those that depend on matter to exist, but do not depend on sensible matter in order to be understood, such as lines and numbers, which are studied by mathematics; (3) those that do not depend on matter to exist (or to be understood), in one of two ways, either in the sense that they are never found in matter (such as God and angels), which I call the “positively immaterial” because they positively exclude matter, and those that may or may not be found in matter such as substance, quality, being (ens), act, the one and the many, 28. See J. Aertsen, “Method and Metaphysics. The via resolutionis in Thomas Aquinas,” 416: “Being is the ‘first known.’ But is ‘first’ becomes explicit, as the beginning of De veritate 1, 1 makes clear, only on the basis of a resolution.” See notes 3 and 4 above as well as my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 41–44.

56  Discovery of Being as Being etc., which are studied in philosophical divine science, that is, in metaphysics and which I call the “negatively or neutrally immaterial” in that they need not be found in matter.29 Thomas’s reply to the sixth objection should be noted. The objection argues that a whole should not be divided against its parts. But divine science (metaphysics) seems to be a whole with respect to physics and mathematics, since their subjects are parts of its subject; for the subject of divine science or first philosophy is being, and mobile substance, which the natural philosopher studies, is a part of this and quantity, which is studied by the mathematician, is another part.30 In responding Aquinas agrees that the subjects of the other sciences are parts of being, which is the subject of metaphysics. Thus ens mobile and ens quantum are parts of being. But it does not follow from this that the other sciences are parts of metaphysics. This is because each particular science considers one part of being according to its particular mode of consideration, which is different from the mode whereby being is studied in metaphysics. Hence, speaking properly, the subject of such a particular science is not a part of the subject of metaphysics. “For it is not a part of being under that aspect (ratio) whereby being is the subject of meta­ physics.”31 This reply is important for at least two reasons. First, it makes it clear that in discussing the different degrees to which the things studied by the theoretical sciences depend on matter and motion, Thomas has in mind especially the subjects of each of them. Second, it brings out Aristotle’s point in Metaphysics IV, c. 1, about two aspects of the science of being as being: (1) unlike physics and mathematics, metaphysics does not cut off a part of being and study the properties of that part, but it studies being taken universally; and (2) it studies being from its unique perspective, that is, as being. Hence, as Thomas will say explicitly elsewhere, in metaphysics 29. Ed. Leon., 50, 138, lines 135–162. Note especially the third type since the distinction he introduces there is crucial to his position: “Quaedam vero speculabilia sunt que non dependent a materia secundum esse, quia sine materia possunt esse, sive numquam sint in materia, sicut Deus et angelus, sive in quibusdam sint in materia et in quibusdam non, ut substantia, qualitas, ens, potentia, actus, unum et multa et huiusmodi” (lines 154–160). On the terminology of “positively” immaterial and “negatively” or “neutrally immaterial” see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 8, 17. 30. Ed. Leon., 50, 136–37, lines 42–51. 31. Ed. Leon., 50, 141, lines 322–333. Note especially: “non enim est pars entis secundum illam rationem qua ens est subiectum metaphysice.”

Discovery of Being as Being  57 one may indeed study material being and quantified being, but in that case one studies them as being rather than as material or quantified.32 Both of these aspects are reinforced by Thomas’s response to the seventh objection, according to which philosophy should rather be divided by reason of the division of being by potency and act, by the one and the many, and by substance and accident. To this Thomas simply replies that those parts of being require the same mode of consideration as does ens commune because they too do not depend on matter and hence fall under the same mode of consideration as does ens commune. Therefore the science that studies them is the same as the science of ens commune.33 Note also that this reference to ens commune reinforces the point that Thomas is here dealing with the subject of metaphysics. In question 5, article 4 of this same treatise, Thomas explicitly asks whether divine science studies the kinds of things that are without matter and motion.34 He begins his response by noting that if a science has a given subject genus, “it must consider the principles of that genus; for science is not perfected except through a knowledge of principles.”35 Here he also refers to metaphysics as the science which studies those things that are common to all beings and states explicitly that its subject is being as being (ens inquantum est ens).36 He then indicates that only in the weaker of the two senses he had already distinguished in q. 5, a. 1—that is, as the negatively immaterial—does the subject of metaphysics not depend on matter and motion in order to exist. Being insofar as it is being, does not depend on matter in order to exist only in this sense, that it may or may 32. Cf. In VI Met. 1, n. 1165: “Advertendum est autem, quod licet ad considerationem primae philosophiae pertineant ea quae sunt separata secundum esse et rationem a materia et motu, non tamen solum ea; sed etiam de sensibilibus, inquantum sunt entia, Philosophus perscrutatur.” 33. For the objection see ed. Leon., 137, lines 55–59. For Thomas’s reply see p. 141, lines 338– 342. “Ad septimum dicendum, quod illae partes entis exigunt eundem modum tractandi cum ente communi, quia etiam ipsa non dependent ad materiam; et ideo scientia de ipsis non distinguitur a scientia que est de ente communi.” 34. For Thomas’s formulation of the question see ed. Leon., 136, lines 8–9: “quarto utrum divina scientia sit de his que sunt sine materia et motu.” 35. Ed. Leon., p. 153, lines 82–86: “Sciendum siquidem est quod quecumque scientia considerat aliquod genus subiectum, oportet quod consideret principia illius generis, cum scientia non perficiatur nisi per cognitionem principiorum.” 36. Ibid, 154, lines 157–162: “unde et huiusmodi res divine non tractantur a philosophis nisi prout sunt rerum omnium principia, et ideo pertractantur in illa doctrina in qua ponuntur ea que sunt communia omnibus entibus, que habet subiectum ens in quantum est ens.”

58  Discovery of Being as Being not be present in matter. As he puts it, “it is not of its nature or essence to be in matter and motion, but it can exist without matter and motion even though it is sometimes present in them.” It is in this way that being and substance and potency and act are separate from matter and motion.37 Or as he describes this in the Prooemium to his Commentary on the Metaphysics, it belongs to one and the same science (metaphysics) to study separate substances, which he identifies here as the first causes of things, and being in general (ens commune), which is the subject of that science. Again he explains that this is because it belongs to one and the same science to study the proper causes of its subject-genus, ­­ and that genus itself. Hence, he continues, while the subject of this science is being in general (and not separate substances), it is entirely concerned with what is separate from matter both in the order of existence (esse) and in the order of understanding. This is because “Not only are those things that can never exist in matter such as God and intellectual substances said to be separate according to existence and according to understanding, but also those that can exist without matter, such as ens commune.”38 It is therefore obviously very important for him to explain how one can discover being in general or being as being—the subject of metaphysics, which is only negatively or neutrally immaterial. Fortunately, he has devoted q. 5, a. 3 to explaining how one discovers the subjects of each of the three theoretical sciences; in doing so, he explicitly introduces an intellectual operation which he refers to there as sepa­ ratio. The context is his addressing another question occasioned by the 37. Ibid., 154, lines 182–195: “Utraque (philosophical divine science or metaphysics, and the divine science based on revelation) autem est de his quae sunt separata a materia et motu secundum esse, sed diversimode, secundum quod dupliciter potest esse aliquid a materia et motu separatum secundum esse: uno modo sic quod de ratione ipsius rei que separata dicitur sit quod nullo modo in materia et motu esse possit, sicut Deus et angeli dicuntur a materia et motu separati; alio modo sic quod non sit de ratione eius quod sit in materia et motu, set possit esse sine materia et motu quamvis quandoque inveniatur in materia et motu, et sic ens et substantia et potentia et actus sunt separata a materia et motu, quia secundum esse a materia et motu non dependent sicut mathematica dependebant.” Also see his reply to objection 5 (p. 156, lines 305–313). 38. In Metaph., Prooemium, 1–2. Note: “Quamvis autem subiectum huius scientiae sit ens commune, dicitur tamen tota de his quae sunt separata a materia secundum esse et rationem. Quia secundum esse et rationem separari dicuntur, non solum illa quae nunquam in materia esse possunt, sicut Deus et intellectuales substantiae, sed etiam illla quae possunt sine materia esse, sicut ens commune.”

Discovery of Being as Being  59 Boethian text: “Whether mathematics studies without motion and matter things that exist in matter and motion.”39 In order to clarify this issue Thomas writes that he must indicate how the intellect in its operation can abstract. As he makes clear a little later, here he is using this verb “to abstract” in a broad sense, so that it applies to any way in which the intellect can distinguish. After recalling Aristotle’s distinction between the intellect’s first operation (understanding of indivisibles) and its second operation (judgment) and, as we have seen, correlating them respectively with a knowledge of the nature of a thing and its esse,40 he notes that in the case of judgment the intellect can truly abstract, that is, distinguish, only things that are separate in reality.41 In its first operation, however, it can abstract things that are not separate in reality in some cases, but not in others. Simply put, if one of the things that is united with another depends on the latter for its intelligibility, the intellect cannot understand the former without understanding the latter; if one of the things does not depend on the other for its intelligibility, the intellect through its first operation can understand the former without the latter. He applies this principle both to various ­­part-whole relationships and to ­­matter-form relationships.42 Thomas then introduces a new precision into his terminology. In its judging operation, the intellect distinguishes one thing from another by understanding that one does not exist in the other. But in its first operation (simple apprehension) it understands what something is without understanding anything about another, neither that the one is united with the other nor that it is separate from it. Hence, he writes, the latter operation is not properly referred to as separatio as is the former; it is rightly called abstraction, but only when the two things, one of which is understood without the other, are united in reality.43 Here then, as the autograph 39. For his statement of this question see In De Trinitate, 136, lines 6–7: “utrum mathema­ tica consideratio sit sine motu et materia de his quae sunt in materia.” 40. See above in my text, pp. 47–49. 41. In De Trin. V.3, ed. Leon., 50, 147, lines 105–118. Note especially: “Et quia veritas intellectus est ex hoc quod conformatur , patet quod secundum hanc secundam operationem intellectus non potest vere astraere quod secundum rem coniunctum est; quia in abstraendo significaretur esse separatio secundum ipsum esse rei.” 42. Ibid., 147, lines 132–158. 43. Ibid., 148, lines 159–171. “Sic ergo intellectus distinguit unum ab altero aliter et aliter secundum diversas operationes: quia secundum operationem qua componit et dividit distinguit

60  Discovery of Being as Being of this text reveals, it was only after some false starts that Aquinas hit upon this terminology.44 To repeat, now, instead of using the term “abstraction” broadly so as to apply to distinguishing intellectually through the intellect’s first operation and through its second, he restricts this so that it applies only to the first, that is, simple apprehension. When one distinguishes intellectually through a negative judgment, this process should be called separatio. Because Thomas goes on to associate separatio with metaphysics and with the discovery of that which does not depend on matter to exist in the sense of the neutrally immaterial, it is of special interest to us. But before making this application, he introduces important divisions into abstraction when it is taken strictly. First he considers things that are united as form and matter, and he concentrates on the relation between accidental forms and substance. While no accident can be abstracted from its underlying substance, since it depends on the latter for its existence, accidents do befall substance according to a certain order. The accident of quantity first informs a substantial subject, followed by quality, passiones, and motions. Therefore one can think of a substance as subject to quantity without thinking of it as subject to sensible qualities, and the others that follow. And, Thomas notes, it is by reason of sensible qualities that matter is referred to as sensible matter. Hence he refers to this as the abstraction of a form from sensible matter. And thus it is with this form, the accidental form of quantity, that mathematics is concerned, along with those things that follow upon quantity such as configuration. In other words, it is by means of abstraction of the form (quantity) that one reaches the subject of mathematics—quantity or being as quantified but not as subject to sensible qualities.45 unum ab alio per hoc quod intelligit unum alii non inesse, in operatione vero qua intelligit quid est unumquodque, distinguit unum ab alio dum intelligit quid est hoc, nichil intelligendo de alio, neque quod sit cum eo, neque quod sit ab eo separatum; unde ista distinctio non proprie habet nomen separationis, sed prima tantum. Hec autem distinctio recte dicitur abstractio, set tantum quando ea quorum unum sine altero intelligitur sunt simul secundum rem.” 44. For the autograph’s presentation of several different attempts by Thomas to get the first part of his response right, see p. 146 A, with reference to the text beginning on line 86 and following; for two attempts to express the different ways in which the intellect can distinguish see p. 148 A, with reference to line 159 and following. The technical distinction between abstraction and separation appears only in the final version. 45. Ibid., 148, lines 184–202. Note how Thomas sums this up: “Et de huiusmodi abstractis est mathematica, que considerat quantitates et ea que quantitates consequntur, ut figuras et huiusmodi.” For an interesting discussion of the ontological status of mathematical objects according to Thomas see Armand Maurer, “A Neglected Thomistic Text on the Foundation of

Discovery of Being as Being  61 As for things that are united as part and whole, the intellect cannot abstract a whole from the kind of part or parts upon which that whole depends for its intelligibility, for instance, a mixed body cannot be abstracted from its elements, or a syllable from its letters. These are called parts of the form or parts of the species. But the intellect can abstract a whole from the kind of part upon which the whole does not depend for its intelligibility, and such parts are called parts of matter. And so, Thomas writes, this is the relationship that obtains between a human being and his or her designated parts such as this soul and this body, and (this nail?) and this bone, etc. These are indeed parts of the essence of this individual human being, but not of human being insofar as it is human being. This is the abstraction of the universal from the individual whereby a nature is considered absolutely according to its essential intelligibility (rationem) without its designated or individuated parts.46 In summing up Thomas notes that two kinds of abstraction taken in the strict sense are found in the intellect. One corresponds to the union of form and matter or of an accidental form with its substantial subject and is the abstraction of a form (quantity) from sensible qualities and hence from sensible matter. The other corresponds to the union of a whole and a part and is the abstraction of a universal from an individual. In considering and rejecting the possibility that there might be abstractions opposed Mathematics,” repr. in his Being and Knowing: Studies in Thomas Aquinas and Later Medieval Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), 33–41. Also see his later “Thomists and Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of Mathematics,” Review of Metaphysics 47 (1993): 43–61. On ens mobile as the subject of natural philosophy and ens quantum as the subject of mathematics see In Met. I.2 n. 47 (­­Turin-Rome, 1950), p. 14: “Sed scientiae particulares sunt posteriores secundum naturam universalibus scientiis, quia subiecta earum addunt ad subiecta scientiarum universalium: sicut patet, quod ens mobile de quo est naturalis philosophia, addit supra ens simpliciter, de quo est metaphysica, et supra ens quantum de quo est mathematica.” The same is implied by Thomas’s presentation of and response to obj. 6 in his In De Trin. V.1 (for which see above notes 30 and 31). 46. In De Trin. V.3, 148–49, lines 204–238. There is a textual problem concerning line 233, where the Leonine ed. reads: “et hoc modo se habent ad hominem omnes partes signate, sicut hec anima, et hoc corpus, et hic unguis, et hoc os, et huiusmodi: hee enim partes sunt quidem partes essentie Sortis et Platonis, non autem hominis in quantum homo” (italics mine). But one wonders how “this nail” can be included within the essence of this individual human being. As the edition points out (see also Preface, p. 27, n. 1), the autograph reads hic ignis (“this fire”) which one branch of the manuscript tradition followed. It seems to me more likely that the autograph reading is correct since to be composed of an element such as this individual instance of the element fire would be part of the essence of this individual human being, whereas “this nail” would not be.

62  Discovery of Being as Being to these whereby a part would be abstracted from a whole or matter from form, he makes two important remarks about separatio. As regards a part being abstracted from a whole, this is impossible if it is simply a part of matter since such a part includes the whole in its definition. And if it is a part of the species, then it can exist without the whole, such as a line without a triangle, or a letter without a syllable, or an element without a mixture. But, he writes: “In those things that can be divided in the order of existence, separation obtains rather than abstraction.”47 As for possibly abstracting matter from form, Thomas immediately rules out substantial form and prime matter, since they are correlative to one another and depend on one another. It is only abstraction of the accidental form of quantity and configuration that is at issue here, and sensible matter cannot be abstracted from these because sensible qualities presuppose quantity. “Substance, however, which is the intelligible matter for quantity, can exist without quantity. Therefore, to consider substance without quantity pertains to the genus of separation rather than of abstraction.”48 This is most important since, as we have seen, substance, like being, is one of the items he has listed to illustrate those things that do not depend on matter and motion to exist in the negative or neutral sense in that they need not be found in matter, but can be. Since substance is the primary instance of being within the predicaments, we can read this as also meaning that being can exist without quantity, and that to consider this pertains to separatio. Thomas concludes by correlating these three different ways in which the intellect can distinguish with the three theoretical sciences. One way the intellect can distinguish is according to its second or judging operation and is properly called separatio, and pertains to divine science or metaphysics.49 If one asks why, this is because separatio enables one to consider substance (or being) without quantity and hence without matter and as not restricted to any particular kind of being, and thus by negating any such restriction to one’s understanding of being, enables one to grasp it 47. See Ed. Leon., 50, 149, lines 239–258. Note in particular: “In his autem que secundum esse possunt esse divisa magis habet locum separatio quam abstractio.” 48. Ibid., 149, lines 258–274. Note especially: “Substantia autem, quae est materia intelligibilis quantitatis, potest esse sine quantitate; unde considerare substantiam sine quantitate magis pertinet ad genus separationis quam abstractionis.” 49. Ibid., lines 279–286.

Discovery of Being as Being  63 universally and as being. The second way of distinguishing pertains to the intellect’s first operation and is the abstraction of a form—quantity—and this pertains to mathematics. The third also pertains to the intellect’s first operation and is the abstraction of the universal from the particular, and this pertains to physics, although Thomas adds that it is common to all the sciences, because in science one sets aside that which is per accidens and retains that which is per se.50 This does not mean that Aquinas is here saying that one attains the subject of metaphysics by abstracting a universal from individuals, for he has just assigned that task to separatio. And if someone should claim that Thomas has not explicitly said that it is through separation that one discovers the subject of metaphysics, it seems clear to me that he has. For he has said that it is through separation that one discovers the kind of freedom from matter that is required by the subject of metaphysics—being as being. He has listed both substance and being as enjoying that kind of freedom from matter, that is to say, negative or neutral immateriality. Moreover, he has indicated that it is through abstraction of the form of quantity that one arrives at an understanding of being as quantified, and as he has indicated in replying to the sixth objection in q. 5, a. 1 of this same treatise, this would be the subject of a particular science, that is, mathematics, whereas being is the subject of metaphysics. Finally, he has associated abstraction of the universal from the particular, especially with physics, although he has added that this kind of abstraction is also practiced in the other sciences. But, to repeat my point, he does not say that abstraction is used to discover the subject of metaphysics.

3. Some Disputed Issues To conclude by touching on some disputed points, I would first note that in these texts Thomas has not in any way implied that one must have first discovered the existence of positively immaterial being, whether this be the soul or the First Mover or God, in order to discover the subject of metaphysics and hence to begin this science. As we have already seen, he has indicated the opposite by noting in q. 5, a. 4 of his In De Trinitate text 50. Ibid., lines 275–286.

64  Discovery of Being as Being that if a science has a subject, it belongs to that science to consider the principles of that subject. Only then will the task of that science be completed.51 And as we have also already seen, he brings this out even more explicitly in the Prooemium to his Commentary on the Metaphysics. There again he offers his personal solution to the dilemma left by Aristotle concerning whether the science of being as being can be identified with the science of separate or divine being. Central to his solution is his identification of separate substances with the universal and first causes of being and his observation that it belongs to one and the same science to consider the proper causes of a given genus and that genus itself. Therefore it belongs to the same science to consider separate substances and ens commune, which is the genus of which such substances are the general and universal causes. Only ens commune, he continues, is the subject of this science. For the subject of a science is that whose causes and properties one seeks, not the causes themselves. For knowledge of causes of a given genus is the end ( finis) at which the consideration of the science arrives.52 And yet he also writes that the entire science deals with that which is separate from matter in the order of existence as well as the order of understanding. Not only are those things said to be separate that can never exist in matter, such as God and intellectual substances, but also those that can exist without matter, such as ens commune. He adds: It [this science] is called metaphysics “insofar as it considers being (ens) and those things that follow upon it. For these transphysicals are found on the way of resolution, just as the more universal things are found after the less universal.”53 In these texts there can be no doubt that Aquinas is expressing his own view about the nature and subject of metaphysics.54 It begins only with the discovery of its subject—being as being or ens commune—as attained by means of separatio and then pursues knowledge of the cause (or causes) of its subject—separate substances—as its goal. 51. See above notes 35–37. 52. See his In Met., Prooemium, 1–2. 53. Ibid., 2. Note: “”Dicitur . . . [m]etaphysica, in quantum considerat ens et ea quae consequuntur ipsum. Haec enim transphysica inveniuntur in via resolutionis, sicut magis communia post minus communia.” 54. Indeed, the final sentence from his Prooemium merits quotation: “Sic igitur patet quid sit subiectum huius scientiae, et qualiter se habeat ad alias scientias, et quo nomine nominetur” (ibid.).

Discovery of Being as Being  65 But as we turn to the body of Thomas’s Commentary on Bk VI, c. 1 of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, the issue becomes more difficult. To provide some context we should first turn briefly to his Commentary on Bk IV, c. 1. There Thomas follows Aristotle and explains, as does Aristotle, that there is a science that investigates being as being and the properties that pertain to it per se. The science of being as being is distinguished from particular sciences because, unlike them, it does not cut off a particular part of being and simply study the attributes of that part. None of them studies universal [being] insofar as it is being. Hence in this science we are studying being taken universally and seeking the principles of being insofar as it is being. Therefore, Thomas states explicitly, being is the subject of this science because every science seeks after the proper causes of its own subject.55 Here his interpretation of Aristotle is in perfect conformity with his own views as expressed in the texts we have examined above. When one turns to Thomas’s Commentary on Metaphysics VI, c. 1, however, things become more complicated, just as they do in Aristotle’s own text. The opening lines of Aristotle’s text in this chapter, and hence of Thomas’s exposition of it as well, about the need to seek for the principles and causes of beings as beings, are consistent with what we have just seen from Aristotle’s discussion in Bk IV, c. 1 and in Thomas’s Commentary on this. And so, too, is the contrast that is drawn by both writers between the effort in this science to seek for the causes of being as such and that carried out in particular sciences to arrive at a knowledge of the causes and principles of their own restricted subject genera.56 Both thinkers note that the things studied in physics include a reference to sensible matter and to motion in their definition (Thomas recalls that the subject of physics is ens mobile) and that mathematics studies things as immobile and as separate from sensible matter even though presumably they are not separate from matter in the order of existence (secundum esse).57 Both Aristotle and Thomas in commenting on Aristotle’s text write that if there is some55. For Thomas see his In Met. IV.1, nn. 532–533, p. 151. Note especially: “ergo in hac scientia quaerimus principia entis inquantum est ens: ergo ens est subiectum huius scientiae, quia quaelibet scientia est quaerens causas proprias sui subiecti.” For Aristotle see his Metaphysica, ed. W. Jaeger (Oxford, 1978), I.1 (1003a 21–32). 56. For Aristotle see Met. VI.1 (1025b 3–10). For Thomas see In Met. VI.1, nn. 1145–1147, p. 295. 57. For Aristotle see 1025b 30–1026a 6. For Thomas see nn. 1155, 1157 (“Ens enim mobile est subiectum naturalis philosophiae”), nn. 1159–1161, pp. 296–97.

66  Discovery of Being as Being thing that is sempiternal and separate from matter in the order of existence, some kind of theoretical philosophy must study this. Both Aristotle and Thomas consider and reject physics as well as mathematics as unqualified for study of this kind of entity and conclude that this must belong to a prior kind of philosophy, first philosophy or, as Aristotle also refers to it, “theology.”58 Finally Thomas raises the question that Aristotle himself saw and tried to resolve: Can the science that studies separate entity and hence seems to study only one particular kind of being be identified with the universal science of being as being? Thomas responds by almost literally citing Aristotle’s less than satisfying answer: If there is not some other substance apart from those that exist according to nature, with which physics deals, physics will be the first science. But if there is some immobile substance, it will be prior [to natural substance: added by Thomas] and consequently the philosophy that studies substance of this kind will be first philosophy. And because it is first it will be universal, and it will belong to it to investigate being insofar as it is being, both what it is, and those things that pertain to it as being.

And, as Thomas has obviously picked out the weak step in Aristotle’s argument, that is, the transition from “first philosophy” to the universal science, he adds the key to his own solution: “For the science of the first being and the science of ens commune are one and the same, as was said at the beginning of Bk IV.”59 But, it should be noted, Thomas does not say that the first being is the subject of metaphysics; for such a claim would contradict his personal view that a theoretical science must have a subject, and that it is the task of one who practices that science to arrive at knowledge of the principles of that subject. Moreover, I should note, if only in passing, for Thomas not only is God not the subject of metaphysics; he is not included within ens commune, which is its subject. Hence he can be 58. For Aristotle see 1026a 10–23. For Thomas see nn. 1162–1166. 59. See In VI Met., lect. 1, n. 1170: “si non est aliqua alia substantia praeter eas quae consistunt secundum naturam, de quibus est physica, physica erit prima scientia. Sed, si est aliqua substantia immobilis, ista erit prior substantia naturali; et per consequens philosophia consi­ derans huiusmodi substantiam, erit philosophia prima. Et quia est prima, ideo erit universalis, et erit eius speculari de ente inquantum est ens, et de eo quod quid est, et de his quae sunt entis inquantum est ens: eadem enim est scientia primi entis et entis communis, ut in principio quarti habitum est.”

Discovery of Being as Being  67 studied by the metaphysician only indirectly, as cause or principle of its subject.60 This passage, along with the parallel to it from Thomas’s Commentary on Bk XI of the Metaphysics, is often cited to support the claim that Thomas would require a priori knowledge of the existence of some separate entity in order for one to discover the subject of metaphysics and hence in order to begin metaphysics.61 It is difficult to reconcile such an interpretation with all that Thomas has said in the texts we have already considered where he is clearly writing in his own name, and where the opposite procedure is indicated. One should move from knowledge of the subject of a science to knowledge of its cause or principle, in this case from a knowl60. On this see Albert Zimmermann, Ontologie oder Metaphysik? Die Diskussion über den Gegenstand der Metaphysik im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, 2nd ed. (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 216–23. 61. For the parallel in Thomas’s Commentary on Bk XI see In XI Met.7, n. 2267, p. 536. Thomas’s explanation here is essentially the same as that in the text just quoted from his Commentary on Bk VI.1, which is not surprising, since Aristotle’s text presents the same position in Bk XI.7 and in Bk VI.1. To explain the transition from the science of the first beings to the universal science, this time Thomas adds two sentences: “Eadem enim est scientia quae est de primis entibus, et quae est universalis. Nam prima entia sunt principia aliorum.” For some who attribute this to Thomas as his personal view see A. Moreno, “The Nature of Metaphysics,” The Thomist 30 (1966): 113–15; Thomas C. O’Brien, Metaphysics and the Existence of God (Washington, D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1960), 160; James Doig, Aquinas on Metaphysic: A ­­Historico-Doctrinal Study of the Commentary on the Metaphysics (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), 243, n. 1; 303, n. 1; James A. Weisheipl, “The Relationship of Medieval Natural Philosophy to Modern Science: The Contribution of Thomas Aquinas to Its Understanding,” Manuscripta 20 (1976): 194–96; Leo Elders, Faith and Science: An Introduction to St. Thomas’ “Expositio in Boethii De Trinitate” (Rome: Herder, 1974), 107–8; Mark Jordan, Ordering Wisdom: The Hierarchy of Philosophical Discourses in Aquinas (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 158–60; Louis-B. ­­ Geiger, “Abstraction et séparation d’après s. Thomas In De Trinitate q. 5, a. 3,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 31 (1947): 24–25, (an otherwise very sound article); Benedict Ashley, The Way to Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 153–58; Ralph McInerny, “Praeambula Fidei”: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 194–96. Few of these discussions, in my opinion, pay sufficient attention to the problem in Aristotle’s own text of reconciling his presentation in Bk IV, cc. 1–2 with that in Bk VI, c. 1, and the major attempts made in the subsequent history of Aristotelianism, especially in Avicenna and Averroes and in various recent efforts, to work this out. For my own discussions of these texts and this issue see my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (1984), 82–95; The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 51–59; and Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), c. 10, especially 246–55 (also p. 34, n. 8 for references to some of the recent literature on this) as well as the whole of c. 10 for my claim that we cannot assume that in his Commentary on the Metaphysics Thomas himself always accepts as his own view the position he finds in Aristotle’s text.

68  Discovery of Being as Being edge of being as being as gained by means of separatio to a knowledge of God as the cause of ens commune. In such a case I have previously suggested that Thomas is writing here as the expositor of Aristotle and that, while respecting Aristotle’s text, he is especially concerned to show how Aristotle’s identification of the science of separate entity with the universal science of being as being can be justified.62 This need not imply that he is also necessarily endorsing the chronological sequence implied by Aristotle’s own text if this runs counter to what he has already indicated elsewhere where he is writing in his own name; for this is not his primary concern here as the expositor of Aristotle. In such a case we should give priority to those texts where Thomas writes in his own name. A second difficulty might be raised, based on the interesting fact that in his later texts Thomas does not seem to refer to separatio as such, which might lead someone to think that he has abandoned this doctrine. Moreover, in ST I.85.1, in replying to obj. 2, Thomas again reviews the kind of abstraction associated with physics (abstraction from individual sensible matter) and with mathematics (abstraction of quantity from common sensible matter). Certain things, he adds, can be abstracted from common intelligible matter, such as being, unum, potency and act, and other things of this kind, which can also exist without any matter, as is evident in immaterial substances. Here, it might be argued, Thomas speaks of abstraction rather than of separation in referring to our knowledge of being and other negatively or neutrally immaterial things.63 In responding to this one should recall the broader usage of “abstraction” that Thomas had used at the beginning of q. 5, a. 3 of his Commentary on the De Trinitate, where he took it as being equivalent to distinguishing intellectually in any way, whether through the intellect’s first operation or through its second operation. Later in that context he noted that when this term is used strictly or properly, it applies only to distinguishing through the intellect’s first operation, and proposed the term separatio to describe distinguishing intellectually through a negative judgment. Hence in the text from ST I, q. 85, a. 1, he is using the term abstract broadly rather than strictly. That this is so is indicated by his reply to the 62. See the references given in the previous note. 63. Ed. Leon., 5, p. 331. Note: “Quaedam vero sunt quae possunt abstrahi etiam a materia intelligibili communi, sicut ens, unum, potentia et actus, et alia huiusmodi, quae etiam esse possunt absque omni materia, ut patet in substantiis immaterialibus.”

Discovery of Being as Being  69 first objection in that same article, where he writes that abstraction may occur through the operation whereby the intellect composes and divides (i.e., judgment) as when we understand that one thing is not in another or is separated from it. Or it may occur through the operation whereby the intellect simply understands one thing without understanding another. Hence while there may be in the passage from the Summa a move away from the precise terminology he had introduced in q. 5, a. 3 of the Commentary on the De Trinitate, there is no change in doctrine. A third objection to my general interpretation has been proposed by John Knasas. He maintains that, according to Thomas, one can begin the science of metaphysics without having discovered its subject, ens commune (or being as being) in its full sense, that is, as studying that which is neutrally immaterial. Then in the course of one’s metaphysical investigations, one can demonstrate the existence of God, positively immaterial being. Then, by appealing to this, one can extend one’s understanding of ens commune to cover being that does not depend on matter and motion in order to exist and thereby discover the subject of metaphysics in the full sense.64 64. See Knasas, The Preface to Metaphysics: A Contribution to the Neo-Thomist ­­ Debate on the Start of Metaphysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 4, 18 (Aquinas never says that the metaphysician attains his subject in a separatio); 21 (two arguments against Wippel); c. 5, especially at the end (p. 113); Being and Some ­­Twentieth-Century Thomists (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 66–69 (where he seems to be more confident that his position was also held by Joseph Owens). See p. 67: “The metaphysician need not understand separateness from matter as true of the subject at the initiation of the science.” Note that on p. 68 Knasas cites In VI Met. Lect. 1, n. 1163 where he “calls metaphysics immaterial simply because it treats God and the angels.” In this text Thomas simply repeats Aristotle’s text. But Knasas does not there cite the very relevant n. 1165: “Advertendum est autem, quod licet ad considerationem primae philosophiae pertineant ea quae sunt separata secundum esse et rationem a materia et motu, non tamen solum ea; sed etiam de sensibilibus, inquantum sunt entia, Philosophus perscrutatur. Nisi forte dicamus, ut Avicenna dicit, quod huiusmodi communia de quibus haec scientia perscrutatur, dicuntur separata secundum esse, non quia semper sint sine materia, sed quia non de necessitate habent esse in materia, sicut mathematica.” This distinction, which Thomas here attributes to Avicenna, is the one that Thomas himself defends in his In De Trinitate V.1 and V.4, and in the Prooemium to his Commentary on the Metaphysics. On Avicenna as a likely source for Aquinas’s notion of separatio as distinguished from abstraction see Pasquale Porro, “Tommaso d’Aquino, Avicenna, e la struttura della metafisica,” in Tommaso d’Aquino e l’oggetto della metafisica (Studi di filosofia 29), ed. Stephen Brock (Rome: Armando, 2004), pp. 65–87. Porro notes that the distinction between abstraction and separatio has been found in the works of Arts Masters at Paris in the period from 1230 to 1250, and that Alfarabi via Avicenna could have been the remote source for this in those Masters, as shown by Claude Lafleur and Joanne Carrier in pursuing a suggestion made by Alain de Libera. See their “Abstraction, séparation et tripartition de la philosophie theorétique: quelques élements de l’ arrière-fond farabien et artien de Thomas d’Aquin,” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 67 (2000): 248–71. On Avicenna as

70  Discovery of Being as Being This is very difficult to reconcile with Aquinas’s understanding of the subject of a science. He regards science as a habit that informs the possible intellect viewed as a potency or power. And he writes that “[T]he habit of a power is distinguished specifically by reason of the difference of that which is the per se object of that power.”65 Hence in ST I.1.7, he writes: “Thus the subject of a science is related to that science just as an object is related to a power or habit.” In light of this, in his magisterial review of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century ­­ controversies concerning the subject of metaphysics, Albert Zimmermann writes about Aquinas’s view: “Therefore the subject of a science is the object through which the habit of this science differs from those of the other sciences.”66 As Zimmermann points out, Thomas also maintains that every science has its unity from its subject, and Zimmerman cites Thomas’s Commentary on the Posterior Analytics I. 41: “The unity of any science is to be determined in accord with the unity of its subject.”67 And in that same context Thomas goes on to explain that just as the unity of the subject genus of one science is more general than that of another, for instance, the unity of being or substance is more general than the unity of mobile being, so also one science is more general than another. Thus metaphysics, which treats of being or of substance, is more general than physics, which deals with mobile being. Thomas also quotes the proximate source for Aquinas’s distinction between separatio and abstraction, at least at the conceptual level if not the terminological, see especially pp. 81–83. For my own suggestion (although it is based on different texts than those offered by Porro) that Thomas was inspired by Avicenna in developing this distinction, see my “The Latin Avicenna as a Source for Thomas Aquinas’s Metaphysics,” in my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, 39–43. 65. See his Sentencia Libri De sensu et sensato, Prooemium (ed. Leon. 45.2, p. 3, lines 9–19): “Et quia habitus alicuius potenciae distinguntur specie secundum differenciam eius quod est per se obiectum potenciae, necesse est quod habitus scienciarum, quibus intellectus perficitur, distinguantur secundum differenciam separabilis a materia et ideo Philosophus in VI Metaphysicae distinguit genera scienciarum secundum diversum modum separationis a materia: nam ea quae sunt separata a materia secundum esse et rationem pertinent ad methaphysicum . . .” 66. Ed. Leon. 4, p. 19: “Sic enim se habet subiectum ad scentiam, sicut obiectum ad potentiam vel habitum.” Zimmermann writes: “Subjekt einer Wissenschaft ist also das Object, durch welches sich der Habitus dieser Wissenschaft von denen anderer Wisssenschaften unterscheidet.” Ontologie oder Metaphysik?, p. 204. 67. “Unde relinquitur quod cuiuslibet scienciae unitas secundum unitatem subiecti est attendenda.” Thomas goes on to remark: “Set, sicut unius generis subiecti unitas est communior quam alterius, ut puta entis sive substanciae quam corporis mobilis, ita etiam una sciencia communior est quam alia, sicut metaphysica, quae est de ente sive de substantia, communior est quam phisica, quae est de corpore mobile.” See Expositio Libri Posteriorum I.42 (ed. Leon. 1*2, p. 153, lines 145–153).

Discovery of Being as Being  71 with approval Aristotle’s statement to the effect that every demonstrative science deals with three things, one of which is the subject genus whose per se properties (passiones) it investigates; second are the common principles (dignitates) from which it demonstrates as from that which is first; and third are the properties about which each science accepts what they signify. Thomas also follows Aristotle’s statement to the effect that the sciences “suppose” (accept without proving) the principles in the sense “that they are” (quia sunt), the properties in terms of “what they are”, and their subjects with regard to both “that they are” and “what they are.”68 In other words, which is of paramount importance regarding Knasas’s proposal, Thomas follows Aristotle in denying that any science can demonstrate the “if it is” and the “what it is” of its own subject. He states this in another way, for instance, in his Commentary on the Physics, “Nulla scientia probat suum subiectum.”69 Second, Knasas’s proposal contradicts Thomas’s statement in the Prooemium to his Commentary on the Metaphysics to this effect: Although the subject of this science is ens commune, the whole science (tota) is said to deal with that which is separate from matter secundum esse et rationem. For not only are those things that can never exist in matter such as God and intellectual substances said to be separate secundum esse et rationem, but also those that can exist without matter and motion, such as ens commune.70

According to Knasas, the science would originally study only material being, but not being in the sense of that which is negatively immaterial. Yet this is not how Aquinas describes the subject of metaphysics. He holds that the entire science deals with that which is separate from matter secundum esse et secundum rationem. Hence Knasas’s proposal should not be regarded as a defensible interpretation of Aquinas’s understanding of our discovery of the subject of metaphysics. 68. See Expositio Libri Post., I.18, p. 68, lines 128–133: “Omnis enim demonstrativa scientia circa tria est, quorum unum est genus subiectum cuius per se passiones scrutatur; et aliud est communes dignitates, ex quibus sicut primis demonstrant; tercium est passiones, de quibus unaquaque scientia accipit quid significet.” See lines 136–138: “Quia enim dixerat quod sciencie supponunt de principiis quia sunt, de passionibus quid sunt, de subiectis autem utrumque . . . .” 69. In I Phys. I, 1 (n. 4): After noting that the subject of physics is ens mobile he writes: “Non dico autem corpus mobile, quia omne mobile esse corpus probatur in isto libro: nulla autem scientia probat suum subiectum.” On all of this see Zimmermann, Ontologie oder Metaphysik?, 202–7. 70. In Met., Prooemium, 2, cited above in n. 38.

72  Discovery of Being as Being

4. Concluding Remarks: Underlying the opposition to my proposal on the part of many who maintain that according to Aquinas one must have demonstrated the existence of positively immaterial being before beginning metaphysics is a philosophical position on their part, namely, that it is impossible for one to speak meaningfully of negatively immaterial being or to propose it as the subject of metaphysics without prior knowledge of positively immaterial being. On philosophical grounds I also defend the opposite position, as I have already indicated elsewhere.71 To summarize my thinking on this, just as it is possible for us to investigate a material and changing being from different perspectives—for instance, as mobile, as quantified, as living or dead—so is it possible for us to investigate such a being simply insofar as it is real or insofar as it enjoys being. This inquiry does not require that we investigate it as material or as quantified even though such a being may exist only in such a way. Once we have formulated a prephilosophical notion of being as “that which is,” we can always ask ourselves how widely we can apply it: Must we restrict it to the particular kinds of beings we have experienced, or can we extend this notion so that it may be applied to anything of which we can say “it is”? To accept the latter alternative is to acknowledge that if we should encounter or demonstrate the reality of some positively immaterial being, we could then recognize it as enjoying being and hence as “that which is.” To acknowledge this does not require us to assume in advance that such a being exists, or even to defend its possibility in the absolute sense, that is, intrinsically (as lacking contradiction) and extrinsically in that causes might exist that could bring such an entity into existence. All we need to do is not to exclude any such entity from being recognized as a being if we should encounter or demonstrate its existence. And to do this we need only distinguish between that by which a being is the kind of thing it is (including being material or perhaps immaterial) and that by reason of which it is real or enjoys being. (Note that this is not to distinguish its essence from its actus essendi, but to distinguish its whatness from its being [“that which is”]). This is what we do through the negative judgment called separation. We consider being simply as being without necessarily restricting it to any particular kind, whether material or immaterial. 71. For more on this see my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, 102–4; The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 59–62.

Preambles of Faith Preambles of Faith

II 

S Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith

One of Thomas Aquinas’s most important explicit discussions of the preambles of faith appears in his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, at question 2, article 3. There he asks whether in the science of faith that deals with God one is permitted to use philosophical arguments and authorities. He responds that the gifts of grace are added to nature in such fashion that they do not destroy nature but perfect it. Therefore, the light of faith, which is given to us as a grace (gratis), does not destroy the natural light of reason, which is divinely instilled in us. While the natural light of the human mind is insufficient to manifest those things that are made known to us by faith, he insists that it is not possible for those things that are handed down to us by God through faith to be contrary to those that are instilled in us by nature, that is to say, to be contrary to those things that we discover by using natural reason. For one or the other would have to be false and, since both of these ultimately come to us from God, God himself would then be the author of falsity, something that is impossible. Rather, Thomas continues, because in imperfect things some imitation of perfect things is to be found, among those things known to us by natural reason are certain likenesses of those things given to us by faith.1 1. An earlier version of this chapter appears under the title “Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith in Thomas Aquinas” in Doctor Communis. Nova Series 12/1–2 (2008): 38–61. Thomas Aquinas, Super Boetium De Trinitate (hereafter In De Trin.), q. 2, a. 3 co., Editio Leonina 50.98:114–99:130: “Respondeo. Dicendum, quod dona gratiarum hoc modo naturae adduntur, quod eam non tollunt sed magis perficiunt; unde et lumen fidei, quod nobis gratis infunditur, non destruit lumen naturalis rationis divinitus nobis inditum. Et quamvis lumen naturale mentis humanae sit insufficiens ad manifestationem eorum quae manifestantur per fidem, tamen impossibile est quod ea quae per fidem traduntur nobis divinitus, sint contraria his quae sunt per naturam nobis indita: oporteret enim alterum esse falsum, et cum utrumque sit nobis a Deo, Deus nobis esset auctor falsitatis, quod est impossibile; sed magis, cum in imperfectis inveniatur aliqua imitatio perfectorum, in ipsis quae per naturalem rationem cognoscuntur sunt quaedam similitudines eorum quae per fidem sunt tradita.”

73

74  Preambles of Faith Having laid down this fundamental principle for his defense of harmony between faith and reason, Thomas goes on to apply this same general conclusion to the relationship between faith and philosophy. Just as sacra doctrina is based on the light of faith, so is philosophy based on the light of natural reason. Hence it is also impossible for those things that pertain to philosophy to be contrary to things that are of faith, even though the former fall short of the latter: “Nonetheless they [the things established by philosophy] contain certain likenesses and certain preambles to them, just as nature is a preamble for grace.”2 Well aware as he was of conflicts between views contained in the writings of some philosophers and the teachings of Christian faith, Thomas also comments that if something is found in the sayings of the philosophers that is contrary to faith, this is not really philosophy but rather an abuse of philosophy following from a deficiency on the side of reason. Therefore, by using the principles of philosophy it is possible to refute an error of this kind, either by showing that it is completely impossible or else by showing that it is not necessary. Here, of course, he is allowing for the difference between truths contained in revelation that can never be demonstrated by natural reason—revealed mysteries, we may call them— and other truths that, although they too are contained in revelation, can also be established by natural reason. And so he continues, just as those things that are of faith (revealed mysteries) cannot be demonstrated, so too, certain things that are contrary to them cannot be demonstrated to be false. But by using the principles of philosophy one can at least show that positions that contradict matters of faith are not necessary, that is to say, not demonstrated. Unexpressed here is Thomas’s recognition that if one could demonstrate the falsity of a denial of a revealed mystery, one would in effect demonstrate the truth of that same mystery.3 In applying the above thinking to the main question at issue in article 3—whether it is permissible to use philosophical arguments and authorities in sacred teaching—Thomas concludes that one can do so in three ways. The first of these is of greatest interest to the theme of this chapter since, according to Thomas, one may use philosophy in sacred teaching in order to demonstrate preambles of faith, which, he explains, it is necessary 2. Ibid. (ed. Leon. 50.99:131–137). Note especially: “Continent tamen aliquas eorum simili­ tudines et quaedam ad ea praeambula, sicut natura praeambula est ad gratiam.” 3. Ibid. (ed. Leon. 50.99:137–147).

PPreambles of Faith  75 for one to know in one’s faith, “such as those things that are proved by natural arguments about God, such as that God exists, that God is one, and other things of this kind concerning God or concerning creatures which are proved in philosophy, and which faith (pre)supposes.”4 Second, one may use philosophy in sacra doctrina in order to illustrate (ad notificandum) by certain likenesses things that are of faith, as Augustine did in his De Trinitate. Thirdly, as he repeats a point he had previously made, one may use philosophical argumentation to resist attacks against the faith, either by showing that those attacks are false or else by showing that they are not necessary.5 As regards preambles of faith, here Thomas has indicated that they are certain truths that faith presupposes and that philosophy demonstrates. And then, lest the reader remain in doubt about his meaning, he has specified, “such as those that are proved about God, such as that God exists, that God is one, and other things of this kind concerning God or concerning creatures which are proved in philosophy, and which faith (pre)supposes.” I would note Thomas’s usage here of two terms—“demonstrate” and “prove”—and that in this context he treats them as equivalent. Hence, there can be no doubt that Thomas Aquinas holds that natural reason can demonstrate such preambles of faith, beginning with the existence of God. As we shall see below, this is a position that he reasserts in other writings. Here, too, in addition to the fact that God exists, he explicitly mentions the conclusion that God is one, and refers to other similar truths as well, but without specifying them. I would also note that here he has referred to other truths of this kind concerning God or concerning creatures that are proved in philosophy and that faith presupposes. One challenge in interpreting his thinking on this issue is to determine the number of truths concerning God or concerning creatures that, according to Thomas, may be demonstrated philosophically and are presupposed for faith, in other words, the number of preambles of faith. A second issue has to do with Thomas’s reference to these truths—preambles of faith—as (pre)supposed for faith. He cannot mean that every Christian 4. Ibid. (ed. Leon. 50.99:148–154). Note especially: “primo ad demonstrandum ea quae sunt praeambula fidei, quae necesse est in fide scire, ut ea quae naturalibus rationibus de deo probantur, ut deum esse, deum esse unum et alia huiusmodi vel de deo vel de creaturis in philosophia probata, quae fides supponit.” 5. Ibid. (ed. Leon. 50.99:154–161).

76  Preambles of Faith must first have demonstrated one or more of the preambles, such as the existence of God, before making an act of faith. As he himself brings out explicitly in other contexts, for example Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 4, to demonstrate or prove that God exists is a very difficult enterprise for human beings, so much so that, in fact, the majority of them will never succeed in doing this. In the first part of this chapter, therefore, I propose to concentrate on Thomas’s general thinking on preambles of faith in this and other texts, and in the second part to seek for additional textual evidence to help one determine how many truths he includes or would include under this general heading “preambles of faith.”

1. A quinas’s Understanding of a Preamble of Faith The text I have been following, taken from Thomas’s Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, is usually dated at 1257–58 or perhaps at the beginning of 1259.6 Very shortly thereafter in this same work, at q. 3, a. 1, Thomas uses the terms “preamble” and “preambulatory” in somewhat different but related senses, that is, to refer to other sciences as preparatory sciences (in scientiis praeambulis) for metaphysics, and to refer to the many praeambula required to reach knowledge of divine things.7 But common to all of these usages is the notion that a preamble is something that is in some way presupposed for something else. As regards his understanding of preambles of faith, one can already find the fundamentals of his thinking concerning this in other texts such as his earlier Commentary on the Sentences, Book III, distinction 24, a. 2, sol. 2. There he writes that something can belong to faith either per se or per accidens. What belongs to faith per se pertains to it always and everywhere (semper et ubique); but what belongs to faith per accidens pertains 6. See ­­Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 68, 345. Here I will follow Torrell’s dating for all of Thomas’s works. 7. See In De Trin., q. 3, a. 1. (ed. Leon. 50.107:117–121): “quia scientia quae est de causis ultimis, scilicet metaphysica, ultimo occurrit homini ad cognoscendum, et tamen in scientiis praeambulis oportet quod supponantur quaedam quae in illa plenius innotescunt”; and ibid. (108:145–150): “Tertio propter multa praeambula quae exiguntur ad habendam cognitionem de deo secundum viam rationis: requiritur enim ad hoc fere omnium scientiarum cognitio, cum omnium finis sit cognitio divinorum, quae quidem praeambula paucissimi consequuntur.”

PPreambles of Faith  77 to it only in this or that individual, but not in every human being. Here, then, he is distinguishing between certain truths that can be accepted only on faith—revealed mysteries, we may again call them—and other truths that, while they may be accepted on faith by this or that individual, are capable of being demonstrated philosophically.8 In developing his understanding of these truths, Thomas then notes that there are certain things that are prior to faith (praecedentia ad fidem), that are matters of faith only per accidens, insofar as they surpass the capacities of this or that individual, but that can be demonstrated and known (possunt demonstrari et sciri). Here, too, he offers as an example the truth that God exists. This can be demonstrated and known, even though it may be only believed by someone whose intellect has not yet succeeded in demonstrating it. These truths that he here refers to as “prior to faith” (praecedentia ad fidem) are his equivalent for what he will later refer to as “preambles of faith.”9 Shortly thereafter in distinction 24 of this same Commentary, at article 3, sol. 1, Thomas returns to this theme. He recalls that it was necessary for faith to be available both regarding truths that are absolutely beyond human reason’s ability to discover and regarding other truths that are beyond the capacity of some individuals, but not of all, to discover. As regards this second kind of truth concerning divine things, he now writes that when grace perfects some interior part of the soul (affectum), it presupposes nature precisely because it perfects it; so too, in like manner, natural knowledge “stands under” (substernitur) faith. He explains that faith presupposes such natural knowledge and, thus, that reason can prove that God exists, that God is one, incorporeal, intelligent, and other things of this kind. Thomas comments that faith sufficiently inclines one to an acceptance of such truths so that someone who cannot attain natural proof for them may assent to them by means of faith. In support of the need for 8. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis (hereafter In Sent.) III, d. 24, q. 1, a. 2, sol. 2, ed. M. F. Moos (Paris: Lethielleux, 1933), 3.769. Note esp.: “Et quod per se pertinet ad fidem, pertinet ad eam semper et ubique; ideo quod pertinet ad fidem ratione huius vel illius, non est fidei per se, sed per accidens. Sic ergo quod simpliciter humanum intellectum excedit ad Deum pertinens, nobis divinitus revelatum ad fidem per se pertinet. . . . Sed quaedam quae sunt praecedentia ad fidem, quorum non est fides nisi per accidens, inquantum scilicet excedunt intellectum huius hominis et non hominis simpliciter, possunt demonstrari et sciri, sicut hoc quod est Deum esse: quod quidem est creditum quantum ad eum cuius intellectus ad demonstrationem non attingit.” 9. See the text cited in the previous note.

78  Preambles of Faith faith in (and hence the need for revelation of) such naturally knowable truths about God and divine things, he cites five reasons originally offered by Moses Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed. He will repeat these five reasons in his Commentary on the De Trinitate, and will later reduce them to three major arguments with appropriate supporting arguments in Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 4. The third of these five reasons notes that many things are presupposed (praeexiguntur) if one is to follow the path of reason in knowing about divine things, since almost the whole of philosophy is ordered to a knowledge of divine things, and only a few could achieve this.10 While replying to the first objection in this same text from his Commentary on III Sentences, d. 24, Thomas follows up on this point. Since natural knowledge of God will be acquired only late in life, and since our entire lives should be guided throughout by our knowledge of God, it is necessary that those truths that are naturally knowable about God should be held by faith from the beginning of our lives insofar as they are presupposed for faith and are not yet known naturally by us.11 At approximately the same time when he was writing his Commentary on the De Trinitate, in his De veritate, q. 14, a. 9, Aquinas distinguish10. In Sent. III, d. 24, q. 1, a. 3, sol. 1 (ed. Moos 3.773–74). Note especially: “Sicut autem est in gratia perficiente affectum quod praesupponit naturam, quia eam perficit; ita et fidei substernitur naturalis cognitio quam fides praesupponit et ratio probare potest; sicut Deum esse et Deum esse unum, incorporeum, intelligentem et alia huiusmodi. Et ad hoc etiam sufficienter fides inclinat, ut qui rationem ad hoc habere non potest, fide eis assentiat. . . . Tertio, quia ad cognitionem divinorum per viam rationis multa praeexiguntur, cum fere tota philosophia ad cognitionem divinorum ordinetur: quae quidem non possunt nisi pauci cognoscere. Et ideo oportuit fidem esse ut omnes aliquam cognitionem de divinis haberent.” For the five reasons taken from Maimonides also see In De Trin., q. 3, a. 1 co. (ed. Leon. 50.108:131–163) and n. 7 above for the third reason; Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate (hereafter De ver.), q. 14, a. 10 co., Editio Leonina 22.2.467:184–209. For these as reduced to three major reasons see Summa contra Gentiles (hereafter SCG) I, c. 4 (as already mentioned); Summa theologiae (hereafter ST) I, q. 1, a. 1; ibid., ­­II-II, q. 2, a. 4. For these in Maimonides see his Dux seu Director dubitantium aut perplexorum I, c. 33, ed. Augustinus Justinianus (Paris, 1520; reprint, Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1964), ff. 12v–13v = The Guide of the Perplexed I, c. 34, trans. S. Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 72–79. 11. In Sent. III, d. 24, a. 3, sol. 1, ad 1 (ed. Moos 3.774): “Alia autem cognitio Dei est commensurata nostrae naturae, scilicet per rationem naturalem. Sed quia haec habetur in ultimo humanae vitae, cum sit finis, et oportet humanam vitam regulari ex cognitione Dei, sicut ea quae sunt ad finem ex cognitione finis, ideo etiam per naturam hominis non potuit sufficienter provideri quantum etiam ad hanc cognitionem Dei. Unde oportuit quod per fidem a principio cognita fierent, ad quae ratio nondum poterat pervenire; et hoc quantum ad ea quae ad fidem praeexiguntur.”

PPreambles of Faith  79 es between two ways in which something can be an object of faith or belief (credibile)—either in the absolute sense, because it is beyond the capacity of any human intellect, or with respect to only some individuals but not with respect to all. As examples of the latter, he lists truths that can be known demonstratively about God, such as that he exists, or is one, or is incorporeal, and things of this type. And in replying to objection 8 Thomas observes that insofar as it can be demonstrated that God is one, this is not an article of faith but is presupposed for articles of faith; for the knowledge of faith presupposes natural knowledge just as grace presupposes nature.12 As one moves forward in time past Thomas’s Commentary on the De Trinitate, one finds much valuable information concerning preambles of faith in the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–64), even though this precise terminology does not appear there. But before examining this work, I will first turn briefly to the Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1, where this terminology is to be found. There Thomas writes: “To the first therefore it must be said that God exists and other things of this kind which can be known by natural reason about God, as is said in Romans [1:19–20], are not articles of faith but preambles to the articles [of faith]. For faith presupposes natural knowledge, just as grace presupposes nature and perfection presupposes something that can be perfected.”13 And in ST ­­II-II, q. 1, a. 5, ad 3, Thomas answers an objection against his view that it is impossible for the same thing to be known and believed by the same person at the same time. The third opening argument reasons that those things that have been demonstratively proved are known. But certain things contained in faith have been demonstratively proved by the philosophers, such as that God exists, God is one, and other things of this kind. In response to this Thomas counters: 12. De ver., q. 14, a. 9 (ed. Leon. 22.2.463:121–34): “Aliquid vero est credibile non simplici­ ter sed respectu alicuius, quod quidem non excedit facultatem omnium hominum sed aliquorum tantum, sicut illa quae de Deo demonstrative sciri possunt, ut Deum esse, vel Deum esse unum aut incorporeum, et huiusmodi.” Ibid., ad 8 (ed. Leon. 22.2.464:196–200). For discussion of many of these texts and a strong defense of the role of preambles in Thomas’s thinking see Ralph McInerny, “Praeambula fidei” in Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006), part 1, esp. 26–32. 13. ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1, ed. Leon. 4.30: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod Deum esse et alia huiusmodi quae per rationem naturalem nota possunt esse de Deo, ut dicitur Rom. non sunt articuli fidei sed praeambula ad articulos. Sic enim fides praesupponit cognitionem naturalem sicut gratia naturam et ut perfectio perfectibile. Nihil tamen prohibit illud quod per se demonstrabile est et scibile, ab aliquo accipi ut credibile qui demonstrationem non capit.”

80  Preambles of Faith In reply to the third it must be said that those things that can be demonstratively proved are to be included among those things that are to be believed not because there is faith in the absolute sense concerning them on the part of all, but because they are presupposed [praeexiguntur] for those things that are of faith and it is necessary that they be presupposed at least on faith by those who do not grasp a demonstration of them.14

In sum, therefore, although there is some fluctuation in his terminology, Thomas’s understanding of preambles of faith is essentially the same in all the texts we have considered. I noted above that Thomas clearly does not hold that one must have already demonstrated preambles of faith such as the existence of God before making an act of faith. In a number of the texts considered above, he has referred to preambles of faith or to naturally knowable conclusions about God as presupposed for faith. Just what does he mean by this? He seems to mean that certain articles of faith logically presuppose certain preambles of faith, but not chronologically; for instance, for God to be three and one (an article of faith), God must exist. Since God’s existence can be demonstrated, this is a preamble of faith. Hence, if someone succeeds in demonstrating this preamble, one will have deepened one’s understanding of God and will have advanced in the pursuit of wisdom; but such a person will not in any way have reached scientific knowledge of the article of faith itself.15 14. ST ­­II-II, q. 1, a. 5, ad 3 (ed. Leon. 8.17): “Ad tertium dicendum quod ea quae demonstrative probari possunt inter credenda numerantur, non quia de ipsis sit simpliciter fides apud omnes; sed quia praeexiguntur ad ea quae sunt fidei, et oportet ea saltem per fidem praesupponi ab his qui horum demonstrationem non habent.” Also see ibid., q. 2, a. 10, ad 2 (ed. Leon. 8.39): “Sed rationes demonstrativae inductae ad ea quae sunt fidei, praeambula tamen ad articulos, etsi diminuant rationem fidei, quia faciunt esse apparens id quod proponitur; non tamen diminunt rationem caritatis, per quam voluntas est prompta ad ea credendum etiam si non apparerent. Et ideo non diminuitur ratio meriti.” 15. Rudi te Velde expresses this point well, in commenting on a remark by Bruce D. Marshall who, te Velde says, “rightly emphasizes that the preambles are not an epistemic warrant for believing the articles, but rather logical presuppositions of the arguments, statements which must be true since the articles are true. I want to go just one step further: the articles are true of God, hence their truth requires the truth that God exists and that He possesses all ontological features a divine being must have in order to be understood to be divine.” See te Velde’s Aquinas on God. The “Divine Science” of the Summa Theologiae (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005), 34–35, n. 44. There he is referring to Marshall’s “Quod Scit Una Vetula. Aquinas on the Nature of Theology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Peter Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 35. In this interesting chapter, Marshall is writing as a theologian, not as a philosopher. Unfortunately, however, while rightly

PPreambles of Faith  81 At this point I now propose to turn to the Summa contra Gentiles both to determine how Thomas proposes to deal there with what he elsewhere refers to as “preambles of faith” and to see how widely he extends the list of truths concerning God and divine things that are capable of being demonstrated philosophically. Regarding the last-mentioned ­­ point, so far we have seen him always citing as examples the fact that God exists, usually also that God is one, and occasionally that God is incorporeal, and intelligent, along with the constant indication that there are other preambles. If, as I mentioned above, in his Summa contra Gentiles Thomas does not use the terminology “preambles of faith,” the doctrine itself is much in evidence there. Indeed, after his preliminary discussion in the opening chapters of Bk I, he spends most, if not all, of the remaining chapters of that book in arguing for the truth of a whole series of preambles of faith, and he continues with this procedure well into Bk II. But the opening chapters of Bk I are also important for our understanding of his general thinking concerning preambles, and so I propose to begin by turning briefly to some of these. The title Summa contra Gentiles was apparently not given to this work by Thomas himself, and there is a ­­long-standing tradition indicating that its correct title is rather Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium. In any event, this second title seems to correspond very well to the contents of the work. There is, of course, a dispute concerning Thomas’s purpose in writing this particular book, fueled in large measure by the testimony of Peter Marsilio, who, writing in 1313 and reporting about St. Raymond of Peñafort, states that it was at Raymond’s request that Thomas composed this work. Moreover, Peter’s report has often been interpreted as also indicating that it was written to assist missionaries working for the conversion of Muslims in Moorish Spain.16 While the historical accuracy of this report, along with this interpretation of its purpose, has been accepted by many, it has also been strongly disputed by others, especially by rejecting a purely rationalistic or naturalistic interpretation of the act of faith itself and of apologetics, he greatly understates the importance of philosophy, and especially of metaphysics, for Aquinas when considered both in its own right and as he employs it in his theologizing. Something of this dismissive attitude is expressed by Marshall’s reference to the “­­so-called preambles to the articles” (ibid., 22). 16. See ed. Leon. 13.6 for the Latin text, and for an English translation see Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles. Book One: God, trans. Anton Pegis (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1955; reprint, 2005), 20–21.

82  Preambles of Faith R.-A. Gauthier, both regarding the claim that Thomas wrote this work at Raymond’s request and that he did so in order to assist Christian missionaries in their efforts to convert Moors in Spain. But I will not linger over this dispute here.17 In chapter 1 of this work, Thomas borrows heavily from Aristotle in developing his understanding of wisdom. The name of the wise person taken in the absolute sense (simpliciter) is reserved for someone whose consideration is directed to the end of the entire universe, an end that is in fact identical with the principle (principium) of the universe. And so Aristotle writes in Metaphysics I, cc. 1–2, that it pertains to the wise person to consider the highest causes. But the ultimate end of each thing is that which is intended by its first author and mover. And the first author and mover of the universe is an intellect. Therefore “the ultimate end of the universe must be a good of the intellect. But this is truth. Therefore, truth must be the ultimate end of the entire universe.” And wisdom must deal primarily with this.18 But now, in filling out his understanding of the nature of wisdom and the wise person, Thomas writes that it belongs to one and the same science to pursue one of two contraries and to refute its opposite. And so, if it belongs to the wise person to meditate about the first principle and to speak of it to others, it also belongs to him to reject opposed falsity. And Thomas finds this twofold office of the wise person confirmed by the scriptural text with which he had opened chapter 1: “My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate impiety” (Proverbs 8:7).19 And so in chapter 2, Thomas writes that having assumed the duty to 17. See Pegis, 21ff., who favors the general reliability of Peter’s testimony and, therefore, views this work as having an apologetical mission. For Gauthier, see his Saint Thomas d’Aquin. Somme contre les Gentils. Introduction (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1993), 165–76. And for a very recent critique of the “missionary manual” explanation and a good discussion of Aquinas’s purpose in writing SCG, see Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 9–16. As he succinctly summarizes his own view which I also support: “Aquinas tells us that his intention in writing the SCG is to provide an extended essay in natural theology (which will occupy him through books 1–3) and then offer defenses of the articles of faith (which will occupy him in book 4),” (15). 18. SCG I, c. 1, Editio Leonina manualis (Rome, 1934), 1: “Oportet igitur ultimum finem universi esse bonum intellectus. Hoc autem est veritas. Oportet igitur veritatem esse ultimum finem totius universi; et circa eius considerationem principaliter sapientiam insistere.” 19. Ibid. Note the scriptural quotation: “veritatem meditabitur guttur meum, et labia mea detestabuntur impium,” and see the end of chapter 1 for Thomas’s application of this verse to the office of the wise person (ed. Leon. man., 2).

PPreambles of Faith  83 pursue the office of the wise man—even though this may be beyond his powers—in this work he intends to manifest the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and to eliminate errors that are opposed to this truth. Regarding the second part of this task, he notes that it is difficult to proceed against the opposed errors for two reasons. First of all, in his time the sacrilegious statements of the individuals who are in error (singulorum errantium dicta sacrilegia) are not so well known to him as they were in ancient (patristic) times to early Christian writers; for those writers either had been gentiles themselves or at least had been educated in the teachings of the gentiles. Secondly, he notes that among those people currently holding erroneous views, some of them—Mohammedans and pagans, he specifies—do not agree with Christians in accepting any common Scripture to which he might appeal in refuting them. In disputing with Jews, he can appeal to the Old Testament, and in dealing with Christian heretics, he can appeal to the New Testament as well. Therefore, in order to deal with all four types of unbelievers he has just distinguished—Muslims, pagans, Jews, heretics—he writes that he must turn to natural reason, to which all must assent, even though, he immediately adds, natural reason falls short in dealing with divine truths. He concludes, therefore, that when he is investigating a particular truth concerning divine things, he will also show what errors are excluded by it, and how demonstrated truth is in agreement with the faith of the Christian religion.20 As regards his purpose in writing this work, therefore, since in it he intends to pursue wisdom by setting forth the truth of the Catholic faith against unbelievers, he is clearly not restricting it to, nor, it seems to me, primarily writing it for, the use of Christian missionaries striving to convert Muslims in Spain. Nonetheless, a broader apologetical perspective is included within his overall purpose of pursuing Christian wisdom, and the book is directed to dealing with all four kinds of unbelievers he has identified. And he is evidently going to appeal very heavily to natural reason in this effort. Accordingly, in chapter 3 he immediately recalls the distinction between the two kinds of truth concerning divine matters that are available to human beings, that is, revealed mysteries such as the Trinity and those 20. Ibid. (ed. Leon. man., 2): “Simul autem veritatem aliqualem investigantes ostendemus qui errores per eam excludantur; et quomodo demonstrativa veritas fidei Christianae religionis concordat.”

84  Preambles of Faith that natural reason can discover, such as that God exists, that God is one, and other truths of this kind, which the philosophers have also proved demonstratively, guided by the light of natural reason.21 Here again, then, he introduces what he both previously and subsequently refers to as preambles of faith, and as usual he lists the existence and unity of God, along with other truths of this kind that can be demonstrated philosophically. In order to show why there may also be truths concerning divine things that completely surpass the capacity of natural reason, he explains that this follows from the fact that human beings in this life can never arrive at knowledge of the divine essence, that is to say, at quidditative knowledge of God, and that such knowledge would be required to discover truths of this kind.22 In chapter 4 he argues at length to show that it was appropriate for God to reveal those truths concerning divine matters that natural reason can discover, and that this is so for three major reasons that Thomas has now reworked from the five he had originally taken from Maimonides. To summarize briefly, three unhappy consequences (inconventia) would follow if God had not revealed such truths—preambles of faith, presumably—to human beings. The first is that then very few human beings would ever arrive at knowledge of God because they would lack the natural ability, or the considerable amount of time required for this, or because they would be too lazy to master all that is presupposed for one to reach such knowledge. The second consequence is that even those who did succeed in arriving at natural knowledge of God would do so only after much time in their lives had passed. The third is that, even in their case the truths about God that they had demonstrated would sometimes be intermingled with falsity because of the weakness of the human intellect in judging, and because of what Thomas refers to as a mixing of phantasms, that is, of sense images produced by the imagination. Hence it was beneficial that God in his mercy should reveal even such naturally knowable truths about himself so that, by relying on faith, all human beings could share in a knowledge about divine matters that is free from error and free from doubt.23 21. Ibid. (ed. Leon. man., 2). Note in particular: “Quaedam vero sunt ad quae etiam ratio naturalis pertingere potest, sicut est Deum esse, Deum esse unum, et alia huiusmodi; quae etiam philosophi demonstrative de Deo probaverunt, ducti naturalis lumine rationis.” 22. Ibid. (ed. Leon. man., 2–3). 23. Ibid., c. 4 (ed. Leon. man., 3–4). Note at the end: “Salubriter ergo divina providit cle­ mentia ut ea etiam quae ratio investigare potest, fide tenenda praecipiret: ut sic omnes de facili possent divinae cognitionis participes esse, et absque dubitatione et errore.”

PPreambles of Faith  85 In chapter 5 he offers a series of arguments to show that it was necessary for God to propose for human belief certain truths that unaided natural reason is incapable of discovering, ultimately because human beings have been ordered by divine providence to a greater good than human weakness can achieve in this life, that is, to a supernatural end.24 And in chapter 6 he argues that it is not foolish for human beings to accept such truths on faith even though natural reason cannot demonstrate them. He appeals to various “motives of credibility,” as we might name them—in particular to the miracles that were observed by the first followers of Christ, such as cures and raising the dead and, he says, even more wonderful, the inspiration given to the minds of simple and uneducated people that enabled them when filled with the Holy Spirit to possess the greatest wisdom and eloquence. These remarkable signs led many to join the early Church, to accept certain truths that surpass all human understanding, to restrain pleasures of the flesh, and to spurn things of this world, violent persecutions notwithstanding. Thomas contrasts the presence of such testimonies supporting the claims of the first Christian preachers with the way the founders of erroneous sects advanced their doctrines. He cites Mohammed as an example, saying that he spread his religion by appealing to promises of carnal pleasures in the next life and by relaxing the reins upon them in this life. Far from supporting the veracity of his claims by appealing to supernatural signs and miracles, he appealed to the force of arms to spread his religion, which signs are not lacking to robbers and tyrants, Thomas comments, and Mohammed used “brutal men and desert wanderers” to do this.25 In chapter 7 Thomas presents a series of arguments to show that the truth that can be discovered by natural reason cannot be opposed to the truth of the Christian faith. According to the first argument, that with 24. Ibid. (ed. Leon. man., 4–5). Note especially: “Quia ergo ad altius bonum quam experiri in praesenti vita possit humana fragilitas, homines per divinam providentiam ordinantur, ut in sequentibus investigabitur, oportuit mentem evocari in aliquid altius quam ratio nostra in praesenti possit pertingere, ut sic disceret aliquid desiderare, et studio tendere in aliquid quod totum statum praesentis vitae excedit.” 25. Ibid., c. 6 (ed. Leon. man., 6). Note: “sed homines bestiales in desertis morantes, omnis doctrinae divinae prorsus ignari, per quorum multitudinem alios armorum violentia in suam legem coegit.” Also see Gauthier, Saint Thomas d’Aquin. Somme contre gentiles, esp. 124–28, who concludes from this that Thomas’s presentation of Islam does not reveal much firsthand knowledge of this religion (even though the Koran was available in two Latin translations), and thus indicates that converting Muslims in Spain was not his primary purpose in writing this work.

86  Preambles of Faith which our intellect is naturally endowed is clearly most true and cannot be rejected as false. Nor can that which is divinely revealed be regarded as false, since this has been confirmed in a way that is clearly divine. Therefore it is impossible for revealed truth to be contrary to the principles that reason knows naturally. He supports this defense of harmony with a number of other arguments as well, even though, in my judgment, none of the arguments as presented here is quite as clear and effective as that which he had presented in our opening text in this chapter, that is, in q. 2, a. 3 of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius. In chapter 8 he develops briefly another of the three ways in which, according to his Commentary on the De Trinitate (q. 2, a. 3), philosophy can be of service to sacred science. Sensible objects, from which our intellectual knowledge originates, contain within themselves some trace (vestigium) of an imitation of God their cause, since every effect is in some way like its cause. However, in this case the likeness falls far short of its divine cause, and so such likenesses to God that human reason finds in creatures can never lead to knowledge of the essence of God or to a comprehensive or demonstrative knowledge of the mysteries of faith. Nonetheless even this small and weak consideration of the highest things is a source of great joy.26 And then in the extremely important chapter 9 Thomas indicates the order and the method that he will follow in the Summa contra Gentiles. He recalls that it should be the intention of the wise person to pursue both kinds of truths about divine things that he has distinguished above and to refute errors opposed to them. With respect to the first—preambles of faith—Thomas must proceed by means of demonstrative arguments by which an adversary can be convinced.27 Since such rational arguments are not possible regarding the second kind of truths (revealed mysteries), Thomas will instead resolve unbelievers’ arguments against them because of his conviction that natural reason cannot be opposed to a truth of faith. As for a positive approach toward convincing unbelievers of such truths, Thomas writes that one must argue from the authority of Scripture as divinely confirmed through miracles since one can believe truths 26. See SCG I, c. 8 (ed. Leon. man., 7). Note: “Utile tamen est ut in huiusmodi rationibus, quantumcumque debilibus, se mens humana exerceat, dummodo desit comprehendendi vel demonstrandi praesumptio: quia de rebus altissimis etiam parva et debili consideratione ali­ quid posse inspicere iucundissimum est, ut ex dictis apparet.” 27. Ibid., c. 9 (ed. Leon. man., 7): “Ad primae igitur veritatis manifestationem per rationes demonstrativas, quibus adversarius convinci possit, procedendum est.”

PPreambles of Faith  87 of revealed mysteries only on the authority of God who reveals them.28 He adds that one may also appeal to certain likely arguments (rationes aliquae verisimiles) to manifest such truths for the practice and consolation of believers, but such arguments should not be used to convince adversaries; for the insufficiency of these arguments would only confirm them in their error since they would think that we Christians accept the truths of faith for such weak reasons (rather than on the authority of God who reveals them).29 Given this background, Thomas now sets down the order he intends to follow in the Summa contra Gentiles. First he will strive to make manifest those truths that faith professes and that reason can investigate, which he will do by introducing demonstrative arguments and probable arguments. He notes that he has taken some of these arguments from the books of the philosophers and the saints, and that by means of these arguments truth can be confirmed and an adversary may be convinced.30 Then, by moving from the more evident to the less evident, he will turn to a manifestation of the other kind of truth that faith professes—revealed mysteries—by resolving the arguments offered by adversaries against these truths, and by using probable arguments and authorities, thereby manifesting the truth of faith. He will in fact devote Bk IV to this second task and Bks I, II, and III to pursuing those kinds of truths that human reason can investigate, beginning in Bk I with those that pertain to God in himself, then in Bk II taking up the procession of creatures from God, and in Bk III the ordering of creatures to God as to their end.31 28. Ibid. (ed. Leon. man., 8): “Singularis vero modus convincendi adversarium contra h­u­ iusmodi veritatem est ex auctoritate Scripturae divinitus confirmata miraculis: quae enim supra rationem humanam sunt, non credimus nisi Deo revelante.” Note his remark in In Sent. III, d. 24, a. 2, sol. 2, ad 4 (ed. Moos 3.770:64): “Ad quartum dicendum quod argumenta quae cogunt ad fidem sicut miracula, non probant fidem per se, sed probant veritatem annuntiantis fidem. Et ideo de his quae fidei sunt scientiam non faciunt.” In other words, signs such as miracles do not prove the truth of articles of faith themselves, but only attest to the truth of the one who proclaims the faith. Hence they do not result in scientific knowledge of the truths of faith. 29. SCG I, c. 9 (ed. Leon. man., 8). 30. Ibid. Note especially: “Modo ergo proposito procedere intendentes, primum nitemur ad manifestationem illius veritatis quam fides profitetur et ratio investigat, inducentes rationes demonstrativas et probabiles, quarum quasdam ex libris philosophorum et Sanctorum collegimus, per quas veritas confirmetur et adversarius convincatur.” 31. Ibid.: “Intendentibus igitur nobis per viam rationis prosequi ea quae de Deo ratio humana investigare potest, primo occurrit consideratio de his quae Deo secundum seipsum conveniunt; secundo vero, de processu creaturarum ab ipso; tertio autem, de ordine creaturarum in ipsum sicut in finem.”

88  Preambles of Faith Given this plan, we may expect to find books I, II, and, perhaps, III of the Summa contra Gentiles dealing with what he regards as preambles of faith, to the extent that they include truths that Christians believe and that can be proven about God and about creatures, inasmuch as they come forth from God and return to him. Noteworthy is the fact that in chapter 9 of the Summa contra Gentiles he has first remarked that, in dealing with those truths concerning divine things that reason can reach, he will use demonstrative arguments. But later in this same chapter he has stated that he will introduce both demonstrative and probable arguments in manifesting those truths that reason can investigate.32 This remark is somewhat surprising, since it seems to muddy the waters in some way. Why use probable arguments when demonstrative arguments are available? Is this perhaps in order to persuade certain adversaries who cannot grasp the force of the demonstrations? Or is it perhaps to allow for a distinction between preambles of faith, for which demonstrative argumentation is possible, and certain articles of faith which cannot be demonstrated philosophically, but which reason can investigate (quam fides profitetur et ratio investigat)—such as the temporal beginning of the universe—and for which only probable or dialectical argumentation is possible?33 While I will not offer a definitive response to this, the fact that Thomas allows for both demonstrative and probable argumentation in dealing with naturally knowable truths does help account for the fact that in many chapters of this work he offers a whole battery of arguments to support his position. One need not assume that he regards every individual argument within such a series as demonstrative. But, be this as it may, it poses a challenge to any reader of the first three books of the Summa contra Gentiles. Because Thomas himself frequently does not explicitly tell the reader whether he regards as demonstrative or as probable a particular argument in support of a naturally knowable truth concerning divine matters, his reader must often determine for himself or 32. Note the texts quoted above in nn. 27 and 30. 33. For a reading similar to this see Helmut Hoping, Weisheit als Wissen des Ursprungs. Philosophie und Theologie in der “Summa contra gentiles” des Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1997), 117–18. For this solution to succeed, however, one would have to think that Thomas intends to distinguish here between those truths of faith that reason can demonstrate (preambles), and those that it can only investigate without reaching demonstrative knowledge. For the text see n. 30 above.

PPreambles of Faith  89 herself whether a given argument offered by Thomas is in his eyes demonstrative or probable. In any event, Thomas concludes chapter 9 with a very strong statement regarding his procedure in Bk I: “But among those things that are to be considered about God in himself, one must put before everything else as the necessary foundation for the entire work the consideration by which it is demonstrated that God exists. Without this, every consideration about divine things is necessarily undermined.”34 Given this, even though limitations of space will not permit me to dwell on this here, we may be confident that Thomas views as demonstrative the detailed argumentation he offers in chapter 13 and in other writings to prove that God exists.35 And with this I now turn to the second part of this chapter in my effort to see how extensive Aquinas’s list of preambles really is.

2. The Numbering of the Preambles of Faith In Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 14, Thomas repeats his ­­well-known view that because we cannot in this life know the substance (essence) of God, quidditative knowledge of him is not available to us. Therefore, he introduces the way of negation (remotionis) whereby in order to advance in one’s knowledge of God, one renders one’s knowledge of God more precise by systematically eliminating everything that is incompatible with him as the Unmoved Mover and the First Efficient Cause of everything else in the universe, whose existence Thomas had proved in chapter 13. Thus in chapter 15 he proves that God is eternal by showing that because he is immobile, he is not subject to the succession involved in temporal existence. Thomas also introduces there what is in fact still another very interesting argument for God’s existence based on the distinction between 34. SCG I, c. 9 (ed. Leon. man., 8): “Inter ea vero quae de Deo secundum seipsum consi­ derando sunt, praemittendum est, quasi totius operis necessarium fundamentum, consideratio qua demonstratur Deum esse. Quo non habito, omnis consideratio de rebus divinis necessa­ rio tollitur.” 35. Note how he introduces SCG I, c. 13 (ed. Leon. man., 10): “Ostenso igitur quod non est vanum niti ad demonstrandum Deum esse, procedamus ad ponendum rationes quibus tam philosophi tam doctores Catholici Deum esse probaverunt.” For my own examination of these arguments see The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 413–34.

90  Preambles of Faith necessary and possible beings.36 He uses the way of negation to show in chapter 16 that there is no passive potentiality in God; in chapter 17 that there is no matter in God; in chapter 18 that there is no composition in him or that he is simple; and in chapter 20 that God is not a body. As the reader will recall, the incorporeity of God was one of the preambles of faith he had explicitly identified in his Commentary on III Sentences.37 In chapter 21 he proves that God is identical with his essence by showing that he is not distinct from his essence, and in chapter 22 that he is not distinct from his act of existing (esse). And Thomas does so always by using the way of negation. He continues to use the way of negation until chapter 28, where he argues that no possible kind of perfection can be lacking to God and, therefore, that God is all perfect. This is a very important step because, by negating any lack or negation of perfection to God, Thomas ends up with an affirmation—that God is perfect. This affirmation in turn proves to be pivotal because he can appeal, and subsequently does, to God’s perfection in order to assign other names to him, including some that have positive content, although he will apply them to God only analogically rather than univocally or purely equivocally (see chapters 32–34). Thomas argues for the first of these names with positive content in chapter 37, by showing that God is good. He introduces his argumentation for this point by writing that from the divine perfection one can conclude that God is good, and Thomas immediately presents an argument based on this. He refines this in chapter 38 by also showing that God is his very goodness itself, and concludes in chapter 39 that there can be no evil in God. After showing in chapter 40 that God is the good of every other good thing, he concludes in chapter 41 that he is the highest good. In light of these chapters, it seems clear enough that Thomas regards the claim that God is good as another preamble of faith. In chapter 42 he argues at length that God is one, which is another explicitly named preamble of faith as we have seen above in other texts. Most of his argumentation here is intended to show that God is one in the sense 36. See SCG I, c. 15 (ed. Leon. man., 15 [“Amplius”]). On this as a more successful argument than the better known “Third Way” of Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, with which it bears similarities in its second part as well as substantial differences in its first part, see my Metaphysical Thought, 435–39. 37. See n. 10 above for this text.

PPreambles of Faith  91 of being unique, that is to say, that there is only one God; but near the end of this chapter he reasons that God enjoys unity of being, that is, ontological or transcendental unity, meaning that he is not divided from himself.38 In chapter 43 Thomas argues that God is infinite. He begins by distinguishing between infinity taken as the privation of a limit in continuous or numerical quantity and, hence, as an imperfection (which must be denied of God), and infinity taken as a simple negation of any limit or terminus to God’s being and, hence, as a perfection that must be affirmed of him. Thomas then offers forceful arguments to demonstrate that God is infinite in the latter sense, and so we may regard this as another preamble. That this is so is confirmed by a helpful summarizing statement Thomas makes in his Compendium theologiae I, c. 35. There he refers back to chapters 3–34, where he had presented arguments based on reason to prove in chapter 3 that God exists, and in the subsequent chapters many of the other truths about God concerning the unity of the divine essence that we have been examining in the Summa contra Gentiles. In chapter 35 of the Compendium he summarizes a number of these to show how they are also included in the brief article of the creed in which we profess that we believe in one omnipotent God, namely, that he is one, simple, perfect, infinite, and intelligent, and that he wills. And in chapter 36 Thomas comments that these truths have been subtly considered by many of the gentile philosophers, although some fell into error concerning them, whereas those philosophers who succeeded were able to reach these truths only after long and laborious investigation.39 Moreover, if, as I have argued elsewhere in trying to resolve a seeming inconsistency within Thomas’s texts 38. SCG I, 42 (ed. Leon. man., 40): “Adhuc. Secundum hunc modum res habet esse quo possidet unitatem: unde unumquodque suae divisioni pro posse repugnat, ne per hoc in non esse tendat. Sed divina natura est potissime habens esse. Est igitur in eo maxima unitas. Nullo igitur modo in plura distinguitur.” Note that in ST I, q. 11, Thomas shows in art. 3 that there is only one God, and in art. 4 that God is one in the ontological sense, that is, undivided from himself, and maxime unus. 39. For these see Thomas Aquinas, Compendium theologiae I, c. 35, ed. Leon. 42.92:1– 93:18. Note esp. “Ex his autem omnibus quae supra dicta sunt, colligere possumus quod Deus est unus, simplex, perfectus, infinitus, intelligens et volens.” On this see Jean-Pierre ­­ Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie d’après le Prologue de Thomas d’Aquin au Super Boetium de Trinitate. Essai d’une lecture théologique,” Documenti e Studi sulla tradizione filososfica medievale 10 (1999): 328–29, and n. 102. Note that in the same context (329) Torrell also lists as preambles of faith the reservation of creative power to God alone (ST I, q. 45, a. 5), immortality of the soul (ST I, q. 75, a. 6), and the impossibility for man to find beatitude in any created good (ST ­­I-II, q. 2, a. 8).

92  Preambles of Faith on this point, he also maintains that divine omnipotence can be demonstrated philosophically, this too may be regarded as a preamble of faith.40 In Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 44, Thomas offers a series of arguments to prove that God is intelligent. One is based on his prior proof that God is purely immaterial, and another on the fact that God is all perfect and that intelligence is the most powerful (potissima) of perfections to be found among existing entities. As will be recalled, in his Commentary on III Sentences Thomas lists God’s intelligence as another preamble of faith, and in the Compendium theologiae I, c. 35, he includes the fact that God is intelligent among those truths about God that he has there proved by philosophical argumentation in the preceding chapters, specifically in chapter 28.41 In subsequent chapters of the Summa contra Gentiles I, ranging from chapter 45 until chapter 71, Thomas introduces many precisions into his understanding of intelligence in God, too numerous for me to list here. Let it suffice to mention that he defends on philosophical grounds God’s knowledge of himself (c. 47) and of all other things (cc. 49, 50), and in the case of the latter, his knowledge of singulars (c. 65) including knowledge of future contingents (c. 67). And Thomas defends these points against many objections. In chapter 72 he argues at length to prove that God wills, and maintains that this follows directly from the fact that he has intellect. Hence it follows that Thomas also regards the presence of will in God as a preamble of faith, since this is a necessary consequence from the presence of intellect in God. And he has included this in the summa40. See my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), c. 8 “Thomas Aquinas on Demonstrating God’s Omnipotence.” The difficult text is found in De ver., q. 14, a. 9, ad 8 (ed. Leon. 22.2.464:200–204): “sed unitas divinae essentiae talis qualis ponitur a fidelibus, scilicet cum omnipotentia et omnium providentia et aliis huiusmodi quae probari non possunt, articulum constituit.” There I cite from many other writings by Thomas where he does maintain that divine omnipotence can be proven philosophically, and at the end I attempt to reconcile them with the text from the De veritate. This is also confirmed by a remark he makes in the Compendium theologiae I, c. 36 (ed. Leon. 42.93:14–18): “Per hoc autem quod dicimus omnipotentem, ostenditur quod sit infinitae virtutis cui nihil subtrahi possit; in quo etiam includitur quod sit infinitus et perfectus, nam virtus rei perfectionem essentiae eius consequitur.” For the argument that moves from the infinity of the divine essence (ibid., c. 18) to the infinity of God’s power, also see ibid., c. 19 (ed. Leon. 42.88:1–5). 41. See n. 10 above for the text from his Commentary on Sentences III, d. 24, a. 3, sol. 1. For the Latin from Compendium theologiae I, c. 35, see n. 39 above. For his explicit argumentation in c. 28 to show that God is intelligent, see ed. Leon. 42.91. There he repeats the two arguments from SCG I, c. 44, based on the fact that God is all perfect and that he is completely immaterial.

PPreambles of Faith  93 rizing passage in Compendium theologiae I, c. 35, mentioned above in the preceding paragraph. In the opening chapters of Summa contra Gentiles II Thomas justifies examining creatures as part of his investigation about the truth of the Catholic faith against unbelievers, that is, insofar as creatures are made by and proceed from God himself. And this investigation corresponds to his earlier description of preambles of faith as also applying to certain truths concerning creatures insofar as they are both proved in philosophy and presupposed by faith (In De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3).42 In chapter 1 he notes that perfect knowledge of any thing must take into account its operation, since it is through its operations that the power of something is known, and through its power that its nature is manifested. He introduces Aristotle’s distinction between two kinds of operations. One kind begins within and remains within an agent and perfects the agent, such as to sense or to understand or to will; another passes outside the agent and is a perfection of what is made or done, such as to cut or to heat or to build. Thomas reasons that both kinds of operations can be attributed to God, the first insofar as he understands, wills, rejoices, and loves, and the second insofar as he brings things into existence, and conserves and governs them. While the first kind is to be viewed as a perfection of the agent, the second kind is a perfection of what is done or made. Hence the first may properly be called “operation” or “action,” while the second, since it is a perfection of what is made, may be called a “making,” as that is said to be “manufactured” (manufacta) which is produced by an artisan.43 Thomas recalls that he has already dealt with the first kind of divine operation in Bk I while treating of God’s knowledge and will. It remains for him in Bk II to deal with the second kind, whereby things are produced and governed by God. In chapter 2 he presents a series of reasons in support of the need for him to engage in this second kind of consideration in his present task of manifesting the truth that (the Catholic) faith professes. For instance, by considering the things God has made, we are led to ponder and to wonder at the divine wisdom. This also leads us to admire God’s power and enkindles in us a reverence for him, and a love for his 42. See n. 4 above. 43. SCG II, 1 (ed. Leon. man., 93).

94  Preambles of Faith goodness. And, finally, this consideration forms human beings themselves into a certain likeness of the divine perfection, meaning, perhaps, that by enabling them to consider God in these ways, in some way they imitate him as he knows himself. Moreover, in chapter 3 Thomas notes that a consideration of created things is also necessary in order to remove certain errors concerning creatures that may lead to errors about God himself. And so here again we see the two sides of Thomas’s employment of philosophical argumentation in books 1–3—to give positive instruction and to refute erroneous views.44 In chapter 4 Thomas draws some interesting contrasts between the ways in which Christian faith and human philosophy consider creatures. Human philosophy studies them precisely insofar as they are creatures, whereas Christian faith considers them not insofar as they are in themselves, for instance, fire insofar as it is fire, but insofar as they represent the divine heights. Hence the philosopher considers those things that belong to creatures in terms of their proper natures, while the Christian believer studies those aspects of creatures that pertain to them insofar as they are related to God, that is, insofar as they are created by him, subject to him, and so on. Given this distinction, Thomas also warns that Christian faith should not be criticized for passing over many properties of created things, for instance, the configuration of the heavens. His remark is important since it indicates that, while Thomas will say a considerable amount about creatures in Bk II (and Bk III, for that matter), he does not intend to offer a complete account of them considered simply in themselves. And it suggests that, in accord with his remark in q. 2, a. 3, of his Commentary on the De Trinitate, insofar as certain truths about creatures are proved in philosophy and presupposed for faith, they, too, may be regarded as preambles of faith. As regards truths that are considered by both the philosopher and the Christian believer, Thomas now comments that the two proceed by means of different principles. The philosopher takes his arguments from the proper causes of creatures, whereas the believer takes his argumentation from the First Cause, because it is in this way that something has been handed down to him by God, or because it leads to the glory of God, or 44. Ibid., cc. 2–3 (ed. Leon. man., 93–95). Also see Norman Kretzmann, The Metaphysics of Creation: Aquinas’s Natural Theology in “Summa contra Gentiles” II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 18–25.

PPreambles of Faith  95 because God’s power is infinite. Since the teaching of faith deals with the highest cause, it deserves to be called the highest wisdom, and human philosophy is of service to it. And sometimes divine wisdom proceeds from and uses the principles of human philosophy.45 Consequent upon these reflections Thomas also points out that the two kinds of teaching differ in the order in which they proceed. In the teaching of philosophy, which considers creatures in themselves and moves from them to a knowledge of God, one begins with a consideration of creatures and ends with a consideration of God. But in the teaching of faith, which considers creatures only insofar as they are related to God, one begins with a consideration of God, and only subsequently turns to a consideration of creatures. Thomas concludes that in the Summa contra Gentiles he is proceeding according to the second order, having first dealt with God in Bk I, and now in Bk II turning to a consideration of creatures.46 In chapter 6 Thomas begins by offering a series of arguments to prove that it belongs to God to be the principle and cause of existing for other things.47 It is interesting to note that his first argument recalls the very brief proof he had presented in Bk I, chapter 13, to prove that there is some first efficient cause.48 Then only in second place does he appeal to the two lengthy arguments from motion he had presented in Bk I, chapter 13, for the existence of a first immobile being. He now reasons that since many 45. SCG II, c. 4 (ed. Leon. man., 95–96). 46. Ibid. (ed. Leon. man., 96). Note: “Unde, secundum hunc ordinem, post ea quae de Deo in se in primo libro sunt dicta, de his quae ab ipso sunt restat prosequendum.” The fact that Thomas deliberately follows the second order in SCG rather than the first shows that this work cannot be regarded as simply a work of pure philosophy, and not even in its first three books, for it does not follow the philosophical order. On the other hand, the fact that it relies so heavily upon philosophical argumentation throughout the first three books makes of it a rich source for Aquinas’s philosophy, especially for his metaphysics, and, in my view, means that it should not be regarded as simply a work of pure theology, as some assert. 47. Ibid., c. 6 (ed. Leon. man., 96): “Supponentes igitur quae in superioribus ostensa sunt, ostendamus nunc quod competit Deo ut sit aliis essendi principium et causa.” 48. For this argument for God’s existence in SCG I, c. 13, see ed. Leon. man., 14: “Et haec via talis est. In omnibus causis efficientibus ordinatis primum est causa medii, et medium est causa ultimi: sive sit unum, sive plura media. Remota autem causa, removetur id cuius est causa. Ergo, remoto primo, medium causa esse non poterit. Sed si procedatur in causis efficientibus in infinitum, nulla causarum erit prima. Ergo omnes aliae tollentur, quae sunt mediae. Hoc autem est manifeste falsum. Ergo oportet ponere primam causam efficientem esse. Quae Deus est.” In Bk II, c. 6, Thomas simply recalls this demonstration (which he attributes to Aristotle) that there is a first efficient cause. “Efficiens autem causa suos effectus ad esse conducit. Deus igitur aliis essendi causa existit” (ed. Leon. man., 96).

96  Preambles of Faith things are brought into being from the movements of the heavenly bodies, and since God is the first mover in that order, he is the causa essendi for many things.49 Pursuant to this conclusion, Thomas reasons in chapter 7 that there is active power in God and in chapter 8 that God’s active power is identical with his substance. In chapter 15 he offers a series of very interesting metaphysical arguments to prove that God is the cause of existence not only for some other things (see c. 6), but for all other things—or as he puts it in this text, that nothing apart from God exists except by reason of God himself. But this is not enough for him to prove that God produces things from no ­­pre-existing subject, and so he devotes chapter 16 to proving that God is also a creating cause. His treatment of these issues in separate chapters is significant because it indicates that for Thomas it is not enough to prove that God is the causa essendi for all other things to prove that he creates, as some contemporary interpreters fail to see. Hence I conclude that Thomas regards both of these points as preambles of faith. While I grant that in his explicit listing of preambles of faith Thomas does not include any that do not deal with God himself, I would recall again that in our key text from q. 2, a. 3, of his Commentary on the De Trinitate he has referred in general to “other things of this kind concerning God or concerning creatures that are proved in philosophy, and that faith (pre)supposes.” It would seem, then, that it is in accord with Thomas’s thinking to include under preambles of faith certain truths about creatures that are proved in philosophy and that faith presupposes. For instance, further on in Summa contra Gentiles II he argues for the immortality of the human soul by establishing its incorruptibility (see cc. 79–81). This, too, it seems to me, may be regarded as another preamble of faith, this time a truth that is logically required to support Christian belief in life after death.50 In sum, therefore, I would suggest that among the preambles of faith, which can be demonstrated and in fact have been demonstrated philosophically, Thomas includes at least the following: (1) that God exists; (2) that 49. SCG II, c. 6 (ed. Leon. man., 96). Note especially: “Cum igitur multa ex motibus caeli producantur in esse, in quorum ordine Deum esse primum movens ostensum est, oportet quod Deus sit multis rebus causa essendi.” 50. See n. 39 above for a reference to Torrell, who, as noted there, also lists as preambles the reservation of creative power to God alone (ST I, q. 45, a. 5), immortality of the soul (ST I, q. 75, a. 6), and the impossibility for man to find beatitude in any created good (ST ­­I-II, q. 2, a. 8).

PPreambles of Faith  97 God is one; (3) that God is simple; (4) that God is perfect; (5) that God is good; (6) that God is infinite; (7) that God is incorporeal; (8) that God is intelligent and all that follows from this; (9) that God wills; (10) that God is omnipotent; (11) that everything other than God depends upon him for its existence; (12) that God is a creative principle; and (13) that the human soul is immortal. I do not regard my list in any way as exhaustive. And if one extends preambles to truths established in moral philosophy that are presupposed for articles of faith, even though Thomas himself does not explicitly do this, the list will be increased accordingly.51 And I have omitted discussion of another very important likely preamble—divine providence—because Brian Shanley has recently devoted a convincing study to support this conclusion.52 51. Note Torrell’s third suggestion as indicated in the previous note; and also Guy de Broglie, “La vraie notion thomiste des ‘praeambula fidei,’ ” Gregorianum 34 (1953): 341–89, esp. 375– 77, who argues that for Thomas the preambles include all the major theses of natural theology (adding divine omnipresence to those I have mentioned), and other truths concerning creatures, including the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, the reality of free choice, the substantial union of soul and body, and the fundamental theses of moral philosophy. 52. “Thomas Aquinas on Demonstrating God’s Providence,” in The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations, edited by Gregory T. Doolan, 221–42 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012).

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse

III 

S Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and

Composition of Essence and Esse in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas

Cornelio Fabro is widely recognized for the important contribution he has made to our knowledge of the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas through his exposition of the major role played by the notion of participation in the thought of the Angelic Doctor. Fabro’s first major book on participation considered statically (La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo San Tommaso d’Aquino)1 appeared in its first edition in 1939. And in 1961 Fabro published his treatment of participation dynamically considered under the title Participation et causalité selon S. Thomas d’Aquin which, he explains, resulted from work he did while holding the Cardinal Mercier Chair at Louvain in 1954, and which also appeared in an Italian version at about the same time (1960).2 According to Fabro there is a very close connection between what he calls transcendental participation considered statically and the real distinction between essence and esse (actus essendi) in Aquinas. This connection will become more evident in some of the arguments considered below which Fabro finds in Aquinas’s texts in support of such a distinc-­ Previously published in Italian in a volume commemorating the 100th birthday of Cornelio Fabro entitled Crisi e destino della filosofia. Studi su Cornelio Fabro, ed. Ariberto Acerbi (Rome: EDUSC, 2012), 139–56, under the title “Fabro sulla distinzione e composizione di essenza ed esse nella metafisica di Tommaso d’Aquino.” Republished in English with slight revisions with both editors’ permission in the Review of Metaphysics 68 (2015): 573–92, under the title “Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and Composition of Essence and Esse in the Meta­physics of Thomas Aquinas.” 1. First ed., Milan: Società Editrice “Vita e Pensiero,” 1939; second ed., Turin: SEI, 1950; third ed., Turin: SEI, 1963, reprinted with variations of first ed. also indicated: Opere Complete, vol. 3 (Rome: EDIVI, Segni 2010), which will be cited here. 2. Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1961. For the Italian version see Partecipazione e causalità secondo S. Tommaso d’Aquino, 1st ed. (Turin: SEI, 1960), recently republished in Opere Complete, vol. 19 (Rome: EDIVI, Segni, 2010).

98

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  99 tion. For the sake of context it will be helpful to recall that, basing himself especially upon an important text from Aquinas’s Commentary on Boethius’s De Hebdomadibus, lect. 2, Fabro finds Thomas distinguishing between what Fabro himself calls predicamental participation and transcendental participation. Thomas’s text reads: To participate is, as it were, to take a part. Therefore when something receives in particular fashion that which belongs to another universally, it is said to participate in it, as man is said to participate in animal because it does not possess the intelligible content of animal according to its total universality; and in the same way, Sortes participates in man. In similar fashion a subject participates in an accident and matter in form because the substantial or accidental form which in terms of its meaning is universal, is determined to this or to that subject. In like manner an effect is also said to participate in its cause, and especially so when it is not equal to the power of its cause, for instance if we say that air participates in the light of the sun because it does not receive it with the brightness whereby it is present in the sun.3

In this text Thomas offers a preliminary description of participation—to receive in particular fashion that which belongs to something else in universal fashion. Then he distinguishes different ways in which participation may occur: (1) as man (a species) is said to participate in animal (a genus) because the species does not possess the intelligible content of the genus according to its total universality, or as Sortes (an individual) participates in the same way in man (a species). In such cases, a notion or concept that is less extended shares in without exhausting the intelligibility of a notion or concept that is more universal in extension and, therefore, the participation in question pertains to the order of concepts and may be referred to as logical. (2) In like fashion a subject participates in an accident and matter participates in form since in each case, an accidental form or a substantial form is restricted to a particular subject, whether 3. Expositio libri Boetii De Ebdomadibus, Leon. ed. 50, 271, lines 70–85: “Est autem participare quasi partem capere. Et ideo quando aliquid particulariter recipit it quod ad alterum pertinet universaliter dicitur participare illud, sicut homo dicitur participare animal quia non habet rationem animalis secundum totam communitatem; et eadem ratione Sortes participat hominem. Similiter etiam subiectum participat accidens et materia formam quia forma substantialis vel accidentalis, quae de sui ratione communis est, determinatur ad hoc vel illud subiectum. Et similiter etiam effectus dicitur participare suam causam, et praecipue quando non adequat virtutem suae causae, puta si dicamus quod aer participat lumen solis quia non recipit eam in claritate qua est in sole.” Translation mine here and throughout, unless otherwise indicated.

100  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse this be a substance, or whether it be prime matter. (3) An effect is said to participate in its cause, and especially when it is not equal to the power of its cause. In both the second and third types the participation is not restricted to the order of concepts but applies to the order of reality. Moreover, in both examples of the second type, the participation results in a composition in the order of reality, whether of a subject and an accident, or of matter and form. Yet, as Fabro brings out, participation of the second type is restricted to the order of being insofar as it is divided into the predicaments. Hence one may call this “real predicamental participation.” Or to put it another way, both the participant and the participated characteristic remain at the level of finite being.4 Moreover, Fabro also maintains that, according to Aquinas, participation at the level that transcends being as restricted to the predicaments—transcendental participation, as he names it—also involves within every participating being a composition of two distinct principles, essence and esse (understood as the act of existing [actus essendi]), united as potency and act. Hence it is with this third type of participation, transcendental participation, that we are concerned here, because of its close connection with the distinction and composition of essence and the act of existing.5 In a number of his publications Fabro presents Aquinas’s argumentation for a real distinction between essence and esse. Here I will concentrate primarily on his very full treatment in La nozione metaphysica and will on occasion refer to other writings. Fabro introduces part 2, section 3 of La nozione by offering some clarifications concerning the meaning of “being” (ens or ente), “essence,” and the “act of existing” (atto di essere). He points out that for Aquinas “being” is an active participle which signifies in the concrete the exercise of a for4. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 143; Mario Pangallo, L’essere come atto nel tomismo essenziale di Cornelio Fabro, Studi tomistici 32 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987), 25. 5. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 175. For the similarity on this point between the two kinds of participation Fabro cites ST I, q. 45, a. 5, ad 1 and Quodlibet II, q. 2, a. 3 [= q. 2, a. 1]. Note that Fabro devotes part 2, section 2 of La nozione metafisica to predicamental participation, and part 2, section 3 to transcendental participation. At 185 n. 3, while commenting briefly on a remark he quotes from M. T. L. Penido to the effect that Thomas’s doctrine of participation is based on the real distinction between essence and existence, Fabro proposes to reverse this point by saying “in un primo tempo è la distinzione fra essenza ed atto di essere che è fondato sulla nozione di partecipazione.”

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  101 mality, namely, to exist (esse). Therefore “being” is “that which is” (id quod est).6 But, Fabro points out, this grammatical explanation is not sufficient to satisfy Aquinas, for it remains too vague; this is because esse cannot be reduced to only one meaning. Indeed, Aquinas often refers to a text from Aristotle’s Metaphysics V.7,7 where the Stagirite indicates that (1) esse may be understood as that which corresponds to the different predicaments or categories, or (2) esse may be understood as signifying that which is true, and ­­non-esse as signifying that which is false, or (3) both it and “that which is” can signify either potency or act. Fabro comments that, while for Aristotle the primary meaning of esse is that which refers to the ten predicaments, Thomas himself introduces some explanations in connection with these meanings which are more than simple variations. Thus in his Commentary on I Sentences he speaks of three ways in which esse is said to signify: (1) the quiddity or nature of a thing; (2) the act of essence (actus essentiae), meaning thereby not its second act or operation but its first act; (3) the truth of composition in propositions (judgments) by serving as the copula. Thomas adds that when used in this third way, although esse exists in the intellect, it is grounded in the esse of a thing, that is, in esse taken in the second way.8 As Fabro also points out, in this text Thomas distinguishes esse taken as act from the essence of which it is the act. And this distinction is, of course, the primary concern of my present chapter. Fabro also offers an overview of the development that the notion of esse can have in human thinking, beginning with (1) a first notion of esse, which marks the first awakening of our intellectual faculty, based on an abstraction from a particular perception in the concrete order and which is extended with subsequent experiences so as to include all new objects (and which he calls ens in communi); (2) the three kinds of esse he has taken from the text from In I Sent., d. 33, which I have noted in the preceding paragraph; (3) a final notion based on intensive metaphysical reflection, which is esse understood as an intellectual synthesis in which every particular formality and perfection is fused together with the removal of any potentiality. Curiously, in support of this third understanding of esse Fab6. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 186. 7. Metaphysics V.7. 1017a 22–27, 31–33. 8. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 186–87. For Thomas see In I Sent., d. 33, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1, Mandonnet ed., 1.765–66.

102  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse ro does not here cite any text from Aquinas, although in a note he quotes a text from John of St. Thomas’s Logica.9 Before presenting Thomas’s formal argumentation for a distinction between essence and the act of existing, Fabro develops Aquinas’s understanding of esse taken as essence, and then of esse taken as actus essendi. He introduces this by noting that corresponding to the concrete term being (ens) there are two abstract terms, “essence” and esse. These signify two actualities from which a real being results, that is to say—esse essentiae and esse existentiae. (In fact, I would note that esse essentiae and esse existentiae are not used by Thomas himself to express this couplet and the relationship between them, but became a part of scholastic terminology early on in the 1270s and thereafter in disputes concerning the kind of relation that obtains between them, especially as used by Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, and shortly thereafter by Godfrey of Fontaines.) And as Pangallo has pointed out, Fabro himself seems to recognize in some of his later discussions the inappropriateness of using this terminology to describe Aquinas’s own understanding of the essence–actus essendi relationship.10 This is fortunate because the terminology esse existentiae is especially unsuited to capture what Thomas (and Fabro himself) understand by the actus essendi. As Fabro also explains, when we understand the esse essentiae of a thing, we know “what thing” it is, and when we grasp its esse existentiae, we know that it exists in fact and cannot be reduced to or confused with a mere concept or vain desire. Fabro also points out that while essence and actus essendi have different meanings, they are not independent so as to be completely separable from one another, since one necessarily implies some relation to the other.11 As regards the actus essendi, Fabro makes an important distinction be9. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 187–88. Note especially: “una nozione di essere che è la syntesi, nella quale vengono a trovarsi fuse tutte le formalità e perfezioni particolari con la remozione di ogni potenzialità” (188). See Fabro’s n. 6 for the reference to John of St. Thomas, Logica, ed. Beatus Reiser (Turin: Marietti, 1933), 1:500. See Pangallo, L’essere come atto, 28, who observes that Norberto Del Prado in his De Veritate fundamentali Philosophiae Christianae (Fri­bourg: Society of St. Paul, 1911), 7, lists only the three usages of esse from Thomas’s In I Sent., d. 33 that we have noted above, without adding the others. This is significant, since Del Prado’s book itself is an important source for Fabro’s own work (see Pangallo, L’essere come atto, 20). 10. Ibid., 29. For the unhappy consequences that followed from the acceptance of this terminology see especially Fabro, Participation et Causalité, 280–84, and then the remainder of this section entitled “L’obscurcissement de l’ esse dans l’ école Thomiste,” 285–315. 11. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 188.

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  103 tween our taking “existence” as signifying the fact that something exists, and our taking it as signifying the intrinsic actus essendi as Aquinas understands this. Fabro refers to the fact of existing as “that by which something is constituted outside its causes,” and this, he says, is the external effect or result of the actus essendi. The actus essendi itself is of a more profound nature and is that by which every formality can be indicated as real, that is to say, as distinct from every other, not merely in the logical sense, but really in the nature of things. For Thomas this actus essentiae is really distinct from the essence or nature of a thing itself.12 Within this same context Fabro cites a number of appropriate texts from Aquinas such as Quodlibet IX, q. 2, a. 2: “In another way esse is said of the act of being insofar as it is being, that is, by which something is named a being in act in the nature of things,”13 and ST I, q. 3, a. 4: “Second, because esse is the actuality of every form or nature; for goodness or humanity is not signified in actuality except insofar as we signify that it is.”14 Fabro also points out that, according to Aquinas in Quaestiones disputatae De anima, a. 9, esse is that which is most intimate in each thing, and in Quodlibet XII, q. 4, a. 1, Thomas writes that substantial esse is not an accident but is rather the actuality of every form that exists whether without matter or with matter. In light of these and other texts, Fabro also comments that Thomas could not even for an instant have accepted the Avicennian conception of the actus essendi as a ­­quasi-predicamental accident.15 In sum, in this context Fabro is already developing and presenting Thomas’s distinctive understanding of the actus essendi as intensive act and, as Thomas also puts it in ST I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3, as the “most perfect of all” and as the “actuality of all things and also of their forms themselves,” ­­ text from De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9, as “the actualand in an oft-quoted

12. Ibid., 195. Also see 197. 13. Ibid, 195. For Thomas see Leon. ed. 25.1.94: “Alio modo esse dicitur actus entis inquantum est ens, idest quo denominatur aliquid ens actu in rerum natura.” 14. Leon. ed. 4.42: “Secundo, quia esse est actualitas omnis formae vel naturae; non enim bonitas vel humanitas significatur in actu, nisi prout significamus eam esse.” Note the immediately following sentence: “Oportet igitur quod ipsum esse comparetur ad essentiam quae est aliud ab ipso, sicut actus ad potentiam.” 15. Quaestiones disputatae De anima, Leon. ed. 24.1.79: “Dicendum quod inter omnia, esse est illud quod immediatius et intimius convenit rebus”; Quodlibet XII, q. 4, a. 1, Leon. ed. 25.2.404: “Et sic dico quod esse substantiale rei non est accidens, sed actualitas cuiuslibet formae existentis, sive sine materia sive cum materia.” For Fabro see La nozione metafisica, 195.

104  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse ity of all acts” and as the “perfection of all perfections.”16 It should also be noted that in light of such texts Fabro expresses his surprise at Pedro Descoqs’s refusal to recognize that for Thomas the actus essendi is an act in the strict sense that is related to essence as its correlative (and really distinct) potency.17 In La nozione metafisica, Fabro presents five different ways in which he finds Thomas arguing for the real distinction and composition of essence and esse in finite beings. It will be helpful also to recall that before he presents these different types of arguments for this distinction, Fabro points out how closely connected this issue is with what we refer to in English as the problem of the one and the many, or as he puts it, the problem of transcendental participation: How can there be multiplicity, that is, many beings, within the field of esse as such? Or as Fabro also phrases it, what are the conditions that render possible, that is to say, intelligible, a multiplicity of participations and participants in the field of esse?18 Fabro notes that Thomas exercises a certain freedom in presenting argumentation for the real distinction between essence and esse, in that at times he reasons from the fact that finite beings are caused to the need for them to be composed, and on other occasions he reasons from their composition to the fact that they are caused. Fabro finds no reason for concern about this since everything depends upon the point of view from which Thomas raises the question concerning such beings, for instance, whether as a philosopher or as a theologian.19 Hence, Fabro lists as the first of the five different general ways in which 16. For Fabro see La nozione metafisica, 196–97. For Thomas see ST I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3: “ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium: comparatur enim ad omnia ut actus. Nihil enim habet actualitatem, nisi inquantum est: unde ipsum esse est actualitas omnium rerum, et etiam ipsarum formarum” (Leon. ed. 4.50); De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9: “Hoc quod dico esse est inter omnia perfectissimum: quod ex hoc patet quia actus est semper perfectior potentia. . . . Unde patet quod hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionum” (ed. P. M. Pession, Marietti ed. 1965, 192). 17. Here (La nozione metafisica, 196) Fabro refers explicitly to Descoqs’s Praelectiones Theologiae Naturalis, T. II, 534. In his article “Circa la divisione dell’essere in atto e potenza secondo San Tommaso,” Divus Thomas 42 (1939): 529–52, Fabro responded especially to Descoqs, “Sur la division de l’ être en acte et puissance,” Revue de Philosophie 38 (1938): 410–30. In turn, Des­ coqs responded to this study by Fabro in his “La division de l’ être en acte et puissance d’ après Saint Thomas,” Divus Thomas 43 (1940): 463–97. And in response to this Fabro countered in detail with his somewhat polemical Neotomismo e Suarezismo (Piacenza: Editrice Divus Thomas, 1941; Rome: EDIVI, Segni, 2005). 18. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 201. 19. Ibid., 208.

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  105 Thomas argues for the real distinction between essence and the actus essendi an approach in which, especially in his early writings, Thomas is more heavily influenced by Avicenna and derives this distinction from the fact that a creature is caused by God. Fabro lists a number of texts in which he finds Thomas using this approach, including several from his Commentaries on I Sentences and II Sentences. Some of these, however, arrive only at an implicit distinction between essence and esse.20 Other texts, however, are quite explicit, such as In I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 2, where Thomas argues that if there is some quiddity that is not composed of matter and form, that quiddity either is identical with its esse and therefore is God and is completely simple, or it is not identical with its esse. In the latter case its esse will be given to it by something else; and because that which does not have something of itself is “possible” (= potential) with respect to that which it receives, such a quiddity will be possible (potential) with respect to its esse and its esse will be its act. And such, he points out, is true of angels and of the human soul.21 In this text, however, Thomas reasons from the nonidentity of essence and esse in such beings to their caused character, and from their caused character to the presence of potency and act in them. And in fact Fabro also includes this same text under his next general approach, wherein Thomas reasons from the real distinction of essence and esse to the caused character of the same.22 Fabro also cites the well-known ­­ text from Thomas’s De ente et essentia, c. 4 as another example of his reasoning from the fact that created beings are caused by God to the distinction of essence and esse within them. This is surprising since, as will be seen below, in that complicated text, Thomas first establishes the distinction between essence and esse and then moves from this to the caused character of every such being and uses this as the point of departure for an argument for the existence of God. Once again, then, I would not place this argument under Fabro’s first general approach, as he himself does.23 20. See, for instance, In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2, where Thomas writes that if some other essence could be similar and equal to the divine essence, and if that esse derived from the divine essence, the esse of that essence would depend on the divine essence “et sic incideret in illam essentiam potentialitas, per quam distingueretur ab essentia divina, quae est actus purus” (Mandonnet ed. 1.61); d. 3, q. 4, a. 1, where Thomas writes: “omne habens esse ab alio est possibile in se” and cites a ­­pseudo-Avicennian work, De intelligentiis, for this (Mandonnet ed. 1.113). 21. Mandonnet ed. 1.229–30. 22. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 208. 23. Ibid. Fabro also places under the first approach In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1 (Mandonnet

106  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse Fabro cites additional arguments that do indeed move from the caused character of created beings to the real distinction between essence and esse, including In II Sent., d. 3, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4;24 De veritate, q. 8, a. 8;25 Quodlibet IX, q. 4, a. 1 (where Thomas reasons from the uniqueness of the being whose substance is its esse to the composition of essence and actus essendi in angels, and from their consequent caused character to their ­­potency-act composition);26 In De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 4, ad 4;27 SCG II, c. 52, argument 3 (where I do not find this reasoning), argument 4, and argument 5; and ST I, q. 3, a. 7, ad 1.28 Fabro includes under Thomas’s second general way of arguing for the real distinction of essence and esse in created beings texts that move from the real distinction to the caused character of such beings. In these texts, therefore, some other justification must be found for Thomas’s assertion that essence and esse are distinct in such beings. As noted above, Fabro also (correctly) includes here In I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 2.29 As other examples of this way Fabro also cites Quodlibet VII, q. 3, a. 2 (because to be identical with its esse is true of God alone; an angel is not its own esse and therefore receives this from something else and therefore is in potency with respect to it);30 In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1 (for which see my n. 23 above); In II Sent., d. 3, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4 (which Fabro also correctly included under the first general approach); De veritate, q. 2, a. 1;31 SCG III, c. 13;32 SCG III, c. 65, “Item” 2 (no explicit reference there to the ­­essence-esse distinction); SCG I, c. 61 (no reference to the ­­essence-esse distinction); Compendium theologiae, c. 68, “Adhuc” (esse subsistens can only ed. 2.12). But here again Thomas reasons from the real distinction (as established by a version of the intellectus essentiae argument) to the caused character of beings enjoying varying degrees of excellence. 24. Mandonnet ed. 2.115. 25. Leon. ed. 22.2.246. 26. Leon. ed. 25.1.102–103. 27. Leon. ed., 50.156. 28. Leon. ed. 4.47, quoted by Fabro in the body of his text (208), presumably because of its succinctness and clarity: “Est autem hoc de ratione causati, quod sit aliquo modo compositum: quia ad minus esse eius est aliud quam quod quid est.” 29. Mandonnet ed. 1.229. 30. Leon. ed. 25.1.18. 31. Leon. ed. 22.1.39: “si ergo Deus participaret scientiam quasi dispositionem adiunctam, ipse non esset suum esse et ita ab alio esse haberet.” 32. While the application to the distinction between essence and esse is not explicit, Fabro may have thought that it is implied by this remark: “Adhuc. Quidquid inest alicui praeter suam naturam, advenit ei ex aliqua causa” (ed. Leon. manualis [Rome, 1934], 239).

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  107 be one and so the essence of no other being is its esse, and its esse is participated and therefore caused).33 As a third approach to arguing for the real distinction between essence and esse Fabro appeals to the need to ground the truth of judgment, and he gives credit to André Marc for having recalled the importance of this line of argumentation. Fabro cites two major texts from Aquinas from which he draws this argument.34 The first text, in which, as Fabro acknowledges, Thomas does not explicitly apply his reasoning to the real composition of essence and existence (esistenza), is taken from his Commentary on the Metaphysics, Bk IX, lect. 11 (not lect. 9 as in Fabro’s text). There Thomas reasons that the truth or falsity that is present in speech and in thinking must be reduced to a disposition present in the thing itself as to its cause. Thus in a true statement about a composite substance, the composition of form and matter, or of an accident with a subject, must correspond as the foundation and cause of truth to the composition formed within by the intellect in its judgment and expressed in speech.35 Fabro concludes from this text that for Thomas, if I say, “Something is (exists),” the truth of this statement is based on the real composition of essence and of the actus essendi. Fabro finds this confirmed by a second text from Thomas’s Commentary on I Sentences, d. 38, where Thomas writes that since two [features] are present in a thing, the quiddity of a thing and its esse, two operations on the part of the intellect will correspond to these two features, that is, formatio and judgment.36 However, a serious question may be raised about the validity of this way of arguing for the real distinction. If one already knows or grants that essence and esse are really distinct in all beings other than God, then one may indeed assign our recognition of these two features of a given being to the two distinct operations of the intellect, that is, to its grasp of quiddities, on the one hand, and to its judging operation, on the other. But this does not seem to justify our reasoning in the opposite direction from our awareness of these two operations on the part of the intellect to a real distinction within any given entity of what is grasped by each operation.37 33. Leon. ed. 42.103. 34. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 209–10. 35. In IX Met. (Turin: Marietti, 1950), lect. 11, n. 1898. 36. In I Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 3 (Mandonnet ed. 2.903). 37. For a similar reservation about the validity of this approach see Pangallo, L’essere come atto, 34–35.

108  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse As a fourth way of arguing for the real distinction, Fabro develops an argument based on the similarity that obtains between different beings. He finds Thomas reasoning that similarity always presupposes some composition in at least one of the things that are said to be similar. Either two beings are said to be similar with respect to a third formality, and in that case each will be composed of the participated formality in which they agree, and of that by which they are distinguished from one another; or else one of them is said to be similar to the other, but not vice versa, in that the second is the subsisting formality itself and the first approximates it to a certain degree. In this case composition is found only in the first mentioned being but not in the second. Fabro cites from Thomas’s youthful Commentary on I Sentences, d. 48, q. 1, a. 1, where Thomas finds the second kind of similarity obtaining between a creature and God insofar as it participates in goodness or wisdom or something of this type, and then applies this same thinking to the case of esse in his Commentary on II Sentences, d. 16, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3.38 Fabro proposes, as the fifth general approach to establishing the real distinction, argumentation that derives this conclusion from the notion of static participation itself. Before presenting a series of texts from Aquinas to illustrate this approach, however, Fabro comments that as one progresses through Thomas’s texts on this issue one finds a process of ever greater simplification. In his first writings Thomas’s arguments depend especially on Avicenna, whereas in his mature discussions one argument based on participation becomes ever more dominant. Fabro describes this as evolution of Thomas’s thought not in the essential order, but rather in the modal order, that is, in the way or manner in which he presents arguments for this doctrine. And this is owing to Thomas’s deepening appreciation of Neoplatonism on this point, based on his study especially of Proclus’s Elementatio theologica and of the Liber de causis.39 But before turning to Thomas’s arguments based on participation, in order to bring out this modal development of his argumentation on this issue, Fabro turns to an 38. See Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 210. For the first text see Mandonnet ed. 1.1080. For the second see Mandonnet ed. 2.398. Regarding the second kind of agreement (similarity) between things, Thomas writes in the latter text: “et talis convenientia esse potest creaturae ad Deum, quia Deus dicitur ens hoc modo quod est ipsum suum esse; creatura vero non est ipsum suum esse, sed dicitur ens, quasi esse participans.” 39. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 211.

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  109 early text, the ­­much-discussed c. 4 of Thomas’s De ente et essentia, and then to his mature SCG II, c. 52. In presenting the argumentation from the De ente, c. 4, Fabro rightly quotes Thomas’s remark that, even though separate substances are not composed of matter and form, they are not perfectly simple so as to be pure act, but have some admixture of potency. Thomas’s remark is important because it indicates that his argumentation will not be complete until he has established some act-potency ­­ composition in such entities. Fabro then finds Thomas presenting three arguments for the real distinction, the first of which, Fabro states, is logical in nature, and the second and third of which are metaphysical.40 Fabro introduces what he calls the logical argument by quoting Thomas’s text. Whatever is not included in the intelligible content (non est de intellectu) of an essence or quiddity comes to it from without and enters into composition with it. In support of this major, Thomas reasons that no essence can be understood without those factors that are parts of that essence. But, he continues, every essence or quiddity can be understood without anything being understood about its esse. In proof of this minor he reasons that I can understand what a man is or what a phoenix is, and nonetheless not know whether it exists (an esse habeat) in reality. Therefore, he concludes, it is evident that esse is other than essence or quiddity.41 The validity of this way of arguing for the real distinction has often ­­ critics of this distinction been challenged, not only by thirteenth-century such as Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines, but also by modern and contemporary scholars, including many who do defend the presence of this theory in Thomas’s texts (unlike those whom Fabro terms “Suarezians” of the twentieth century such as Chossat, Descoqs, and, I would add, Francis Cunningham).42 Here I will restrict myself to what I regard as two major weaknesses in the argument. First, somewhat like the fourth approach, it seems to move too quickly from a distinction between two operations on the part of the intellect, a knowledge of indivisibles or what 40. Ibid. For Thomas’s text see Leon. ed. 43.376: “Huiusmodi ergo substantiae, quamvis sint formae tantum sine materia, non tamen in eis est omnimoda simplicitas nec sunt actus purus, sed habent admixtionem potentiae.” 41. Ibid. 42. For references to studies by Chossat and Cunningham see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 136 n. 11; for references to Fabro’s dispute with Descoqs see above, n. 17.

110  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse something is, on the one hand, and a knowledge that a given thing exists, on the other hand, to two ontologically distinct principles within any such being. The second difficulty, which was first suggested to me by some comments by Fernand Van Steenberghen, points to a seeming shift in the meaning of the term esse as it appears in Thomas’s presentation of the argument. The major is proved by an appeal to the fact that a quiddity can be understood without anything being understood about its esse in reality, as when I think of a human being or a phoenix without knowing whether it exists in reality. Here esse expresses the fact that something exists. But in the conclusion, if the argument has succeeded, esse must be taken as signifying the intrinsic actus essendi. This shift in the meaning of esse seems to render the argument invalid. For these two reasons, therefore, I think it is a mistake to present this as an independent argument that can stand on its own merits when taken out of its context. Hence, unlike Fabro, I prefer to regard this as only the first stage in one complicated argument that runs through three stages, and ends by concluding not merely to a distinction of essence and esse in all beings with one possible exception, but also to their composition as potency and act.43 Interestingly enough, Fabro himself protests against those who would take the logical argument out of its context and present it as standing on its own without paying attention to its metaphysical foundation.44 43. For my own detailed discussion of this argument along with references to other contemporary discussions of it see my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), 107–32; and The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 137–50. For Van Steenberghen see his Le problème de l’ existence de Dieu dans les écrits de s. Thomas d’Aquin (­­Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l’ Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1980), 37–41. 44. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 212–13. Fabro comments that this argument is very rare in Aquinas’s texts, and cites as a parallel In II Sent., d. 3, q. 1, a. 1 (see Mandonnet ed. 2.87). He then adds references to ST I, q. 3, a. 5; SCG I, c. 22; and Compendium theologiae, c. 11. Fabro refers to what he views as another form of this argument, which can be called “­­logical-metaphysical” and which, he says, like the first one, is Avicennian in origin. Here he has in mind arguments wherein Thomas maintains that what is present in a genus has a quiddity that differs from its esse. Without discussing these texts, Fabro cites In I Sent., d. 8, q. 4, a. 2; d. 26, q. 4, a. 2; De veritate, q. 21, a. 1, ad 8; In II Sent., d. 26, q. 1, a. 4; SCG I, c. 25; ST I, q. 3, a. 5; Compendium theologiae, c. 14. While I prefer to treat these arguments as different from the De ente argumentation, since Fabro does not discuss them here, I will pass over them. On the De ente text also see Cornelio Fabro, “Un itinéraire de Saint Thomas. L’Établissement de la distinction réelle entre essence et existence,” in his Esegesi Tomistica (Rome: Libreria Editrice della Pontificia Università

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  111 Thomas ends his presentation of what Fabro calls the “logical” argument with an important remark: “Therefore it is evident that esse is other than essence or quiddity unless, perhaps, there is some thing whose quiddity is its esse itself.”45 And such a thing, whose quiddity is its esse, comments Thomas, can only be one and first; he thereby introduces what Fabro regards as the first metaphysical argument, and what I regard as the second stage in Thomas’s general argument. Fabro must be given credit for correctly understanding the meaning and the importance of this argument or stage because it elaborates in systematic fashion the different ways in which something can be multiplied. Thomas reasons that a thing of this kind (whose essence is its esse [= actus essendi]), if it exists, which he does not here assume, can be multiplied in one of three ways: (1) by the addition of a difference in the way a generic nature is multiplied in species, or (2) by the reception of a form in different instances of matter, as a specific nature is multiplied in individuals, or (3) by reason of the fact that in one instance it is realized without any qualifications (is absolutum) and in all other cases it is received in something else, that is, in a subject. Thomas then argues that if there is such a thing which is its own esse and subsisting esse, it cannot be multiplied in the first way (for it would then not be esse alone but esse plus some form), nor in the second way (for then it would not be pure esse but esse materiale). He implicitly accepts the third approach and concludes that it is necessary that in every other thing, apart from that one possible exception of subsisting esse, a thing’s esse and its quiddity or nature or form differ. Therefore in other intelligences likewise there must be a distinction between their form (essence) and their esse. Fabro also notes that in the later Compendium theologiae, c. 15, Thomas simplifies this process by reducing the possible ways of multiplying something to two, one whereby a form is multiplied by differences, and a second whereby it is multiplied by being received in different subjects. Thereby, as Fabro indicates, Thomas has rendered his argument more rigorous metaphysically.46 Thomas introduces what I regard as the third stage of his argumentation in the De ente by using the conclusion of the second stage as the startLateranense, 1969), 94–99, and most recently, a helpful study by Gaven Kerr, Aquinas’s Way to God: The Proof in “De Ente et Essentia” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), especially 1–35. 45. Leon. ed. 43.376. 46. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 213. For Thomas see Leon. ed. 42.87.

112  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse ing point for a brief metaphysical argument for the existence of God. Anything in which its esse (act of existing) is different from its nature (essence) receives its esse from something else (and is caused). Therefore because that which exists by reason of something else must ultimately be traced back to that which exists of itself and is its first cause, one must grant the existence of a first cause which is the causa essendi of all other things by reason of the fact that it is esse tantum.47 Curiously, Fabro omits this entire section from his presentation of Thomas’s argumentation and turns to the immediately following text to introduce what he calls the second metaphysical argument. There Thomas reasons that what receives something from something else is in potency with respect to it, and what is received is present in it as its act. Therefore that quiddity or form (essence) which is an intelligence is in potency to the esse it receives from God, and this esse (= its actus essendi) is received in it as its act. And thus potency and act are present in intelligences other than God, although not form and matter. At this point Thomas brings to its end this long and complicated argument for the real distinction and composition of essence and esse as potency and act in all beings other than God.48 I have pointed out elsewhere that this third stage of the argument would succeed in establishing the potency-act ­­ composition even if Thomas had not introduced into it his proof for the existence of God.49 I would suggest that Fabro also was aware of this, and that this may be why he omitted the argument for God’s existence from his presentation. As was noted above, Fabro selected the argumentation from the De ente, c. 4, and arguments taken from SCG II, c. 52, in order to bring out a certain modal development in Thomas’s presentation of his arguments for the real distinction. As regards SCG II, c. 52 in comparison with De ente, c. 4, Fabro notes the presence of the Boethian formula in its title (“Quod in substantiis intellectualibus creatis differt esse et quod est”) and the absence of the logical argument as well as of any reference to Avicenna in its text. 47. Leon. ed. 43.377:127–146. 48. Ibid., 147–54. See my n. 40 above for Thomas’s earlier remark. For Fabro see La nozione metafisica, 213–14. Note that on p. 214 Fabro comments that in De veritate, q. 8, a. 8 (Leon. ed. 22.2.246:121–126), Thomas explicitly attributes this second “metaphysical” argument (or my third stage) to Avicenna. But there Thomas finds Avicenna reasoning from the fact that things have their esse from something else to the distinction in them of esse and essence, whereas in the De ente Thomas reasons from the distinction of essence and esse to their caused character. He does, however, reason from their caused character to their ­­act-potency composition. 49. See my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 150.

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  113 Fabro comments that c. 52 includes seven arguments, and that these can be divided into three main categories. The first category includes three arguments which develop the second argument (or second stage, on my reading) of De ente, c. 4 in a more personal way, as Fabro describes them. All three of these arguments are based on the impossibility of multiplying ­­self-subsisting esse, just as was the second argument (or the second stage of the argument) in De ente, c. 4. The seventh argument (which appears to be Fabro’s third category) is explicitly formulated in terms of the notion of participation, and this constitutes something new when compared with the De ente and with works from Thomas’s first teaching period at Paris. Fabro evidently includes the remaining three arguments in a distinct and second category, although he does not explicitly say this but lists them under paragraph “B.” He finds them reasoning in some way from the caused character of such beings to the ­­essence-esse distinction within them, or in the third argument from the uniqueness of God as the First Agent to his uniqueness in being identical with his esse.50 Fabro defers consideration of the seventh argument in SCG II, c. 52 for the following section in his book which he titles: “La partecipazione come ultima ragione metafisica nella posizione tomista circa la composizione reale di essenza e atto di essere.”51 There he has gathered together an excellent collection of “vague texts” and then of “explicit texts,” which he introduces by stating his underlying premise: Just as predicamental participation requires a real composition of distinct elements in concrete participants, whether of matter and form or of substance and accident, in like fashion in the line of esse each concrete existent must be composed of its substance and of an actus essendi, provided that it is granted that the actus essendi has the true nature of an act. And in support Fabro quotes from Quodlibet II, q. 2, a. 1: “When something is predicated of another by participation, it is necessary that something be there in addition to that which is participated.” The qualification Fabro introduces here (“qualora si conceda che l’atto di essere ha vera ragione di atto”) is very important. At the same time this need not be taken as implying that Thomas’s arguments for the real distinction and composition of essence and esse beg the question by assuming what needs to be proved, that is, the presence of a 50. Ed. Leon. manualis, 145–46. 51. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 215.

114  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse really distinct actus essendi in every finite or caused or participated entity.52 While space will not permit me to analyze the many texts Fabro has collected to illustrate this fifth kind of argumentation, I will mention one from the very late De substantiis separatis, c. 8. There Thomas is refuting certain arguments that had been offered in support of ­­matter-form composition of separate substances (angels). In responding to the fourth argument, he counters that if spiritual substances lack matter, this does not mean that they cannot be distinguished (from God); for some potency remains in them insofar as they are not ipsum esse but only participate in it. He then argues again for the point that there can be only one being that is identical with its esse and concludes that, in contrast, since every thing that exists must possess esse, in every thing apart from the first being, esse is present as an act and the substance of the thing that has esse is a potency which receives esse as its act. Fabro comments that in this argument participation is introduced to serve as the ratio propter quid for the composition of essence and the actus essendi of any creature.53 Fabro concludes his presentation of these numerous texts by offering a synthetic version of Aquinas’s argumentation for this real distinction and composition as based on participation, and I will conclude this discussion by presenting it: Major: Every creature is said (to be) a being by participation. Minor: But every thing which is by participation must be divided into 52. Ibid. For Thomas see Leon. ed. 25.2.214: “Quandocumque autem aliquid praedicatur de altero per participationem, oportet ibi aliquid esse praeter id quod participatur.” Though not quoted here by Fabro but fully cited on p. 230 as text 24, the text continues: “et ideo in qualibet creatura est aliud ipsa creatura quae habet esse, et ipsum esse eius.” For the charge that Thomas’s various arguments for this claim are all guilty of begging the question in this way see the ­­well-documented study by David Twetten, “Really Distinguishing Essence from Esse,” in Wisdom’s Apprentice: Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, O.P., ed. Peter A. Kwasniewski (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 40–84. Limitations of space will not let me comment at length on Twetten’s charge nor, for that matter, on the positive proof he himself presents at the end of his article. I would only say here that for Thomas or Fabro to hold that some factor must be present in an actually existing entity that is not present in one that exists only possibly or potentially is not for them to assume that such a factor or act must itself be really distinct from such a thing’s essence. That they are really distinct and composed is what Thomas’s various arguments are intended to prove. One may also see Kerr, Aquinas’s Way, 30–34, for another response to Twetten. 53. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 233. For Thomas see Leon. ed. 40, D 55:164–87. For 1271 or later as the date for the De substantiis separatis see the “Brief Catalogue” in ­­Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Vol. 1: The Person and His Work, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 350, 435.

Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse  115 a participant and that which is participated so that every thing that participates is composed of a participant and that which is participated as of potency and act. Therefore: Every creature is [really] composed of act and potency in the line of being as of that which is participated and that which participates. What participates is called “essence” or “suppositum,” and what is participated is ipsum esse seu actus essendi.54 In support of the major Fabro argues that every created substance in itself is finite, either in its own order, or at least in relationship to esse itself. This, he points out, follows from the fact that it is of a given kind or type of being and hence does not capture the total fullness of being itself. This is true even of created spiritual substances.55 I would add that this is brought out very well by another text Fabro had cited earlier in his collection of explicit texts dealing with the essence-esse ­­ distinction and participation, that is, In De Hebdomadibus, lect. 2. There Thomas has arrived at the point in his Commentary where he finds Boethius moving from a difference of esse and quod est that applies only to the order of intentions to their real distinction in composite beings. As regards simple beings Thomas distinguishes between that one being which is perfectly simple, and in which its esse and quod est are identical, and others which, while lacking ­­matter-form composition and therefore not existing in matter, are nonetheless composite in another way. This is because every such form, even a Platonic form if one should grant their existence for the sake of discussion, and certainly Aristotle’s higher separate substances, cannot be identified with ipsum esse itself. Each one of them is of this or that kind and thus determines esse to its own kind or species of being and therefore only has esse, but is not identical with it. And because any such being is determined 54. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 235. For the same argument see Pangallo, L’ essere come atto, 38. There he also refers to Fabro’s Introduzione a San Tommaso, La metafisica tomista e il pensiero moderno (Milan: Ares, 1983). See there, in particular, 112–13. There Fabro comments that Aquinas was originally directly dependent on the “extrinsicist” metaphysics of Avicenna, but that in his mature works he appealed to the notion of the primacy of act by means of the notion of participation in two steps: (1) a pure and separate perfection can only be one, and esse is the first perfection and the act of all acts; therefore subsisting esse can only be one; (2) creatures are beings by participation insofar as their essences participate in esse, and so essence is potency with respect to esse, the first and ultimate act of each reality. See Fabro 267–80 for another helpful collection of Thomistic texts dealing with this. 55. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 235.

116  Cornelio Fabro on Essence and Esse with respect to its species, Thomas continues, it is not esse commune but participates in it. Hence any such being is not truly or perfectly simple. This text is very significant, not only because it supports the major premise in Fabro’s argument, but because it explicitly indicates that in this context Aquinas is speaking about participating in esse commune, that is, the actus essendi viewed universally. He is not here speaking of participating in esse subsistens, as he does often enough in other contexts.56 In support of the minor of his argument Fabro recalls the parallel he had earlier drawn between the real composition involved in predicamental participation, whether of a subject in an accident or of matter in form, on the one hand, and in the transcendental order, on the other hand, the real composition and distinction involved in the participation of essence in the act of esse. Therefore, he concludes that every creature must be composed of essence (that which participates) and of a really distinct actus essendi (in which it participates).57 In light of Fabro’s important contribution to our understanding of Aquinas’s views on participation, it is only fitting that he would conclude his presentation of Thomas’s different ways of arguing for a real distinction and composition of essence and an act of existing in all finite beings by offering a synthetic argument based on the participated character of such beings. And while other students of Aquinas’s metaphysics might classify his arguments for this distinction and composition in somewhat different ways,58 Fabro is surely correct in drawing out the close connection between Thomas’s metaphysics of participation, especially at the transcendental level, his understanding of esse as an intrinsic act of existing, and his defense of a real distinction and composition of essence and esse in every finite being. 56. See Leon. ed. 50.72–73, especially lines 230–251. On this text see Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 36–37, 220–21; also his Neotomismo e Suarezismo, 54–55. In my view this distinction between participating in esse commune and in esse subsistens is very important within Aquinas’s theory of transcendental participation, and is something that Fabro did not bring out quite as explicitly as one might have wished in his truly groundbreaking works on participation. For more on this distinction see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 110–23. 57. Fabro, La nozione metafisica, 235. 58. See, for instance, my own classification in my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 137 and following, and my debt in working this out to Leo Sweeney, “Essence/Existence in Thomas Aquinas’s Early Writings,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 37 (1963): 97–131.

Cornelio Fabro on Participation Cornelio Fabro on Participation

IV 

S Cornelio Fabro on Participation and Aquinas’s Quarta Via

Thomas Aquinas’s fourth argument for the existence of God, as set forth in question 2, article 3 of the Prima pars of his Summa theologiae, has long been subject to disputed interpretations. In my translation of it I have divided it into the two stages that may be readily distinguished within it: Stage I: The Fourth way is taken from degrees that are found among things. For among things something more or less good, and true, and excellent (nobile) is found, and so too of other things of this kind. But the more and less are said of diverse things insofar as they approach in diverse fashion something which is (such)1 to the maximum degree; thus that is hotter which more approaches that which is maximally hot. Therefore there is something that is truest and best and most excellent and consequently being (ens) to the maximum degree; for those things that are true to the maximum degree are beings to the maximum degree, as is said in Metaphysics II. Stage II: What is said to be maximally such in a given genus is the cause of all the things present in that genus, as fire which is maximally hot is the cause of all hot things as is said in the same book. Therefore there is something that is the cause of esse and of goodness and of every perfection in all things, and this we call God.2 1. See Opera Omnia, Editio leonina, vol. 4, 32. “Quarta via sumitur ex gradibus qui in rebus inveniuntur. Invenitur enim in rebus aliquid magis et minus bonum, et verum, et nobile: et sic de aliis huiusmodi. Sed magis et minus dicuntur de diversis secundum quod appropinquant diversimodi ad aliquid quod maxime est (tale): sicut magis calidum est, quod magis appropinquat maxime calido. Est igitur aliquid quod est verissimum, et optimum, et nobilissimum, et per consequens maxime ens: nam quae sunt maxime vera, sunt maxime entia, ut dicitur II Metaphy.” With Fernand Van Steenberghen I have inserted here the English “such” and the Latin tale as seems to be implied by the text and which does actually appear in the first sentence of Stage Two of the Latin text. See his Le problème de l’ existence de Dieu dans les écrits de S. Tho­ mas d’Aquin (­­Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l’ Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1980), 213. For Aristotle see his Met. II, 1, 93b 30. 2. Leon. ed. 4, 32: “Quod autem dicitur maxime tale in aliquo genere, est causa omnium

117

118  Cornelio Fabro on Participation Various questions might be raised about both stages of this argument, although the most crucial concern Stage One. For instance, one might inquire about the meaning of the term nobile (which I have translated as “excellent”): To what does it refer? Perhaps to a distinct transcendental? Rather than choose this answer I would propose that it simply refers to the ontological perfection of any given being including, of course, true, good, and being itself. And one might further ask whether the degrees which Thomas explicitly mentions might be applied to all the transcendentals and, if so, whether they may be extended beyond the classical transcendental properties of being to apply to other pure perfections. While I would hesitate to apply this to the transcendentals res and aliquid, perhaps this is can be done with certain pure perfections, but such is not required for the argument’s validity. As will be seen below, on at least one occasion Thomas does this with respect to beauty which, I would maintain, for him is indeed transcendental although not clearly a distinct transcendental. Much more crucially as regards the validity of the argument, one might ask whether the all-important ­­ principle in Stage One is valid: Is it really the case that when we find varying degrees of the perfections explicitly singled out by Thomas here—good, true, and excellent—that we are then justified in concluding to the existence of a maximum in each case? This does not seem to be true of all properties and characteristics of things which we recognize as being realized in different degrees. To turn to the example mentioned by Thomas, is it really true that in order to discern different degrees of heat one must postulate the existence of a maximum degree of heat? Cannot one quickly tell by touching something or measuring it with a thermometer that it is hotter than something else which one can also test in the same way? Why must one conclude to the actual existence of a maximum degree of heat? And so with respect to Thomas’s argument, why must one grant the existence of an absolute maximum instance of truth and of goodness and of excellence in order to account for the varying degrees of these as one finds them realized in the different beings we experience? With such questions in mind I think it better to restrict the argument to the transcendental properties of being mentioned by Thomas himself, quae sunt illius generis: sicut ignis, qui est maxime calidus, est causa omnium calidorum, ut in eodem libro dicitur. Ergo est aliquid quod omnibus entibus est causa esse, et bonitatis, et cuiuslibet perfectionis: et hoc dicimus Deum.” For Aristotle see Met. II, 1, 993b 25.

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  119 including being itself, and to seek to determine whether this principle really applies to any of them. If so, the validity of Stage One can be defended. One way of exploring this has been pursued by Cornelio Fabro in two of his studies on the Fourth Way, which first appeared in 1954 and 1965, as well as by other scholars.3 In the first of these articles he begins by indicating that in the exegetical part of his study he wants to clarify the literal meaning of Thomas’s text in terms of its immediate foundation, its context, its principles, and its presuppositions.4 Fabro begins with one of Aquinas’s earliest discussions of this kind of argumentation in his Commentary on Bk I of the Sentences of Peter the Lombard (dist. 3, division of first part of the text). There, by applying ­­Pseudo-Dionysius’s three ways of arriving at knowledge of God (by causality, negation [remotio], and eminence) to the more ­­Augustinian-inspired text of the Lombard himself, Thomas offers four arguments for the unity of God which are in fact arguments for his existence. The first of these arguments is the way based on causality and is stated very briefly: “Every thing that has existence (esse) from nothing (ex nihilo) must derive from something from which its existence flowed. But all creatures have existence from nothing. This is clear from their imperfection and potentiality. Therefore they must derive from something one and first, and this is God.”5 Thomas has already indicated that this argument is based on the causality of what is received, that is to say, existence (esse) 3. For Fabro see his “Sviluppo, significato e valore della ‘Quarta via,” Doctor communis 7 (1954): 79–109, reprinted in his Esegesi tomistica (Rome: Libreria editrice della Pontifica Università Lateranense, 1969), 351–85; “Il fondamento metafisico della ‘IV via’,” Doctor communis 18 (1965): 49–70, repr. In Esegesi tomistica, 387–406. For a helpful study of some of the ­­twentieth-century literature on the Fourth Way, see Marion Wagner, Die Philiosophischen Implikate der ‘Quarta Via’. Eine Untersuchung zum vierten Gottesbeweis bei Thomas von Aquin (S. Th.I 2,3c), (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989). Surprisingly, although he includes Fabro’s articles in his bibliography, he makes almost no acknowledged use of them in his book. Ángel Luis González cites many of the texts singled out by Fabro along with some others in his Ser y participación. Estudio sobre la cuarta vía de Tomás de Aquino, 3rd ed. (Navarre: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 2001), 30–83. And finally, last but not least, for a very interesting, more philosophical defense of Aquinas’s Fourth Way, see Patrick Masterson, The Sense of Creation: Experience and the God Beyond (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), ch. 7. 4. See his “Sviluppo, significato,” 351. 5. Mandonnet edition, Vol. 1, 88: “Prima ergo ratio sumitur per viam causalitatis, et formatur sic. Omne quod habet esse ex nihilo, oportet quod sit ab aliquo a quo esse suum fluxerit. Sed omnes creaturae habent esse ex nihilo: quod manifestatur ex earum imperfectione et potentialitate. Ergo oportet quod sint ab aliquo uno primo, et haec est Deus.” In his Le problème, 14, Van Steenberghen prefers to take ex nihilo in a temporal sense as meaning “after nothing.”

120  Cornelio Fabro on Participation itself. Presumably the kind of causality at issue in it is efficient, although Thomas does not state this explicitly here. Of greater interest to the theme of this paper on the Quarta via, however, are the next three arguments. Thomas has indicated that the first of these is based on the mode in which something is received imperfectly and involves the removal (negation) of all imperfection from God. As Thomas formulates it here: “Beyond all that is imperfect there must be something perfect without any admixture of imperfection. But a body is something imperfect because it has termini and is limited by its dimensions and is mobile. Therefore beyond bodies there must be something that is not a body.” Unfortunately, Thomas offers no justification here for this claim. His argument continues: “Likewise, every incorporeal mutable thing of its nature is imperfect. Therefore beyond all changeable species such as souls and angels there must be some incorporeal and immobile and completely perfect being, and this is God.”6 Once again, this claim is not justified. The third and fourth arguments are, Thomas writes, based on the way or method of eminence (transcendence). The third is based on eminence in the order of existence and reads: “The good and the better are said in comparison to the best. But among substances we find that a body is good and a created spirit is better in which, however, goodness does not come from itself. Therefore there must be some best from which goodness is present in both.”7 Once again, the operative principle (that recognizing a good and a better entails the existence of the best) remains without being justified. The fourth argument has a similar weakness. It reads:

6. Ibid., 88–89: “Secunda ratio sumitur per viam remotionis, et est talis. Ultra omne imperfectum esse aliquod perfectum, cui nulla imperfectio admisceatur. Sed corpus est quid imperfectum, quia est terminatum et finitum suis dimensionibus et mobile. Ergo oportet ultra corpora esse aliquid quod non est corpus. Item, omne incorporeum mutabile de sui natura est imperfectum. Ergo ultra omnes species mutabiles, sicut sunt animae et angeli, oportet esse aliquod ens incorporeum et immobile et omnino perfectum, et hoc est Deus.” For fuller discussion of this argument and the two that follow see Van Steenberghen, Le problème, 14–17. 7. Ibid. 89: “Aliae duae rationes sumuntur per viam eminentiae. Sed potest dupliciter attenditur eminentia, vel quantum ad esse vel quantum ad cognitionem. Tertia ergo sumitur ratio per viam eminentiae in esse, et est talis. Bonum et melius dicuntur per comparationem ad optimum. Sed in substantiis invenimus corpus bonum et spiritum creatum melius, in quo tamen bonitas non est a seipso. Ergo oportet esse aliquod optimum a quo sit bonitas in utroque.”

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  121 The fourth argument is taken from eminence in knowing and is such. In whatever things we find a more and a less beautiful, we can find some principle of beauty in proximity to which one is said to be more beautiful than another. But we find that bodies are beautiful with sensible beauty, but that spirits are more beautiful with an intelligible beauty. Therefore there must be something from which both of these are beautiful, to which created spirits more closely approach.8

Fabro comments that the three last arguments follow a procedure that is almost identical in each, and notes the influence of Augustinian speculation on them that is both direct and indirect (see Anselm, for instance). He also observes that the underlying theme found in the later Quarta via of ST I, q. 2, a. 3 dominates this kind of demonstration from “top to bottom.”9 Fabro then turns to another series of arguments from distinction 35 of Thomas’s Commentary on I Sentences, where Thomas is attempting to prove that knowledge is present in God, and where he develops three arguments based on the threefold Dionysian ways. As Fabro points out, this time Thomas changes the order so as to begin with the way of negation, followed by the way of causality and finally the way of eminence. Interestingly, under the second of these—the way of causality—Thomas presents an argument based on final causality which anticipates what will eventually become the fifth of his “Five Ways.” But of greater interest to our present task is his version of the way of eminence: The third way, which is by means of eminence, is this. What is found in many things more and more greatly as they approach something must be present in that thing maximally. Thus heat is [maximally] present in fire, which mixed bodies approach more insofar as they are hotter. But it is found that insofar as certain things more approach the First, they participate more excellently (nobilius) in knowledge: thus human beings do so more than brute animals, and angels more so than human beings. Therefore, the most excellent knowledge must be present in God.10 8. Ibid.: “Quarta via sumitur per eminentiam in cognitione, et est talis. In quibuscumque est invenire magis et minus speciosum, est invenire aliquod speciositatis principium, per cuius propinquitatem aliud alio dicitur speciosius. Sed invenimus corpora esse speciosa sensibili specie, spiritus autem speciosiores specie intelligibili. Ergo oportet esse aliquid a quo utraque speciosa sint, cui spiritus creati magis appropinquant.” 9. “Sviluppo,” 353: “in conclusione quindi la tematica della IV via della Somma Teologica domina da cima a fondo questa dimostrazione.” 10. See Mandonnet edition, dist. 35, q. 1, a. 1, 810: “Tertia via, quae est per eminentiam, est

122  Cornelio Fabro on Participation This is an interesting version of the argument based on degrees of perfection, but, once again, it leaves unjustified its major working principle, according to which varying degrees of a given perfection entail the existence of a maximum of that perfection. Like the Quarta via of ST I, q. 2, a. 3, it cites the Aristotelian example of heat as a helpful analogy to enable one to understand this same procedure. But rather than prove the existence of God, it takes this as granted and reasons to the presence of the most excellent knowledge in him. Fabro then briefly considers the argument presented in Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 13, after noting that there Aquinas presents two very lengthy arguments for God’s existence based on motion and taken from Aristotle’s Physics, followed by very brief versions of three other arguments that offer sketches of what will be the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Ways of ST I, q. 2, a. 3. Fabro notes the increased interest on Thomas’s part in Aristotle, not only in the two arguments based on motion but also in the argument based on degrees of perfection. This argument reads: Another argument can be drawn from the words of Aristotle. For in Bk II of the Metaphysics he shows that those things that are maximally true are also maximally beings. But in Bk IV of the Metaphysics he shows that there is something maximally true from the fact that we see that of two things one is more false than another. Therefore the other must be truer than the first. But this is in accord with its approximation to that which is absolutely and maximally true. From this it can be concluded further that there is something that is maximally being. And this we call God.11 haec. Quod enim invenitur in pluribus magis et magis secundum quod plures alicui appropinquant, oportet ut in illo maxime inveniatur: sicut calor in igne, ad quem quanto corpora mixta magis accedunt, calidiora sunt. Invenitur autem quod quanto aliquid magis accedunt ad pri­ mum, nobilius cognitionem participant; sicut homines plus quam bruta et angeli magis homines; unde oportet quod in Deo nobilissima cognitio inveniatur.” See Fabro, “Sviluppo,” 353–54. There seems to be a typing mistake or a slip of the pen on p. 353, 4th line from the bottom of the text, where Fabro speaks of the “via remotionis” but clearly means the “via eminentiae.” 11. See Fabro, “Sviluppo,” 354–55; and for Thomas, Editio Leonina manualis (Rome, 1934), 14: “Potest etiam alia via colligi ex verbis Aristotelis. In II enim Metaphys. [II, c. 1 (993b 26–31)] ostendit quod ea quae sunt maxime vera, sunt et maxime entia. In IV autem Metaphys.[IV, c. 4 (1008b 31–1009a 2)] ostendit esse aliquid maxime verum, ex hoc quod videmus duorum falsorum unum altero esse magis falsum, unde oportet ut alterum sit etiam altero verius; hoc autem est secundum approximationem ad id quod est simpliciter et maxime verum. Ex quibus concludi potest ulterius esse aliquid quod est maxime ens. Et hoc dicimus Deum.” Fabro suggests that Thomas’s effort to build his argumentation so heavily on Aristotle is a little excessive in this chapter, as illustrated also in his effort here to base the argument from eminence on two texts

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  123 Fabro comments that the text offered in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 will mark notable progress in comparison with this version because of its clear distinction between its two stages, although he does not mention another serious problem in this argument. It seems to move from the degrees of truth in mathematical propositions expressed by Aristotle’s text to degrees of perfection in the ontological order; for Aristotle writes there that it is falser to say that 4 is 1000 than to say that 4 is 5. But, of greater concern to us, this version, like the earlier versions of this argument, also fails to justify the transition from degrees in ontological perfection to the existence of something that is maximally a being.12 As another “turn of the wheel” Fabro next considers three arguments offered by Thomas in De potentia, q. 3, a. 5, dating probably from 1265 and thus to a text that is only slightly chronologically prior to the Quarta via in ST I, q. 2, a. 3, ca. 1266. Thomas attributes the first of these arguments to Plato, the second to Aristotle, and the third to Avicenna. The three arguments are in fact developed by Thomas in answer to the question whether something could exist that is not created by God.13 Fabro maintains that all three are in fact arguments for the existence of God. The first, attributed by Thomas as seeming to be that of the Platonists, reads as follows: And this can be demonstrated by three arguments, of which the first is this. If something that is one is found generally in many different things, it must be caused in them by one single cause; for it cannot be that the common characteristic belongs to each of them of itself since each one of them, in terms of what it itself is, is distinguished from the others, and diversity of causes produces diverse effects. Therefore, since esse is found to be common to all things which, according to what they are, are distinct from one another, it is necessary that it be given to them not of themselves, but by some cause, And this seems to be Plato’s argument, who held that before every many there must be some unity, not only in the case of numbers but in the natures of things.14 from Aristotle. He also gives a cross reference to his discussion of the first text in his La nozione metafisica di partecipazione, 2d ed., 65ff. 12. “Sviluppo,” 355. 13. “Quinto quaeritur utrum possit esse aliquid quod non sit a Deo creatum.” Quaestiones disputatae De potentia Dei (Marietti ed., 1965), 48. 14. Ibid., 49, cited by Fabro,”Sviluppo,” 355–56: “Et hoc triplici ratione demonstrari potest: quarum prima est haec. Oportet enim, si aliquid unum communiter in pluribus invenitur, quod ab aliqua una causa in illis causetur; non enim potest esse quod illud commune utrique ex se

124  Cornelio Fabro on Participation Fabro notes the uncertainty in Thomas’s attribution of this argument to Plato, and as noted above, views it as an argument for the existence of God, a point with which one can agree.15 But I would also add that this argument seems to be based on efficient causality, and hence one wonders whether it can really be regarded as equivalent to, or a viable substitute for, the Quarta via. Fabro then presents the Latin text for the second argument, which he entitles the “Dialectic of the more or less” and which reads: The second argument is because, when something is found to be participated by many things in diverse fashion, it is necessary that from that in which it is found most perfectly, it be given to all of those in which it is found imperfectly. For those things that are said positively according to the more and less have this from their more remote or more proximate approximation to something one; for if this should pertain to each of them of themselves, there would be no reason why it would be found more perfectly in one than in another. Thus we see that fire, which is at the peak of heat, is the principle of heat in all hot things. But it is necessary to posit one being which is the most perfect and the truest being (ens), which is proved from this, because there is some completely immobile and most perfect mover, as was proved by the philosophers. Therefore it is necessary that all less perfect things receive existence from it. And this is the Philosopher’s proof.16

The concluding remark, of course, refers to Aristotle. But, rather than prove the existence of God, this argument seems to assume that God’s exipso conveniat, cum utrumque, secundum quod ipsum est, ab altero distinguatur; et diversitas causarum diversos effectus producit. Cum ergo esse invenitur omnibus rebus commune, quae secundum illud quod sunt, ad invicem distinctae sunt, oportet quod de necessitate eis non ex se ipsis, sed ab aliqua una causa esse attribuitur. Et ista videtur ratio Platonis, qui voluit, quod ante omnem multitudinem esset aliqua unitas non solum in numeris, sed etiam in rerum naturis.” 15. See Van Steenberghen, Le problème, 139; Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 479. 16. De potentia, 49: “Secunda ratio est, quia, cum aliquid invenitur a pluribus diversimode participatum oportet quod ab eo in quo perfectissime invenitur, attribuatur omnibus illis in quibus imperfectius invenitur. Nam ea quae positive secundum magis et minus dicuntur, hoc habent ex accessu remotiori vel propinquiori ad aliquid unum: si enim unicuique eorum ex se ipso illud conveniret, non esset ratio cur perfectius in uno quam in alio inveniretur; sicut videmus quod ignis, qui est in fine caliditatis, est caloris principium in omnibus calidis. Est autem ponere unum ens, quod est perfectissimum et verissimum ens: quod ex hoc probatur, quia est aliquid movens omnino immobile et perfectissimum, ut a philosophis est probatum. Oportet ergo quod omnia alia minus perfecta ab ipso esse recipiant. Et haec est probatio Philosophi.”

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  125 istence has already been proved by the philosophers as the immobile and most perfect mover, and appeals to this conclusion in order to justify identifying that mover as the one most perfect and truest being. Fabro next quotes the third argument, which he introduces under the title of the “dialectic of the simple and the composed” and which reads: The third argument is that what is by something else is led back as to its cause to that which is per se. Therefore, if there were one heat that existed per se, it would have to be the cause of all hot things which have heat by the mode of participation. But some being that is its own esse must be posited, which is proved from this, that there must be some first being which is pure act, in which there is no composition. Wherefore it is necessary that all other beings exist from that one being which beings are not their own esse, but have esse by the mode of participation.17

According to Thomas, this is Avicenna’s argument. Again, this argument does not seem of itself to prove the existence of God but rather accepts the existence of a being which is pure act, even though Fabro seems to view it as an argument for God’s existence. But like the second argument (attributed to Aristotle), this one also explicitly introduces the theme of participation. Fabro himself offers some comments on these three arguments. For instance, after the Aristotelian “outburst” of SCG I, c. 13, in this discussion the dominance of Platonism is surprising and, Fabro adds, is also present in the second and third arguments. While the term although not the notion of participation is lacking in the first argument (attributed to Plato), participation serves as the turning point for the arguments attributed to Aristotle and Avicenna. The second argument (attributed to Aristotle) seems to involve two steps: (a) a first demonstration beginning with degrees of existence and concluding to the existence of a most perfect and truest being by means of the notion of participation; (b) a second demonstration called upon to reinforce and complement the first step by appealing to the proof of the immobile and most perfect first mover. As I have 17. De potentia, 49: “Tertia ratio est, quia illud quod est per alterum, reducitur sicut in causam ad illud quod est per se. Unde si esset unus calor per se existens, oporteret ipsum esse causam omnium calidorum, quae per modum participationis calorem habent. Est autem ponere aliquod ens quod est ipsum suum esse: quod ex hoc probatur, quia oportet esse aliquod primum ens quod sit actus purus, in quo nulla sit compositio. Unde oportet quod ab uno illo ente omnia alia sint, quaecumque non sunt suum esse, sed habent esse per modum participationis.”

126  Cornelio Fabro on Participation observed above, this is why I do not think that Thomas intended this argument to be used as a proof for God’s existence; rather, he presented it in order to demonstrate that God is also the cause of the existence of all other things. And I would also note that Fabro has reversed the order in which these two steps appear in Thomas’s text.18 At this point Fabro turns to the text with which we began, the Quarta via set forth in ST I, q. 2, a. 3. He notes that in this text the argument is said to be based on degrees of perfection (ex gradibus), and that this calls to mind the image of a ladder on which a human being climbs upward to God and thereby the argument focuses immediately on the heart of the entire problem regarding the existence of God. Fabro notes the division whether real or apparent of two stages in the argument, the one step being formal and having to do with its name, to which the proof from SCG I, c. 13 is reduced, and the other being real, of causal derivation, with a second reference to the text of Aristotle. This time the reference to Aristotle is limited to the first text cited in SCG I, c. 13 (from Bk II of the Metaphysics), and, I would add, avoids the troublesome text from Bk IV of the same which, the reader may recall, seems to move from degrees of truth in mathematical propositions to degrees in ontological truth. But, comments Fabro, in compensation the reference to Aristotle dominates the development of both stages of the argument. In neither stage is there any reference to its being of Augustinian or Platonic derivation, and the term “participation” does not appear which is nonetheless in fact so important for it.19 Fabro then turns to what, he will maintain, is the most important text for our understanding of the Quarta via, and which is found in the Commentary on the Prologue in Aquinas’s late Lectura in Evangelium Ioannis. Fabro comments that this text remains nearly unknown within the Thomistic tradition and seems to be completely detached from the arguments offered in De potentia, q. 3, a. 5 and ST I, q. 2, a. 3, as suggested by the following characteristics. It speaks of “modes” (modi) instead of “ways” (viae), even though, as Fabro remarks, they do have the same meaning. In this late work (ca. 1270–72 according to Torrell), Thomas distinguishes four of these modes suggested by a text from Isaiah 6:1 which he uses to set his theme and by means of which, he writes, the ancient philosophers arrived at knowledge of the existence of God: (1) per auctoritatem Dei; (2) 18. Fabro, “Sviluppo,” 356–57. 19. See Fabro, “Sviluppo,” 357–58.

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  127 ex aeternitate Dei; (3) ex dignitate Dei; (4) ex incomprehensibilitate veritatis. Most important of these for our purpose here is the third way or mode, but it is worth noting that the first argument is a full version of the Fifth Way (the argument from finality) found in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 and, interestingly enough, to which Thomas here refers as the via efficacissima or most effective way. Fabro suggests that Thomas so describes it because of its persuasive force and the ease with which any intelligence can grasp it.20 The third argument, based on the dignity of God, reads: Certain ones came to knowledge of God from the excellence of God himself, and these were the Platonists. They noted that every thing which is according to participation is reduced to something which is that of its essence, as to that which is first and supreme. Thus all things fired by participation are reduced to fire which is such of its essence. Since, therefore, all things that exist participate in esse, and are beings by participation, there must be something at the summit of all things that is esse itself of its essence, that is, its essence is its esse, and this is God, who is the most sufficient, and the most excellent, and the most perfect cause of the whole of esse, from whom all things that exist participate in esse. And the excellence of this being is shown when he is said to be on the highest throne, which, according to Dionysius, refers to the divine nature. See Psalm 112, 4: “The Lord is highest above all nations.” John manifests this excellence to us when he says: “And God was the Word,” as it were to say: “The Word was God,” where the “Word” is posited on the side of the subject and “God” on the side of the predicate.21

Fabro comments that this argument recaptures fully the Quarta via of ST I, q. 2, a. 3 and recalls the Aristotelian analogy with heat. And as he also 20. Ibid., 358–59. For this text from Thomas’s Commentary on the Gospel of St. John see the Parma ed. as reprinted in Busa, Opera omnia, vol. 6 (Stuttgart–Bad Constatt: ­­Fromann-Holzboog, 1980), 227. 21. Busa, ibid.: “Quidam autem venerunt in cognitionem Dei ex dignitate ipsius Dei: et isti fuerunt Platonici. Consideraverunt enim quod omne illud quod est secundum participationem, reducitur ad aliquid quod sit illud per suam essentiam, sicut ad primum et ad summum; sicut omnia ignita per participationem reducuntur ad ignem, qui est per essentiam suam talis. Cum ergo omnia quae sunt, participant esse, et sint per participationem entia, necesse est esse aliquid in cacumine omnium rerum, quod sit ipsum esse per suam essentiam, idest quod sua essentia sit suum esse: et hoc est Deus, qui est sufficientissima, et dignissima, et perfectissima causa totius esse, a quo omnia quae sunt, participant esse. Et huius dignitas ostenditur, cum dicitur super solium excelsum, quod secundum Dionysium, ad divinam naturam refertur; Ps. Cxii, 4: excelsus super omnes gentes Dominus. Hanc dignitatem ostendit nobis Ioannes, cum dicit: et Deus erat Verbum, quasi: Verbum erat Deus, ut ly verbum ponatur ex parte suppositi, et Deus ex parte appositi.”

128  Cornelio Fabro on Participation points out, for the first time in the texts he has considered so far, there is an explicit reference to the notion of participation, which gives a greater theoretical consistency to the Fourth Way. And the argument is now attributed to the Platonists, the Aristotelian example of heat notwithstanding. Moreover, prior to the confirming biblical texts at the end, there is also a reference to ­­Pseudo-Dionysius.22 In the immediately following section of this article Fabro takes up the meaning of the Quarta via. He proposes to take as its definitive version that found in the argument we have just seen from Thomas’s Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel and, the reference to the argument based on finality as efficacissimus notwithstanding, Fabro notes the prominent role the argument based on participation plays among the other three arguments for God’s existence presented there. Fabro finds that its preeminent role in our understanding of the Quarta via is also brought out by two other late Thomistic texts. The first is a ­­quasi-popular version of an argument offered in Thomas’s Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum where, writes Fabro, the Quarta via is reduced to a simpler and more accessible proof to show that all things are created by and depend on God. Fabro also comments that the argument based on degrees is illustrated with the hierarchy of bodies, just as it is in the text from Thomas’s Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel. Perhaps because of its more popular character, Fabro then simply quotes it without further commentary: And to set aside subtle arguments for the moment, by a certain unpolished (rudi) example our point is manifested, namely that all things are created and made by God. It is evident that if someone should enter a certain house and at the entrance of the house should feel some heat, and subsequently should enter further into the house, and so yet again, such a person will feel a greater heat, and will then judge that there is a fire within even without seeing the fire itself which would cause the heat, so it happens to someone who considers the things in this world. For one finds that all things are disposed according to diverse degrees of beauty and excellence (nobilitatis) . And insofar as one more closely approaches to God, to that extent one finds more beautiful and better things. 22. “Sviluppo,” 360. The recent revised English translation of The Commentary on the Gospel of John: Chapters 1–5, translated by F. Larcher and J. A. Weisheipl, with Introduction and Notes by D. Keating and M. Levering (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 3, n. 7 gives the reference to Ps.-Dionysius, De coelesti hierarchia 13.4 (PG 3.304C).

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  129 Wherefore heavenly bodies are more beautiful and more excellent than lower bodies, and invisible things more so than those that are visible. Therefore it must be held that all of these things are from one God who gives their esse and excellence to individual things.

While this text may not be quite as late as Fabro thinks and its precise date remains uncertain, it may very well date from Thomas’s final teaching period in Naples in 1273.23 But one should note that Thomas himself does not intend to offer this as a proof for the existence of God, since in this context he accepts this on faith as indicated by the first article of the Creed. Moreover, one wonders about the kind of causality that the argument employs: Does it appeal to efficient causality, or only to formal exemplar causality? The example of fire and heat seems to imply efficient causation. The same question, of course may be raised about the original Quarta via itself, as will be discussed below. As a second late text from Aquinas, Fabro cites from c. 3 of the Treatise on Separate Substances, which Fabro introduces by noting the central role that the notion of participation plays in this work. Fabro comments that Thomas appeals to participation in offering it as a new criterion for defending a higher level of agreement between Plato and Aristotle concerning the metaphysics of act, and Thomas directs this against the universal hylemorphism proposed by Avicebron and defended by the Augustinian school. Thus the title of this chapter reads: In quo conveniat opinio Platonis 23. “Sviluppo,” 361–62. See Torrell on the date for this work, which he judges to be uncertain (see Saint Thomas Aquinas, 58). Also see Adriano Oliva, “Philosophie et théologie en pre­ dication chez Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 97 (2013): 397, who writes that Thomas’s Conferences (Collationes) on the Pater Noster were preached at Naples in Lent 1273, and adds that this is probably true of his Conferences on the Creed and on the Ten Commandments. Here I will cite the Latin text prepared for the Leonine Commission by Hyacinthe Dondaine and utilized by Nicholas Ayo in his The ­­Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), even though the final edition of this text has not yet been published by the Commission. This text, of course, was not available to Fabro, but the differences between the Parma edition, which he used, and the critical edition are slight: “Et ut rationes subtiles dimittantur ad presens, quodam rudi exemplo manifestatur propositum, scilicet quod omnia sunt a Deo facta vel creata. Constat enim quod si aliquis intraret domum quandam, et in introitu ipsius domus sentiret calorem, et sic deinceps, crederet ignem esse interius, etiam si ipsum ignem non videret qui causaret illos calores. Sic ergo contingit consideranti res huius mundi. Nam ipse invenit res omnes secundum diversos gradus pulcritudinis et nobilitatis esse dispositas, et quanto magis appropinquat ad Deum, tanto pulcriora et nobiliora sunt; unde celestia nobiliora et pulcriora sunt quam corpora inferiora, et invisibilia quam visibilia. Et ideo credendum est quod hec omnia sint ab uno Deo, qui dat singulis rebus suum esse et nobililtatem . . .” (36).

130  Cornelio Fabro on Participation et Aristotelis, and in the first argument dealing with the mode of existence of spiritual creatures, this text, like the third argument in the Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, turns to the notion of participation and, writes Fabro, offers the utimate key to the correct interpretation of the Quarta via. The Treatise reads: First, they [Plato and Aristotle] agree about their mode of existing. Plato held that all lower immaterial substances are one and good by participation in the first which is one and good of itself (secundum se). But every thing that participates in something receives that in which it participates from that from which it participates, and with respect to this, that from which it participates is its cause, just as air has light participated from the sun which is the cause of its illumination. Thus, therefore, according to Plato the supreme God is the cause of all immaterial substances, that each one of them is one and good. And Aristotle also held this because, as he says, that which is maximally being and maximally true is the cause of existing and of truth for all things.24

Fabro makes the following comments on this text. First of all, a slight but explicit doctrinal priority is here given to Plato over Aristotle, and the latter is introduced with a modest etiam. Then in place of the Aristotelian analogy of heat, the text draws upon the Platonic image of the sun (Fabro refers here, I assume, to Plato’s Analogy of the Sun in the Republic) reserved for God, and the air which receives illumination from it. And by means of the explicit use of participation, developed under the influence of Proclus and the derivative Liber de causis, according to Fabro this argument overcomes the real or apparent difficulty of the Fourth Way of the Summa theologiae, that is, its transition from positing (pozitione) a maximum as the terminus of the formal fullness to which the dialectic of de24. “Sviluppo,” 362, citing De substantiis separatis, Leon. ed. 40.D46:1–21: “De convenientia positionum Aristotilis et Platonis. . . . Primo quidem conveniunt in modo existendi ipsarum. Posuit enim Plato omnes substantiae inferiores substantias immateriales esse unum et bonum per participationem primi quod est secundum se unum et bonum; omne autem participans aliquid accepit id quod participat ab eo a quo participat, et quantum ad hoc id a quo participat est causa ipsius: sicut aer habet lumen participatum a sole, quae est causa illuminationis ipsius. Sic igitur secundum Platonem summus Deus causa est omnibus immaterialibus substantiis quod unaquaeque earum et unum sit et bonum. Et hoc etiam Aristotiles posuit, quia, ut ipse dicit, necesse est ut id quod est maxime ens et maxime verum sit causa essendi et veritatis omnibus aliis.” On this important text for a general understanding of Aquinas’s notion of participation see my The Metaphysical Thought, 117 and notes 59, 60. The Treatise on Separate Substances itself dates after the first half of 1271, either in Paris or in Naples (Torrell, 350 and 435).

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  131 grees of perfection leads, to the recognition that the maximum is therefore the cause of those degrees and of the participants. And this, writes Fabro, is the decisive point of the Quarta via which, he repeats, in his judgment receives its most complete expression in the Commentary on the Prologue to St. John and in the De substantiis separatis. Indeed, Fabro goes on to state that this is the “ultimate turn (piega) that Thomas has given to his metaphysical thought.” And, Fabro continues, when interpreted in this way, the Quarta via is not merely one of the ways or modes of demonstrating God’s existence, but expresses precisely the radical understanding of a creature in terms both of its dependence on the Creator and the fundamental opposition between the (metaphysical) structure of any creature and the Creator.25 In developing this point, Fabro brings out three major steps in the Thomistic procedure. The first is the metaphysical emergence of esse understood as the act of existing (actus essendi). Here as elsewhere Fabro distinguishes this carefully from existence which merely expresses the fact that something exists and which Fabro also refers to as the result of the act of existing. This, I might note, is an extremely important distinction, although far too many students of Aquinas have failed to recognize it. Here Fabro notes that the priority of act over potency serves as the basis for Aristotle’s metaphysics but that Aquinas was influenced in his later writings by Neoplatonism in his recognition of the primacy of esse over all forms and other acts, so that they all stand in potency with respect to it. Among other texts to illustrate this Fabro cites ST I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3: “Esse itself is the most perfect of all: for it is related to all as act; for nothing has actuality except insofar as it is; therefore esse itself is the actuality of all things and also of forms themselves. Wherefore it is not related to the others as receiver to what is received but rather as what is received to what receives.”26 Fabro explains that this is the notion of intensive esse (esse intensivum) and is proper to Aquinas, who had been influenced in developing this by ­­Pseudo-Dionysius, and who in his Commentary on the De divinis nominibus writes: “Among 25. “Sviluppo,” 363. Note: “esso rappresenta l’ultima piega che S. Tommaso ha dato al suo pensiero metafisico.” 26. “Sviluppo,” 363–64, citing Thomas: “ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium: compa­ ratur enim ad omnia ut actus. Nihil enim habet actualitatem, nisi in quantum est: unde ipsum esse est actualitas omnium rerum, et etiam ipsarum formarum. Unde non comparatur ad alia sicut recipiens ad receptum sed magis sicut receptum ad recipiens” (Leon. ed., 4.50).

132  Cornelio Fabro on Participation other effects esse is more primary and more worthy . . . prior and simpler . . . that is to say, ‘God is named primarily by ipsum esse.’ ”27 Fabro writes that the crucial moment of this dialactic on Thomas’s part is that insofar as his understanding of esse intensivum leads him to subordinate forms and perfections to the act of existing as participations in it, to that extent he also subordinates the metaphysics of act and potency to the metaphysics of participation as its ultimate foundation and point of reference. In support Fabro cites, among other texts, the following from Thomas’s Quodlibet III, q. 8, a. 1: “It is necessary that every other thing (with the exception of God) is a being by participation, so that in it the substance that participates in esse is one, and the participated esse is other. Every participant is related to what is participated as potency to act. Whence the substance of every created thing is related to its esse as potency to act.”28 Fabro introduces the second major feature of Aquinas’s position under the title: The Principle of “Separate Perfection.” This is based on the same metaphysical notion of act as pure and absolute perfection, and thus in its ultimate instance it must be free from any kind of potency. This is verified in reality only for esse itself, which is the act of every form and every perfection, as we have seen. Hence when posited by itself in the order of thought, it can only be unique. For act as act when it is considered only in itself as separated from any potency can only be conceived as unique; this, however, applies to the act of existing (esse) not only in the order of thought, but also in the order of existence itself, precisely because it is the act of every other form and actuality. In support of this Fabro cites from Aquinas’s Disputed Question De spiritualibus creaturis, c. 1: “This cannot be said of anything else. For just as it is impossible to think that there are many separate whitenesses—but if there were some whitness separate from any subject and receiver it would be only one—so it is impossible for there to be more than one subsisting esse.”29 27. See In De divinis nominibus V, 1, nn. 633–636 (Turin: Marietti, 1950), 235ff.: “Ipsum autem esse inter alios Dei effectus est principalius et dignius . . . prius ac simplicius . . . (that is to say) Deus principalius nominatur per ipsum esse.” These texts differ slightly from Fabro’s citation of them. 28. “Sviluppo,” 364, quoting Thomas’s Quodlibet III, q. 8, a. 1, for which see Leon. ed., 25.2.277:37–44: “Oportet igitur quod quaelibet alia res sit ens participative, ita quod aliud sit in eo substantia participans esse et aliud ipsum esse participatum. Omne autem participans se habet ad participatum sicut potentia ad actum. Unde substantia cuiuslibet rei creatae, se habet ad suum esse sicut potentia ad actum.” 29. Leon. ed. 24.2.13:371–376: “Hoc autem non potest dici de aliquo alio: sicut enim impos-

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  133 Fabro comments that this principle of “separate perfection” is Platonic and is completed by the Aristotelian principle of the “emergence of act,” and that both of these are grounded in the synthetic Thomistic principle of participation. As regards the “separate perfection” principle, Thomas agrees with Aristotle in rejecting its application to all forms as such, and goes beyond Aristotle (who did not understand esse as act) by applying it exclusively to that esse which is subsisting esse itself. In contrast to this, all other natures and forms below God, no matter how perfect they are, are beings by participation. And, writes Fabro, on this tension beween esse per essentiam and beings by participation, this ultimate proof for the existence of God is grounded with a metaphysical purity that is not found in the other ways or arguments for God’s existence.30 As a third feature of Thomas’s procedure Fabro introduces what he calls “the principle of participation.” He finds the fullest exposition of this in Thomas’s late (dating from 1270) Quodlibet II, q. 2, a. 3, where he had been asked to address this question: “Whether an angel is composed of essence and esse.” There Thomas distinguishes two ways in which a formality may be predicated, essentially or by participation, and then distinguishes two kinds of participation—predicamental, as Fabro names it, as when an individual human participates in humanity, or a species participates in a higher genus such as humanity in animality; and transcendental, as Fabro names it, which is the participation of beings in esse. Fabro then quotes from the first part of Thomas’s response: It must be said that something can be predicated of something else in two ways: in one way, essentially, and in another way, by participation; for light is predicated of an illuminated body by participation. But if there were some separate light, it would be predicated of it essentially. Accordingly, it must be said that being is predicated of God alone essentially, by reason of the fact that the divine esse is subsisting and absolute esse. But it is predicated of every creature by participation; for no creature is its esse, but has esse. And thus God is said to be sibile est intelligere quod sint plures albedines separatae—sed si esset albedo separata ab omni subiecto et recipiente, esset una tantum—, ita impossibile est quod sit ipsum esse subsistens nisi unum tantum.” 30. “Sviluppo,” 365–66. Fabro also mentions here three analogies used by Thomas to illustrate this participation relationship—the sun that illuminates the air (taken from Plato), fire which heats bodies (Aristotle), and pure whiteness as participated in by white things (Thomas’s own example). Also see 365, n. 15 for some texts illustrating Thomas’s use of these.

134  Cornelio Fabro on Participation good essentially because he is goodness itself, but creatures are said to be good by participation because they have goodness.31

Fabro concludes this discussion by observing that the three principles he has just described are really not three distinct principles but rather three moments in the “emergence of act” and also notes that they provide the metaphysical framework for the third argument for God’s existence offered in Thomas’s Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel which, Fabro reminds the reader, may be considered as the most mature and definitive version of the Quarta via. And rather than concentrate on the different levels of existing in successive fashion, that argument focuses on the radical situation of the finite, the imperfect, the composite, the limited, that is to say, what it means to be a being by participation. And, writes Fabro, once it is recognized as given in reality, this requires that one posit something that is esse of its essence and is the unique adequate and proper cause of beings by participation, that is to say, in so far as they have esse.32 This does raise some concern, however, in that one may still ask how Fabro will justify what seems to be a sudden leap from one’s recognition of beings as participating in esse commune to the existence of self-subsisting ­­ esse. And so we may turn to the next part of Fabro’s article, entitled “The Value of the ‘IV Via’ in Thomistic Metaphysics.” Fabro begins his discussion of this by dividing the text of Thomas’s argument from his Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel discussed above into three stages, which I quote again here: 1. Every thing that exists by participation is reduced to something that is such of its essence, as to that which is first and supreme, just as all things that are fired by participation are reduced to fire, which is such of its essence. (This is the Principle of Separated Perfection.) 31. Ibid., 366, quoting Quodlibet II, q. 2, a. 1: “Dicendum quod dupliciter aliquid de aliquo praedicatur: uno modo essentialiter, alio modo per participationem: lux enim praedicatur de corpore illuminato participative, sed, si esset aliqua lux separata, praedicaretur de ea essentia­ liter. Secundum hoc ergo dicendum est quod ens praedicatur de solo Deo essentialiter, eo quod esse divinum est esse subsistens et absolutum; de qualibet autem creatura praedicatur per participationem: nullla enim creatura est suum esse, sed est habens esse; sicut et Deus dicitur bonus essentialiter, quia est ipsa bonitas, creaturae autem dicuntur bonae per participationem, quia habent bonitatem” (Leon. ed. 25.2.214:28–41). 32. “Sviluppo,” 366–67.

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  135 2. Therefore, since all things that exist participate in esse, and are beings by participation, there must be something at the summit of all things which is esse itself of its essence, that is, whose essence is its esse. (This is the Principle of Participation in its static or constitutive moment). 3. And this is God, who is the most sufficient and most excellent and most perfect cause of the whole of esse, from whom all things that exist participate in esse. (This is the Principle of Participation in its dynamic moment).33

Fabro then also offers what he calls an indirect (and, I would add, briefer) version of the argument: “Because beings by participation exist, esse of its essence must exist, which is God, as the first cause of every (other) reality.”34 Fabro himself was well aware that objections might be (and indeed have been) raised about the various steps in this argument, including the one of major concern to me, the transition from one’s recognition of beings as participating in esse commune to the existence of an unparticipated instance of subsisting esse. But Fabro turns first to the argument’s beginning with the existence of beings by participation. Both corporeal and spiritual things are finite and limited, either in the formal order as with corporeal substances, or at least in the order of esse as are spiritual substances which, while being pure forms according to Aquinas, are not the fullness of being but are what they are in accord with their particular natures. Fabro warns that this does not mean that the notion of being by participation is itself secondary and derived from prior knowledge of the existence of God, for this would, of course, involve circular reasoning. Instead, Fabro maintains that for Thomas the metaphysical complexity (nodo) of a creature is connected with the dialectic of participation, as is clear from the three moments in the argument in the Prologue. A further indication of this is that Thomas has recourse to the notion of participation, together with the existence of God, in order to demonstrate both the primary dependence of the creature on God, which is known as creation, as well as the radical composition of every creature—that of essence and esse. Furthermore, according to Fabro, all three of these points find their perfect formulation in this same argument from the Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel. Moreover, Fabro holds that in his mature writ33. “Sviluppo,” 367. 34. Ibid.

136  Cornelio Fabro on Participation ings, Thomas falls back on the argumentation based on participation in defending his real distinction between essence and esse.35 Curiously, however, Fabro does not here make reference to the second stage in c. 4 of Aquinas’s De ente et essentia, where he offers a somewhat similar kind of argument to show that there could be, at most, only one being in which essence and esse are identical and so that in all other beings they must be distinct. Fabro himself had already recognized this argument in his La nozione metaphysica, even though the terminology of participation does not appear in that early Thomistic treatise.36 Thus in Fabro’s lengthy treatment in his La nozione metafisica of the many different arguments offered by Thomas for the real distinction between essence and esse, he concludes with a synthetic presentation of argumentation based on participation: Major: Every creature is said (to be) a being by participation. Minor: But every thing which is by participation must be divided into a participant and that which is participated so that every thing that participates is composed of a participant and that which is participated as of potency and act. Therefore: Every creature is [really] composed of act and potency in the line of being as of that which is participated and that which participates. What participates is called “essence” or “the subject or suppositum,” and what is participated is ipsum esse seu actus essendi.37

If I may return to Fabro’s discussion in the article we have been pursuing, he comments that the real distinction between essence and esse is recognized as the central truth of (Thomistic) metaphysics,38 while the notion of participation is the fundamental truth that underlies that distinction.39 He also argues that Thomas’s appeal to participation in his formulation of the Quarta via in his Commentary on the Prologue to St. John enables Thomas himself to overcome a perceived weakness in the presentation of this in the Summa theologiae, namely the claim in the second stage that the Maximum is the cause of the lower degrees of perfection that have 35. Ibid., 368–69. 36. See Fabro’s 2nd edition (1950), 218–20. 37. See Fabro’s 3rd edition, as republished in Opera Complete, vol. 19 (Rome: EDIVI, Segni, 2010), 235. For discussion of this see my “Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and Composition of Essence and Esse in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas,” Review of Metaphysics 68 (2015): 589–92, republished in the present volume as ch. 3. 38. “Sviluppo,” 371–79. 39. “Sviluppo,” 369.

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  137 been utilized in the first stage. And in preparing to discuss this he touches on our major concern—the transition from degrees of more and less to the existence of a Maximum (see the first stage). In addressing this ­­last-mentioned issue, Fabro first points out that this transition is not based merely on an appeal to the Aristotelian analogy with degrees of heat, but is grounded on Aristotle’s view of a hierarchically structured universe ordered according to an ascending scale of perfection. In such a universe, as Aquinas recalls, substantial forms (or essences) and their respective definitions differ from one another in discontinuous fashion even as numbers do. Thus Fabro finds Aquinas allowing for degrees of perfection on the part of individuals within species in terms of varying degrees of quality and quantity, and then moving upward, different degrees of perfection between species within genera, and finally between genera themselves, all eventually enabling one to conclude to the existence of a maximum in the case of esse itself. While Fabro devotes considerable attention to this point in Thomas’s perspective, it seems less than convincing to me. While one can recognize varying degrees of perfection in the beings that we experience and therefore a certain hierarchical order within species and then among species and genera, this recognition of itself does not seem to justify our concluding to the existence of an ontological maximum that transcends the entire world of experience. In fact, as I have suggested above, it seems to involve a confusion between or at least a leap between esse commune (the act of existing viewed universally as realized in all actually existing entities), and esse subsistens (­­self-subsisting esse or God). If one has already established the real existence of such a maximum on other grounds, then one will be in position to recognize it as the supreme and the best, and the truest. Even Fabro points out that in order to get beyond the merely formal order of concepts as implied by other concepts to the ontological order, one must restrict this procedure to the act of existing itself. In light of this, I think it better to adopt a different approach in one’s effort to salvage the Quarta via. Thomas himself holds that participated being is (efficiently) caused being, as is clear from a text cited by Fabro and examined above from c. 3 of Thomas’s Treatise on Separate Substances: “But every thing that participates in something receives that in which it participates from that from which it participates, and with respect to this that from which it participates is its cause, just as air has light participated

138  Cornelio Fabro on Participation from the sun which is the cause of its illumination.”40 One might also consider ST I, q. 44, a. 1, where Thomas is attempting to prove that every thing other than God is created by him. There he writes: “If anything is found to be in something by participation, it must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially, just as iron is fired by fire.” And in the same article while responding to the first objection, Thomas writes: “because from the fact that some thing is a being by participation, it follows that it is caused by something other.”41 And if one asks why participated beings must be caused, one should recall here that one of the later Aquinas’s favorite ways’s of establishing the distinction and composition of essence and esse in beings other than God is argumentation based on their character as participated beings. Indeed, Fabro has nicely summarized that argument for us, as we have seen above. In addition, here we might also turn to Thomas’s ST I, q. 3, a. 4, where he reasons that whatever is present to a thing in addition to its essence must be caused in that thing either by the principles of that thing’s essence (as is true of a proper accident) or by something external to it (as heat is caused in water by fire). If a thing’s esse is distinct from its essence, it must be caused either by the essential principles of that essence, or else by something extrinsic to it. But a thing’s esse cannot be caused by the essential principles of its essence, since nothing can be the efficient cause of its own existing. Therefore a thing’s esse must be caused by something else if its esse is distinct from its essence.42 In addition, as I have noted in considering this elsewhere, I also think that such an argument should take into account a possible objection based on an appeal to an infinite regress of caused causes of existence posited as a viable alternative to concluding to the existence of God. Thomas has dealt with with this on many occasions, including of course his presentation of the Five Ways in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 when presenting the First, Second, and Third ways. [Here his concern 40. For the Latin see n. 24 above. 41. “Si enim aliquid invenitur in aliquo per participationem, necesse est quod causetur in ipso ab eo cui essentialiter convenit; sicut ferrum fit ignitum ab igne.” Also see: “Ad primum dicendum . . . quia ex hoc quod aliquid per participationem est ens, sequitur quod sit causatum ab alio” (Pauline edition, 1988), 217, 218. 42. Leon. ed. 4.42. Note especially: “Si igitur ipsum esse sit aliud ab eius essentia, necesse est quod esse illius rei vel sit causatum ab aliquo exteriori, vel a principiis essentialibus eiusdem rei. Impossibile est autem quod esse sit causatum tantum ex principiis essentialibus rei: quia nulla res sufficit quod sit sibi causa essendi, si habet esse causatum. Oportet ergo quod illud cuius esse est aliud ab essentia sua, habeat esse causatum ab alio.”

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  139 is not to eliminate the very possibility of such an infinite regress, but rather to point out that all such caused causes or caused intermediaries even if multiplied to infinity would be insufficient to account for the existence of any member of that series unless an uncaused cause is also granted.] I would add that the second stage in the Quarta via, which endeavors to show that as the maximally good and true and excellent being, or God, he is also the efficient cause of lower or participating beings, does not seem to pose any great difficulty for the argument as I have intepreted it; for it has reasoned to him as the First efficient Cause of all beings in which essence and esse differ, that is to say, of every other being. While I think that this is the best way of defending Thomas’s procedure in the third argument found in his Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, I realize that one might ask whether that version, either as interpreted by Fabro or as I have now proposed to strengthen it, should still be identified with the Quarta via of ST I, q. 2, a. 3. The answer to that depends in large measure on whether the same kind of causality is at work in both. It seems to me that formal exemplary causality is used in the first stage of the Quarta via, whereas efficient causality is at work in the version offered in the Prologue as interpreted by Fabro as well as in my adjusted version of that same argument. Given the difference between formal exemplary causality and efficient causality, I have suggested elsewhere that these two ways of arguing for God’s existence are therefore distinct ways,43 although I also might note that Fabro himself, after having appealed to the notion of God as the supreme measure (mensura) for other all things, remarks that as a result of the definitive metaphysical resolutio of all other formalities and perfections with respect to esse, the moments of efficient, formal, and final causality all come together and coincide in the final analysis.44 It is interesting to note that in another article dealing with the metaphysical foundation of the Fourth Way, originally published in 1965 and hence some eleven years after “Sviluppo della ‘IV Via’,” Fabro comments 43. See Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 475–78. 44. “Sviluppo,” 381–82. See Jason A. Mitchell, “Being and Participation: The Method and Structure of Metaphysical Reflection according to Cornelio Fabro,” Doctoral dissertation in Philosophy from the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum (Rome, 2012), Vol. 1, 417, who comments: “At this point, Fabro says that it is in a ‘definitive metaphysical resolution that the moments of efficient, final, exemplary and formal causality converge and coincide.’ Fabro does not explain what this consists in, and only reaffirms that the ‘formal resolution’ is already the foundation of the causal dependence of beings per participationem.”

140  Cornelio Fabro on Participation that as this argument is presented in Thomas’s Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, the dialectic of the “more and the less” does not appear to be essential to the structure of the Fourth Way, which in that text is directly based on participation and passes immediately from being by participation to esse per essentiam.45 It is that immediate transition, of course, that I have judged it necessary to strengthen by introducing there Thomas’s view that participated being is efficiently caused being, in what I would offer as a friendly amendment to Fabro’s reinterpretation of the Quarta via in light of the Commentary on the Prologue. I might add that while one does not find in Fabro’s 1965 article on the Quarta via any explicit introduction into his proposed version of the corrections I have just proposed, he does acknowledge there two difficulties that may arise for modern thinkers about Aquinas’s Five Ways. The first is a general concern that applies to all of the Five Ways about justifying a transition from the finite to the infinite in such argumentation, and a second is a particular concern that is proper to the Fourth Way in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 about the transition from the field of formal perfections to the field of real (ontological) causality. He contrasts Aquinas’s realistic approach to our knowledge of being with modern philosophy’s effort to begin any such effort with the cogito.46 And he certainly does acknowledge that, for Aquinas, participated being is also (efficiently) caused being.47 Perhaps it was because Thomas himself seems to move quickly from being by partic45. See “Il fondamento metafico della ‘IV Via,’ ” Doctor communis 7 (1965), 49–70, repr. in Esegesi tomistica, 387–406, which I am following here. See 391. Here I would also note that in the second stage of the Quarta via as it is presented in ST I, q. 2, a. 3, where Thomas appeals to Bk II of Aristotle’s Metaphysics to support his claim that what is the maximum in a given genus is the cause of all other things therein and therefore that the truest and the best and the most excellent being must be the cause of all lesser beings, he has reversed Aristotle’s dictum in Met. II, 1, 993b 25. While Thomas frequently also does this in many other contexts when he cites this dictum, on still other occasions he cites it correctly. For helpful discussions of this see V. de Couesnongle, “La causalité du maximum. L’utilisation par Saint Thomas d’un passage d’Ari­ stote,” Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 38 (1954): 433–44; and “La causalité du maximum. Pourquoi Saint Thomas ­­a-t-il mal cité Aristote?,” ibid., 658–80. 46. “Il fondamento,” 389–90. 47. Ibid, 400, quoting ST I, q. 44, a. 1, ad 1: “ex hoc quod aliquid est per participationem sequitur quod sit causatum ab alio.” Fabro introduces this quotation with the remark that participation itself is revealed from imperfection, from multiplicity, from finitude, and from diversity; he then cites a series of texts taken mainly from SCG II, c. 15 to support this (see 400–402). In these texts, of course, Thomas takes God’s existence as having already been demonstrated in Bk I of this work.

Cornelio Fabro on Participation  141 ipation to the existence of unparticipated subsisting esse that Fabro judged it unnecessary to interject explicitly this move into his presentation of the argument from Thomas’s Commentary on the Prologue. On the other hand, perhaps it was because Thomas assumed that his readers would understand that participated esse is efficiently caused esse that he himself did not bring out this point explicitly in his argumentation in that text.

V 

Creation and Preambles of Faith Creation and Preambles of Faith

S Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith

Robert Sokolowski is well known for having emphasized in some of his writings what he has called the “Christian distinction.” By this he is referring to the Christian understanding of the distinction between God and the world. At the risk of oversimplification, I will here quote from a description he offers of this in his The God of Faith and Reason: In Christian belief we understand the world as that which might not have been, and correlatively we understand God as capable of existing, in undiminished goodness and greatness, even if the world had not been.1

As he goes on to explain in the same context, while we recognize that the world exists, in acknowledging the Christian distinction we also recognize that the world might not have existed and that this would not have resulted in any loss in God’s greatness and his goodness. As Sokolowski nicely phrases this: “When God does create, there may be ‘more’ but there is no ‘greater’ or ‘better’.”2 Moreover, he points out that according to this distinction, God is not to be viewed as a part of the world but as totally distinct from the world. Nor, as we shall see below, are God and the world to be viewed as parts of some greater whole, at least not according to Robert Sokolowski, nor according to Thomas Aquinas, I would add.3 As the title of this article suggests, here I want to concentrate on This is an expanded version of a paper originally presented in a lecture series in honor of the ­­seventy-fifth birthday of Robert Sokolowski sponsored by the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. It was subsequently published in The Thomist 78 (2014): 1–36 and is reprinted here with some editorial changes. 1. The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 19. 2. Ibid. Also see his subsequent chapters 3–5 for much more on the Christian distinction. 3. Ibid., 107. On Thomas’s refusal to include God under ens commune or under esse commune see the conclusion of the present chapter.

142

Creation and Preambles of Faith  143 Thomas’s overall understanding of creation and to determine which of his particular views about it are philosophical and which are theological, that is, held solely on the grounds of religious belief. It may prove to be the case that in his eyes some of them overlap, as it were, being included or implied in Christian revelation in some way, but also discoverable in principle and perhaps in fact by unaided human reason, and hence constituting what Thomas himself at times refers to as preambles of faith. In this sense I will be building upon a study I have published elsewhere entitled “Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith in Thomas Aquinas.”4 By “preamble of faith” Thomas has in mind a truth concerning God or the world that can be established by natural or philosophical reasoning and that is in some way presupposed for faith or for making an act of faith. While such a preamble is not in itself an article of faith, it is logically implied by or presupposed for what is indeed an article of faith. As examples Thomas always cites our knowledge that God exists, usually also that he is one, along with other truths of this kind, a number of which he identifies for us in various texts, but without ever giving us a complete list.5 My purpose here, therefore, will be to determine what aspects of his understanding of creation, if any, are preambles of faith and thus subject to philosophical demonstration, and what aspects are not preambles of faith but articles of faith taken strictly.

I. The Meaning of Creation Very early in Thomas’s career, in distinction 1, question 1, article 2 of his Commentary on Book II of the Sentences, he considers whether things 4. See Doctor Communis: The “Praeambula Fidei” and the New Apologetics, fasc. 1–2 (Vatican City: The Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 2008), 38–61; reprinted as chap. 9 under the title “Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith,” in The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations, ed. Gregory Doolan (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012) and reprinted above as chapter II. Here I will cite the latter version, since it contains some slight changes. 5. For an excellent text concerning this see Thomas, Super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 50.99:148–154): “primo ad demonstrandum ea quae sunt praeambula fidei, quae necesse est in fide scire, ut ea quae naturalibus rationibus de deo probantur, ut deum esse, deum esse unum et alia huiusmodi vel de deo vel de creaturis in philosophia probata, quae fides supponit.” For discussion of this text see Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith,” 198–99; see also 220 (= pp. 75–76 and 97 above) for an admittedly incomplete list of thirteen preambles that I propose may be found in Thomas’s texts.

144  Creation and Preambles of Faith come forth from one principle (God) by way of creation. (In the preceding article Thomas had offered three arguments to show that there is only one First Principle.)6 After offering some opening arguments against and some for the claim that things come forth from the one first principle by being created, he proposes his own solution. His opening remark is quite explicit: “I say that not only does faith hold that there is creation, but also reason demonstrates this.”7 Thomas argues that everything that is imperfectly realized within a given genus derives from that in which the nature of the genus is present primarily and perfectly, as is true of heat which is produced in things by fire. “Since every thing, and all that is present within the thing, participates in esse in some way and is mixed with imperfection, it follows that every single thing, in terms of all that is present in that thing, arises from the first and perfect being.” I will return below to the term “participate,” but for the present let it suffice to note that Thomas concludes this argument by commenting that we refer to this, that is to say, to the production of something in esse according to its entire substance, as creation. Hence it is necessary that all things proceed from the first principle by creation.8 Thomas then remarks that the notion of creation involves two factors. First, it presupposes nothing preexisting that would persist in the thing that is created, and from which it would have been made. In this respect creation differs from all changes (mutationes) and motions that we experience and, Thomas will maintain, is not itself a change or motion. The generation of a substance, unlike creation, presupposes matter which itself is not generated but is perfected through generation by being actualized by a form. So too, in accidental changes such as alteration, a subject is presupposed which in this case is a complete being or substance into which an accidental form is introduced. To put this another way, the causality exer6. Interestingly, none of these arguments is as effective philosophically speaking as that which he offered at roughly the same time in c. 4 of his De ente et essentia. On this argument one may see John Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 137–50, 404–10. 7. In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 2 (Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum, ed. P. Mandonnet, vol. 2 [Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1929], 17): “Respondeo quod creationem esse non tantum fides tenet, sed etiam ratio demonstrat.” 8. Ibid. (Mandonnet, ed., 17–18): “Cum autem quaelibet res, et quidquid est in re, aliquo modo esse participet, et admixtum sit imperfectioni, oportet quod omnis res, secundum totum id quod in ea est, a primo et perfecto ente oriatur. Hoc autem creare dicimus, scilicet producere rem in esse secundum totam suam substantiam.”

Creation and Preambles of Faith  145 cised by one who generates or alters something does not apply to all that is present in that thing, but only to a form that is reduced from potentiality to act. But the causality of a creating agent extends to everything present in the thing created. Hence creation is said to be ex nihilo or from nothing in the sense that nothing is presupposed for this that would itself not be created.9 Second, Thomas continues, in whatever is created non esse is prior to esse, not necessarily by priority in the order of time or duration but by priority in the order of nature. By this he means that if a created thing were left to its own devices, its nonexistence would follow. This is so because it has existence owing only to the continuing influence of its creating cause. Hence it is in these two respects that creation is said to be ex nihilo. To repeat: Creation does not presuppose any preexisting factor that is present in what is created, so that to say something is produced from nothing is to say that it is not produced from something preexisting. And what is created is still ordered to nothingness in the sense that in the order of nature, though not necessarily in the temporal order, it has ­­non-esse before it has esse; without the influence of its creative cause, it would simply not exist at all.10 Thomas then returns to the point he had made at the beginning of his solutio. If these two characteristics suffice for one’s understanding of creation, creation can be demonstrated (potest demonstrari) and thus philosophers have posited creation. If, however, one includes a third factor in one’s understanding of creation, and holds that for something to be produced ex nihilo it must have been produced after not having existed in the temporal sense (tempore post nihil), so understood creation cannot be demonstrated nor, Thomas adds, was it granted by the philosophers. That the world began to be can be held only on faith.11 Hence, Thomas regards a ­­full-fledged treatment of creation as including both philosophical and theological factors, though here I will concentrate primarily on the philosophical side. 9. Ibid. (Mandonnet ed., 18). 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid.: “Si autem accipiamus tertium oportere ad rationem creationis, ut scilicet etiam duratione res creata prius non esse quam esse habeat, ut dicatur esse ex nihilo, quia est tempore post nihil, sic creatio demonstrari non potest, nec a philosophis conceditur, sed per fidem supponitur.”

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II. The Possibility of Eternal Creation In introducing the issue of creation in the temporal sense, Thomas is touching on a point that was much disputed by Christian thinkers during his time—whether it can be demonstrated that the world is eternal or that the world began to be—and is anticipating his first full discussion of this issue in article 5 of this same question. There, after presenting many arguments for both sides of this dispute, Thomas lists three general positions. First, there is the view of the philosophers who hold that certain things in addition to God are eternal (a position which Thomas rejects as false and heretical). Second, some hold that the world began to exist after having not existed, and that God could not have created an eternal world, not because he himself lacks the power, but because an eternal and created world is impossible. Third, others hold that everything other than God began to be, but that human reason cannot demonstrate this. It can be known only by revelation. Thomas himself adopts the third position, and writes: I do not believe that demonstrative argumentation can be offered for this (i.e., to prove that the world began to be), just as it cannot be offered for the Trinity, even though it is not possible for the Trinity not to be. And the weakness of the arguments which are introduced as demonstrations of this manifests this, all of which have been considered and refuted by the philosophers who hold for the eternity of the world.12

Thomas explains that demonstrations cannot be offered for either side of this issue, that is, to prove that the world is eternal or that the world began to be, but only probable or sophistical arguments. He turns to Aristotle’s Topics for support and concludes, as Moses Maimonides had suggested, from a remark there that Aristotle had never intended to offer demonstrative arguments for the eternity of the world, but only probable argu12. Ibid., d. 1, q. 1, a. 5 (Mandonnet ed., 27–33, opening arguments and the three positions; and 33, text quoted): “quia non credo, quod a nobis possit sumi ratio demonstrativa ad hoc; sicut nec ad Trinitatem, quamvis Trinitatem non esse sit impossible; et hoc ostendit debilitas rationum quae ad hoc inducuntur pro demonstrationibus, quae omnes a philosophis tenentibus aeternitatem mundi positae sunt et solutae: et ideo potius in derisionem quam in confirmationem fidei vertuntur si quis talibus rationibus innixus contra philosophos novitatem mundi probare intenderet.” For discussion of this issue in this and in Thomas’s chronologically subsequent texts see my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), c. 8, some of the results of which I will briefly summarize here.

Creation and Preambles of Faith  147 ments. On this point about Aristotle’s intention in arguing for the eternity of the world, Thomas would eventually change his mind. By the time of his commentaries on the Physics and still later on the Metaphysics, he came to the conclusion that Aristotle had indeed intended to demonstrate that the world is eternal.13 In subsequent considerations of whether it can be demonstrated that the world began to be, Thomas does change his formulations of his own position slightly. Here, as we have just seen, he holds that it cannot be demonstrated that the world began to be. In Book II of his Summa contra Gentiles, chapters 31–37 (dating perhaps from 1261),14 he defends the view that creatures need not have always existed and presents and refutes a series of arguments in support of the eternity of the world. In chapter 38 he presents and ultimately rejects as not demonstrative a number of arguments aimed at proving that the world is not eternal. But here he is content to say that none of these arguments is demonstrative and hence that the noneternity of the world has not been demonstrated. He does not say that it cannot be demonstrated, as he had maintained in the earlier discussion in his Commentary on Book II of the Sentences. In question 3, article 17 of the disputed questions De potentia (1265– 66), Thomas considers the question whether the world always existed. After presenting a series of thirty arguments in support of the claim that the world has always existed, and then a few to show that it began to be, Thomas writes that it must be held that the world began to be, in accord with Catholic faith. He says that this position cannot be refuted by any physical demonstration. He notes that if one speaks about the production of one particular creature, a reason can be assigned for this either by appealing to some other particular creature, or at least by appealing to the 13. See In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 5 (Mandonnet ed., 33–34). Note especially: “Et hoc significant verba Philosophi dicentis, I Top., cap. vii, quod sunt quaedam problemata de quibus rationem non habemus, ut utrum mundus sit aeternus; unde hoc ipse demonstrare nunquam intendit.” For Aristotle see Topics 1.11.104b12–17. For Thomas’s later view see In VIII Physic., lect. 2 (In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis expositio [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1954], n. 986, pp. 509–10); In XII Metaphys., lect. 5 (In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum expositio [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1950], nn. 2496–97, p. 584). For Moses Maimonides see The Guide of the Perplexed, II, c. 15 (trans. S. Pines [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963], 292). 14. For discussion of the dating of the Summa contra Gentiles see ­­Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person and His Work, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 101–4. Unless otherwise indicated here I will follow the dates for Thomas’s works proposed by Torrell (and by G. Emery in the “Brief Catalogue” in the same volume).

148  Creation and Preambles of Faith order of the entire universe to which each creature is ordered as a part to the form of the whole. But if one speaks about the production into existence of the entire universe, one cannot appeal to anything created from which a reason might be taken to explain why it is such and such, nor can one merely appeal to the divine power, which is infinite, nor even to the divine goodness, which has no need of other things. One must rather fall back on the will of the one who produced it, that is, the will of God. And from our (natural) knowledge of the divine will, nothing can be concluded necessarily about the duration of the universe so as to demonstrate that it has always existed.15 But earlier within this same question 3, at article 14, Thomas had already examined whether something that is diverse in essence from God could have always existed. After presenting a series of arguments to show that this is possible, and another series to show that it is impossible, in his response Thomas distinguishes different ways in which something is possible. Something may be possible by reason of some power, or by reason of no power. What is possible by reason of some power (potentia) may be such either by reason of an active power (such as a builder who is capable of building something) or by reason of a passive power (such as wood which can be burnt). And what is possible by reason of no power may be such only metaphorically (as in geometry a line is referred to as a rational power), or absolutely (when the terms in which it is expressed are not contradictory). Conversely, something is absolutely impossible when it is ­­self-contradictory and hence intrinsically impossible, and not impossible merely by reason of the absence of an active or passive power.16 As regards the statement that something that differs in substance from God has always existed, this is not impossible in itself in the sense of being ­­self-contradictory; for no contradiction is involved in joining “to exist ab alio” and “to exist always” unless we are dealing with something that proceeds from something else by means of motion. This, of course, is not true of the procession of creatures from God. Nor does the addition of “being diverse in substance” render this statement impossible. Moreover, as regards God’s active power, there can be no lack in him of the power to pro15. De pot., q. 3, a. 14 (Quaestiones disputatae De potentia, ed. P. M. Pession [Turin: Marietti, 1965], 93). Note: “Unde non potest necessario concludi aliquid de universi duratione, ut per hoc ostendi possit demonstrative mundum semper fuisse.” 16. Ibid. (Marietti ed., 80).

Creation and Preambles of Faith  149 duce something from eternity. And of course, if we are dealing with creation, there is no need for a passive potentiality. At this point in his text Thomas brings in his religious faith, according to which no passive potentiality for something to be created has, in fact, always existed. And so, if one grants the truth of Catholic belief concerning that point, under that supposition an eternally produced creature is not possible.17 In light of this, one might have expected Thomas to go beyond his earlier positions that it has not been proved and that it cannot be proved that the world began to be, and to conclude that an eternally created effect is possible; for now he seems to have proved to his own satisfaction that this claim is not intrinsically impossible (­­self-contradictory) nor extrinsically impossible because of the absence of an adequate agent (God) or of any preexisting passive potentiality (not needed in this case). But in this work he does not do so. Nor does he go that far in his subsequent discussion in question 46, articles 1 and 2 of the Prima pars. There in the first article he continues to reject all claims that the world has always existed and maintains that the eternity of the world cannot be demonstrated. And in article 2 he again maintains that our conviction that the world began to be rests on faith alone and cannot be demonstrated. Finally, in his De aeternitate mundi, which Jean-Pierre ­­ Torrell places in Thomas’s second teaching period at Paris and very probably in 1271, he offers his best and fullest discussion of this issue and maintains again and in detail that that there is no intrinsic repugnance between being created by God and existing from eternity. And he now concludes that an eternally created world is “not impossible,” which I take as meaning that an eternally created world is possible. As always before, of course, he continues to hold that Christians believe that the world began to be solely on the strength of revelation.18 17. Ibid. 18. For De aeternitate mundi see the Leon. ed., 43.83–89. Note the key passage which has finally been clarified by the Leonine edition concerning the possibility of an eternally created universe: “si autem non est repugnantia intellectuum, non solum non est falsum sed etiam impossibile: aliter esset erroneum, si aliter dicatur (86:68–71).” On prior textual problems concerning this passage and its proper interpretation see Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, ch. 8 (“Thomas Aquinas on the Possibility of Eternal Creation”), 202–13. On the date of De aeternitate mundi see Torrell, St. Thomas Aquinas, 184–87, 348. In an interesting recent article on a number of earlier influences on Thomas’s early view in his commentary on Book II of the Sentences, L. X. López-Farjeat says that he differs with my interpretation of Thomas’s position because he finds certain passages in that commentary “where Aquinas, influenced by Avicenna and Averroes, does not reject” the possibility of eternal creation. See his “Avicenna’s Influence on Aquinas’ Early Doctrine of Creation in In II Sent., D. 1. Q, 1,

150  Creation and Preambles of Faith

III. Creation as a Preamble of Faith As we have seen, Thomas’s views on creation include both philosophical and theological factors. On the philosophical side, in his discussion of creation ex nihilo in the commentary on Book II of the Sentences Thomas explicitly states that if we take “creation” as meaning (1) the production of something from no preexisting subject and (2) a production in which nonexistence is prior to existence in the order of nature though not necessarily in the order of time, philosophical reason can demonstrate this. If, however, we add that it also means that the world began to exist after having not existed, this we can accept only on the grounds of religious belief. We cannot demonstrate it although, as we have now seen, Thomas ultimately concluded that an eternally created world is possible. Since we have noted some development in Thomas’s treatment of the possibility of an eternally created universe, we may now ask ourselves whether his thought might have developed or changed concerning the first two aspects we have identified in his understanding of creation. Does he always maintain that the reality of creation understood as including these two aspects can be demonstrated by reason?

IV. A quinas on Non-Christian ­­ Philosophers and Creation One way of responding to this may be to turn to texts where Thomas discusses the views of earlier (­­non-Christian) philosophers concerning creation. If he attributes a doctrine of creation to Aristotle, for example, or perhaps to Plato and to Aristotle, he obviously thinks that the reality of creation can be established philosophically. But for some time now there has been controversy among Thomistic scholars about Thomas’s understanding of Aristotle’s position concerning creation. Etienne Gilson strongly denied that Thomas attributes a doctrine of creation to Aristotle, beginning as early as 1931 in the French edition (and A. 2,” Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales 79 (2012): 308 n. 2; also see 333. Unfortunately he fails to recognize the distinction between denying that it can be demonstrated that the world began to be and positively asserting that it is possible for the world to be eternal. On my reading it is the latter and stronger claim that Thomas does not defend until De aeternitate mundi. On the importance of this distinction for Giles of Rome (a student at Paris during Thomas’s second teaching period there) see the Appendix to the present chapter.

Creation and Preambles of Faith  151 in the subsequent English translation) of The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy. In this he was followed by one of his ­­best-known students, Anton Pegis.19 Decades later, however, Mark Johnson wrote an interesting article in the 1989 issue of The New Scholasticism concerning this issue. There he assembled and analyzed twelve texts where, he maintains, Thomas attributes, albeit not explicitly, a doctrine of creation to Aristotle (eternal creation, to be sure).20 And in an article in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly of 1992, he finds a shift in Thomas’s treatment of Plato concerning the same issue. There he concludes that in earlier writings Thomas did not attribute a doctrine of creation to Plato, but thought that he did not allow for the production of matter by his supreme generating principle of the universe. In Thomas’s later writings, however, Johnson finds him attributing the production of matter to Plato and therefore, Johnson concludes, a doctrine of creation.21 These findings, especially the attribution by Thomas of creation to Aristotle, have been supported by a number of other scholars.22 Here I will consider a few of the strongest texts that Johnson in his 1989 article and others interpret in this direction, since not all of these 19. For Gilson see The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (London: Sheed & Ward, 1950), 69: “But St. Thomas never credits the Philosopher with the notion of creation, never once does he qualify as creationism his doctrine of the origin of the world; and if in fact he does not do so it is because the first principle of all being, as Plato and Aristotle conceived it, integrally explains indeed why the universe is what it is, but does not explain why it exists.” Also see the long n. 4 (438–41), where Gilson explains in more detail his [Thomas’s] denial of a doctrine of creation in Plato and in Aristotle. For the French version see L’Esprit de la philosophie médiévale, rev. ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1948), 69, and n. 1. For Anton Pegis see his Aquinas Lecture, St. Thomas and the Greeks (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1939; repr. 1980), 67, 70, and n. 4 (101–4); “The Dilemma of Being and Unity,” in R. E. Brennan, ed., Essays in Thomism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1942), 149–83, esp. 179–83; “A Note on St. Thomas, Summa Theologica 1, 44, 1–2,” Mediaeval Studies 8 (1946): 159–68; “St. Thomas and the Coherence of the Aristotelian Theology,” Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973): 67–117, esp. 114–16. 20. “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” The New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 129–55. 21. “Aquinas’s Changing Evaluation of Plato on Creation,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1992): 81–88. 22. See especially Lawrence Dewan, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” Laval théologique et philosophique 50 (1994): 363–87, where he is very critical of Gilson and, to a lesser extent, of Pegis, in their respective denials that Thomas attributed a doctrine of creation to Aristotle. Also see Steven E. Baldner and William E. Carroll in their Aquinas on Creation (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997), which contains their translation and commentary on Thomas’s In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1 (see Appendix D, at 128, n. 20 where they provide their list of texts in which “Aquinas attributes a doctrine of creation to Aristotle”).

152  Creation and Preambles of Faith texts are equally clear on this point. The first text is taken from Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard in his expositio textus for Book II, distinction 1, chapters 1 and 3, and dates from the early 1250s. There Peter reports that Plato held that there are three first principles (initia), namely, God, exemplars, and matter, and that matter itself is uncreated and derived from no principle, and that God is a kind of artisan (artifex), not a creator.23 Peter reports that Aristotle posited two principles, matter and form, and a third, called an operatarium (which I take to be an agent) and held that the world always exists and has always existed.24 In his expositio textus, as Johnson points out, Thomas seems content with Peter’s presentation of Plato’s view, and comments that Plato erred by holding that exemplar forms subsist per se outside the divine intellect, and that neither they nor matter receive their esse from God. But Thomas has more to say about Aristotle, noting first that Peter seems to touch on his position only imperfectly by referring to two principles whereas in Physics I Aristotle posits three principles—matter, form, and privation. Moreover, says Thomas, Aristotle posits not only an ­­efficient-exemplar cause (operatarium) but also a final cause. And Aristotle holds that the form and the agent and the end coincide (in Physics II) and therefore might seem to posit only two principles. On this Thomas comments that Aristotle did not err by positing many principles, because he held that the existence (esse) of all things depends only on the first principle, and so it remains that there is one first principle. Rather he erred by positing the eternity of the world. Thomas also clarifies that for Aristotle privation is not a principle per se, but only per accidens, and that it is this only with respect to the becoming (fieri) of a thing, but not with respect to its esse. Finally, Thomas explains that in Metaphysics XII the first efficient principle and the ultimate end are presented as numerically one, and that Aristotle holds there that the first moving principle moves as desired by all things. Thomas concludes that for Aristotle there is one first principle extrinsic to the thing produced, which is the agent and exemplar cause and the end; and there are two principles that are intrinsic to the thing (literally: parts of the thing) pro23. See Lombard, I Sent., p. 2 (Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV Libris distinctae [Grotta Ferrata (Rome): Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971], 330:3–5): “Plato namque tria initia existimavit, Deum scilicet, et exemplar, et materiam; et ipsa increata, sine principio, et Deum quasi artificem, non creatorem.” 24. Ibid. (Grotta Ferrata ed., 331:21–23): “Aristotiles vero duo principia dixit, scilicet materiam et speciem, et tertium ‘operatarium’ dictum; mundum quoque semper esse et fuisse.”

Creation and Preambles of Faith  153 duced, namely, matter and form, which “are produced” by that first principle. Most important among these observations for Johnson’s case are Thomas’s remarks that the esse of all things depends only upon the first principle, and that the matter and form of material things are produced.25 Yet in this text Thomas does not explicitly state that Aristotle’s First Principle is a creator unless one assumes that to produce the esse of other things and to produce their matter and form is to create them. Johnson assumes that this is the case, as do Lawrence Dewan and other defenders of this view, but that assumption needs to be examined more closely, as will be noted below.26 The second text cited by Johnson is taken from Thomas’s discussion of the eternity of the world in Book II of his Commentary on the Sentences, which we have summarized above (In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 5). There Thomas also criticizes an opening argument he had presented against an eternal world. God is the cause either of the substance of the heaven or only of its motion. And if he is the cause only of its motion, its substance is uncreated, and therefore it is a first principle, and as a consequence there will be many first principles and many that are uncreated, a position which Thomas has already refuted in article 1. But if God is the cause of the substance of the heaven and gives esse to it, since everything that receives esse from something else comes after it in duration, it seems that the world did not always exist.27 While Thomas agrees with the conclusion of this argument—that the world began to be—he does not find the argument itself demonstrative. He responds by citing from Averroes’s De substantia orbis, chapter 2, to the effect that “Aristotle never meant that God would be the cause only of the motion of the heaven, but also that he would be the cause of its substance, giving esse to it.” If one can judge from the medieval Latin version of this passage published in Venice in 1562, this is not quite what the 25. Mandonnet ed., 2.43, for Thomas’s expositio textus. Note in particular: “Ad quod dicendum, quod Aristoteles non erravit in ponendo plura principia: quia posuit esse omnium tantum a primo principio dependere; et ita relinquitur unum esse primum principium. Erravit autem in positione aeternitatis mundi. . . . Forma autem quae est pars rei non ponitur ab eo [i.e., by Aristotle] in idem numero incidere cum agente, sed in idem specie vel similitudine: ex quo sequitur quod sit unum principium primum extra rem, quod est agens, et exemplar, et finis; et duo quae sunt partes rei, scilicet forma et materia, quae ab illo primo principio producuntur.” 26. For Johnson on this see “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” 133–35. 27. Sed contra 1 (Mandonnet ed., 2:31).

154  Creation and Preambles of Faith Latin translation actually says. “Giving esse to it” is missing. It reads, in my translation: “Certain ones, not knowing that this was the opinion of Aristotle, said that he did not say that there is a cause that produces the universe [causam agentem universum], but only a moving cause, and that (claim) was extremely absurd.”28 But if we accept the reading of the text as we find it in Thomas himself, it again indicates that, at least according to Averroes in this treatise, Aristotle did not want to say that God is the cause only of the motion of the heaven, but also that he is the cause of its substance, and gives esse to it. Once more, it should not be immediately assumed that Thomas therefore thought that Aristotle attributed creation to his God unless we assume that to give esse is to create. Moreover, as Johnson himself notes without agreeing with this, someone might object that in this case Thomas is presenting Averroes’s understanding of Aristotle, not necessarily his own view.29 The next text to be considered is question 3, article 5 of De potentia (1265–66). There Thomas asks whether there can be anything that is not created by God. Before answering, he presents a kind of historical reconstruction of how the human mind advanced in its knowledge of the nature of things. Just as human knowledge in an individual moves from sense perception to the level of the intellect, so the first philosophers were preoccupied with sensible things, and only gradually moved from them to the knowledge of intelligible objects. Because accidental forms are sensible in themselves, whereas substantial forms are not, the first philosophers held that all forms are accidents, and that matter alone is a substance. And because substance is sufficient in itself to be a cause of those accidents that follow from the principles of substance, these first philosophers posited 28. Mandonnet ed., 2.38: “Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod sicut dicit Commentator in lib. De substantia orbis, cap. II, Aristoteles nunquam intendit quod Deus esset causa motus caeli tantum, sed etiam quod esset causa substantae eius, dans sibi esse.” See Aristotelis opera cum Averrois commentariis, vol. 9 (Venetius apud Junctas, 1562–74; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1962), ff. 6v–7r: “Et cum ignoraverunt hoc quidam esse de opinione Aristotelis, dixerunt ipsum non dicere causam agentem universum, sed causam moventem tantum, et illud fuit valde absurdum.” Also see Averroes’ De substantia orbis. Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text with English Translation and Commentary, ed. and trans. Arthur Hyman (Cambridge, Mass.: The Medieval Academy of America; Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1986), 86: “Since people do not know that this is one of Aristotle’s opinions they say that he does not speak of the acting cause of the universe, only of its moving cause. This is the height of ignorance.” 29. Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” 137.

Creation and Preambles of Faith  155 no other cause but matter to account for whatever appears among sensible things, and rejected any kind of efficient cause.30 At a second stage Thomas places later thinkers who began to consider substantial forms in some way. These did not rise to knowledge of universal forms but concentrated on particular (speciales) forms. They posited certain efficient causes (causae agentes), not those that confer esse on things universally, but rather those that change matter with respect to this or that form—such as mind (intellectus) or friendship and strife—and that act by separating or uniting. According to these philosophers, not all things are efficiently caused, and matter is simply presupposed for an efficient cause to act.31 “Still later philosophers,” Thomas continues, “such as Plato, Aristotle, and their followers came to a consideration of universal esse itself; and they therefore alone posited some universal cause of things, from which all others come forth into existence.” Thomas comments that this position is in agreement with Catholic faith and, he adds, can be demonstrated (demonstrari potest) by three arguments.32 Johnson does not pause to examine the three arguments presented by Thomas and the summarizing remark he makes at the end, but it would have strengthened his case if he had. Thomas attributes these arguments respectively to Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna. The first argument is this. If one single characteristic (aliquid unum) is found to be common to many different things, it is necessary that it be caused in each of them by some one cause. This common feature could not belong to each of them by reason of that which is unique to it in itself since each of them, in terms of that which it is in itself, is distinct from the others. And diversity of causes produces diverse effects. But esse is found to be common to all things even though each one of them, in terms of what it is in itself, is distinct from the others. Therefore it is necessary that esse is present in each of them not by reason of what they are of themselves, but by reason of some single cause. 30. De pot., q. 3, a. 5 (Marietti ed., 49). 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid.: “Posteriores vero philosophi, ut Plato, Aristoteles et eorum sequaces, pervenerunt ad considerationem ipsius esse universalis; et ideo ipsi soli posuerunt aliquam universalem causam rerum, a qua omnia alia in esse prodirent, ut patet per Augustinum [VIII De Civit. Dei, cap. iv].” Also see Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aris­totle?,” 142–43.

156  Creation and Preambles of Faith Thomas notes that this “seems” to be Plato’s argument, since he held that before every multitude (or many) there must be some unity, not only in the case of numbers but in the natures of things.33 Thomas attributes the second argument to Aristotle, and presents it this way. When something is found to be participated in by different things in diverse fashion, it must be given to all of those in which it is present more imperfectly by something in which it is most perfectly present. To support this Thomas reasons that those perfections that are said to be more or less are such because of their more remote or their more proximate approach (accessus) to something that is one. Otherwise, if the perfection belonged to each of them by reason of itself, there would be no reason why it would be more perfectly realized in one rather than in another. But one must posit one being which is the most perfect and the (ontologically) truest being, which is proved from the fact that there is a completely immobile and most perfect mover, as is proved by the philosophers. Therefore all other less perfect things must receive their esse from it. Thomas refers to this as Aristotle’s proof, and this is borne out at least by the reference to the argument for the unmoved mover.34 The working principle—that perfections are more or less insofar as they more proximately or more remotely approach something that is one—reminds one of Thomas’s Fourth Way among his arguments for God’s existence (ST I, q. 2, a. 3). Thomas then presents what he identifies as Avicenna’s argument. What exists by reason of something else must be traced back as to its cause to that which exists by reason of itself (per se). In support he reasons that if there were such a thing as heat that exists per se, it would be the cause of all hot things that possess heat by participation. But in fact there is some being which is esse itself, which is proved from the fact that there must be some first being which is pure act, and in which there is no composition. Therefore it is necessary that all other beings have existence from that one being, and they are not identical with their esse but have esse by participating in it.35 Here, then, Thomas is introducing his metaphysics of essence 33. De pot., q. 3, a. 5 (Marietti ed., 49). Note: “Et ista videtur ratio Platonis, qui voluit, quod ante omnem multitudinem esset aliqua unitas non solum in numeris, sed etiam in rerum naturis.” 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid.: “Tertia ratio est, quia illud quod est per alterum, reducitur sicut in causam ad illud quod est per se. Unde si esset unus calor per se existens, oporteret ipsum esse causam

Creation and Preambles of Faith  157 and esse in all beings that do not exist of themselves but only participate in esse, in order to make the point that anything other than God must derive its existence from God by way of participation. Thomas concludes his presentation of these arguments by noting that “thus it is demonstrated by reason and held by faith that all things are created by God” (“Sic ergo ratione demonstratur et fide tenetur quod omnia sint a Deo creata”). Hence at this point in his career he reaffirms the point he had made in Book II of his Commentary on the Sentences to the effect that creation taken strictly can be demonstrated. He also offers three arguments taken, or perhaps more accurately phrased, developed in varying degrees from Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna as demonstrations of his point. It would seem that he is very close to attributing a doctrine of creation to each of them, although he has not yet stated that point in so many words. And yet one may still ask whether proving that things other than God receive their act of existing from him is in fact enough to prove that they are created ex nihilo.36 In response to this concern, Thomas’s reply to objection 2 in this same article should be noted. There he reasons that when esse is given to a quiddity, not only the esse but the quiddity itself is created. This is so because “before the quiddity has esse, it is nothing except perhaps in the intellect of the Creator where it is not a creature but the creative essence” itself.37 This, therefore, appears to be the key that is needed to justify the transition from proving that something receives esse to proving that it is created. It must be produced ex nihilo, that is to say, from no preexisting subject whatsoever. It may be helpful to turn to two slightly later texts from Thomas’s first part of the Summa theologiae, question 44, articles 1 and 2. I will begin with article 1, although it is not cited by Johnson in his 1989 article. There Thomas asks whether God is the efficient cause of all things, as he indiomnium calidorum, quae per modum participationis calorem habent. Est autem ponere aliquod ens quod est ipsum suum esse: quod ex hoc probatur, quia oportet esse aliquod primum ens quod sit actus purus, in quo nulla sit compositio. Unde oportet quod ab uno illo ente omnia alia sint, quaecumque non sunt suum esse, sed habent esse per modum participationis. Haec est ratio Avicennae [lib. VIII, Metaph., cap. vii, et lib. IX, cap. iv].” 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid.: “ Ad secundum dicendum, quod ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse, sed ipsa quidditas creari dicitur: quia antequam esse habeat, nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu creantis, ubi non est creatura, sed creatrix essentia.”

158  Creation and Preambles of Faith cates in the prologue to question 44.38 Thomas immediately appeals to his now ­­full-blown metaphysics of participation. If something is present in something by participation, it must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially. But it was shown above in dealing with divine simplicity (see ST I, q. 3, a. 4) that God is self-subsisting ­­ esse. And it was shown that ­­self-subsisting esse can only be one (see ST I, q. 7, a. 1, ad 3). It follows that all things other than God are not identical with their esse, but participate in esse. Therefore, the argument concludes, things that differ by participating in esse in different degrees so as to exist more or less perfectly are caused by one first being which exists most perfectly. Thomas then gives credit to Plato for the point that before any many one must posit unity, and to Aristotle for holding in the second Book of the Metaphysics that what is maximally being (ens) and maximally true is the cause of every (other) being and all truth (of being). This argument, therefore, is Thomas’s, but he acknowledges his debt to Plato and to Aristotle for certain insights into it.39 In this text he does not explicitly attribute the doctrine of creation to either of them. In article 2 Thomas wants to show that prime matter is created. Hence this article marks an important step beyond article 1. In preparing his response, he again offers a brief recapitulation of earlier philosophical thinking on the issue. As in his previous presentation, he notes that in the beginning, given the fact that they were, as it were, “cruder” (grossiores), the ancient philosophers posited only sensible bodies as beings, and among 38. ST I, q. 44, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.455): “Primo: utrum Deus sit causa efficiens omnium entium.” But the article is then entitled: “Utrum sit necessarium omne ens esse creatum a Deo,” even though it only attempts to prove that every other thing that exists in any way whatsoever depends for this on God, as is indicated by the opening sentence in the response: “Respondeo dicendum quod necesse est dicere omne quod quocumque modo est, a Deo esse.” The Marietti edition of 1950 (p. 223 n. 1) clarifies this by commenting that in the title the expression esse creatum simply means effective causatum (efficiently caused). This explanation is also offered by Cajetan (Leon. ed., 4.456). 39. ST I, q. 44, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.455): “Si enim aliquid invenitur in aliquo per participationem, necesse est quod causetur in ipso ab eo cui essentialiter convenit; sicut ferrum fit ignitum ab igne. Ostensum est autem supra, cum de divina simplicitate ageretur, quod Deus est ipsum esse per se subsistens. Et iterum ostensum est quod esse subsistens non potest esse nisi unum: sicut si albedo esset subsistens, non posset esse nisi una, cum albedines multiplicentur secundum recipientia. Relinquitur ergo quod omnia alia a Deo non sint suum esse, sed participant esse. Necesse est igitur omnia quae diversificantur secundum diversam participationem essendi, ut sint perfectius vel minus perfecte, causari ab uno primo ente, quod perfectissime est.” For a helpful analysis of this argument see Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006), 129–32. Also see In II Metaphys., lect. 2 (nn. 296–98).

Creation and Preambles of Faith  159 those who posited motion in such bodies, they thought of motion only in terms of accidents, such as rarefaction and condensation, and uniting and separation. Because they regarded the substance of bodies as uncreated, they posited causes for accidental changes of this kind such as friendship, strife, intellect, or something like this.40 Going beyond these philosophers, others reached a second stage and distinguished between substantial form and matter, and viewed the latter as uncreated. They also realized that change occurs in bodies in terms of essential forms. Moreover, they posited certain more universal causes for these changes, such as the oblique (ecliptic) circle of the sun, according to Aristotle, or ideas, according to Plato. Thomas himself observes that matter is limited (contrahitur) by a form to a determined species, and that a substance or essence of a given species is limited to a determined mode of existing (modus essendi) by an accident added to it. “Therefore each/both [utrique] considered being in some particular way, either insofar as it is this being [hoc ens] or insofar as it is such being [tale ens].” And so they assigned particular efficient causes to account for these particular changes.41 Going still farther, in a third stage “some [aliqui] raised themselves up to a consideration of being insofar as it is being [ens inquantum est ens] and investigated the cause of things not only insofar as they are these [haec] or such [talia], but insofar as they are beings.” Here Thomas comments that the cause of things insofar as they are beings must cause them not only insofar as they are such through accidental forms, and not only insofar as they are these through substantial forms, “it must also cause everything in them that pertains to their being [esse] in any way whatsoever.” From this Thomas concludes that one must accordingly hold “also that prime matter is created by the universal cause of beings.” Here, then, Thomas is definitely assigning a doctrine of creation to those who had reached this third stage.42 40. ST I, q. 44, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 4.457). Note especially: “A principio enim, quasi grossiores existentes, non existimabant esse entia nisi corpora sensibilia.” 41. Ibid. 4.457–58. Note in particular: “Utrique igitur consideraverunt ens particulari qua­ dam consideratione, vel inquantum est hoc ens, vel inquantum est tale ens.” 42. Ibid., 458: “Et ulterius aliqui erexerunt se ad considerandum ens inquantum est ens: et consideraverunt causam rerum, non solum secundum quod sunt haec vel talia, sed secundum quod sunt entia. Hoc igitur quod est causa rerum inquantum sunt entia, oportet esse causam rerum, non solum secundum quod sunt talia per formas accidentales, nec secundum quod sunt haec per formas substantiales, sed etiam secundum omne illud quod pertinet ad esse illorum

160  Creation and Preambles of Faith There has been considerable controversy concerning exactly where Plato and Aristotle fit into this classification scheme, and concerning the identity of those aliqui who arose to a consideration of being insofar as it is being and hence to the view that even prime matter is created by God. At first sight it would seem that Thomas does not place Plato and Aristotle within this third group but only within the second group of those who managed to distinguish between substantial form and matter, the latter of which they regarded as uncreated. For Thomas states that thinkers in the second group posited certain “more universal causes” to account for changes of substantial forms, and cites Aristotle’s oblique or ecliptic circle and Plato’s ideas. But when Thomas refers back to those who held this view he uses the Latin term utrique. Gilson, for instance, has translated this term as “both” and has taken it as referring to Aristotle and to Plato.43 Against this reading Johnson has countered that it seems to involve a mistranslation of the term utrique which, when used in the plural, refers “not to two individuals taken separately, but to two groups taken separately.”44 But even if one agrees with Johnson on this grammatical point, the text still presents a problem. It indicates that members of groups one and two (with Plato and Aristotle explicitly included in group two) still dealt with particular causes or with “more universal causes,” but not with the universal cause of being as being. It does not put them in the third class, with those thinkers who considered being insofar as it is being and who defended the creation of matter by the first cause. While Johnson himself acknowledges that Thomas does not include Plato and Aristotle in the third class, he maintains that Thomas could have included Aristotle there; but Johnson’s effort to do this seems to me to involve some special pleading, since this is not what the text says.45 quocumque modo. Et sic oportet ponere etiam materiam primam creatam ab universali causa entium.” 43. See Gilson, Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, 439–40 n. 4; also see the more general discussion in Pegis, St. Thomas and the Greeks, 101 n. 63. Te Velde, on the other hand, translates utrique as “each of these opinions,” but nonetheless applies it to “philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle” (Aquinas on God, 136). 44. Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” 144–45. 45. Ibid., 145–46. Also see Mark Johnson, “Aquinas’s Changing Evaluation of Plato on Creation,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1992): 84–85 and nn. 12, 13, and 14. Also see Dewan, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” 363–87, for support of Johnson’s position and a critique of Gilson and Pegis concerning the same. Dewan also points out that Gilson indicated that Maritain had previously proposed the same reading as Gilson offered of ST I, q. 44, a. 2 (364 n. 2).

Creation and Preambles of Faith  161 At the same time, if in this text Thomas does not include Plato and Aristotle within the third class, it is difficult to reconcile this reading with the view expressed by Thomas himself a year or so previously in question 3, article 5 of De potentia where, as we have seen, he attributes three different arguments to Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna respectively, and then concludes that it is demonstrated by reason and held by faith that all things are created by God.46 The simpler solution seems to be that in the text from the Summa considered here Thomas has changed his mind about this point, notwithstanding the relatively short period of time between this text (1266–68) and De potentia (1265–66)—and apparently changed it again later, as will be seen below. But the other question then remains: If in the present text Thomas does not include Plato and Aristotle within the third class, just whom does he want to place there? Gilson argues that Thomas must have Avicenna in mind, and Rudi te Velde regards this as likely; to me this is quite plausible. Since Thomas regarded Avicenna as one of the philosophers, this interpretation would still be consistent with his claim in De potentia about Avicenna, though not about Plato and Aristotle.47 If, however, in the Summa Thomas does not attribute a doctrine of creation either to Plato or to Aristotle, what does he say in later texts? Two interesting texts dealing with this are to be found in Thomas’s slightly later commentary on Book VIII of the Physics, lectio 2 and lectio 3, which work Torrell dates in 1268–69. At the very least, in both of these texts Thomas attributes the causation of esse to Aristotle’s God. In the first, Thomas offers another very brief recapitulation of the early philosophers’ thinking concerning this: 46. Gilson, for instance, attempted to reconcile these texts by arguing that Thomas distinguishes between esse taken in the strict sense as signifying “to exist,” which he says is the true Thomistic understanding, and esse taken in the broad sense as signifying substantial being (l’ être), which he says is the Aristotelian sense. Given this, according to Gilson Thomas could have said that Aristotle arrived at knowledge of a causa totius esse (substantial esse as including matter and form), as at In VIII Phys., c. 1, lect. 2, n. 5 (principium totius esse) and yet that Aristotle did not arrive at the notion of God as a creator, that is, as the cause of existential esse. For Gilson see Le thomisme, 6th ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1965), 154–55, esp. 155 n. 6. For a full discussion and critique of this distinction and solution see Dewan, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” 365–73. 47. Gilson, Le thomisme, 155–56. See te Velde, Aquinas on God, 136. Te Velde also writes that “it was Avicenna who introduced the notion of creation into metaphysics by distinguishing between the possible essence of finite things and their actual existence, which they receive from the First Cause,” and cites Gilson, Le thomisme, 155.

162  Creation and Preambles of Faith The ancient natural philosophers were unable to arrive at the first cause of the whole of esse [totius esse], but considered the causes of particular changes. Among these the first considered the causes only of accidental changes, and held that every fieri is an alterari. Those who came after them arrived at a knowledge of substantial changes; but the last of them, such as Plato and Aristotle, arrived at a knowledge of the principle of the whole of esse.48

At the very least, in this passage Thomas indicates that Plato and Aristotle arrived at a knowledge of the First Principle as the cause of all esse. Yet, as Johnson acknowledges, he does not explicitly say here in so many words that Aristotle taught creation.49 In the second text from this commentary, Thomas notes that Aristotle maintains that certain things have always existed and are nonetheless caused, such as a triangle, which always has three angles equal to two right angles and which has a cause of this eternal property. Thomas then writes: Therefore just as some things are always true and nonetheless have a cause of their truth, so too Aristotle thought that certain things were always existing, namely heavenly bodies and separate substances, and nonetheless had a cause of their existence.50

Then Thomas adds: From this it is evident that while Aristotle posited an eternal world, he did not, however, believe that God is not the causa essendi for the world itself, but only a cause of its motion, as certain ones have said.51

In these texts from his Commentary on the Physics, therefore, Thomas does attribute to Aristotle the view that God is the cause of esse for the 48. In VIII Phys., lect. 2, n. 975 (In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis expositio [Turin: Marietti, 1954]): “quia antiqui naturales non potuerunt pervenire ad causam primam totius esse, sed considerabant causas particularium mutationum. Quorum primi consideraverunt causas solarum mutationum accidentalium, ponentes omne fieri esse alterari: sequentes vero pervenerunt ad cognitionem mutationum substantialium: postremi vero, ut Plato et Aristoteles, pervenerunt ad cognoscendum principium totius esse.” 49. Johnson, “Did Saint Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” 150. Also see Dewan, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” 366 and n. 10. 50. In VIII Phys., lect. 3, n. 996: “Sicut igitur aliqua sunt semper vera et tamen habent causam suae veritatis, ita Aristoteles intellexit quod essent aliqua semper entia, scilicet corpora caelestia et substantiae separatae, et tamen haberent causam sui esse.” 51. Ibid.: “Ex quo patet quod quamvis Aristoteles poneret mundum aeternum, non tamen credidit quod Deus non sit causa essendi ipsi mundo, sed causa motus eius tantum, ut quidam dixerunt.”

Creation and Preambles of Faith  163 eternally existent world. Nonetheless, in neither of them does he state explicitly that Aristotle’s God produced the world from nothing whatsoever. Johnson cites two texts from Thomas’s commentary on the Meta­ physics, which dates from the early 1270s, perhaps beginning in 1270–71, and which may have been completed in Naples in 1272. The first is taken from the commentary on Book II, chapter 1, and the second from the commentary on Book VI, chapter 1. In these texts Thomas again finds Aristotle holding that the heavenly bodies are caused not merely in terms of their motion but also in terms of their esse or, according to the second text, in terms of their substance.52 In chapter 9 of his De substantiis separatis (dating from the second half of 1271 or thereafter), Thomas again details a series of steps through which human ingenuity only gradually passed in investigating the origin of things. A first group of philosophers thought that the origin of things consists in nothing but accidental changes. For things to be made is nothing other than for them to undergo alteration, whereas the substance of things, which these philosophers called matter, was viewed as a completely uncaused first principle. These philosophers were unable to transcend the distinction between substance and accidents in their thinking. A second group succeeded in investigating the origin of substances themselves, and held that some substances have a cause of their existence (esse); but being unable to grasp things beyond the corporeal, they resolved corporeal substances into corporeal principles from which other bodies arise by condensation and separation to account for their origin. Later philosophers advanced to a third stage and reduced sensible substances into the parts of their essence, that is, to matter and form, so that natural things are made through a certain change as matter is subjected to different forms alternatively. 52. For these see In II Metaphys., lect. 2, n. 295. Here Thomas finds Aristotle referring to the eternal principles of those things that always exist, that is, the principles of the heavenly bodies, which Thomas comments must be most true: “Secundo, quia nihil est eis causa, sed ipsa sunt causa essendi aliis.” And as regards the heavenly bodies he adds: “quae etsi sint incorruptibilia, tamen habent causam non solum quantum ad suum moveri, ut quidam opinati sunt, sed etiam quantum ad suum esse, ut hic Philosophus expresse dicit.” And at In VI Metaphys., lect. 1, n. 1164, where Thomas again is referring to certain completely immobile and immaterial causes which are causes of the heavenly bodies and, he now says, they are “causae entium secundum quod sunt entia” and he adds: “Ex hoc autem apparet manifeste falsitas opinionis illorum, qui posue­ runt Aristotelem sensisse, quod Deus non sit causa substantiae caeli, sed solum motus eius.” On these texts see Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” 146–48.

164  Creation and Preambles of Faith But, continues Thomas, as he now introduces for the first time what appears to be a fourth stage, Plato and Aristotle found it necessary to posit a higher way of being made. Since the first substance must be most simple, it cannot be thought to participate in esse, but is existing esse itself (ipsum esse existens). And because self-subsisting ­­ esse must be unique, all other things that fall below it exist only insofar as they participate in esse. Therefore, there must be a general resolution by the intellect of all such things into what we may call intrinsic principles, or as Thomas puts it, “into that which they are and their act of existing” (in id quod est et in suum esse). Therefore, he concludes, “above the mode of being made whereby something is made because a form is introduced into matter, one must presuppose another origin for things according to which esse is given to the entire universe of things by the first being which is its own act of existing.”53 Unlike in the troublesome text from question 44, article 2 of the Prima pars, here Thomas distinguishes Plato and Aristotle from all lower stages of philosophy, and places them in the highest stage. What remains unclear, however, is exactly how much of his complete metaphysics of essence and esse and participation in esse he believes is really present in Plato and Aristotle, and how much of what he has said in this paragraph is owing to what may be called “reverential interpretation,” whereby he reads his personal metaphysics into the thought of respected authorities from the past. Be that as it may, farther on in this same chapter, while responding to certain arguments offered by those who would not recognize this higher mode of production beyond any kind of change, Thomas explains that in this type of production, because no motion or change is involved, the influence of the agent and the existence of the effect are simultaneous, and so it is possible for such an effect to be produced and to have always existed. To illustrate this he notes that the truth of principles is the cause of the truth of conclusions that are always necessary, since there are certain necessary things that have a cause of their necessity, according to Aristotle in Book V of the Metaphysics (see 1015b 9) and Book VIII of the Physics (see 252a 32–b6). And then he writes: 53. De sub. separ., c. 9 (Leon. ed., 40D:57.78–118). Note especially: “Oportet igitur communem quandam resolutionem in omnibus huiusmodi fieri, secundum quod unumquodque eorum intellectu resolvitur in id quod est et in suum esse; oportet igitur supra modum fiendi quo aliquid fit forma materiae adveniente, praeintelligere aliam rerum originem, secundum quod esse attribuitur toti universitati rerum a primo ente quod est suum esse” (Leon. ed., 40.D57: 110–18).

Creation and Preambles of Faith  165 It should not be thought, therefore, that because Plato and Aristotle held that immaterial substances or also heavenly bodies have always existed that they denied for them a cause of existing [causam essendi]; for it was not in positing uncreated things of this kind that they deviated from the position of the Catholic Faith, but because they held that they have always existed.54

Here Thomas assigns to Plato and Aristotle recognition of a higher kind of production of things beyond any based on change, that is to say, a production of heavenly bodies and separate substances in terms of their esse. At the same time, one might still ask whether this is enough to prove that he assigns a doctrine of creation to them in the sense of producing something from nothing whatsoever. The text just cited could be interpreted in that way, as Johnson and Dewan do, since it denies that they held that immaterial substances and heavenly bodies were uncreated; yet what Thomas’s argumentation has really shown is that Plato and Aristotle assigned a cause of existing to account for them. Thus Johnson acknowledges that Thomas does not here explicitly say that they held the doctrine of creation, but regards it as a “fair inference” from what Thomas does say.55 Dewan, in his critique of Pegis, cites a number of texts from De substantiis separatis to support the view that Thomas does indeed assign a doctrine of creation to Plato and to Aristotle. But throughout this discussion, he seems to assume that according to Thomas a causa essendi is necessarily a creative cause.56 It is this assumption that I want to examine in the following section.

V. I s a Causa Essendi Necessarily a Creative Cause? If the answer to this is affirmative—that for Thomas a causa essendi necessarily is a creative cause—then the texts we have examined so far would indicate that he attributes a doctrine of creative causality to Plato and to 54. Ibid. (Leon. ed., 40.D58:180–222): “Non ergo aestimandum est quod Plato et Aristotiles, propter hoc quod posuerunt substantias immateriales seu etiam caelestia corpora semper fuisse, eis subtraxerunt causam essendi; non enim in hoc a sententia catholicae fidei deviarunt quod huiusmodi posuerunt increata, sed quia posuerunt ea semper fuisse” (Leon. ed., 40.D58:215–21). 55. Johnson, “Did Saint Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?,” 152. 56. Dewan, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” 374–87. For his discussion of c. 9 see 380ff.

166  Creation and Preambles of Faith Aristotle and, moreover, would reinforce Thomas’s personal claim that creation can be demonstrated philosophically. Some caution, however, seems to be advisable concerning this. We have already seen in question 44 of the Prima pars the distinction between his effort in article 1 to prove that things other than God are all produced or efficiently caused by him and his subsequent claim in article 2 that matter is created by God. Again, in chapter 15 of Book II of the Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas offers a series of arguments to prove that all things other than God depend upon him for their existence (esse). But there, too, he then judges it necessary to prove in the following chapter that God produces things other than himself from no preexisting subject such as matter and, therefore, that he creates them.57 Moreover, after having entertained with Peter the Lombard in his commentary on Book II of the Sentences the philosophical possibility that God could use a creature as an instrumental cause in creating (although to say that God actually did so is heretical according to the Christian faith), Thomas subsequently strongly rejects the view that this is even possible. For instance, in question 45, article 5 of the Prima pars he writes: “To produce esse in the unqualified sense, and not insofar as it is ‘this’ or ‘thus’, belongs to the nature of creation. Therefore it is evident that creation is an action that is proper to God himself.”58 When it comes to Thomas’s explanation of the relationship between God and created causes, he always maintains that esse is the proper effect of God; he does at times indicate, however, that while created agents cannot produce esse by acting as principal or first causes, nonetheless, in some way they can be used as instrumental causes by God, not in creating, to be sure, but in preserving or conserving beings in existence. 57. SCG II, c. 15 (Summa contra Gentiles [Rome: Editio leonina manualis, 1934], 101). See also near the end of c. 16 Thomas’s citation of Genesis 1 (“In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram”), and his comment on this: “Nihil enim est aliud creare quam absque materia praeiacenti aliquid in esse producere” (ed. Leon. man., 103). For an interesting discussion of some of the arguments offered in c. 16 see N. Kretzmann, The Metaphysics of Creation: Aquinas’s Natural Theology in “Summa Contra Gentiles II” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 70–87. 58. ST I, q. 45, a. 5 (Leon. ed., 4.469): “Producere autem esse absolute, non inquantum est hoc vel tale, pertinet ad rationem creationis. Unde manifestum est quod creatio est propria actio ipsius Dei.” For Thomas’s apparent openness to Peter’s view as defensible, see In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 3 (Mandonnet ed., 2.22). For his fluctuation about this, see In IV Sent., d. 5, q. 1, a. 3, resp. and ad 5 (Scriptum super sententiis, M. F. Moos, vol. 4 [Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1947], 209, 210–11). For a brief but helpful commentary see J. de Finance, Être et agir dans la philosophie de saint Thomas (Rome: Université Pontificale Gregorienne, 1960), 142–44.

Creation and Preambles of Faith  167 Thus in chapter 66 of Book III of the Summa contra Gentiles Thomas writes that lower agents do not give esse except insofar as they act by divine power. The implication is that in some cases lower agents do cause esse, not as their proper effect, but only by acting by the power of God. In one of his arguments Thomas reasons that if esse is an effect that is common to all agents, it follows that created agents can produce it “only insofar as they are ordered under the First Agent and act under its power.”59 And again he writes that “esse is that which second agents produce by the power of the First Agent.”60 In another argument he reasons that esse is the first of all effects, since all other things are determinations of it. “Therefore it is the proper effect of the First Agent, and other things produce it insofar as they act in virtue of the First Agent.” And he adds that secondary agents, which particularize and determine as it were the action of the First Agent, produce as their proper effects other perfections which determine esse.61 This text is important because it distinguishes between the proper effects of second causes—the production of perfections that determine and particularize esse (which I take to be substantial and accidental forms)— and the production of esse—the effect that is proper to God which some created agents cause only by acting with the power of God or, as one might put it, as instrumental causes of God. This point is reinforced by Thomas’s discussion in question 3, article 7 of De potentia. There he explains how God operates in four ways in the operations of created agents. In the fourth way, Thomas writes in accord with the physics of his day, no purely natural cause can exercise causality with respect to a species of lower things except insofar as it acts through the power of (as an instrument of) a heavenly body. And of greater interest to us, he also notes that a created agent cannot exercise causality with respect to esse except through the power of God, which is for him to say that it acts in this capacity only as an instrumental cause.62 59. SCG III, c. 66 (ed. Leon. man., 299) (first “Amplius”): “Cum igitur esse sit communis effectus omnium agentium, nam omne agens facit esse actu; oportet quod hunc effectum producunt inquantum ordinantur sub primo agente, et agunt in virtute ipsius.” 60. Ibid. (second “Amplius”): “Igitur esse est quod agentia secunda agunt in virtute agentis primi.” 61. Ibid. (“Item”): “Igitur esse est proprius effectus primi agentis, et omnia alia agunt ipsum inquantum agunt in virtute primi agentis. Secunda autem agentia, quae sunt quasi particulantes et determinantes actionem primi agentis, agunt sicut proprios effectus alias perfectiones, quae determinant esse.” 62. De pot., q. 3, a. 7 (Marietti ed., 58): “Hoc ergo individuum agendo non potest con-

168  Creation and Preambles of Faith Furthermore, in question 104, article 1 of the Prima pars, where Thomas argues that creatures are conserved in existence (esse) by God, Cornelio Fabro finds confirmation of Thomas’s developed thinking about the causality exercised by a created agent with respect to the esse of a material being. There Thomas explains that a creature so depends upon its conserving cause that without that cause it would cease to exist. He calls upon a distinction between a cause of a thing’s becoming (causa fiendi) and a cause of its existing (causa essendi). If a created cause and effect belong to the same species, the cause can only cause a form of the same kind to be present in this matter, and will be a cause of becoming. If, however, the created cause belongs to a higher species than the effect, then it can cause the form of the effect insofar as it is that kind of form, and will be not only a cause of becoming but a cause of existing of that effect. In accord with the physics of that time, Thomas writes that heavenly bodies are causes of the generation of lower bodies that differ from them in species, and therefore are causae esssendi with respect to them.63 Finally, in article 2 of this same question Thomas asks whether God conserves every creature immediately. He notes that some effects depend upon a created agent for their esse. While God immediately creates all things, in conserving them he has established an order such that certain creatures depend upon created agents for being conserved in existence, whereas God is their primary and principal conserving cause.64 These stituere aliud in simili specie nisi prout est instrumentum illius causae, quae respicit totam speciem et ulterius totum esse naturae inferioris. Et propter hoc nihil agit ad speciem in istis inferioribus nisi per virtutem corporis caelestis, nec aliquid agit ad esse nisi per virtutem Dei.” For discussion see my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 184–88, and the references given there in n. 42 to F. X. Meehan, Efficient Causality in Aristotle and St. Thomas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1940), 292–301; C. Fabro, Participation et causalité selon S. Thomas d’Aquin (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1961), 397–404; J. Aertsen, Nature and Creature: Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 314ff.; and R. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 164–75. 63. For Fabro see Participation et causalité, 377–80. For Thomas see ST I, q. 104, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 5.64). Note in particular: “Sed aliquando effectus non est natus recipere impressionem agentis secundum eamdem rationem secundum quam est in agente: sicut patet in omnibus agentibus quae non agunt simile secundum speciem; sicut caelestia corpora sunt causa gene­ rationis inferiorum corporum dissimilium secundum speciem. Et tale agens potest esse causa formae secundum rationem talis formae, et non solum secundum quod acquiritur in hac materia: et ideo est causa non solum fiendi, sed essendi.” 64. See ST I, q. 104, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 5.467): “Invenitur etiam quod ab aliqua creatura dependet aliquis effectus secundum suum esse. Cum enim sunt multae causae ordinatae, necesse

Creation and Preambles of Faith  169 texts strongly suggest that one should not immediately assume that for Thomas to refer to something as a cause of existing is always equivalent to referring to it as a creating cause. Nor should it be thought that he denies that created agents can cause existence in any way, as many Thomistic scholars have maintained.65

VI. S pecial Cases: The Production of Immaterial Substances and of Heavenly Bodies In chapter 10 of his De substantiis separatis, Thomas criticizes the Avicennian view that God can produce only one immediate effect—the first intelligence—and creates all subsequent effects only mediately through a descending series of caused agents. There Thomas again distinguishes between two kinds of production, one that involves motion and change, and another that does not. As regards the first kind of production, he notes that other things may proceed from the First Principle by means of second (created) causes. Thus plants and animals are brought into existence by motion in collaboration with the powers of higher causes in ordered fashion leading back to the First Principle. But in the second kind of production, which occurs through a simple influx of esse without motion, this is impossible; for what is produced in this case becomes not only this being, but an ens simpliciter. This kind of production is reserved for the universal cause of existing, that is to say, for God alone, and it is known as creation. And it is only in this way, Thomas indicates, that immaterial substances can be produced, as well as heavenly bodies, since he and his contemporaries thought that they, too, were incorruptible.66 And so he est quod effectus dependeat primo quidem et principaliter a causa prima; secundario vero ab omnibus causis mediis. Et ideo principaliter quidem prima causa est effectus conservativa; se­ condario vero omnes mediae causae, et tanto magis quanto causa fuerit altior et primae causae proximior. Unde superioribus causis, etiam in corporalibus rebus, attribuitur conservatio et permanentia rerum: sicut Philosophus dicit, in XII Metaphys., quod primus motus, sicut diurnus, est causa continuitatis generationis; secundus autem motus, qui est per zodiacum, est causa diversitatis quae est secundum generationem et corruptionem. Et similiter astrologi, attribuunt Saturno, qui est supremus planetarum, res fixas et permanentes.—Sic igitur dicendum est quod Deus conservat res quasdam in esse, mediantibus aliquibus causis.” 65. For a detailed discussion and refutation of this claim see my “Thomas Aquinas on Creatures as Causes of esse,” in Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II. 66. De sub. separ., c. 10 (Leon. ed., 40.D60:89–98): “Possunt igitur per mutationem vel motum aliqua produci in esse a primo principio mediantibus causis secundis; sed eo productionis modo qui fit absque motu—qui creatio nominatur—in solum Deum refertur auctorem. Solo

170  Creation and Preambles of Faith concludes: “It follows that all immaterial substances and heavenly bodies that cannot be produced in existence through motion have God alone as the author of their esse.”67 As Thomas also puts it: “No agent after the first [agent] produces an entire thing in esse as if to produce an ens simplici­ ter per se et non per accidens—which is to create.”68 I conclude from this that in the case of immaterial substances (angels) and of heavenly bodies, Thomas maintains that the only way in which such entities can receive their esse is by being created. They cannot be brought into existence by a process of generation or by any kind of motion or change. In their case, therefore, to receive their esse from something else is for them to be created. And in their case although not necessarily in other cases, for someone to prove that they receive their esse is to prove that they are created. And for Thomas to credit Plato and Aristotle with having held that separate substances and/or heavenly bodies receive their esse from God is for him to attribute to both of them a doctrine of creation at least of other separate substances and heavenly bodies.

Conclusion It is clear that Thomas thinks that creation taken strictly as the production of something from no preexisting subject and as distinguished from creation with a temporal beginning can be demonstrated by natural reason, and therefore that it should be regarded as another preamble of faith. It also seems clear from this study of Thomas’s various references to the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna that at least in some texts Thomas held that some philosophers had arrived at a knowledge of God as the universal cause of esse and also at a knowledge of creation. As already mentioned above, this in turn is only further confirmation for his view that the reality of creation can be demonstrated philosophically. As has autem hoc modo produci possunt in esse immateriales substantiae, et quorumcumque corporum materia ante formam esse non potuit, sicut dictum est de materia caelestium corporum quae non est in potentia ad aliam formam.” 67. Ibid. (Leon. ed., 40.D60:98–101): “Relinquitur igitur quod omnes immateriales substantiae et caelestia corpora quae per motum produci non possunt in esse, solum Deum sui esse habent auctorem.” 68. Ibid. (Leon. ed., 40.D60:122–25): “et sic nullum agens post primum totam rem in esse producit quasi producens ens simpliciter per se et non per accidens—quod est creare, ut dictum est.”

Creation and Preambles of Faith  171 also been noted above, at times Thomas clearly distinguishes between his proof that all things other than God depend upon him for their existence and his proof that God creates all things other than himself (see, for instance, SCG II, cc. 15 and 16). Hence I would suggest that he regards both of these as preambles of faith.69 There is another aspect of Thomas’s understanding of creation that I have not considered in the present study, although I have dealt with it at some length elsewhere. This is his spirited philosophical defense of God’s freedom to create or not to create. Limitations of space will not permit me to take up that topic here, and so I would simply refer the reader to my other treatments of this for my understanding of Thomas’s views. My conclusion there is that Thomas maintains that God’s freedom to create or not create is a truth that can be demonstrated philosophically and hence, I would suggest, is also a preamble of faith that follows from still another, the presence of will in God.70 At the beginning of this paper I referred to Robert Sokolowski’s emphasis on the importance for Christian thinking of the distinction between God and the world. Thomas Aquinas would certainly support him on this point and often appeals to his own understanding of the difference between ­­self-subsisting esse, on the one hand, and every being in our universe, on the other hand, in which there is a distinction and composition of essence and esse, in order to bring this out. Thomas also brings this out in another way by holding that God himself does not fall under the notion of being (ens commune) that is the subject of metaphysics, but is considered by this science only as the principle and cause of what does fall under being in general (ens commune). Moreover, and with ever increasing frequency in his more mature writings, Thomas constantly contrasts God as the unparticipated being and all other things that only participate in esse or, as he also puts it, the difference between God as the only being which exists per essentiam and everything else which exists only by participat69. This would be a fuller justification for my inclusion of both of them in my list of the preambles in “Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith,” as propositions 11 and 12 on p. 97 in chapter II of this volume above. 70. See my “Thomas Aquinas on God’s Freedom to Create or Not,” in Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II; as well as “Thomas Aquinas on the Ultimate Why Question: Why Is There Anything at All Rather Than Nothing Whatsoever?,” The Review of Metaphysics 60 (2007): 731–53, reprinted as chapter 4 in The Ultimate Why Question: Why Is There Anything at All Rather than Nothing Whatsoever?, ed. John Wippel (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 84–106.

172  Creation and Preambles of Faith ing in esse. If Thomas at times speaks of esse commune, or the act of existing insofar as it is viewed universally, he sharply distinguishes this from ­­self-subsisting esse (or God). Indeed, he also denies that God falls under or participates in esse commune.71 Creatures, on the other hand, do participate in esse commune in that each one shares in particular fashion in the act of existing viewed universally. And creatures also participate by imitation and assimilation in esse subsistens. God, of course, participates in neither. He simply is esse subsistens.

Appendix The distinction between holding that it cannot be demonstrated that the world began to be and asserting that an eternal world is possible was important not only for Thomas, but also for some of his contemporaries, especially for Giles of Rome. Giles himself underwent a censure by and expulsion from the Theology Faculty at Paris in March 1277 for his defense of and refusal to retract 51 theses taken from his commentary on Book I of the Sentences, which dates from the early 1270s. These theses have been discovered in the form of an apologia in a manuscript from the library of Godfrey of Fontaines, edited, and thoroughly investigated by Robert Wielockx in his Aegidii Romani Opera omnia III.1 Apologia (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1985). Giles would not be readmitted to the Theology Faculty and given permission to teach there until 1285, and then only owing to papal intervention. In propositions 30, 31, and 50 of his Apologia, Giles maintains that some creature could have existed from eternity and that God could have made the world from eternity (see pp. 55 and 59 for the texts and 139–45 for commentary by Wielockx). These propositions, therefore, were judged worthy of censure by the Theological Faculty in March 1277. In his second and definitive redaction of his commentary on Book II of the Sentences (completed many years after its original oral presentation in the early 1270s), Giles distinguishes three possible positions. One might claim: (1) that the eternity of the world is possible, or (2) that one cannot demonstrate the impossibility of an eternal world, or (3) that the impossibility of an eternal world has not yet been demonstrated. Giles 71. For relevant texts and discussion of Thomas’s refusal to include God under ens commune see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 14–22; on God and esse commune see 114–17, 122–23.

Creation and Preambles of Faith  173 comments that he does not defend the first assertion although certain remarks he had made at some time or other (aliquando) for the sake of disputation might have given that impression; nor does he even defend the second position. He claims only that no one has yet demonstrated that an eternal world is impossible (see his In II Sent., d. 1, p. 1, q. 4, a. 2 [Venice, 1581; repr. Frankfurt, 1968], 54–70). It should also now be noted that in a reportatio preserved in a Munich manuscript of his commentary on Book II of the Sentences recently edited and introduced by Concetta Luna, Giles is reported to have held: “Propter hoc aliter dicendum quod potuit mundus esse ab aeterno, non tamen potuerunt esse infinitae animae.” See her Aegidii Romani Opera omnia: III.2 Reportatio Lecturae Super Libros I– IV Sententiarum. Reportatio Monacensis; Excerpta Godefridi de Fontibus (Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003), 45:52–53.

Substantial Form Substantial Form

Vi 

S Thomas Aquinas and the

Unity of Substantial Form

Let me begin by specifying the theme of this essay a little more precisely than its title indicates. In this study I intend to concentrate on Thomas Aquinas’s views on the unity of substantial form in human beings, and then on the controversy that arose concerning this doctrine. This controversy seems to have arisen during the final years of Thomas’s lifetime, and even more so in the years and decades immediately following his death in March, 1274. So true is this that this theory was condemned in England by successive Archbishops of Canterbury in 1277, 1284 and 1286. And in Paris, this theory, at least as it was defended by Giles of Rome, was censured in March 1277 by an assembly of members of the Theology Faculty convened by the Bishop, Stephen Tempier. After we have considered Aquinas’s position in itself, more will be said below about these ecclesiastical interventions insofar as they shed some light on the adverse reactions to his theory during his own lifetime. As is well known, Thomas correlates the soul and body of a human being as substantial form and prime matter. In doing so he was obviously heavily influenced by Aristotle’s theory of the matter-composition ­­ of all corporeal entities as he had worked this out in both his Physics and Metaphysics. And in his De anima, Aristotle applies this to the relationship between soul and body in living entities including human beings. Therefore, in order to appreciate Aquinas’s account of the relationship between soul and body, it will be helpful to recall a few points about his general metaphysical views on the matter-form ­­ relationship in corporeal entities.

1. Matter and Form in Corporeal Entities At the very beginning of his career, in his youthful De principiis naturae (ca. 1252–56) Aquinas explains the distinction between potency and act.

174

Substantial Form  175 That which can exist but does not is said to exist in potency. That which already exists is said to exist in actuality. But Thomas immediately distinguishes two kinds of existence (esse): the essential or substantial existence of a thing (esse simpliciter), such as that of a human being, and accidental existence (esse secundum quid), such as for a human being to be white. Corresponding to these two ways in which existence may be realized, that is, as substantial or as accidental, are two ways in which something may be in potency, that is, it may be in potency to substantial existence or to accidental existence. Both that which is in potency to substantial existence and that which is in potency to accidental existence may be referred to as matter. But the kind of matter which is in potency to substantial existence is referred to as matter “from which” (ex qua) something is made, while the kind of matter that is in potency to accidental existence is referred to as matter “in which” (in qua) something inheres. The first kind of matter is often referred to as prime matter, while the second kind can be identified with a substantial subject or substance. And this points to a further distinction between them. A subject or substance does not derive its substantial existence (esse) from the accidents which inhere in it, but matter taken in the first sense (prime matter) does receive its substantial existence (esse) from the substantial form that informs it.1 Given this, one often finds Thomas writing that form “gives” esse to matter when he is referring to substantial form. But to return to our text from the De principiis naturae, Thomas there correlates what he has said so far with two kinds of change. Because generation is a motion toward a form, whether substantial or accidental, there are two kinds of change, substantial change and accidental change. In substantial change a substantial form is introduced into prime matter, and so something is said to be made in the absolute or unqualified sense. In accidental change an accidental form is introduced into a substantial subject. Thus if a dog is generated, one has substantial change; but when the dog’s quantity increases, one has accidental change. This also applies to the loss of a form. If a substance such as a dog collides with a train, the dog loses its substantial form and undergoes another kind of substantial change, that is, corruption. So too, if the dog loses some weight, it undergoes a 1. See De principiis naturae (editio Leonina), vol. 43, p. 39 (lines 1–46) = Leon. ed., 43.39:1– 46; J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 296–97.

176  Substantial Form less drastic kind of corruption, accidental change. (To put this another way, generation and corruption in the absolute sense are restricted to substances, while generation and corruption in the qualified sense [accidental changes] are found in the other predicaments.)2 As for prime matter, Thomas maintains that it is really distinct from all substantial forms (and from their privations, which are themselves the termini of generation and corruption). From this it follows that prime matter is also really distinct from quantity, quality, and the other predicamental accidents which inhere in a substance.3 More than this, Thomas also holds that prime matter, even as it is realized in an existing corporeal essence, is pure potency in and of itself. Given this, it cannot exist without some substantial form, not even by divine power according to Aquinas, although his view concerning this was controverted by others.4 At the same time, however, Thomas recognizes the existence of another kind of form, a kind that does not give existence to matter but simply subsists in itself. This is the kind of form he assigns to subsisting or separate substances, that is to say, substances that are immaterial and incorporeal, or to use the Christian name for these, angels. As he puts this in his Disputed Question De spiritualibus creaturis, article 1, because potency and act divide being and every genus of being, prime matter is to be viewed as potency within the genus substance. It is different from every form and even different from privation (the absence of other forms within a given ­­matter-form composite). Hence, in this text, as in all of his earlier discussions of this such as De ente et essentia, c. 4, and once again in opposition to many of his contemporaries, he insists that prime matter is not present in spiritual beings.5 Many of his contemporaries claimed that purely spiritual beings are composed of a spiritual matter and substantial form, as will be discussed more fully in chapter IX. It should also be recalled here that, unlike Aristotle and unlike most of his contemporaries, Thomas also defends a real distinction and composition of essence and an act of existing (esse) in every finite substance. In the case of corporeal entities, their essence itself consists of prime mat2. See De principiis naturae, Leon. ed., 43.39:47–61. 3. See his In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, VII, lect. 2, n. 1286 (ed. M.-R. Cathala) (Turin, 1950), 322–23. 4. Cf., for instance, Quaestiones de quolibet, Quodlibet III, q. 1, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 25.2, 241–42). 5. See Quaestio disputata De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 24.2, 11–14:290–408).

Substantial Form  177 ter and a corresponding substantial form. But Thomas insists that without the addition of a distinct act of existing (actus essendi), no such essence would actually exist. He presents this theory in the well-known ­­ c. 4 of his De ente et essentia, and in many other contexts as well.6 From this it follows that there is a twofold ­­act-potency composition within every corporeal substance, or as he puts it in his De spiritualibus creaturis, article 1, a twofold actuality and a twofold potentiality. At one level, prime matter is potency with respect to its substantial form, and the substantial form is the act of that thing’s matter. But at another level the essence composed of matter and form itself serves as a potential principle in relation to its substantial act of existing (esse), and that act of existing actualizes the composite essence which receives and limits it. Here Thomas draws a contrast between a material being and a pure spirit. While not composed of matter and form, the substantial form of a pure spirit is its essence. And that essence stands in potency with respect to its act of existing.7

2. T  he Composition of Matter and Form in Living Beings With this metaphysical background in mind, we may now turn to Aquinas’s application of ­­matter-form composition to living beings in general and to human beings in particular. As we shall now see, Thomas repeatedly reasons that if form in some way communicates substantial existence (esse) to a substance, and if the substantial unity of a substance follows from its act of existence, there can be only one substantial form in any given substance. This is certainly Thomas’s position in all of his mature writings. Some, however, have claimed that in his earliest treatments of this, especially in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard dating from 1252 to 1256, Thomas was somewhat hesitant about this position and may have allowed for a second kind of substantial form in corporeal entities, known as a form of corporeity. Thus in the case of a living thing, this 6. For his many references to this theory and to his different ways of arguing for it, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, ch. 5. 7. Cf. De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 1, as cited above in n. 5. Cf. his De substantiis separatis, c. 8 (Leon. ed., 40. D55:210–218), where he notes that a thing composed of matter and form participates in its act of existing from God through its form according to its proper mode. This, of course, is another way for him to say that form gives esse to matter by serving as an intrinsic formal cause, not as an efficient cause of the thing’s esse.

178  Substantial Form form of corporeity would make the ­­matter-form composite a body or corporeal substance, and a second substantial form—a soul—would be added to it to make it a living substance. I myself, however, find little merit in the claim that he ever defended a plurality of forms, as I have argued at some length elsewhere.8 Against this claim, here I will simply cite two texts from Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences, both because they point to his early defense of the unity of substantial form, and because they already foreshadow some essentials of his subsequent argumentation against a plurality of substantial forms in any single substance. Thus in dist. 12, q. 1, a. 4 of his Commentary on Book II of the Sentences, he considers whether prime matter might ever have existed without some substantial form. In the course of rejecting this as a possibility even at the dawn of creation, Thomas refers to some more recent thinkers, who hold that prime matter was originally subject to one form. This form was not the form of any one of the elements, but something which is in via with respect to the elements, much like an embryo in relation to a complete animal. Against this he counters that the first capacity of matter is for the form of an element, and that there is no intermediary form between prime matter and the form of any element. Otherwise, when elements are generated, one would have to recognize another form in matter before the form of any given element. This runs counter to sense experience, objects Thomas, unless one agrees with Avicebron that there is one primary and common corporeal form which was first introduced into matter, followed by more specific forms. Against this Thomas cites an argument he attributes to Avicenna. Because a substantial form gives complete esse within the genus substance, whatever else comes to a thing already existing in actuality can only be an acci8. See my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 334ff. For one who rejects any such evolution in Thomas’s thinking on this, see G. Théry, “L’Augustinisme médiévale et la problème de l’ unité de la forme substantielle,” in Acta Hebdomadae ­­Augustinianae-Thomisticae (Rome: Marietti, 1931), 140–200, esp. 169–71]; for one who defends this, see R. Zavalloni, Richard de Mediavilla et la controverse sur la pluralité des formes. Textes inédits et étude critique, Philosophes Médiévaux 2 (Louvain: Editions de l’ Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1951), 261–66; and for some who are cautious about this issue, see A. Forest, La structure métaphysique du concret selon s. Thomas d’Aquin, (2nd ed. Paris: J. Vrin, 1956), 190–93; M.-D. ­­Roland-Gosselin (ed.), Le “De ente et essentia” de s. Thomas d’Aquin, Bibliothèque Thomiste 8 (Paris, 1948), 104–5. Also now, see C. ­­König-Pralong’s generally very helpful study, Avènement de l’ aristotélisme en terre chrétienne, Études de Philosophie Médiévale 87 (Paris: Vrin, 2005), 189, n. 4, where she defends this claim but without taking into account the textual evidence to the contrary.

Substantial Form  179 dent, for it inheres in a subject which is already a complete being in itself, or a substance.9 Here and elsewhere Thomas views the ­­Spanish-Jewish philosopher Avicebron or Ibn Gabirol, as the source for medieval theories of plurality of forms in individual substances, and he cites Avicenna as a defender of the unity of substantial form.10 In this same Commentary on II Sentences, at dist. 18, q. 1, a. 2, Thomas again cites with approval Avicenna’s attack against a plurality of forms: Moreover, since every form gives a certain esse, and it is impossible for one thing to have two substantial existences (esse), it is necessary that if the first substantial form coming to matter gives substantial esse to it, a second superadded form must give an accidental existence (esse); and therefore there is not one form by which fire is fire, and another by which it is a body, as Avicenna points out.11

In his De veritate, q. 13, a. 4 (1256–59), Thomas writes that for the soul to be united to the body, no additional factor is required. The soul is not united to the body by means of its powers but by its very essence, since there is no intermediary between substantial form and prime matter.12 In question 16, article 1 of the same work, while replying to objection 13, 9. See Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi II, dist. 12, q. 1, a. 4, corp. Mandonnet ed. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929), 314–15: “Sed hanc positionem Avicenna improbat, quia omnis forma substantialis dat esse completum in genere substantiae. Quidquid autem advenit postquam res est in actu, est accidens: est enim in subjecto quod dicitur ens in se completum. Unde oporteret omnes alias formas naturales esse accidentia. . . . Unde ipse [Avicenna] vult quod ab eadem forma per essentiam, ignis sit ignis et corpus et substantia.” 10. There is some dispute about the origins of the controversy concerning unity vs. plurality of substantial form. See my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 335, nn. 154 and 155 for references to these, especially to D. A. Callus, “The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form,” in The Dignity of Science, ed. J. A. Weisheipl (Washington, D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1961), 121–28. Callus also cites Avicenna as an early defender of unity of form (as does Théry in “L’Augustinisme médiévale,” 146–49), while Zavalloni (cf. n. 7, pp. 423–28) claims that he is a true precursor of plurality of forms. Note, however, that in the Errores Philosophorum, ed. J. Koch (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1944), 24–26, 34 (attributed to Giles of Rome), the author lists among the errors of Avicenna his defense of unity of substantial form. Callus also notes, however, that Avicenna’s view that the substantial forms of elements remain within mixed bodies is inconsistent with his doctrine of unicity of substantial forms, even though he continued to maintain that view as well (see Callus, op. cit., 128, n. 10). 11. In II Sent., dist. 18, q. 1, a. 2, corp. (cf. n. 9 above), 452: “Et praeterea, cum omnis forma det aliquod esse, et impossibile sit unam rem habere duplex esse substantiale, oportet, si prima forma substantialis adveniens materiae det sibi esse substantiale, quod secunda superveniens det esse accidentale: et ideo non est alia forma qua ignis est ignis, et qua est corpus, ut Avicenna vult.” 12. Cf. Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, q. 13, a. 4, corp. (Leon. ed., 22.2, 428:113–117).

180  Substantial Form Thomas maintains that there are not two distinct forms within the human soul itself, but only one, which is the very essence of the soul. It is of the essence of the human soul to be a spirit and at the same time the form of the body.13 As we move forward chronologically to Thomas’s Summa contra Gentiles and later writings, we find that his position on this issue remains consistent, but his argumentation for it gradually becomes more fully developed. In Book II of this work, beginning with c. 56, Thomas examines at length the relationship between the soul and the body and the union between them. In ensuing chapters he considers and rejects a number of earlier attempts to resolve this issue, including among others Plato’s position (c. 57–c. 58). As he understands Plato (his knowledge of Plato’s position is indirect), the human soul is not united with the body as form to matter but rather as a mover to that which is moved, as illustrated by the union between a sailor (nauta) and a ship. Thomas rejects this view out of hand because it could not account for the fact that a human being is one simpli­ citer rather than a being per accidens (an accidental aggregate of soul and body). He notes that Plato attempts to overcome this by holding that a human being is a “soul using a body.” Thomas rejects this view as impossible because a human being or an animal is a certain physical and sensible thing. But this would not be so if the body itself were not included within the essence of the human being or animal. Therefore neither a human being nor an animal can be described as a soul using a body. Both must be described as composites of soul and body.14 This text brings out one of Thomas’s major reasons for correlating soul and body as form and matter. He is convinced on the strength of experience and introspection that a human being is essentially one, and therefore he rejects all forms of dualism which would in some way view a human being as consisting of two distinct entities or substances. Indeed, according to Fernand Van Steenberghen, dualism of some kind is present not only in Plato and Neoplatonism, but in some form or other in most ­­pre-Thomistic Christian thinkers as well.15 13. Cf. ibid., q. 16, a. 1, ad 13 (506–507: 405–410). Cf. my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 337, n. 160. While this argument, if it were taken alone, would show that the soul itself is not composed of two forms, it would not of itself necessarily eliminate plurality of forms, that is, of the soul and of a form of corporeity in a human being. 14. Cf. Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 57 (Leon. ed., vol. 13), 406ff. 15. Cf. F. Van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism (Washington,

Substantial Form  181 And so, in Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 68, Aquinas offers his own solution. The intellectual human soul is united to the body as its substantial form. For something to serve as a substantial form of something else, it must be the principle of that thing’s substantial existence (principium essendi substantialiter). By this he means that it must be the formal principle, not the efficient principle, by reason of which that thing exists and is termed a being (ens). Moreover, according to Aquinas’s metaphysics, the form and the matter of a given substance must have one and the same act of existing (esse), something which is not true of an efficient cause and an effect to which it gives esse. It is by reason of this one act of existing that the composite substance subsists. Thomas insists that there is nothing to prevent an intellectual substance, by reason of the fact that it can exist in its own right, from communicating its own act of existing to matter. Nor is there anything to militate against its being by reason of one and the same act of existing that the form exists and the composite exists. But he does point out that this one act of existing pertains to form and to matter in different ways. It pertains to matter as that which receives it, but it pertains to the intellectual substance as to that which is its (formal) principle, as to that which “gives” it, as he phrases this elsewhere. And so he notes that the intellectual soul is said to be, as it were, a kind of horizon and borderline between the corporeal and the incorporeal, for it is an incorporeal substance and yet it is at the same time the form of a body.16 As Van Steenberghen nicely puts it, the intellectual soul is at the same time a form of matter and an immaterial form, meaning thereby that it informs matter but is not itself material.17 In c. 69 Thomas responds to certain objections against his claim that the intellectual soul can be united to the body as its form. First he notes that the body and the soul do not actually exist as two substances; rather it is from their union that one actually existing substance results. He also D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1980), 44. Note in particular: “In the thirteenth century still, in spite of the increasing influence of Aristotle, all Christian thinkers prior to Aquinas held a dualistic anthropology.” Cf. also C. König-Pralong, ­­ Avènement de l’ aristotélisme, 189, n. 4, and her reference there to an article by B. C. Bazán for the same point: “Pluralisme des formes ou dualisme des substances? La pensée préthomiste touchant la nature de l’ âme (fin),” in Revue Philosophique de Louvain 67 (1969): 30–73. 16. See SCG II, c. 68, 440–41. Note in particular: “Et inde est quod anima intellectualis dici­tur esse quasi quidam horizon et confinium corporeorum et incorporeorum, inquantum est substantia incorporea, corporis tamen forma.” 17. See F. Van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism, 48.

182  Substantial Form observes that the body of a human being is not actually the same when the soul is present and when it is absent, for it is the soul that makes it actually exist. This point will become central to one of the major theological objections raised against Thomas’s positions by opponents, as we shall see below. And in line with his reasoning in the previous c. 68, he comments that it is not necessary for an intellectual substance to be material simply because it informs matter, for the intellectual soul is not present in matter as immersed in or totally encompassed by matter but rather as a principle that gives esse to matter.18 Throughout these chapters from the Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas’s primary concern has been with the human soul and its relationship to the body. But presupposed for his view concerning this is his defense of the unity of substantial form, that is to say, that there is one and only one substantial form in human beings. As he phrases this in c. 58: A thing has esse and unity from the same principle; for oneness follows upon being. Therefore, since each and every thing has esse from its form, it will also have unity from that form. Therefore, if several souls are posited in man as distinct forms, man will not be one being (ens) but several.19

Here Thomas is arguing from the transcendental nature of unity and its convertibility with being. Just as a thing’s act of existing (esse) follows from its substantial form, so does its ontological oneness or unity. For Thomas the ultimate foundation for a being’s unity is its act of existing. He reasons that if there are several substantial forms in a given entity, there will be several acts of existing and hence several instances of ontological unity or oneness. Therefore there will be several beings or substances, not one being or one substance.20 While we may and should distinguish the issue of plurality of substan18. See SCG II, c. 69, 447–448. 19. Ibid., c. 58, 409: “Ab eodem aliquid habet esse et unitatem: unum enim consequitur ad ens. Cum igitur a forma unaquaeque res habeat esse, a forma etiam habebit unitatem. Si igitur ponantur in homine plures animae sicut diversae formae, homo non erit unum ens, sed plura.” 20. Cf. Summa theologiae, I, q. 11, a. 1, corp. (Leon. ed., 4.107). Note especially: “Unde mani­ festum est quod esse cuiuslibet rei consistit in indivisione. Et inde est quod unumquodque, sicut custodit suum esse, ita custodit suam unitatem.” On this, see J. A. Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 52 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 208: “By the same act by which a thing is, it is ‘one’. ”

Substantial Form  183 tial forms from that of plurality of souls, they are very closely related.21 As we have just seen, according to Thomas, if a living entity has only one substantial form, it can have only one soul. But, someone might ask: Even if a substance such as a human being has only one soul, might it not still have more than one substantial form, for instance, a generic form to make of it a substance, a form of corporeity to make it a body, another form to account for the fact that it is living, and an intellective form to account for the fact that it is human? Aquinas considers and rejects any such possibility, for instance, in Summa contra Gentiles IV, c. 81 where, within a theological context, he refutes a series of arguments against the possibility of resurrection of the body. Here he distinguishes two senses in which one may understand corporeity, the first of which is of interest to us here. In this sense, the term may be applied to the substantial form of a body, insofar as the body is thereby located within its genus and species as a corporeal thing to which it belongs to have three dimensions. But he again immediately proposes and rejects a theory according to which there would be several substantial forms within the same substance, one by which it would be placed in its supreme genus as a substance, and a second by which it would be located in its proximate genus as a body or as an animal, and another by which it would be placed in its species as a human being or perhaps as a horse. Against any such theory Thomas counters that because the first substantial form would make it to be a substance and a hoc aliquid (a particular something) which actually subsists in reality, any subsequent form would not make of it a hoc aliquid; it would only be an accidental form in an already constituted substance or hoc aliquid. Given this, Aquinas concludes that when corporeity is taken as the substantial form of a human being, it is identical with the rational soul, which requires of its matter that it be subject to the three dimensions. And the rational soul requires this because it is its very nature to be the act of a body.22 21. On this distinction, cf. D. A. Callus, “The Origins of the Problem of Unity of Form,” 121–49, esp. 123ff.. 22. See SCG IV, c. 81 (Leon. ed., vol. 15) 252ff. Note especially: “Non enim sunt diversae formae substantiales in uno et eodem, per quarum unam collocetur in genere supremo, puta substantiae; et per aliam in genere proximo, puta in genere corporis vel animalis; et per aliam in specie, puta hominis aut equi. Quia si prima forma faceret esse substantiam, sequentes formae iam advenirent ei quod est hoc aliquid in actu et subsistens in natura: et sic posteriores formae

184  Substantial Form In his somewhat later Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, Book II, c. 1 (412a 15ff.), in an expansion upon Aristotle’s text, Thomas again distinguishes between an accidental and a substantial form, noting that a substantial form facit esse actu simpliciter. While an accidental form inheres in an already actually existing subject, a substantial form does not; it directly informs something that exists only in potency, that is, it directly informs prime matter. From this he again concludes that it is impossible for there to be more than one substantial form in one thing (substance); the first would produce a being in act or a substance (ens actu simpliciter). The other forms would not produce a substantial being in act, but only being in a qualified sense, i.e., accidental being. In this context Thomas notes how his position destroys the view of Avicebron, according to whom there is a plurality of substantial forms in one and the same thing, corresponding to the various generic and specific kinds of perfection found in that entity. Against this view Thomas explains that one must rather hold that it is by reason of one and the same substantial form that a given individual thing is a hoc aliquid or a substance, and a body, and a living substance, and so on with respect to the other levels of being found therein. It follows from this that in a human being there is only one substantial form and only one soul, which itself accounts for all of these levels of perfection in the human being. And, as Thomas here adds, when the soul departs from the body, the body does not remain the same in species. An eye or a hand in a dead body is so named only equivocally, for, when the soul departs, a distinct and lower level of substantial form replaces it. This is because the corruption of one thing does not occur without the generation of another.23 Aquinas’s Commentary on De anima dates from 1267–68.24 During the period from 1266 to 1268, he would return to this topic in three other major discussions, that is, in the Prima pars of his Summa theologiae, q. 76; in his Disputed Questions on the De anima, q. 9 and q. 11; and in his Disputed non facerent hoc aliquid, sed essent in subiecto quod est hoc aliquid sicut formae accidentales. Oportet igitur, quod corporeitas, prout est forma substantialis in homine, non sit aliud quam anima rationalis, quae in sua materia hoc requirit, quod habeat tres dimensiones: est enim corporis alicuius.” Thomas notes that the second way in which corporeity may be taken is as an accidental form according to which a body is said to be in the genus quantity; hence, taken in this sense, it really refers to the three dimensions. 23. Cf. Sentencia libri De anima, II, c.1 (Leon. ed., 45.1, 71:242–248). 24. For this date, see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person and His Work, 341. For the dating of Thomas’s other works I am also following Torrell and the Catalogue by G. Emery at the end of that book.

Substantial Form  185 Question De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 1 and a. 3. By this time, his way of arguing against plurality of substantial forms has begun to take its final shape. Indeed, in his still later and final Quodlibet XII of Easter, 1272, q. 6, a. 1, he was asked to address this issue again. There in the schematic fashion that is in accord with the summary nature of the surviving text of this Quodlibet, he sums up his three arguments, arguments that also appear in the texts I have just cited. In the interests of brevity I will follow this summarizing version here. He recalls that he was asked to determine whether the soul perfects the body immediately or rather by means of a form of corporeity. He responds by reducing this issue to the broader question of unity or plurality of substantial forms in any corporeal entity. He states that in no body can there be more than one substantial form. His first argument maintains that if there were many forms in a given entity, the subsequent forms, that is, those coming after the first substantial form, would not be substantial forms. Therefore they would only give accidental esse, whereas a substantial form must give esse simpliciter. Secondly, if there were more than one substantial form in a given body, the acquisition of a new substantial form would not be substantial change (generatio simpliciter) but, he implies, accidental change. Thirdly, if there were a plurality of substantial forms, a composite of soul and body would not be one essentially (unum simpliciter), but two things simpliciter, that is two substances, resulting in something that is one only per accidens, that is, an accidental aggregate.25

3. Objections to Thomas’s Theory Thomas’s position on the unicity of substantial form in corporeal beings, including human beings, follows very naturally from his more general metaphysical principles concerning matter and form, the relationship between essence and the act of existing in any finite being, and the ontologi25. Cf. Quodl. XII, q. 5, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 25.2, 406:10–21). Note that he concludes by again recalling the two ways in which the term “corporeity” may be used, either to signify the three dimensions, or to signify the kind of form from which they follow, that is, the specific (substantial) form. For discussion of the particular arguments found in the other three sources mentioned in this paragraph, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 340–46. Also note that in ST I, q. 76, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 5.221) and in his Quaestiones disputatae De anima, q. 11 (Leon. ed., 24.1, 99:194–217), Aquinas also offers a less metaphysical, more logical kind of argument based on the inability of theories of plurality of forms to account for the fact that the proposition “a human being is an animal” is necessary by the first type of necessity. For this, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 340ff. and 343, n. 184.

186  Substantial Form cal unity of a being as consequent upon the unity of the act of existing given to it by its substantial form. Given this, one may well ask: Why was it so controversial during his lifetime and for some decades after his death? In fact, objections were raised against his theory, especially in its application to human beings, by many of his contemporaries both on philosophical grounds and on theological grounds. If I may briefly recall the historical situation: Thomas returned to Paris in late 1268 from his teaching duties in Italy to take up his chair in theology at the university for the second time, and would remain there until returning to Italy in 1272. This was a stormy period at the University of Paris, owing in part to controversies centering around certain positions being presented by Siger of Brabant and some of his colleagues in the Faculty of Arts, who were defenders of what I prefer to call “Radical Aristotelianism,” although this movement is often referred to as “Latin Averroism.” On December 6, 1270, Stephen Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, issued a condemnation of 13 propositions, many of which are clearly directed against certain views advanced by Siger and some other Arts Masters.26 The first of these condemned propositions maintains the unicity of the intellect in human beings (“that the intellect of all men is numerically one and the same”), a view found in Averroes’s Long Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima and defended by Siger in the late 1260s in his Quaestiones in librum tertium De anima. The second condemned article states that it is false or unacceptable to say: “This human being understands,” an implication that follows, as Thomas Aquinas had already pointed out, from the doctrine of the unicity of the possible intellect. (Earlier in that same year, 1270, Thomas himself had already strongly attacked the view of Siger and Averroes on philosophical grounds in his remarkable treatise On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists.) The seventh condemned proposition reads “that the soul, which is the form of man specifically as man, disintegrates with the corruption of the body,” which is to say that the soul is mortal.27 26. For some background on the Condemnation of 1270, see J. F. Wippel, “The Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris,” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7 (1977): 169– 201, esp. 169–85; and briefly but more up to date, “The Parisian Condemnations of 1270 and 1277,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. J. J. E. Gracia and T. B. Noone (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 65–73. For a fuller treatment, see F. Van Steenberghen, La philosophie au XIII e siècle, 2nd ed. Philosophes Médiévaux 28 (Louvain: Peeters, 1991), chapters VIII (“L’aristostélisme hétérodoxe”) and IX (“Les grands conflits doctrinaux”). 27. For these texts, cf. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis (ed. H. Denifle), t. 1, n. 432 (Paris, 1889), pp. 486ff. “1. Primus articulus est: Quod intellectus omnium hominum est unus

Substantial Form  187 Interestingly enough, however, the doctrine of the unicity of substantial form in human beings—Thomas’s position—was not included among the prohibited propositions. There is good reason to think, however, that this position was already regarded with alarm by some of his contemporaries. For instance, the doctrine of unity of form is listed as an error defended by Aristotle and Avicenna in a work titled Errores philosophorum attributed to Giles of Rome. While Giles’s authorship of this work is still being disputed by specialists on his writings, it seems to date from shortly before or shortly after 1270, and indicates concern by its author, whoever that may have been, about this issue.28 Then there is a letter sent by Giles of Lessines, a young Dominican student at Paris, to Albert the Great asking for his views concerning fifteen seemingly dangerous propositions that were circulating at Paris. The first thirteen propositions correspond to the propositions condemned by Bishop Tempier in December 1270. The fourteenth states that “the body of Christ lying in the tomb and hanging on the cross is not or was not numerically one and the same simpliciter, but only in a qualified sense” (“Quod corpus Christi iacens in sepulchro et positum in cruce non est vel non fuit idem numero simpliciter, sed secundum quid”). Scholarly opinion differs concerning whether this letter was written before December 1270, or shortly thereafter.29 Since, at least at first sight, it sounds very much like a position defended by Thomas Aquinas at about that time, it has been suggested that if this letter was written before the bishop’s condemnation, this proposition had also been included in the original list being considet idem numero—2. Quod ista est falsa vel impropria: Homo intelligit—. . . 7. Quod anima, que est forma hominis secundum quod homo, corrumpitur corrupto corpore.” On the controversy between Thomas and Siger of Brabant, in addition to the references cited in the previous note, cf. F. Van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism, 29–74 (“The Second Lecture: Monopsychism”). 28. Cf. Giles of Rome, Errores philosophorum, ed. J. Koch (Milwaukee, Wis., 1944), xxxixff. and lv–lix. See S. Donati, “Studi per una cronologia delle opera di Egidio Romano, I: Le opera prima del 1285—I commenti aristotelici,” in Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 1.1 (1990), 1–111, esp. 20ff. and 28ff.; S. Donati, “Giles of Rome,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. Gracia and Noone, 266–71, esp. 267. 29. For this, cf. Albertus Magnus, De XV Problematibus, XIV, ed. B. Geyer, in Opera omnia 17.1 (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1975), 31:33ff., and 43:60–81. Bernhard Geyer places the letter before the Dec. 1270 condemnation, whereas Fernand Van Steenberghen argues for a post-1270 ­­ date, ca. 1273–76; cf. F. Van Steenberghen, “Le ‘De quindecim problematibus’ d’Albert le Grand,” Mélanges Auguste Pelzer (Louvain, 1947), 415–39; reprinted in Van Steenberghen, Introduction à l’ étude de la philosophie médiévale, Philosophes Médiévaux 18 (Louvain: Publications Universitaires; Paris: ­­Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1974), 433–55, here 454ff.

188  Substantial Form ered for condemnation by the bishop in December 1270; for some reason, however, perhaps out of deference to Thomas himself, who was teaching at Paris at that time, it was removed from the final list. This theological issue was closely associated with the theory of the unity of form in human beings in the ensuing theological debates about the latter and, as the letter shows, this position was obviously viewed with concern by some at Paris around 1270. Since the early twentieth century, however, scholarly opinion has differed concerning whether the fourteenth proposition was in fact originally directed against the position of Thomas Aquinas himself. Thus, in an important but now outdated study of Siger of Brabant (1908–11), Pierre Mandonnet edited the letter and maintained that propositions 14 (and 15) as contained in it were directed against Aquinas. The editor of a ­­much-improved edition of the letter, Bernhard Geyer, followed Mandonnet on this point.30 In an important study originally published in 1947, Van Steeberghen argued that this proposition (and proposition 15) as it appears in the letter does not express Thomas’s position. And in this he has been followed most recently in a long and valuable study by ­­Jean-Luc Solère. As Solère sees things, (1) Thomas was not understood properly, or he was not targeted at all by this proposition, and (2) Thomas did not modify his position after December 1270, but perhaps (barely) his presentation. I shall return to this issue below.31 But if I may return for a moment to Giles of Rome: if he did indeed write the De erroribus philosophorum, he would have begun in his youth by rejecting the unity of substantial form. But as recent research has shown ever more clearly, his view concerning the unity of substantial form underwent considerable change in the 1270s. Drawing upon important manuscript discoveries and subsequent research by Robert Wielockx and Concetta Luna, Silvia Donati has proposed a very helpful chronology of Giles’s thinking on this issue. Beginning with his critique of the unity of forms in the De erroribus (which she regards as of questionable authentic30. See P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’ averroïsme latin au XIIIe siècle, vol. 1, 2nd ed., Les Philosophes Belges 6 (Louvain, 1911), 107ff. For B. Geyer, cf. the “Prolegomena” of his edition of Albert’s De quindecim problematibus (cf. n. 29 above), xixff. 31. For F. Van Steenberghen, cf. “Le ‘De quindecim problematibus’ d’Albert le Grand,” 450– 53. For J.-L. Solère, see “Was the Eye in the Tomb? On the Metaphysical and Historical Interest of Some Strange Quodlibetal Questions,” in Theological Quodlibets in the Middle Ages: Thirteenth Century, ed. C. Schabel (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 507–58, esp. 551.

Substantial Form  189 ity), she finds that as early as 1270 in reportationes of Giles’s Commentaries on Books II, III and IV of the Sentences, and in his Quaestiones metaphysicales, he was defending the unicity of substantial form in every composite without hesitation. But in a third phase (in the ­­mid-1270s) she finds him manifesting a reserved attitude toward this position, especially as regards human beings. Thus in his Theoremata de Corpore Christi he refers to this position as valde probabilis, but acknowledges that he does not fully understand the plurality position. In other texts such as his Quaestiones De generatione, Physica ­­IV-V-VI, and De anima II, she finds him advancing the unity theory in all composites except in human beings, which issue he leaves undecided. In a fourth phase she finds him defending the unicity of form in all composites including human beings very forcefully, especially in his Contra gradus (which she places between Christmas 1277 and Easter 1278). But, as Wielockx has demonstrated in great detail, in March 1277, in a process distinct from the famed condemnation of 219 propositions by Bishop Stephen Tempier on March 7, 51 propositions defended by Giles had been censured by an assembly of theologians convened by Bishop Stephen Tempier. Proposition 48 reads: “In quolibet composito est una forma.” When Giles refused to retract these positions, he was forced to leave the Theology Faculty at Paris without receiving the license to teach and without incepting as Magister there, not being readmitted until 1285. In a fifth phase (beginning in the period 1278–85 and continuing thereafter), Donati finds Giles adopting a reserved attitude by defending the unity of substantial form in composites other than human beings, and leaving this last issue undecided.32 Before turning to theological objections to Aquinas’s theory, I would note that on philosophical grounds many opponents of the unicity of substantial form in human beings were also defenders of universal hylemorphism, that is to say, the view that all beings, including human souls and angels, are composed of some kind of matter and form. Thinkers such as Roger Bacon, John Pecham, William de la Mare, and, after Aquinas’s time, Richard of Middleton, and still later, Gonsalvus of Spain, come to mind, 32. Cf. S. Donati, “Studi per una cronologia,” 20–24. For the edition and a thorough study of this list of censured propositions and Giles’s defense of some of them, see R. Wielockx, ed., Aegidii Romani Opera omnia, vol. 3.1: Apologia (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1985), 59 (for prop. 48) and 169ff. (for commentary). In addition to the earlier articles of C. Luna cited by Donati, see Luna’s edition of Aegidii Romani Opera omnia, vol. 3.2: Reportatio Lecturae super Libros I–IV Sententiarum (Florence: SISMEL–Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003).

190  Substantial Form not to mention Thomas’s earlier contemporary, Bonaventure. Closely associated with this position was the view that some minimum degree of actuality must be assigned to prime matter in and of itself. This position was defended even by some who rejected ­­matter-form composition of spirits, such as Henry of Ghent.33 It seems to me that those who assigned some actuality to prime matter in itself would be more inclined to accept a theory of plurality of substantial forms in corporeal beings, or at least, as in the case of Henry of Ghent, duality of substantial form in human beings. If matter already enjoys some degree of actuality in itself, to add more than one substantial form to it would not, in their eyes, destroy the substantial unity of the resulting composite, as Thomas thought. Instead, higher substantial forms would in some way actualize the lower forms and each lower form, while being actual with respect to what falls immediately below it in a given substance, would still be potential with respect to the higher form immediately above it. Moreover, none of those whom I have just mentioned agreed with Thomas that there is a real composition and distinction of essence and act of existing in all finite beings, and that the substantial form of a given being “gives” substantial esse to its corresponding matter. Hence they would not quickly agree with him that multiple substantial forms within a given entity would imply multiple substantial acts of existing and, therefore, multiple substances within that entity. It should also be noted that, with the exception of Henry of Ghent, all of the defenders of a plurality of substantial forms in human beings mentioned above were Franciscans. And so, as we move from the philosophical order to theological objections against Aquinas’s position, I propose to single out two Franciscans to illustrate this line of attack: William de la Mare and John Pecham. William de la Mare made an important intervention to this controversy ca. 1277–78 by composing a detailed critique of many writings by Thomas Aquinas titled the Correctorium Fratris Thomae.34 This text 33. For discussion of this in these thinkers, cf. the references given in Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines: A Study in Late Thirteenth-Century ­­ Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1981), 276, n. 57. For references to those who assigned some degree of actuality to prime matter, see ibid., 262, n. 2, and for Henry of Ghent’s position and Godfrey’s critique of this, 263–64. For more on this now in Thomas, Bonaventure, and Godfrey, see chapter IX below in the present volume. 34. For the edition of this along with a refutation of the same now attributed to Richard

Substantial Form  191 gained importance because it was officially adopted at the Franciscan General Chapter in Strasbourg in 1282. There the Minister General directed the provincial Ministers not to permit copies of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae to be multiplied for reading by the brothers except by those who are reasonably intelligent, and then only when accompanied by William’s Correctorium.35 In this work William singles out 118 objectionable propositions from many of Thomas’s works (including Summa theologiae I and II, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, De anima, and De virtutibus, Quaestiones de quolibet, and the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum) and assigns to these propositions varying degrees of unacceptability such as “erroneous,” contra fidem, contra auctoritates sanctorum, contra Philosophum, contra philosophiam. He often notes that they give rise to error (praebent occasionem errandi).36 He considers Thomas’s position on the unity of substantial form on a number of occasions, but especially in articles 31 and 107. In article 31, after presenting Aquinas’s view as stated in Summa theologiae I, q. 76, a. 3, William counters that this position is rejected by the Masters (of theology), first, because from it many things follow that are contrary to Catholic faith; second, because it contradicts philosophy; third, because it is opposed to Sacred Scripture. As for his first charge—that it is contrary to faith—William writes that faith holds that it was numerically one and the same body which the Son of God received from the Virgin Mary, which Mary brought forth, which hung on the cross, which died on the cross, and which was buried in the of Knapwell, see Le Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare,” ed. P. Glorieux, in Les premières polé­ miques thomistes I, Bibliothèque Thomiste 9 (Le Saulchoir, 1927). This work should not be confused with another edited by F. Pelster and mistakenly attributed to William himself, Declarationes Magistri Guilelmi de la Mare O.F.M. de variis sententiis S. Thomae Aquinatis, Series scholastic, 21 (Münster, 1956) (Opuscula et Textus historiam ecclesiae eiusque vitam atque doctrinam illustrantia). Shortly thereafter William composed a second and larger version of his Correctorium which, however, was not as influential as the first. On this, see R. Hissette, “Trois articles de la seconde rédaction du ‘Correctorium’ de Guillaume de la Mare,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 51 (1984): 230–41. 35. Cf. T. Schneider, Die Einheit des Menschen, 2nd ed., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Neue Folge 8 (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1988), 92 and n. 140. 36. On this, see M. J. F. M. Hoenen, “Being and Thinking in the ‘Correctorium fratris Thomae’ and the ‘Correctorium corruptorii Quare’: Schools of Thought and Philosophical Methodology,” in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277. Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität von Paris im letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts. Studien und Texte , ed. J. A. Aertsen, K. Emery, Jr., and A. Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 28 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 417–35, esp. 417ff.

192  Substantial Form tomb for three days. But, he continues, if there were no other substantial form for the body of Christ but the intellective form, after his soul was separated from his body at the time of his death on the cross, either prime matter alone remained, or else another substantial form was introduced. From either of these alternatives it would follow that it was not numerically one and the same body that died on the cross and that was buried in the tomb. If only prime matter remained, then it was not a body, and hence not numerically identical with Christ’s body. Why not? Because prime matter itself is not a body, he argues. And then many other things against faith would follow concerning Christ’s body, for instance, that water and blood would not have flowed from it, which is against Scripture. Moreover, prime matter is neither heavy nor light. But the body of Christ in the tomb had weight. On the other hand, if a new substantial form was introduced into Christ’s body to replace the separated soul and form during the sacrum triduum, it would follow that the living body and the dead body of Christ were not numerically the same. Moreover, in another recurring theological objection against Thomas’s position, William argues that, according to faith, when the Eucharist is consecrated, the entire bread is changed into the body of Christ. But if in the body of Christ there is only prime matter and the soul, since bread cannot be changed into spirit, it would follow that it was changed into prime matter. But this is against faith and against the words of the Lord himself who said: “This is my body.” He did not say: “This is my matter.”37 William next attempts to show that Thomas’s position is against philosophy. If the intellective soul alone immediately perfects prime matter, then in a human being there would not be a form of an element or a form of a mixture, about which philosophy has much to say. And the very study of medicine would come to a halt, he adds in a rather surprising remark. (Here I would note in passing that Thomas often dealt with the issue of how one can account for the continuing presence of the qualities of elements in a mixture, finally by concluding that the form of the mixture possesses virtually those qualities that were previously given by the forms of the respective elements.)38 Moreover, William continues, numerically one and the same form will give both spiritual and corporeal esse and therefore will simultaneously be both spiritual and corporeal. And, it will 37. See Le Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare,” 129ff. 38. See my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 348–51.

Substantial Form  193 follow that prime matter is heavy and light, and that it is from the soul that the body is heavy and light rather than from some element that dominates in the body.39 To support his claim that Thomas’s position is opposed to Scripture, William cites from St. John’s Gospel 2:19 and 21: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” where, John tells us, Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. William comments that it is clear from the grammar of the scriptural text that Christ was speaking of numerically the same body as living and then as dead, that is, as without its soul. But, he charges, this would not be true if there were no other substantial form in Christ but the (intellectual) soul. Therefore, he insists, there were many (plures) substantial forms in the body of Christ.40 In article 107 Willliam turns to Thomas’s Quodlibet II, q. 1, where Thomas was addressing the question whether during the sacrum triduum Christ was numerically the same man. William strongly objects to Thomas’s conclusion in this discussion that during this period the body of Christ was not one and the same simpliciter but only in a qualified sense (secundum quid), and that it was not one and the same secundum quid.41 Since this seems to be the strongest and most frequently repeated theological objection against Aquinas’s position and the one he specifically addressed during his lifetime, I will return to it after introducing the view of John Pecham. Pecham completed his theological studies and officially incepted as a Master in the Theology Faculty at Paris during Thomas’s second teaching period there, in 1270, and would prove to be one of the staunchest opponents of Thomas’s doctrine of the unity of substantial form. Moreover, the theory that defends the unity of substantial form in human beings would be included in a list of 30 propositions ranging over the fields of grammar, 39. See Le Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare” (cf. n. 34), 130ff. See A. Boureau, Théologie, science et censure au XIIIe siècle. Le cas de Jean Peckham (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999), 85ff., who offers a possible explanation: “On peut estimer que la phrase de Guillaume qui designait le danger de la thèse pour la médecine avait peut-être ­­ une allure flagorneuse à l’ égard du pape regnant.” Boureau points out that William certainly knew that Pope John XXI had, under the name Peter of Spain, been numbered among the greatest physicians of the time. 40. See Le Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare,” 131. 41. Ibid., 407. Note that William also comments that Thomas seems to have retracted this position, as is reported (“ut dicitur”), but because this retraction is not written down, William writes that it must be said that the living and the dead body of Christ was numerically one and the same simpliciter.

194  Substantial Form logic, and natural philosophy banned from Oxford on March 18, 1277 by the ­­then-Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dominican Robert Kilwardby.42 Pecham succeeded Kilwardby as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1279, and in 1284 he repeated Kilwardby’s prohibition at a meeting with Oxford Masters in Theology. Subsequently, in April 1286, at a meeting in London of bishops and abbots, Pecham himself condemned the unity of substantial form repeatedly and in much stronger terms, directing it in particular against a young Dominican at Oxford, Richard Knapwell. Knapwell had continued to defend Aquinas’s position on this point (at least as he understood it), and had twice written in defense of Thomas and of the orthodoxy of his position in his Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare” and especially in his Quaestio disputata De unitate formae. He incepted as a Master in Theology at Oxford in 1284–1285, and then about a year later conducted this disputed question. Pecham also excommunicated Richard and thereby ended his academic career.43 Earlier, after Pecham had concluded his teaching period as a Master in Paris and was serving as Master of the Sacred Palace 42. For these see Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis (cf. n. 27), t. 1, n. 474, 558ff. Of the prohibited propositions, seven of them seem to touch on unity of form. And among these, proposition 7 (“Item quod intellectiva introducta corrumpitur sensitiva et vegetativa”) and proposition 12 (“Item quod vegetativa, sensitiva et intellectiva sint una forma simplex”) do so most explicitly. However, doubt has been expressed as to whether Kilwardby really understood the doctrine of unity of form, if one may judge from his response to a criticism of his condemnation of this position by another Dominican, Peter Conflans, Archbishop of Corinth. For this letter, which was published in two parts, see F. Erhle, “Der Augustinismus und der Aristotelismus in der Scholastik gegen Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters 5 (1889): 614–32; and A. Birkenmajer, “Der Brief Robert Kilwardbys an Peter von Conflans und die Streitschrift des Ägidius von Lessines,” in his Vermischte Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Mittelalterlichen Philosophie, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 20/5 (Münster 1922), 60–64. For full discussion, see. A. Boureau, Théologie, science et censure, 63–82. 43. For details concerning Knapwell, his two writings, and his encounter with Pecham, see Richard Knapwell, Quaestio Disputata De Unitate Formae, ed. F. E. Kelley (Binghamton, N.Y.: State University of New York, 1982), 9ff. and 14–44. For the aftermath of Pecham’s condemnation in 1286, see W. A. Hinnebusch, The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome: Dominican Historical Institute at Santa Sabina, 1951), for a brief statement of Knapwell’s subsequent fate: “Knapwell departed for Rome, where he arrived early in 1287, to plead his cause personally, but owing to the vacancy in the Holy See, caused by the death of Honorius IV on April 3rd, the appeal was not heard until 1288. The newly elected Pope, the Franciscan Nicholas IV, imposed perpetual silence on the Dominican” (355), but as Torrell points out, lifted the excommunication (Initiation à saint Thomas, 387). For a thorough study of Pecham’s life and career, see Boureau, Théologie, science et censure, and on his London condemnation of 1286, especially c. 1, 7–38. On the end of Knapwell’s career and life also see 293ff.

Substantial Form  195 in the Roman Curia, in his Quodlibet IV (ca. 1277–78) he had strongly attacked the unity of substantial form on theological grounds.44 In addition to this, in a letter of June 1, 1285, Pecham refers to an event which he claims to have witnessed during his time in Paris, that is, ca. 1270, when Aquinas was being sorely pressed by the Bishop of Paris and by other Masters of Theology, including other Dominicans, on the issue of substantial form. Pecham alleges that he alone tried to defend Thomas as much as he could without violating his own commitment to truth, until Thomas humbly submitted his position to the judgment of the Parisian Masters of Theology.45 In a recent and important study of Pecham’s life and career, however, Alain Boureau casts doubt on the historical accuracy of Pecham’s recollection. He notes that we have no other source for this event, and that Thomas never changed his mind regarding the unity of substantial form in human beings. Further, efforts have been made by some to unite this event with a clash between Pecham and Thomas wherein Pecham behaved very badly and which was reported by Bartholemew of Capua in connection with the investigation leading to Thomas’s canonization; but Bartholemew gives no indication that this dispute had to do with the unity of substantial form. Moreover, his report presents Pecham’s be44. See John Pecham, Quodlibetum Romanum (= Quodlibet IV), q. 11 (ed. F. Delorme and rev. Etzkorn), in Fr. Ioannis Pecham Quodlibeta quattuor, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi 25 (Grottaferrata, 1989), 196–201: “Utrum oculus dicatur de oculo Christi vivo et mortuo univoce vel aequivoce,” especially his remark with reference to what in all likelihood is Aquinas’s position: “Sed ista narratio est frivola et inanis” (198). See also C. König-Pralong, ­­ Avènement de l’ aristotélisme en terre chrétienne, 210. 45. Cf. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, t. 1, n. 523, p. 634. “Quin potius ei, de quo loquitur, cum pro hac opinione ab episcopo Parisiensi et magistris theologiae, etiam a fratribus propriis argueretur argute, nos soli eidem adstitimus, ipsum, prout salva veritate potuimus, defensando, donec ipse omnes positiones suas, quibus possit imminere correctio, sicut doctor humilis subjecit moderamini Parisiensisum magistrorum.” For another reference to this, see Pecham’s letter of January 1, 1285, in ibid., n. 518, pp. 626ff. After pointing out that he had recently reaffirmed the prohibition by Archbishop Kilwardby of the doctrine of unicity of substantial form in man because from this it would follow that no body of a saint would either totally or partially exist in toto orbe or in urbe, he continued: “Fuit revera illa opinio fratris Thome sancte memorie de Aquino; sed ipse in his et in aliis huiusmodi dictis suis suam innocentiam Parisius in collegio magistrorum theologie humiliter declaravit, subiciens omnes suas hujusmodi sententias libramini et lime Parisiensium magistrorum, cujus nos per auditus proprii certitudinem testes sumus.” For still another reference, see Pecham’s letter of December 7, 1284, where, within the context of a discussion of the error of those who hold that there is only one form in man, he refers to the “Causam vero opinionum bone memorie fratris Thome de Aquino, quas fratres ipsi opiniones sui Ordinis esse dicunt, quas tamen in nostra praesentia subjecit idem reverendus frater theologorum arbitrio Parisiensium magistrorum . . .” (ibid., n. 517, p. 625).

196  Substantial Form havior in a totally different light. Hence it may be that two different events were reported by Pecham and by Bartholomew.46 While I am mainly interested here in Aquinas’s own position and critical reactions to it during his life time, it may be helpful to consider some of the propositions condemned by Pecham at London on April 30, 1286. These will help us appreciate some of the reasons for his hostility to the doctrine of unicity of substantial form. Pecham introduces his prohibition by noting that the eight articles he is about to condemn should be counted as condemned heresies either in themselves or in their derived forms. He judges to be heretics those who obstinately defend them either in whole or any one of them in particular insofar as, for the sake of vain glory, they follow these new opinions. All have to do with the unity of substantial form. For instance, article 1 states: “The dead body of Christ has no substantial form that is the same as that which the living body had.” Article 2 reads: “That in the death [of Christ] a new substantial form and a new species or nature was introduced, although not joined to the Word by a new assumption or union. From this it follows that the Son of God was not only man but of another unnamed species.” According to article 5: “There was numerical identity of the dead body of Christ with the living body only because of the identity of matter and of undetermined dimensions and the relation of these to the intellective soul, which is immortal. In addition there is identity of the living and the dead body by reason of the existence of both in the same hypostasis of the Word.” Article 8 states: “That in man there is only one substantial form, namely, the rational soul, and no other substantial form. From this opinion seem to follow all the aforementioned heresies.”47 46. See A. Boureau, Théologie, science et censure, 27 and n. 34, 70ff. To suggest that two different episodes were at issue seems less radical than to doubt that any such event happened at all (as Boureau seems to prefer). For Bartholomew’s text, see P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant, vol. 1, 100, n. 1. See R. Wielockx, in Aegidii Romani Apologia, 214, n. 152, who notes that the two reports are not necessarily contradictory, since Peckham indicates that the issue was unity of substantial form, and Bartholomew leaves this undetermined. In a brief study, J .M. M. H. Thijssen has recently argued that the events reported by Pecham and by Barthlomew were indeed distinct; see “Thomas Aquinas’ Second Parisian Regency. A Neglected Biographical Detail,” in Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 4 (1999): 225–32, with helpful references especially in n. 13, 228 sq. 47. Registrum epistolarum fratris Ioannis Peckham, ed. T. Martin, vol. 3, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores (London 1885), 921–923 (reprinted in A. Boureau, Théologie, science et censure, 8ff.): “Primus articulus est quod corpus Christi mortuum nullam habuit formam substantialem eandem quam habuit vivum. Secundus est quod in morte fuit introducta

Substantial Form  197 Here again, of course, we see the close connection between the doctrine of unity of substantial form in human beings and the issue of the identity of Christ’s body in the tomb. And so, to conclude this section, we may return to Aquinas himself. During his second teaching period at Paris, this issue was repeatedly raised by participants in his quodlibetal disputations. Thus in Quodlibet I, q. 4, a. 1 (Lent 1269), Thomas was asked to determine whether prior forms (in the body), both substantial and accidental, are corrupted with the arrival of the soul. In Quodlibet II, q. 1, a. 1 (Advent 1269), Thomas was asked “Whether Christ was one and the same man during the sacrum triduum.” In Quodlibet III, q. 2, a. 2 (Lent 1270), he was asked “Whether the eye of Christ after his death was an eye in an equivocal sense.” And in Quodlibet IV, q. 5, a. 1 (Lent 1271), he addressed the question “Whether the body of Christ on the cross and in the tomb is numerically one and the same.” In his response to the question raised in Quodlibet I, q. 4 a. 1 (“Whether when the soul comes to the body, all forms, both substantial and accidental, which were already present there are corrupted”), Thomas reaffirms his view that a plurality of many substantial forms within one and the same entity is impossible (impossibile est). He repeats his earlier argument that it is from one and the same principle that a thing has its esse and its unity and that, because of this, whatever includes a plurality of forms is not unum simpliciter. Thus a biped animal would not be one simpliciter if it were an animal from one form and a biped from another. He turns to Aristotle for support by likening forms to numbers and figures to other figures. Just as a greater number or figure contains virtually a lesser number or figure, so too a more perfect form, and especially a more perfect soul, contains virtually a less perfect form or soul. This means that the intellective soul has the power (virtus) to confer on the body whatever the sensitive soul does in brutes, and the sensitive soul has the power to confer on animals whatever the nutritive power does in plants, and so forth. Hence nova forma substantialis et nova species vel natura, quamvis non nova assumptione vel unione Verbo copulata. Ex quo sequitur quod Filius Dei non fuerit tantum homo, sed alterius speciei innominatae. . . . Quintus est, identitatem fuisse numeralem corporis Christi mortui cum eius corpore vivo tantummodo propter identitatem materiae et dimensionum interminatarum et habitudinis ipsarum ad animam intellectivam, quae immortalis est. Esse insuper identitatem corporis vivi et mortui ratione existentiae utriusque in eadem hypostasi Verbi. . . . Octavus est quod in homine est tantum una forma scilicet anima rationalis et nulla alia forma substantialis; ex qua opinione sequi videntur omnes haereses supradictae.”

198  Substantial Form in human beings it would be useless for there to be another sensitive soul in addition to the intellective soul, just as it would be useless to add the number four if one already has the number five. In sum, really distinct substantial forms are not present in human beings; such forms are only conceptually distinct. In light of all of this, he concludes that when a more perfect form arrives, less perfect forms, both substantial and accidental, are corrupted. Therefore, when the human soul arrives, the substantial form which was previously present is corrupted. Otherwise the generation of one thing would occur without the corruption of something else, which he rejects as impossible. As for accidental forms which were previously present as dispositions for the soul, while they are not corrupted per se, they are corrupted per accidens with the corruption of the subject, but remain the same in species but not numerically the same.48 Thomas’s answer to the question posed in Quodlibet II (“Whether Christ was one and the same man during the sacrum triduum”) dates from Advent 1269, and undoubtedly caused concern to his opponents. He begins his reply noting that (according to Christian faith) three substances were united in Christ: body, soul and divinity. But Christ’s body and soul were united not only in one person, but also in one nature. His divinity could not, however, be united either to the soul or to the body in nature because, since it is the most perfect nature, it could not be united to another nature as a part. His divinity was united, however, both to his soul and his body in the divine person.49 As regards the three “substances” Thomas had singled out at the beginning, in death Christ’s soul was separated from his body, since he truly died. But his divinity was not separated either from his soul or from his body, since in the Apostles’ Creed it is said of the Son of God that he was buried and that he descended into hell. But while his body was lying in the tomb and his soul was descending into hell, these two could not be attributed to the Son of God unless both his soul and body were joined to him in the unity of his hypostasis or person. In speaking of Christ during 48. See Thomas Aquinas, Quodl. I, q. 4, a. 1 (Leon. ed, 25.2, 183–84:47–94). Note how Thomas introduces this question: “primo de unione anime ad corpus, utrum scilicet, anima adueniente corpori, corrumpantur omnes forme que prius inerant, et substanciales et accidentales” (p. 183). For Aristotle, see Metaphysica VIII, c. 3, 1043a 32–1044a 2, ad sensum, as the Leonine editor warns; De anima II, c. 3, 414b 19–31. 49. See Thomas Aquinas, Quodl. II, q. 1, a. 1 (Leon. ed. 25.2, 211:29–47).

Substantial Form  199 the sacrum triduum, therefore, Thomas observes that we may do so in two ways: (1) with respect to the divine hypostasis or person; (2) with respect to his human nature. As for the divine person or hypostasis, this obviously remained absolutely (simpliciter) one and the same during this period. As for Christ’s human nature, if we refer to his entire human nature—his humanity—Christ was not a man during the sacrum triduum and therefore not the same man or another man, although he was one and the same person. If we speak with respect to the parts of his human nature we may say that his soul remained entirely (omnino) one and the same numerically, and that his body remained the same in terms of its matter, but not in terms of its substantial form or soul, since this was separated from his body. Hence here Thomas states that it cannot be said that Christ’s body was one and the same in the unqualified sense (simpliciter), because every substantial difference excludes being one and the same simpliciter, and being animated is a substantial difference. Nor can we say that his body was absolutely (simpliciter) not one and the same. Rather we should say that in one respect (secundum quid) his body was one and the same and that in another respect (secundum quid) it was not one and the same, for to repeat, according to its matter it was one and the same, but it was not one and the same according to its form.50 It is difficult not to see a strong similarity between Thomas’s position as he expresses it here and the fourteenth proposition included in Giles of Lessine’s letter, which reads: “Quod corpus Christi iacens in sepulchro et positum in cruce non est vel non fuit idem numero simpliciter (That the body of Christ lying in the tomb and hanging on the cross is not or was not numerically the same absolutely).” Thomas has stated: “unde non potest dici quod simpliciter fuerit idem numero (therefore it cannot be said that it was numerically the same absolutely).” But he has also added an important qualification: “nec iterum potest dici quod sit simpliciter non idem vel aliud (nor again can it be said that it was not the same or different absolutely speaking).” Given this, if the proposition in question was directed against Thomas’s position, it did not completely reflect it. Nonetheless, concerning this particular point, I find myself more in agreement with 50. Cf. ibid. Note his conclusion: “unde non potest dici quod simpliciter fuerit idem numero . . . ; nec iterum potest dici quod sit simpliciter non idem uel aliud. . . . Dicendum est ergo quod secundum quid est idem, secundum quid non idem: secundum materiam enim idem, secundum formam uero non idem” (p. 212: 61–71).

200  Substantial Form ­­ Jean-Pierre Torrell (and in disagreement with Zavalloni, Van Steenberghen, and Solère) in thinking that the fourteenth proposition in Giles’s letter reproduces, if not Thomas’s exact position, at least one that is very close to it, albeit, I would add, in truncated fashion.51 In Quodlibet III, q. 2 a. 2 (Lent 1270), in determining whether Christ’s eye after his death may be called an eye equivocally or univocally, Thomas explains that the equivocal and the univocal are determined by reason of whether the defining meaning (of a term) remains the same or not the same in its different applications. But the defining meaning of any species is taken from its specific form which, in the case of a human being, is the rational soul. Therefore, when the rational soul is removed from the body, what remains cannot be called a human being univocally but only equivocally. What applies to the whole body applies to its parts, because as the soul stands in relation to the whole body, so does a part of the soul stand in relation to a part of the body. Therefore, when the soul is separated from the body, just as what remains is called a human being only equivocally, so what remains of the eye can be called an eye only equivocally.52 Thomas remarks that this applies whether or not one presupposes that there is another substantial form in a body prior to the rational soul (presumably a form of corporeity) as some hold, or whether there is not, as he finds more in agreement with truth. In either case, when a substantial principle is removed from something, the same specific meaning (ratio speciei) no longer remains and its original name will no longer apply univocally. Thomas also argues that the only way to avoid this would be to hold that the soul is not united to the body as its form. Uniting the soul to the body would not then be a substantial change, and neither would separation of the soul from the body be a substantial change. But, he continues, to say this of Christ is heretical. Because his soul was separated from his body during the sacrum triduum, which is a true corruption, he is not said to have been a man univocally during that period, but a dead man. So, too, 51. See J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères. La vie et l’ oeuvre de Jésus selon saint Thomas d’Aquin, vol. 2 (Paris: Desclée, 1999), “sans qu’il soit possible de s’y méprendre, la quatorzième de cette liste reproduit sinon la position même de Thomas, du moins une opinion très voisine.” For references, cf. supra, nn. 29ff. 52. See Thomas Aquinas, Quodl. III, q. 2, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 25.2, 246:24–37). For Thomas’s formulation of the question, cf. ibid., 243: “utrum scilicet oculus Christi post mortem dicatur equiuoce oculus, uel uniuoce.”

Substantial Form  201 during that time, his eye was not an eye univocally but only equivocally, as is also true of the other parts of his body.53 But in Quodlibet IV of Lent 1271 and therefore, unlike the previous questions, after the Parisian Condemnation of December 6, 1270, we find at least a different emphasis. In determining whether Christ’s body as attached to the cross was numerically identical with his body as lying in the tomb, Thomas responds that in replying he must avoid two condemned heresies. The Arians held that Christ did not have a human soul and that the Word was united to the body in place of a soul and was separated from the body by Christ’s death. The Gaianites held that there is only one nature in Christ, composed of divinity and humanity, which is absolutely incorruptible, and hence that in death Christ’s body was not only freed from corruption in the sense that it did not undergo putrefaction, but also in the sense that his soul was not separated from his body. This would mean that Christ did not truly die, which Thomas styles as “impious” with a reference to John Damascene.54 In order to avoid the Arian heresy, Thomas must defend the identity of Christ’s body by reason of its continuing union with the divine supposit or person while in the tomb. In order to exclude the Gaianite heresy, he must maintain a true difference between his death and his life because, of course, Christ truly died. Nonetheless, because the first union with the divine supposit is greater than the second difference (between the living and the dead Christ), Thomas concludes that it must be said that the body of Christ as attached to the cross and as lying in the tomb was numerically one and the same (“dicendum est quod est idem numero corpus Christi

53. See ibid. (246:38–73). Note that within this section of text Thomas also distinguishes with John Damascene between two kinds of corruption: (1) the human passions, hunger, thirst, labor, perforation of the nails, and death (separation of the soul from the body); (2) the complete destruction and dissolution of the body into the elements of which it is composed. As Damascene explains in Thomas’s citation, to say that before his resurrection Christ was incorruptible in the first sense would be impious, as Damascene indicates, Julian (of Halicarnassos) and Gianos had done. For Damascene’s text, cf. Traditio fidei, c. 72 (or III, c. 28, as the Leonine ed. indicates), ed. B. Kotter, in Die Schriften des Johannes Damaskos, vol. 2, Patristische Texte und Studien 12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973), 171:1–19. Cf. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères 472ff.; J.-L. Solère, “Was the Eye in the Tomb?,” 544–47. 54. See Quodl. IV, q. 5, art. unicus, (Leon. ed., 25.2, 328:22–40). For Thomas’s formulation of the question, see ibid., 327: “utrum sit unum numero corpus Christi affixum cruci et iacens in sepulcro.” For the reference to John Damascene, cf. supra, n. 53.

202  Substantial Form appensum cruci et iacens in sepulcho”).55 Here, unlike his discussion in Quodlibet II, he does not state that Christ’s body was not numerically one and the same simpliciter but only secundum quid, and that it was the same in a qualified sense (secundum quid) and not the same in [another] qualified sense (secundum quid). Whether this marks a substantial change in Thomas’s position or only a change in terminology is disputed by interpreters of Aquinas. Thus in an article originally published in 1947 and reprinted in 1974, Van Steenberghen briefly summarizes Thomas’s views on this in Quodlibeta II, III, and IV. As regards the treatment in Quodlibet IV, Van Steenberghen comments that after 1270 Thomas seems to avoid formulations of his position that might offend the sensibilities of theologians, but notes that here he presents the same position as in his earlier treatments, but now emphasizes the identity of the living and dead body of Christ.56 Writing a few years after Van Steenberghen’s article had first appeared, Zavalloni refers to a difference in attitude between Thomas’s treatment of this issue in Quodlibeta III and IV. While referring to this difference as verbal rather than as doctrinal, Zavalloni acknowledges that in the later Quodlibet Thomas insists more on the identity of the living and the dead body of Christ. He comments that a certain “moral influence” on Thomas of the Condemnation of 1270 and of the opposition of the Parisian Masters to the thesis of unity of substantial form cannot be denied.57 In his recent very thorough examination of the issue of the “eye in the tomb” in many quodlibetal disputes, including in particular those of Aquinas, Solère has argued for the doctrinal identity of Thomas’s teaching on this issue before and after 1270, and rejects any change in Thomas’s position. He does recognize, however, an “inversion in the order of presentation,” meaning thereby that in the earlier Quodlibeta Thomas had begun by insisting on the discontinuity in the order of nature between the living and the dead 55. See Quodl. IV, q. 5, art. unicus, corp. (Leon. ed., 25.2, 328:41–49). Also note Thomas’s reply to the first argument against his position. This argument reasons that what differs in species differs in number. But the body of Christ on the cross and in the tomb differ in species, just as do the living and the dead. In response Thomas counters that this argument does not apply with respect to the body of Christ because of its continuing union with the divine hypostasis: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod ratio illa non tenet in corpore Christi, propter unitatem ypostasis” (p. 328); for the argument itself, see 327:9–13. 56. See F. Van Steenberghen, “Le ‘De quindecim problematibus’ d’Albert le Grand,” 450–53. 57. See R. Zavalloni, Richard de Mediavilla et la controverse sur la pluralité des formes, 487.

Substantial Form  203 body of Christ, and then had appealed to its continuing unity with the divine suppositum; but in Quodlibet IV (and in Summa theologiae III, q. 50, a. 5) he reversed this order by beginning with the theological datum, that is, the unity of the deceased body with the divine Word. But within these different orders of presentation, and in agreement with Van Steenberghen, Solère maintains that the doctrine is the same.58 In his biography of Thomas Aquinas, ­­Jean-Pierre Torrell seems to have held the same view. There in commenting in a note on Zavalloni’s remark that “the condemnation led him [Thomas] to insist further on the identity of the living and the dead body of Christ and of his cadaver,” Torrell remarks: “Doubtless, but we ought to add with Zavalloni: “more a verbal than a doctrinal difference.”59 In a fuller study of this in his Le Christ en ses mystères, however, he begins by presenting Thomas’s discussion of this issue in his still later Summa theologiae III, q. 50, a. 5. And he emphasizes the difference between Thomas’s position as expressed there and in Quodlibet IV with his view as presented in Quodlibeta II and III.60 Before offering my own opinion concerning a possible change on Thomas’s part, I must first consider Summa theologiae III, q. 50 a. 5 (Paris, 1271–72). There again Thomas considers the numerical identity of Christ’s body before and after his death. He now introduces an interesting distinction between two ways in which the term simpliciter may be taken. In one way it means the same as absolutely (absolute), that is, when something is stated without any added qualification. In this sense, he now writes, the living and the dead body of Christ was numerically one and the same simpliciter.61 The difference between this statement and his findings in Quod58. See J.-L. Solère, “Was the Eye in the Tomb?,” 553–56. 59. J.-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 189, n. 45. Note that earlier in this same sentence, where reference is made to Thomas’s position in Quodlibet III, the word “except” should be inserted so as to read: “. . . Thomas concluded that Christ’s eye was not an eye equivocally” to reflect the original French: “Thomas conclut que l’ œil du Christ n’ était œil que de façon equivoque, comme un œil mort . . .” (Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin [Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Paris: Editions du Cerf: Paris, 2nd ed., 2002], 276, n. 45). I should note that in the 2nd ed. of his Initiation à s. Thomas (cited here) and in the fully revised 3rd ed., Torrell retains the qualification by Zavolloni that he had approvingly cited in n. 45 (see Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin [Paris: Cerf, 2015], 245, n. 45). 60. See Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, vol. 2 (published in 1999), 470–73. 61. See ST III, q. 50, a. 5 (Leon. ed., 11.484). Note especially: “Et hoc modo corpus Christi mortuum et vivum simpliciter fuit idem numero.” Note the contrast between this and the first part of the text from Quodlibet II; cf. supra, n. 50. Solère is also aware of Luna’s research on the

204  Substantial Form libeta II and III seems very striking to me. In accord with the position he had presented in Quodlibet IV, he again notes that something is said to be numerically the same simpliciter because it is one and the same by reason of its suppositum. And once more he applies this to Christ. The living and the dead body of Christ was one by reason of the divine suppositum, since it had no other hypostasis but the Word when it was living and when it was dead. But now he indicates that the term simpliciter may be taken in another sense as meaning entirely (omnino) or totally (totaliter). When the term simpliciter is used in this sense, the living body and the dead body of Christ was not numerically one and the same simpliciter because it was not totally the same. Life is something that belongs to the essence of a living body and hence is an essential predicate, not one that is accidental. Therefore a body that ceases to be alive does not remain the same totaliter.62 Indeed, continues Thomas, if one were to say that the dead body of Christ remained the same totaliter, it would follow that it did not undergo the corruption of death. To hold this would be to fall into the Gaianite heresy, against which he again cites the text from John Damascene he had quoted in his discussion in Quodlibet IV. His reply to the first objection is also interesting. According to that objection, Christ truly died, like other human beings. But the dead body of any other human being is not numerically the same simpliciter when living and when dead. Therefore neither is the living and the dead body of Christ. Thomas responds that the dead body of any other human being does not remain united to some permanent hypostasis, as did the dead body of Christ. Therefore the dead body of any other human being is not the same simpliciter but only secundum quid because, while it is the same in terms of its matter, it is not the same in terms of its form. But the body of Christ remained the same simplici­ ter because of the identity of the divine supposit. As Torrell points out, the difference between what Thomas says here and what he said in Quodlibet II is quite striking. There Thomas said of Christ what he here maintains is true only of other human beings, that is, that their living and dead bodies are not the same simpliciter but only secundum quid.63 reportatio of Giles’s commentary on III Sentences and her proposal to date it between Lent 1270 and Lent 1271. But as already noted, he maintains that Thomas did not really modify his position; see “Was the Eye in the Tomb?,” 549ff., n. 114. 62. See ST III, q. 50, a. 5 (Leon. ed., 11.484). 63. Ibid. For Torrell, see Le Christ en ses mystères, 475.

Substantial Form  205 In light of all of this, my conclusion is that Thomas did change his position, and not merely his order of presentation, in his discussions of this issue after the Condemnation of December 1270; and so, on this point, I am in agreement with Torrell rather than with Van Steenberghen, Zavalloni, and Solère. I do find Thomas’s explicit rejection and then his subsequent acceptance of saying that the living and the dead body of Christ was numerically the same simpliciter very significant. Moreover, the distinction he introduces in his final consideration of this, in Summa theologiae III, q. 50, a. 5, between the two ways in which the term simpliciter may be taken is an important clarification of his final presentation of his position. There is another very similar application of this distinction in a different context in his slightly earlier Summa theologiae ­­II-II, q. 58, a. 10, ad 2, and I conclude from this that one need not regard this distinction itself as having been introduced for the first time in Summa theologiae III, q. 50.64 In any event, this distinction adds an important precision in his understanding and presentation of his view. As for Thomas’s reason(s) for this change in position, I am inclined to think that it was occasioned at least in part by the events surrounding the Condemnation of 1270 and the opposition at that time to his views on unity of substantial form. However, while recognizing this as a possible partial explanation for this shift in Thomas’s position, Torrell doubts that this is a sufficient explanation. He proposes two other possible reasons as well. First he points to the response by Albert the Great to Giles of Lessines’s inquiry concerning proposition 14 in his letter. Albert remarks that the person who defends this proposition seems to speak about the body of Christ in the same way as he would about the body of any other person, without taking into account that which is unique in the case of Christ: the perma64.See ST ­­II-II, q. 58, a. 10 (Leon. ed., 9.17ff). Here Thomas has been defending the view that the mean involved in justice is a real mean, not merely a mean of reason. The second objection argues that in things that are good simpliciter, there is no excess or deficiency and hence no mean and that justice deals with bona simpliciter. Thomas counters that the good simpliciter may be taken in two ways: in one way, as that which is good in every way (omnibus modis), and in this sense virtues are good and no real mean or extremes can be found in things which are bona simpliciter; or it may be taken in another way, when something is said to be good simpliciter because it is absolute bonum, that is, as considered according to its nature, even though it might be abused (as with riches and honors). In such cases excess, deficiency, and a mean may be found with respect to men who can use them well or badly. The first usage of simplici­ ter seems to correspond to taking it as omnino vel totaliter in the text from ST III, q. 50, a. 5, and the second usage clearly is the same in the two texts (taken as absolute).

206  Substantial Form nent union of divinity with his body during the sacrum triduum. Albert also comments that the philosopher can say very little about this issue. Second, Torrell refers to some important research by Luna based on her edition of a reportatio of Giles of Rome’s Commentary on Sentences III, q. 33, d. 21, where, going beyond Thomas’s point that the soul gives esse to the body, Giles stresses that it is the Word that gives esse to Christ’s soul itself. According to her dating of this reportatio at the beginning of the 1270s, Torrell remarks that it seems materially possible that Thomas could have read and profited from Giles’s text.65 Let me add that I am in full agreement with Solère (and differ with Boureau on this particular point) that the connection between the doctrine of unity of substantial form and the theological issue concerning the identity of the body of Christ in the tomb had already been introduced by the time of Thomas’s Quodlibeta II, III, and IV during his second teaching period at Paris, and perhaps even earlier, as Solère also maintains, and did not originate for the first time only later in 1276 in Henry of Ghent’s Quodlibet I. Questions 33 and 34 in Reportatio III of Giles’s Commentary on the Sentences also strongly support this.66

4. T he Ontological Status of the Matter of Christ’s Body in the Tomb I want to conclude by simply raising a question which I will be unable to resolve to my satisfaction within the limits of the present study. While Thomas’s later discussions in Quodlibet IV and in Summa theologiae III, q. 50, a. 5, in defense of the numerical identity of Christ’s body in the tomb rest upon the continuing union of the Word with his body, an interesting philosophical question can be raised about the ontological status of the matter of his body during that period. If, as Thomas maintains, prime 65. For Albert, see De XV problematibus, p. 43. Torrell cites Luna from her “La Reportatio della lettura di Egidio Romano sul Libro III della Sentenze (Clm. 8005) e il problema dell’autenticità dell’Ordinatio,” in Documenti e Studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 1/1 (1990), 113– 225, and for this particular question p. 211 (Giles’s text), and 124–28, 174–78, for her suggestion of this influence on Thomas. One may now use her 2003 edition, Aegidii Romani Opera omnia, vol. 3.2, 430–435, esp. 432:50–61, and 434:113–116). See ibid., 69–75 for her discussion of Giles’s critique of Thomas’s earlier discussions in Quodl. II and III, and the influence of this on Thomas’s treatments in Quodl. IV and in ST III, q. 50. 66. See J.-L. Solère, “Was the Eye in the Tomb?,” 528–32 and throughout his study. See, too, his references to Boureau on pp. 528 and 540ff.

Substantial Form  207 matter is pure potentiality and if, as he also holds, it cannot be kept in existence without some form, even by divine power, how could the prime matter of Christ’s body continue to exist during the sacrum triduum without being informed by some substantial form?67 Various scholars such as Torrell, Luna, and Solère have made the point that Thomas’s final explanation of the continuing identity of Christ’s body is theological, and this is surely correct. But according to Thomas’s defense of the harmony between revealed truth and philosophical reason, for instance, in q. 2, a. 3 of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, his theological explanation should not contradict what he regards as a demonstrated philosophical conclusion. While I have not found Thomas himself explicitly discussing this issue, it seems to lie behind an objection raised against his defense of unity of substantial form in human beings. As was noted above, in his Correctorium William de la Mare argues against Aquinas’s defense of unity of substantial form that his position is contrary to faith because faith maintains that it was numerically one and the same body of Christ that hung on the cross and that lay in the tomb. If there was no other substantial form in Christ but the intellective soul, during the time in the tomb only prime matter would have remained in the tomb, or else another substantial form would have been introduced. William rejects both of these alternatives since, he maintains, neither could account for the numerical identity of Christ’s living and dead body.68 Curiously, however, in criticizing the first alternative he does not point out the difficulty of reconciling the continuing existence of prime matter without some substantial form with Thomas’s denial that such is possible even by divine power. But a number of years before William’s intervention into this discussion, during Aquinas’s second teaching period at Paris, Giles of Rome had already addressed a closely related issue in the oral version of his Commentary on Book III of the Sentences. In the Reportatio of his Commentary (q. 34, d. 21), he considers whether another substantial form was introduced into the dead body of Christ. He responds that some say that no 67. For Thomas’s best discussion of this, see Quodl. III, q. 1, a. 1 (Leon ed., 25.2.241ff.), where he was asked to determine whether God can make matter exist without any form. In brief, Thomas maintains that God cannot do this because it would entail contradiction (see lines 39–64). Note that the claim that matter cannot exist without some form was included in the propositions of Giles of Rome censured in March, 1277; cf. Apologia, prop. 48 (cf. n. 32), 59. 68. See supra, n. 37 and my corresponding text.

208  Substantial Form other substantial form was added, but they do so in different ways. Some hold that when Christ’s soul was separated from his body, the same generic form remained—a form of corporeity—although the same specific form did not. Giles rejects this as unacceptable for two reasons, first because it would entail grades of forms, that is, plurality of forms, and second, because something cannot be a hoc aliquid in a genus without also being a hoc aliquid within a species. Given this, Giles notes that others say that by divine power Christ’s body remained in the tomb without any substantial form and continued to exist because it was united in esse to the divine suppositum.69 Giles then simply states that he does not know how to resolve this, but that the ­­last-mentioned position seems to be unacceptable for three reasons. First of all, it would follow that Christ’s body in the tomb would not have been in the genus substance, since matter alone without a form is not a body when a body is understood as a substance. Nor would it help if someone were to counter that the matter in the body of Christ was simply quantity, for from this it would follow that his matter was a body taken only in the sense of quantity but not a body taken in the sense of a substance. Second, it would follow that Christ’s body was not truly dead. Prime matter of itself is not dead flesh, since flesh is said to be dead when it is under a form contrary to a living form. Third, it is useless to attribute to a miracle that which can be done by nature. Since it is widely (communiter) doubted that God can produce matter without any form, it is also doubtful whether he could produce matter subject to quantity without some substantial form. Likewise it is doubtful whether the accident quantity can exist in pure (prime) matter. Here, then, Giles has already recognized the difficulty in reconciling unity of substantial form with the view that prime matter cannot exist without some substantial form.70 Given these difficulties with the view that there was no substantial form in Christ’s body in the tomb, Giles proposes an alternative explanation that is in accord with the unity of substantial form but one which he does not propose as definitive but only as probable (non tamen determinando). According to this explanation, the body of Christ was subject to another substantial form during the sacrum triduum, since the corruption 435.

69. See Giles of Rome, Reportatio Lecturae super Libros I–IV Sententiarum, q. 34 (dist. 21), 70. Ibid., 435ff.: 10–29. Note Giles’s remark: “Quid sit de hoc, nescio.”

Substantial Form  209 of one form is naturally the generation of another. Hence when Christ’s soul was separated from his body, another substantial form was introduced into matter. The divine supposit or person was not united to this form permanently, but only until Christ’s soul would be rejoined to his body, just as he assumed hunger and thirst not as permanent conditions but only until his body would be glorified. Giles explains that only a new union per accidens resulted from the introduction of this new form. This was possible because the divine supposit was united to some things per se, that is to flesh and to the soul, and to some things only per accidens by way of consequence by means of the body, for instance, to the whiteness of his body or to redness of his body during his Passion. If those things to which the divine person was united per accidens were separated from Christ’s body, the divine supposit would no longer be united to them. Regarding those things which the divine supposit united to itself per se, it is unacceptable to posit a new union. But, reasons Giles, it is possible for there to be a new union regarding those things to which the divine supposit is united per accidens, as for instance a change in the color of Christ’s body. Giles applies this to the introduction of a new substantial form into the dead body of Christ. The divine supposit was not united to this form per se, but only Christ’s body was, which could not itself exist without the new substantial form.71 Giles concludes by remarking again that while this solution is probable, he is not “determining” it, that is, he is not proposing it as his definitive position. He points out that according to this explanation, just as it is necessary to say that before his death Christ was a man, in like fashion during his time in the tomb, when he was under some other created form, such as earth, a consequence follows which is difficult to accept (quod grave est dicere). Because of the communicatio idiomatum, just as one could say of Christ before his time in the tomb that “God is man,” so during that period one could have said “God is earth” or something of that kind.72 As for Aquinas’s own position concerning this issue, various scholars have attributed to him the view that during its time in the tomb, the matter of Christ’s body was informed by a new substantial form. Archbishop Pecham included this position as article 2 among the propositions he 71. Ibid., 436:30–53. 72. Ibid., 437:54–59.

210  Substantial Form condemned in 1286, and it had indeed been defended by Richard Knapwell.73 But the question can be raised concerning whether Thomas himself ever defended this theory. Cardinal Cajetan attributes this position to him,74 as do some recent students of the unity of form in Aquinas, such as Roberto Zavalloni and Pasquale Mazzarella. But interestingly enough, so far as I have been able to determine, none of them cites a single text from Aquinas himself in which he explicitly defends this view.75 On the other side, Boureau flatly denies that Thomas ever defended this position, and cites Robert of Orford’s Correctorium in support.76 Since I have found no text in Aquinas where he defends this position, I conclude that Boureau is correct on this point, and that Thomas himself never defended this position. Unfortunately, I must also acknowledge that as of this writing I have not yet found an explicit explanation in Thomas’s text indicating how he would account for the continuing presence of prime matter (and quantity) in Christ’s body during the sacrum triduum without appealing to the introduction of some other substantial form. This issue I must leave for future research. But I have found no indication in his texts that he ever abandoned his doctrine of the unicity of substantial form in human beings, or his denial that prime matter could exist without some form even by divine power. 73. For Pecham’s text, see supra, n. 47. Note the consequence he draws from this position, a consequence which Giles seems to have anticipated: “Ex quo sequitur quod Filius Dei non fuerit tantum homo, sed alterius speciei innominatae.” For Richard Knapwell, see Le Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare”, 135ff., also his Quaestio Disputata De Unitate Formae, 62ff., arg. 22 and arg. 24 in support of unity of form. 74. See Cajetan, Commentaria in Summam Theologiae Sancti Thomae, III, q. 50, a. 5 (Leon. ed., 11.485): “Auctor [scil. Thomas] autem aliam formam genitam in Christi corpore tenet, scilicet formam cadaveris, per quam erat corpus: quia naturalis ordo habet ut semper corruptio unius sit generatio alterius.” 75. See R. Zavalloni, Richard de Mediavilla et la controverse sur la pluralité des formes, 292; P. Mazzarella, Controversie medievali. Unità e pluralità delle forme, I Principii 13 (Naples: Giannini, 1978), 18 (where he claims that in his Quodlibet I, q. 4, Henry of Ghent was confronting the position of Thomas Aquinas, who had held this view), and 22, 24, 32 (where he again attributes this to Thomas, but always without citing any text from Thomas himself to support this claim). 76. Cf. A. Boureau, Théologie, science et censure, 183, citing Robert of Orford; see Le Correctorium Corruptorii “Sciendum,” in Les premières polémiques thomistes II, ed. P. Glorieux, Bibliothèque Thomiste 31 (Paris, 1956), 141: “Ad illud quod dicunt quod alia forma substantialis fuit introducta, dicendum quod non, nec unquam invenitur hoc Thomam dixisse de corpore Christi.”

Natural Knowledge Natural Knowledge

VII 

S Thomas Aquinas on the Separated Soul’s Natural Knowledge

Thomas Aquinas is often given credit for having successfully overcome Platonic dualism in his philosophy of human nature by correlating body and soul as matter and substantial form. Moreover, it is generally recognized that in doing this he also introduced some fundamental changes into this application of the Aristotelian theory of matter and form. One would be hard pressed to find a clear defense of the spiritual nature of the individual human soul in Aristotle’s De anima or a doctrine of personal immortality.1 One way of presenting Aquinas’s achievement is to recognize that in the case of the human soul he developed the notion of a substantial form that does indeed inform matter and therefore can be called a form of matter, a forma materiae, without at the same time admitting that it is a material form, a forma materialis.2 By doing this he successfully overcame the tendency of one line of interpretation in the Aristotelian tradition, that I would like to thank my colleague at the Catholic University of America, Dr. Kevin White, for his careful reading of and helpful comments on this article. 1. For some helpful background on this see A. Pegis, St. Thomas and the Problem of the Soul in the Thirteenth Century (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1935), 168– 87; “Some Reflections on Summa contra Gentiles, II, 56,” in An Etienne Gilson Tribute, ed. C. J. O’Neil (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1959), 169–88; F. Van Steenberghen, “The Second Lecture, Monopsychism,” in Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism, ed. J. F. Wippel (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1980), 29–74. 2. See Van Steenberghen, “The Second Lecture, Monopsychism,” 46–49; Pegis, “Some Reflections,” esp. 177–83. Note his remark on 177: “From this point of view, the Thomistic doctrine of an intellectual substance as the substantial form of matter must be seen as a moment in history when an Aristotelian formula was deliberately used to express in philosophical terms a view of man that the world and tradition of Aristotelianism considered a metaphysical impossibility.” Also see N. Kretzmann, The Metaphysics of Creation. Aquinas’ Natural Theology in Summa contra Gentiles II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), c. 8, esp. 313–22, where he is commenting specifically on SCG II, cc. 68–69, although he rightly also points out the significance of Thomas’s later discussion in Quaestiones disputatae De anima, q. 1.

211

212  Natural Knowledge of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which reduced the human soul to the status of another corporeal form. At the same time, he also rejected another line of interpretation found in Averroes’s Long Commentary on the De anima, according to which the principle of intellectual operations in a human being can only be a separated principle, indeed a separate active or agent intellect, and, more damaging as regards the implications for personal immortality, a separate thinking or possible intellect as well.3 For Aquinas, of course, both the agent intellect and the possible intellect are spiritual powers of the individual human soul.4 While all of these claims for Aquinas’s achievements regarding the nature of the human being can be supported by texts from his writings, some more recent interpreters have maintained that unresolved tensions remain in his views concerning the human soul in its state of separation from the body. If, for the sake of this discussion, one grants the validity of Thomas’s efforts to demonstrate the incorruptible character and therefore the natural immortality of the human soul, it is argued, first, that there are fundamental inconsistencies, or second, that there is a radical evolution in his views concerning the nature and degree of perfection to be assigned to the soul’s cognitive activities in its state of separation.5 The first line of interpretation may be found in a number of scholars writing in the German language. Thus in a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Protestant theological faculty at Tübingen in 1934 but published only in 1980, Johannes Mundhenk finds one series of texts in Aquinas indicating that, as regards its cognitive activities, the separated soul is in a more imperfect state than was that same soul when it was joined to the body. But according to Mundhenk, in another series of texts Aquinas maintains that the soul’s situation with respect to its intellectual operations 3. See Pegis, “Some Reflections,” 169 and n. 1 (on Alexander); Van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas, 29–67 (on Averroes and Averroism, with special attention to Thomas’s De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas). 4. See Van Steenberghen as cited in note 3. 5. Thomas does argue philosophically for the incorruptibility of the human soul and hence by implication for its immortality. See, for instance, SCG II, c.79; Quaestiones disputatae De ani­ ma, q. 14; Summa theologiae I, q. 75, a. 6. Limitations of space will not permit me to examine here his arguments for this conclusion. In light of his comments in SCG I, c. 9 to the effect that in Bks I–III he will offer both demonstrative and probable arguments for those things which faith professes and which reason can investigate, one may assume that he does not regard all nine of his arguments in SCG II, c. 79 as demonstrative. For a critical appraisal of these, see Kretzmann, Metaphysics of Creation, 403–15. It is interesting to see how greatly Thomas has reduced the number of his arguments in the later texts just mentioned.

Natural Knowledge  213 is more perfect in its state of separation than it was during its embodied state.6 Or again, writing in 1969, Klaus Bernath concluded that when one considers all the relevant Thomistic passages as a whole, it remains unclear whether Thomas thinks the intellective soul can better perform its intellectual operations in union with the body or in separation from the body.7 And in two separate studies dating from 1974 and 1984 Wolfgang Kluxen points to a similar lack of complete coherence in Thomas’s texts, at least if one limits the discussion to the philosophical level.8 On the other side of the Atlantic another well-known ­­ interpreter of Aquinas, Anton Pegis, writing on two occasions in 1974 without being aware of the ongoing German discussion, pointed to apparent inconsistencies between Thomas’s different treatments of this issue.9 Pegis emphasized a fundamental break between the position presented in Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 81, and that offered in Summa theologiae I, q. 89, a. 1. In the first text Thomas views the separated soul as capable of understanding in accordance with its separate mode of existing. When the soul is united with the body it understands by abstracting intelligible content from phantasms and is therefore dependent upon the body and upon sense experience for the content of these phantasms. But when the soul exists apart from the body, it understands in a mode that is appropriate to its state of separate existence. As regards its acquisition of new knowledge, it then will use a higher mode of knowing, which is in accord with its higher state of existence. Thus it will know according to the mode of other separate substances, that is, by means of infused species.10 6. Die Seele im System des Thomas von Aquin. Ein Beitrag zur Klärung und Beurteilung der Grundbegriffe der thomistischen Psychologie (Hamburg: Meiner, 1980), 122–26, 128. 7. Klaus Bernath, Anima Forma Corporis. Eine Untersuchung über die ontologischen Grundlagen der Anthropologie des Thomas von Aquin (Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1969), 194–201, esp. 200–201. 8. “Anima Separata und Personsein bei Thomas von Aquin,” in Thomas von Aquino. Interpretation und Rezeption, ed. W. P. Eckert (Mainz: ­­Matthias-Grünevald, 1974), See 107–8. Cf. his “Seele und Unsterblichkeit bei Thomas von Aquin,” in Seele. Ihre Wirklichkeit, ihr Verhältnis zum Leib und zur menschlichen Person, ed. K. Kremer (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 66–83. See 83. For an interesting effort to overcome these criticisms of Thomas’s position (by Mundhenk, Bernath, and Kluxen, and also by G. Greshake), although one I cannot completely endorse, see M. Schulze, Leibhaft und Unsterblich. Zur Schau der Seele in der Anthropologie und Theologie des Hl. Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg Schweiz: Universitätverlag, 1992), 155–59. 9. A. Pegis, “The Separated Soul and Its Nature in St Thomas,” in St Thomas Aquinas 1274– 1974: Commemorative Studies, ed. A. Maurer et al. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), Vol. 1, 131–58; “Between Immortality and Death: Some Further Reflections on the Summa Contra Gentiles,” Monist 58 (1974): 1–15, esp. 8–13. 10. “The Separated Soul and Its Nature,” 132–34; “Between Immortality and Death,” 11–12.

214  Natural Knowledge But Pegis maintains that by the time of the Prima pars, q. 89, a. 1, things have changed radically. Now Thomas assigns to the separated soul a mode of knowing that appears to be less perfect than that which it enjoyed in its embodied state. More than this, Thomas now refers to this separated way of existing and of knowing by infused species as being beyond the nature (praeter naturam) of the separated soul. Indeed, Pegis takes this reference as meaning that this separated mode of existing is, in effect, against the nature of the separated soul (contra naturam).11 In light of this, Pegis concludes that for Thomas the separated soul is worse off as regards its natural knowledge (prescinding therefore from the special kind of knowledge given to the blessed by the beatific vision) than it was in its embodied state. For Pegis this interpretation is confirmed by Thomas’s thinking in his Disputed Questions De anima, qq. 15–20. But, still according to Pegis, the position developed in Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 81 is in agreement with the position presented by Thomas in earlier discussions including his Commentaries on Bks III and IV of the Sentences, and De veritate, q. 19.12 So far as Pegis is concerned, therefore, Thomas’s thought has evolved considerably on this issue after his discussion in SCG II, c. 81 . But Pegis has difficulty in defending his theory of evolution in Thomas’s thought because of the discussion in Quodlibet III, q. 9, a. 2, which is normally dated in 1270. Indeed, Pegis goes so far as to maintain that Quodlibet III must be given a significantly earlier dating, prior to the Prima pars (usually dated ca. 1266–68) and prior to the Disputed Questions De anima, since Quodlibet III defends not what Pegis regards as Thomas’s later position but his earlier one.13 Yet, subsequent scholarly work, including the recently completed Leonine edition of Thomas’s Quodlibets, strongly indicates that the 1270 date must be retained for Quodlibet III.14 11. “The Separated Soul and Its Nature,” 134–38; “Between Immortality and Death,” 9–13. In the latter context Pegis argues on the basis of a remark made by Thomas in SCG IV, c. 79, to the effect that it is against the nature of the soul to exist apart from the body. Pegis concludes: “Praeter naturam here in the Summa and contra naturam in SCG IV, c. 79 are saying the same thing: death and disembodiment are against the nature of the human soul” (13). We will return to SCG IV, c. 79 below. 12. “The Separated Soul,” 138–41 (on the Commentary on the Sentences); 141–44 (on De veritate, q. 19); 145–47 (on Quaestiones De anima); 147–49 (on the transition). 13. “The Separated Soul,” 150–55. 14. See Sancti Thomae de Aquino, Opera Omnia iussu Leonis XIII P.M. edita, T. XXV: Quaestiones de quolibet, vol. 1 (­­Rome-Paris, 1996), p. ix* = Leon. ed., 25.1.ix*, for the date of Quodlibet III (Easter, 1270, meaning during the Lenten Quodlibetal session prior to Easter). Also see the remark by the editor (R.-A. Gauthier) in a note accompanying the beginning of

Natural Knowledge  215 What, therefore, are we to conclude about Thomas’s position on the knowledge enjoyed by the separated soul? Before attempting to answer this, I would like to review in chronological order the key texts involved in this dispute. Only after having done this will I be in a position to offer my own thoughts on Thomas’s position. In order to focus this investigation, I propose to control my examination of these texts by considering five questions, each of which Thomas himself raises in one or more of these texts. These questions are: (1) Can the separated soul understand at all, and if so, how can it do this? (2) Will the separated soul have a knowledge of itself and of other separated souls and intelligences? (3) Will the separated soul be aware of individuals it knew in its embodied state, or of other individuals? (4) Will the separated soul still retain the scientific and universal knowledge it possessed in this life? (5) Will it be aware of what continues to happen here on earth? Before turning to Thomas’s texts, I would also note that in most of them he concentrates on the natural knowledge that is available to the separated soul. While as a believer and a theologian he also grants a higher mode of knowing to the souls of the blessed, that is not his special concern in most of these passages. But in our first text he blends these two perspectives to some degree.

the edition of Quodlibet III, and in response to Pegis: “. . . sed tempus huius articuli in dubium venire non potest (cf. an. ad u. 71–72) et Thomas, etsi hic et illic in hac vel in illa parte huius implicatissimae quaestionis magis commoratur, semper de cognitione animae separatae eandem doctrinam tenet” (Leon. ed., 25.2.278). In the note to lines 71–72 of the text he indicates that there Thomas is citing Aristotle’s De anima according to the Translatio Nova, i.e., that of William of Moerbeke. See the Introduction to his edition of Thomas’s Commentary on the De anima (Leon. ed., 45.1.213*) where Gauthier places Moerbeke’s translation of the De anima between 1265 and 1268. Also see p. 269* where he points out that in SCG II, c. 78 and also in SCG III, c. 84 Thomas did not know of the Nova, i.e., in the years 1262–63. But in his psychological writings which center around quaestiones 75–89 of the Prima pars, i.e., the Disputed Questions De anima and De spiritualibus creaturis, as well as the Commentary on the De anima, all of which Gauthier then placed at Rome in 1268, Thomas uses the Nova. And in the Prima pars, while he continues to cite the Vetus, he also begins to use the Nova when he wants to cite literally. For some additional precisions see B. C. Bazán’s Introduction to his edition of the Quaestiones disputatae De anima (Leon. ed., 24.1.10*–12*), where he indicates that in this work Thomas does not always cite the Nova, and his conclusion that these Disputed Questions should be dated between 1266 and 1267, and the De spiritualibus creaturis between November 1267 and September 1268.

216  Natural Knowledge

1. In III Sent., dist. 31, q. 2, a. 4 Since Thomas’s Commentary on the four books of Sentences dates from 1252–56, this is the earliest of our texts.15 Here he is considering the question whether in the life to come scientific knowledge will be taken away from the separated soul. It should be noted, however, that Thomas originally introduced question 2 by asking whether faith and hope (art. 1) and charity (art. 2) will be taken away with the coming of glory. This suggests that in this particular question Thomas has in mind not only the natural knowledge available to the separated soul, but also that granted to the blessed.16 Thomas begins by presenting a series of arguments which would claim that scientific knowledge is totally destroyed in the life to come. A number of these seem to assume the reality of the light of glory. Thomas then offers three counterarguments in support of the claim that science will remain. The second of these reasons is that souls in hell will know something of what happened here on earth and therefore must remember something, as is indicated by the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.17 In developing his response Thomas distinguishes three factors which must be taken into account with respect to scientific knowledge as we possess it in this life, that is, the act of knowing scientifically, the habit of science, and the mode of understanding appropriate for it. He immediately comments that the (scientific) mode of understanding involves having recourse to phantasms. In the present life the human intellect never acquires knowledge or even thinks about things it previously understood without having recourse to phantasms, that is, sense images produced by the imagination. For phantasms are related to the intellect as sensible objects are to the sense powers. As for the act of science, Thomas comments that this consists in knowing conclusions by resolving them back to self-evident ­­ 15. Unless otherwise indicated, I will follow the dates proposed for Thomas’s works by J.-P. Torrell in his Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person and His Work, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005). See p. 332, where the Catalogue of Thomas’s works compiled by Giles Emery indicates that this work resulted from Thomas’s teaching as a bachelor of Sentences from 1252 to 1254, but that its composition was not yet completed when he first began his activities as Master in 1256. Also see the further discussion in the addition on pp. 424–25. 16. Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lombardi, Vol. 3, ed. M. F. Moos (Paris: Lethielleux, 1933), 995; see 984 for the original questions. 17. Ibid., 995–96.

Natural Knowledge  217 principles. And as regards the habit of science, it is a certain quality which renders someone fitted for the act of science.18 Thomas then returns to the issue of the mode of understanding involved in scientific knowledge and notes that this pertains to the human soul under two perspectives. Under one perspective the soul’s mode of understanding results from the fact that the human intellect is the lowest, that is, the least perfect in the order of nature among the varying levels of intellects. Therefore the possible intellect stands in relation to all intelligibles just as matter does with respect to sensible forms. Viewed from this perspective, therefore, it can be actualized only by receiving intelligible species, and for this it depends upon the senses and the imagination. In other words, it needs phantasms. From another perspective, the human soul is the form of the body. As such, its operation must be the operation of the entire human being. Therefore the body shares in this operation, not as an instrument by means of which the soul acts, but rather by presenting an object to the intellect in a phantasm. Consequently, in its state of union with the body, the soul cannot understand anything, even things it has previously known, without the assistance of phantasms.19 In its state of separation, continues Thomas, the nature of the soul will remain, even though its actual union with the body will not.20 In light of this, Thomas concludes that, considered simply in terms of its nature, the separated soul will not need phantasms in order to consider objects it has previously known. It will be able to think about things it previously knew by using the habit of science it had then acquired. It will be able to acquire knowledge of things it did not previously know either by deducing such knowledge from what it already knows, or by means of new species infused directly into it by divine power. In saying this Thomas is, of course, also indicating that the habit of science will remain in the separated soul.21 18. Ibid., 996. 19. Ibid., 996–97. Note: “Et inde contingit quod anima non potest intelligere sine phantasmate etiam ea quae prius novit” (997). 20. Ibid. “In anima ergo separata a corpore remanebit natura animae, sed non remanebit unio ad corpus in actu” (997). 21. Ibid. “Et ideo ea considerata in natura sua tantum, non indigebit [for: indigebat, with Parma/Busa ed.] phantasmatibus quantum ad considerationem eorum quae prius scivit, sed solum quantum ad considerationem eorum quae de novo debet scire. Et ideo ea quae prius scivit poterit considerare non quidem utendo phantasmate, sed ex habitu scientiae prius habito. Ea vero quae ante nescivit non poterit scire nisi quatenus ex his quae scit elici possunt vel inquantum aliae species ei divinitus infunduntur.”

218  Natural Knowledge Thomas then turns to the issue of survival of the act of science in the separated soul. In this act he distinguishes the motion involved in scientific inquiry and discursive reasoning, on the one hand, and the terminus of this act, on the other, that is, the certainty of scientifically known conclusions. The motion involved in discursive reasoning implies some imperfection and, therefore, in the blessed the act of science will no longer require such discursive motion; but the certainty of the act of science will remain. In the case of the damned, however, the need for the act of discursive reasoning will also remain. And the habit of science will remain.22 As Thomas succinctly sums up in replying to the first objection, in the separated soul science will no longer remain as regards the embodied soul’s mode of understanding. This, of course, will be because of the absence of phantasms. As regards the act of science, this will be changed in the separated soul in the case of the blessed, although in the damned, and hence in the natural order one may assume, even the motion involved in discursive reasoning will remain. And, as he has already noted, the habit of science will remain.23

2. In IV Sent., dist. 50, q. 1, a. 3 In this slightly later question Thomas explicitly asks whether the separated soul will know individuals. He begins by presenting a series of objections which raise in different ways the difficulty involved in explaining how the separated soul could know individuals.24 In his response Thomas comments that all knowledge takes place by means of a form whereby a knower is assimilated to what is known. Given this, knowing may take place (1) by means of forms derived from things; or (2) by means of forms which are the causes of things, or else derived from the causes of those things. In the first case the things themselves through their own actions are the causes of knowledge. But all action is by reason of forms, and forms insofar as they are forms are universal. Therefore, Thomas main22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 998: ‘Ad primum ergo dicendum quod destruetur scientia quantum ad modum, et quantum ad actum mutabitur, sed quantum ad habitum remanebit, ut dictum est.’ 24. In Quattuor Libros Sententiarum, Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia, ed. R. Busa (Stuttgart–Bad Cannstatt: ­­Frommann-Holzboog, 1980), Vol. 1, 704a. Also see a. 1 of this same question for another defense of the separated soul’s ability to understand (702c–703b), but one that is surpassed by De veritate, q. 19, a. 1 (for which see below).

Natural Knowledge  219 tains, by this route individuals cannot be known directly since matter, the principle of individuation, is not known in this way except when considered universally as related to a universal form.25 In knowledge of the second type—that is, by means of forms which are the causes of things or by impressions coming from those causes— one can know individuals. This is true even though the forms in question are themselves immaterial. The First Cause is the cause of being (esse) for all (other) things, and the act of being itself applies both to their matter and to their form. Therefore, through knowledge of this kind, things are known both individually and universally.26 Thomas then applies this distinction to the human soul. When it is joined to the body, the soul knows only in the first way, that is, through forms taken from things, and does not know individuals directly by its intellective power but only by means of powers attached to sense organs, and then also—by its intellect only indirectly—by the intellect’s reflecting back on the phantasms. But the separated soul will use both types of knowing in that it will know through species originally derived from sense experience and which, Thomas is assuming, will be preserved in the soul. And it will also know through species derived from higher substances, which species are impressions of their causes, that is to say, of their ideal reasons or divine ideas in God. Consequently, by means of intelligible species derived from sensible objects, the soul will not then know individuals directly. This is, of course, because phantasms will no longer be available to it. But it will know them through infused species in the way angels do.27 In sum, here Thomas is assigning a knowledge of individuals to the separated soul by means of infused species. While he does not explicitly distinguish between the soul’s recollection of prior knowledge of individuals and its acquisition of new knowledge of other individuals, his explanation apparently applies to both. For instance, he grants one of the counterarguments based on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, which is 25. Ibid., 704ab. 26. Ibid., 704b. Note: “Unde huiusmodi formae ducunt directe in cognitionem utriusque, scilicet materiae et formae; et propter hoc per talem cognitionem cognoscuntur res et in universali et in singulari.” 27. Ibid. Note how he describes the process of reflection back upon phantasms: “. . . sed indirecte, et per quamdam reflexionem, etiam per intellectum, qui organo non utitur, cognoscit singularia; prout scilicet ex obiecto proprio redit ad cognoscendum suum actum, ex quo actu redit in speciem, quae est intelligendi principium; et ex ea procedit ad considerandum phantasma, a quo species huiusmodi est abstracta; et sic per phantasma singulare cognoscit.”

220  Natural Knowledge taken to imply that the rich man had a recollection of his knowledge of individuals during his life on earth.28

3. De veritate, q. 19, aa. 1–2 In question 19 of this work, dating sometime between 1256 and 1259, Thomas devotes two articles to the knowledge of the separated soul. In the first of these he asks whether after death the soul is capable of understanding. He begins by presenting a long series of arguments against this possibility, and a shorter number in support of it.29 In his response Thomas cites Aristotle’s De anima to the effect that if there is no operation proper to the soul itself which it can perform without the body, it will be impossible for the soul to be separated from the body. For a thing’s operation is a kind of end for it, since it is that which is best in the thing. And then, appropriately enough in this theological disputation, Thomas recalls that we firmly hold according to our Catholic faith that the soul does survive its separation from the body and, therefore, we must also maintain that it can understand in its separated state. He comments that it is difficult to understand the separated soul’s modus intelligendi, since this must be different from that which it now enjoys. In its state of union with the body it is clear that it cannot understand without turning back to phantasms, and these do not survive after death.30 Thomas then reviews a number of inadequate attempts to account for such knowledge on the part of the separated soul. His presentation of the second of these is interesting in that it leads him to explain more fully his own view. According to this second position, some hold that the soul understands in its state of separation by means of species which it originally received through the senses and which are preserved in the soul. But others, following Avicenna, reject this position. According to them, it is possible for something to be preserved in certain sensitive powers even when such a power is not actually apprehending it—for instance, in the memory or the imagination. But this is not possible for the intellective part of 28. For the argument see 704a: “Sed contra, Luc. 16, 28, dicitur quod dives in inferno existens secundum animam tantum, dixit: ‘habeo enim quinque fratres, etc.,’ ex quo patet quod singularia cognoscunt animae separatae.” For Thomas’s response to this see 704b: “Primum objectum in contrarium est concedendum.” 29. Leon. ed., 22.2.561–64. 30. Leon. ed., 22.2.564:213–229. For Aristotle see De anima I, c. 1 (403a 11–12).

Natural Knowledge  221 the soul. In other words, they deny that there is such a thing as intellectual memory. Hence it seems that the separated soul will be unable to know in any way by means of species originally derived from things themselves.31 Thomas rejects this position and counters that whatever is received is received according to the mode of that which receives it. Because an immaterial substance has a being (esse) that is more fixed and stable than that of a corporeal substance, species are received in the intellective part of the soul more firmly and unchangeably than in any material thing. Granted that they are received there insofar as they are intelligible, it does not follow that they must always be actually understood. They are not always present in the intellect either in complete actuality or merely in purely potential fashion. Rather, they are present in incomplete actuality, a state that is intermediary between potency and act, and consists in something’s being present in the intellect habitualiter. He adds that Aristotle also writes, in De anima, Bk III, that the intellective soul is the place of species (locus specierum) in that it retains and preserves them.32 Granting all of this, Thomas comments that this is still not enough to account for the kind of knowledge one must assign to the separated soul, both because one could not then explain knowledge on the part of the souls of those who die in infancy, and because many things will be understood by separated souls which are not now known by us, such as the penalties of hell and like things. After rejecting some other explanations, Thomas responds that each thing receives an influx from something higher according to its own mode of existence. The existence (esse) of the rational soul is intermediary between that of separate forms—that is, angels, whose existence in no way depends upon or is present in matter—and that of purely material forms, which can exist only in matter and are dependent upon it. But the rational soul first acquires its existence (its esse) from God so as to exist in matter as the form of the body and therefore as united to the body with respect to its esse, but not so as to depend upon the body for its esse.33 Therefore the rational soul receives an influx from God in an interme31. Leon. ed., 22.2.564:243–262. For a slightly earlier presentation and criticism of this view see In IV Sent., dist. 50, q. 1, a. 2 (Busa ed., 703bc). 32. Leon. ed., 22.2.564:262–277. For Aristotle see De anima III, c.4 (429a 27–28). 33. Leon. ed., 22.2.564:277–565:283, 331–347. Note especially: “. . . anima vero rationalis acquirit esse a Deo, in materia quidem existens in quantum est forma corporis, ac per hoc secundum esse corpori unita, non autem a corpore dependens . . .” (lines 342–347).

222  Natural Knowledge diary fashion as well. In its embodied state, it receives its intellectual light in such a way that in knowing intellectually it is ordered to the body so as to receive phantasms from corporeal powers, and it must look to these phantasms in order to think in actuality. In this respect it is inferior to the angels. But its intellectual light is not bound to matter in such a way that its operation is carried out by a corporeal organ. In this respect it is superior to every material or corporeal form. When the soul will be separated from the body, it will then receive infused intellectual knowledge in such a way that it will not exercise its knowing activity through the body or through any ordering to the body. It will know in the way angels do, by receiving the [intelligible] species of things from God himself. Nor will it then turn to phantasms either to understand by means of these infused species or, for that matter, even to understand by means of species it had previously acquired when it was embodied. Moreover, unlike the embodied soul, the separated soul will also be able to know separate substances themselves, both angels and demons, by natural knowledge.34 Thomas concludes that after death the soul will understand in three ways: (1) by means of species which it originally derived from things when it was united with the body; (2) by species divinely infused during its state of separation; (3) by seeing separate substances themselves and intuiting in them the intelligible species for other things, but only at the pleasure of those separate substances themselves. And as he explains in replying to objection 13, the souls of the damned will not be deprived of that which pertains to them by reason of their state of nature. The infusion of intelligible species which occurs in the separated soul pertains to the condition of its nature insofar as it is separated, and will therefore apply to the damned as well.35 In article 2 of this same question 19, Thomas asks whether the separated soul knows individuals. His answer is consistent with but more fully developed than that he had given in his prior treatment in his Commentary on the Sentences. He recalls that the separated soul will know in two different ways, first by means of species infused into it during its state of separation, and second, by means of species it had acquired while still in the body. The third way Thomas had just distinguished in article 1 has sud34. Leon. ed., 22.2.565:347–365, 381–392. 35. Leon. ed., 22.2.565:393–403: ad 13 (567:469–480).

Natural Knowledge  223 denly disappeared, perhaps because he thinks it is ultimately reducible to the second, that is, knowledge by infused species. In any event, in question 17 of his Quaestiones disputatae De anima he will account for the separated soul’s knowledge of other separate substances simply by appealing to infused species.36 As regards the separated soul’s knowledge by means of infused species, a knowledge similar to that of angels must be assigned to it. Just as angels know individuals by means of species that are concreated with them, so the separated soul will know individuals by means of the species that are infused into it during its state of separation. This is so because divine ideas are productive of things in terms of their matter and their form. Hence these ideas serve as likenesses and exemplars of created things with respect to both. Therefore, through ideas of this kind God knows things not only in generic or specific fashion, but as individuals. But the forms concreated with angelic intellects as well as those infused into the separated soul are certain likenesses of these ideal reasons in the divine mind. From these divine ideas, things flow forth so as to subsist in their matter and form and hence as individuals. So too, intelligible species flow forth into created intellects, whether of angels or of separated souls, and enable those intellects to know things with respect both to their form and to their matter, and therefore as individuals as well as universally.37 Because the species that the embodied soul derives from sensible things are similar to such things only in terms of their forms, through such species the embodied soul’s intellect cannot know individuals except by reflecting on phantasms from which intelligible species are abstracted. Since phantasms will not be available to the soul in its state of separation, it will not know individuals through abstracted species of this kind; but it will be able to apply universals it had previously acquired in this way to individuals it then knows in another manner. In replying to the first objection Thomas makes an important comment. Through an infused idea for a 36. Leon. ed., 22.2.568:46–50. Note how he had described this third way in art. 1: “tertio modo videndo substantias separatas et in eis species rerum intuendo. Sed hoc ultimum non subiacet eius arbitrio sed magis arbitrio substantiae separatae, quae suam intelligentiam ape­ rit loquendo et claudit tacendo, quae quidem locutio qualis sit alibi dictum est.” For his discussion of the way one angel “speaks” to another, see q. 9, art. 4 (Leon. ed., 22.2.288–89) and art. 7 (Leon. ed., 22.2.294). For Quaestiones disputatae De anima, q. 17 see Leon. ed., 24.1.150:136–149. Also see ad 4 (151:176–189). 37. Leon. ed., 22.2.568:50–75.

224  Natural Knowledge given species a separate substance, including apparently the separated soul itself, will be able to know all the individuals that fall within that species.38

4. Summa contra Gentiles II, cc. 80–81 The Summa contra Gentiles dates from ca. 1259–1264/65, and Bk II was completed perhaps in 1261/62.39 In c. 80 Thomas considers a series of arguments offered by some to prove that human souls cannot survive the death of the body. In c. 81 he responds to these arguments. His answer to the fifth argument serves as an occasion for him to return to the issue of the knowledge of the separated soul. According to this objection, every operation of the soul comes to an end with the corruption of the body. After applying this to the operations of the nutritive and sensitive powers, the argument insists that while the act of understanding is not itself exercised through any corporeal organ, nonetheless, its objects are phantasms and without these the intellective soul simply cannot understand. Moreover, the intellective soul also needs certain sensitive powers which prepare phantasms so that they can be rendered intelligible in act, such as the cogitative power and sense memory, and these, too, will be lacking to it when it is separated.40 In response to this argument Thomas counters that its opening claim is false. Those operations of the soul which are not exercised through corporeal organs will remain in the separated soul, namely, understanding and willing. But the separated soul’s mode of understanding will differ from that of the embodied soul, just as will its mode of existing. For everything acts insofar as it is. In its separated state the soul will understand through itself (per seipsam) in the way separate substances do—and not, of course, by means of phantasms. It will receive an influx, that is, infused species, 38. Leon. ed., 22.2.568:75–569:91; ad 1 (569:92–106) from which note: “Nec tamen oportet quod tunc etiam ei species infinitae infundantur ad singularia cognoscenda, tum quia singularia quae ab ea sunt cognoscenda non sunt actu infinita, tum quia per unam similitudinem speciei possunt a substantia separata omnia individua illius speciei cognosci, in quantum illa similitudo speciei efficitur uniuscuiusque singularium propria similitudo secundum proprium respectum ad hoc vel illud individuum, sicut et de angelis dictum est in quaestione De angelis . . .” 39. For fuller discussion of the date of this work see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 101–4, although the specification about Bk II is my own suggestion. 40. Summa contra Gentiles (Editio Leonina manualis) (Rome, 1934), 191.

Natural Knowledge  225 from higher separate substances so as to understand more perfectly than it did in its state of embodiment.41 Aquinas sees some signs of this, for instance, even in the young. When one’s soul is freed from preoccupation with its body, it becomes more capable of understanding higher things. Thus the virtue of temperance withdraws the soul from bodily pleasures, thereby rendering one more fitted to understand. Again, those who are sleeping, when they are not using their bodily senses, may grasp certain things about the future by receiving an impression or form from a higher source which completely surpasses the mode of human reasoning. And this is even truer in the case of those in a fainting condition or in ecstasy insofar as in these situations there is an even greater degree of withdrawal from the bodily senses. Thomas regards this as only fitting, because the human soul is, as it were, on the boundary line between corporeal and incorporeal substances, existing at the horizon between time and eternity. As it recedes from that which is lowest it draws closer to that which is highest. When it will be completely separated from the body, it will be perfectly like separate substances as regards its mode of understanding and will receive an influx from them in abundance. Consequently, while the mode of understanding exercised by the soul in its embodied state will be corrupted with the corruption of the body, this will be replaced by a higher mode of understanding (succedet tamen alius modus intelligendi altior).42 Pegis emphasizes the difference between the thinking in this text (and the earlier ones we have considered) and that of the Prima pars, q. 89, a. 1. In the latter text he finds Thomas recognizing the implications that follow from his view that the nature of the soul remains the same in its embodied and in its separated states, and that to be embodied and to know in an embodied way are natural to the soul. But according to Pegis, in Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 81 Thomas holds that “the separated soul, on the basis of its separated esse, will function perfectly as a separate substance.”43 At the same time, as Pegis also notes,44 in Bk IV, c. 79 of the same 41. Ibid., 192–93. Note: “ . . . sed intelliget per seipsam, ad modum substantiarum quae sunt totaliter secundum esse a corporibus separatae . . . A quibus etiam, tanquam a superioribus, uberius influentiam recipere poterit ad perfectius intelligendum.” 42. Ibid., 193. 43. Pegis, “The Separated Soul,” 137. See 132–38. 44. “Between Immortality and Death,” 5–10.

226  Natural Knowledge Summa contra Gentiles, completed ca. 1264/65, Thomas offers a series of scriptural arguments in support of the resurrection of the body, and another argument based on reason. In that argument he recalls that in Bk II (see c. 79) he has shown that the human soul is immortal, and hence that it will survive the death of the body. He has also shown (see cc. 83, 68) that the soul is naturally united to the body and according to its essence is the form of the body. Therefore it is against the nature of the soul (contra naturam) to exist apart from the body. But nothing that is against nature can be perpetual. Therefore the soul will not exist forever without the body. And the immortality of the soul seems to require the future resurrection of the body.45 Again in a theological context, he returns to this theme in c. 85, as part of one of his arguments to show that the risen body will be differently disposed than it was during its life on earth.46 While these texts indicate clearly that Thomas regards union with the body as natural to the soul, Pegis regrets that this thinking did not control Thomas’s discussion of the separated soul’s knowledge in Bk II, c. 81, even though it will strongly influence the very different explanation of this Pegis finds in Summa theologiae I, q. 89, a. 1.47 I would recall, however, that Thomas’s purpose in introducing the issue of the separated soul’s knowledge in SCG II, c. 81 was not to present a ­­full-blown account of this, but to refute an argument against its possible survival after death. With this we now turn to two major discussions which are almost si45. Ed. Leon. man., 544–45: “Ad ostendendum etiam resurrectionem carnis futuram evidens ratio suffragatur, suppositis his quae in superioribus sunt ostensa. Ostensum est enim in Secundo [cap. 79] animas hominum immortales esse. Remanent igitur post corpora a corporibus absolutae. Manifestum est etiam ex his quae in Secundo [capp. 83, 68] dicta sunt, quod ani­ ma corpori naturaliter unitur: est enim secundum suam essentiam corporis forma. Est igitur contra naturam animae absque corpore esse. Nihil autem quod est contra naturam potest esse perpetuum. . . . Non igitur perpetuo erit anima absque corpore. Cum igitur perpetuo maneat, oportet eam corpori iterato coniungi: quod est resurgere. Immortalitas igitur animarum exi­gere videtur resurrectionem corporum futuram” (italics mine). G. Greshake accuses Thomas of being illogical (­­un-logisch) for softening this conclusion by using videtur, stating that it does not follow from the logic of the syllogism but needed to be inserted on theological grounds in order to assure the gratuitous character of the resurrection. See his “Das Verhältnis ‘Unsterblichkeit der Seele’ und ‘Auferstehung des Leibes’ in problemgeschichtlicher Sicht,” in G. Greshake and G. Lofhink, Naherwartung, Auferstehung, Unsterblichkeit. Untersuchungen zur christlichen Eschatologie (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1975), 95. 46. Ed. Leon. man., 556 (“Alia ratio”). Note: “Dictum est enim supra [cap. 75] quod, ne ani­ ma in perpetuum remaneat a corpore separata, iterato per resurrectionem corpus resumet.” 47. “The Separated Soul,” 135–38.

Natural Knowledge  227 multaneous with one another, ST I, q. 89 and Disputed Questions De ani­ ma, qq. 15–20, and which Pegis regards as drastically different from the texts we have so far analyzed. Before doing so, however, it may be helpful for us first to summarize the answers Thomas has so far given to each of our five opening questions. 1. Can the separated soul understand at all, and if so how? As regards this, in all the texts we have examined so far Thomas assigns some kind of knowledge to the separated soul, even though its mode of understanding will be different from that in its embodied state. In De veritate, q. 19, art. 1 he has indicated that the separated soul will understand (1) by means of species originally derived from things it knew when it was united with the body; (2) by infused species; (3) by intuiting separate substances themselves and seeing in them the intelligible species of other things (although, since Thomas omits this third way from the immediately following article 2, we have suggested that this third way is in fact in his eyes reducible to the second). 2. Will the separated soul understand itself, and other separated substances (angels)? As we have seen, in De veritate, q. 19, a. 1 Thomas has indicated that the separated soul will have a knowledge of other separate substances, although he has added that this knowledge will happen not at the pleasure of the separated soul, but at the pleasure of the separate substance that is known. Thomas will discuss the separated soul’s knowledge of itself in the texts we are about to consider. 3. Will the separated soul be aware of the individuals it knew in its embodied state and of new individuals and events? According to the above texts, the separated soul will know individuals by means of infused species. This includes a knowledge of other separated souls and angels and of new events, and even of individuals it previously knew in its embodied state, although it will not know the latter by means of species it originally acquired by abstraction from phantasms. 4. Will the separated soul still be aware of the scientific and universal knowledge it possessed in this life? Thomas’s answer is in the affirmative because the separated soul will retain habitual awareness of this kind of knowledge which, because it is universal, will remain in the possible intellect. But its mode of understanding scientifically will differ. 5. As regards the separated soul’s knowledge of continuing events here on earth, we have yet to consider Thomas’s views concerning this.

228  Natural Knowledge

5. S umma theologiae I, q. 89 and Quaestiones disputatae De anima, 15–20 It is widely recognized that these two works are chronologically very close to one another. ­­Jean-Pierre Torrell has proposed that the Quaestiones disputatae De anima date from Thomas’s Roman period, very probably during the year 1265–66 and, he specifies, before ST I, qq. 75–89.48 The Prima pars itself dates from 1266–68, and q. 89 presumably from the latter part of that period. Even more recently Carlos Bazán, Leonine editor of these same Quaestiones, also strongly argues for their Italian origins, and proposes that they were disputed between 1266 and 1267. He also notes that R.-A. Gauthier had suggested that this work would have served as a kind of preparation for the corresponding part of ST I, and Bazán’s own findings lend support to this.49 Because of the chronological proximity of the two discussions, I will consider them more or less together in order to determine how their responses to our five questions compare with Thomas’s earlier discussion of these issues.

Question 1: Can the separated soul know at all, and if so, how? Both in question 15 of his Quaestiones disputatae De anima and in ST I, q. 89, a. 1 Thomas explicitly asks whether the separated soul can understand. He prefaces his response to this issue in question 15 of the Disputed Questions De anima with the observation that what raises doubt about this is the fact that in its present state the soul needs to use the senses in order to understand, or as he puts it in the parallel in ST I, it cannot understand without turning to phantasms.50 In Disputed Question 15 he then presents at some length the position of the Platonists, according to which the senses are not necessary for the soul to understand per se, but are necessary only per accidens insofar as, through sense experience, the soul is stimulated in some way to recall what it once knew in its state of preexistence. Thomas offers several argu48. Saint Thomas Aquinas, 335. 49. See Quaestiones disputatae De anima, Leon. ed., 24.1.7*–25*, especially 22*, 25*. 50. For Disputed Question 15 see Leon. ed., 24.1.130; 133:203–206. For ST I, q. 89, a. 1, see Leon. ed., 5.370.

Natural Knowledge  229 ments against this general position. For instance, in the first he counters that on this view no reason can be offered to explain why the soul is united to the body. This could not be for the sake of the soul, since it would operate perfectly in its separated state. Nor could this be for the sake of the body, since the body exists for the sake of the soul. Again, it would also seem to follow from this that the union of soul and body is unnatural.51 Thomas next presents at some length a second position, according to which the senses do contribute to the soul’s act of understanding per se, not in that we derive knowledge from the senses, but because sense experience disposes the soul to receive knowledge directly by the infusion of intelligible species from a separate agent intellect. Thomas counters that this view, proposed by Avicenna, cannot account for the fact that a person does not thereby immediately acquire all of his or her knowledge on the basis of such an infusion of species.52 In developing his own position in Disputed Question 15, Thomas replies that the sensitive powers are necessary for us to understand, not only as regards our original acquisition of knowledge, but also for us to use previously acquired knowledge. This dependence of the embodied soul upon the senses is required if phantasms are to be presented to the intellective soul from which the agent intellect can abstract intelligible content and produce knowledge in the possible intellect. But, he remarks, this seems to increase the difficulty in accounting for knowledge on the part of the separated soul, since it will then have no access to phantasms. As he notes in the parallel discussion in ST I, q. 89, a. 1, if it is of the nature of the soul to understand by turning to phantasms, since the soul’s nature is not changed in its separated state, it seems that it will then be unable to understand anything naturally.53 As Thomas develops his own solution to this problem in our two texts, he introduces into the discussion in ST I, q. 89 a line of reasoning not found in Disputed Question 15. A thing’s mode of operation follows upon its mode of being. But the soul has one mode of being when it is united to the body and another in its state of separation, even though the nature of the soul remains the same. He likens its situation to that of a light 51. Leon. ed., 24.1.133:209–134:247. For Thomas’s counterarguments see 134:248–273. Thomas also briefly refers to and dismisses this position in ST I, q. 89, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 5.370). 52. Leon. ed., 24.1.134:274–135:318. 53. Leon. ed., 24.1.135:319–325; 136:360–66. For ST I, q. 89, a. 1 see Leon. ed., 5.370.

230  Natural Knowledge body which, according to Aristotelian physics, is not changed in its nature when it is moved from its proper place, say up, where it is natural for it to be present, to another location, say down, where it is beyond its nature (praeter naturam) to be present.54 So too, the mode of understanding by turning to phantasms is appropriate for the soul’s mode of being when it is united to the body, just as it is natural for it to be united to the body; but when the soul will be separated from the body, another mode of understanding, by its turning directly to intelligible objects, will be appropriate for it, just as it is for other separate substances. The first mode of understanding is natural to the soul in its embodied state; but for it to be separated from the body is beyond its nature (praeter rationem naturae), just as for it to understand without turning to phantasms will also be beyond its nature (praeter naturam). Therefore, writes Thomas, the soul is united to the body in order to exist and to operate in accord with its nature.55 At this juncture in the text from ST I Thomas raises an interesting objection. Since nature is always ordered to that which is better, and since to understand intelligible objects directly is better than to understand them by turning to phantasms, it seems that God should have created the soul in such a way that the more excellent mode of understanding would be natural to it, and it would not have needed to be united to the body. While this objection is not found in the parallel discussion in Disputed Question 15, the reasoning Thomas uses in meeting it is present there. In ST I, q. 89, a. 1 Thomas grants that to understand by turning directly to higher intelligible objects is, simply considered in itself, more excellent than to understand by turning to phantasms. But it would be more imperfect for the soul to understand in that way. This is so because intellectual power is present in intelligent creatures owing to the influence of the divine light. In God that light is one and simple. The more distant intellectual creatures are from God, the more that light is divided and multiplied. Through his one and simple essence God knows all things. Higher intellectual substances un54. Leon. ed., 5.370. 55. Leon. ed., 5.370–71: “Animae igitur secundum illum modum essendi quo corpori est unita, competit modus intelligendi per conversionem ad phantasmata corporum, quae in corporeis organis sunt: cum autem fuerit a corpore separata, competit ei modus intelligendi per conversionem ad ea quae sunt intelligibilia simpliciter, sicut et aliis substantiis separatis. Unde modus intelligendi per conversionem ad phantasmata est animae naturalis, sicut et corpori uniri: sed esse separatum a corpore est praeter rationem suae naturae, et similiter intelligere sine conversione ad phantasmata est ei praeter naturam. Et ideo ad hoc unitur corpori, ut sit et ope­ retur secundum naturam suam.”

Natural Knowledge  231 derstand through more than one intelligible form, but these forms are fewer and more universal and more powerful than those present in lower intelligences. Because lower intelligences are endowed with less intellectual power, they must use more forms which are less universal and less efficacious in understanding things.56 And then, in language closely paralleled by that employed in Disputed Question 15, Thomas comments that if lower intellectual substances had intelligible forms as universal as those of higher intellectual substances, because their intellectual power is lesser, they would not thereby attain to a perfect knowledge of things, but only in a certain general and confused way. As he phrases this in the Disputed Question, their knowledge would remain incomplete, since they would understand things only in universal fashion and could not arrive at knowledge of individuals from such universal forms.57 But, continues Thomas in both texts, the human soul is the lowest or least perfect among intellectual substances. If it had been established by God so as to know in the way separate substances do, it would never arrive at perfect knowledge but only at one that is confused and general. In order to arrive at perfect knowledge of individuals (see Disputed Question 15), it has been created in union with the body and so derives a proper knowledge of sensible objects from those sensible things themselves. Therefore, as he concludes in the Summa, it is better for the soul that it be united to the body and understand by conversion to phantasms. Or as he puts it in Disputed Question 15, it was necessary for the perfection of its intellectual operation that the soul be united to the body.58 In Disputed Question 15, however, and in terms reminiscent of SCG II, c. 81, Thomas adds that the embodied soul is impeded from receiving an influx from separate substances by its bodily motions and preoccupation with the senses. Hence those who are sleeping and alienated from the senses may be given revelations which will not be available to those who are using their sense powers. Consequently, when the soul will be completely separated from the body, it will more fully grasp an influx from 56. Leon. ed., 5.371. 57. Ibid. For Disputed Question 15 see Leon. ed., 24.1.136:371–384. 58. For ST I, q. 89, a. 1 see Leon. ed., 5.371. Note: “Sic ergo patet quod propter melius ani­ mae est ut corpori uniatur, et intelligat per conversionem ad phantasmata . . . .” For Disputed Question 15 see Leon. ed., 24.1.136:384–397. Note: “Ad perfectionem igitur intellectualis operationis necessarium fuit animam corpori uniri.”

232  Natural Knowledge higher substances and will then be able to understand without phantasms. Yet an influx of this kind will not cause a knowledge as perfect and determined with respect to individuals as that we now derive through sense experience—except, he adds, in those souls which in addition to this natural influx will also enjoy the beatific vision. And he concludes with the remark that separated souls will also have a determined knowledge of things they previously knew when embodied by means of intelligible species which have remained within them; but he does not elaborate on this.59 Thomas’s remark in ST I, q. 89, a. 1 about the separated soul’s mode of existing and mode of understanding being praeter naturam should be balanced against his reply to objection 3 in the same article. There he notes that the separated soul will understand not only through species which are preserved in it, but also through infused species, in the way other separate substances do, although in an inferior manner. He adds that this knowledge by infused species is not unnatural, in other words, that it is natural for it.60 So too, one should note his replies to objections 11 and 12 in Disputed Question 15. In responding to objection 11 he writes that while the separated soul is more perfect in its nature when it is united with the body, nevertheless, because of bodily movements and sensible preoccupations, it is restricted from receiving an influx from higher substances in the way it will do after it is separated.61 In responding to objection 12 he comments that it is not natural for the soul to understand through infused species when it is embodied, but [that this will be natural for it] only afterwards in its state of separation. Once again, against Pegis’s reading, one does not get the impression from this that the separated soul’s mode of understanding through infused species is not natural, or against nature.62 And as regards the kind and degree of knowledge which Aquinas assigns to the separated soul in these two texts, so far at least this does not seem to be significantly worse than that he has attributed to it in his Commentary on III and IV Sentences and in De veritate, q. 19.63

59. Leon. ed., 24.1.136:398–137:417. Note his concluding remark: “Habebunt etiam determinatam cognitionem . . . .” 60.Leon ed., 5.371. Note: “Nec tamen propter hoc cognitio non est naturalis . . . .” 61. Leon. ed. 24.1.138:474–478. 62. Leon. ed., 24.1.138:479–482. 63. See 216–24 above.

Natural Knowledge  233

Question 2: Will the separated soul know itself and other separate substances? In Disputed Question 17 and in ST I, q. 89, a. 2 Thomas asks whether the separated soul understands separate substances. In the Disputed Question he notes that, in accord with what our faith teaches, it is fitting to say that separated souls may know separate substances, that is, angels and demons. It does not seem likely that the souls of the damned will not know demons, and it is much less likely that the souls of the just would not know angels. But, he continues, that separated souls will know separate substances is also in accord with reason.64 It is evident that when the soul is united to the body, because of its union with the body its vision is directed toward lower things. Its knowledge is not then perfected except by means of that which it can derive from lower things, that is, intelligible species abstracted from phantasms. Hence it cannot arrive at a knowledge either of itself or of other things except insofar as it is assisted by such species. But when it will be separated from the body, its vision will not be directed toward lower things, but will be unrestricted and capable of receiving an influx from higher substances without any dependence upon phantasms. It will then know itself directly by intuiting its own essence. But its essence belongs to the “genus” of intellectual separate substances and will enjoy their mode of subsisting, even though it is the lowest in that genus. For all are subsisting forms.65 One separate substance knows another by intuiting its own essence. This is because there is in its essence a likeness of other separate substances. By means of such a likeness it can thereby understand other separate substances, since it receives some influx either from them or directly from God. So too, the separated soul, by intuiting its essence directly, will know separate substances by means of infused species it receives either from 64. Leon. ed., 24.1.149:102–116. Note: “Hoc autem quod animae separatae substantias sepa­ ratas utcumque cognoscant rationabiliter accidit.” 65. Leon. ed., 24.1.149:116–150:136. Note especially: “Unde non perficitur nisi per ea quae ab inferioribus accipit, scilicet per species a phantasmatibus abstractas. Unde neque in cognitionem sui ipsius, neque in cognitionem aliorum devenire potest, nisi in quantum ex praedictis speciebus manuducitur, ut supra dictum est. Sed quando iam anima erit a corpore separata aspectus eius non ordinabitur ad aliqua inferiora, ut ab eis accipiat, sed erit absolutus, potens a superioribus substantiis influentiam recipere sine inspectione phantasmatum quae tunc omnino non erunt —; et per huiusmodi influentiam reducetur in actum. Et sic se ipsam cognoscet directe, suam essentiam intuendo, et non a posteriori sicut nunc accidit” (118–132).

234  Natural Knowledge them or from God. However it will not know them as perfectly by its natural knowledge as they know themselves.66 In replying to objection 1 he notes that the embodied soul is in a certain way more perfect than the separated soul with respect to the nature of its species. However, with respect to its act of understanding, it enjoys some perfection when separated from the body which it did not previously have. This is not inappropriate since intellectual operation belongs to the soul insofar as it surpasses its relationship to the body.67 In replying to objection 2 he comments that to know in the way separate substances do is natural to the separated soul, not in the unqualified sense, but insofar as it is separated. In replying to objection 4 he observes that the separated soul will not know a separate substance through its essence but through a species and likeness of it.68 Thomas’s treatment of this same issue in ST I, q. 89, a. 2 is much briefer, but in agreement with that of Disputed Question 17. He begins by citing Augustine to the effect that our mind derives a knowledge of incorporeal things per seipsam, that is, by knowing itself. Because the separated soul knows itself, we can determine how it knows other separate substances. Thomas contrasts this with the way it knows itself when joined to the body. Then it cannot actually understand anything except by means of species abstracted from phantasms, and in knowing its own act, it knows itself. But it is common to separate substances to know that which is above them and that which is below them according to the mode of their own substance. And while the mode of a separated soul is below that of an angel, it is like that of other separated souls. Therefore it will have a perfect knowledge of other separated souls, but an imperfect and deficient knowledge of angels, speaking again, of course, of its natural knowledge. As he explains in replying to objection 2, it will know angels by means of likenesses, that is, infused species, impressed upon it by God. And in replying to objection 1 he comments that the separated soul is indeed more imperfect than the embodied soul as regards the nature it shares with the body. But in a certain way it is freer to understand.69 66. Leon. ed., 24.1.150:136–149. 67. Leon. ed., 24.1.150:150–159. 68. Leon. ed., 24.1.150:160–151:167. 69. Leon. ed., 5.375. For Augustine see his De Trinitate IX, c. 3 (CCSL 50.296:16–18). Thomas’s citation is not literal but captures Augustine’s point. On this see F.-X. Putallaz, Le sens de la réflexion chez Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 278–79.

Natural Knowledge  235 In sum, therefore, Thomas’s answer to our second question in these two texts is not substantially different from or significantly less optimistic than the view he has presented in his earlier treatments, although he has clarified the issue of the separated soul’s knowledge of itself. Indeed, in this respect his account here seems to be more optimistic, since he now assigns to the separated soul a direct and intuitive knowledge of itself, something which he does not grant it in its embodied state.

Question 3: Will the separated soul be aware of individuals it previously knew when embodied, and of new individuals and events? Before explicitly answering this question, in Disputed Question 18 and in ST I, q. 89, a. 3 Thomas first asks whether the separated soul will know all natural things. In Disputed Question 18 he begins his response by stating that in a qualified sense (secundum quid) the separated soul will understand all natural things, but not in the unqualified sense (simpliciter). He develops at some length the point that things are so ordered to one another that whatever is found in a lower nature is also found in more excellent fashion in a higher nature. And if this is true of the perfection of nature, it also applies to intelligible perfection. Individuals are not intended by nature for their own sake but in order to preserve their species. Therefore to know the species of things pertains to intelligible perfection, but to know individual members within species does not, except perhaps per accidens.70 Thomas then recalls a point we have previously seen, that in higher intellectual substances intelligible forms are present in more united and universal fashion, but in more multiplied and less universal fashion in lower intellectual substances. Because these higher substances enjoy greater intellectual power, they can understand the ultimate species of things by means of a few universal forms. But if in lower intellectual substances the intelligible forms were as universal as in the higher ones, the lower substances would not thereby grasp things in terms of their ultimate species, but only in a more general and confused and more imperfect fashion.71 70. Leon. ed., 24.1.156:232–157:287. Thomas’s discussion is considerably longer than my brief summary would indicate. 71. Leon. ed., 24.1.157:288–307. Note. “sed remaneret earum cognitio in quadam universa­ litate et confusione, quod est cognitionis imperfectae” (lines 305–307).

236  Natural Knowledge Since the human soul is the lowest of intellectual substances, its ability to receive intelligible forms is conformed to material things. Thus the human soul has been united to the body so as to receive intelligible species from material things by the process of abstraction. But when it will be separated from the body its vision will be directed to higher things, from which it will receive an influx of universal intelligible species. These species are received in a less universal fashion in the separated soul than they are present in higher substances; but the separated soul’s intellectual power is not powerful enough for it to reach a perfect knowledge through species of this kind by knowing each thing in particular and determinate fashion, but only in a certain universal and confused way. And so he concludes that by its natural knowledge the separated soul will know all natural things in a universal way, but not each one in terms of its ultimate species.72 In the parallel treatment in ST I, q. 89, a. 3, Thomas reaches this same conclusion, but in much briefer fashion. As he phrases his conclusion there, separated souls will have a knowledge of all natural things, but one that is general and confused, not one that is certain and proper.73 Thomas explicitly discusses the separated soul’s knowledge of individuals in Disputed Question 20 and in ST I, q. 89, a. 4. He begins his response in the Disputed Question by remarking that the separated soul will know some individuals, but not all. It will have a knowledge of certain ones which it first knew when united with the body. Otherwise it would not recall those things it had done in life, and the worm of conscience would be destroyed in it. In addition, it will acquire a knowledge of certain individuals after its separation from the body. Otherwise it would not be afflicted by the fire of hell and other corporeal punishments which are said to be in hell. But Thomas also comments that the separated soul will not know all individuals by its natural knowledge because, as Augustine says, the souls of the dead are ignorant of the things that happen here, that is, on earth.74 Thomas comments that this question raises two difficulties, one gener72. Leon. ed., 24.1.157:313–158:348. Note: “Sic igitur dicendum est quod animae separatae naturali cognitione in universali cognoscunt omnia naturalia, non autem specialiter unumquodque” (lines 346–348). 73. Leon. ed., 5.377. 74. Leon. ed., 24.1.170:184–171:198. For Augustine see his De cura pro mortuis gerenda (CSEL 41.647–50, esp. 649:9–11).

Natural Knowledge  237 al and one particular. The general difficulty is this, that because our intellect does not seem to know individuals but only universals, and since God and angels have only intellectual cognitive powers, it is difficult to understand how they know individuals. The particular difficulty, which Thomas does not specifically identify for the reader, is to determine how the separated soul can do this, that is, know individuals. As regards the general difficulty, some have denied that God and angels know individuals. After rejecting this position, Thomas refers to others who hold that God and angels and separated souls know individuals by understanding the universal causes of the entire order of the universe. Thomas rejects this explanation as insufficient to provide for a real knowledge of individuals. And still others hold that angels and separated souls derive a knowledge of individuals from those individuals themselves. Thomas also rejects this explanation because the great distance between intelligible being and sensible and material being prevents the form of a sensible thing from being immediately grasped by the intellect without various intermediaries, which one would never assign to angels or to the separated soul.75 In terms that recall his discussion in De veritate, q. 19, a. 2, Thomas explains that the forms of things by which the intellect understands are related to the things themselves in two ways. Certain forms are productive of those things, while others are derived from the things themselves. Forms of the first type lead to a knowledge of the things themselves only insofar as they are productive of them. Because no human art causes matter, but takes it as preexisting, and because matter is the principle of individuation, through a form of this kind a human artisan, for instance a builder, knows a house in general or universally, but not as this house or individually, except insofar as he derives knowledge of this from sense experience.76 Through his intellect God produces not only the form but the matter of things and therefore by his art knows both universals and individuals. And just as material things flow forth from the divine art so as to subsist in their proper natures, so too from this same divine art intelligible likenesses or species flow forth into created intellectual substances. By means of these likenesses such substances can know these things as they are produced by God, that is to say, not only as universals but as individuals; for 75. Leon. ed., 24.1.171:199–172:255. 76. Leon. ed., 24.1.172:256–270.

238  Natural Knowledge these intelligible species are likenesses of things in terms of their form and their matter.77 On the other hand, intelligible forms abstracted from sensible things will not lead to a knowledge of such things in terms of that from which they have been abstracted, but only in terms of the intelligible content which has been abstracted. Since the forms received into our intellect by the embodied soul are abstracted from matter and the conditions of matter, such forms do not lead to a knowledge of the individual but only of the universal.78 After having ruled out any knowledge of individuals on the part of the separated soul by species abstracted from phantasms, Thomas turns to the difference between intellectual knowledge in higher separate substances (angels) and in the separated soul. Because of their greater intellectual power, higher intellectual substances not only can know natural things in terms of their genera and species, but also can know all the individuals within those species. But, as he has shown in question 18, because the intellectual power of the separated soul is not proportioned to the universality of its infused forms, by means of these infused forms or species the separated soul will understand all natural things not in a determined and complete fashion, nor in terms of their species, but only as subject to a certain kind of universality and confusion. Nor will these infused species enable the separated soul to know all the individuals within their species, as angels do. Nonetheless, infused intelligible species of this kind will provide for a knowledge of certain individuals to which the soul bears some special relationship or inclination, such as those things which it undergoes or those by which it is affected, or those of which certain impressions and traces remain within it. To justify this he cites one of his favorite axioms: “Whatever is received is received according to the mode of that which receives it.” This, he concludes, is why the separated soul will know individuals—not all, however, but only certain ones.79 Thomas defends the same position, although much more briefly, in ST I, q. 89, a. 4. And there he concludes that by infused species the separat77. Leon. ed., 24.1.171:271–284. 78. Leon. ed., 24.1.172:295–303. Thomas’s formulation here is interesting: “Formae autem intelligibiles a rebus acceptae per quamdam abstractionem a rebus accipiuntur; unde non ducunt in cognitionem rei quantum ad id a quo fit abstractio, sed quantum ad id quod abstrahitur tantum” (295–299). 79. Leon. ed., 24.1.172:307–173:338.

Natural Knowledge  239 ed soul can know only individuals to which it is in some way determined, whether by prior knowledge, or by some affection, or by a natural relationship, or by divine ordination, again because whatever is received in something is determined in it according to the mode of the receiver.80 It is interesting to note how closely Thomas’s explanation in these texts, especially that in Disputed Question 20, agrees with his discussion in De veritate, q. 19, a. 2. However, there is one significant difference. In replying to objection 1 in the text from the De veritate, Thomas had commented that through an infused idea for a given species, a separate substance—including apparently the separated soul—will be able to know all the individuals that fall within that species. Now he restricts even such knowledge to those individuals with which the separated soul bears some special relationship. While recognizing this difference, however, I do not think that one should conclude from this that Thomas now views the situation of the separated soul as essentially or drastically less perfect than he previously did.81

Question 4: Will the separated soul still be aware of the scientific and universal knowledge it possessed in this life? While Thomas does not devote a particular question to this in his Quaestiones disputatae De anima, in ST I, q. 89 he considers this issue in articles 5 and 6. In article 5 he asks whether the habit of science acquired by the soul in its embodied state will remain. He again rejects the view of some who hold that the habit of science is not in the intellect but only in the sensitive powers of the imagination, the cogitative power, and sense memory, and that intelligible species are not preserved in the possible intellect. As he now explains, in the present life the acts of the intellect from which the habit of science is acquired involve the intellect’s turn80. Leon. ed., 5.378. 81. See n. 38 above. Since in fact we seldom if ever arrive at knowledge of all individual members of any species during the present life, this restriction on the part of the separated soul’s knowledge need not be given as pessimistic a reading as interpreters such as Mundhenk, Bernath, Kluxen, and Pegis seem to think. For another very pessimistic evaluation of the separated soul’s natural knowledge according to Thomas, see M. Rousseau, “The Natural Meaning of Death in the Summa Theologiae,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 52 (1978): 87–95; “Elements of a Thomistic Philosophy of Death,” Thomist 43 (1979): 581–602.

240  Natural Knowledge ing to phantasms, which are located in the internal sensitive powers just mentioned. Through such acts a facility is acquired in the possible intellect which enables it to think by means of intelligible species which it has acquired in this way, that is, by abstraction from phantasms. And in the sensitive powers themselves a certain facility is also acquired so that, by turning to them, the intellect can more easily grasp intelligible objects. Just as the act of the intellect is present in the primary and formal sense in the intellect itself, but in material and dispositive fashion in these lower powers, the same is true of the habit of science.82 Therefore anything connected with science which resides in the sensitive powers will not remain in the separated soul; but what resides in the possible intellect will. This is so because what resides in the possible intellect cannot be corrupted, either by a corruption of its subject, or by any contrary. Hence the habit of science will remain in the separated soul.83 Thomas’s position here is in essential agreement with the view he had first defended in his Commentary on Bk III of the Sentences. And he repeats the same position in ST ­­I-II, q. 67, a. 2, and there applies this conclusion to all the intellectual virtues.84 In q. 89, a. 6 Thomas asks whether the act of science which is acquired in this life will remain in the separated soul. He distinguishes two factors in an act: its species (or kind) and its mode. The species (or kind) of an act is determined from the object to which the act is directed. And because intelligible species (forms) remain in the separated soul, the species (kind) of the act of science will also remain. But the mode of understanding will, of course, be different because of the absence of phantasms. Again, Thomas’s position is in agreement with that which he had defended as early as his Commentary on III Sentences.85

82. Leon. ed., 5.380. 83. Ibid. 84. See our discussion above of In III Sent., d. 31, q. 2, a. 4 (see pp. 216–18 above). For ST ­­I-II, q. 67, art. 2 see Leon. ed., 6.439. 85. Leon. ed., 5.381.

Natural Knowledge  241

Question 5: Will the separated soul be aware of what continues to happen here on earth? Apart from Thomas’s previous discussions of the separated soul’s knowledge of individuals, so far we have seen very little about his views on its knowledge of continuing events here on earth. In Disputed Question 20 he did remark in passing that, according to Augustine, the souls of the dead are ignorant of what happens here, and he seemed to accept this.86 In ST I, q. 89, a. 8 he takes this up explicitly. He comments that as regards any natural knowledge of what happens on earth here and now, the souls of the dead are ignorant of such affairs. This is because the separated soul knows individuals by reason of the fact that it is in some way determined to them, either by reason of a remnant of some former knowledge of them, or of some affection for them, or by divine ordination. But according to divine ordination the souls of the dead, in accord with their mode of being, are cut off from the society of the living and share in that of spiritual substances which are separate from the body. Thomas cites passages both from Gregory the Great (Moralia in Job XII) and Augustine (De cura pro mortuis agenda) to this effect.87 But then he introduces a theological point. As regards the souls of the blessed, he finds some apparent difference between the two authorities. Gregory explicitly states that this restriction does not apply to the blessed, but Augustine says that the dead, including the sancti, that is, the blessed, are ignorant of the living and of what they do. Thomas comments that Augustine says this in hesitant fashion, while Gregory asserts his view with authority. Therefore Thomas favors Gregory’s view as regards the blessed. In seeing God, they will also see all the things that now happen here on earth. But they will not be saddened by what they see, nor will they interfere in earthly affairs, except insofar as the disposition of divine justice calls for this.88 86. See n. 74 above. 87. Leon. ed., 5.383. For Augustine see n. 74 above. For Gregory see S. Gregorii Magni Moralia in Iob, Bk XII, c. 21 (CCSL 143A.644–45). But cf. De veritate, q. 8, a. 11, ad 12 (Leon. ed., 22.2.257:318–323) where Thomas reconciles the two by suggesting that Gregory is referring to the blessed, while Augustine is rather thinking of the separated soul’s natural knowledge. For an earlier reference to Augustine see In IV Sent., d. 45, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1 (Busa ed., Vol. 1, p. 658a). For an earlier reference to Gregory see In IV Sent., d. 50, q. 2, a. 4a, ad 1 (Busa ed., p. 707c). 88. Leon. ed., 5.383–84.

242  Natural Knowledge But to conclude by returning to the philosophical issue of the separated soul’s natural knowledge, I do not find a radical break or downgrading of the knowledge Thomas attributes to the separated soul in SCG II, c. 81 and his earlier treatments, on the one hand, and ST I, q. 89 and Disputed Questions De anima 15–20, on the other, nor do I find his various treatments of this topic fundamentally inconsistent with one another. I do recognize that with respect to a knowledge of individuals, the two later treatments specifically restrict the separated soul’s knowledge to only certain individuals. No longer does he admit that in knowing a given species, it will know all the individual members of that species. On the other hand, in these later treatments he has explained that the separated soul will know or intuit itself directly, and this kind of ­­self-knowledge appears to be more excellent than the kind he assigns to the soul in its embodied state.89 Hence I see no reason to redate Quodlibet III, q. 9, a. 1, since even Pegis grants that its treatment is in accord with Thomas’s earlier texts and, I would add, with what I find in the other later texts as well. In brief, in this particular text Thomas was asked to determine whether the separated soul can know another separated soul of someone whom it had previously known while embodied. He begins his response by recalling the view we have found him defending in all of the other texts we have examined— that the separated soul must be capable of understanding in some way. He again reviews and rejects a number of unacceptable efforts to account for this. In presenting his own view he again maintains that the separated soul can understand certain things through intelligible species which it had originally acquired from sense experience during its embodied state. He comments that this way of knowing will not be enough to account for the fact that the separated soul also knows many other things of which it was not aware during its embodied state. Therefore he affirms that in its state of separation the soul also receives an influx of intelligible species from a higher nature, that is, the divine. And he concludes that the separated soul will know another separated soul both by means of some knowledge it had 89. Aquinas’s account of the embodied soul’s ­­self-knowledge or ­­self-awareness is itself rather complicated and does evolve considerably, especially from his earliest discussions in In I Sent. and in In III Sent., on the one hand, and his highly developed discussion in De veritate, q. 10, a. 8, where he distinguishes four kinds of ­­self-awareness and manifests much less influence and dependence on this by Albert the Great’s account. For an excellent discussion of all of this, including additional precisions in his later writings, see Therese Scarpelli Cory, Aquinas on Human ­­Self-Awareness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), esp. ch. 2.

Natural Knowledge  243 acquired about that other soul during its life on earth, and by means of likenesses or intelligible species naturally infused into it by God.90 It is true that in SCG IV, 79, while discussing the resurrection of the body, he has referred to the separated condition of the soul as being contra naturam. Nonetheless, in ST I, q. 89, a. 1, he has softened this to some degree, I would suggest, by referring to this as praeter naturam. Even in the earlier text from SCG IV he did not conclude from this on philosophical grounds that the body must rise, but that it seems that it must rise. At the same time, it must be granted that, viewed in terms of the complete and composite nature of a human being, the condition of the separated soul is less perfect than it was in its embodied state, since it is only a part of the complete human being. Hence it is not surprising that in accounting for the separated soul’s natural ability to know, Thomas must deny of it anything that requires the presence of the body. Hence in both his earlier and later treatments, he restricts its knowledge to that which it can have either by using universal knowledge that it had previously attained in this life, or by appealing to infused species. But such is the natural knowledge available to the separated soul according to Thomas Aquinas. 90. See Leon. ed., 24.2.279:95–280:118.

De Malo I De MaloI

VIII 

S  Metaphysical Themes in De Malo I

Thomas Aquinas was well aware of what is often referred to as the problem of evil. An excellent indication of this is given in one of two objections he raises against accepting the existence of God as he begins to argue philosophically for this conclusion in his well-known ­­ Five Ways in his ST I, q. 2, a. 3. As he poses the objection, it seems that God does not exist; for if one of two contraries were infinite, then the other would be completely destroyed. But included in our understanding of the word “God” is the claim that he is a certain infinite good. Therefore, if God existed, there would be no evil. But evil is present in the world. Therefore God does not exist.1 Thomas’s response consists largely of a quotation from St. Augustine’s Enchiridion (ENC), c. 11: “God, since he is supremely good, would in no way permit anything of evil to exist in his works unless he were so omnipotent and so good that he could make good also from evil.”2 Thomas then simply adds this comment to Augustine’s text: “Therefore it pertains to the infinite goodness of God that he permit evils and draw good from them.”3 From Thomas’s presentation and response to this objection against the existence of God, we may draw out some implications. First of all, he recognizes that the existence of evil may be raised as an objection against the existence of God and so, just as he is about to present five arguments for God’s existence based on natural reason rather than on religious belief, he finds himself constrained to consider this objection. Second, in Augus1. ST I, q. 2, a. 3, arg. 1 (Editio Leonina, IV, p. 31 = Leon. ed., 4.31). 2. As quoted by Thomas: “Deus, cum sit summe bonus, nullo modo sineret aliquid mali esse in operibus suis, nisi esset adeo omnipotens et bonus, ut bene faceret et[iam] de malo” (Leon. ed., 4.32). For Augustine, see PL 40.236 (Cf. CCSL 46.53). Note that Augustine’s text reads “et” instead of “etiam” as in Thomas’s citation. 3. “Hoc ergo ad infinitam Dei bonitatem pertinet, ut esse permittat mala, et ex eis eliciat bona” (Leon. ed. 4.32).

244

De Malo   245 tine’s response, which Thomas evidently accepts, we find explicit reference to God as being so omnipotent and infinite that he can draw good out of evil. And there Thomas explicitly refers to the infinite goodness of God. Third, here, as in many of his discussions of the problem of evil, Thomas cites Augustine. Again, in citing God’s infinite goodness in his addition to Augustine’s text, and in quoting with approval Augustine’s reference to divine omnipotence, he underscores the importance of each of these divine attributes—goodness and omnipotence—for any full discussion of the problem of evil. Finally, in each of these statements he cites what he refers to in other contexts, including ST I, as preambles of faith, that is to say, truths concerning God or even concerning creatures that can be demonstrated philosophically, that is to say, by unaided human reason, even though they are also logically implied by articles of faith. This ­­last-mentioned point tells us that in considering Aquinas’s treatment of evil, we are dealing with not only an issue that is of great concern to his philosophical understanding of God and of the way creatures stand in relation to him, but also of considerable interest to his religious belief and hence to his theology. In the present study, however, I propose to concentrate on what Aquinas’s metaphysical thought can tell us about this issue.

1. Metaphysical Presuppositions To begin, it will be helpful to recall a few of the metaphysical presuppositions Thomas brings to his discussion of this issue. If one accepts a relatively late date for his Quaestiones disputatae De malo = QDM (ca. 1269/72 for the first fifteen questions),4 as I myself do, it follows that Thomas will have already completed his treatments of these issues in SCG I and in ST I. First and foremost, of course, there is his conviction that God exists and 4. See Jean-Pierre ­­ Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 201–3, 336, 428; and Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, 260–62 and 441. Torrell notes the suggestion by Bataillon that one should distinguish between the dates of (1) the original oral disputation, (2) the redacted version, and (3) the date of publication, when the redacted version would be sent to the Unversity bookseller. Torrell also notes the difficulty about being more precise in dating the oral disputation and suggests as plausible 1269–1271. For the redaction, he proposes as possible a little before or after the December 1270 Condemnation by Bishop Tempier of 13 propositions, and for the publication 1270 for qq. 1–15, and 1272 for q. 16.

246  De Malo I that this is a truth that can be and in fact has been demonstrated philosophically. Indeed, whenever he explicitly refers to and begins to list preambles of faith, he always begins with the existence of God, and next cites his oneness, that is, the fact that he is one.5 Then there is the question of God’s goodness, and the infinity of that goodness, and also of God’s omnipotence as mentioned by Augustine. Finally, also underlying Thomas’s entire discussion is his conviction, once again demonstrated philosophically, that as the uncaused cause of everything other than himself, God is also the creative and conserving cause of every created being and the first concurring or moving cause of the actions performed by created agents, including those that act necessarily (natural agents) and those that act freely.6 While limitations of space will not permit me to take up Thomas’s demonstration of each of these points, I would like to begin by recalling briefly some of his philosophical argumentation to show that God is good, since this claim is of paramount importance to his discussion of evil. In ST I, immediately after completing his presentation of the Five Ways, in q. 3 he defends the divine simplicity, that is, the complete absence of any kind of composition in God. Then in q. 4 Thomas takes up the divine perfection and shows in article 1 that God is perfect. He recalls his earlier conclusion in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 that God is the first efficient cause of everything else and now concludes from this that God must therefore be most perfect. Just as matter insofar as it is matter is in potency, so an agent insofar as it is an agent is in act. 5. For an excellent example of this, see his In BDT, q. 2, a. 3, c. (Leon. ed., 50.99:149–154): “primo ad demonstrandum ea que sunt preambula fidei, que necesse est in fide scire, ut ea que naturalibus de Deo probantur, ut Deum esse, Deum esse unum, et alia huiusmodi uel de Deo uel de creaturis in philosophia probata, que fides supponit.” For discussion of this text and of others in Aquinas’s corpus, see my “Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith,” in The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations, ed. Gregory T. Doolan (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 196–220, especially 196– 99, reprinted in the present volume as ch. 2 above. 6. On this see QDP, q. 3, a. 7, where he distinguishes four ways in which God as the first cause causes the actions of created agents (second causes); ST I, q, 105, a. 5, where he presents these as three ways. For discussion see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 451– 52. For Thomas’s view that omnipotence is a preamble of faith, see my “Thomas Aquinas on Demonstrating God’s Omnipotence” in my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 194–217. On providence as a preamble, see Brian J. Shanley, “Thomas Aquinas on Demonstrating God’s Providence,” in Doolan, The Science of Being, 221–42.

De Malo   247 Therefore God, as the first efficient cause, must be in act to the maximum degree and therefore maximally perfect. For, as Thomas explains, something is said to be perfect insofar as it is in act, since what is perfect is that to which no perfection of any kind can be lacking.7 In ST I, q. 5, he turns to the good in general and, without using the name “transcendental” here, deals with it as a transcendental property of being. What he says here is consistent with his development of five transcendental properties of being in his Quaestiones disputatae De veritate (QDV), q. 1, a. 1. Thus in q. 5, a. 1 of the ST he points out that the good and being (ens) are identical in reality, even though they differ conceptually or in their explicit meanings. The nature of the good consists in this, that something is desirable, for, as Aristotle states in Nicomachean Ethics I, c. 1, “the good is that which all things desire.”8 But now Thomas reasons that each and every thing is desirable insofar as it is perfect, since all things desire their own perfection. And each thing is perfect insofar as it is in act.9 Therefore, he concludes, something is good insofar as it is a being (ens), since esse (the act of existing) is the actuality of every thing, as he had already proposed in ST I, q. 3, a. 4 in his denial there that essence and esse are distinct in God. Hence, while being and good are identical in reality, good adds to being the meaning of desirability. In q. 5, a. 3 he reasons that every being, insofar as it is being, is good. Again he brings in the notion of perfection, by reasoning that every being insofar as it is being is in act, and therefore perfect in some sense, since every act is a certain perfection. But, he recalls, what is perfect is desirable and good, and so every being, insofar as it is a being, is good. In other words, good is a transcendental property of being. It should be noted that in this discussion he is speaking of goodness of being, or of ontological goodness; he has not yet here introduced moral goodness. It should also be noted that in a. 4 he brings out the point that the good, as that which all things desire, has the nature of an end or final cause.10 In question 6 Thomas turns to the goodness of God. In article 1 he maintains that to be good belongs to God in primary fashion. Again he re7. ST I, q. 4, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.50). Note especially: “nam perfectum dicitur, cui nihil deest secundum modum suae perfectionis.” 8. Nicomachean Ethics, I, c. 1, 1094a3. 9. ST I, q. 5, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.56). 10. ST I, q. 5, a. 3; a. 4 (Leon. ed., 4.59, 61).

248  De Malo I calls that something is good insofar as it is desirable, and that each thing desires its own perfection. But now he introduces the note of efficient causality. The perfection and form found in an effect is a certain likeness of its cause, since every agent produces something like itself (omne agens agit sibi simile). This is an axiom that Thomas cites many times throughout his career.11 But, he now reasons, an agent itself is also desirable and therefore has the nature of the good. This follows from the fact that the effect is good, and so, too, according to the axiom, its cause must also be good. What is desired of the agent is that its likeness be participated in by its effects. Because God is the first efficient cause of all other things, it follows that the nature of the good and the desirable must also belong to him. And so Dionysius in his De divinis nominibus, c. 4, attributes goodness to God as to the first efficient cause and says that God is called “good” as the one “from whom all other things subsist.”12 In q. 6, a. 2 Thomas argues that God is the supreme good (summum bonum). He is not merely the supreme good in some species or in some genus. This is because all desired perfections flow forth from him as from their first cause and as from a source that is above every genus and every species of beings. Therefore the good is present in God as the highest cause which is above every species and every genus of cause and in which goodness is present in the most excellent fashion. Hence he is called the supreme good. In article 4 Thomas shows that all other things are good by reason of the divine goodness. As he explains, each and every other thing can be called good and a being (ens) insofar as it participates in the first being and the first good (God), although remotely and in deficient fashion. And so every creature is said to be good by reason of the divine goodness as the first exemplar, efficient, and final cause or principle of all other goodness.13 11. ST I, q. 6, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.66:28–29). Note especially: “Perfectio autem et forma effectus est quaedam similitudo agentis: cum omne agens agat sibi simile. Unde ipsum agens est appetibile, et habet rationem boni; hoc enim est quod de ipso appetitur, ut eius similitudo participetur” (ll. 28–33). On Aquinas’s use and different ways of justifying this axiom, see my “Thomas Aquinas on Our Knowledge of God and the Axiom that Every Agent Produces Something Like Itself,” chapter 7 of my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, 152–71. 12. For this in Dionysius see DN IV, 4, in Corpus Dionysiacum, vol. I: “De divinis nominibus,” ed. Beate Regina Suchla (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990), 148–49 (PG 3:700). 13. ST I, q. 6, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 4.67–68) and especially, ST I, q. 6, a. 4, (Leon. ed., 4.70): “A primo igitur per suam essentiam ente et bono, unumquodue potest dici bonum et ens, inquantum participat ipsum per modum cuiusdam assimilationis, licet remote et deficienter. . . . Sic

De Malo   249

2. Evil as Privation In his explicit discussion of evil in the QDM, Thomas follows Augustine in describing it not as something positive, but rather as a special kind of negation known as privation, that is to say, the lack of being or of some characteristic that ought to be present in a given subject. As is well known, Augustine himself was troubled for many years about the reality of evil and how its presence could be reconciled with the existence of an all-good ­­ God, and he describes himself as having been aided by the Neoplatonic notion of evil as privation in his eventual success in freeing himself from the Manichean position.14 In Thomas’s two most important discussions of evil, he begins by asking whether evil is something (aliquid), that is to say, a particular being as he phrases this in QDM, q. 1, a. 1, and in ST I, q. 48, a. 1, where he asks whether evil is a certain nature. In what is generally recognized as the earlier of these two discussions,15 q. 48, a. 1 of ST I, Thomas responds by pointing out that when we are dealing with opposites, we may come to know one by means of the other. Thus we can think of darkness as the absence of light. So too, in order to understand evil we should turn to the good. He recalls that the good is that which is desirable. And since every nature desires its own existence (esse) and its own perfection, it follows that the existence and perfection of every nature has the nature of goodness. Therefore evil cannot signify any given esse (which should here be understood as the act of existing) or form or nature. It rather signifies a certain absence of good. And so, as he is quoted in the sed contra of this article, Dionysius says that evil is neither an existent nor a good, and since ens inquantum huiusmodi (being insofar as it is such) is good, it follows

ergo unumquodque dicitur bonum bonitate divina, sicut primo principio exemplari, effectivo et finali totius bonitatis.” 14. For a presentation of the position of the Manicheans based not only on Augustine’s own description of their position but on other sources, see Gerald Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies, 3rd ed. (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2002), especially chapters 4 and 5. 15. See n. 4 above for Torrell on the date of QDM. Kevin L. Flannery argues on the strength of internal evidence that QDM, q. 6 is an earlier version of QDV, q. 24, a. 1, and hence prior to 1259. See his Acts Amid Precepts: The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theory (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), Appendix C, “The Dating of De Malo Q. 6,” 247–49. This suggestion does not seem to have won wide acceptance among Thomistic scholars.

250  De Malo I that the negation of either one of these is also the negation of the other.16 In the opening argument of the sed contra of QDM, q. 1, a. 1, Thomas cites from Augustine’s De civitate Dei XI, c. 9: “evil is not some nature but a lack of good has taken on this name.”17 In his response Thomas notes that, like white, evil may be expressed in two ways. Thus by white one may have in mind that which is the subject of whiteness, a white thing; or one may signify that which is white insofar as it is white, namely the accident whiteness itself. So too, evil may signify that which is the subject of evil, and this is indeed a particular thing (hoc aliquid). Or one may have in mind evil itself, and this is not a particular thing but is rather the privation of some particular good. In support Thomas recalls again, following Aristotle, that something is good in the proper sense insofar as it is desirable. But that which is opposed to the good is said to be evil. Therefore, reasons Thomas, evil is that which is opposed to the desirable insofar as it is desirable. And it is impossible for this to be a something (an aliquid).18 In support Thomas offers three arguments. First, he recalls that a desirable object has the nature of an end (or final cause), and observes that the order of ends is like the order of agents or efficient causes. Insofar as an agent is higher and more universal, to that same degree the end for which it acts is a more universal good. As an example of this on the human level Thomas compares the ruler of a particular city who is interested in the good of that city with the king of a country who is concerned with the universal good of the entire kingdom. Just as one cannot regress to infinity in the order of efficient causes, each of which is caused by another, but must arrive at one first uncaused cause which is the universal cause of existing, so too there must be some universal good to which all more particular goods are to be traced. This universal good must be identical with the first and universal efficient cause. This follows because, since the desirable object moves the appetite, and the first moving cause must be unmoved, 16. ST I, q. 48, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.490). Note especially: “Relinquitur ergo quod nomine mali significetur quaedam absentia boni. Et pro tanto dicitur quod malum neque est existens nec bonum: quia cum ens, inquantum huiusmodi, sit bonum, eadem est remotio utrorumque.” For Dionysius see his DN IV, 20 (PG 3: 717; ed. Suchla, 165). 17. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, s.c. (Editio Leonina, 23.5:148–149): “malum non est natura aliqua set defectus boni hoc nomen accepit.” Compare with the critical edition of Augustine’s text: “Mali enim nulla natura est; sed amissio boni nomen accepit” (CCSL 48.330:70–71). 18. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, (Leon. ed., 23.5:160–178). Note that like hoc aliquid (a particular thing), aliquid (something) is a technical expression for Aquinas and may be used to signify the third transcendental property of being which he derives in QDV, q. 1, a. 1.

De Malo   251 the first and universal agent must be the first and universal object of desire and hence the first and universal good. But what comes forth from the first and universal good must be some particular good, just as what comes forth from the first and universal causa essendi must be some particular being (ens). Therefore whatever is a “something” (an aliquid) must be a particular good and so not opposed to the good. Therefore “evil insofar as it is evil is not something among [other] things but is the privation of some particular good and inheres in some particular good thing.”19 In his second argument Thomas reasons that whatever exists among things has some appetite and inclination for something that befits itself. But what has the nature of the desirable has the nature of the good. Therefore, whatever exists as a thing among things has some agreement with some good. But evil insofar as it is evil does not agree with the good but is opposed to it. Therefore, evil itself is not an aliquid (a thing) among other things. Indeed, if per impossibile, it were a certain thing (aliqua res), it would desire nothing and would be desired by nothing. This follows from Thomas’s point that whatever is desirable is good.20 In a third argument Thomas falls back on a cornerstone of his metaphysics, according to which esse (the act of existing) is the act of all acts and the perfection of all perfections and therefore, as he puts it here, is desirable to the maximum degree. Thus we observe that everything naturally desires to preserve its own existence (and therefore the act of existing that causes this) and resists that which is destructive of this insofar as it can. And in accord with his earlier reasoning, Thomas recalls that insofar as something is desirable—esse itself in this case—to that extent it is good. Because evil is universally opposed to the good, it is also opposed to the act of existing itself. And because it is opposed to the act of existing itself, evil cannot be some particular thing (an aliquid); but that in which it occurs is indeed something, such as an eye in which there is blindness.21

19. QDM, q. 1, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 23.5:179–214). Note the last sentence: “Unde relinquitur quod malum secundum quod est malum non est aliquid in rebus, set est alicuius particularis boni priuatio, alicui particulari bono inherens” (ll. 211–214). 20. QDM, q. 1, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 23.5–6:215–227). 21. QDM, q. 1, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 23.6:228–242).

252  De Malo I

3. Kinds of Evil Accordingly, Thomas concludes his argumentation in QDM, q. 1, a. 1 to show that evil is not a thing or an entity, just as in ST I, q. 48, a. 1 he had shown that it has no nature. It is simply a privation or lack of being and hence of goodness that ought to be present in an appropriate subject. This, however, is not for Thomas to say that evil does not exist. But before developing this point, I would like to turn to his reply to the first opening argument in QDM, q. 1, a. 1, for there he introduces an important distinction. Thomas is responding to a text from Isaiah 45:6–7: “I am the Lord who produces peace and creates evil.” But, so runs the objection based on this text, everything that is created is “something.” Therefore evil is something.22 Thomas responds that something is said to be evil in two different ways, either in the absolute sense (simpliciter), or in a qualified sense (secundum quid). That is said to be evil in the absolute sense which is evil in itself. This is something that is deprived of a particular good that is owing to its own perfection, in the way that sickness is evil for an animal because it involves the privation of a balance of humors, a balance that is necessary for the ­­well-being of the animal. But evil in a qualified sense is not evil in itself, but it is evil for something else because it involves the privation of a good that is necessary for the perfection of that other thing. As an example he notes that in the element fire, there is a privation of the form of water owing, presumably, to the extreme heat caused by the fire. The form of water is not necessary for the perfection of fire, but it is necessary for the perfection of water. Hence fire is not evil in itself, but it is evil for water.23 This is an example of what is often called physical evil. Jacques Maritain cites a more contemporary example. For a microbe to feed on a human being’s nervous system is good for the microbe, but this is not good for the human nervous system.24 Thomas himself also offers an example from the moral order. The order of justice may require the privation of a particular good from someone who sins insofar as justice requires that a sinner be deprived of a particular good which that person desires. Thus this pun22. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, arg. 1 (Leon. ed., 23.3:1–6). 23. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1 (Leon. ed., 23.6:243–259). 24. Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1942), 22.

De Malo   253 ishment is good in the absolute sense (simpliciter), but evil for that sinful person. And with regard to the text from Isaiah where God is said to create evil, Thomas explains that evil is here said to be created not insofar as it is evil but insofar as it is good simpliciter, but evil secundum quid.25 But most important for our purpose here, this response also tells us that we should distinguish between physical evil and moral evil. In responding to another objection (ad 4), Thomas tells us that evil is said to be contrary to the good more so in moral matters than in natural or physical matters. Moral matters depend upon the will and the object of the will is good and evil. But every act receives its species from its object. Therefore, when an act of the will is directed toward evil, it takes on the nature and the name of evil. And this evil is properly contrary to one’s good.26 Even though evil is not a thing or entity in itself, and even though it has no nature or essence in itself, Aquinas nonetheless recognizes that it exists and is very real. This applies both to physical evil, such as an illness or an earthquake, and to moral evil, as we shall see. In ST I, q. 48, a. 2, Thomas asks whether evil is found in things. He begins by referring to a point he had already made in q. 47, namely, that the perfection of the universe requires that there be inequality among things, so that all degrees of goodness may be filled. Thus, in q. 47, a. 1, he had argued that the distinction and multiplicity of created beings was created by God himself. This is because God gave existence to other things in order to communicate his goodness to creatures and in order for it to be represented by them. Because no single creature could sufficiently represent the divine goodness (because, of course, of its infinite perfection), God produced many and diverse creatures so that what was missing from one’s representation of his goodness could be made up for by others. For the goodness which is in God in absolute and uniform fashion is found in creatures in multiple and divided fashion. Therefore the entire universe more perfectly participates in and represents the divine goodness than can any single creature.27 In q. 47, a. 2, Thomas concludes that just as God is the cause of the distinction found in created things, so is he the cause of the inequality that obtains among them. In sum, here he points out that God is the cause of 25. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1 (Leon. ed., 23.6:259–271). 26. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4 (Leon. ed., 23.6:300–309). 27. ST I, q. 47, a. 1 (Leon. ed., 4.485–86).

254  De Malo I these degrees of inequality because, without them, the universe would be less perfect than it is now and would less perfectly reflect the divine goodness.28 To return to Thomas’s discussion in ST l, q. 48, a. 2, where he asks whether evil is actually found among existing things, he recalls that the perfection of the universe requires inequality among its members. Just as in the order of existence certain things cannot lose their existence (incorporeal things) and others can (corporeal things), so too there is one degree of goodness according to which something is so good that it can never fall short of goodness (which seems to refer to God along with the angels and the blessed in heaven), and another degree of goodness according to which something good can fall short of its goodness. And then, in what does not strike one as an overly optimistic remark, he comments that it follows from this that some of those things that can fall short of goodness will in fact at times (interdum) actually fall short, and so evil is found to exist, just as does corruption, which, he adds, is itself a kind of evil.29 And, as we shall shortly see, he applies this remark both to physical evil and to moral evil. Here we should note his reply to the second opening objection he has raised in this same a. 2 of q. 48. This objection notes that being (ens) and “thing” (res) are convertible (which follows from Thomas’s derivation of the transcendental properties of being in QDV, q. 1, a. 1, where he includes res as one of those properties). But, the objection continues, if evil is an ens, it is a certain thing. Thomas responds by making an all-important ­­ distinction. Being (ens) is expressed in two different ways. It may signify the entity of a thing insofar as being is divided into the ten supreme genera or predicaments. When taken in this way, being is indeed convertible with “thing.” But taken in this sense, no privation is a being (ens) and therefore neither is [it] evil. However, being (ens) may be taken in another way, insofar as it signifies the truth of a proposition that responds to the question 28. ST I, q. 47, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 4.486–87). 29. ST I, q. 48, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 4.492). In his Aquinas and the Cry of Rachel: Thomistic Reflections on the Problem of Evil (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), John F. X. Knasas (following Thomas’s ad 2), refers to such evils as “quandoque evils” and devotes considerable attention to them in distinguishing them from natural evils that follow from the corruption of things according to the regular and persistent cycles of generation and corruption in nature. It is here that he would place horrendous evils. See the whole of his chapter 3, especially 49, 53–61.

De Malo   255 an est asking “Is it?” or “Does it exist?” The answer to this is: “It is” and this of course means “It exists.” It is in this sense that we can say that blindness is in the eye, or that any other privation is. And since evil is a privation, in this way we can say that evil exists, even though it is not a thing or an entity taken in the ­­first-mentioned meaning of “ens.”30 Thomas makes this same point very succinctly in responding to the 19th opening argument in QDM, q. 1, a. 1: “Being (ens) is said in two ways: in one way insofar as it signifies the nature of the ten genera and, taken in this way, neither evil nor any privation is a being (ens) nor something (aliquid); in another way, insofar as it answers to the question ‘Is it?’ and so taken evil is, just as blindness is.”31 Thomas adds that evil is not something (aliquid) because to be something is to answer both the question “Is it?” and the question “What is it?” But if evil is not a thing, nor a being or entity, how can it exist? Thomas’s simple answer to this in ST I, q. 48, a. 3, and in QDM, q. 1, a. 2, is that evil exists in the good as in its subject. In the first text he points out that not every negation of a good in a given subject is evil. The mere absence or negation of a higher degree of perfection in a lower and less perfect being is not itself evil, because it is not a privation, that is, the negation or absence of a good that should be present in that subject. If one were to deny this, Thomas counters that things that do not exist at all would be evil. And every finite being would be evil because it lacked perfections found in higher beings. He recalls that every being (that exists) in actuality is a certain good, and then notes that this also applies to a being in potency (the subject both of an actually present form and of the privation of that form). A being in potency insofar as it is in potency is ordered to a certain good, and therefore is also good potentially. It follows therefore that the subject of evil is some good.32 Thomas offers a fuller and more complicated explanation of this in QDM, q. 1, a. 2, where he asks whether evil exists in the good. His opening argument in the sed contra cites from Augustine’s Enchiridion, c. 14, to the 30. ST I, q. 48, a. 2, ad 2 (Leon. ed., 4.492). 31. QDM, q. 1, a. 1, ad 19 (Leon. ed., 23.8:468–473): “Ad undeuicesimum dicendum quod ens dicitur dupliciter: uno modo secundum quod significat naturam decem generum, et sic neque malum neque aliqua priuatio est ens neque aliquid; alio modo secundum quod respondetur ad questionem an est, et sic malum est sicut et cecitas est.” 32. ST I, q. 48, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 4.493).

256  De Malo I effect that evil can exist only in the good.33 Thomas begins his response by asserting that evil cannot exist except in the good. To support this he observes that one may speak of the good in two ways: first, of the good taken absolutely (absolute), and secondly, of this particular good thing, such as a good human being, or a good eye. Given the point he has made previously that the good is that which is desirable, Thomas now argues that what is desirable in itself is also good in itself. And this, he concludes, is an end. Given the fact that we desire an end, we also desire the things that are ordered to that end. And because they are ordered to an end or to a good, they too attain to the nature of the good. Given this, even useful things are included as a division of the good.34 At this point, as he had already done in ST I, q. 48, a. 3, Thomas now turns to potency and its claim upon the good. Whatever is in potency to the good is by that very fact ordered to the good, since to be in potency is nothing other than to be ordered to an act. Therefore whatever is in potency has the nature of the good. So every subject, including prime matter, by reason of the fact that it is in potency with respect to some perfection, shares in the nature of the good. Thomas notes that because the Platonists did not distinguish between matter and privation and viewed matter as nonbeing, they held that the good applies to more things than does being. Thomas also comments that Dionysius seems to have followed this approach in his De divinis nominibus, where he places the good above being.35 In his discussion in QDM, q. 1, a. 2, Thomas acknowledges that there is some truth in this Platonic position. He distinguishes matter from privation and here writes that matter is nonbeing only per accidens and is not to be described as being except in potency and enjoys esse in the unqualified sense (simpliciter) only through substantial form; but it has potency of its very nature (per se ipsam). Indeed, in many other contexts he maintains that in and of itself prime matter is pure potency. And since in the present article he has already shown that potency pertains to the nature of 33. CCSL 46.55; PL 40.239. 34. QDM, q. 1, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 23.10:130–145). On the division of good into the bonum honestum, bonum utile, and bonum delectabile, see ST I, q. 5, a. 6. 35. QDM, q. 1, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 23.10–11:146–161). For more on this see Thomas’s treatment in his De Divinis Nominibus V, l. 1 (ed. Marietti, 231, #606; 232, #610; and 233, #616). See Fran O’Rourke, ­­Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 89–97.

De Malo   257 the good, he now concludes that the good pertains to potency of its very nature as potency.36 Harking back to the distinction he had made at the beginning of this same article, Thomas now observes that while every being whether in act or only in potency can be called good absolutely, it does not follow from this that every thing (res) is this particular good thing. For instance, if a given human being may be good absolutely speaking, it does not follow that the same person is a good flute player. That will be true only if the individual human being also has mastered the art of playing the flute. Moreover, if it be granted that a particular human being is good in a certain way, it does not follow from this that this person is a good human being. That which makes each individual thing good is its own virtue. In support of this claim Thomas cites Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, II, c. 6, 1106a 15, 22. He takes virtue as he is using it here as the maximum (realization) of a potentiality, basing himself on Aristotle’s De caelo, I, c. 11, 281a 14.37 Thomas concludes from this that a given thing is said to be good when it has its proper perfection. In light of this Thomas now distinguishes three different ways in which good may be taken, thereby expanding on the twofold division he had offered at the beginning of this same a. 2. First, the perfection of a thing may itself be called good, as sharpness of vision is said to be the good of the eye, and virtue the good of a human being. Second, the thing that enjoys its perfection may be called good, such as the human who is virtuous or the eye that sees sharply. Third, the subject itself which is in potency to a perfection may be said to be good, such as the soul or the essence of the eye in the above examples. And since he has said that evil is a privation of a good that is due, and since privation can exist only in a being in potency, he now concludes that evil resides in the good taken in the third way 36. QDM, q. 1, a. 2 (Leon, ed., 23.11:159–168). Note especially: “et cum potentia pertineat ad rationem boni, ut dictum est, sequitur quod bonum conueniat ei per se ipsam” (166–168). For texts and discussion of prime matter as pure potency, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 312–17. 37. For a helpful discussion of Aquinas’s appeal to this text from Aristotle here and in other discussions of defining virtue in terms of its maximum instantiation, and a defense of Thomas’s interpretation of the Stagirite concerning this against Harry Jaffa’s critique, see Michael Pakaluk, “Structure and Method in Aquinas’s Appropriation of Aristotelian Ethical Theory,” in Aquinas and the ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, ed. Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 33–51, at 44–46.

258  De Malo I just distinguished, that is, as the subject that is in potency to the good. Good taken in the first sense, as the perfection itself, is lost by evil. And the good taken in the second sense, as composed of a subject and its perfection, is diminished by evil, in that the subject remains but its perfection is removed.38

4. The Cause of Evil With this we may turn with Thomas to a crucial issue concerning the cause of evil. His most profound treatment of this, especially in the case of moral evil, is found in his QDM, q. 1, a. 3. There he asks whether a good is the cause of evil. In one of his arguments in the sed contra, he again quotes from Augustine’s ENC, this time from c. 14, to the effect that evil cannot arise except from the good.39 Thomas introduces his response by noting that good is the cause of evil insofar as evil can have a cause. But evil cannot have a cause per se. Thomas offers three reasons for this.40 First, that which has a per se cause is intended by its cause; but whatever happens beyond the intention of an agent is not a per se effect of that agent but only an effect per accidens (as when digging a grave to bury a body is the cause per accidens of the discovery of a buried treasure, something that is completely beyond the intention of the one digging the grave). But evil cannot be intended or willed or desired insofar as it is evil, because whatever is desired has the nature of the good, to which evil is opposed insofar as it is evil. Hence no one does evil except by seeking something that appears to be good to that person, as it seems good to an adulterer that he should enjoy sensible pleasure and for this reason he commits adultery. Therefore evil has no per se cause.41 Second, that evil does not have a per se cause also follows from the fact that every per se effect bears some likeness to its cause, either when the effect has the same meaning or definition as the cause as in univocal agents, or only in deficient fashion as in the case of equivocal agents. Again Thomas employs the similitude axiom that every agent produces something like itself. In pursuing this he reasons that an agent or efficient 38. QDM, q. 1, a. 2 (Leon. ed., 23.11:186–209). 39. For Augustine see his Enchiridion, c. 14 (CCSL 46.55; PL 40.238). 40. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.14:139–143). 41. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23:14–15:143–158).

De Malo   259 cause acts insofar as it is in act, and this implies the presence of the good. Therefore evil insofar as it is evil is not likened to an efficient cause insofar as that cause is an agent. And so again it follows that evil has no per se efficient cause.42 Thirdly, the same conclusion follows from the fact that every per se efficient cause has a certain and determined order to its effect. But what happens according to a determined order is not evil, since evil occurs when one transgresses or sets aside an order that is due. Therefore evil does not have a per se cause.43 Yet Thomas recognizes that evil must have some kind of cause, and he now seeks to determine what this might be. Because evil does not exist in itself per se but inheres in some subject as a privation, for evil to be present there is beyond the nature (praeternaturaliter) of that in which it inheres. But for something to inhere in a subject in a way that is beyond its nature must have some cause, as water would not be hot without some cause that heats it. Hence, if evil cannot have a cause per se, by process of elimination it can only have a cause per accidens. But, he continues, that which is only per accidens must be traced back to that which is per se. And if he has shown that evil does not have a cause per se, it follows that only the good has a cause per se. But the per se cause of the good must itself be good since a cause per se produces something like itself. From this he concludes that some good is the per accidens cause of every evil. He acknowledges that evil, which itself is a lack or deficiency of the good, can happen to be a cause of some other evil, but insists that one must ultimately reason back to a first cause of evil that is not an evil but a good.44 One may ask how evil is caused from the good. Aquinas proposes that this may happen in two ways: either when a good (agent) is deficient and so causes evil, or when a good agent produces an evil effect per accidens. Thomas goes on to give examples of each and to apply this distinction both to physical evil and to moral evil. To illustrate the case of a physical agent that produces evil per accidens, he again turns to the example of the active power of fire (which is good) but which causes the corruption (non esse) of the water in some way, presumably by overheating it. This natural or active power of fire does not by its nature and per se tend to corrupt the 42. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.15:159–160). 43. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.15:169–174). 44. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.15:175–200).

260  De Malo I water; rather it tends to introduce the form of fire into matter, from which the corruption of the water necessarily follows. To illustrate a case of physical evil caused by a deficiency on the part of a cause that is good, Thomas offers the example of the birth of a monstrosity. He identifies as the cause of the monstrosity a deficiency within the seed of the parent. But if one searches for the cause of this deficiency or evil in the seed, one will eventually get to something that is good, which is a cause per accidens of the evil in the seed even though it itself is not a deficient cause. By a process of alteration this cause introduces a quality contrary to what is required for the seed to be well disposed. The more perfect the power of this contrary altering cause is, the more it will introduce the consequent deficiency into the seed. Thus the evil or deficiency in the seed is caused by a good agent not insofar as it is deficient, but rather insofar as it is perfect.45 As regards evil voluntary actions (moral evils), Thomas notes that there are similarities as well as differences between these and physical evils. Something that is pleasurable to the senses may move the will of an adulterer and entice it to take delight in such a pleasure against the order of right reason and divine law, and thus to commit moral evil. Thomas acknowledges that if the adulterer’s will were to receive the attracting impression of the pleasurable object with the same force and necessity with which a natural body is acted on by a natural agent, the cases of physical evil and voluntary evil would be identical. But, Thomas insists, this is not so, because no matter how powerfully an external and pleasurable sense object may attract someone, that person’s will retains the power to acquiesce or not acquiesce. Therefore the cause of the evil that occurs when the will does acquiesce to the sensible object is not the pleasurable object but rather the will itself.46 Thomas concludes that the will may cause moral evil according to both of the orders he had singled out above, that is to say, as a cause per accidens, or as a deficient good. The will may be a cause per accidens of some moral evil because the will is attracted to something that is good in a qual45. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.15:201–226). For Thomas’s apparent reference to this example in Aristotle as interpreted by Averroes, see Aristotle, Physics II, c. 14, 199b 37–8, and Averroes, In II Physicorum, Com. 82, in Aristotelis opera cum Averrois commentariis, 12 vols. (Venice: 1562–74), 4. fol. 80B. 46. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.15–16:227–242).

De Malo   261 ified sense (secundum aliquid), but this good is conjoined to something that is evil in the absolute sense (simpliciter).47 And the will may also be the cause of moral evil “as a deficient good insofar as one must preunderstand in the will some deficiency before the deficient choice itself, by which it chooses a good secundum quid which is evil in the absolute sense (simpliciter).”48 To account for this Thomas introduces what is arguably the most interesting philosophical aspect of his discussion of moral evil, and what Jacques Maritain describes as one of Thomas’s most original philosophical discoveries.49 Thomas reasons that in cases where one thing should serve as the rule and measure of another thing, good results in what is regulated and measured only insofar as it is regulated and conformed to the appropriate measure; but evil results when what should be regulated and measured is not conformed to the rule and measure. To illustrate this he offers the example of a craftsman who wants to cut something along a straight line, but who does not use an appropriate ruler or measure. As a consequence he makes a crooked cut, that is, one that is bad or evil. And this deficiency or evil will have resulted from the fact that the craftsman made the cut without using the ruler or measure. So too, continues Thomas, pleasure and anything else involved in human acts must be measured in accord with the rule of right reason and divine law. Therefore, a nonuse of the rule of reason and of divine law is presupposed on the part of the human will before it makes a disordered choice such as to commit adultery.50 Thomas’s use of the term “before” in this statement should be taken as applying at least to the order of nature, and quite plausibly also to the order of time.51 47. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.16:245–248). 48. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.16:248–252) “set ut bonum deficiens in quantum oportet in uoluntate preconsiderare aliquem defectum ante ipsam electionem deficientem, per quam eligit secundum quid bonum quod est simpliciter malum.” 49. See St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil, 23; Existence and the Existent (New York: Pantheon, 1948), 90; God and the Permission of Evil (Milwaukee, Wis.: Bruce, 1966), 34; French version: Dieu et la permission du mal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963), 38–40. 50. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.16:253–267). Note: “Similiter delectatio et quodlibet aliud in rebus humanis est mensurandum et regulandum secundum regulam rationis et legis diuine; unde non uti regula rationis et legis diuine preintelligitur in uoluntate ante inordinatam electionem” (ll. 263–267). 51. Maritain seems to have changed his position on this point, having favored a distinction between two instants of nature within one instant of time in his presentation in his Existence

262  De Malo I Thomas comments: “There is no need to seek for some cause for this nonuse of the aforementioned moral rule because the freedom of the will, by which it can act or not act, is enough to account for this.”52 He also points out that this non-consideration ­­ of the appropriate moral rule or norm is not in itself evil. Indeed, one need not and one cannot spend all of one’s life reciting in one’s mind the Ten Commandments and every other moral precept. But the note of fault or moral evil first enters in when the soul, without actually considering the moral norm, proceeds to a choice of this kind, just as the craftsman does not “sin” because he does not always hold the ruler or measure in his hand, but only when, without holding the ruler, he tries to saw in a straight line. And so, too, reasons Thomas, fault on the part of the will, or moral evil, does not consist in the fact that the moral agent does not actually consider the moral norm, but rather in this, that without attending to the appropriate rule or measure, the agent proceeds to choose.53 Aquinas cites from Augustine’s De civitate Dei XII, c. 7, to the effect that the will is the cause of sin insofar as it is deficient, but he compares this deficiency to silence or to darkness, because this deficiency is negation alone or a pure negation.54 and the Existent, 90, with a backward reference to the same view in his earlier St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil, 26, and then having corrected this in his later God and the Permission of Evil, 51–54, where he expresses a preference for two moments in time as well. 52. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.16:268–270): “Huius autem quod est non uti regula predicta non oportet aliquam causam querere, quia ad hoc sufficit ipsa libertas uoluntatis, per quam potest agere uel non agere.” A question may be raised concerning what the expression ad hoc refers to in this text. In Maritain’s discussions he takes this as referring to the nonconsideration itself. This nonbeing is caused by the freedom of the will. And this reading is supported by the two major English translations of this passage. See Jean Oesterle’s translation in On Evil (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 22; and especially the rather free translation in Richard Regan and Brian Davies, The ‘De Malo’ of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 71–72: “since the very freedom of the will, by which it can act or not act, is enough to explain the nonuse.” However, in his Saint Thomas d’Aquin et le mal: Foi chrétienne et théodicée (Paris: Beauchesne, 1992), 171–73, Laurent Sentis insists against Maritain that this completely reverses the meaning of the sentence: Thomas’s point is that there is no cause for the ­­non-consideration or nonuse of the rule, and by using ad hoc he refers to the freedom of the will simply to account for the ensuing sinful choice that follows upon the non-consideration. ­­ While this is an interesting proposal from the philosophical side and even strengthens the lack of need for God to be viewed as the cause of the non-consideration, ­­ it does not appear to be the natural reading of the text. 53. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.16:271–283). Note: “Et similiter culpa uoluntatis non est in hoc quod non actu attendit ad regulam rationis uel legis diuine, set ex hoc quod non habens regulam uel mensuram huiusmodi procedit ad eligendum” (ll. 281–285). 54. QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (Leon. ed., 23.16:285–289, especially 289): “defectus ille est negatio sola.” Also see ad 13 (17:382–389): “defectus . . . non est culpa neque pena, set negatio pura” (ll. 383–

De Malo   263 I have already mentioned Maritain’s high praise for this solution. He is especially taken with Thomas’s view that no cause need be sought for the moment of ­­non-consideration on the part of the will except the will itself. Maritain describes it as “negation, an absence, the lack of a good which is not yet due,” and a bit farther on he notes that this first moment is “voluntary, it is free, and it is not yet sin but is the root of sin; it is a certain nothingness, the nothingness of the consideration of a rule, it is a certain nothingness introduced by the creature at the start of his action; it is a mere absence, a mere nothingness, but it is the root proper of evil action.”55 By emphasizing the nothingness of the moment of non-consideration, ­­ 385). For Augustine see De civitate Dei XII, c. 7 (CCSL 48.362). On this text and its importance, also see Bernadette E. O’Connor, “Insufficient Ado about the Human Capacity for Being and Maritain’s Dissymmetry Solution,” in Aquinas & Maritain on Evil: Mystery and Metaphysics, ed. James G. Hanink (Washington, D.C.: American Maritain Association, 2013), 155–69 (see 157, n. 8 and the following pages on Thomas’s usage here of the term defectus to signify a mere negation that is not yet a privation). For a critical discussion of Maritain’s interpretation of Thomas’s view, see ­­Jean-Hervé Nicolas, “La permission du péché,” Revue thomiste 60 (1960): 5–37, 185–206, 509–46, to which Maritain responded in his God and the Permission, followed decades later by a partial retraction by Nicolas of his earlier presentation especially concerning “God’s permissive will” in “La volenté salvifique de Dieu contrariée par le péché,” Revue thomiste 92 (1992): 177–96. For a very thorough study of Francisco ­­Marín-Sola as an influential but unacknowledged source for Maritain’s development of his own interpretation, see Michael D. Torre, “Francisco Marín-Sola, ­­ O.P., and the Origin of Jacques Maritain’s Doctrine on God’s Permission of Evil,” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 4 (2006): 55–94, and most recently his Do not Resist the Spirit’s Call: Francisco Marín-Sola ­­ on Sufficient Grace (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), which contains an English translation of Marín-Sola’s ­­ three long articles on this general topic, along with a thorough review in the Conclusion of more recent literature on the reception of his views as well as on Maritain’s interpretation. See 227–57 and, on the issue of ­­non-consideration, 263–65, and, for ­­Marín-Sola’s text, 47. Also see 249, n. 90 for reference to Jack Cahalan’s electronic response to Torre’s claim that Maritain borrowed heavily and without acknowledgment from ­­Marín-Sola, especially in dealing with the nonbeing (­­non-consideration) in Thomas’s account. While much of the material covered by Nicolas and Torre is theological, as is also to some degree that treated by Maritain, especially in God and the Permission, there is a considerable amount of philosophical content in their respective studies as well. 55. Maritain, St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil, 31; also Existence and the Existent, 89– 92; God and the Permission, 34–38, 45–54. Thomas himself does speak of this special notion of ­­non-consideration or nonbeing in other writings, although never as thoroughly as in QDM, q. 1, a. 3. See SCG III, c. 10; ST I, q. 49, a. 1, ad 3; ST ­­I-II, q. 75, a. 1, ad 3, all cited by Maritain in St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil, 40–43, n. 8. Also see Michael D. Torre, “The Grace of God and the Sin of Man,” in Hanink, Aquinas & Maritain on Evil, 170–203, at 175, n. 18 and his discussion there, 173–86. SCG III, c. 10 (“Videtur autem”) indicates that this preexisting defectus in the will is voluntary but not itself a moral fault: “Est igitur voluntarius. Non tamen peccatum morale” (Leon. ed., 14.26), and hence runs counter to Sentis’s interpretation of the key text in QDM, q. 1, a. 3 (see n. 52 above). On SCG III, c. 10, also see Sentis, 85–91.

264  De Malo I Maritain argues that because it is nothingness, it is something “in which the creature is the first, the primary cause; there then, is a line in which the creature is the primary cause, but it is the line of nothingness, and of evil.”56 And thus it will follow that God, the First Cause of all created being and action, is not the cause of this ­­non-consideration and hence not responsible for the following evil act. Even so, it should be recalled here that for Aquinas, God is not only the creating and conserving cause of a creature and its power to act, but also a concurring cause that moves the created cause when it acts, in the way that the First Cause moves all second or created causes when they act. Even in the case of acts of free choice, God moves such agents to act in accord with their nature. Just as he moves necessary agents to act in accord with their nature and hence necessarily, so he moves contingent or free agents to act in accord with their nature, that is, freely.57 This divine motion will therefore also apply to a morally evil act in terms of all that is ontologically positive in that act itself, but not to the prior moment of non-consideration.58 ­­

5. Concluding Remarks This reading of Thomas’s texts, especially of QDM, q. 1, a. 3, would seem to remove God from being the direct or indirect cause of the sinful agent’s ­­non-consideration of the appropriate moral norm and hence of the deficiency required for the subsequent immoral act itself, which is, of course, a privation of rectitude in the sinner’s act of choice. Nonetheless, certain problems remain if one stops here in considering Thomas’s overall philosophical solution to the problem of physical evil. 56. Maritain, St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil, 35. 57. See Thomas’s De potentia, q. 3, a. 7. For his explicit application of this to the will see also: “sequetur quod ipse in quolibet operante immediate operetur, non exclusa operatione vo­ luntatis et naturae” (ed. Marietti, 58). Also see QDM, q. 6 (Leon. ed., 23.148–49:308–415); and ST ­­I-II, q. 10, a. 4. On this see my Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 451–52, and my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, 258–63. Also see Brian J. Shanley, The Thomist Tradition (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), 202–5. 58. Many Thomists, influenced by the terminology of Dominic Bañez, claim that Thomas therefore holds that God moves free created agents with a “physical pre-motion. ­­ ” Not finding this terminology in Thomas’s texts, I recommend against using it, because it slants Thomas’s solution in the direction of a determinism he did not defend. For similar reservations about Bañez’s position, see Shanley, The Thomist Tradition, 107, n. 56; 204–5. Limitations of space preclude a fuller examination here of Aquinas’s effort to reconcile divine concurrence (and foreknowledge) with human freedom.

De Malo   265 On the one hand, there is merit in his view considered above in ST I, qq. 47 and 48 that many physical evils may be accounted for as following from the distinctions and inequalities present in many created beings. These inequalities follow from God’s goodness and hence from his desire that the created universe should reflect his goodness as perfectly as it can. An ordered universe in which lower levels are subordinated to higher levels reflects God’s goodness much more perfectly than any universe with fewer or perhaps no diverse levels of being. If in certain cases the naturally produced action of one kind of being, while good for that being, inflicts a privation or a physical evil on another being, this kind of evil is permitted by God because of the greater good of the universe taken as a whole. Indeed, God may be viewed as a per accidens cause of such evils, but never of moral evil. There is a difficulty, however, in understanding how this explanation can account for some kinds of physical evils that befall human beings; for they are not merely parts of that greater whole known as the universe; they are also individual persons, endowed with intellects and wills, and capable of acting freely. Why should they be subjected to horrendous physical evils such as massive earthquakes which take the lives of hundreds or even thousands of people, including infants, and inflict tremendous suffering on many of those who survive? One approach is to respond that we must have complete confidence in divine providence and that, even though often we cannot understand how a particular natural disaster contributes to the greater good of the universe, given our confidence in God’s omniscience and the providence following from this, we know that he and he alone can understand how all the parts fit together in contributing to the greater good of the whole. For an excellent statement of God’s exercise of his providence over all creation including individuals, see SCG III, c. 76 and those that follow.59 And we may also recall Thomas’s reply with Augustine to the objection in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 to the effect that God is so good that he can draw good out of evil. Even so, it is still difficult to understand why the particular good and even the lives of thousands of individual human persons including innocent infants should be sacrificed in such situations. Here philosophy seems to have reached its limit. 59. For a helpful examination of Thomas’s philosophical argumentation for divine providence, see Shanley, “Thomas Aquinas on Demonstrating God’s Providence,” 221–42.

266  De Malo I Thomas himself seems to have realized at this point that something was still lacking in his discussion of evil and its cause or causes, because immediately after QDM, q. 1, a. 3, he introduces an important distinction in q. 1, a. 4 between evil of fault and evil of punishment. In the sed contra he quotes what he takes to be another work by Augustine, although in fact it is not by him, to this effect: “There is a twofold evil for a rational creature, one whereby it willingly falls short of the supreme good, and another by which it is punished against its will.”60 Thomas holds that this division of evil into fault and punishment applies only to rational creatures, since it is of the nature of fault to arise according to one’s will, and the nature of punishment to be against one’s will.61 In intellectual creatures one kind of evil consists of a disordered act on the part of the will for which someone is rightly blamed, namely, fault. But, writes Thomas, in creatures another kind of evil consists of the privation of a habitus or form or something that is necessary for a person to act well, and such evils may apply to the soul or to the body or to extrinsic things. And according to the judgment of the Catholic faith, such an evil is called a punishment.62 In his subsequent discussion of the nature of punishment, Thomas notes that the punishment must be related in some way to a fault, since someone is thought to be punished properly only if that person suffers evil for what he or she has done. Here again he cites the tradition of the (Catholic) faith as holding that a rational creature could suffer no harm with respect to the soul or with respect to the body or with respect to external things unless there was some preceding sin either committed by that person or incurred by his or her sharing in (human) nature. The privation of any good that someone can use to act well, whether this person be an angel or a human being, should be called a punishment and hence every evil for a rational creature falls either under fault or under punishment.63 60. This work, entitled De fide ad Petrum, is in fact by Fulgentius (See PL 40.773 = Fulgentius PL 65.700A; CCSL 91-A.751). ­­ For Thomas’s citation see QDM, q. 1, a. 4 (Leon. ed., 23.19:89– 94): “Set contra est quod Augustinus dicit in libro De fide ad Petrum. ‘Geminum est creature rationalis malum: unum quo uoluntarie deficit a summo bono, alterum quo inuita punitur.’ Per que duo exprimuntur pena et culpa. Ergo malum diuiditur per penam et culpam.” 61. QDM, q. 1, a. 4 (Leon. ed., 23.19:95–110). 62. QDM, q. 1, a. 4 (Leon. ed., 23.20:127–139). 63. See QDM, q. 1, a. 4: “Indeed, the tradition of faith holds it as certain that the rational creature could have incurred no evil either so far as concerns the soul or as concerns the body or as concerns external goods except from a preceding sin, either of the person, or even of the

De Malo   267 Here Thomas has obviously introduced important theological considerations based on his religious belief in an original fall on the part of our first parents, as well as on the fall of the angels, and the consequent loss of grace.64 And now he has offered a theological explanation for many of the physical evils suffered by human beings. But a considerable amount of mystery remains concerning which of these explanations one should employ when one tries to account for a particular physical evil, especially one that is horrendous. With this turn to a theological explanation, Thomas moves beyond the limits of metaphysics, and so our study also comes to its end. nature. And so it follows that every such privation of good which man can use to operate rightly is called a punishment, and this applies with equal reason to the angels. And thus every evil of the rational creature is contained under either fault or punishment” (Oesterle translation, 29). Note the Latin for the last rather sweeping remark: “Et sic omne malum rationalis creature uel sub culpa uel sub pena continetur” (Leon. ed., 23.20:151–153). Also see Thomas’s reply to obj. 10 (Leon. ed., 23.21:270–273); cf. ST I, q. 48, aa. 5 and 6. Also see Shanley, The Thomist Tradition, 97–98, 101–2; Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 68–70. In QDM, q. 1, a. 5, Thomas concludes that evil of fault has more of the nature of evil than evil of punishment. 64. Thomas will treat original sin fully in QDM, q. 4 (in terms of itself and its origin) and q. 5 (in terms of its effects).

Composition of Angels Composition of Angels

ix 

Metaphysical Composition of Angels S 

in Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines

Christian thinkers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were much concerned with protecting the absolute simplicity of God and, in their effort to support this point, by way of contrast often attributed some kind of composition to all created entities. By the ­­mid-1280s, very different ways of doing this had been proposed by different philosophers and theologians. One widely held position maintained that in all created substances—that is, all substances other than God—there is a composition of matter and form—of a corporeal matter and a corporeal form in the case of corporeal entities, and of a spiritual kind of matter and a spiritual form in the case of purely spiritual beings such as angels and human souls according to some, or of one and the same kind of matter both in corporeal entities and in spirits according to others. Another position appealed to some version of a distinction and composition, originally proposed by Boethius, between quod est and esse in all beings with the exception of God, even though this distinction and composition was interpreted in widely divergent ways by different thinkers. Still other thinkers insisted that one could adequately defend the ­­non-simple character of substances other than God without appealing to any real distinction and composition either of matter and form or of essence and existence (esse) within them. The present chapter will consider these three positions successively in three different sections as they were developed by Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines.

268

Composition of Angels  269

1.M atter-Form Composition of Angels: St. Bonaventure The first theory, widely accepted by the ­­mid-thirteenth century, is often referred to as universal hylemorphism, that is, the claim that in all beings with the exception of God there is a distinction and composition of form and matter. The historical origins of this theory were disputed in the thirteenth century and, for that matter, continue to be subject to some dispute today. On the one hand, certain defenders of this position, especially among the Franciscans, attempted to trace it back to Saint Augustine and contrasted this and other Augustinian positions with the dangerous innovations which, they maintained, had recently been introduced into Christian thought by thinkers such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. Certain modern scholars, especially Roberto Zavalloni, agree that the theory is indeed Augustinian in origin.1 On the other hand, various ­­thirteenth-century figures, including Albert and Aquinas, maintained that its true originator was the ­­Spanish-Jewish philosopher Avicebron (Ibn Gabirol), who, writing in Arabic, produced an influential work known by its Latin title as the Fons vitae which had been translated into Latin in the twelfth century, and in which this theory is developed.2 1. Roberto Zavalloni, Richard de Mediavilla et la controverse sur la pluralité des formes: textes inédits et étude critique (Leuven: Éditions de l’ Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1951), 422. While he recognizes the influence of Avicebron on the doctrine of universal hylemorphism, he denies that it is preponderant and cites Thomas of York in his effort to show that Augustine’s influence was more direct and decisive (see 442–43). Also see Gonsalvus of Spain, Quaestiones disputatae 11, ed. Leon Amorós, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi 9 (Quaracchi, Florence: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, 1935), 221, who attributes this theory to Augustine. 2. For the second view, see Erich Kleineidam, “Das Problem der hylemorphen Zusammensetzung der geistigen Substanzen im 13. Jahrhundert, behandelt bis Thomas von Aquin” (Ph.D. diss., Schlesische ­­Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität zu Breslau, 1930), 14, who cites Albert’s In Sent. 2.1.A.4, ed. A. Borgnet (Paris: Vivès, 1890–1899), 27:14b, as does James Weisheipl, “Albertus Magnus and Universal Hylomorphism: Avicebron. A Note on Thirteenth-Century ­­ Augustinianism,” in Albert the Great: Commemorative Essays, ed. and with an introduction by Francis J. Kovach and Robert W. Shahan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), 239–60, at 256. In this reference, Albert identifies the title of Avicebron’s work (Fons vitae) but assigns it to Plato. For Aquinas’s explicit identification of its author as Avicebron see below. See Kleineidam, “Das Problem,” 7–8, 11–14, and Weisheipl, “Albertus Magnus,” 244–49, for their assessments of the respective influences of Avicebron and his translator, Gundisalvi, on the development of universal hylemorphism in the Latin West in the early thirteenth century. Also see Odon Lottin, “La composition hylémorphique des substances spirituelles: Les débuts de la controverse,” Revue néoscolastique de Philosophie 34 (1932): 21–41. For a helpful update on recent literature

270  Composition of Angels In his Commentary on Book II of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, distinction 3, part 1, while considering the natural attributes of angels, Bonaventure introduces the issue of the simplicity of angelic essences by raising three questions: (1) whether an angel is simple, or composed of matter and form; (2) if it is granted that it is composed of matter and form, whether the matter present in spirits is essentially the same as that found in corporeal things; and (3) whether this matter is also numerically one and the same, or is identical in some other way.3 Bonaventure introduces question 1 (“Whether in angels there is a composition of diverse natures, namely, of matter and form”) by offering four arguments in support of such composition, followed by four for the opposed position.4 Since in his response he will ultimately decide in favor of some such composition, I will begin by considering some of the opening arguments. The first is based on the consequences that follow from the fact that things are changeable. This argument reasons that nothing changeable is simple. But by its nature, an angel is changeable. Therefore, it is composed. To show that an angel is composed of matter, the argument continues. In everything that changes, there must be a principle of mutability. But a principle of mutability is matter. Therefore, etc. While the first premise of this ­­sub-argument is proposed as evident, Augustine and Boethius are cited in support of its second premise (“a principle of mutability is matter”). In Book XII of the Confessions, Augustine writes that every changeable thing implies a certain absence of form (informitatem) whereby a form is received, or changed, or converted (vertitur). And in his De Trinitate, c. 2, Boethius writes that nothing which is form alone can receive accidents, and that a form does not receive accidents unless matter underlies it.5 Bonaventure also comments that if someone objects that concerning the identity, life, and writings of Dominicus Gundissalinus, see Alexander Fidora, Die Wissenschaftstheorie des Dominicus Gundissalinus: Voraussetzungen und Konsequenzen des zweiten Anfangs der aristotelischen Philosophie im 12. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003), 12–19, 195–96 (his philosophical writings and his translations). 3. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1, Opera omnia (Quaracchi, Florence: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, 1882–1902) 2:88b. 4. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2:89a: “Quaeritur . . . utrum in Angelo sit compositio ex diversis naturis, scilicet ex materia et forma.” 5. For Bonaventure, see ibid. For Augustine, see Confessionum Libri XIII, 12.19.28, ed. Lucas Verheijen, CCL 27.230. For Boethius, see “formae vero subiectae esse non possunt. Nam quod ceterae formae [praeter Deum] subiectae accidentibus sunt, ut humanitas, non ita accidentia suscipit eo quod ipsa est, sed eo quod materia ei subiecta est,” De Trinitate, c. 2, in Boethius, The Theological Tractates, ed. Hugh F. Stewart, Edward K. Rand, and S. J. Tester (Cambridge, Mass.:

Composition of Angels  271 mutability belongs to things by reason of the fact that they are [created] ex nihilo, a defender of this argument will respond that mutability is not a pure privation, but that it is some kind of positing (aliquam positionem). Therefore, it has as its cause not pure privation but a cause that posits in some way, although not in the absolute sense, and that is therefore neither “something” in the absolute sense nor “nothing”; rather, it falls between something (aliquid) and nothing (nihil). And this Augustine calls matter.6 Bonaventure cites a second argument based on the nature of action and passion and the principle that one and the same thing cannot act and be acted on in the same respect. But an angel both acts and is acted upon and must, therefore, have distinct principles by reason of which it acts and is acted upon. A principle by reason of which it acts is a form, whereas a principle by reason of which it is acted upon can only be matter. While the major of this argument is proposed as evident, in support of the minor the argument recalls that it pertains to an angel both to receive illuminations and to give them, presumably to other angels and to humans.7 Third, another argument for this is based on the nature of individuation. Angels are distinct hypostases, even though they do not differ by reason of different originating principles. But numerical distinction derives from an intrinsic and substantial principle because, if all accidents are set aside, numerical distinction remains. But such distinction cannot come from the side of form and must, therefore, derive from a material principle. While this argument presents its major as ­­self-evident, it turns to a text from Aristotle’s De caelo to support the minor. As Bonaventure phrases it: “When I speak of ‘heaven,’ I speak of form; but when I speak of ‘this heaven,’ I speak of matter.”8 After presenting some counterarguments, Bonaventure offers his formal response. It must be held as certain that an angel does not have a Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 10, line 43 through p. 12, line 46. Bonaventure’s citation of Boethius is not quite literal. For presentations of this argument, see Étienne Gilson, La philosophie de saint Bonaventure, 3rd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1953), 198–99; John F. Quinn, The Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure’s Philosophy (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973), 143; and David Keck, Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 96. 6. For Augustine, see Conf. 12.3.3 (CCL 27.218); 12.6.6 (CCL 27.219), cited in Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2.89a, note 4. 7. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2.89a–b. 8. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2.89a–b: “Cum dico caelum, dico formam; cum dico hoc caelum, dico materiam.” For Aristotle, see De caelo 1.9 278a 11–16.

272  Composition of Angels simple essence completely devoid of composition (per privationem omnis compositionis), for it is certain that an angel is composed in different ways. Thus, it may be viewed variously: (1) in relation to its cause (principium), and thus it is composed insofar as it depends upon that principle (God). Its principle (and cause) is most simple and most absolute, and therefore everything that depends upon it falls into composition of some type. (2) An angel can be considered by viewing the cause-effect ­­ relationship in the opposite direction, that is, by considering it in relation to the effects it produces; so viewed, it is composed of substance and an [operative] power (potentia), that is, of substance and accident. (3) An angel may be considered as falling within a genus and hence, according to the metaphysician, is composed of act and potency; but, according to the logician, it must be composed of genus and difference. (4) It may be considered as a being (ens) in itself and so, (i) as regards its actual existence (esse), there is a composition in it of being (ens) and of esse; (ii) as regards its essential existence (esse), there is a composition in it of quod est and quo est (see the Boethian distinction); (iii) and as regards its individual or personal existence (esse), there is in it a composition of quod est and quis est (“what it is” and “who it is”). To say that an angelic essence is simple is not to deny that it is composed in these different ways.9 In light of the various kinds of composition Bonaventure has just assigned to angels, one may wonder why he is not content simply to appeal to these in order to show that an angel is composed and therefore falls short of the divine simplicity. In fact, however, he is not content to do this but goes on to argue for the presence of matter-form ­­ composition in all angels as well. He recalls from some of his opening arguments that within the nature of an angel, mutability must be present, not only with respect to nonexistence (non esse) but also with respect to other characteristics (proprietates). This, in turn, implies that the capacity to be acted upon (passibilitas), as well as a ground (ratio) for individuation and limitation, 9. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2.90b–91a. Note in particular: “Item, habet considerari ut ens in se; et sic quantum ad esse actuale est in ipso compositio entis et esse, quantum ad esse essentiale ex ‘quo est’ et ‘quod est,’ quantum ad esse individuale sive personale sic ‘quod est’ et ‘quis est.’ Cum igitur angelica essentia dicitur simplex, hoc non est per privationem harum compositionum.” For another interesting presentation of different kinds of composition, see his defense of the divine simplicity in In Sent. 1.8.2.2, Opera omnia 1.168a. For discussion see Gilson, La philosophie de Saint Bonaventure, 197–98; Quinn, Historical Constitution, 144–45.

Composition of Angels  273 must also be present. All of this points ultimately to the presence of essential composition within the proper nature of an angel.10 Given all of this, Bonaventure writes that he sees no cause or reason that would lead one to deny that the substance of an angel is composed of diverse natures, just as is true of the essence of every creature that is an ens per se. And, Bonaventure notes, if the essence of an angel is composed of diverse natures, these natures must be related to one another as the actual and the potential (possibilis), that is to say, as matter and form. He concludes somewhat cautiously, therefore, that this position—that there is matter-form ­­ composition in angels—“seems to be truer” than any view that denies this.11 With this point established, Bonaventure now turns to the second question he had raised above: If it is granted that an angel is composed of matter and form, as he has now determined, is the matter of spiritual and corporeal things the same essentially (per essentiam)?12 After presenting opening arguments both in support of and against this claim, he begins his formal response by noting that, concerning this issue, the wise seem to be opposed to the wise, and that great and profound clerics in theology and in philosophy have differed concerning it. Some have held that the matter of spiritual and the matter of corporeal things differ and have nothing in common except by analogy. Others held that the matter of both is one and the same essentially. But, Bonaventure comments, if someone carefully considers which of these positions is more probable and true and takes into account the arguments supporting each, he will see that both views speak the truth by using different approaches.13 Bonaventure accounts for this diversity of positions by tracing them back to two different ways in which matter can be known, that is, by privation and by analogy. One knows matter by privation by first removing (mentally) from matter any form, then what disposes (matter) for a form, and finally by considering the naked essence of matter in itself as an intel10. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2:91a. 11. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2.91a: “non video causam nec rationem quomodo defendi potest, quin substantia Angeli sit composita ex diversis naturis, et essentia omnis creaturae per se entis; et si composita est ex diversis naturis, illae duae naturae se habent per modum actualis et possibilis, et ita materiae et formae. Et ideo illa positio videtur verior esse, scilicet quod in Angelo sit compositio ex materia et forma.” 12. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1, Opera omnia 2.88b: “Secundo, dato quod sic, quaeritur utrum eadem sit materia in spiritualibus et corporalibus per essentiam.” See In Sent. 2.3.1.1.2, Ope­ ra omnia 2.94a. 13. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.2, Opera omnia 2.96a.

274  Composition of Angels ligible darkness. Knowledge by analogy, however, is based on a similarity of relationships. And the relationship of matter is in terms of potency. But the potency of matter can be related to form in two ways, either (1) insofar as matter provides a support for form under the aspect of being, and it is considered in this way by the metaphysician; or (2) insofar as it provides a support for form under the aspect of what is mobile, and it is considered in this way by the natural philosopher.14 Now, those who considered matter by viewing it as a privation of every form, both substantial and accidental, held that in corporeal things and in spiritual things matter is the same essentially.15 But those who considered matter by means of analogy, that is to say, under the aspect of potentiality insofar as matter provides a support for form in terms of being, said that the matter of spiritual things and corporeal things is the same only according to analogy, because a similar relationship is involved in each case. Just as the matter of corporeal things sustains and gives existence and subsistence to corporeal forms, so does the matter of spiritual things do the same for spiritual forms. Bonaventure remarks that those who follow this approach did not hold that matter as found in these different kinds of substances is one and the same properly (proprie) speaking, because the matter of corporeal things is not of such a nature as to support spiritual forms, nor conversely is the matter of spiritual things of such a nature as to support corporeal forms.16 In sum, he holds that defenders of these two approaches speak truthfully by following their respective ways of understanding the nature of matter itself.17 But then he himself introduces another way in which he tries to harmonize these different answers to the same fundamental question, this time by distinguishing between the approaches of the natural philosopher, the “universal physicist,” and the metaphysician insofar as each of these resolves the things they study to a material principle. The natural philosopher (physicus inferior) studies generation and corruption and reduces 14. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.2, Opera omnia 2.96a–b. 15. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.2, Opera omnia 2.96b. 16. Ibid. 17. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.2, Opera omnia 2.97a: “Ex hoc patet ratio diversitatis et via positionum, et quod verum dicunt secundum diversas vias et secundum diversos modos intelligendi . . . Nec est contradictio, si quis recte intelligat utrumque.” On this, see Quinn, Historical Constitution, 146–47.

Composition of Angels  275 these to matter insofar as it is a principle of generation and corruption. This occurs only in lower bodies. Because all such bodies can be changed into one another, he concludes that the matter of generable and corruptible things is the same. The “universal” or “higher physicist” considers matter as changeable with respect to form and to position and thus finds, in lower (terrestrial) bodies and in higher (heavenly) bodies, the same potentiality (passio) for change with respect to position, that is, the divisibility of what is mobile, which has matter as its principle. Because of this he resolves what he studies back to the matter of every corporeal thing and concludes that the matter of all bodies—corruptible and incorruptible— is one and the same. But the metaphysician considers the nature of every creature, especially of every substance (ens per se), in which he considers both the act of being (actus essendi), which form gives, and the stability of existing per se, which is given by that in which the form inheres, that is to say, by matter. Because to exist per se expresses something common to spiritual things and to corporeal things, the metaphysician asserts the unity of matter in all per se entia or substances.18 Because the metaphysician judges in a more excellent way than does the natural philosopher, Bonaventure concludes that those who defended the same matter in spiritual and corporeal things judged better, even though both they and those who denied this, by following their own approaches and methods, arrived at the truth.19 Having clarified his thinking on this issue, Bonaventure now returns to the third of the three questions he had raised at the beginning: If one grants that the matter of corporeal and incorporeal things is one and the same, is it numerically one and the same or only according to some other kind of unity?20 After presenting some opening arguments for and against its numerical unity, Bonaventure begins his response by noting that it was and is the view of philosophers and students of nature (positio philosophorum et physicorum) that wherever matter is present, it is essentially one and numerically one. They maintain this because, regarding 18. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.2, Opera omnia 2.97a–b. 19. Ibid. He also comments that the opening arguments prove that the matter of spiritual and corporeal entities is the same, and he cites Augustine in support but refers to what is now recognized as a ­­pseudo-Augustinian work—De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae (see p. 98a, referring back to p. 94a, arg. 1). On this, see Quinn, Historical Constitution, 148, note 26. 20. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.1, Opera omnia 2.88b.

276  Composition of Angels what matter itself is, it is being entirely in potency (ens omnino in potentia). And wherever this is found, it is numerically one and the same in virtue of its essence.21 Bonaventure comments that this argument is sound. Because matter is entirely being in potency, of its essence it enjoys no act, no form, and, therefore, no distinction. If it has no distinction in and of itself and yet is not pure nothingness, it must be one without multiplicity of any kind. This is to say that it is numerically one.22 Bonaventure returns briefly to the issue of matter-form ­­ composition of angels in his final work, his Collationes in Hexaëmeron of 1273.23 There, in Vision I, Collatio I (of the Delorme edition), he lists six major divisions which assist one in arriving at knowledge of things. The fifth is that between the simple and the composite. Bonaventure refers to some who have said that some creature, namely, an angel, is simple. Bonaventure objects that if it were true that an angel were a form without any matter, then it could be subject to no accidents. As he had done in his Commentary on Book II of the Sentences, in support he again cites from Boethius’s De Trinitate, c. 2, to the effect that forms are not the subjects of accidents. And he adds that, according to Aristotle in Physics I, it is matter together with form that is the cause of accidents.24 Bonaventure comments that it is imprudent to say that an angel is simple, lest something that is unique to the First Principle might seem to be attributed to an angel, namely, to be a pure act and form. He adds that it is less dangerous to err about the simplicity of an angel than to assign to other things something that belongs to God alone. Therefore, he maintains that nothing except God is completely simple.25 21. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.3, Opera omnia 2.100a–b. 22. Bonaventure, In Sent. 2.3.1.1.3, Opera omnia 2.100b. 23. For the dating, see Jacques Guy Bougerol, Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure (Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1964), 177. 24. For Boethius, see above, note 5. 25. See Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaëmeron 1.1 n. 12, ed. Ferdinand Delorme, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi 8 (Quaracchi, Florence: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, 1934), 54. Note especially: “Unde incautum est hoc dicere, ne id quod est solius Primi, scilicet quod sit purus actus et forma, videatur attribui angelo; et minus etiam est periculum errare circa angeli simplicitatem quam aliquid, quod est solius Dei, alii assignare. Unde dicimus quod nihil omnino est simplex nisi Deus.”

Composition of Angels  277

2. ­­E ssence-Esse Composition of Angels: St. Thomas Aquinas As we shall now see, Thomas Aquinas dealt with this issue, including the challenge to his own position laid down by Bonaventure, on numerous occasions. Here I will limit myself to his initial development of his position in a work dating from the beginning of his teaching career at Paris in the early 1250s (De ente et essentia); to an application in his mature Summa contra Gentiles II of a procedure he had developed in Stage Two of his argumentation in the De ente; and to a very full treatment in another work dating from his final years (De substantiis separatis).

2.1. De ente et essentia It is fairly generally agreed that Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences dates from 1252–56, and Jean-Pierre ­­ Torrell has further specified that its oral delivery can be dated from 1252–54, and that Thomas was still working on his written version when he became a Master in Theology in 1256. The De ente is also placed within the 1252–56 period, and some effort has been made to correlate it chronologically with the completion of a particular part of the Commentary on the Sentences. But this attempt at further specification has not been widely accepted, and it seems wiser to regard the two works as contemporaneous with one another. However, Torrell has noted that Gauthier did propose a date of 1252/53 for it.26 Because of the finished and ­­self-contained character of his discussion of our issue in this work, here I will follow Thomas’s treatment in the De ente and will make occasional reference to his discussion in his Commentary on II Sentences, dist. 3, q. 1, a. 1. Thomas introduces c. 4 of this treatise by indicating that he must now determine how essence is realized in separate substances, including the human soul, intelligences (= Christian angels), and the First Cause (God). While he recognizes that “all” grant the simplicity of the First Cause, he notes that some do attempt to introduce matter-form ­­ composition into in26. See ­­Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person and His Work, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 332 and 425 (Commentary on the Sentences), 47–48 and 435 (De ente).

278  Composition of Angels telligences and into the human soul. He identifies Avicebron as the likely author of this position in his Fons vitae.27 Thomas immediately comments that this view is opposed to the position generally held by the philosophers, who refer to these substances as separate from matter and who also prove that they are free from matter. Their most effective argument to establish this, he continues, is based on the presence within them of the power of understanding. But forms are not actually intelligible except insofar as they are separated from matter and its conditions; and they are made intelligible through the power of an intelligent substance only insofar as they are received in it and acted on by it. Therefore, he quickly concludes, in every intelligent substance there must be complete freedom from matter so that such a substance neither includes matter as a part of itself nor is a form impressed on matter, as are the forms of purely corporeal entities.28 Thomas then considers a possible objection to his position. Someone might claim that it is not every kind of matter that impedes intelligibility, but only corporeal matter. Against this he argues that if that were true, since matter is not said to be corporeal except insofar as it is subject to a corporeal form, matter would derive its capacity to impede intelligibility from a corporeal form. He rejects this because even a corporeal form is actually intelligible insofar as it is abstracted from matter.29 He concludes that there can be no matter-form ­­ composition either of the human soul, or of an intelligence (angel). He immediately points out, however, that there is a composition in them of form and of existence (esse). In support he cites from the Liber de causis (prop. 9, Commentary) to the effect that “an intelligence has form and esse.” Thomas understands the term “form” as it appears in this text as signifying a simple quiddity or nature.30 In supporting this claim, Thomas explains that when one thing is re27. Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.375. For a similar identification, see In Sent. 2.3.1.1, ed. Pierre Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929), 2.86. 28. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43:375–376. 29. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43:376. 30. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.376. Note especially: “Sed est ibi compositio forme et esse; unde in commento none propositionis libri De causis dicitur quod intelligentia est habens formam et esse.” See Liber de causis, ed. Adriaan Pattin, sep. publication by Tijdschrift voor Filosofie (Leuven: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 1966), 69: “Et intelligentia est habens yliathim quoniam est esse et forma.” On the meaning of yliatim, see Richard Taylor, “St. Thomas and the Liber de causis on the Hylomorphic Composition of Separate Substances,” Mediaeval Studies 41 (1979): 506–13, at 510–13.

Composition of Angels  279 lated to another as its cause, the cause may exist without the effect, but not vice versa. But form is related to matter in such fashion that it gives esse to matter. (It should be noted that this is not to say that form is the efficient cause of the existence of matter; it is the formal cause.) While it is not possible for matter to exist without form, it is not impossible in principle for some form to exist without matter. If some forms are found which can exist only in matter, this is because those forms are ontologically far removed in perfection from the First Principle, which is the First and Pure Act. Therefore, those forms that are closest in perfection to the First Principle subsist per se without matter. Such forms are intelligences, and the essences or quiddities of such substances are in fact identical with the forms themselves.31 Thomas points out that the essence of a composite substance differs from that of a simple substance in that the essence of the composite includes both form and matter, while the essence of the simple substance is form alone. And from this two other differences follow. The first is that the essence of a composite substance can be signified either as a whole (e.g., a human being) or as a part (humanity) which, Thomas says, follows from the designation of matter which enables it to individuate a form and make it this form. As a consequence, the essence of a composite substance cannot be predicated of the composite thing itself as a part, but only as a whole. One cannot say that a man such as Socrates is his quiddity, although one can say that he is a man. But the essence of a simple substance, which is identical with its form, can be signified only as a whole since there is nothing in such a substance in addition to its form which might receive and individuate it. Hence, it can be predicated of the simple substance no matter how the essence is understood. Thomas finds confirmation for this in a statement taken from Avicenna’s Metaphysica: “quidditas simplicis est ipsummet simplex” (“The quiddity of a simple thing is the simple thing itself ”).32 31. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.376. 32. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43:376: “Sed essentia rei simplicis que est sua forma non potest significari nisi ut totum, cum nichil sit ibi preter formam quasi formam recipiens; et ideo quocumque modo sumatur essentia substantie simplicis, de ea predicatur. Vnde Auicenna dicit quod ‘quiditas simplicis est ipsummet simplex,’ quia non est aliquid aliud recipiens ipsam.” For Avicenna, see Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina 5.5, ed. Simone Van Riet (Leuven: Peeters; Leiden: Brill, 1980), Avicenna Latinus 4.274: “Quidditas autem omnis simplicis est ipsummet simplex.”

280  Composition of Angels The second difference following from the distinction between the essence of a composite substance and that of a simple substance is that because the essences (forms) of composite substances are received in designated matter, they are multiplied in accord with the division of matter. From this it follows that while remaining the same in species, they differ numerically within one and the same species. Because the essence of a simple substance is not received in matter, such substances cannot be multiplied numerically within one and the same species. In their case, there are as many species as there are individuals, a position which Thomas also finds in Avicenna, and a position which would be so controversial that it would be cited three times among the 220 propositions condemned by Bishop Stephen Tempier on 7 March 1277.33 Next Thomas must deal with the threat to divine simplicity that seems to arise from his rejection of ­­matter-form composition of angelic substances. He counters that while they are forms alone and without matter, perfect simplicity (omnimoda simplicitas) is not present in them, and they are not pure act but do have an admixture of potentiality. With this he introduces what I will present as a three-stage ­­ argument to show that such beings, along with everything else created by God, are composed of two distinct principles, an essence and an act of existing (esse), which themselves are united as potency and act.34 The first stage of this argument is often referred to as an intellectus essentiae argument: 33. For Thomas, see De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.376. For Avicenna, see Liber de philosophia prima 5.2, Avicenna Latinus 4.239–40. For the prohibited propositions concerning this, see David Piché, ed., La Condamnation Parisienne de 1277: texte latin, traduction, introduction et commentaire (Paris: Vrin, 1999), art. 81 (p. 104): “Quod, quia intelligentiae non habent materiam, Deus non posset plures eiusdem speciei facere”; art. 96 (p. 108): “Quod Deus non potest multiplicare individua sub una specie sine materia”; art. 191 (p. 138): “Quod formae non recipient divisionem, nisi per materiam.—Error, nisi intelligatur de formis eductis de potentia materiae.” 34. The proper interpretation of this argument continues to be disputed by various Thomistic scholars, but here I will present it according to my own understanding of the text, and will give references in the notes to other interpretations. Thomas’s introduction of the argument merits quotation, since it tells the reader that the argument will not be completed until it reaches its goal, establishing the ­­potency-act composition of such substances: “Huiusmodi ergo substantie, quamuis sint forme tantum sine materia, non tamen in eis est omnimoda simplicitas nec sunt actus purus, sed habent permixtionem potentie; et hoc sic patet” (De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43:376). For other and more extensive presentations of my interpretation of Thomas’s argumentation, see my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), ch. 5, 107–32; and my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 137–50.

Composition of Angels  281 Whatever is not included in the understanding (intellectus) of an essence or quiddity comes to it from without and enters into composition with it, because no essence can be understood without those things which are parts of its essence. But every essence or quiddity can be understood without anything being understood about its existence (esse); for I can understand what a man is or what a phoenix is and yet not know whether it exists in reality. Therefore it is evident that existence (esse) is other than quiddity.35

This argument moves very quickly, but it calls for some comment, especially if it is viewed as a complete argument in itself. First of all, it seems to reason from the difference between knowing what something is and knowing that it is to an ontological distinction within such beings themselves. But it is difficult to see how this move can be justified. It seems rather to rest on the distinction between two operations on the part of the intellect, one whereby one understands what something is, and a second, which today is usually referred to as judgment, whereby we recognize that it is. Thomas himself clearly makes this distinction, for instance, in his Commentary on the De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 3.36 But this in and of itself hardly justifies one’s positing the distinction of two ontologically distinct principles within such an entity. Second, as Fernand Van Steenberghen has pointed out, within this text Thomas seems to understand esse in two different ways. When he refers to the possibility for someone to understand what a man or a phoenix is without knowing that it is (sine hoc quod aliquid intelligatur de esse suo) he is using esse as signifying that something exists. But in the conclusion, he is taking it as referring to the intrinsic act of existing that he finds in every existing substance. It is difficult to understand how this step in the argument can be justified.37 35. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.376: “Quicquid enim non est de intellectu essentie uel quiditatis, hoc est adueniens extra et faciens compositionem cum essentia, quia nulla essentia sine hiis que sunt partes essentie intelligi potest. Omnis autem essentia uel qui­ ditas potest intelligi sine hoc quod aliquid intelligatur de esse suo: possum enim intelligere quid est homo uel fenix et tamen ignorare an esse habeat in rerum natura; ergo patet quod esse est aliud ab essentia uel quiditate.” For similar reasoning, see Aquinas, In Sent. 2.3.1.1, ed. Mandonnet, 2.87. 36. Aquinas, Super Boetium De Trinitate 5.3, Leon. ed., 50.147. 37. See Fernand Van Steenberghen, Le problème de l’ existence de Dieu dans les écrits de s. Thomas d’Aquin (­­Louvain-la-Neuve: Editions de I’lnstitut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1980), 37– 38, 41–42. For some others who reject the argumentation in this first stage as demonstrative, see Joseph Owens, “Quiddity and Real Distinction in St. Thomas Aquinas,” Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965): 1–22, at 8–14; Owens, “Stages and Distinction in De ente: A Rejoinder,” The Thomist 45 (1981): 99–123, at 107–8; Armand Maurer, “Dialectic in the De ente et essentia of St. Thomas

282  Composition of Angels But then he immediately introduces a qualification and what I take as the second major stage in his overall argument: “Unless, perhaps there is some thing whose quiddity is its esse itself.” He immediately goes on to argue that there could at most be one such being, that is, a being in which essence and act of existing are identical. This step warns the reader that Thomas must not have regarded the first stage of the argument as conclusive, and it also suggests that the second stage of the argument is extremely important; indeed, that it is essential to the entire argument as such. Unfortunately, the majority of recent and contemporary interpreters of Aquinas have failed to understand and appreciate the importance of this step, although there are some happy exceptions.38 It should be noted that at this point Thomas does not assume that such a being exists.39 He has written “Unless perhaps” such a being exists. He Aquinas,” in Roma, magistra mundi: Itineraria culturae medievalis. Mélanges offerts au Père L. E. Boyle à l’ occasion de son 75e anniversaire, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (­­Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 1998), 2.573–83 (who argues that in this treatise Thomas intended to offer only dialectical arguments for the real distinction and composition of essence and esse in creatures, not demonstrations); and R. E. Houser, “The Real Distinction and the Principles of Metaphysics: Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas,” in Laudemus viros gloriosos: Essays in Honor of Armand Maurer, CSB, ed. R. E. Houser (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 97–108, at 97–98, who agrees. For some who think that Aquinas’s argument does at this point establish a real or ontological distinction between essence and esse, see Cornelio Fabro, “Un itinéraire de saint Thomas: l’ établissement de la distinction réelle entre essence et existence,” Revue de philosophie 39 (1939): 285–310, repr. in his Esegesi tomistica (Rome: Libreria editrice della Pontificia Università lateranense), 89–108, where he refers to this stage as a logical argument; Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965); and Lawrence Dewan, “Saint Thomas, Joseph Owens, and the Real Distinction between Essence and Existence,” The Modern Schoolman 61 (1984): 145–65, at 145–56. For fuller discussion of Fabro’s approach, see chapter IV above in the present volume. 38. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, 376–377: “Nisi forte sit aliqua res cuius quiditas sit ipsum esse, et hec res non potest esse nisi una et prima . . .” Failure to understand and appreciate the second stage is a weakness in most of the authors mentioned above in note 37, with the exception of Fabro, who seems to regard what I call three stages of one argument as three different arguments, with the first being logical and the second and third ontological. For another who has appreciated the important role of Stage Two in the argument, see Scott MacDonald, “The Esse/Essentia Argument in Aquinas’s De ente et essentia,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 (1984): 157–72. For another who recognizes the importance of this stage, but rejects its validity because in his view it is guilty of begging the question, see David Twetten, “Really Distinguishing Essence from Esse,” in Wisdom’s Apprentice: Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, O.P., ed. Peter A. Kwasniewski (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 40–84, esp. 49–53. 39. Unlike his procedure here, in his argument in In Sent. 2.3.1.1, ed. Mandonnet, 2.87, Thomas does assume that God exists, but with reason, since he has dealt with this in In Sent. 1.3 (Div. primae partis textus), ed. Pierre Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929), 1.88–89.

Composition of Angels  283 then proceeds to show that at most there could be one such being. He writes that it is not possible for anything to be multiplied except in one of three ways: (1) by the addition of some difference, as a generic nature is multiplied in species; or (2) in the way that a form is received in different instances of matter, as a specific nature is multiplied in different individuals; or (3) by reason of its being in one case absolute (that is, unreceived) and in all other cases being received in some subject, as if, for instance, there were a certain heat that existed apart from any receiving subject, which by reason of that very separation would be distinct from any instance of heat that was not separated from a receiving subject.40 Supposing, he continues, that there was some thing which was pure esse so as to be subsisting esse, it could not be multiplied in the first way. It could not be differentiated by a specific difference, for then it would not be pure esse alone, but esse plus a differentiating form. Nor, he continues, could it be divided in the second way by being received in different instances of matter, for then it would not be subsisting esse, but esse plus matter. Therefore, by process of elimination, he concludes that such a thing that is identical with its esse can only be one because, without explicitly stating this, he has accepted the third alternative. There can be at most one case of unreceived and subsisting esse. And he explicitly reaches this conclusion by drawing a contrast: it is necessary, in every other thing apart from that one possible exception, that its esse and its quiddity (or nature or form) be other, that is to say, that they be distinct.41 And only then does he apply this universal conclusion to the case at hand, that is, to intelligences: it follows that in an intelligence an act of existing (esse) must be present in addition to its essence, and he again repeats the formula he had taken earlier from the Liber de causis: “An intelligence is both form and esse.”42 It should be noted that throughout this stage of his argument he has been using the word “esse” consistently to signify an intrinsic act of existing, and thereby has avoided any ambiguity that would be involved in using it to signify the fact of existing and then to signify an intrinsic act of existing. 40. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.376–377: “quia impossibile est ut fiat plurificatio alicuius nisi per additionem alicuius differentie, sicut multiplicatur natura generis in species; uel per hoc quod forma recipitur in diuersis materiis, sicut multiplicatur natura speciei in diuersis indiuiduis; uel per hoc quod unum est absolutum et aliud in aliquo receptum, sicut si esset quidam calor separatus esset alius a calore non separato ex ipsa sua separatione.” 41. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.377. 42. Ibid.

284  Composition of Angels Until this point he has neither assumed nor proved that the single exception he has already discussed actually exists, that is, that there is in fact one case of subsisting esse. But pace Joseph Owens, he is surely now accepting as established the presence of an ontological (real) distinction in all other beings between their essence and their act of existing (esse).43 This is confirmed by his backward reference to the text from the Liber de causis, where he had appealed to the same text to support his claim that there must be a composition of form and esse in (all other) intelligences.44 And now he goes on to use this conclusion as the starting point for a metaphysical argument to prove that such a being actually exists. He reasons that whatever pertains to something is either caused by the principles of its nature (in the way a property such as risibility follows from the essence of a human being), or comes to it from some extrinsic principle (as light is present in air owing to the influence of the sun). But, he continues, it is not possible for the esse of anything to be caused efficiently by its form or quiddity, because in that case such a thing would be the efficient cause of itself, and would give existence to itself. Thomas rejects this as impossible, presumably because then such a being would exist insofar as it gave existence to itself and yet would not exist insofar as it received its existence. Therefore, he concludes that it is necessary that every such thing in which its nature is other than its esse must receive its esse from something else, which is to say that it must be efficiently caused.45 It should be noted that this is a universal claim and that it is not restricted to intelligences. 43. For references to the discussion between Owens and myself concerning this issue, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 136, note 11. In brief, Owens maintains that neither Stage One nor Stage Two of Thomas’s argument establishes real distinction between essence and existence, and that this cannot be done until after one has demonstrated the existence of God, that is, at the end of Stage Three. Against this I maintain that Thomas establishes the real distinction in Stage Two and then applies the conclusion that he has reached there—that with one possible exception essence and esse are really distinct in all other beings—in order to establish that all other beings, because their essence and esse are really distinct, receive their existence from something else, that is, they are efficiently caused. And now for a recent and thorough discussion of this argumentation in Thomas, see Gaven Kerr, Aquinas’s Way to God: The Proof in De ente et Essentia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), especially 5–35, and for his acceptance and defense of my interpretation, 29–34. 44. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43:377: “unde oportet quod in qualibet alia re praeter eam aliud sit esse suum et aliud quidditas vel natura seu forma sua; unde oportet quod in intelligentiis sit esse praeter formam, et ideo dictum est quod intelligentia est forma et esse.” 45. Ibid. Note in particular: “Ergo oportet quod omnis talis res cuius esse est aliud quam natura sua habeat esse ab alio.”

Composition of Angels  285 This in turn serves as the point of departure for his brief metaphysical argument for the existence of God. That which exists by reason of something else (per aliud) must be traced back to that which exists per se as its first cause. Otherwise, one would have an infinite regress of caused causes of esse and, although Thomas does not pause here to explain this in detail, he maintains that unless one grants the existence of an uncaused cause of esse, and no matter how many intermediaries one may posit, one would ultimately not account for the existence of any of the caused beings. He concludes that there must be some thing which is the cause of existing (causa essendi) for all other things by reason of the fact that it is pure esse, that is to say, subsisting esse or God.46 Thomas’s task is not yet completed, however, since he had intended to show not merely that essence and esse are distinct in all beings with one possible exception but, further, that in intelligences (angels) there is a composition of potency and act. He now turns to that task by noting that “whatever receives something from something else is in potency with respect to that which it receives, and that which is received in it is its act.” Given this, he concludes that the quiddity or form, which an intelligence is, is itself in potency with respect to the act of existing (esse) that it receives from God, and that the act of existing is received as act. Potency and act are, therefore, present in intelligences or angels, although there is no ­­matter-form composition in them unless the term “matter” is used equivocally. He also correlates the quiddity or essence of such a being as that which it is, and its received act of existing (esse) as that whereby it subsists in reality, and then refers back to the terminology used by Boethius to indicate that beings of this type—intelligences or angels—are composed of “that which is” and of esse.47 In subsequent writings, Thomas always rejects matter-form ­­ composition of angels or separate substances, and constantly refers to their ­­essence-esse distinction and composition to show that they are nonetheless not perfectly simple in the way that God is. Moreover, frequently he draws on reasoning similar to that which he had developed in Stage Two 46. Ibid. On Thomas’s rejection of appeal to an infinite series of caused causes of esse as an adequate explanation of the existence of any effect, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 408–9, 423, note 63, referring to Aquinas’s In Met. 2.3, n. 303 (Turin: Marietti, 1964), 86–87. 47. Aquinas, De ente et essentia 4, Leon. ed., 43.377.

286  Composition of Angels of his argumentation in De ente, c. 4, based on the impossibility of there being more than one being in which essence and esse are identical and concluding from this to distinction and composition of these two principles in all other beings. Often enough in these later presentations, however, and unlike his procedure in the De ente, he has already proved the actual existence of God earlier in the same work, or else takes this as given because of the theological nature of the particular writing. Nonetheless, the logic of a number of the arguments he presents does not require that he assume that God (subsisting esse) actually exists, but only that there can at most be one such being. A few of these later texts will now be considered to illustrate Thomas’s procedure there.

2.2. Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 52 In Book II, c. 52, of Thomas’s Summa contra Gentiles, which may be dated ca. 1261–62, he recalls that created intellectual substances are not bodies (c. 49) or composed of matter and form but are immaterial and subsistent so that they do not depend upon bodies for their existence (c. 51). Nonetheless, he now observes, it does not follow from this that they are equal to the simplicity of God. Rather, some composition is present in them precisely because their esse and their quod est (what they are) are not identical.48 In his first argument in support of this, Thomas reasons that if subsisting esse exists, nothing can be added to it in addition to esse itself. Even in those things in which esse is not subsisting, anything present in such a thing in addition to its esse is indeed united to the existing thing, but is not identical with its act of existing (esse) except per accidens insofar as there is one subject that has both an act of existing (esse) and that which differs from its esse. But if esse is not received in some subject, there will be no way whereby something that is different from esse can be united with it. Esse, insofar as it is esse, cannot be diverse; it can be diversified, but only by something that is different from esse, that is, by essence. Thus, the act of existing of a human being is different from that of a stone because they are received in diverse essences. From this he concludes that subsisting esse can only be one, presumably because it is not united with anything different from itself which could divide it. He recalls that in Book I (c. 22) he 48. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 52, 145: “Invenitur in eis aliqua compositio ex eo quod non est idem in eis esse et quod est.”

Composition of Angels  287 has already shown that God is his own esse subsistens. He now reasons that nothing other than God can be identical with its act of existing and concludes that, by contrast, in every other substance its act of existing and its essence (substantia) are different.49 As a third argument, Thomas reasons that it is impossible for there to be two instances of absolutely infinite esse; for that which is completely infinite esse includes the total perfection of esse. If such infinity were realized in two beings, nothing could be found whereby one was distinguished from the other, presumably because any distinguishing attribute would have to be missing from one of them. But, he continues, subsisting esse must be unlimited, because it is not limited by any receiving subject. (Here he introduces a fundamental axiom or adage of his metaphysics: that unreceived act, and hence, unreceived esse, is unlimited [infinite].) Given this, he concludes that it is impossible for there to be more than one subsisting esse, and he expects his reader again to draw the contrast and conclude that in everything else, including intellectual substances or angels, essence and esse are not identical.50 In these arguments, Thomas can and does assume the existence of God, since he has already offered what he views as demonstrative arguments to establish this conclusion in Book I, c. 13, of the Summa contra Gentiles. But both arguments move from the uniqueness of subsisting esse or God to the distinction and composition of essence and esse in all other substances, including angels. And in this way they closely resemble the argumentation in Stage Two of the De ente, even though they establish the uniqueness of subsisting esse in different ways. Moreover, neither of them logically requires that one assume the actual existence of subsisting esse. They could simply move from the impossibility of there being more than one instance of this to the distinction of essence and esse in all other substantial entities.51 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. Note especially: “Esse autem subsistens oportet esse infinitum: quia non terminatur aliquo recipiente. Impossibile est igitur esse aliquod esse subsistens praeter primum.” For discussion of the presence and the justification of this adage or axiom in Thomas’s texts, see “Thomas Aquinas and the Axiom that Unreceived Act Is Unlimited,” in my Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 123–51. 51. For more on this, one may see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 150– 55. There, I also consider similar arguments from Thomas’s De spiritualibus creaturis 1 and from his Commentary on Physics 8.21, n. 1153 (Turin: Marietti, 1954), 615–616, although, as I note

288  Composition of Angels 2.3. De substantiis separatis, c. 8 As a final text, one may turn to Thomas’s very late treatise On Separate Substances, which may stem from Thomas’s final days in Paris or from his subsequent time in Naples, that is, ca. 1272/1273.52 Beginning in c. 5 of this treatise, Thomas presents in detail Avicebron’s defense of and argumentation for universal hylemorphism, and he offers a series of arguments for the same. After detailed criticism of this position in c. 6, and an effort in c. 7 to show that there could not be one kind of matter for spiritual and corporeal substances, in c. 8 Thomas considers and refutes Avicebron’s particular arguments in support of universal ­­matter-form composition. In replying to the fourth argument, Thomas presents another version of ­­God-to-creatures argumentation for the distinction and composition of essence and esse in separate substances. According to this fourth argument, every created substance must be distinguished from the Creator. But the Creator is only one. Therefore, everything created must not be only one but must be composed of two factors, one of which must be form and the other matter. This is because one entity could not result from two matters or from two forms.53 Thomas counters that this argument has no force, for it does not follow that if spiritual substances lack matter, they are not distinct from God. If matter is denied of them along with its potentiality, another kind of potency remains in them insofar as they are not identical with esse but only participate in it. To support this, Thomas argues that there can be only one case of subsisting esse per se, just as any form, if it is considered as separate in itself, can only be one. Thus, things that differ numerically are one in species because a specific nature considered in itself is one. And just as such a specific nature is one in the order of thought when it is considered in itself, so it would be one in the order of existence if it could exist in itself apart from the individuals which share in it. One may apply the same reasoning to a genus with respect to its species, Thomas continues, until one comes to esse itself. In other words, if a genus could exist in itself apart from any of its species and apart from the individuals in those species, it there, in these later texts Thomas joins this argumentation with his mature views on participation. He does the same in his De substantiis separatis, as will now be seen. 52. For this see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1.350; 1.435. 53. Aquinas, De substantiis separatis 5, Leon. ed., 40.D 49.

Composition of Angels  289 could only be one. But as regards esse, this is most common, and from this Thomas concludes that subsisting esse can only be one. The implication is that in this case, esse can and does exist apart from anything and everything else and, therefore, is unique. (A caveat should be mentioned here. Thomas would not want anyone to identify esse commune with esse subsistens).54 Thomas again draws a contrast between this unique instance of subsisting esse and all other things: “Therefore, it is impossible that apart from it there should be anything else that subsists which is esse alone.”55 Again he reasons from the uniqueness of the being that is identical with its act of existing to the composition in everything else of essence and esse as of potency and act.56 And again, even though he here takes the existence of God as granted, his argument does not require this; for it rests on the impossibility of there being more than one being in which essence and esse are identical.57

3. T  he ­­Non-Simplicity of Angels Requires Neither ­­M atter-Form Composition Nor ­­E ssence-Esse Composition: Godfrey of Fontaines During Thomas’s second teaching period at the University of Paris (1268– 72), Giles of Rome, a young Augustinian Bachelor in Theology, was developing his own views on the relationship between essence and existence. His name would quickly become associated with a strong version of the real distinction of essence and existence in created beings. Adumbrations of his mature view are already to be found in his Commentary on Books I and II of the Sentences (Reportatio, ca. 1270–72; Ordinatio I, 1272–73)58 54. Aquinas, De substantiis separatis 8, Leon. ed., 40.D 55. 55. Aquinas, De substantiis separatis 8, Leon. ed., 40.D 55: “Impossibile est igitur quod praeter ipsum sit aliquid subsistens quod sit esse tantum.” 56. Aquinas, De substantiis separatis 8, Leon. ed., 40.D 55: “Omne autem quod est esse habet; est igitur in quocumque praeter primum et ipsum esse tamquam actus, et substantia rei habens esse tamquam potentia receptiva huius actus quod est esse.” 57. For some other examples of God-to-creatures ­­ argumentation to establish essence and esse composition in all other entities, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 584–90. Unlike the arguments just considered here, these arguments do seem to presuppose prior knowledge of the existence of God. 58. For a recent edition of the reportationes of Giles’s Commentary on the Sentences, see his Reportatio Lecturae super Libros I–IV Sententiarum: Reportatio Monacensis; Excerpta Godefridi

290  Composition of Angels and in his slightly later Theoremata de Corpore Christi (ca. 1274), and his position is fully developed and strongly defended in his Theoremata de esse et essentia (1278–85) and his Quaestiones disputatae De esse et essentia (1285–87).59 In presenting and defending his position, Giles at times refers to essence and existence as “things” (res) and distinguishes between them as between “thing” and “thing.” This language has led many Thomistic scholars to protest that this is a gross misinterpretation of Aquinas’s view according to which essence and esse are principles of being, not things or entities in their own right. If Giles had intended to present and defend Aquinas’s position, this criticism would be justified, but it is not clear that this was his intent. He may have wanted to distinguish his own position from that of Aquinas, with which he was certainly familiar. Be that as it may, his choice of language was unfortunate, because it made his theory an easy target for criticism. In brief, if one posits an existence “thing” added to an essence “thing” in order to account for the actual existence of a finite being, the same reasoning should lead one to posit “­­sub-things” of which the superadded “existence”-thing itself is composed, and so on with respect to each of these superadded “­­sub-things” ad infinitum.60 And in his Quodlibet I of 1276, the secular Master Henry of Ghent, in considering whether the essence of a creature is its own existence (esse), presents a series of opening arguments in support of a real distinction between essence and existence which indicate that Henry was already familiar with Giles’s position; and then Henry proceeds to criticize this position very sharply. In doing so, Henry seems to be influenced by certain arguments against this position already raised by a Master from the Arts Faculty, Siger of Brabant. He then goes on to present his own view, according to which there is an intermediate kind of distinction, an intende Fontibus, ed. Concetta Luna, Aegidii Romani Opera omnia III.2 (Florence: Sismel–Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003). On the chronology of the reportationes of Books I–II and the ordinatio of Book I, see 16–24, 75–76, esp. 21 and note 34. 59. For the dating of the Theoremata de Corpore Christi (between 1274 and 1276), see Concetta Luna in Opera omnia III.2.141, and Giles of Rome, Aegidii Romani, Apologia, ed. and com. Robert Wielockx, Opera omnia III.1 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki editore, 1985), 237–40, whom Luna cites and who, in his summarizing table, dates it ca. 1274 (p. 240). Also see Silvia Donati, “Studi per una cronologia delle opere di Egidio Romano I: Le opere prima del 1285—I commenti aristotelici,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 1 (1990): 1–111, esp. 20–25, on the dates of these works. 60. See note 72 below.

Composition of Angels  291 tional distinction, between essence and esse existentiae.61 Upon Giles’s return to Paris and readmission to the Theology Faculty in 1285, the dispute between Henry of Ghent and Giles continued, as is especially evident in Giles’s Quaestiones disputatae de esse et essentia (1285–87) and Henry’s Quodlibet X, q. 7.62 Godfrey of Fontaines served as Master in the Theology Faculty at Paris from 1285 until ca. 1303/1304 and had previously studied Arts at Paris before pursuing higher studies in the Theology Faculty there.63 The quodlibetal question was his preferred way of circulating his views, and already in his Quodlibet II, q. 2, of Easter 1286, while answering a question concerning whether the essence of a creature is something that is indifferent to existing and not existing, he connects this question with the dispute concerning the relationship between essence and existence. As he sees it, there are three choices: (1) essence is really identical with existence (esse existentiae) and differs from it only conceptually (ratione); or (2) essence and esse are intentionally distinct (intentione); or (3) esse expresses a distinct “thing” (res alia) from essence, and is the actuality of essence and really distinct from it.64 And in his Quodlibet IV, q. 2, of 1287, Godfrey 61. See Ruedi Imbach, “Averroistische Stellungnahmen zur Diskussion über das Verhältnis von Esse und Essentia: Von Siger von Brabant zu Thaddaeus von Parma,” in Studi sul XIV secolo in memoria di Anneliese Maier, ed. Alfonso Maierù and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1981), 299–339, at 317–19. 62. For detailed accounts of the controversy between Giles and Henry, see Jean Paulus, “Les disputes d’Henri de Gand et de Gilles de Rome sur la distinction de l’ essence et de l’ existence,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 13 (1940–42): 323–58; and the recent, well-documented ­­ study by Catherine König-Pralong, ­­ Avènement de l’ aristotélisme en terre chrétienne (Paris: Vrin, 2005), esp. 63–76. See p. 63 on the point that Henry’s adversary in this dispute was Giles of Rome rather than Thomas Aquinas. 63. On Godfrey’s life and writings, see my The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines: A Study in Late ­­Thirteenth-Century Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1981), xi–xxxiv; and for updated information, see my “Godfrey of Fontaines at the University of Paris in the Last Quarter of the Thirteenth Century,” in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277: Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität von Paris im letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jan A. Aertsen, Kent Emery, Jr., and Andreas Speer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 359–89. 64. See Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodl. II, q. 2, ed. Maurice De Wulf and Auguste Pelzer, Les Philosophes Belges 2 (Leuven: Institut supérieur de Philosophie, 1904), 53, 60. Note especially: “Ad cuius intellectum est considerandum quod essentia sic se habet ad esse existentiae eius quod est aut idipsum realiter cum ipso differens ratione vel intentione, aut esse dicit rem aliam ab ipsa essentia” (italics mine). Note how Godfrey again formulates the third position: “Si autem esse dicat rem aliam quae sit actualitas essentiae realiter alia ab ipsa essentia . . .” Texts such as these make it very likely that his immediate source for this theory is Giles of Rome.

292  Composition of Angels again presents these three major positions on the ­­essence-existence relationship in preparation for addressing the question of whether to hold that predicamental things are eternal in terms of their essential esse is to imply that the world is eternal. Some hold that existence (esse) is really distinct from essence and enters into real composition with it, even though neither is separable from the other. Others (clearly Henry of Ghent) maintain that essence and existence are really one and the same, but differ intentionally. Because of their intentional distinction, they are in some way composed with one another. But Godfrey himself defends real identity between essence and existence and denies that they enter into composition with one another. They differ from one another only conceptually (secundum rationem) in accord with their distinct modes of understanding and signifying.65 In Quodlibet III, q. 1, of 1286, Godfrey was asked to determine whether a creature can be called a true and real being by reason of its essence when it is not a being by reason of its existence (esse existentiae).66 In beginning his response, Godfrey comments that the answer to this question depends upon the relationship of esse to essence. If they differ in some way, one may be hesitant about whether a nonexistent creature could be called a true being by reason of its essence. But if they do not differ in any way, it must be held as certain that a nonexistent creature would not exist by reason of its essence. Godfrey then turns to the position that holds that existence (esse existentiae) is something (aliquid) that really differs from essence and also from esse essentiae and is the actuality of essence, just as form is the actuality of matter. Just as matter of itself is in potency to form and its privation, so too, according to this view, essence of itself is in potency to esse and its privation. Godfrey’s use of the term “something” aliquid to describe existence (esse)—along with his reference to this same theory in the short version of Quodlibet III, q. 1, as holding that esse and essence are diverse “things” (diversae res) in creatures—strengthens the 65. Godfrey, Quodl. IV, q. 2, Philosophes Belges 2.235. Note how Godfrey describes his own position: “Sed mihi videtur quod esse existentiae et essentia omnino sint idem secundum rem et differunt solum secundum rationem et modum intelligendi et significandi, nullam omnino compositionem facientia, sicut nec currere et cursum vel huiusmodi.” 66. Godfrey, Quodl. III. q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.156: “Primum erat utrum creatura possit dici ens verum et reale ratione suae essentiae, cum ipsa est non ens quantum ad esse existentiae.”

Composition of Angels  293 impression that he is directly referring here and elsewhere to the position defended by Giles of Rome.67 In this same context, Godfrey presents some arguments which have been offered in support of real distinction between essence and existence. Since I have considered these in detail elsewhere, here I will pass over them quickly and limit myself to a few remarks.68 The first argument, as presented in the long version of Godfrey’s Quodlibet III, q. 1, is intended to show that just as matter is in potency to a form and to its privation, so essence is of itself in potency to esse and to its privation. In support, the point is made that essence can exist or not exist, and that neither existence nor nonexistence is included in the concept of an essence; moreover, indeed, the point is made that an essence can be understood with the contrary of existence, that is, as not existing. Therefore, existence must be distinct from essence and not included within its meaning. Hence, it must be “possible,” that is, potential, with respect to existence. While this part of the argument reminds one of Stage One of Aquinas’s argumentation in his De ente et essentia, Thomas himself does not make the point that an essence can be understood as not existing. Giles of Rome, however, in his Quaestiones disputatae, q. 11, does make this very point, and again, therefore, in all likelihood Giles’s Quaestiones disputatae is the immediate source for Godfrey’s understanding of this theory.69 67. Note that both long and short versions of Quodlibets III and IV have survived and been edited. See Godfrey, Quodl. III, q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.158 (long version): “esse existentiae est aliquid differens realiter ab essentia sive etiam ab esse essentiae”; Quodl. III, q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.302 (short version): “Quantum ad primum, dicunt quidam quod esse et essentia sunt diversae res in creatura . . .” Since Godfrey’s Quodlibet III dates from Advent 1286, and since Giles of Rome had prepared qq. 1–11 of his Quaestiones disputatae de esse et essentia before that time, q. 9 and q. 11 of that treatise appear to be the most likely source for Godfrey’s understanding of this position. On this also see Jean Paulus, Henri de Gand: Essai sur les tendances de sa métaphysique (Paris: Vrin, 1938), 321, note 2; Edgar Hocedez, “Gilles de Rome et Henri de Gand sur la distinction réelle (1276–1287),” Gregorianum 8 (1927): 354–84, at 381, note 2 (Godfrey certainly had Giles in mind, and very probably had access to this text); and Aegidii Romani Theoremata de esse et essentia, ed. Edgar Hocedez (Leuven: Museum Lessianum, 1930), (12). Also see note 64 above. 68. See my The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines, 46–66. 69. Godfrey, Quodl. III. q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.158. Note especially: “Cum ergo omnis essentia creaturae possit intelligi non cointellecto esse eius vel sine esse, immo etiam cum contrario ipsius quia potest intelligi non esse, oportet quod esse sit aliud ab essentia et non sit de ratione eius . . .” Also see Godfrey’s short version: “Primo quia illud quod non solum non est de intellectu essentiae sed etiam tale quod sub eius opposito potest essentia intelligi, non est idem re cum essentia. Sed esse non est de intellectu essentiae creatae et essentia potest intelligi sub

294  Composition of Angels Godfrey’s presentation within this context of arguments in support of a real distinction between essence and existence concludes in the long version with an argument based on the need to distinguish purely spiritual created beings from the absolute simplicity and infinity of God if one rejects the ­­matter-form composition of such entities: If [there is] a being which is not composed of matter and form and brought into existence by being generated, but [is] a simple being in its essence and produced in existence by being created, it would not be of such a kind that something in it would necessarily be received from the one creating it, [but] it would be pure act and pure esse, and would be its own esse, and thus it would be infinite and unlimited and necessary esse of itself. But is false.70

Before responding to this argument, to which we will return, Godfrey presents some arguments against the real distinction of essence and existence in created beings. As presented in the short version of this Quodlibet, he offers five arguments to prove that essence and esse do not signify different things (diversas res). The first three arguments are closely related, and the first and third will be presented here. According to the first argument, being (ens) adds less than does oneness to that of which each is affirmed, since the notion (ratio) of being is included in every other notion (ratio). This is not true of the notion of oneness, which does add something to the notion of being. But oneness does not add anything real to an essence of which it is affirmed. Therefore, neither does ens and consequently neither does esse, from which the name ens is taken.71 Godfrey explicitly assigns his second argument to Aristotle’s Metaphysics IV, and his third to Averroes’s Commentary on that same passage in Aristotle. The third argument reasons that each and every thing is either a being of its essence or per se, or else by opposito eius, quia potest vere intelligi non esse” (Quodl. 3.1, Philosophes Belges 2.302). For Giles, see his Quaestiones disputatae de esse et essentia q. 11, in Aegidius Romanus, De esse et essentia, De mensura angelorum, et De cognitione angelorum (Venice, 1503; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1968), 24vb. 70. Godfrey, Quodl. III, q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.159: “Si enim ens quod non est compo­ situm ex materia et forma productum in esse per generationem, sed ens simplex in essentia in esse productum per creationem non esset tale quod in eo necessario aliquid esset receptum a creante illud, esset actus purus et esse purum, et esset suum esse, et sic esset infinitum et illimi­ tatum et per se necesse esse. Sed hoc est falsum.” 71. Godfrey, Quodl. III, q, 1, Philosophes Belges 2.303. Note: “Sed unum non addit aliquid reale super essentiam eius de quo dicitur. Ergo nec ens nec per consequens esse a quo ens di­ citur.”

Composition of Angels  295 reason of something added to it. If it enjoys being by something added to it, one may then ask about that which is superadded. If it enjoys being by reason of itself, one should have stopped with the first being and granted that it enjoys being by reason of itself. But if is it held that this superadded factor enjoys being only by reason of something else superadded, one will then raise the same question about this second superadded factor, and so on ad infinitum. By rejecting this absurdity, the argument concludes that each and every thing enjoys being by reason of itself and not by reason of some superadded thing (res). This argument brings out very nicely the danger involved in Giles of Rome’s various references to essence and existence (esse) as “things,” since such language invites counterarguments of this type.72 Godfrey’s fourth argument casts considerable light on his understanding of the ­­essence-esse relationship. A concrete noun, an abstract noun, and the corresponding verb do not signify really different things, although they do differ in their mode of signifying. Thus, if this is true of one who runs (currens), a race (cursus), and “to run” (currere), it is also true of being (ens), essence (essentia), and existence (esse), which are related as a concrete noun, an abstract noun, and a verb. Someone might counter that when ens is taken as a noun, it signifies the same thing as does essence, but not when it is taken as a participle. To this Godfrey replies that legens (reading), whether taken as a noun or as a participle, signifies the same thing as does legere (to read). Hence, the same thing applies to ens (taken as a noun or as participle), essence, and existence (esse). Ens, whether taken as a noun or as a participle, and esse signify the same thing, and, hence, so do ens, essentia, entitas, and esse.73 Most pertinent to the present study, however, is Godfrey’s response to the third argument he has presented in support of a real distinction between essence and existence. As he replies to this in the short version of Quodlibet III, q. 1, he directly addresses the issue of simplicity. In order 72. Godfrey, Quodl. III, q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.303: “Relinquitur ergo quod unumquodque sit ens per se et non per aliquam rem additam . . .” For Aristotle, see Met. 4.2.1003b 26–33. For Averroes’s Commentary on the Metaphysics, see Aristotelis opera cum Averrois commentariis (Venice: Apud Iunctas, 1562–74; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1962), 8.67va. 73. Godfrey, Quodl. III, q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.303–304. Also see Quodl. III, q. 1, Philo­ sophes Belges 2.164–65 for the long version of this argument, and Quodl. XIII, q. 3, Philosophes Belges 5.207, dating from 1297/98, where Godfrey reiterates his rejection of a real distinction between essence and esse and again draws upon this argument. For discussion see my The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey, 57–58.

296  Composition of Angels to maintain that a created essence is less simple than God, one need not posit a plurality of distinct principles within such a being, whether of essence and existence or of substance and accidents. Indeed, while there is a ­­substance-accident composition in every finite substance, this does not of itself imply that the essence of that substance is itself composed. Such an essence is more composed and less simple than the divine essence by reason of one and the same principle, which is act in one respect and potency in another. A less perfect essence is potential when it is compared with one that is more perfect, and yet it is actual to the extent that it actually exists.74 Godfrey develops this thinking in Quodlibet III, q. 3, and even more fully in Quodlibet VII, q. 7. In Quodlibet III, q. 3, he explicitly responds to a question asking whether an angelic nature is composed of true matter and of true form. He begins by presenting an opening argument that reasons that an angel must be composed of potency and act in order to differ from Pure Act and from the supreme simplicity of God. But wherever true potency and passivity are found, matter must be present. Since real potency and passivity are present in angels, they must include true matter as well as form. In the corpus of this question, he distinguishes between matter in the strict sense (pure potency which receives substantial form) and matter in a qualified sense (substance insofar as it is the subject of accidents). While he grants the presence of the latter in angelic beings, he completely rejects the presence of true matter (matter as pure potency) in angels, and hence any true matter-form ­­ composition therein. Let it suffice here for me to note briefly that he offers two different kinds of argumentation for this. First, he insists that when things share in matter, they can be changed into one another and are therefore subject to generation and corruption, something which is not true of angels. Indeed, as he insists at some length, if angels included matter, they would also be changeable into corporeal entities because of the presence of matter in both kinds of entity. Second, he argues from the presence of intelligence in angels as, of course, Aquinas had already done. Since, however, Godfrey has rejected both the real distinction between essence and existence and Henry of Ghent’s view that they are intentionally distinct, he cannot meet the opening argument in support 74. Godfrey, Quodl. III, q. 1, Philosophes Belges 2.306. Note that Godfrey does not respond explicitly to this argument in the long version of Quodlibet III, q. 1.

Composition of Angels  297 of matter-form ­­ composition by appealing to an ­­act-potency composition of them either as really distinct (see Thomas and Giles) or as intentionally distinct (see Henry). When it comes to defending some kind of ­­potency-act composition of angels, Godfrey argues that one cannot account for this either by positing a composition of essence and esse in them or one of form and matter. This is because it is not the composition of an angelic essence with something else which must be defended in the case of angels, for instance of essence and esse, but a composition that is intrinsic to the angelic essence itself. If the composition of an angelic essence with something else were the issue, one could merely appeal to its composition with the accidents that inhere in it rather than either to an essence-esse ­­ or ­­matter-form composition.75 In both the long and short versions of his response, Godfrey goes on to argue that the fact that angels fall short (recedunt) from the divine actuality and simplicity must not be based on a collection of many (factors) that really differ. If this solution were to be adopted, it would follow that the more imperfect a being is, the more it would recede from the divine simplicity by being composed of more factors. From this it would follow that in the highest and first created substance, only two really distinct components would be present; and in the second created substance, three would be present; and in the third four; and so on ad infinitum. As Godfrey spells this out in the short version, it would follow that a simple element would recede less from the divine simplicity than does a human being, and hence would be more perfect than a human being. And, therefore, in the short version, with a reference to the solution he had proposed elsewhere (see Quodlibet III, q. 1), he concludes that this receding (recessus) which must apply to angelic beings does not involve a composition of diverse things 75. See Godfrey, Quodl. 3.3, Philosophes Belges 2.309 (short version): “Quia nec ponendo compositionem esse et essentiae, nec ponendo compositionem formae et materiae subterfugitur illud argumentum, quia hic non quaeritur [with MS C] de compositione essentiae cum alio, sed de compositione vel de simplicitate essentiae in se.” This argument seems to strike directly only at an attempted appeal to essence-esse ­­ composition rather than to that of matter and form, since the latter, if granted, would establish the composition of an angelic essence. Godfrey’s response to this argument in the long version applies this reasoning only to those who would appeal to the ­­essence-esse composition and may therefore offer a better reading (Quodl. III.3, Philosophes Belges 2.186). It should be noted that the long version of Quodlibets III and IV are reportationes, and the short versions also may be, in addition to being abbreviationes, although some have attributed the latter to Godfrey himself. See my The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey, xxviii–xxix.

298  Composition of Angels (res) but, rather, includes potentiality together with a deficient degree of actuality in one and the same simple thing.76 While Godfrey’s rejection of either ­­matter-form composition or ­­essence-esse composition of angels is clear enough, it is more difficult to determine how the solution he has adopted will in fact assure the composite character of angels and thereby preserve the uniqueness of divine simplicity. He returns to this in his Quodlibet VII, q. 7 (dating from 1290/91 or 1291/92), where he was asked to determine whether an angelic essence is composed of a genus and difference.77 He begins his discussion by commenting that it is the same to ask whether there is a composition of genus and difference in angels, and to ask whether they fall into the genus substance univocally with corporeal substances. After considering some arguments against admitting this, Godfrey responds that it must be admitted that angels do fall into a genus in some way. Not to be included in a genus is something that must be reserved for God alone, because of his supreme degree of actuality, even though Godfrey comments that, unlike us, the “philosophers” assigned so much actuality and simplicity to their separate substances that they seem to have regarded them almost as if they were gods.78 In order to place angels in a genus in some way, Godfrey appeals to a distinction between a natural or real genus and a logical genus and proposes to include angels within the same logical genus as other substances, but not in the same natural genus. The notion (ratio) of a genus implies something potential and undetermined but determinable, and something which the notion of a species signifies as actual and determined by a form which a difference signifies. If different individuals are composed of really distinct principles of potentiality and actuality, that is, of matter and form, they will be included within the same natural genus.79 In the case of entities which lack ­­matter-form composition, that is, an76. Godfrey, Quodl. III, q. 3, Philosophes Belges 2.309. Note the concluding sentence: “Et ideo dicendum quod ille recessus, sicut alias dictum est, non est includere diversas res sed includere potentialitatem cum actualitate defectiva in eadem re simplici quantum ad realem compositionem.” See my The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey, 91–99. 77. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.349. 78. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.349. Note especially: “quia etiam non ponimus angelos esse substantias tantae actualitatis et simplicitatis sicut ponebant philosophi substantias separatas quas omnes quasi quosdam Deos ponere videbantur, ideo sunt a nobis angeli aliquo modo in genere collocandi” (353). 79. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.354.

Composition of Angels  299 gels or separate substances, Godfrey argues that one and the same thing may be viewed both under the aspect of potentiality and under the aspect of actuality. Each separate substance includes potentiality insofar as it is not identical with the First Being, which is pure act; each is a being by participation and does not possess of itself actual entity or existence. This kind of potentiality will suffice for such beings to fall into a logical genus.80 Godfrey considers and rejects any theory that would account for potentiality within angels by appealing to a composition of its essence or nature with its properties and accidents, both because the nature of a genus and species should be derived from that which is intrinsic to the nature or essence of an angel, and because, if certain separate substances were ever created without any accidents whatsoever, they would not then fall even into a logical genus. But this, he maintains, is something that should be reserved for God alone.81 In support of this solution, Godfrey appeals to the order or hierarchy among beings according to which the different species of being possess the nature and perfection of being in graded fashion. This means that one species of being adds a degree of perfection when compared to another species, with the consequence that the one lacking that degree is said to have a certain imperfection and potentiality. In this way, no matter how simple and perfect a created being may be, the nature (ratio) of the potential and the nature (ratio) of the actual can be found within it and, hence, a foundation for placing it within a logical genus, although not in a natural genus.82 Somewhat farther on in this discussion, Godfrey appeals to proposition 2 from Proclus’s Elementatio theologica. There Proclus writes that “everything that participates in the One is both one and ­­not-one.” This is because everything that is not the One itself—the First One and the First and Pure Act—is something other than the One. And this, in turn, is because something cannot recede from the First One except by approaching (per accessum) the ­­not-One. And this is because whatever participates in the One is not the One itself or the firstly One, but is the One only in sec80. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.355. 81. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.356–57. Note that when he first mentions this theory, Godfrey refers to it as holding that a nature is composed with its esse as well as with its properties and accidents, but then omits further consideration of its esse in his subsequent discussion. 82. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.357.

300  Composition of Angels ondary fashion and through a certain deficiency and receding (recessus) from the One. Hence, it is one and not one, that is, it is one in one way and many in another.83 Godfrey also draws an analogy between beings and numbers. Just as one cannot recede from the number one except by approaching multiplicity and by receding from unity to a greater or lesser degree, so too, beings do not recede from the firstly One except by approaching those things which have multiplicity to a greater or lesser degree. And those that are more fully one (magis unialia) are more divine and higher in the order of beings.84 In like manner, Godfrey argues, angels recede from the First One without any multiplication of components that would really unite to compose their essence and through which they would have potentiality and actuality. This is because they have an intermediary nature by being assimilated by their one nature to different things, that is, to that which is higher and more actual, and to that which is lower and more potential. As a consequence, insofar as they recede from the actuality of the First Being and approach potentiality, they do have composition in a certain way, not a real composition but a composition of reason. Yet, Godfrey adds, this composition is not purely imaginary (fictae rationis) but, rather, is a kind that belongs to a thing (1) insofar as it is related to something higher and is therefore more potential, and (2) insofar as it is related to something lower and is therefore more actual. Not even this kind of composition can be assigned to God, however, and therefore, while the mode of existing in itself (the mode of substance) does belong to him, the nature of a genus does not apply to him.85 83. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.359: “Et eundem modum intelligendi quantum ad substantias separatas videtur Proclus habuisse, prout patet secunda propositione, ubi dicitur quod omne quod participat uno est unum et non unum; quia, ut ibi probatur, omne quod non est ipsum unum, id est primo unum quod est Deus quod est actus primus et purus, est aliquid aliud existens quam unum, eo quod a primo uno non est recedere nisi per accessum in non unum seu in aliquid aliud quam unum; quia omne participans uno non est ipsum unum sive primo unum, sed secundario et per quendam defectum et recessum ab eo. Ergo est unum et non unum, id est non sic unum quin aliquo modo multa, quia est unum uno modo et non unum alio modo.” For the medieval Latin translation of Proclus’s text, see Clemens Vansteenkiste, “Procli Elementatio theologica translata a Guilelmo de Moerbeke,” Tijdschrift voor Philosophie 13 (1951): 263–302, 491–531, at 265. For the Greek text, see Proclus: The Elements of Theology, ed. Eric Robertson Dodds, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), prop. 2, 2–3. 84. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.359–60. Note: “et illa quae sunt magis unialia (with MS V for: universalia) sunt diviniora.” 85. Godfrey, Quodl. VII, q. 7, Philosophes Belges 3.360. Note: “ita etiam in natura angeli,

Composition of Angels  301 While limitations of space will not permit me to develop this point here, there are strong indications that two Masters of Arts at Paris may have influenced Godfrey in his development of this kind of act-potency ­­ “composition” in angels. One likely source is Siger of Brabant, and another almost certain source is an anonymous set of questions preserved in a manuscript in Godfrey’s personal library. As I have had occasion to indicate elsewhere, the similarities between Godfrey’s text and certain passages in this anonymous text are undeniable. Godfrey, however, does not follow this unnamed Master in his denial, surprising for a Christian, that separated substances other than God are efficiently caused by God, or in his assertion that they depend upon him only in the order of final causality.86

recedendo ab actualitate primi et accedendo ad potentialitatem simpliciter habet quodammodo compositionem, non rei, sed rationis ex potentia et actu; non quidem fictae rationis, sed rei convenientem secundum comparationem ad superius, sicut minus actualis et in hoc potentia­ lioris et secundum comparationem ad inferius sicut magis actualis.” 86. In his Quaestiones on the Metaphysics, Introduction, Siger rejects real distinction between essence and existence and then, in the longer versions of these questions (Munich and Cambridge MSS) as well as in the shorter version copied by Godfrey himself into his Student Notebook (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF] MS 16297), he faces an argument in support of real distinction based on the need for separate substances to be composed. See his Quaestiones in Metaphysicam (­­Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l’ Institut Supérieur de Philo­ sophie, 1983), ed. Armand Maurer (Cambridge version), Introduction, q. 7, 31, arg. 7; 35, ad 7; and abbreviated version (Paris MS), 399; Quaestiones in Metaphysicam, ed. William Dunphy (­­Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l’ Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1981) (Munich Version), Intr., q. 7, p. 42, lines 48–52 and p. 47, line 105 through p. 48, line 30 (where he introduces a similar response with the remark that he does not assert this first way of refuting the argument, but then adds a second argument, as he also does in the Cambridge version, based on a distinction between the intelligible species of a separate substance and that substance itself). In each of these cases, he argues that as separate substances recede from the First Being, they are more potential and less actual. For more on this and for details concerning the anonymous text in Godfrey’s library (Paris, BnF MS lat. 16096), see my “Possible Sources for Godfrey of Fontaines’ Views on the ­­Act-Potency Composition of Simple Creatures,” Mediaeval Studies 46 (1984): 222– 44, at 226–29 (Siger), 231–44 (Anonymous). This article includes a number of texts in parallel columns to bring out the similarity between this anonymous source and Godfrey’s text. See p. 241 on the composition presented in both texts as not fictae rationis, and p. 242, note 61, for the denial in the anonymous text that separate entities have a distinct efficient cause even though the First Principle is their final cause. On this manuscript, also see Robert Wielockx, “Le ms. Paris Nat. lat. 16096 et la condemnation du 7 mars 1277,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 48 (1981): 227–37, whose discussion first drew my attention to this particular set of questions.

302  Composition of Angels

Conclusion In this chapter, three very different views concerning the metaphysical structure of angels and their distinction from divine simplicity have been considered. These positions could hardly be more diverse. For Bonaventure, in order to protect the uniqueness of divine simplicity it is imperative to hold that angels, like all other created beings, are composed of matter and form as diverse natures. For Thomas Aquinas, purely spiritual beings cannot be composed of matter and form but must be composed of two really distinct principles—essence and esse—which are related to one another as potency and act. For Godfrey, in agreement with Aquinas and against Bonaventure on this point, there can be no genuine matter in pure spirits; but unlike Aquinas and unlike Bonaventure, Godfrey holds that there is no need to posit two really distinct principles of being or two distinct natures in angels in order to avoid making them as simple as God himself. His appeal to a consideration of one and the same being as potential, insofar as it is less perfect than higher beings and yet as actual insofar as it exists and is more perfect than lower beings, will suffice.

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Index Index

Index

abstraction, 53–54, 53n25, 59–62, 68–69, 101, 213, 223, 233–34, 236, 238, 278 actus essendi, 46–47, 72, 98, 100–105, 110–16, 177, 275 Albert the Great, 187, 205, 242n89, 269 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 212 angels, 35–36, 38–41; in Bonaventure, 269–76; esse and, 105–6, 133, 170, 277–89; evil and, 266–67; form and, 176; in Aquinas, 27789; in Godfrey of Fontaines, 289–301; knowledge and, 222–23, 227, 233–34, 237–38; matter and, 114; matter-form composition of, 269–76; metaphysics and, 69n64; participation and, 133 Arian heresy, 23, 201 Aristotle, 4, 10–11, 15–17, 19, 31; act over potency in, 131; being in, 43–44, 56–57, 64–65, 101, 115, 130, 151n19, 158; cause in, 95n48, 140n45, 153, 163; creation and, 150– 51, 154, 157, 162; esse and, 161, 161n46, 162, 164; eternity in, 146–47; first philosophy in, 66; First Principle in, 153; form in, 133, 184, 187, 197, 276; good in, 247; heavenly bodies in, 163n52, 165; intellect in, 48, 59; knowledge in, 93; matter in, 160, 174, 276; participation and, 125, 129–30, 156; perfection in, 122–23, 126, 137; in Peter Lombard, 152; science in, 56–57, 64–65, 71; sense power in, 49n17; soul in, 220–21; virtue in, 257, 257n37; wisdom in, 82 Augustine, 3, 30, 34, 75, 234, 241, 244–45, 249–50, 255–56, 258, 262, 270, 275n19 Averroes, 19, 153, 186, 212, 294 Avicebron, 37–38, 178–79, 184, 269 Avicenna, 16, 19, 112, 125, 155–57, 170, 178–80, 187, 220, 279 Bartholomew of Capua, 195 being: abstraction and, 53–54, 61–62, 68–69;

defined, 45–46; disputed issues with, 63–71; evil and, 254–55; form and, 44; formation of metaphysical notion of, 55– 63; immaterial, 63–64; intellect and, 50– 52, 54–55, 59–63; judgment and, 47–49, 54; primitive or prephilosophical notion of, 45–55; a priori knowledge of, 42; science and, 55–59, 62–63; senses and, 49–50; soul and, 52, 229–30. See also esse Bernath, Klaus, 213 body, 18–19; of Christ, 20–25, 192, 196, 201– 10; soul and, 179–86, 193, 197, 200, 212, 217–18, 226 Boethius of Dacia, 19, 38, 268, 270. Bonaventure, 35–37, 41, 190, 269–76 Boureau, Alain, 195, 206 Cajetan, Thomas de Vio, 25, 210 causa essendi, 96, 112, 162, 165–69 causality, 119–20, 123–24, 140, 165–68, 258–59 Chossat, Marcel, 109 Christ. See Jesus Christ Christian Distinction, 13, 142 Collationes in Hexaëmeron (Bonaventure), 276 Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima (Aquinas), 18–19, 27–28, 52 Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Aquinas), 65–66, 67n61, 71, 107, 163, 163n52 Commentary on De Hebdomadibus (Aquinas), 99 Commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, 11–12, 126-28 Commentary on the Sentences (Aquinas), 3, 9, 13–14, 17–18, 24, 26, 29, 46–47, 49, 76, 78, 106, 108, 119, 121, 143–44, 150, 152–53, 157, 166, 172–73, 177–79, 214, 216–20, 240, 277

317

318  Index Commentary on the Sentences (Bonaventure), 35, 270 Commentary on the Sentences (Giles of Rome), 189, 206, 289 Compendium theologiae (Aquinas), 91–92, 92n41, 93 compositio, 43 Confessions (Augustine), 270 Contra gradus (Giles of Rome), 189 Correctorium (Robert of Orford), 25, 210 Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare” (Richard Knapwell), 194 Correctorium Fratris Thomae (William de la Mare), 20, 190–91 creation, 13–16; in Aristotle, 150–51, 151n19, 152–53; in Avicenna, 156–57; causa essendi and, 165–69; esse and, 145, 154–56; eternal, possibility of, 146–49; as ex nihilo, 145, 157; factors in, 144–45; in Gilson, 151n19; God and, 154–55, 166, 168–69; meaning of, 143–45; non-Christian philosophers and, 150–65; philosophical argumentation and, 94; in Plato, 151n19, 152; as preamble of faith, 150; in Sokolowski, 142–43 Cunningham, Francis, 109 Damascene, John, 201n53 De aeternitate mundi (Aquinas), 14 De anima (Aristotle), 48, 174, 184–85, 211–12, 214, 220 De caelo (Aristotle), 257, 271 De civitate Dei (Augustine), 250, 262 De divinis nominibus (Dionysius), 248, 256 De ente et essentia (Aquinas), 7–8, 37, 105, 109, 111–13, 136, 176–77, 277–86, 293 De erroribus philosophorum (attrib. Giles of Rome), 188–89 De Hebdomadibus (Boethius), 99 De potentia (Aquinas), 9, 14, 43–44, 123–24, 125n17, 126, 147–48, 154–55, 161, 167 De principiis naturae (Aquinas), 174–75 Descoqs, Pedro, 104, 109 De spiritualibus creaturis (Aquinas), 132, 177, 185 De substantia orbis (Averroes), 153 De substantiis separatis (Aquinas), 8, 16, 114, 163, 169, 288–89 De Trinitate (Augustine), 3 De Trinitate (Boethius), 276 De veritate (Aquinas), 18, 43, 51n20, 52,

54n26, 78–79, 92n40, 106, 179, 214, 220– 24, 227, 237, 239 Dewan, Lawrence, 151n22 Dionysius, 248–50, 256 Donati, Silvia, 20, 188 Dougherty, Michael V., 30 dualism, 18, 25, 180, 181n15, 211 Elementatio theologica (Proclus), 7, 108, 299–300 eminence, 119–21, 122n11 Enchiridion (Augustine), 244, 255–56, 258 ens commune, 57–58, 64, 66, 68–69, 71, 142n3, 171 Errores philosophorum (attrib. Giles of Rome), 19–20, 187 Esegesi tomistica (Fabro), 46n11 esse, 11–12, 15–17, 37–38; angels and, 105–6, 133, 170, 277–89; in Aristotle, 161–63; Aristotle and, 101; causality and, 119–20, 167; creation and, 145, 154–56; in William de la Mare, 192–93; evil and, 251; in Fabro, 100–102, 104–8, 110–11, 113–15, 119–20, 131, 134–36; form and, 47, 49, 103, 111–12, 131– 33, 153, 182; in Godfrey of Fontaines, 292– 93, 295; intelligence and, 283; knowledge and, 219; participation and, 171–72; soul and, 206, 221. See also being evil, 30–34; absolute sense of, 252; being and, 254–55; causality and, 258–59; cause of, 258–64; esse and, 251; God and, 90, 244– 46, 253–54, 265; good and, 249–50, 255–56, 259–60; kinds of, 252–58; moral, 260–61; as privation, 249–51, 257–58; problem of, 244; punishment and, 266; qualified sense of, 252–53 existence. See esse Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum (Aquinas), 128 Fabro, Cornelio, 5–12, 46, 46n11; actus essendi in, 102–4, 111, 114, 116; causality in, 123–24, 168; esse in, 100–102, 104–8, 110–11, 113–15, 119–20, 131, 134–36; participation in, 98, 100–101, 100n5, 108–9, 129–30, 133–34; Quarta via in, 119–24, 126–29 faith: creation and, 144–45, 149, 157; creatures and, 94; in William de la Mare, 191– 92; demonstrable proofs and, 79–80; Eucharist and, 192; grace and, 73; miracles

Index  319 and, 86–87; objects of, 78–79; reason and, 73–74. See also preamble(s) of faith First Cause, 94–95, 135, 160, 162, 219, 246n6, 259, 264, 277 Five Ways, 121, 138, 140, 244, 246 Fons vitae (Avicebron), 269, 278 form(s): abstraction of, 60–63; accidental, 60–61, 99, 144, 154, 159, 167; angels and, 269–76; in Avicenna, 179–80; being and, 44; in Bonaventure, 269–76; cause and, 168; composition of, in living beings, 177–85; in corporeal entities, 174–77; esse and, 47, 49, 103, 111–12, 131–33, 153, 182; in Godfrey of Fontaines, 294, 298–99; in Henry of Ghent, 190; imagination and, 50n19; matter and, 158–59, 163–64, 181; matter as privation of, 274; participation and, 99; particular, 155; parts of, 61; in Plato, 152; soul and, 181–83, 200–201; universal, 155. See also unity of substantial form Fourth Way. See Quarta via Franciscan Order, 20 Gaianites, 23, 201 Gauthier, R. -A., 82, 228 Giles of Lessines, 19–20, 22, 187–88, 199, 205 Giles of Rome, 19, 24, 39–40, 102, 172, 174, 187–89, 206–8, 289, 291, 293 Gilson, Étienne, 15, 47, 150–51, 151n19, 151n22, 161, 161n46 God: in Bonaventure, 276; creation and, 154– 55, 166, 168–69; dignity of, 127; evil and, 90, 244–46, 253–54, 265; goodness of, 31, 34, 247–48; as infinite, 91; knowledge and, 29; as perfect, 246–47; as supreme good, 248; unity of, 90–91 Godfrey of Fontaines, 35, 38–41, 102, 109, 172, 289–301 God of Faith and Reason, The (Sokolowski), 142 Gonsalvus of Spain, 189 Gregory the Great, 30, 241 Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 78 heavenly bodies, 96, 129, 162, 163n52, 165, 167–70 Henry of Ghent, 39–40, 102, 109, 190, 206, 290–91, 296–97 hylemorphism, 189–90

Ibn Gabirol. See Avicebron imagination, 50–51, 84, 216–17, 220, 239 immaterial substances, 16, 68, 130, 165, 169–70 In De Trinitate (Aquinas), 63–64 intellect, 50–52, 54–55, 59–63, 68–71, 79, 82– 86, 92, 101, 107, 152, 154–59, 164, 181, 186, 212, 216–21, 223–24, 229, 237–40, 281. See also knowledge; science Introduction to the Philosophy of Being (Klubertanz), 53n25 Jesus Christ: Arian heresy and, 201–2; body of, 20–25, 192, 196, 201–10; in William de la Mare, 192; in John Pecham, 196; soul of, 192, 198–201, 209; substances in, 198–99 John, Gospel of, 21, 128, 131, 134, 140, 193 John of St. Thomas, Logica,102 John Pecham, 20-22, 189, 193-96 Johnson, Mark, 15, 151–53, 155, 160, 163, 165 Klubertanz, George P., 53, 53n25 Kluxen, Wolfgang, 213 Knasas, John, 69, 69n64, 71 knowledge: esse and, 37–38, 219; experience and, 42, 49; God and, 29; in Pegis, 213, 225–26; science and, 216–17; soul and, 26–28, 213–15, 217–43. See also intellect Krapiec, A. M., 52 Latin Averroism, 19, 186 Lazarus, 219–20 Lectura in Evangelium Ioannis (Aquinas), 10 Liber de causis, 10–11, 108, 130, 278 Logica (John of St. Thomas), 102 Luna, Concetta, 188, 207 Marc, André, 6, 107 Maritain, Jacques, 43n4, 47, 52, 54, 252, 263– 64, 263n54 Marshall, Bruce D., 80n15 mathematics, 48, 56, 59–60, 63, 65–66, 68, 123, 126 matter, 36–37, 57, 62, 90, 268; angels and, 269–76; in Bonaventure, 269–76; composition of, in living beings, 177–85; in corporeal entities, 174–77; form and, 158–60, 163–64, 181; in Godfrey of Fontaines, 294, 296, 298–99; prime, 17–18, 20, 176–79, 184, 190, 192, 207–8, 210, 256; as privation of form, 274; soul as, 211–12

320  Index Metaphysica (Avicenna), 279 Metaphysics (Aristotle), 4, 56, 58, 64–67, 82, 101, 122, 126, 147, 152, 158, 164, 294 miracles, 85–87, 208 Mohammed, 85 Moses Maimonides, 78, 84, 146 Mundhenk, Johannes, 212–13 Neoplatonism, 7, 11, 108, 131, 180, 249 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 247, 257 Nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo San Tommaso, La (Fabro), 5, 98, 100–101, 100n5, 102n9, 104, 104n16, 108n38, 110n44, 136 On Separate Substances (Aquinas), 38 On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists (Aquinas), 19, 186 Owens, Joseph, 47, 54 Parisian Condemnation, 201-210 participation: in Aquinas, 99–100; distinction and, 136–37; esse and, 171–72; in Fabro, 98, 100–101, 100n5, 108–9, 129– 30, 133–34; principle of, 133–34; Quarta via and, 137–38; real predicamental, 100; static, 108–9 Pegis, Anton, 15, 25–26, 213–14, 225–27 Peter Lombard. See Commemtary on the Sentences (Aquinas) Physics (Aristotle), 147, 152, 164, 276 Plato, 10, 15–18, 43–44, 123, 130, 151n19, 152, 155, 158, 160, 165, 170, 180 Platonic dualism, 211 Platonism, 125, 128, 133 preamble(s) of faith: in Aquinas, 75–89; creation as, 150, 171; defined, 143; numbering of, 89–97 Principle of Separate Perfection, 11, 134 Proclus, 7, 10–11, 108, 130, 299–300 Proverbs, Book of, 82 Psalms, Book of, 127 Pseudo-Dionysius, 119, 128, 131–32 punishment, 266, 267n63 Quaestio disputata De unitate formae (Knapwell), 194–95 Quaestiones De generatione, Physica (Giles of Rome), 189

Quaestiones disputatae De anima (Aquinas), 103, 223, 228–43 Quaestiones disputatae De esse et essentia (Giles of Rome), 39, 290, 293 Quaestiones disputatae De malo (Aquinas), 31–32, 245–46, 249–50, 252, 255–56, 264, 266 Quaestiones disputatae De veritate (Aquinas), 247 Quaestiones in librum tertium De anima (Siger of Brabant), 186 Quarta via, 9, 11–12, 119–24, 126–31, 137–39 Quodlibet I (Aquinas), 197 Quodlibet II (Aquinas), 11, 21–22, 133, 193, 198 Quodlibet II (Godfrey of Fontaines), 39–40, 291, 295–96 Quodlibet III (Aquinas), 22–24, 26, 200, 214, 242 Quodlibet IIII (Godfrey of Fontaines), 292–93 Quodlibet IV (Aquinas), 22–23, 197, 201, 203–4 Quodlibet IV (Godfrey of Fontaines), 291–92 Quodlibet IV (Pecham), 195 Quodlibet VII (Aquinas), 106 Quodlibet VII (Godfrey of Fontaines), 40–41, 300 Quodlibet IX (Aquinas), 103, 106 Quodlibet XII (Aquinas), 18–19, 185 Radical Aristotelianism, 186 Raymond of Peñafort, 81 reason: faith and, 73–74; in Godfrey of Fontaines, 300; metaphysics and, 44; soul and, 52; truth and, 83–86. See also intellect Republic (Plato), 130 resolutio, 43, 139 Richard Knapwell, 25, 194 Richard of Middleton, 189 Robert Kilwardby, 22, 194 Robert of Orford, 25, 210 Roger Bacon, 189 science: afterlife and, 216; being and, 55–59; intellect and, 62–63; knowledge and, 216– 17; matter and, 64; preparatory, 76; soul and, 218, 239–40; subjects of, 57–59, 70–71. See also intellect; knowledge

Index  321 Siger of Brabant, 19, 186, 188, 290, 301n86 Sokolowski, Robert, 12, 142, 171 Solère, Jean-Luc, 188, 200, 202, 205, 207 soul, 18–19, 23, 25–28, 30; abstraction and, 61; Arian heresy and, 201; in Aristotle, 174; being and, 229–30; body and, 179–86, 193, 197, 200, 212, 217–18, 226; of Christ, 192, 201, 207–9; esse and, 206, 221; existence and, 52–53; grace and, 77; immortality of, 91n39, 96–97, 97n51; intellective, 21, 192, 196–98, 207, 213, 220–21; knowledge and, 26–28, 213–15, 217–43; as matter, 211–12; as mortal, 186; in Mundhenk, 212–13; in Pegis, 213, 225–26; rational, 183, 196, 200, 221–22; science and, 218, 239–40; sensitive, 197–98; and unity of substantial form, 174, 178–86, 189, 192–93, 196–201, 206–9; in universal hylemorphism, 189 Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, The (Gilson), 151 Stephen Tempier, 19-20, 174, 186-87, 189, 280 Summa contra Gentiles (Aquinas), 4, 8, 12, 14–15, 18, 25–26, 30–31, 34, 38, 44, 76, 78– 79, 81–82, 85–89, 89n35, 91–93, 95, 95n48, 109, 112, 122, 125–26, 130, 147, 166–67, 171, 180–83, 203–4, 213, 224–27, 243, 265, 286–87 Summa theologiae (Aquinas), 10–11, 15, 23–25, 27–32, 44, 117, 122–23, 126, 138–39, 156–58, 158n38–158n39, 161, 184–85, 191, 203, 205, 213, 226, 228–47, 249, 252–53, 255–56, 265 Super Boetium De Trinitate (Aquinas), 2–4, 42n2, 43n4, 48, 55, 69, 73, 76, 78–79, 86, 96, 106, 207, 281 te Velde Rudi, 80n15, 161 Theoremata de Corpore Christi (Giles of Rome), 290

Theoremata de esse et essentia (Giles of Rome), 39, 189 Topics (Aristotle), 146 Torrell, Jean-Pierre, 91n39, 96n50, 200, 203–7, 277 Treatise on Separate Substances (Aquinas), 129–30 Trinity, 83, 146 unity of substantial form, 20–25; Avicenna and, 18; and composition of matter and form in living beings, 177–85; and matter and form in corporeal entities, 174–77; objections to theory, 185–206; soul and, 186 universal hylemorphism, 189–90 Van Steenberghen, Fernand, 110, 180, 200, 202, 205, 211n2 Velde, Rudi te, 80n15, 161 Wielockx, Robert, 20, 172, 188 William de la Mare, 20-21, 24, 189-93, 193n41, 207 Wippel, John, 42n1, 43n4, 44n7, 55n28, 56n29, 67n21,70n64, 72n71, 73n1, 89n35, 92n40, 98, 109n4, 136n37, 139n43, 143, 144n6, 146n12, 149n18, 168n62, 169n65, 171n70, 172n71, 177n6, 178n1, 190n33, 192n38, 246n6, 248n11, 257n36, 264n57, 280n34, 284n43, 285n46, 287n50&51, 289n57, 301n86 Zavalloni, Roberto, 200, 202–3, 205, 210, 269 Zimmermann, Albert, 70

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The Doing and Undoing of Metaphysics in Modernity William Desmond

The Modern Turn

Edited by Michael Rohlf

Heidegger’s Question of Being Dasein, Truth, and History Holger Zaborowski, editor

The Beautiful, the True, and the Good Studies in the History of Thought Robert E. Wood

Early Greek Philosophy

The Presocratic and the Emergence of Reason Joe McCoy, editor

The Intimate Strangeness of Being Metaphysics after Dialectic William Desmond

The Science of Being as Being Metaphysical Investigations Gregory T. Doolan, editor

The Ultimate Why Question

Why Is There Anything at All Rather than Nothing Whatsoever? John F. Wippel, editor

Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society Holger Zaborowski, editor

The Nature of Natural Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages Edward Grant

Truth

Studies of a Robust Presence Kurt Pritzl, OP, editor

S Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III was designed and typeset in Minion by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 60-pound Maple Eggshell Cream bound by Maple Press of York, Pennsylvania.