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Paul Gerard Horrigan
1. The Nature of Philosophy
2. Philosophy of Nature (Philosophy of Inanimate Nature)
6. Philosophy of God
7. Ethics
1.1. The Definition of
Philosophy
According
to its etymology, the term “philosophy” means “love of wisdom.” At first, the
early Greek thinkers had described themselves as “wise men” but tradition has
it that, out of humility, Pythagoras had called himself a “philosopher” (philosophos) or “friend or lover of
wisdom.” From then on, the term “philosopher” had replaced that of “wise man.”
The tradition which credits Pythagoras for having been the originator and
interpreter of the term “philosopher” is usually traced back to Heracleides
Ponticus. In his Tusculanae Disputationes,[1]
the Roman eclectic philosopher and master of oratory Cicero has left us what
appears to be the essentials of Heracleides’ account. He tells us that
Pythagoras had once visited Leon who was the tyrant of Phlius, and when asked
by his host what particular art or skill he possessed, he is said to have
replied that he was a “philosopher” and thus, did not possess any particular
practical skill. Then, Pythagoras gave what is called a “panegyric analogy” to
explain what he meant by the term “philosopher”: “The life of man resembles a
great festival celebrated....before the concourse from the whole of Greece. At
this festival some people sought to win the glorious distinction of a crown;
and others, again, were attracted by the prospect of material gain through
buying and selling. But there were also a certain type of people, and that
quite the best type of men, who were interested neither in competing,
applauding nor in seeking gain, but who came solely for the sake of the
spectacle itself, and, hence, closely watched what was done and how it was
done. And so also we, as though we had come from some city to a crowded
festival, leaving in like fashion another life and another nature of being,
entered upon this life. And some were slaves of ambition, and some were slaves
of money. But there were a special few who, counting all else for nothing,
closely scanned the nature of things. These gave themselves the name of
‘philosophers’ (sapientiae studiosi)
– and this is the meaning of the term ‘philosophers.’ And just as at these
festivals the men of the most exalted education looked on without any
self-seeking intent, so too, in life the dispassionate contemplation of things
and their rational apprehension (cognitio)
or understanding by far surpasses all other pursuits.”[2]
Philosophy
begins in wonder. All men by nature desire to know,[3]
and philosophizing begins with an attitude of wonder. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, writes that “it is owing to
wonder that men both now begin, and at first began, to philosophize. They
wondered... about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars,
and about the origin of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders
thinks himself ignorant. Hence, even the lover of myth in a sense is a lover of
wisdom or a philosopher, for the myth, too, is composed of wonders. Therefore,
since men philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, they were pursuing
knowledge or science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian
purpose...Evidently, then, we do not seek this kind of knowledge for the sake
of any other advantage...we pursue it as the only free science, because it
exists for its own sake.”[4]
The
philosopher is a lover of wisdom, one who seeks wisdom for its own sake and not
for any other motive, for a person who seeks a certain thing for some other
motive loves the motive more than the thing sought. Philosophy is, strictly
speaking, knowledge sought for its own sake, for the sheer love of truth.[5]
In the Protrepticus, Aristotle holds
that “it is by no means strange that philosophic wisdom on first sight should
appear to be devoid of immediate practical usefulness and, as a matter of fact,
might not at all prove to be advantageous. For we call philosophic wisdom not
advantageous in a practical sense of the term, but good. It ought to be
pursued, not for the sake of anything else, but rather exclusively for its own
sake. For as we journey to the games at Olympia for the spectacle itself – for
the spectacle as such is worth more than ‘much money’ – and as we watch the
Dionysia not in order to derive some material profit from the actors – as a
matter of fact, we spend money on them – and as there are many more spectacles
we ought to prefer to great riches: so, too, the viewing and contemplation of
the universe is to be valued above all other things commonly considered to be
useful in a practical sense. For, most certainly, it would make little sense
were we to take pains to watch men imitating women or slaves, or fighting or
running, but not think it proper to view or contemplate, free of all charges,
the nature and true reality of everything that exists.”[6]
The
human person yearns for truth. He is naturally inclined to this end by the fact
that he is a rational being. Philosophy is a quest for a profound knowledge
about reality that goes above and beyond (but not against) spontaneous, common
sense knowledge. A certain knowledge about reality, including certain ultimate
truths, can be attained by man even without having recourse to philosophical,
scientific reasoning, so long as he is not corrupted by false ideologies and
erroneous philosophies that go against the certainties of common sense such as
absolute idealism and Marxism which negate, for example, the principle of
non-contradiction, a self-evident truth. The natural spontaneous knowledge of
man, uncorrupted by such positions and by bad moral habits which tend to blind
man from a correct perception of reality, is indeed capable of affirming the
existence of the things in the world around him, of being certain of the
immortality of his own soul and of the souls of other people around him (whom
he affirms as really existing), and of acknowledging the reality of a First
Cause of the universe. Some basic convictions of spontaneous knowledge include:
the fact that one thing cannot be another thing; the consciousness of one’s own
identity; the fact that there exist other human persons who are similar to
oneself ; the fact that there are living beings and non-living beings; that
there is such a thing as death, that man becomes old and dies; the fact that
there is a distinction between reality and a dream; the fact that there are
just actions and unjust actions; the fact that man can tell the truth or tell a
lie; that fact that life is a value, something that is desirable; and that fact
that man has free will. The list of these convictions can, of course, go on.
The various philosophical systems that go against the certainties of
spontaneous common sense knowledge (such as the systems of rationalism, monism
and idealism) should be held suspect. If a philosopher, for example, tells you
to doubt that extra-mental reality exists or that a cat and a man are really
one substance, he should be reprimanded for such a brazen defiance of common
sense.
Philosophy
studies the realities affirmed by common sense[7]
in a scientific way, giving this pre-scientific knowledge greater precision,
making distinctions and clarifications, and by describing and classifying its
certainties. For example, let us take the case of the existence of God. It is
certain that God’s existence can be arrived at through the sole power of human
reason. But we must make a distinction. Man can arrive at a knowledge that God
exists apart from faith either through a spontaneous or pre-scientific
knowledge or through a philosophical reasoning which is scientific and
metaphysical. Regarding this spontaneous knowledge of God’s existence, Etienne
Gilson writes: “There is a sort of spontaneous inference, wholly untechnical
but entirely conscious of its own meaning, in virtue of which every man finds
himself raised to the notion of a transcendent Being by the mere sight of
nature in its awesome majesty. In a fragment from one of his lost works,
Aristotle himself observes that men have derived their notion of God from two
sources, their own souls and the orderly motion of the stars. However this may
be, the fact itself is beyond doubt, and human philosophies are belatedly
discovering the notion of God....As a matter of fact, mankind does have a
certain notion of God; for centuries after centuries men without any
intellectual culture have obscurely but powerfully felt convinced that the name
God points out an actually existing
being, and even today, countless human beings are still reaching the same
conviction and forming the same belief on the sole strength of their personal
experience.”[8] The
philosophical scientific and rational demonstration of God’s existence is
rooted first of all in the common sense certainty of God’s existence: “every
demonstration of the existence of God presupposes the presence of a certain
notion of God which is itself not the conclusion of a demonstration. This is
precisely the notion of God of which Saint Paul says that, through the mere
sight of His creatures, God has manifested it unto them.”[9]
What does the philosopher do to the common sense certainty that God exists,
something that is common to all men? He “transfers these spontaneous
convictions to the ground of metaphysical knowledge. He then asks himself: what
is the natural value of these natural beliefs? Is it possible to turn our
natural notion of God into a rationally justified knowledge? Can the
affirmation that there is a God assume the form and acquire the value of a
scientifically demonstrated conclusion?”[10]
The philosopher then proceeds to philosophically demonstrate the existence of
God in an a posteriori manner (from
effect to cause). This he does because, though God is maximally self-evident in
Himself, He is not evident with respect to the human mind, which is limited and
imperfect. We cannot grasp the Essence of God and therefore we must proceed
from His effects which are known to us, that is, our point of departure for the
ascent to God must be the things of this world. To the various real phenomena
rooted in experience but interpreted metaphysically we apply the principle of
causality which evidences their relative, dependent and caused character. Then,
one demonstrates that the effective and actual reality of the contingent
phenomena cannot be explained by postulating the intervention of an infinite
series of contingent causes. Finally, one comes to the conclusion that the only
valid explanation for these contingent phenomena is God. This is the
philosophical way to the Supreme Being which does not go against the common
sense certainty of His existence but is a rational, scientific elaboration of
it.
Philosophy
is human wisdom but how is philosophy to be strictly defined? For this purpose
it shall be necessary to understand philosophy as first philosophy or
philosophy at its supreme level, which is metaphysics. What will be said of it
in the absolute sense (simpliciter)
will be applicable relatively (secundum
quid) to the other lower departments of philosophy.
Philosophy
is not practical knowledge or the knowledge of practical affairs that consists
in acting well. Rather, it is wisdom that essentially consists in speculative
knowing. It is speculative rather than practical. Be reminded that we are
forming a definition of philosophy in the strict sense, that is, of first
philosophy or metaphysics. There is indeed a practical philosophy which is
called ethics (the philosophy of action and conduct), but it is a lower
department of our subject matter and so, the strict definition applies to it
relatively (secundum quid).
So,
philosophy consists essentially in speculative knowing. But of what? Of causes
with certainty. Since science is defined as a certain knowledge of causes,
philosophy is truly a science. What exactly is a science? Science, in the broad
sense, means not only knowledge but specifically a knowledge that is evidenced
and therefore certain. The evidence of a given point of knowledge lies in the
fact that we recognize its causes or reasons or both. Thus, science is defined
as the “knowledge through causes.” A science is any defined branch of knowledge
which shows the truths that belong to its sphere of competence in a clear and
orderly fashion and with integrity or completeness, and which adds to these
truths the causes which make these truths intelligible or knowable with
certainty to the human mind. Philosophy meets the above mentioned requirements
for it sets forth the truths that unaided reason can discover about reality,
presenting these truths in a manner that is clear, orderly, logical, and
complete, and it gives, at each and every step of its development, the evidence
and the proofs which the human intellect requires to give its full and
unwavering assent to the doctrines proposed. Thus, philosophy is rightly called
a science.
Now
by what medium does philosophy know? It knows by human reason, by the natural
light of the human mind. It is a human science whose rule or criterion of truth
is the evidence of its object. In this regard philosophy is different from
supernatural theology, the superior science whose light is the Divine
Revelation of God Himself. Philosophy is knowledge through unaided human
reason, while theology is knowledge through reason and, over and above this,
Divine Revelation and the light of faith.
The
science of philosophy is concerned with everything, all things. The whole of
reality is encompassed in its object. Since it considers all things, philosophy
is rightly described as a universal science. This, however, does not mean that
philosophy absorbs all the other human sciences like medicine, biology,
geology, botany, psychology, etc. That philosophy is a universal science does
not mean that there is only one science, philosophy, and that all other human
sciences simply become departments of it. This was the error of Descartes who
taught that philosophy simply absorbed all the other human sciences, it being
the sole science. On the other hand, philosophy cannot be thought of as being
absorbed by the other sciences, it being no more than their systematic
arrangement. This was the error of the positivist Comte. The cause of the
errors of Descartes and Comte was due to a failure to distinguish between the
material and formal objects of philosophy. The secondary sciences deal with
secondary causes or proximate explanations while philosophy, universal and supreme among the human
sciences, is concerned with ultimate causes and first principles.
Now
we must determine what the material and formal objects of philosophy are, for
though philosophy is a universal science, and because of this is the chief
among the human sciences, it possesses its own distinctive nature and object,
in virtue of which it differs from the other human sciences. But in order to
know what the material and formal objects of philosophy are we must first know
what is meant by the material and formal objects of a science. Paul Glenn
explains that “the object of a
science is its scope, its field of investigation, its subject matter. Further,
it is the special way in which it
does its work in its field, or it is the
special purpose which guides it in its work. Thus the object of any science
is two-fold. The subject-matter, the field of inquiry, is the material object of the science. The
special way, or purpose, or end-in-view, which a science has in dealing with
its subject-matter or material object is the formal object of that science. Many sciences may have the same material object, for many more or less
independent inquiries may be prosecuted in the same general field. But each
science has its own distinct and distinctive formal object which it shares completely with no other science.
That is why this object is called formal;
it gives formal character to the science; it makes the science just what it is
formally or as such. To illustrate all this. Many sciences deal with the earth
under one aspect or another. Such, for example, are geology, geodisy,
geography, geonomy, geogony, and even geometry. All these sciences study the
earth; they have therefore the same material object. But no two of these
sciences study the earth in the same special way or with the same special
purpose. Geology studies the earth in its rock formations; geodisy studies the
earth in its contours; geography studies the earth in its natural or artificial
partitions; geonomy studies the earth as subject to certain physical laws;
geogeny studies the earth to discover its origins; geometry in its first form
was a study of the earth in its mensurable bulk and its mensurable movements.
Thus, while all these sciences have the same material object, each of them has
its own formal object. If two sciences were to have the one identical formal
object, they would not really be two sciences at all, but one science. It is
manifest that a science is formally constituted in its special character by its
formal object; it is equally manifest that a science is distinguished from all
other sciences by its formal object.”[11]
In sum, the material object is the subject matter, while the formal object is
the special way in which that subject matter is studied.
Philosophy,
being the universal and supreme human science, studies all reality. All
things make up the material
object of this science. What is the formal
object of philosophy, the aspect under which it views this material object? Its
formal object is all things in
their ultimate causes and first principles. Philosophy, then, has for its
object all things, all reality, but in all things and all reality it
investigates only the ultimate causes and first principles. The other human
sciences, on the other hand, have for their material object some particular
area of being, of which they investigate only the secondary causes or proximate
principles. In light of this one can say that, of all the sciences in the
natural order, philosophy is by far the most sublime. It is the supreme and
most profound of all the sciences that investigate reality by the light of
human reason alone. Philosophy is wisdom in the strictest sense for it falls
within the ambit of wisdom to study the highest causes.
Let
us now give a precise and strict definition of philosophy: Philosophy is the science of all reality in its ultimate causes and
first principles, studied using the light of natural reason.
We
have been describing philosophy in the strict sense which is first philosophy
or metaphysics, but this description may be extended to philosophy in general
if it is understood as a body of which metaphysics (which is properly speaking
wisdom) is its head. Philosophy, generally speaking, is a universal body of
sciences which deals with ultimate causes and first principles (whether
absolutely ultimate causes and first principles, which is the case with first
philosophy or metaphysics, or with ultimate causes and first principles in a
particular determinate field, which is the case with the other branches of
philosophy such as philosophy of nature, philosophical psychology, ethics,
etc.).
Philosophy
is truly wisdom, wisdom of the natural order, as wisdom concerns itself with
the highest and ultimate causes of all things,[12]
and, as was said, this is precisely the task of philosophy. Philosophy or
natural wisdom’s role is to guide and judge the other forms of human knowledge
as the perfect judgment about something is obtained only taking into account
its highest or ultimate causes.[13]
Wisdom, because it is concerned with the highest causes of all things,
ultimately leads to a consideration of God as the First Cause and Ultimate Last
End of all things. The philosopher’s ultimate task, therefore, is to order
everything in relation to God, the Ultimate Cause of all things. That is why
the supreme branch of philosophy is philosophy of God or natural theology,
which is the highest level of metaphysics (it is philosophy par excellence). All other branches of
philosophy are ultimately directed to the study of God. The true philosopher
orders everything to God, order meaning to arrange things in relation to an end
or design, relating means to ends. True philosophy is Theocentric philosophy,
the reverent, ordered contemplation and viewing of the wondrous universe in
order to arrive at a better understanding of God, the Maker of the finite
cosmos, His existence, nature, attributes, and operations. In the domain of
philosophical, dispassionate contemplation, humble wonder and reverent awe,
reinforced by a disciplined and ordered intellect, the philosopher discovers
the primary source and the sure foundation of all truth: God.
Though
philosophy requires a great deal of effort, perseverance, and intellectual
discipline, it is an immensely rewarding pursuit. St. Thomas writes in the Summa Contra Gentiles[14]
that “among all human pursuits the pursuit of wisdom is more perfect, more
noble, more useful, and more full of joy. It is more perfect because, insofar
as a man gives himself to the pursuit of wisdom, so far does he even now have
some share in true beatitude. And so a wise man has said: ‘Blessed is the man
that shall continue in wisdom.’[15]
It is more noble because through this pursuit man especially approaches to a
likeness to God who ‘made all things in wisdom.’[16]
And since likeness is the cause of love, the pursuit of wisdom especially joins
man to God in friendship. That is why it is said of wisdom that ‘she is an
infinite treasure to men! which they that use become the friends of God.’[17]
It is more useful because through wisdom we arrive at the kingdom of
immortality. For ‘the desire of wisdom bringeth to the everlasting kingdom.’[18]
It is more full of joy because ‘her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her
company any tediousness, but joy and gladness.’”[19]
1.2. Philosophy and the
Particular Sciences
Philosophy,
as was already mentioned, is the universal science, supreme among all human
sciences, which studies the ultimate causes and first principles of all
reality. On the other hand, the particular sciences (i.e. biology, geology,
botany etc.) restrict their material objects to certain determinate fields of
reality and study the proximate or secondary causes of their determinate
fields. The special or particular sciences study their determinate fields of
reality utilizing their respective non-philosophical methods and perspectives.
In this case they are autonomous and do not depend upon philosophy. However,
the particular sciences are founded upon metaphysics, for they must implicitly
rely upon certain philosophical notions of reality presupposed in their special
spheres of inquiry. And to explicitly reflect upon these notions, these basic
and fundamental principles of reality itself, is properly a philosophical
endeavor. The special science physics, for example, starts from basic notions
such as bodies, space and time, and utilizes basic principles such as physical
causality, all of which are studied by philosophy. And the more sublime the
object of a particular science (as in the case of biology or medicine with
respect to, say, chemistry or geology) the closer will its link with philosophy
be. Biology for example, because it studies living beings, will be closer to
metaphysics than the study of rocks and minerals. Its metaphysical relevance is
greater. Particular sciences like sociology, anthropology, and history (which
study man), necessarily make use of philosophical knowledge to a greater extent
than, say, biology (which studies living things in general). And because of
their higher degree of reliance on metaphysical principles, the conclusions of
these particular sciences which study man greatly depend upon a solid
metaphysical foundation.
As
was said the particular sciences have their own autonomy as regards their
particular non-philosophical methods and perspectives, scientific judgments and
conclusions. With regard to them, philosophy’s task is one of judging and
guiding, in a manner that respects their own proper autonomy. Philosophy does
not interfere with them in their own respective fields, for its role of judge
and guide of all the other sciences is exercised from a higher level. Since, as
was said, the particular sciences are founded in varying degrees upon
metaphysics since they too must rely on basic self-evident principles and
metaphysical notions (being, time, space, causality, etc.) of which philosophy
properly studies, all the sciences may be said to be indirectly subordinated to
metaphysics. The laws of one science are subordinated to the laws of a superior
science and it belongs to the superior science to govern the inferior. Since
the principles of metaphysics are the absolutely first principles of human
knowledge, they have an authority over the other principles of all the other
human sciences, which depend upon the basic principles of metaphysics.
Metaphysics governs the other sciences, not despotically, but in a manner of
government which can be described as constitutional, respecting the proper
autonomy of the particular sciences (their proper methods, perspectives,
scientific judgments and conclusions). The principles of the particular
sciences, therefore, are subordinated to the principles of philosophy, but only
in an indirect way.
How
does philosophy judge and guide the particular sciences? It judges them by
specifying the first principles of all human knowledge and the value of
scientific methods, determining the proper object of every science, determining
their specific nature and properly classifying them according to a hierarchy.
To direct and guide a thing is to prescribe its proper object or end. Now, the
particular sciences are not directed by philosophy to their end in the sense
that they are unable to attain it without the assistance of the latter. They
can indeed arrive at their respective scientific judgments and conclusions
without its help. What philosophy does is that it assigns the distinctive ends
of each and every particular science in the sense that it determines in a
speculative way the distinctive object of each, determining its specific unity
as a science and its specific difference from the rest of the other sciences.
Since wisdom’s task is to properly order things according to their proper ends
and ultimately, to their Ultimate Last End, so philosophy orders the particular
sciences, specifying their objects and classifying them in a logical, orderly
way.
1.3. Philosophy and Theology
St.
Thomas Aquinas writes in his De Veritate
that “faith does not destroy reason; rather, it goes beyond it and gives
fullness or perfection to it.”[20]
And Gilson states that “faith in revelation does not end up destroying the
rationality of our knowledge. Rather, it allows it to develop more fully. Just
as grace does not destroy nature, but rather heals and perfects it and renders
it fruitful, so too, faith, through the influence it exerts from above on
reason as such, allows the development of a more fruitful and genuine rational
activity.”[21]
What
is faith? First of all, supernatural faith is a gift from God, a supernatural
virtue infused in the person by God Himself. “Before this faith can be
exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have
the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to
God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and
believe the truth.’”[22]
Though supernatural faith is a gift from God it is also an authentically human
act contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. In supernatural
faith both the human intellect and will cooperate with God’s grace, believing
being an act of the intellect assenting to God’s truth by command of the will
moved by God through grace.
Faith
is “a supernatural virtue by which, we, inspired and helped by God’s grace,
believe as true what God has revealed, not because of the intrinsic truth of
things perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority
of God Himself revealing them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.”[23]
It has God as its object, and has Him as its sole end. “If we consider, in
faith, the formal aspect of the object, it is nothing else than the First
Truth. For the faith of which we are speaking does not assent to anything except
because it is revealed by God. Hence faith is based on the Divine Truth itself,
as on the means. If, however, we consider materially the things to which faith
assents, they include not only God, but also many other things, which,
nevertheless, do not come under the assent of faith except as bearing some
relation to God, in so far as, namely, through certain effects of the Divine
operation, man is helped on his journey towards the enjoyment of God.
Consequently from this point of view also the object of faith is, in a way, the
First Truth, since nothing comes under faith except in relation to God, even as
the object of the medical art is health, for it considers nothing except in
relation to health.”[24]
There
are various motives of credibility (motiva credibilitatis) that show
that the assent of faith is not a blind impulse of the human mind: “So ‘that
the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason,
God willed that external proofs of His revelation should be joined to the internal
helps of the Holy Spirit.’[25]
Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and
holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability ‘are the most certain signs of
divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all.’[26]”[27]
With
regard to reason, it is the evidence of the object itself which alone moves the
intellect. On the other hand, as regards the act of faith, an act of will
moving the intellect to give its assent is required. In an act of faith the
intellect assents, not because it sees the truth to which it assents, either in
itself or as reduced to other truths already known, but because the will
commands it to assent. “Faith signifies the assent of the intellect to that
which is believed. Now the intellect assents to a thing in two ways. First,
through being moved to assent by its very object, which is known either by
itself (as in the case of first principles, which are held by the habit of
understanding), or through something else already known (as in the case of
conclusions, which are held by the habit of science). Secondly, the intellect
assents to something, not through being sufficiently moved to this assent by
its proper object, but through an act of choice, whereby it turns voluntarily
to one side rather than to the other. Now if this be accompanied by doubt and
fear of the opposite side, there will be opinion; while, if there be certainty
and no fear of the other side, there will be faith. Now those things are said
to be seen which, of themselves, move the intellect or the senses to knowledge
of them. Therefore it is evident that neither faith nor opinion can be of
things seen either by the senses or by the intellect.”[28]
Faith
is most certain by reason of its formal object, which is the authority of God
Himself, the source of Revelation, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and
because the will commands the intellect to assent precisely under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Faith “is more certain than all human knowledge
because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure,
revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but ‘the
certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of
natural reason gives.’[29]”[30]
Alejandro Llano explains that “by faith we believe in the first Truth Himself,
who is infallible, and therefore faith is more firm than the light of the human
intellect. Faith, then involves a greater certainty – in terms of the firmness
of the assent – than the certainty of science or of the first principles, even
though the evidence for faith is less.[31]
Therefore, the believer assents to the truths of faith with greater firmness,
even, than to the first principles of reason.[32]
This intimate security with which a man of faith adheres to truths which are
not rationally evident is the paradox of an obscure clarity, which can
hardly be glimpsed by anyone not disposed to accept the gift of a certitude
which elevates him beyond himself.”[33]
We
have spoken about faith, but what is theology (supernatural or sacred
theology)? In brief, theology is the science of the faith. It is the divine
science which deals with God and of creatures in so far as they refer to Him,
in the light of Divine Revelation. It is that science, superior to philosophy
and all the other human sciences, which studies all reality in the light of
Divine Revelation, from the perspective of the supernatural light of faith. It
is theoretical wisdom par excellence, the judge and guide of all the
other branches of knowledge, without making these branches lose their own
autonomy.
What
is the relationship between reason and faith, between philosophy and theology?
There is neither a hostility nor an estraneousness between these spheres of
knowledge but rather a profound harmony. Therefore, there can be no conflict
between the two forms of knowledge in as much as faith consolidates,
integrates, and enriches the panorama of truth already accessible to human
reason. Faith and reason are two forms of knowledge that come from the same
source: God. “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real
discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries
and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God
cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.”[34]
“Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is
carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can
never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things
of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of
the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of
himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they
are.”[35]
Both work for the same objective: the possession of the truth. But faith and
reason are distinct, having two different gnoseological procedures: reason
grasps a truth by reason of its mediate or immediate intrinsic evidence, while
faith accepts a truth based upon the authority of the Word of God.
There
are two levels of truth regarding God, or two possible ways of manifesting the
truths regarding God: 1. there are certain truths that surpass the capacities
of human reason, as, for example, the Holy Trinity of God ; and 2. there are
other truths concerning God that can be attained by the sole force of human
reason, as is the case with the truth of the existence of God, and truths like
the fact that God is One, Absolutely Simple, and Supremely Perfect. Now, the
first order of truths fall within the domain of sacred theology, while the
second order of truths regarding God are philosophically explained in the
supreme branch of metaphysics called philosophy of God or natural theology.
Philosophy
is the highest human science among all the sciences attained solely through the
powers of natural reason. But, as has been said, there is a superior science
which is sacred theology wherein man participates in the knowledge proper to
God Himself. Now the premises of theology are the truths formally revealed by
God. These truths are called dogmas or articles of faith. The primary criterion
of truth is the authority of God who reveals these truths to be believed.
Theology’s illuminating light is no longer the natural light of human reason
but rather the light of reason illumined by faith. Theology reigns supreme
above all the human sciences by reason of the sublimity of its object, the
certainty of its premises, and by the penetrating superiority of its light.
As
the king of the sciences, theology (the divine science) judges philosophy in
the same sense that philosophy, the supreme human science, judges and governs
the particular sciences: its government is by negative rule. Philosophy is subject
to theology, neither in its premises nor in its method, but in its conclusions,
over which theology exercises a control, thereby constituting itself a negative
rule of philosophy. Theology’s negative government over philosophy consists in
rejecting as erroneous any philosophical affirmation which contradicts a
theological truth.
How
does philosophy help theology? The former helps the latter by: 1. demonstrating
the praeambula fidei (the preambles
to faith) which serve as a basis for revealed supernatural truths. They include
the existence of God, the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, human
freedom, and the natural law ; 2. by explaining through analogies, the
truths of the faith; and 3. by confuting the errors against the faith as is the
case in apologetics.
Theology
can likewise come to the assistance of philosophy as faith aids greatly in the
very perfecting of human reason by guiding it in the paths of truth, preserving
it from the manifold errors due to the weakness of human nature wounded by
original sin, and its wallowing in vices which obscure and even blind reason
from attaining natural truths. Inasmuch as philosophy is subject to the
external control and negative government of sacred theology, it is protected
from many false and erroneous positions, and thus its freedom to err is
restricted, and its freedom to reach the truths which are discoverable by human
reason is correspondingly safeguarded. Instead of doing violence to reason,
supernatural faith protects and perfects it.
The
human creature is limited and finite and God infinitely transcends him and his
human powers, He being the Supremely Perfect, All-Knowing, Omnipotent Being,
Creator of all that is. God created man for a destiny far surpassing the
capabilities of his limited human nature, and from the very beginning (with the
entrance of original sin in the world because of the pride and disobedience of
first man), his greatest obstacle to this sublime destiny has been his pride
and presumption concerning his own powers. From almost the very beginning, man
sought to attain happiness on his own, transgressing the Eternal Law of God by
sin. He aspired to become the final arbiter of good and evil. It is an immense
error and presumption for man to think that, with his finite and limited
intellect, he would be able to comprehend the very nature of God, to grasp His
very Essence, and usurp His Eternal Law. Now, faith protects reason from
falling into pride and presumption. And aside from protecting reason from these
sins, it crowns and perfects it by giving it a special knowledge of those
manifold sublime truths for which man’s philosophical inquiries have created so
great a thirst for, such as the truths regarding the spirituality and
immortality of the human soul, the truth about the human person, and the
profound truths regarding the attributes and perfections of God.
If
the existence of God can be rationally demonstrated by the sole light of human
reason alone, why then has this truth regarding God (as well as other divine
truths attainable by human reason such as His Oneness, Supreme Perfection,
etc.) been revealed by God to be believed by faith? Isn’t reason sufficient
enough with regard to these truths? Why can’t all men follow the path of
philosophical reason regarding these truths? St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the “Trinity” of Boethius,
presents five good reasons why it is fitting that the truths about God to which
natural reason can attain be proposed to men for belief. He takes these reasons
from the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides: “First, even though these truths
are attainable by the light of natural reason, they are deep, subtle, and the
reasonings required to establish them are difficult and not within the capacity
of all men. Therefore, lest any man be without some knowledge of them, they are
revealed so that all may hold them by faith at least. Second, no one can attain
these truths by reason until he is mature; whereas some knowledge of them is
required at all times. Third, the rational knowledge of God is the highest
knowledge that human reason can attain, and much knowledge of natural things
must precede it. Even this preliminary knowledge is never acquired by a great
number of persons; yet all are required to know about God. Hence, revelation of
these truths is necessary. Fourth, many men are not so fitted with intellectual
gifts as to be able to attain rational knowledge of God. And, finally, most men
are too occupied with the affairs of life in this world even to pursue the
studies necessary to know God through reason.”[36]
Is
there such a thing as Christian philosophy? Yes. What exactly is Christian
philosophy? Gilson states: “I call
Christian, every philosophy which, although keeping the two orders formally
distinct, nevertheless considers the Christian revelation as an indispensable
auxiliary to reason.”[37]
In his later Elements of Christian Philosophy, he writes that “Christian
philosophy is that way of philosophizing in which the Christian faith and the
human intellect join forces in a common investigation of philosophical truth.”[38]
For Pope John Paul II, writing in his 1998 Encyclical Fides et Ratio,
Christian philosophy refers to “a Christian way of philosophizing, a
philosophical speculation conceived in dynamic union with faith. It does not
therefore refer simply to a philosophy developed by Christian philosophers who
have striven in their research not to contradict the faith. The term Christian
philosophy includes those important developments of philosophical thinking
which would not have happened without the direct or indirect contribution of
Christian faith.”[39]
Philosophy
of nature (in the broad sense referring to both inanimate and animate nature)
is defined as the study of the ultimate causes and first principles of the
natural world. It is the science of nature, the discipline that treats of
the world of nature or the physical universe in its most general aspects. The
material object of philosophy of nature (in the general sense) is the entirety
of material bodies, that is, the totality of beings that constitute the
physical universe, accessible to human sensible knowledge in a direct way or by
means of technical instruments. The formal object of philosophy of nature (in
the general sense) is: corporeal beings in their ultimate causes and first
principles. Philosophy of nature deals with mobile or changeable being as
natural corporeal beings are characterized by their capacity for change for
matter is always in potency to acquire new forms. It is by their changeable
character that things in the physical world first come to be understood.
Corporeal beings are initially known by their behavior, their reactions, their
growth and other such activities and characteristics. Philosophy of nature
studies corporeal, material beings from a metaphysical perspective. “For
example, it looks into the composition of material substances with regard to
their being, that is, their structure in different ontological levels, such as
matter and form, substance and accidents, and essence and act of being ; it
studies the accidents that affect them, such as quantity, and corporeal
qualities ; it seeks their deepest causes, and thus prepares the metaphysical
ascent to God. Hence, it differs from metaphysics because it limits itself to
the study of material reality.”[40]
Philosophy of nature (in the general sense) is divided into two main parts:
philosophy of inanimate nature (or cosmology) and the philosophy of animate nature
(philosophical psychology). The material object of philosophy of
inanimate nature is: inanimate corporeal beings. Its formal object
is: inanimate corporeal beings studied from the philosophical point of view
(or inanimate corporeal beings in their ultimate causes and first principles).
Philosophy of inanimate nature is therefore defined as the science of
inanimate corporeal beings in their ultimate causes and first principles.
2.2.
The Relationship Between Philosophy of Inanimate Nature, Psychology and
Philosophical Anthropology
Plants,
animals, and human beings certainly make up part of the corporeal universe and
are therefore in some way included in the object of philosophy of nature. Nevertheless,
the name of philosophy of nature is normally reserved for the philosophical
study of inanimate nature (commonly called cosmology). Psychology and
philosophical anthropology deal with the philosophical study of living things
and the latter, specifically with man. Philosophy of nature in the strict sense
(cosmology) naturally precedes psychology or the philosophical study of living
things in both a logical and a gnoseological way: 1. in a logical way because
living things are also physical beings, and to this inorganic physical
structure are added the diverse grades of vital perfections. It is logical to
start one’s philosophical study of nature with a more simple reality (inanimate
things) so that one deals with the inferior structures of all corporeal beings
without a need to repeat this philosophical analysis later on in the study of
animate nature and man. Also to be considered here is the fact that the
spirituality of the human soul entails an independence with respect to matter,
an absolute immateriality, and therefore presupposes a knowledge of what matter
is and what the properties are that imply a transcendence with respect to it.
So, philosophy of inanimate nature should come before psychology and
philosophical anthropology in our philosophical studies in order to distinguish
material beings from immaterial ones; and 2. in a gnoseological way because man
is naturally inclined to first know sensible extra-mental things and only later
does he know immaterial realities.
From
the logical point of view philosophy of inanimate nature depends on metaphysics
because in order to determine the meaning of corporeal or material being one
would need first to understand the meaning of being itself. However,
considering our imperfect and analogical way of knowing being which concludes
to that which is most profound, starting from sensible extra-mental things,
cosmology must logically precede metaphysics, and for this motive must be
studied first. Philosophy of inanimate nature is therefore propaedeutic to
metaphysics. Studying nature we discover the universal structure of corporeal
beings: the act-potency synthesis, the substance-accident synthesis, and the
activity of the various causes and their influence upon the being of corporeal
things. The more we study corporeal nature the more we open the way for the
philosophical study of being as such, that is, we ascend to the level of
metaphysics which transcends the limits of changeable being. Philosophy of
inanimate nature, therefore, offers a solid foundation for metaphysical
knowledge.
Cosmology
prepares the way for philosophy of God (which is the science of God from the
point of view of unaided human reason). Our philosophical study of inanimate
nature leads us to the discovery of certain characteristics like mutability,
contingency, finality, which imply the existence of an Immutable, Necessary,
and Intelligent First Cause. Cosmology prepares the way for the so-called
cosmological a posteriori demonstrations or proofs for the existence of
God.
Every
corporeal substance is a hylemorphic composite of matter (hyle) and form
(morphe),[41] that is,
every complete material substance is a composite of two essential intrinsic
principles, one a principle of potentiality (prime matter), and the other a
principle of actuality (substantial form). Every corporeal substance is a single
individual thing compounded of two essential intrinsic principles, namely,
prime matter and substantial form. In a material substance prime matter is
potential, passive and the determinable. It is what is passive and receptive to
the form. Because of prime matter, the body can be acted upon, moved, changed,
divided, and corrupted. Substantial form, on the other hand, is act, that which
determines, and that which is active. Because of this, the body is able to
maintain its own particular identity, possesses it own properties, causes
changes in other bodies, acts, and makes itself known. Because of the form a
body is of a certain nature and belongs to a particular species. Because of
matter the body is an individual embodiment of this nature, an individual member
of this species (matter is the principle of individuation). Twenty red apples
have the same form but are twenty individual bodies of apple because of the
matter. Matter and form are the intrinsic causes of corporeal substances.
Matter receives the form (which is first act) and embodies it in concrete
being, while form actualizes the matter and determines it to a specific
nature.
Psychology
means literally the study of the soul (psyche). It is also called the
philosophy of living beings or the philosophy of animate nature. The material
object of the philosophy of animate nature is: animate (living) corporeal
beings. The formal object of the philosophy of animate nature is: animate
corporeal beings studied from the philosophical point of view (or animate
corporeal beings in their ultimate causes and first principles). Philosophy of
animate nature is thus defined as the science of animate corporeal beings in
their ultimate causes and first principles. Our discipline had been called
psychology in the past but it is better to call it philosophical psychology in
order to distinguish it from scientific or experimental psychology (usually just
called psychology these days) which analyzes mental phenomena, classifies them
and determines their proximate causes. In contrast to experimental psychology,
part of philosophical psychology’s goal is to seek to penetrate beyond the
surface of mental phenomena to the ultimate reasons, principles, and causes, so
as to uncover the nature which gives rise to such phenomena. A part of the
philosophy of living beings is the philosophy of man (philosophical
anthropology). The material object of philosophical anthropology is man.
Its formal object is man studied from the philosophical point of view
(or man in his ultimate causes and first principles). Philosophical
anthropology is therefore defined as the science of man in his ultimate
causes and first principles.
Biology
deals with life in general as found in all organisms whereas psychology treats
mainly of the ‘mental’ life of organisms, particularly of man. Physiology
studies the functions of life present in the organs, tissues, and cells of
living beings, exclusive of mental functions, while psychology studies the
mental life of organisms, physiological matters being brought into discussion
only incidentally.
3.3.
The Difference Between Psychology, Logic, Gnoseology, and Ethics
Logic
examines the intellectual activities of the human mind from the standpoint of
correct thinking while psychology (philosophical anthropology in particular)
studies the entire field of human mental states and activities, including
sensation, perception, emotion, intellection, and volition. Gnoseology or
philosophy of knowledge is concerned with the validity or truth-value of human
knowledge, while psychology investigates the nature of the human mind and its
various operations. Ethics or moral philosophy examines the morality (the
rightness or wrongness) of human actions (human acts and not acts of man),
while psychology examines human action in all its manifestations of mental
life.
3.4. Life
What
is life? What essentially differentiates living beings from non-living beings?
Experience reveals that living beings are endowed with a certain interiority
that, by their own initiative or power, are able to move themselves, something
which a non-living being, say a rock, is unable to accomplish. Such an
observation leads us to affirm that what is distinctive of the living being is
the power to move itself by itself; a non-living being moves only if it is
moved by another. When we speak of “movement” or “being moved” here, we refer
to movement in the general or wide sense which includes every kind of change
and local movement. St. Thomas Aquinas writes that “life is essentially that by
which a thing is able to move itself, taking the word ‘movement’ in a wide
sense, so that even the operation of the intellect can be called ‘movement.’
For, those things that can be moved only by an exterior principle are said to
be without life.”[42]
A living being is one that can move itself, that is, one that has within itself
the efficient principle of its activity, responding in an original and
assimilative manner to its environment and extra-subjective objects on which it
depends. By its own initiative and power the living being transforms what it
receives from outside it. Irritability, or the power of responding to external
stimuli, therefore, is characteristic of life. Living beings are also
characterized by the power of growth, taking in material from its environment
and reorganizing it according to the structure of an organic substance. Living
beings also have the power to reproduce themselves according to their
individual species. When we say that living beings move themselves we refer
essentially to their movements of growth, reproduction and irritability.
Living
beings have the power of self-perfecting movement. When we say that a living
being moves itself we mean that it is of itself equipped to do something by way
of connatural operation or function. Such a power of self-movement is not
extrinsic but innate in the living being; it is an intrinsic force or power.
When we say “self-perfecting movement” we mean that a living being’s powers are
exercised by the living being, in the living being, and for
the living being, and so are said to perfect the living being.
When
we say that a living being is capable of self-movement we mean that it is
naturally equipped with a power, which intimately resides within itself and to
be exercised through itself, whereby it does something for itself. To say that
a living being “moves” is a general term for the exercise of such a power. The
living being’s activities are its own, exercised by means of powers with which
it is natively equipped, and which function in it, and by it, and for it, and
are thus called, in their functioning, self-movements.
Living
beings are the objects and terms of their own activity. Non-living corporeal
bodies in contrast only act upon and transform things exterior to themselves. A
living being, in contrast, acts for its own advantage, seeking both to sustain
its own being and to acquire full development. The activity of living beings,
in some manner and measure, remains within themselves, so that we can designate
them as having a certain degree of immanence or interiority, which admits of
varying degrees, from the low level of immanence found in plant life, to the
absolutely perfect possession of self, found in the Divine Being.
Immanent
action or activity, characteristic of living beings, remains within the living being
(the agent), for it originates in the agent, and is finished in the agent, and
produces its main activity in the agent. Plants, animals, and human beings, for
example, grow and that activity of growth is immanent in them; the main effect
is in and on themselves. Growth as such begins in them, and affects them, and
as a function ends in them. The growth of living beings is an immanent action.
All life actions (vital actions) are immanent actions.
Life,
therefore, is defined as the natural capacity of an agent for
self-perfective immanent activity or movement.
The
three levels of life in the corporeal universe, based on both the degree of
immateriality in relation to the substantial form of a living being, and on the
degree of immanence found in the different operations of life, are the
following: vegetative life (plants), sensitive life (animals), and intellectual
or rational life (human beings).[43]
In this hierarchy, the lower degrees are contained in the higher.
The
more a living being is capable of acting by itself, the higher it is in the
hierarchy of life. With such a principle one can establish a classification
according to the lesser or greater degrees of interiority evidenced by the
several factors underlying the activities of living beings. The factors
involved are either a principal or instrumental form, and the end or term. With
this in mind, we are able to distinguish three general kinds of living beings
found in nature: plants, animals, and humans.
In
plants nature implants both their form and the end of their movement, so that
they act as mere instruments of execution in regard to the movement. In
animals, while not determining their own end as nature implants this in them,
they nevertheless acquire through themselves the forms governing their
activities, these forms being the sensible images that cause them to move
themselves. Finally, in humans beings, who are endowed with rationality, they
themselves are capable of determining their end and acquiring the form that is
the principle of their operations.[44]
As
regards a cat and dog, for example, life is predicated of them in an univocal
way. Thus, if I say cat has life and a dog has life, the predicate life, in
both instances, is understood univocally, that is, with exactly the same meaning.
However, life is predicated analogously of creatures and God.
Life,
inasmuch as it is a perfecting, is predicable of creatures only and not
of the Supreme Being who is All Perfect, not undergoing any perfecting
whatsoever. Life therefore, is predicable of creatures and God only in a manner
that is partly the same and partly different.
Life,
defined as the natural capacity of an agent for self-perfective immanent
activity or movement, refers to the life of creatures, which are limited
beings, beings only having the act of being, possessing being in limited
ways. God is Life, but His life is not self-perfective, since He is the
All-Perfect Being, without any potentiality whatsoever; what is All Perfect
cannot be perfected. Another difference between God and creatures is that in
creatures life-activity is distinct from life-principle (which is the soul).
Living creatures are not identical with their vital activities, nor are their
souls the same with their operative powers or faculties. In God, however, vital
activity is one with the divine essence and substance. Another difference: in
creatures, life-activity is caused by the life-principle, which is the soul; in
God, however, nothing is caused; the Divine Essence is the reason for
the infinite life-activity of the Divine Being’s understanding and will, but
does not cause this activity. Lastly, self-movement involves a change in
the living creature which exercises it, but in God there is no change
whatsoever. He is the Absolutely Immutable Being.
Living
corporeal beings have within themselves a principle which makes vital actions
possible. This principle is the soul, the intrinsic principle which makes a
body a living body, essentially distinct from non-living ones. The soul, not
the body, is the first principle of life, the interior, ultimate principle of
vital manifestations of a living being.[45]
The
soul is the formal cause of the hylemorphic composite of body and soul, and this
composite is the source of the physical energy of the living body. A formal
cause is defined as an intrinsic act of perfection by which a thing is whatever
it is, either in the realm of substance or of accidents.
The
soul is not an accident, but a substance, though an incomplete substance that,
together with the body, form the complete substance, a hylemorphic composite of
body and soul. If the soul were a complete substance its union with the body
could not result in an individual substance, but would merely be an accidental
unit or aggregate. This is so for a complete substance cannot be at the same
time a mere principle of substance; therefore it cannot be united with another
substantial principle to constitute together an individual substance, but only
with another complete substance. But a complete substance has its own act of
being (esse). Therefore, the composite of two individual complete
substances consists of components having their own acts of being, so that it
could be none other than a mere aggregate. But the living being is one
substance. We find that this is so since the component parts of a living being
act primarily for the good of the whole being of a living thing. Therefore, the
soul cannot be a complete substance, but is rather a substantial principle of
the body, which is likewise an incomplete substance. Together body and soul
form the one complete substance, the hylemorphic composite.
The
soul is the substantial form of the living body. It is not the material
principle in a living being, for matter is in potency and is therefore a
principle of limitation which does not confer perfection ; it is rather the act
of the body, the formal principle or substantial form, giving the composite the
perfection of life. The soul, because it is a substantial form of a body, is
essentially simple, that is, it is without composition of essential parts. The
soul, the substantial form of the body, is one of the ultimate component parts
of a living composite, complete substance and is therefore itself simple.
As
there are very different vital movements in plants, animals, and men, one can
distinguish three different types of souls: the vegetative soul (the form of
plants), the sensitive soul (the form of animals), and the intellective or
rational soul (the form of human beings). The reason for the division into
three different souls, says the Angelic Doctor, “lies in the fact that the
souls are distinguished according to the different ways in which the vital
operations surpass the operations of corporeal things: the bodies, in fact, are
inferior to the soul and serve it as matter or as an instrument. There is,
therefore, an operation of the soul which so transcends corporeal reality that
it does not have the least need of a material organ to express it. And, this is
the operation of the rational soul. There is another operation of the
soul, inferior to the preceding one, which expresses itself through a material
organ, although not through a corporeal reality. This is the operation of the sensitive
soul…The lowest, then, among the operations of the soul is the one which
takes place through a corporeal organ and in virtue of certain physical
qualities. Still, even it can surpass the operation of material reality,
because the movements of the bodies are originated by an extrinsic movement:
this is an aspect common to all operations of the soul; because every animated
being moves itself in some way. Thus the operation of the vegetative soul presents
itself.”[46]
Can
we formulate a definition of the soul that can be applicable to all types of
souls? Yes. The soul is defined as the first act of a natural organic body.
Let us explain the parts of this definition first given by the Stagirite.[47]
The soul is an act, that is a perfection of a subject. It is a first
act (also called an entitative act), the same as the substantial form,
which is different from acts like operations, which are called second acts
(which are accidents). The soul is the first act of a body, for it is
through the former that the latter is alive. “Body” in our definition is
qualified as natural, in contrast to a machine or mechanical body. Lastly, we
have the term organic added to indicate that the soul as the principle of life
requires a variety of organs so as to make self-movement possible. An organic
body, taken as distinct from its co-principle the soul, is the same as a body
which is in immediate potency to life.
3.6. The Powers of the Soul (Operative Potencies)
A
faculty is the power of the living being to exercise a specific life-operation.
Now, the powers of the soul are different from the soul itself, for the latter
belongs to the category of substance (albeit an incomplete one), whereas the
former belongs to the category of accident, specifically under the accident
quality. The powers of the soul are accidents that belong to the substance.
Therefore, the creatures’ powers of the soul cannot be one with the soul
itself; rather, these faculties are powers that the soul has, not being
what the soul is. It is only in God, the Subsistent Being Himself, that
power is identified with substance.
The
soul cannot be its own action for actions come and go while the soul remains,
it being the substantial form of the body. Also, to be its own action the soul
would have to be its own act of being since action is an ultimate act, not
ordained to any further act. Therefore, the soul must be in potency with
respect to action.
The
various faculties are distinguished from one another by their respective operations
and by the objects which these operations work on or seek to achieve. For
example, the external senses of sight and smell are not one faculty but two
distinct faculties since they operate differently and because sight is for
perceiving colour while smelling is for sensing odours. But accidental
differences of operations do not require distinct faculties to explain them.
So, the power to walk, run, to dance about and to kick are not distinct
faculties but are rather accidental variations of the one power of locomotion,
which is the faculty or power of moving from place to place.
In
the vegetative soul of plants we have the vegetative powers of reproduction,
growth and nutrition. In the sensitive soul of animals, we not only have the
vegetative powers of nutrition, growth, and reproduction (which serve the
sentient operations), but also the animal powers of locomotion, appetition
(which are divided into the concupiscible and irascible appetites) and knowing
(both the internal and external senses). In the rational or intellective soul
of man, we not only find the vegetative powers (which serve the sensitive
operations) and the sensitive powers (these, along with the vegetative powers,
serve the rational powers), but also the rational powers of intellect and
will.
It
should be understood that it is not the sense of sight that sees, or the sense
of hearing that hears; rather, it is the living suppositum (being in the full
sense, with all of its perfections) that acts (that sees and hears, for example).
Man is the agent of all his faculties, but his human nature is not the
immediate subject of them all. The powers and operations of man are attributed
to the soul as their principle, and either to the human soul or to the human
composite of body and soul as their subject depending on what kind of power is
in question. When we speak of a subject of an operation or a power we
refer to that being or part of a being which is able to perform the operation
and does perform it. Man’s soul is the subject of the rational faculties of
understanding and willing (for thinking and willing are performed without the
use of any corporeal organ, and therefore, the powers of these operations are
in the soul, as in their subject), and the soul-body composite of man is the subject
of all other human faculties and operations, yet even these faculties and
operations are attributed to the soul as their principle since it is by the
soul that the composite has the power to perform such operations.[48]
Man’s body alone cannot be the subject of any human faculty, for the body alone
lacks life and all vital operations.
The
immediate principles by means of which the suppositum acts are its operative
powers or faculties since no finite being is immediately operative, its nature
being unable to be the direct principle of action but is merely the remote
principle by which the suppositum acts. Therefore, strictly speaking, it is not
the intellect that understands or the will that wills; rather, it is the human
person that understands and wills by means of his operative powers of intellect
and will. There is an utter dependence of all operative powers upon the
suppositum, which is the sole independently existing and operating
subject.
3.7. Knowledge
Knowing
is always someone knowing something. It involves a relationship between a
knower and a thing known. It is an act which joins a mind with an object in a
relationship which is unique and incomparable with any other. There is no such
thing as knowledge without something known and someone knowing it. Each and
every act of knowing is a synthesis of object and subject.
Purely
physical beings don’t know. A rock doesn’t know. A glass doesn’t know. A glass
receives another being, water for example, in the most superficial manner. Any
more intimate communication would mean a loss of identity, a becoming something
else. Fire united with wood produces something new: ashes. A substantial change
has occured. The union of hydrogen and oxygen results in a third thing: water.
Why does
a man know while a rock does not? It is because a rock has only its own form
while a man is capable of receiving the form of the rock and countless other
beings in the universe in an immaterial way. When a man receives the form of
the rock in the knowing process the change involved in this knowing is
immaterial, not substantial, like when an apple is changed into my flesh when I
eat it or when fire reduces a piece of wood into ashes. The change brought
about in my knowing the rock is not something physical or material but
immaterial. The rock that I know does not change its being and my flesh does
not turn into stone when I think of it for the stone is not transferred into my
mind in a material way. The rock exists in me in an immaterial manner. The rock
that I know is one whole thing that really exists in the world whether I think
of it or not. The real object - which here is the rock – is but one, while its
intentional presence is multiplied according to the number of knowers. If five
hundred persons know a single rock, its intentional presence in the minds of
these five hundred persons is five hundred.
Immateriality
is at the basis of knowledge. Nothing can be known unless it has in itself
something not matter which it can give to the knower (in the case of our rock
it is its form). And nothing is capable of knowing unless it has within itself
something not matter which can receive the nature of another thing without
losing its own. Therefore, the condition both of knowledge and of knowability
is some degree of immateriality. My knowledge of rocks is something I can
communicate to a classroom full of students. But I do not lose this knowledge
by communicating it to say a hundred students.
In
knowledge the object gives its forms to the subject without losing these forms.
Form is communicable; matter is not. In knowledge I receive the form of things
in an immaterial way. Now, what exactly is this form we are referring to? There
is something immaterial in every actual being, even in every material being such
as our rock. This something is the form, or rather, the forms - substantial and
accidental. Every corporeal substance is a hylemorphic composite, that is, an
essential composite of primary matter and a substantial form and is determined
in many ways by accidental forms. Hylemorphism, as was mentioned earlier, is
the theory of matter (hyle) and form
(morphe). It states that every
natural substance, that is, every complete material substance, is a composite
of two essential intrinsic principles, one a principle of potentiality, viz.,
primary matter, and the other a principle of actuality, viz., substantial form.
All the things around us, all corporeal substances, are composites of matter
and form. Form is that which makes a thing what it is, giving them their basic
way of being : manness, catness, whaleness, and so on. But manness does
not exist by itself. Individual men exist: Paul, Billy, Edward, Bobby exist.
Likewise catness does not exist by itself but only individual cats – that cat
down the street, that brown cat on the top of the roof, that black cat crossing
the highway, etc. Form alone, then, is not enough to explain the actually
existing men, cats, and whales in our world. There must be something else in
things, something which limits them, which ties them down to this particular
way of being and not any other, to this particular time and place, to this
quantity. There must, in short be another principle in things, a principle of
limitation, a principle which limits form, restricts it in a way, making it
individual, quantified, existing in a definite time and place. This principle
is matter.
Now
in the act of knowing, which is a psychic act, we cannot get the matter of
things into our mind but we can get their forms in. And it is by these forms of
other things in us that we know these things. Let us go back to our rock. This
rock is a corporeal being – a thing composed of matter and form. Looking at
this rock I then know that this is a rock, receiving its form into the
cognitive power of my mind apart from its matter (which is the principle of
individuation). I received the form of the rock in an immaterial way through a
psychic act.
This
form in the cognitive power of the knowing subject is called the intentional species. This species is an
actuation of the cognitive power of the knowing subject. The species is not
that which we know but rather is that by
which we know the thing that really exists. Knowledge is produced thanks to
the actuation of the intentional species in the cognitive power of the
knower. Species here does not signify a logical principle which determines
predicational existence, nor does it signify an ontological principle which
determines natural existence; rather, it is a gnoseological principle which
determines intentional existence. So, in its cognitive meaning, a species is an
intentional form. As an intentional form it is an instrument of knowledge.
Now,
if knowledge is a relationship between the knower and the thing known, and that
one knows by an impression of the form of the thing in the cognitive power of
the knower, which is called the impressed species, what is the formal object of
one’s intelligence? It is being (ens).
The first thing that falls under the grasp of the intelligence is being (ens) because the comprehension of any
type of thing involves a preceding comprehension of its character as being (ens). The complex concept of being (ens) is the first idea formed by the
human mind, which is not innate but proceeding from experience, in which man
notices being as soon as he intellectually knows. One does not therefore treat
of an explicitly abstract idea (which emerges later as the result of a greater
elaboration), but rather of the fact that anything that is the object of some
comprehension is first grasped under the character of being (ens).
3.8. The Process
of Knowledge
Man
is a rational being with the operative faculties of intellect and will; he does
not merely sense and imagine, he also has the power of abstraction. His ideas
or concepts are not the actual products of sense though they are initially
derived from sensory data through the instrumentality of the intellect. The
object of the senses is a sensible and the object of the intellect is an
intelligible. The medium of both sensible and intellective knowledge is what is
called a species. An image is a species of a sensible order of being, and an
idea or concept is a species of an intelligible order of being. An idea is not
an image of a superior sort; to identify them would be to fall into the error
of sensism of which Humean empiricism is a pre-eminent example.
We
shall now describe the important process of the birth of the idea (idea being
the intellectual representation of a thing). First, let us give a purely
descriptive account of the knowledge process, and later, an explanatory
account. First the descriptive. We form ideas in our minds only after having
perceived things, and in forming these ideas we are governed by the perceived
aspect of things. What is the process of human cognition from sensitive
knowledge to intellective knowledge? The following: 1. The human person, an
hylemorphic composite of body and soul, endowed with the operative faculties of
intellect and will, is affected in his various sense organs by extra-mental
bodies, things, perceiving through his power of external sense these
extramental bodies or things and their corresponding sensible determinations ;
2. He then forms, by his internal senses, sensible representations (i.e.,
phantasms) of these bodies with their qualities, operations, etc. 3. Finally,
by his intellectual power, he grasps in and through these sensible
representations the essence or quiddity of the extra-mental things and their
corresponding qualities, operations, etc., expressing these essences by way of
wholely immaterial, universal representations called ideas or concepts.
Sense knowledge. Before dealing with sense knowledge, we must first of all determine
what sense, sensation, and perception are. A sense is a specialized function
by virtue of which an animal organism is receptive and responsive to a
particular class of physical stimuli, resulting in knowledge. A sensation
is a conscious experience aroused by the stimulation of an organ of sense.
Lastly, perception is the cognizing of the object which produces the
sensation.
External Senses. All man’s knowledge begins with sense knowledge gotten initially by
means of the external senses. These senses are called external, not so much
because their receptory organs are close to the external surface of the body
but rather because these senses directly reach extra-mental reality. These
external senses are five in number: touch (or the somesthetic sense), smell,
taste, hearing, sight, and hearing. 1. Touch. Touch is a generic name
for several more or less distinct species of senses involving somesthetic or
bodily contact and an object. One can distinguish between sensations of warmth,
cold, pressure, and pain ; 2. Smell. Smell’s organ is the nose or rather
the olfactory bulbs in the mucous membrane of the nose. Its object is odour.
The sensation of odour is aroused when our external sense of smell comes into
contact with particles of “odorous” substances suspended in air or gas ; 3. Taste.
The organs of taste are the tongue and certain parts of the palate and throat,
or more specifically, the taste buds on these parts of the body. The object of
taste is flavor, which is divided into four kinds: sour, sweet, salty, and
bitter. An animal or a man experiences flavour when certain soluble substances
are brought into contact with the taste buds ; 4. Sight. The two
superior external senses are sight and hearing because of their proximity to
reason, that is, they are more cognitional in character than the other external
senses. The organ of sight is the eye, whose seat of vision is the retina, and
its receptors being its rods and cones. Sight’s object, color, is light as
reflected or refracted by a surface ; 5. Hearing. The organ of hearing
is the ear, in particular, Corti’s organ in the inner ear. Its object is sound,
which is experienced when a vibrating surface communicates its motion to a
medium in contact with the ear.
Internal Senses. These senses are called internal because they have no external organs
receptive of direct impressions from extra-mental reality but instead receive
their data from the external senses by means of their respective organs. There
are four internal senses, namely, imagination, common sense (sensus communis),
memory, and the estimative (which is the cogitative in man). 1. Imagination.
Imagination is the power of forming pictures or images of things we have seen
before even in the absence of the thing in reality that once actuated our
external sense organs. We do indeed have the faculty of preserving sensible
impressions produced in our consciousness and of representing, in the absence
of the objects which produced these impressions. We have what is called visual
imagination, (which is the power to recall how a person, thing or place looks
like), auditory imagination, recalling various sounds (like running a song in
our heads), and also the power to imagine how things felt, tasted, and smelt.
We also have what is called creative imagination, wherein we combine in one
image various sense impressions which were not actually perceived together,
thus creating in one’s mind an ‘imaginary’ being ; 2. Common Sense.[49]
Common sense (sensus communis), also called the central or synthetic
sense in modern psychology, is the internal sense that unifies the products of
the external senses into a unified perceptual whole. Individual external senses
give us only their proper objects. Sight’s proper object, for example, is
colour, which is light reflected or refracted on a surface. Smell’s proper
object is odour. Now, it is impossible for the sense of sight not just to see,
but also to smell odour, hear sounds, etc. The sense of smell, likewise, cannot
see colours and hear sounds at the same time it takes in various odors. The
various external senses cannot of themselves combine or integrate into unified
whole objects the various sense impressions that they receive for each external
sense organ can only receive its particular kind of sense impression. But we
are able to see perceptual wholes like whole pizzas, apples, and dogs, so what
power accounts for this perceptual unity? Common sense, which is the internal
sense power that does this work of organization and synthesis ; 3. Memory.
This power is like imagination in that it can form images of things even in the
absence of the thing existing in extra-mental reality. However, memory goes
further than imagination in that it puts our image of a thing in a definite
past experience. In imagination I, for example, can picture in my mind my dog
Snoopy; I can form an image of my dog in my mind. In memory, not only do I
picture Snoopy, but I can remember when he bit me on March 25, twenty years ago
on a rainy day. To remember something is to picture something as I actually
experienced it on a definite past occasion, so that the occasion and the
experience are as much a part of the memory as is the thing itself ; 4. Estimative
(and cogitative in man). This internal sense is commonly called instinct.
Animals (including men) perceive things not merely as objects having certain
sensible qualities, but also as being good or bad, desirable or repugnant, and
useful or harmful to one’s own being. An antelope, for example, perceives a
lion in the distance not only as a thing having certain sensible determinations
of colour, odor, size, etc., but also something dangerous to itself, a
veritable enemy to its well-being, and without having to be taught, speedily
runs away. Such dangerousness is not a sensible quality which any external
sense organ can perceive, yet we observe animals with that ability to perceive
things under such non-sensible aspects. These non-sensible aspects are aspects
of individual sensible bodies not perceivable by the external senses, yet
grasped by the sentient animal or human person in the total perceptive act. The
internal sense power that does this is called the estimative sense in animals
and the cogitative sense in humans. The cogitative is different from the
estimative in that man can regulate and direct his instinct through the power
of reason, while animals cannot.
Intellectual Knowledge. I shall first describe briefly what is meant by
intellection, abstraction, ideas, and the difference between ideas and images.
Then, I shall describe in outline form the process of ideogenesis (the birth of
the idea).
Human
intellection is the rational process of man’s mental life, comprising three
distinct processess: the formation of ideas and concepts, the formation of
judgments, and the formation of inferences. Abstraction is the mental process
in which, through an act of selective attention, we leave out of consideration
one or more aspects of a complex total object so as to attend to some other
aspect or aspects of this object. Generalizing abstraction is that form of
abstraction wherein we mentally separate, through an act of selective
attention, items which are common to a number of individual objects from those
items in which these objects differ, and then arrange the objects having the
common items into a class as a unit. The resulting product is the universal idea, applicable to the class
as a whole and to each individual member of that class. Evidence for the
existence of universal ideas is found in the common vocables of language, in
definitions, and in scientific nomenclature and classifications. There are three
degrees or grades of abstraction: physical, mathematical, and metaphysical.
Isolating abstraction is that form of abstraction wherein, through an act of
selective attention, we mentally separate a particular feature from the subject
in which it exists and consider it as if it existed independently of a subject.
The product of such an abstraction is the abstract
idea.
The
idea or concept is a mental sign whereby we grasp a certain essence. Concepts
signify the essences of things; they signify what things are. Concepts or ideas are completely different from
material and individual things. The former are universal while the latter are
individual. Ideas or concepts are abstract (i.e. reduced to their essences and
separated from what is incidental) while things are concrete and
individualized. Ideas or concepts are also immaterial. We should also
distinguish between images and ideas. Though an image and an idea are both
species (from the Latin species
meaning likeness), an image is a species of a sensible order of being while an
idea is a species of an intelligible order of being. It is important to
remember that the species is always a sign
of the reality that it signifies. Sensible images represent accidents which
are sensible, individual and material, while ideas signify the intelligible,
universal, and immaterial reality in those sensible things.
3.9.
Ideogenesis (Birth of the Idea)
What
is the rapport between the intellect and the thing? There is nothing in the
intellect which was not first (in some manner) in the senses. There are no
innate ideas as is the Cartesian claim; ideas have their source outside the
intellect; the intellect must derive them from things. Thus, a union between
intellect and thing by means of a cognitional
species is demanded.
The
corporeal things of the extra-mental world impinge on our external senses,
impressing their qualities on the individual external sense organs capable of
receiving such stimulation. The products of the external senses are then
differentiated, compared and synthesized by the internal sense power central
sense (or sensus communis), producing the perceptual whole (the percept,
which is the impressed species of a sensible order).[50]
Our percepts, in turn, provide the stimuli for the other internal senses, namely,
imagination, memory, and the cogitative, each of which is capable of forming an
image (or phantasm) of the object presented to sense. This image or phantasm is
the expressed species of a sensible order,[51]
and completes the knowledge of the thing on the sensory level.
After
this comes the role of the agent intellect with its activity of
abstraction. It is the power of the mind to abstract. The intellect[52]
forms its ideas by turning its attention upon the content of the image,[53]
either of the central sense or of the imagination. By means of abstraction, the
intellect grasps the essential elements
of the thing represented in the image, leaving aside the individualizing
material determinations, thereby making the image ‘intelligible.’ This power or
capacity of the intellect, whereby it actively modifies itself so as to
represent within itself in an abstract manner what is concretely represented in
the image, is termed the active or agent intellect.[54]
The result of this abstractive process is the abstracted nature, the impressed species of an intelligible order,
which is the ‘idea’ in a rudimentary, primitive form.
Then
we have the role of the potential intellect (also called the passive
or possible intellect), which is the power of the mind to understand.[55]
It is the capacity or power of the mind to express the essence of the
represented thing in an ‘idea’ or ‘concept.’
The essential elements, after being abstracted from the image, are
presented by the agent intellect to the potential intellect; the latter expresses
the elements in conceptual terms by gathering them together into an abstract intellectual representation of
the thing. This completed idea or concept is the expressed species of an intelligible order,[56]
a mental sign that signifies the essence of a thing.
It
is imporant for us know that the concept is not that which we understand but
that by means of which we understand. What is known in the first
instance is the object (the thing) itself in reality. An idea is simply an instrument
of knowledge, not the object which we know in the first instance. We can, of
course, make ideas the objects of our knowledge in a second instance, in a
second movement, which is in reflection, but it is crucial to make clear that
what we know in the first movement of our mind is the thing in extra-mental,
extra-subjective reality. To say that what we know in the first instance
can be only our ideas and impressions in our mind is to fall into the error
of subjectivism.
But
the process of intellection does not stop with the formation of the concept for
the latter’s abstract nature does not perfectly express the extra-mental thing
that is intended to be understood, which is individual and material (we are
considering here knowledge of the extra-mental physical world). After the agent
intellect’s separation of the essence there is then followed, in the process of
intellection, an operation in the inverse sense called the conversio ad phantasmata, which is the conversion of the mind to
experience. “The nature of the rock or of any other material thing cannot be
completely and truly known until one knows it as existent in particulars, which
are understood by means of the senses and the imagination. Therefore, it is
necessary, in order to that the intellect may comprehend in act its proper
object, that it convert itself to experience ad phantasmata, in such a way as to contemplate the universal
nature as existent in the particular.”[57]
“Our intellect abstracts the intelligible species from experiences, insofar as
it considers the nature of things in a universal way; and yet, it comprehends
them in experience, since it cannot understand the things from where it
abstracts the species, without turning to experience.”[58]
Alejandro Llano explains that “the proper object of the human intellect
– which is a mind united to a body – is a quiddity or nature existing in
corporeal matter: starting from this it can rise to the acquisition of some
knowledge of incorporeal realities. It is proper to a corporeal nature to exist
in an individual, which does not subsist without corporeal matter. For example,
it is proper to the very nature of stone or horse to exist respectively in this
concrete stone or in that specific horse; in the reality of things there is no
such thing as a stone-in-general or a horse-in-the-abstract. Therefore, the
nature of material things cannot be known completely and truly if it is not
known as existing in some particular thing. But we apprehend the particular
thing with the senses, and not directly with the intellect (there is no
intellectual intuition, in the sense of a direct knowledge of essences:
peripatetics and Kantians agree on this). Therefore, in order that the
intellect may understand its proper object in act, it is necessary that it
return to experience, so as to see the
universal nature existing in a particular instance. This return to experience
is what Thomas Aquinas calls conversio ad phantasmata, return to images.
But it is important to bear in mind that the phantasma or sense image,
is not that which is directly known, but rather a similitude of the known
thing, which is directly known through this similitude. So the phantasma
is taken in its intentional being, in its objective content (which is a
likeness to the known thing), and not its psychological or ‘physical being.’ By
means of a reflection which considers the nature of the knowing act and the
species by which one knows, the image is known as an image.”[59]
3.10.
The Will
3.10.1. Definition of the Will
Like
the intellect, the will is a spiritual operative power (faculty) of man.
It is spiritual, inorganic, for it is an appetite consequent upon the intellect
and therefore must belong to the same level as the inorganic intellect itself.
The will is an appetite, which is the desire of a conscious being for a
good. Appetite follows cognition (knowledge) because it follows form. The
inclination determined by an apprehended form is our appetite. “Therefore, just
as in those beings that have knowledge forms exist in a higher manner and above
the manner of natural forms, so there must be in them an inclination surpassing
the natural inclination which is called the natural appetite. And this superior
inclination belongs to the appetitive power of the soul, through which the
animal is able to desire what it apprehends, and not only that to which it is
inclined by its natural form. And so it is necessary to assign an appetitive
power to the soul.”[60]
The
will is a rational appetite. It is man’s rational appetency; it is the power to strive for an
intellectually perceived good and to shun an intellectually perceived evil.
Not only can one prove a priori the existence of intellectual
appetencies or acts of appetite from the proof that cognition follows appetite,
but the existence of intellectual appetencies or acts of will is also a datum
of experience. Freedom, justice, magnanimity, and honor cannot be apprehended
by the senses but are objects of intellectual cognition. Such intellectual
knowledge gives rise to a desire for the possession of freedom, justice,
magnanimity and honor. Thus, experience shows that there are appetencies (acts
of will) based upon intellectual cognition. Acts of will occur intermittently.
When a person is asleep or unconscious his will does not act, so we must admit
the existence of an operative faculty or potency of intellectual or rational
appetency. This faculty or potency is called the will.
The
will is really distinct from its subject for in creatural beings essence and
operative faculty are always distinct. Only in God is will identified with His
essence. Man’s will is also really distinct from its fellow operative potency
the intellect, for both have different formal objects. The formal object of the
will, or the aspect under which the will tends to anything, is the good in
general. The good is realized concretely in existing things, though not to the
same extent, and these things constitute the material objects of the will. It
is possible for the will to tend to anything which in any respect is
apprehended as good by the intellect, whether particular or universal, material
or immaterial. We experience the fact that the will can tend to the particular
and material, such as a sumptuous dinner, as well as to the universal like
freedom, justice and honor, or to the immaterial such as God.
The
will necessarily tends towards the end for which it is made. It tends towards
what the intellect presents to it as desirable or good, and towards its own
happiness or repose in the possession of the good. The will is necessitated in
its tendency towards the good in general, good in its common aspects, but it is
not necessitated with respect to particular things presented by the intellect
as desirable. The will is not necesitated in its particular acts. Many of the
things towards which the will tends have not a desirability of their own, but
are understood as things by which good may be obtained. That is, many things
are willed as means to the good desired, not as the good itself which is the
end. Now, just as someone who is forced to go to New York but is free to choose
the means (airplanes, trains, buses, by various routes) by which he hopes to
reach that city, so the will is necessitated and not free in its quest for the
good, but is free to choose, in the light of the intellect, what particular
means it shall use in its quest of the goal.
3.10.2. The
Rapport Between Intellect and Will
The
intellect in itself is a more excellent faculty than the will, for the intellect
attains its object by knowing it, while the will only tends towards its object.
However, under certain aspects, the will is superior to the intellect, for when
a good is greater or nobler than the soul itself, it is better to will it, that
is, to love it, than merely to know it. For example, it is better to love God
than simply to know Him. But in the case wherein the good is less noble than
the soul, the intellect, with respect to this good, is superior to the will.
For example, knowledge of material things like diamonds, gold bars, and rubies,
is better than loving these things.
The
intellect moves the will by showing it what is attractive. Therefore, the
intellect moves the will in the manner of a final cause. The will, in turn,
moves the intellect in the manner of an active, agent or efficient cause for
only the will can apply the intellect to the study of this or that particular
thing. It can turn away the attention of the intellect from one thing and fix
it on another. It also exercises an active control over other natural faculties
of man, but it has no control over the vegetative powers in themselves.
The
absolutely ultimate subjective last end of the human person is
happiness, which he wills necessarily. Man is free to will or not will any
particular good, but he is not free as regards happiness. All men, regardless
of race, creed, or nationality, desire to be happy. Even the robber who robs a
bank does so because he thinks that by doing such an act he will in the end be
happy in possessing his ill-gotten riches. Even the unfortunate person who
commits suicide thinks that by accomplishing that act he or she will be happy
as death will end all his or her troubles and anxieties. The hedonist seeks
pleasure for he thinks that he will be happy. The scholar seeks intellectual
knowledge for he or she thinks that he or she will be happy.
Now,
man’s absolutely ultimate objective last end is God the Supreme Good who
gives us true happiness. True happiness is a state made perfect by the
aggregation of all good things. Three things are necessary for human beatitude
or perfect happiness, namely, 1. the actual possession of all good consonant
with human nature ; 2. the exclusion of all evil ; and 3. the eternal duration
of the state of beatitude and the certainty of this eternal duration. As was
said, all men seek happiness save no one. Though all necessarily desire this,
nevertheless, they disagree among themselves on just what the object of true
happiness ultimately consists in. True happiness cannot be found, as many
erroneously believe, in sensual pleasure, power, fame, or even in sheer
intellectual knowledge, since they cannot perfectly satisfy him, but rather in
the beatific vision of God. Since we are on this earth for a short time and do
not as yet have this vision of God, which is only possible in the next life,
our happiness while on earth would consist in the virtuous life in grace, doing
the will of God, preparing for eternal happiness through the observance of the
moral law.
The
will’s necessity in willing the good in general or happiness does not
necessitate its willing of any determinate particular good. Particular goods
are willed as a means to this end (the universal good). Many particular goods,
for example, a computer or a luxury yacht, are not absolutely necessary for
happiness, and thus need not be willed even though one must necessarily will
happiness. The observance of the Eternal Law of God, on the other hand, is
necessary for happiness, but one can desire happiness without willing even this
necessary means to it if he fails to see that they are necessary means.
There
is no concrete being or action which man necessarily wills in this life. He
must indeed necessarily will the absolute good (the good as such) but only
concrete things presented to his will are particular goods, things seen as good
under one aspect but not under another. In this world, man finds that for each
good there is also presented a rival good; thus, he is never necessitated in
his choice of any particular good. Even though one’s absolutely ultimate
subjective last end is happiness which consists in the beatific vision of our
absolutely ultimate objective last end, God, the will in this life is not
necessitated to choose God, in whom alone consists our true happiness. Man’s
faith and reason may tell him that God is his absolute Good, but he does not see
God in this life, as do the blessed in heaven. He appears to man in this life
as one good in competition with others. Many times, God’s eternal law seems to
be an obstacle to the attainment of one’s happiness, since the spiritual path
is much more difficult than the path of the senses and passions. For St.
Thomas, “until through the certitude of the Divine Vision the necessity of such
connection be shown, the will does not adhere to God of necessity, nor to those
things which are of God. But the will of the man who sees God in His essence of
necessity adheres to God, just as now we desire of necessity to be happy.”[61]
Therefore, although we necessarily will the good as such (happiness), there is
not, in this earthly life of ours, any particular means to happiness that we
necessarily will. No particular finite good is capable of moving the will
necessarily.
Freedom of Exercise. As regards the act of willing, the will may be free to act or not to
act. This freedom is called freedom of exercise. It is the power to
perform or to omit an act. It is the freedom of the will between acting and not
acting.
Freedom of Specification. As regards the object, the will may be free to
choose between diverse objects, such as swimming, playing tennis, studying, and
typing. This is called freedom of specification. It is the power of
choosing one of two or more alternative means to an end.
“In
an act of will, that which moves the will as to specification and object
is the intellect, since the intellect presents the will with the apprehended
good which moves it to desire. In respect to exercise, the will itself
it its own moving principle, for the will as agent moves all the powers of the
soul, including itself.”[62]
Against
the Sartrean concept of freedom as boundless, there are in fact limits to our
human freedom. First: Our being is not identified with our freedom, we
having our acts of being received in a distinct potency (the essence) that
limits it. Our will is merely an operative potency (faculty), an accident, that
properly belongs to the human subject, who is the agent of his free acts; Second:
Man is not free as regards the tendency towards the good as such (or happiness),
though he is free with respect to particular goods; Third: Experience
shows us that the human person is not free to choose his not being corporeal
and sexual; Fourth: He is not free to violate the principle of
non-contradiction in his speech for fear of rendering communication impossible;
Fifth: Man is not free as regards his being a child of his time. He is
born in a definite place and in a definite cultural milieu, and these factors
certainly have a powerful bearing on his upbringing and views, even though free
will is not destroyed; and Sixth: Man is to a certain extent influenced
and conditioned by his passions, but again, not to the extent that it destroys
free will.
3.11. The Human Soul
We learn
about the existence of the human soul by observing its activities of
intellection and willing that pertain to the human soul’s operative powers or
faculties. Man has vital actions and therefore must have a first vital
principle, which is the soul. Since he has the rational vital powers of
intellect and will that transcend sense knowledge, since they pertain to the
realm of the universal which is gotten through the intellectual activity of
abstraction, man must not have merely a sensitive soul but rather a rational or
intellectual soul. Since the activities of intellection and volition are
immaterial, their operative powers of intellect and will must likewise be
immaterial, and their first principle, the rational soul, must likewise be
immaterial, for no effect can be greater than its cause. Something immaterial
cannot originate from something material, which has a much lesser degree of act
of being than immaterial realities which are so because of their particularly
intense level of esse. The human soul is, therefore, the first principle
of man’s rational life.
The
rational soul is a substance since the acts of understanding and volition are
merely accidents that must inhere in something whose essence or nature it is
proper to be by itself and not in another subject. Such accidents do not have
act of being of their own but are by reason of their substance of which
they are perfections of. Now, the immaterial acts of intellection and volition
are acts of the rational soul alone which has no matter in it; therefore, the
soul is a substance.
The
rational soul is one substance. One and the same soul remains as a permanent
principle throughout the succession of acts of understanding and willing.
Reflection evidences the fact that we experience our acts of intellect and will
as acts of the same I which remains throughout their succession.
The
rational soul, though capable of subsistence after the dissolution of the body,
is an incomplete substance. Man is a composite substance of body and soul. Now
a substantial union resulting in a sole substance can be possible only if the
components are incomplete substances or substantial co-principles. Although the
human soul is something subsistent, having the act of being of its own, it
nevertheless is not a complete substance but rather an incomplete one. An
incomplete substance is one whose nature demands that it be co-joined with
another substantial co-principle, so as to be able to constitute a single
complete substance. Matter taken by itself and form taken by itself are
examples of incomplete substances. A human soul taken in itself is an
incomplete substance, and a human body taken in itself is an incomplete
substance. The human soul and the human body taken together constitute the
single individual person, a complete substance, a person defined as an
individual substance of a rational nature. A complete substance is one that
does not need to be co-joined with the another substantial co-principle so as
to constitute a single individual substance. It exists in such a manner that
its nature does not demand a further union with a substantial co-principle. A
dog, a rat, a horse, and an apple are all examples of complete substances.
The
rational soul is simple, meaning that its essence is not composed of parts, viz.,
matter and form, which are constituent principles of a composite essence. We
find that the rational soul is simple because it is the principle of operations
that are intrinsically independent of matter. If the soul were composed of
matter and form, its operation could not in any way be independent from matter,
for action follows being (operari sequitur esse). If the rational soul
is essentially simple it follows that it is devoid of quantitative parts, for
quantitative extension can only be found in something material.
The
rational soul is spiritual since it exists independently of matter. From the
fact that the acts of intellection and willing are intrinsically independent of
matter it follows that the soul, which is the principle of these actions, is
likewise intrinsically independent of matter, for action follows being and no
effect is greater than its cause, that is, in this case, something immaterial
cannot be derived from something material which has a much less intensity of
participated act of being than something incorporeal. “There is one set of
operations, the activities of understanding and willing, which do not basically
depend upon anything material. In the act of intellectual knowing, as we have
seen, the forms of things exist in man as universal, and therefore as
nonmaterial. This means that the intellect must be nonmaterial, for something
material could not be the receptacle of the immaterial any more than a tin can
could contain the idea of patriotism or any other abstract idea. If, in other
words, there were matter in the intellect, the forms that are joined to it in
the act of knowing could not be universal because where there is matter there
is quantity, dimension, individuality. The intellectual activity of man, then,
is intrinsically independent of matter, The act of the will is similarly
independent of matter, for its object is always something known under the
aspect of the universal good. Since the actions of knowing and willing are
independent of matter, the principle or ground of these activities, the soul,
must be independent of matter. If it is independent of matter for its
activities, it must be equally independent of matter for its existence.
Therefore we can call the soul of man a spirit as well as a soul, for this is
what being a spirit means: to be independent of matter both as to its existence
and operation.”[63]
The
rational soul is really distinct from the body, which follows from the fact
that the intellectual soul is spiritual, while the human body is material.
Man
has his own rational soul. Reflection reveals to each of us that each man is an
understanding and willing I, which is distinct from other understanding and
willing I’s.
There
can be only one soul in each man. Though he has vegetative, sensitive, and rational
powers, he doesn’t have three different souls (a vegetative soul, a sensitive
soul, and a rational soul) but rather a single rational soul, it being the
principle not only of the intellectual life of the human person, but also of
his vegetative and sensitive life.
The
human soul is the substantial form of the body. The soul actualizes and
animates the body and is the substantial form which makes the living body the
specific kind of living body it is: a human body. The human soul is a
non-corporeal substance, an incomplete substance which together with the
incomplete substance of the human body constitute the complete substance of the
human person, man the hylemorphic composite of body and soul. The soul is an
incomplete substance endowed with the operative faculties of intellect and
will. In this life our soul has an extrinsic dependence on the body, not an
intrinsic dependence. It is capable of existing and operating per se
even if severed from its union with the body at death, since it has the act of
being (esse) of its own which is communicated to the body. The human
soul, then, is truly a subsistent substance, though, while it is a complete
soul, it nevertheless is not a complete human being as Plato erroneously
taught. Man, rather, is a compound of body and soul. The human soul is a
spiritual substance, an element of the human composite or compound, but in
itself is devoid of composition or compounding. There is no matter whatsoever
in the soul, it being a substantial spiritual form, a spirit. Souls, being
substantial and subsistent forms, having no material elements or parts to break
up, cannot decay, disintegrate, or cease existence. They have no intrinsic
dependence on matter for their existence and operations. Therefore, they are
incorruptible substances which cannot perish or die. It is the spiritual soul
which, substantially joined with matter, sets up and constitutes the one
existing living human person. The human soul is joined with its human body in a
substantial union, constituting one human substance. Each human person has his
or her own soul and there are as many human souls as there are existing,
individual human beings.
Where
does the human soul come from? A man’s soul could not have come from the
bodies, nor the composite of body and soul, nor from the souls of his parents.
Only God can create a rational soul, infusing this soul into the human body
which, together, forms the hylemorphic composite that is man. Parents cannot
create the soul of their offspring for only God can create; only God has
absolute control over the act of being of something, which he produces out of
nothing. Human parents only have their acts of being from another, namely, God,
so in no way can one’s human soul come from one’s parents. The parents, on the
other hand, produce one component of their offspring’s hylemorphic composite,
namely, the human body. Though one’s human soul is not produced by one’s
parents, the union of soul with the body is brought about by the parents
inasmuch as they produce a human body which necessary needs to be animated by a
human soul which is its act.
The human soul is immortal. Since man’s soul has the act of
being of its own, making it subsist even after the dissolution of the body at
death, it is endowed with immortality, that is, it will continue to exist
forever. It cannot corrupt since it is simple, not having parts to break up or
dissolve.
CHAPTER 4
PHILOSOPHY OF
KNOWLEDGE
Philosophy
of knowledge or gnoseology (from the Greek gnosis
= knowledge, and logos = study) is
defined as the science of knowledge
studied from the philosophical point of view, or the science of knowledge in
its ultimate causes and first principles. With this definition there is
indicated both the material and formal objects of this philosophical
discipline, the material object being
knowledge and the formal object being
knowledge studied from the philosophical point of view or knowledge
in its ultimate causes and first principles.
Since
knowledge is a rapport between thought and reality, and that the end of this
rapport is the truth, one can also describe philosophy of knowledge as a metaphysical inquiry into truth. Why
should we say specifically a metaphysical inquiry and not just a philosophical
inquiry? It is because philosophy of knowledge’s sphere of inquiry is, in a
certain sense, coextensive with metaphysics since, if the latter is concerned
with the philosophical study of being, the former deals with our knowledge of
being, that is, being inasmuch as it is knowable by the human mind. Though
philosophy of knowledge is an essential part of metaphysics (metaphysics
understood in the broad sense as the philosophical study of being), it is not the
foundation of metaphysics proper or ontology (which is the philosophical study
of being as being). Metaphysics is the foundation of knowledge since knowledge
is not the foundation of being but rather being the foundation of
knowledge.
Various
names have been given to our philosophical study of knowledge such as criticism and criteriology, but rather than express a philosophical inquiry into
the processes of human knowledge, these titles instead invoke Cartesian and
Kantian immanentist criticism and doubt when confronted with common sense
certainties and the first principles of human knowledge, and therefore these
names should be avoided. Likewise to be avoided is the term epistemology since it refers above all
to philosophy of science or theory of science. Philosophy of
knowledge or gnoseology are the best names to describe the philosophical study
of knowledge since they embrace the whole sphere of questions that regard the
possibility for the human mind to grasp being in the knowledge process.
4.2.
Truth
Logical
truth[64]
is the conformity of the mind (our judgments) with things or reality. Veritas
est adequatio intellectus ad rem. Truth in the strict sense is not found in
simple apprehension but in the second operation of the mind, judgment. For
example, if I say that elephants have wings I have just made a false statement.
Why? Simply because it does not conform with reality. If I affirm, on the other
hand, that elephants are mammals, my statement is true because it conforms with
the reality of things. Logical truth, or the truth of the mind in conformity
with reality, is to be distinguished from what is called ontological truth,
also called transcendental truth, which is the truth of things and is studied
in metaphysics. Truth has a number of properties, namely: 1. it is knowable
by man (man is capable of grasping the natures of things by the intellect
and forming true judgments about reality, contrary to such philosophies such as
Hume and Kant wherein extra-mental reality as it is in itself is utterly
unknowable); 2. it is one (that is, there cannot exist several truths
that would reciprocally contradict one other); 3. it is indivisible; 4.
it is immutable (that is, necessary truths are always true, not changing
with time. Abortion was intrinsically evil two thousand years ago, it is
intrinsically evil today, and will be intrinsically evil a thousand years from
now); and 5. it is absolute (that is, it is not relative to man or to
the situations of man. There does not exist a truth of mine opposed to the
truth of others. Racism, for example, is wrong for oneself and for all
others).
4.3.
States of the Mind in Confrontation with Truth
There
are various states of the mind when confronted with truth.[65]
The various states that the mind may cross before arriving at a certain
judgment are either ignorance, doubt, or opinion. Ignorance in the
strict sense is simply the absence of knowledge in a subject. Doubt is a
state of the mind wherein the intellect fluctuates between affirming and
denying a given proposition, without being attracted more in one direction than
in the other. It is a suspension of judgment when faced with a possible
proposition and its contradiction as well. Opinion is a state of mind
wherein the intellect postulates a judgment without certainty and with a fear
of being mistaken. Here, the mind is not certain of possessing the truth though
it retains that a determined position has more probability, for there are in it
reasons of greater weight than in the contrary position, even if there be no
decisive reason as yet.
Certainty is the state of mind wherein one has the security of resting within the
truth. In the certain judgment the mind adheres to a truth in a firm way
without any vacillation. Faith is an assent because of the testimony of
someone else. In faith (whether it be a purely human faith or whether it be
supernatural faith based on the assent to the truths revealed by God Himself
who does not deceive nor can be deceived), the will moves the intellect to
assent with certainty, based on the testimony and the authority of another,
with no hesitation about the truth of the contrary position. Lastly, error consists
in affirming the truth of what is false.
Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate causes and first principles of
all reality.
It is also the science of being as being. Its material object is being.
Its formal object is being as being. Our science delves into the
metaphysical structure of being, its properties (or the transcendentals of
being), and causes (material, formal, efficient, and final causality).
5.2. Being (Ens)
Being
(ens) is that which is. It is that which has the act of being
(esse). The notion of being (ens)
implies a composition of a subject (that “something” which is and is the real subject to which the act of being belongs), and
an act (the very act of being of that “something”).[66]
Every finite being (ens) has a real distinction between essence (essentia)
and act of being (esse).[67]
With God, the Infinite Being, on the other hand, essentia and esse are
identified. God’s Essence is To Be. Essence is that which makes a thing to
be what it is, while act of being (esse) is that which makes a
thing to be.
5.3. Being is Analogical
Equivocal Terms. Equivocal terms are terms used with entirely different meanings. In
univocal terms the same term, in at least two occurences of the term, has
meanings completely different from one another. Examples of equivocal terms: 1.
“Pen” as in the writing instrument, and “pen” as in pig pen which houses
animals ; 2. “Bill” as in a piece of paper from a company showing what you owe,
and “bill” as in the parts of a bird’s jaws ; 3. “Fan” as in an electric fan,
and “fan” as in an admirer or follower
; and 4. “Seal” an emblem or figure used as evidence of authenticity, and
“seal” the sea mammal that feeds on fish and has limbs reduced to
flippers.
Univocal Terms. A term is univocal if it signifies exactly the same concept, or essence,
in (at least) two occurrences of the term. Univocal terms have one and only one
meaning. They are constantly used in an identical sense. For example, when I
say “A dog is an animal,” and “A cat is an animal,” “animal” in both
propositions is univocal. In “A fly is an insect,” and “A mosquito is an
insect,” “insect” in both sentences is univocal.
Analogical Terms. Terms are analogical when the term, in at least two occurences of the
term, has several meanings which are partly the same and partly different.
Analogical concepts are predicated of their subjects in a way that is partly
the same and partly different. Analogical terms share in the same perfection
but have a diversity in the manner of possessing that perfection. For example,
there is a difference between a good rock, a good plant, a good car, a social
good, and a good person. The metaphysical foundation of analogy lies in the
different ways various subjects possess the same perfections. Different manners
of being results in different manners of signifying. Now, an analogical term
may be based either on the analogy of proportionality or on the analogy of
attribution of which there are two types, the analogy of extrinsic attribution
and the analogy of intrinsic attribution.
Analogy of Proportionality. In the analogy of proportionality, the analogous
term is applied to unlike things because of some proportion or resemblance
existing between them. A concept is predicated with the analogy of
proportionality when several subjects possess a common perfection in ways that
are not exactly but only proportionately the same. There can be an analogy of
proportionality in the mathematical order, for example, with the proportion
between quantities such as the double proportion obtaining in 2:1, 4:2, 8:4 and
so on. These ratios are proportionately equal so we are able to say that 2:1
equals 4:2 equals 8:4. Though it is true that four is not equal to eight,
nevertheless, the relation 4:2 is identical with the relation 8:4. Such an
equality is termed a proportional quality. We also see the analogy of
proportionality working in other fields such as that of philosophy. We can say,
through a similarity of relations, that matter is to form as potency is to act.
Metaphors also belong to the class of analogy of proportionality. We say that
hikers begin their adventure at “the foot” of the mountain, “foot” because of
its resemblance to the position of the foot with regard to the human body.
Graphic comparisons and parables also employ the analogy of proportionality.
Analogy of Attribution. In the analogy of attribution the analogous term
is applied in an absolute sense to one thing and is then attributed to other
things because of an intrinsic relation which they have towards the first.
While analogy of proportionality merely compares different proportions, the
analogy of attribution goes further, pointing to one of the terms of comparison
as the principle of the rest. A perfection is predicated with the analogy of
attribution if, among several subjects of a common perfection, there is one
which possesses the perfection in all its fullness, while the rest possess it
in derived manner or by what is called participation. In the analogy of
attribution there is always a central and primary meaning by which the rest
depend, and the analogical term is predicated beforehand of the subject (called
the principal analogate) of the principal meaning. With regard to the other
subjects, called the secondary analogates, the analogical concept is predicated
only posteriorly. The analogy of attribution involves the predication of a
concept or term primarily to the principal analogate, and its posterior
attribution to the other subjects by derivation. Now, the analogy of
attribution can either be extrinsic or intrinsic.
Extrinsic Analogy of Attribution. In this type of analogy of attribution only the
principal analogate properly and formally possesses the analogical perfection;
the secondary analogates possess it only in an extrinsic and improper manner.
Take, for example, the term “health.” Medicine is deemed “healthy” because it
restores health. Climate is termed “healthy” because it is conducive to health.
Food is termed “healthy” because it sustains health. Exercise is termed
“healthy” because it promotes health, and complexion is said to be “healthy”
because it indicates a healthy constitution. Medicine, climate, food, exercise,
and complexion are said to be healthy only in an improper sense for they are
the external causes of a healthy body.
Intrinsic Analogy of Attribution. This type of analogy is the most important as it
is of capital importance in describing the relation between God and His
creatures. In the intrinsic analogy of attribution the analogical concept is
properly predicated not only of the principal analogate but also of the
secondary analogates because the former really is the cause of the perfection
of the latter. For example, we say that creatures “are” and God “Is” ; being is
said principally of God, the Supreme Being, for His Being is His Essence.
However, being is properly predicated of created beings inasmuch as they
received their being from the Supreme Being. Creatures “have” being by
participation, while God “Is” being. The fundamental basis of the intrinsic
analogy of attribution is the relations of causality among beings. It is based
on the imperfect similarity or likeness of the effect to its cause. Sanguineti
gives us some observations regarding this point: “a) Since one cannot give what
one does not have, at least some perfections of the efficient cause will
necessarily be reflected in its proper effects. The efficient cause is,
therefore, also an exemplary cause of its proper effects. It follows that by
studying the latter, we can, using the analogy of attribution, arrive at some
knowledge of the former. It is in this way that we arrive at an analogical
knowledge of the nature of God on the basis of the manifold perfections we find
in creatures; b) Consequently, analogy of attribution implies both similarity
and dissimilarity. The analogical concept is predicated per prius
of the cause, and per posterius of the effects. It is partly attributed
to the effects inasmuch as they are similar to the cause ; but it is partly not
attributed to them since they are also unlike the cause. Hence, the universe
is, at one and the same time, like God and unlike Him; c) The foundation of the
analogy of attribution is not an abstract idea but a real cause, the cause of
the participated likenesses of the perfection in the secondary analogates. For
example, if being is common to God and the world, it is not because the
abstract notion of being is found in both of them, but because the being of
the world points to the Being of God as its principle and cause. It
would be an error to establish the foundation of this analogical community of
being on the most abstract concept of being-in-general (esse comune),
which is necessarily univocal; d) The ontological priority of the principal
analogate does not always mean gnoseological priority, for sometimes it is only
through their effects that we acquire a knowledge of the causes. This is the
case with our knowledge of God, the principal analogate of being. Though first
in the ontological order, God comes after creatures in the noetical order since
it is the latter that we first know and apply names to. In the order of
knowledge, therefore, the meaning of our notions of being, goodness
and truth applies primarily to creatures.”[68]
To
sum up, when we say that “God is Being” and that “man is a being”,
being here is predicated of their subjects analogically, not univocally
as Parmenides taught. “If being were to be understood in a univocal
manner, then all reality would be deemed to be in the same manner, which
would ultimately lead to monism. Everything would be seen as identically one,
and therefore, there would be no difference between God and creatures
(pantheism). Taking into account the analogical notion of being,
however, we can speak about God and creatures as beings, maintaining at the
same time the infinite distance between them. By way of analogy, created being
leads us to the knowledge of the divine being and its perfections. That
is why this question is of utmost importance for metaphysics and theology.”[69]
A
principle is that from which something else proceeds. Self evident
principles or understandings are called first principles. It is
important to recognize that these first principles are first of all in reality
before they are in the mind. We are capable of knowing them with an intuitive
knowledge for we view them as they are in reality through intellectual insight
and understanding. Among the ancient philosophers Aristotle had the profoundest
grasp of what these principles were, but these principles are not the mere
opinions of an Aristotle or a St. Thomas; rather, they form part of the common
property of our human heritage. They are not the product of fantastic musings
or idle speculation but are the result of a profound intellectual insight and
understanding into reality. Now, the first of these first principles is the
principle of non-contradiction.[70]
As
being is the first notion that our intelligence grasps, and which is implied in
any consequent notion, there is also an intellectual judgment which comes
naturally first and which is presupposed by all other consequent judgments: “It
is impossible to be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.”
This first judgment is called the principle of non-contradiction for it
expresses the most basic condition of things: that they cannot be
self-contradictory. Such a principle is founded upon being and expresses the
consistency of being and its opposition to non-being.
There
are different ways of expressing this first principle. It is above all a
judgment that concerns reality itself. Hence, the more profound formulations of
the principle of non-contradiction are metaphysical in nature. For example, the
Stagirite states in the fourth book of his Metaphysics that “it is
impossible for one and the same thing to be and not to be,”[71]
and further on, that “it is impossible for a thing to be and at the same
time not to be.”[72]
The
principle of non-contradiction is the supreme law of reality and not just a
simple postulate or axiom of our mind. But, since the mind of man is geared to
know reality as such, it is, in a derivative way, the first and supreme law of
logic. Violate this supreme law one collapses into a state of mental anarchy.
Since the first principle of reality is also the first principle of thought we
are able to say that “we cannot both affirm and deny something of the same
subject at the same time and in the same sense” as well as to say that
“contradictory propositions about the same subject cannot be simultaneously
true.” The human mind is subject to the principle of non-contradiction: it
cannot know being as self-contradictory precisely because being cannot
be self-contradictory. If our mind attempts to deny this principle our
reasoning falls into absurdities.
The
principle of non-contradiction is not just an internal, subjective, law of
logic but is based on reality itself. Kant taught that the first axiom
principle of non-contradiction was at the foundation of all analytic judgments,
and that this principle was itself an a priori analytic judgment that
has nothing to do with synthetic judgments that are formed on the basis of
experience. Consequently, he mistakenly held, against the realist position,
that the principle of non-contradiction was valid only in the logical sphere,
not in reality; it would only be a negative logical condition for correct
thinking.[73] The
transcendental “Thomist” J. Maréchal not only corrupted realism, adopting the
Cartesian point of departure, but, following Kant, taught that the principle of
non-contradiction was but the subject’s expression of a subjective necessity.
The prolific author Karl Rahner, a disciple of Kantian (and Heideggerian)
thought and Marechal’s transcendental “Thomism,” also held that that the
principle of non-contradiction was found only in the subjective order of our
minds and not in the objective order of reality.[74]
Henri
Bergson’s (1859-1941) vitalist evolutionism also erroneously denies the
objective validity of the principle of non-contradiction in the name of becoming.
For him, there are no concrete individual things but rather actions, real being
defined as not that which is, that which exists, but rather that
which becomes and continuously is in flux. He writes: “There are no
things, there are only acts; things and states are merely modes of thinking,
which our mind derives from the idea of becoming.”[75]
Consequently, there can be no real distinction between “a glass of water,
water, sugar, and the process by which sugar is dissolved in water.”[76]
Such reasoning is tantamount to affirming that a dog is a dog and no dog at all
since it is in constant flux and therefore has no proper nature. Everything
would be in everything. Edouard Le Roy (1870-1954), a follower of Bergson,
likewise denied the objective validity of the principle of non-contradiction in
the name of becoming: “the principle of non-contradiction is not as universal
and necessary as has been believed; its application is limited; it is
restricted and circumscribed in meaning. Being the supreme law of speech, but
not of thought in general, its influence extends merely to what is static,
morcellated, immobile, in a word, to the things endowed with identity.
But just as there is identity in the world, so also there is contradiction.
Such are those fugitive fluxes, as becoming, duration, life, which of
themselves are not of the rational order, and which speech transforms so as to
incorporate them into contradictory schemata.[77]
For Le Roy, our mind merely objectivates the universal becoming that is reality
for the needs of speech and for the practical needs of everyday life; in such a
way does the mind pretend to submit all that is real to the principle of
non-contradiction. The consequences of this type of reasoning, this manner of
violation of the principle of non-contradiction, in the field of morality is
disastrous. Morality becomes immorality for there is no more a distinction
between objective good and evil than there is a distinction between being and
non-being. Jean Weber, himself of the Bergsonian school, gives us the moral
consequences of accepting the views of Bergson and Le Roy: “Morality, in
planting itself on a terrain from which invention grows in all its vigour,
immediately and full of life; in manifesting itself as the most insolent
encroachment of the realm of the intellect upon spontaneity, was fated to
encounter the continual contradictions of that undeniable reality of dynamism
and creation which is our activity…Confronted with these morals of ideas, we
outline morality, or, more correctly, the unmorality of the act…We call ‘good’
whatever has triumphed. Success, provided it is fierce and implacable, provided
the vanquished are completely defeated, destroyed, abolished beyond hope –
success justifies everything…The man of genius is profoundly immoral, but for
anyone to be immoral is not the proper thing…‘Duty’ is nowhere in particular,
and yet it is everywhere, for all actions possess absolute value. The repentant
sinner deserves all the anguish of his contrite soul, because he was not strong
enough to transgress the law, and unworthy to be a sinner.”[78]
The
absolute idealist Hegel attempted to deny the objective reality of the
principle of non-contradiction. Jean Weber, of the school of Bergson, sums up
Hegel’s denial of the objective validity of this principle in the name of the
very idea of being: “Being is the most universal of all notions, but for this
very reason it is also the poorest and the most negative of notions. To be
white or black, to have extension, to be good, means to be something; but to be
without any determination, is to be nothing, is simply not to be. Pure and
simple being is, therefore, equivalent to not-being. It is at one and the
same time itself and its contrary. If it were merely itself, it would remain
immobile and sterile; if it were mere nothingness, it would be synonymous with
zero, and in this case also completely powerless and infecund. It is because it
is the one and the other that it becomes something, another thing,
everything. The contradiction contained in the notion of being resolves itself
into becoming, development. To become is at the same time to
be and not to be (that which will be). The two contraries which
engender it, namely, being and non-being, are rediscovered, blended and
reconciled in becoming. The result is a new contradiction, which will
resolve itself into a new synthesis, and thus the process will continue until
the absolute idea is reached.”[79]
Garrigou-Lagrange objects to such reasoning, writing: “To perceive the sophism
contained in this argument, we need only to cast it into syllogistic form: Pure
being is pure indetermination. But pure indetermination is pure non-being.
Therefore, pure being is pure non-being. The middle term, ‘pure indetermination,’
is used in two different senses. In the major it means the negation of all
determination, generic, specific, or individual, but not the negation of (ideal
or real) being, which transcends the generic determinations of which it is
susceptible. In the minor, on the other hand, pure indetermination is not only
the negation of all generic, specific, and individual determination, but also
implies the negation of any further determination of which being is capable.
Therefore, the argument amounts to this: that pure being is undetermined being;
but undetermined being is pure non-being. The minor is evidently false.”[80]
Garrigou-Lagrange also adds: “Besides, there is no apparent reason why becoming
should emerge from this realized contradiction, this identification of
contradictories. On the contrary, we must hold with Aristotle that ‘to maintain
that being and non-being are identical, is to admit permanent repose rather
than perpetual motion. There is in fact nothing into which beings can transform
themselves, because everything includes everything”(IV Metaph., c. v).[81]
Frederick
Wilhelmsen explains that Hegel’s panlogicism was a serious attempt to deny the
objective validity of the principle of non-contradiction: “Hegel identified the
orders of thought and existence. Being functions the way thinking functions,
taught Hegel, because being is a ‘concretization’ of absolute spirit. In
thought, said Hegel, every proposition has its contradictory. Posit any
judgment and you thereby posit its opposite. On this point, Hegel merely
repeated a truth known to logicians since the time of Plato. Aristotle
systematised this law of the mind in his well-known Square of Opposition: The
proposition ‘every cow is black’ is contradicted by ‘some cow is not black’; ‘no
academician is a fool’ is contradicted by ‘some academician is a fool,’ and so
forth. Hegel pushed this opposition of judgments to the order of being itself.
‘Being is being’ is contradicted by ‘being is not-being.’ Given the first
proposition, the second automatically follows. Therefore being contradicts
itself, and this contradiction is the most fundamental law of the spirit. If we
grant Hegel’s identification of spirit and reality, his position makes good
sense. It was the only way he could account for progress in the universe, for
change. If the real is basically the same thing as the rational, one of two
conclusions follow: either the real is given once and for all or it is not. If
we grant the first supposition, we must conclude – with Hegel – that spirit
never gets anywhere at all; spirit does nothing but analytically dissect an
order already given at the outset, an order of ideas and laws to which nothing
new is ever added. Refuse the first supposition because of the fact of change
in the world and it follows that reality could only advance by contradicting
itself. Begin with a given – call it A – and assume that only A is given. How
do we get from A to B, when B is not given? We move from A to B only if A
contradicts itself. Fundamentally, B is nothing but A’s negation of itself; B
is non-A. In this fashion we can move from one point in the real order to
another. We can account for change, for the advance of spirit. If we refuse
Hegel’s identification of spirit and reality, if we judge his position in the
light of realism, we can easily see that his error consisted in treating the
metaphysical order, the real order, as though it were the logical. But the
whole point about being, in reality, is that it is being. The
contradictory to being, not in the order of ideas but in the order of things,
would be non-being. But in reality there is no such ‘thing’ as an
existing non-being. A man does not need an armory full of logical and
dialectical weapons to understand this; all he needs is some existing thing
which he can contemplate for a short time. Concentrate for a moment on the
piece of paper before your eyes; formulate the proposition, ‘the paper exists’;
now contradict the first proposition with ‘the paper does not exist.’ The two
judgments contradict each other in the logical order, in your mind. The
contradiction exists mentally because the two judgments can be entertained as
logical opposites. Now return your attention to the piece of paper itself, not
as it exists in a proposition in your mind, but as it is in itself. What is the
contradictory of the existence of the paper in the order of being? In that
order, the order of things as they exist beyond your thinking of them, there
simply is no contradictory to the piece of paper. The non-existence of
the paper that exists is a metaphysical zero. To see this is to see that Hegel
confused the two orders.”[82]
For
Garrigou-Lagrange, “this absolute intellectualism of Hegel is no less
destructive of all knowledge than is the anti-intellectualism of Heraclitus and
Bergson. All reasoning presupposes that every idea employed in the process
represents a reality, the nature of which remains the same; but for
Hegel, the principle of identity (non-contradiction) is merely a law of
inferior logic, of the mind working with abstractions, and not a law of
superior logic, of reason and reality. ‘From this it follows,’ as Aristotle
remarked (IV Metaphy., c. iv), ‘that one can with equal right affirm or
deny everything of all things, that all men tell the truth and that all lie,
and that each one admits that he is a liar.’ For the rest, Hegel himself
acknowledges ‘that if it is true to say that being and non-being
are one and the same, it is also true to say that they differ, and that the one
is not the other.’[83]
It follows from this that, according to Hegel, nothing can be affirmed and
everything can be affirmed. If this attitude does not destroy all science, it
cannot at least be said to have more than a relative value, and hence to
possess nothing more than the name of science.”[84]
For
Hegel, reality is not grasped in its concreteness, in its substantiality.
Rather, substance and essence is negated in favor of contradiction and
becoming. The fundamental principle of the Hegelian dialectic is that the
essence of being is contradiction. For him, the antinomical dialecticism of
contradiction is not something by which change is realized in a substance,
respecting of course, the concrete individuality of substance, nor is it a
simple function or law of thought; rather, it is the very essence of reality
itself and also of thought itself. Hegel doesn’t just make the dialectic a law
of thought but is in fact a metaphysical principle of reality. He identifies
metaphysics with logic and makes logic metaphysics itself. Each thing – a dog,
rat, a cow, for example – is and is not itself ; it fact, its true being
is becoming.
Neo-Positivists
dimiss the principle of non-contradiction holding that this principle cannot be
approved by the principle of verification which states that all meaningful
propositions must be verifiable in sense experience. Thus, the principle of
non-contradiction would be, in their eyes, meaningless. The problem with the
principle of verification is that it too cannot be verified in sense
experience, it being a metaphysical principle transcending sense
knowledge.
In
the Metaphysics, Aristotle replies to those who would be so foolish as
to negate the principle of non-contradiction writing that “in order to deny
this principle, one has to reject all meaning in language. If ‘man’ were the
same as ‘non-man’, it would not, in fact, mean anything at all. Any word would
signify all things and would not, therefore, denote anything; everything would
be the same. Consequently, all communication or understanding between persons
would be impossible. Thus, whenever anyone says a word, he is already
acknowledging the principle of non-contradiction, since he undoubtedly wants
the word to mean something definite and distinct from its opposite. Otherwise,
he would not even speak….Anyone who rejects this first principle should behave
like a plant, since even animals move in order to attain an objective which they
prefer over others, as when they seek food.”[85]
“Besides, denying this principle in fact implies accepting it, since in
rejecting it, a person acknowledges that affirming and denying are not the
same. If a person maintains that the principle of non-contradiction is false,
he already admits that being true and being false are not the same, thereby
accepting the very principle he wishes to eliminate.”[86]
The
principle of non-contradiction is naturally and spontaneously known by all men
through experience and is self-evident
to all. Since it is the first judgment, this first principle cannot be
demonstrated by means of other truths prior to it. When a truth is
self-evident, it is neither necessary nor possible to prove it; only something
which is not immediately evident requires proof. That the principle of
non-contradiction is not demonstrable because of its self-evidence is not a
sign of its imperfection; rather it is a sign of its perfection.
Garrigou-Lagrange
summarizes for us Aristotle’s eight principal reasons for defending the
necessity and objective validity of the principle of non-contradiction: “(1) to
deny this necessity and this validity would be to deprive words of their fixed
meaning and to render speech useless; (2) all idea of the reality of an
essence, or thing or substance as such, would have to be abandoned; there would
be only a becoming without anything which is on the way of becoming; it would
be like saying that there can be a flux without a fluid, a flight without a
bird, a dream without a dreamer; (3) there would no longer be any distinction
between things, between a galley, a wall, and a man; (4) it would mean the destruction
of all truth, for truth follows being; (5) it would destroy all thought,
even all opinion; for its very affirmation would be a negation. It would
not be an opinion which Heraclitus had when he affirmed that contradictories
were true at the same time; (6) it would mean the destruction of all desire and
all hatred; there would be only absolute indifference, for there would be no
distinction between good and evil; there would be no reason why we should act;
(7) it would no longer be possible to distinguish degrees of error, everything
would be equally false and true at the same time; (8) it would put an end to
the very notion of becoming; for there would be no distinction between the
beginning and the end of a movement; the first would already be the second, and
any transition from one state to another would be impossible. Moreover,
‘becoming’ could not be explained by any of the four causes. There would be no
subject of becoming; the process would be without any efficient or final cause,
and without specification, and it would be both attraction and repulsion,
concretion as well as fusion.”[87]
We
initially arrive at a knowledge of substance from the observation of accidental
changes in nature. A father’s face, for example, gets red because his son
bumped his favorite car. The passage from the father’s originally white face to
a red face to a white face again does not obviously destroy the individual
being that is the father. He doesn’t turn into a frog or a chair. Therefore,
this accidental modification that he undergoes without destroying his being an
individual man reveals a substratum that remains in essence the same throughout
the accidental changes. There is revealed, in the accidental alteration that we
have observed, a stable, permanent substantial core, called the substance,[88]
and certain secondary changeable perfections, called the accidents.
5.5.1.
Substance
Like
being, substance cannot be strictly defined. But substance may be broadly
defined as that reality to whose essence or nature it is proper to be by
itself and not in another subject. Now, since the substance is the core of
a thing that weathers the various accidental modifications, it is the most
important element in each thing. There are two basic aspects of substance: 1.
The substance is the substratum, the subject, that supports the
accidents; and 2. Substance is something subsistent. This means that it does
not exist in something else but is by itself, not needing to inhere in another
like the accidents do. A dog, for example, is a substance since it subsists,
having its own being distinct from the being of anything else. The brownness of
the dog, however, doesn’t subsist in itself but needs to inhere in a subject.
We say “This brown dog.” The broad definition of substance is taken from this
second fundamental aspect of substance. Psychologically, substance as the “substratum
of the accidents” is prior to substance as “something whose nature or essence
it is to be by itself and not in another subject.” That is, we initially arrive
at a knowledge of the substance through its function of supporting the
accidents. However, metaphysically or ontologically, that is, in the order of
reality, substance as “something whose nature or essence it is to be by itself
and not in another subject” is prior to substance as the “support of the
accidents,” because in order for substance to act as the support of the
accidents it must first of all “be by itself and not in another subject,” that
is, it must be capable of supporting itself. If substance is capable of having
an essence or nature to be by itself and not in another it will be capable of
supporting the accidents. Being capable of supporting the accidents is a
property of the substance whose real nature or essence is to be by itself and
not in another subject. This is why the broad definition of substance is taken
from the second of our aspects of substance.
5.5.2.
Accidents
An
accident is defined as that reality to whose essence it is proper to be in
something else, as in its subject. If what is most characteristic of the
substance is to be by itself and not in another, that which is most
characteristic of accidents is to be in another, that is, to be in the
substance. Take for example a cat. The substance here would be the substance
cat, while its accidents would be the various perfections inhering in the
substance cat (a substance that, though modified by its accidents, nevertheless
remains in essence or nature unchanged), accidents such as its shape, size,
colour, fluffiness of its fur, etc.
It
is to be observed that the definition of accident includes the subject. The
nature of the accident is to demand inherence in another. As the substance has
a nature or essence to which subsistence is fitting, and which situates the
subject within a determinate species, accidents also have their own essence by
which they are differentiated from each other, and to which dependence on the
being of their subjects is fitting. The essences of accidents are naturally
imperfect for they demand the support of their subjects.[89]
Rather than simply being, an accident is said to be something belonging to
being.[90]
Accidents cannot be said to “become” or be corrupted; rather it is the subject
that becomes through the accidents.[91]
It is for this reason that an accident cannot be defined without the subject as
a quasi-part of the definition.[92]
“No matter how we take an accident, its very notion implies dependence on a
subject but in different ways. For if we take an accident in the abstract, it
implies relation to a subject, which relation begins in the accident and
terminates in the subject: for whiteness is that whereby a thing is white.
Accordingly, in defining an accident in the abstract, we do not put the subject
as though it were the first part of the definition, viz., the genus; but we
give it the second place which is that of the difference: thus we say
snubnosedness is a curvature of the nose. But if we take accidents in the
concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates at the accident:
for a white thing is something that has whiteness. Accordingly, in defining
this kind of accident, we place the subject as the genus, which is the first
part of the definition; for we say that a snubnose is a curved nose.”[93]
There
is a three-fold relation between substance and accidents[94]:
1. The substance is the substratum or
the subject of the accidents, the “subject” here the bearer and that which
underlies, and it indicates the metaphysical dependence of all the accidents on
the substance. The substance is also the substratum
of the accidents inasmuch as it gives them the act of being (esse); 2. The substance is to accident
what potency is to act, because the accidents perfect the substance. The
substance has a potency or passive capacity to receive further perfections
conferred to it by its accidents, called accidental forms. For example, the
operations of acts of free will are accidents which are a kind of perfection to
which a substance is in potency; and 3. The substance is related to the
accident as cause is to effect. The substance is the cause of the accidents
which arise from it and the accidents come into being because of the substance.
There
is a real distinction between a substance and its accidents, as is seen when observing
accidental changes. Observing such accidental changes in the substance, we find
that certain secondary perfections disappear and give rise to new ones without
a substantial change in the subject. And such accidental alterations can only
be possible if these accidents are really distinct from the substance they
affect. All the nine accidents are, by their very essences, distinct from their
subject. The substance is really distinct from the accidents, being superior to
them, for it is the substance that determines the very content of things,
making them to be what they are, whereas the accidents must depend entirely
upon the substance, their substratum, for their very being.
The
act of being (esse) properly belongs to the subject of the accidents
which is the substance. Accidents also are, but are by reason of the act of
being that belongs to the substance. It is only the substance that is in the
proper sense of the term. To say that accidents have an act of being of their
own, as Suarez did, would undermine the unity of the substance-accidents
composite (that is one substance and one substance only having its own
accidents). We should also be reminded that the substance is being (ens)
in the strict sense. Accidents are only by reason of being supported by its
substratum or support which is the substance. Thus, it is only the substance
that should properly be called being; accidents instead are something belonging
to a being (ens).
Accidents
depend entirely on the substance for their being, for they do not have esse
of their own but are because of the act of being of the substance. The real
distinction between substance and accidents and their inequality does not in
any way undermine the radical unity of the substance-accident composite of being (ens).
The real distinction cannot destroy the unity of ens for a substance and its accidents are not many beings mixed up
together to form a whole; rather, there is only one being in the strict sense,
which is the substance, and all of the accidents of this particular substance
“belong to it,” receiving their very being from the substance without which
they would cease to exist. Accidents cannot be autonomous realities separated
from substance; they are rather the determining aspects of a substance,
perfecting and completing it.
We
arrive at a knowledge of the substance-accidents composite by means of our
intellect, initially through the information provided it by our senses. Our
senses are only able to grasp the accidents of things, and this data is passed
over to the intellect which arrives at its source and basis, which is the
substance, again by means of the accidents. It is only the intellect that is
capable of grasping the nature of the thing, its essence. In the process of
knowing a thing composed of substance and accidents we employ a constant going
back and forth from accidents to substance and from substance back to the
accidents: 1. In the beginning we have a vague knowledge of the composite of
substance and accidents. When we are in the forest for example and see a large
being approaching at a distance, its nature unknown to us, we know that the
various qualities perceived by our senses, for example, the colour, size and
shape, of the being, are not independent realities existing in themselves but
rather belong to a single substance, the being approaching at a distance. Even
at this initial stage of the knowledge process we already perceive that the
various accidents are but secondary manifestations belonging to a single
individual substance that subsists by itself, even though we are unable as yet
to determine the exact nature or essence of this substance. It should be
recalled that being (ens) is the first thing that is grasped by the
intellect, and since substance is being in the strict sense, we cannot perceive
accidents without at the same time perceiving the subject or substance in which
these accidents inhere in; 2. From the perception of the accidents by the
senses we move now to a knowledge of the nature of the substance. The accidents
do not hide the substance; rather, they reveal it. The accidents of the bear
approaching at a distance, reveal the nature or essence of the bear. Thus,
through external manifestations we arrive at a knowledge of the substantial
core of the subject in question; 3. Then, from the substance we go back to the
accidents. Having arrived at a knowledge of the nature of the thing perceived,
in this case, our approaching bear, this new knowledge gives us much more
insight into the other accidents of the animal in question as well as their
mutual relationships. Knowing the essence or nature of bears, man knows that bears
can at times, when provoked, or when protecting its young in the vicinity,
attack humans in a ferocious manner, and thus he adjusts his behaviour
accordingly to the situation.
The
categories[95] (also
called the predicaments), are the supreme modes of being, divided into
substantial being and accidental being. The supreme genera of the categories
are composed of the substance and the nine accidents, namely: quantity,
quality, relation, action, passion, time (when?), place (where?), position (situs),
and possession (habitus). Some brief examples of each of the ten
categories will very helpful in gaining a knowledge of these supreme classes of
being which, though like being cannot be strictly defined, can rather be
described and illustrated with examples. Here are the following examples: “Mark
is a man” (substance); “Mark weighs 200 pounds” (quantity); “Mark is
intelligent” (quality); “Mark is the son of Joe” (relation); “Mark is pushing
the chair” (action); “Mark is being slapped around by his father” (passion);
“Mark arrived at his house at seven in the evening” (time or when?); “Mark is
in Los Angeles” (place or where?); “Mark is sitting down” (position or situs);
“Mark is wearing a formal suit and tie” (possession or habitus). It
should be noted that accidents have essences of their own (essence here is
understood in the broad sense as referring to both the nature of substances and
accidents).
5.6.1.
A Brief Description of Each of the Accidents
1. Quantity.
This accident pertains to everything corporeal, that is, all material beings
have a definite quantity, and it arises from the determinable element in the
hylemorphic composite, namely the matter. Quantity is the spatial extension of
a corporeal substance. Examples of quantity include weight and size. It asks,
in terms of measurement, how big or little, and how much. Here are some
examples of indications of quantity: “The building is a thousand feet tall”;
“The truck weighs fifteen tons”; “The map is eight by eleven.”
All these predicates indicate various quantities.
2.
Quality. This important accident will be explained shortly.
3.
Relation. This accident will likewise be explained shortly.
4.
Action. This accident arises in the substance insofar as it is the
efficient or agent principle of change or motion in another subject. Action is
indicated in the following: “The dog is gnawing a bone”; “The waiter is pushing
the refrigerator”; “The electrician is cleaning the airconditioner.”
5.
Passion. This accident arises in substances insofar as they are the
passive subjects of the activity of others. It is the reception of the effect
from another, in the sense of suffering, bearing, enduring, receiving, and
being acted on. In language it is expressed by the passive voice of the
transitive verb. Examples of substances undergoing passion: “Joel was shot in
the back”; “Betty endured her ordeal in the mountains.” Passion answers the
question, “What is happening to it.”
6.
Time (or When?). This accident regards the temporal situation of
a corporeal substance or of an event with reference to what precedes and what
follows. Time or when? is indicated using such expressions as: “Joel
took his exam today”; “Joel has an appointment at five o’clock”;
“Joel will go to the restaurant after classes”; “Joel had the accident ten
years ago”; “Joel’s father was born in the year 1964.”
7.
Place (or Where?). This accident regards the localization of the
substance, that is, it is the accident which arises in a corporeal substance
because of its being here or there. It deals with the position of a body in
space, with reference to other bodies. Some examples: “Gerard is in New York”;
“Gerard is at that street-corner”; “Gerard is at that Chinese restaurant”;
“Gerard is outside the country.”
8.
Position (or Situs). Position regards the corporeal substance’s
way of being in a place, like for instance, “Gerry is standing up,” “Gerry is
squating,” “Gerry is sitting down.” This accident indicates the relative
position of parts of the same corporeal substance. It is different from the
accident place or where? for it refers to the relative internal
arrangement of the various parts of the localized bodily being. Thus, a body
can be in different positions at the same place.
9.
Possession (or Habitus). Possession refers to the external
adjuncts of a body. It is a special accident expressive of material and
external things immediately adjacent to the subject. Some examples: “John is
wearing his formal suit and tie”; “John is wearing his Cartier watch”; “John is
wearing his leather shoes.” Only humans are capable, in the strict sense, of
possessing things, and so this accident properly belongs to the human species
alone.
Though
it is the substance that is the subject of the accidents, an accident can be
called the subject of another insofar as the latter inheres or resides in the
substance through the former. For example, color, which is a quality, affects
the bodily substance only insofar as the substance is endowed with quantity; a
substance without quantity simply cannot be colored. Another ordering among
accidents: an accident can be in potency with respect to another accident. For
example, a substance which has the accident quantity is in potency to be in a
place other than where it currently is. At first the substance and its accident
quantity is actually in a certain place, but is also potentially in another
place. If it proceeds to that other place, then it is actually in that place,
and not just in potency to be in that place. Lastly, certain accidents can be
considered to be the causes of other accidents. For example, the action of the
conjugal act (an accident) is the action by which husband and wife generate a
son or daughter which gives rise to the relations of paternity and filiation
between parents and offspring. Another example: having the virtue of fortitude
(an accident) gives rise to, or is the cause of, brave actions (accidents) in a
person (substance). It is to be noted that as regards a corporeal substance,
quantity is its first accident since all other accidents such as quality,
action, passion, and so forth, are rooted in the substance by means of its
quantity. We will not treat of quantity in detail since that properly falls
within the scope of philosophy of inanimate nature (cosmology). Metaphysics,
instead, examines in detail the accidents quality and relation, as they apply
to both corporeal and incorporeal substances, and it is the fitting task of
metaphysics to deal with the ultimate causes and first principles of all
things, corporeal and incorporeal.
The
accident quality intrinsically affects the substance in itself, making it to be
in one way or another. It arises from the form of things and is found in both
corporeal and incorporeal beings. It is the most inclusive of accidents, having
the widest scope, meaning, and application. Quality indicates what sort or kind
a thing is. It modifies or influences a substance in itself or in its
activities. In language, most adjectives express qualities. It makes the
substance which it affects either better or worse, or makes it function more
easily or less easily. Qualities have their opposites and can be listed in
opposite pairs, like knowledge and ignorance, virtue and vice, and health and
illness. They are also susceptible to degrees, capable of being increased or
diminished in intensity.
Qualities
are reduced to the following four groups: alterable qualities, shape and
figure, operative powers or faculties, and habits.
1.
Alterable Qualities (also called passive qualities or characteristics).
These qualities affect a physical change in a substance. Alterable qualities
include temperature, color and humidity. The rise in temperature of water from
cold to hot, for example, affects the water physically.
2.
Shape and Figure. These qualities of corporeal bodies define the limits
of quantity, giving it definite dimensions and contours.
3.
Operative Powers. These qualities are also called operative faculties or
potencies. They are qualities which enable the subject to carry out certain
acts like thinking, willing, walking, etc. They include, for example, the
intelligence and will in man, and the power of locomotion in both man and
animal.
4.
Habits. These are stable qualities by which a subject is either well or
ill-disposed with regard to a certain perfection befitting its nature
(entitative habits) or its action or goal (operative habits). Habits are
divided into entitative habits (like the habits of health or sickness) and
operative habits (like virtues or vices).
Relation[96]
is that accident whose nature is a reference or order of one substance towards
another. It is that reference of one being towards another being, the order
that a being has with respect to other beings distinct from it. Examples of
relations include paternity, sonship and filiation. Paternity, for example, is
the accident that links father to son. Although it is based on the fact that
the father gave life to his son, paternity is itself no more than a mere
relation or reference which does not intrinsically add a new characteristic or
property to the father’s substance. Relations can either be real relations or
relations of reason (logical relations). For example, the relation between
subject and predicate in a proposition is a logical relation. Real relations,
on the other hand, refer to relations in extra-mental reality. The elements of
a real relation are the following: 1. the subject, which is the person
or thing in which the relation resides; 2. the term (terminus),
to which the subject is related; 3. the basis of the order between the
subject and the terminus; and 4. the relation itself, or the bond
linking one thing to another. In the case of sonship, for example, the subject
is the son, the terminus will be the father and mother (parents), the
basis would be generation (what causes the son to be related to his parents is
their having begotten him), and the relation itself would be sonship.
We
arrive at an initial knowledge of the doctrine of act and potency[97]
through the observation of change or motion. Though Parmenides was the first
formulator of the principle of non-contradiction (though Aristotle and Aquinas
later perfected this formulation) he, nevertheless, denied the possibility of
motion or change in the world, adopting a monistic position. Aristotle found a
solution to this error with his doctrine of act and potency. The change or
motion that we see around us is definitely real; it is the passage from being
in potency to being in actuality. It is the successive actualization of the
potency. For example, hot water is in a state of actuality and cold water is in
a state of potentiality towards being hot water. When water is heated with fire
it slowly starts to boil. This process of water being heated is a transition
from cold water (the state of potentiality) to hot water (the state of
actuality). What is formerly in potency undergoes a successive actualization of
the potency towards a state of actuality (in hot water).
Potency
is the capacity to have a perfection while act is the perfection which a subject
possesses. Act is contrasted to potency which is the potentiality to receive
the perfection or act. Potency and act are directly known through experience as
correlative to each other. In the case of potency its very constitution is to
be directed towards some type of act. Because they are primary and evident
notions, they cannot be strictly defined but only described by means of
examples and by contrasting these notions with one another.
Act
and potency should be considered under two aspects, namely, the physical (which
is linked to change or motion), and the metaphysical. Regarding the physical
aspect, act and potency form the elements that make change or motion
understandable. Here, what is actual cannot be at the same time potential and
vice versa. Hot water cannot be cold water at the same time and in the same
respect. Change is the transition between being in potentiality and
being in actuality.
Regarding
the metaphysical aspect, act and potency form the stable constituent principles
of all things (finite things, that is, which excludes God who is Pure Act
without any admixture of potentiality whatsoever), so much so that the potency,
even after having been made actual, continues to be a co-principle of its
corresponding act. In all material beings, which are hylemorphic composites of
prime matter (potency) and substantial form (act), prime matter remains even
after reception of its form.
Potency
is that which can receive an act or already has it. This statement implies a
number of things: 1. that potency is distinct from act; 2. that act and potency
are not complete realities but rather principles or aspects found in things; 3.
that potency is to act as the imperfect is to the perfect; and 4. that in
itself potency is not a mere privation of act but is a real capacity for
perfection.
1.
Potency is Distinct from Act. This can be shown when act is viewed as
separated from its corresponding potency. For example, the exterior sense of
taste sometimes is tasting and at other times is not. Yet no one doubts that
man has the potency or power for tasting. The exterior sense of sight is
sometimes seeing and other times is not, yet men have the potentiality or
capacity to see. A person may at times be walking, and at other times he may be
at rest, yet he still has the potentiality or capacity to walk. These various
potencies of man may not be currently in use, that is, they may not be
actualized, but they still remain potencies. Thus, potency is characterized as
being the capacity to have an act or by being a receptive subject, and is
therefore distinct from act.
2.
Act and Potency are Not Complete Realities but Rather Principles or Aspects
Found in Things. Act and potency are the distinct co-principles of a thing.
Act is not a subsistent being and potency is not a subsistent being; rather,
they are principles of a created thing. In God, however, there is no
potentiality whatsoever; He is Pure Act of Being with no imperfection or need
to be perfected. He is Absolute Perfection.
3.
Potency is to Act as the Imperfect is to the Perfect. In its strict
meaning, act means perfection, a completion, something determinate. Potency, on
the other hand, is an imperfection, a capacity for perfection. The fully
finished marble statue of the Pietà in St. Peter’s basilica is something
determinate, a perfection, something in act, while the shapeless block of
marble that was the initial material that Michelangelo would later use would be
the determinable, the imperfect, the potency, the potentiality for perfection.
4.
In Itself Potency is not a Mere Privation of Act but a Real Capacity for
Perfection. The external sense of sight, when not in use, is not a mere
privation, but is at that very moment potentially capable of being actualized
by the actual operation of seeing, which is a perfection.
Subjective Potency and Objective Potency. Also called logical
potency, objective potency is the capacity of a non-existent being
for existence, founded in the non-repugnance of a subject and predicate. For
example, man was objectively possible before he was created. Subjective
potency, which is real potency, is the capacity or aptitude of an existing
being for an act (for example, the potency by which a piece of marble can
receive the act of the form of a statue).
Passive Potency and Active Potency. Passive potency is the capacity a
thing has to be changed by another as other, while active potency is the
power to effect a change in another as other. Passive potency is the capacity
to receive while active potency is the power to do. Passive potency can be pure
or mixed.
Pure Potency and Mixed Potency. Pure potency is potency that is not actualized
in any way, being essentially and totally indeterminate. It exists in the
corporeal beings and is called prime matter. Mixed potency is all
that which is actuated in part but is still further actualizable. This pertains
to every finite being. Thus, for example, water is in act with respect to the
form of water, but is in potency with respect to heat.
Pure Act and Mixed Act. Pure act is act which admits of no potency
whatsoever. This is God Himself. Mixed act is act which is received into
potency, or it is act which is in potency to act of another order. Mixed act is
either entitative or formal.
Entitative Act and Formal Act. Entitative act is the very act of being (esse)
of a finite thing. Entitative act is a mixed act inasmuch as it is received
into a potency which limits it, not inasmuch as it is in potency to further
act, for esse is the ultimate act. Formal act, the act of essence, act
in the order of essence, is the act by which a thing is determined and
perfected in its species; v.g., substantial form.
First Act and Second Act. First act is act which does not presuppose
an anterior act, but awaits a subsequent act; v.g., substantial form. Second
act, on the other hand, is act which presupposes an anterior act; v.g., an accident.
Therefore, second act is accidental act. An example of second act would be acts
of thinking (the operative power of intelligence would, in contrast to thought,
be an active potency).
Act
has primacy over potency in a number of ways: 1. act is prior to potency as
regards perfection; 2. act has cognitive priority over potency; 3. act has a
causal primacy over potency; and 4. act has a temporal primacy over potency.
1.
Act is Prior to Potency as Regards Perfection. Act is perfection while
potency is imperfection waiting to be perfected by act. A thing is perfect
insofar as it is in act while imperfect while in potency. Being in act constitutes the end or goal
towards which being in potency strives for. Sight, for example, is ordered
towards the goal of seeing, and without the latter activity the operative
potency would be frustrated. With regard to man, his body is the potency which
receives the soul as its act and becomes subordinated to this perfection.
Therefore, act is prior to potency as regards perfection.
2.
Act has Cognitive Priority Over Potency. Act has a cognitive priority
over potency as the latter is ‘defined’ by the former, that is, in relation to
the former, as the ability or capacity to build is known from the act of
building, or the ability or capacity for sight is known from the act of seeing.
“Any potency is known through its act, since it is no more than the capacity to
receive it, possess it, or produce a perfection. Consequently, the definition
of each potency includes its own act, which is what differentiates it from
other potencies. Thus, hearing is defined as the power to grasp sounds, and the
will is defined as the power to love the good. The primacy of act in knowledge
is based on the very nature of potency, which is nothing but the capacity for
an act.”[98] “Cognitive
primacy,” says Krapiec, “occurs when the cognition of one thing requires the
prior cognition of another, so that the one thing may be cognized in light of
the other. Act enters into the understanding of potency; act is the reason of
the cognition of potency; and, therefore, act is cognitively prior to potency.
But why does act conceptually justify potency? Potency is real when it has
within it real dispositions in relation to some act. In other words, potency
becomes something real through its real ordination to act. Consequently, it is
found in relation to act, and this is a relation that defines potency through
act, without which potency is unintelligible. This is also why the names of a
real potency are not derived from the potency, but from the act that defines
and realizes it, the act to which the given potency is ordered.
“From
this it follows that the understanding and explanation of potency takes place
through act, while the understanding of act takes place spontaneously, by way
of ‘induction’ and through an analysis of examples (potentia innotescit et
definitur per actum, actus autem non potest definiri). Properly speaking,
neither act nor potency has a strict definition, since they are the first
elements of being and cognition; still, this very cognition we have of act and
potency is governed by a certain subordination. On the basis of a previously
cognized act, by means of intuition or a ‘quasi demonstration,’ we can cognize
the character of potency. Act expresses in itself a certain perfection, a
certain completed being, and so it can be cognized without appealing to
potency, whereas potency can never be cognized without act. Act, therefore,
‘specifies’ potency and endows it with a determinate content (actus explicat
potentiam, seu potentia sumit speciem ex actu).”[99]
3.
Act has a Causal Primacy over Potency. What is in potency does not
become actual without the influence of something already in act. For example,
fire (something in act) causes cold wood (in potency) to become hot and then to
be fire. Without that prior act cold wood would never of itself be in act.
Either it burns by fire (in act) or is heated by the sun (in act) which causes
the cold wood to be hot. Therefore, act has a causal primacy over potency.
4. Act
has a Temporal Primacy over Potency. Potency does indeed have a certain
temporal primacy over act; for example, the operative powers of intellect and will
(active potencies) come before the production of the activities of thinking and
willing (second acts). However, the operative potencies of intellect and will
point to an agent cause, the soul, which is prior in act. Another example: an
acorn (in potency) came before the full grown pine tree (in act), but this
acorn had to be, of necessity, the fruit of a prior tree (in act). Therefore,
act has a temporal primacy over potency.
Regarding
the relation between act and potency as principles of being, we can state the
following: 1. potency is the subject in which the act is received; 2. act is
limited by the potency which receives it; 3. act is multiplied through potency;
4. act is related to potency as that which is participated to the participant;
and 5. the act-potency composition does not destroy the substantial unity of
being.
1. Potency
is the Subject in which the Act is Received. We look at a man, for example,
and begin to know his various perfections (acts), like the color of his hair,
eyes and skin, without ever denying that these perfections reside in that
person (potency), who is the subject of these perfections (acts).
2.
Act is Limited by the Potency which Receives It. Every act received in a
subject is limited by the capacity of that subject. The perfection of redness
in an apple is limited by the substance apple, its recipient. An apple can only
contain as much redness as the dimensions of that fruit allow. Unreceived act
is in itself unlimited, and when one finds limited instances of act, it is
because of a potency which receives and limits it.
3.
Act is Multiplied Through Potency. The same act can be present in many
individuals which can receive it, as for example, when the specific perfection
“apple” is possessed by many individual apples because it is present in a
potency, namely, prime matter. The same substantial form is multiplied in many
individuals of the same species. Accidents (acts) are also multiplied by their
respective potencies, namely substances. The accident “red,” for example, is
multiplied insofar as there are many objects having that same color.
4.
Act is Related to Potency as that Which is Participated to the Participant.
The doctrine of act and potency can be understood using the theory of
participation.[100]
To participate means to have something in part or something in a partial
manner. This presupposes that there are other subjects that possess the same
perfection, none of them possessing that said perfection in full. Also, in
participation, the subject cannot be identical to what it possesses; the
subject merely possesses this perfection by participation only. The subject of
participation has the perfection, possesses the perfection; he is not the
perfection, he doesn’t have the perfection by essence, that is, in a full and
exclusive manner, by being identical with it. Creatures have the act of being
while God is the Act of Being by Essence, that is, Essence and Act of Being are
identical in the Divine Being. Now, while pure actuality is act by essence, the
relationship of act and potency is one of participation. The subject (potency)
capable of receiving a perfection (act) is the participant, and the act itself
is that which is participated in by the subject.
5.
The Act-Potency Composition does not Destroy the Substantial Unity of a
Being. Act and potency are not subsistent beings (entia) in
themselves but rather constituent principles of finite beings (entia).
They are not things but rather the co-principles of a thing. Potency is by
nature a capacity for perfection, a capacity towards an act, to which it is
essentially ordered and without which it would not be able to exist at all
(prime matter [potency], for example, exists for the form [act], without which
it simply would not exist). Potency’s union with its act cannot therefore give
rise to two individual things, two separate beings.
5.8. Essence (Essentia) and Act of Being (Esse)
5.8.1. Essence (Essentia)
The
substances we see around us are not simple but are composed of two principles:
essence and act of being, the former being related to esse as a potency,
and the latter being related to essentia as act. Essence (essentia
in Latin) is the proper potency of the act of being (esse) and together
with this act constitutes the substance (substantia). Essence[101]
confers upon this substance a specific manner of being. It is defined as
that by which a thing is what it is.
As the principle of operations, essence is called
nature. Insofar as essence is signified by a definition, it is called quiddity
or “whatness.” Insofar as essence is known, it is possible for it to be
referred to many individuals, and for this reason it is called a universal.
Though capable of being utilized in these various senses, essence nevertheless
stresses its relationship with esse, it being the principle in which the
esse of a thing is received and by which it is restricted to a determinate
form; essence is so called insofar as a thing has esse in it and through
it.
All
corporeal substances are hylemorphic composites, that is, beings composed of
matter and form. Every material or corporeal substance is an essentially single
individual being compounded of two intrinsic essential principles, namely,
prime matter and substantial form. In a material thing prime matter is
potential, passive, and determinable, while the other co-principle, substantial
form, is actualizing, determining and active. Prime matter in a material thing
is the root of receptivity and passivity. Because of it, a body can be acted
upon, moved, divided, changed, or corrupted. Because of the substantial form
the material substance maintains its own identity, possesses its own
properties, causes changes in other bodies, and makes itself known. By reason
of the substantial form the body is of a certain nature, an individual member
of a particular species. We may have ten pieces of chalk yet they have the same
substantial form, the form of chalk, that is, the bodies of the same species
have the same substantial form in different parcels of matter. Prime matter and
substantial form are the two essential co-principles of the substance. Taken by
themselves, they are incomplete substances, but taken together in the
hylemorphic composite being they form one complete substance. Matter and form
are the intrinsic causes of the substance. Prime matter is the receptive
subject of the substantial form and embodies it in concrete being. Substantial
form actualizes the matter, determining it to a specific nature. Form is the
principle of nature or species while matter is the principle of individuation.[102]
Matter is the principle which multiplies the forms. Aside from multiplying the
forms, matter also individuates or singularizes it. It is matter, in which the
form of the species is received, that makes the existence of many individuals
of the same species possible.
5.8.3.
Act of Being (Esse)
The
principal element of being (ens) is
its act of being (esse). The act of
being (esse) is that which makes a thing to be.
The
act of being (esse) is an act
which is a perfection of all reality. In metaphysics, act refers not only to
transient actions and immanent operations of an agent subject but designates
any perfection of an individual being. Esse
is a universal act for it is not an exclusive property of a particular
type of being but is proper of all things that exist in reality. The act of being
is a total act for it is a perfection that includes all that an
individual being has and encompasses all that an individual being is. If
essence is that which makes a thing to be this or that, the act of being is
that which makes a thing to be. A
thing is, not because of its essence,
which is the principle of diversity, but because of its act of being, which is
the act common to all beings. The act of being precedes every other act as no
action, property or agent subject would be
without it. Actions and immanent operations like understanding and willing are
accidents that presuppose a subsisting subject, but all presuppose esse for without esse nothing would be.
Therefore, the act of being is the principal and innermost act of a being which
gives the subject, from within the substantial being itself, each and every one
of its perfections. Esse
intrinsically actualizes every substantial being as it is their principle of
reality.
The
act of being is the most intensive act as it contains, in its pure state, all
perfections. Creatures have varying degrees of perfections as they participate
in the act of being according to their determinate essences. Individual beings
possess esse in different degrees of
intensity. Insects, for example, participate in the act of being in a much less
intense way than say, a dog. A human person participates in the act of being in
a much more intense way than a horse. God alone is Pure Act of Being, in whom
act of being and essence are identified. Only God is All-Perfect, possessing
the act of being in all its fullness and intensity, infinitely surpassing all
the perfections of the entire created universe. God, Pure Act of Being, without
potentiality whatsoever, is devoid of any imperfection and limitation. On the
other hand, all created things possess a limited and less intense participated
act of being, and the more imperfect they are, the lesser act of being do they
participate in. Therefore, the diversity of perfections of creatures created by
God (who alone is Pure Act of Being) have their foundation in the diverse ways
of possessing esse, for the source of all an individual being’s
perfection is its esse.
Those
who deny that St. Thomas ever defended the real distinction between essence and
act of being in finite beings include M. Chossat,[103]
P. Descoqs,[104] and the
Jesuit Francis Cunningham,[105]
who work under the influence of Suarezian essentialism. However, Suarez himself
admits that St. Thomas held the real distinction, which, in spite of this, he
denies.
The
real distinction between essence (essentia) and act of being (esse)[106]
is one of the central doctrines of St. Thomas, first sketched out by the
Stagirite[107] and later
developed and perfected by the Angelic Doctor. The act of being is necessarily
really distinct from essence since act is really distinct from its potency
which receives and limits it.
5.8.5.
Three Arguments Supporting the Real Distinction Between Essence and Act of
Being in Finite Beings
1. The
Argument Based on the Limitation Found in Creatures. Every created being
possesses the act of being in a partial manner both in extension, as it is not
the only one, and in intensity of being, as its actuality is possessed in a
limited manner. No creature possesses the perfections to the greatest possible
degree. Therefore, no created being is identical with its esse but
rather participates in the act of being in a limited way, its essence being the
receptive potency that limits the act of being.
2.
The Argument Based on the Multiplicity of Creatures. The obvious fact
that there are a multitude of beings around necessarily reveals that created
beings are composed of act of being and essence. Why? Because if something’s
essence were its own act of being it would necessarily be one and simple. Esse
is really multiplied in many individuals, but this would be impossible unless
the act of being be united to a potency – the essence – really distinct from
it.
3.
The Argument Based on the Similarity Found Among Beings. If two or more
creatures are similar there must be something in them that accounts for their
conformity and something that accounts for their difference. The source of
their similarity must naturally be distinct from the source of diversity. Now,
all creatures are similar because they possess the act of being, and because of
this they all exist. But they differ from one another on account of their
essences (essence is the principle of specification) which limit esse in
diverse manners. Therefore, act of being and essence are really distinct from
one another.
Aristotle
first laid the groundwork for the real distinction in the Posterior
Analytics, though a developed doctrine is nowhere to be found in his
writings. The Stagirite’s doctrine of act and potency offered a basis for the
real distinction, but it is clear that his doctrine did not teach that all the
perfections of the subject, including the subject, were in potency to the act
of being, the act of acts and the perfection of perfections. Plato suggests the
real distinction in his doctrine of participation, but it remains just that, a
suggestion which was to be developed later on by the Neoplatonists, the head of
whom being Plotinus who taught that all beings, with the exception of God, had
composition. Augustine teaches that God is Being by Essence, whereas creatures
are beings by participation and can therefore be included among the list of
those affirming the real distinction. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, with his
participation theory, should also be included in the list of the defenders of
the real distinction. Boethius holds a real distinction between esse and
id quod est, but his esse is clearly not the act of being but
rather second substance, the id quod est, in contrast, being the first
substance of Aristotle. Therefore he does not give any existential meaning to esse
and thus does not, in the final analysis, teach the real distinction between esse
and essence. Al-Farabi and Avicenna both taught the real distinction, but for
Avicenna, esse is understood to be a kind of accident to the essence.
Averroes, and later St. Thomas, criticized this interpretation. William of
Auvergne, St. Albert the Great, and St. Bonaventure, all taught the real
distinction, but it was Aquinas who perfected the doctrine. There is no doubt
that St. Thomas held the real distinction of essence and act of being in finite
creatures, as well as the identity of essence and act of being in God. To deny
the real distinction would make Aquinas’ doctrine of essence and act of being
simply unintelligible. Aegidius Romanus, or Giles of Rome, defended the real
distinction, but in such a weak way, erroneously teaching that essence and act
of being were really distinct like two things (distinguuntur ut res et res),
that his views were rejected and attacked by Henry of Ghent who denied the real
distinction. Others denying the real distinction include Averroes, Siger of
Brabant, and the Latin Averroists. Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and the
famous Jesuit metaphysician Francisco Suarez also denied the real distinction,
all being influenced by Henry of Ghent. Suarez denied the real distinction in
favour of a virtual distinction. Also rejecting the views of the Dominican
Aquinas on the real distinction were fellow Dominicans Durand de Saint Pourçain
and James of Metz. Certain Jesuits, who do not follow the lead of Suarez and
defend the real distinction include Schiffini, Billot, Mattiussi, Remer,
Maurice de la Taille, Boyer, and Henri Renard. Most of the early Thomists
defended the real distinction including Capreolus and Francis de
Sylvestris.
A
consideration of the various constitutive principles of being should naturally
have as its goal being in the fullest sense, which is the suppositum,
the subsisting subject. The term subsisting subject designates the particular
being with all of its perfections. The suppositum is being in the full
sense. It is being in the most proper sense of the term, subsisting, existing
in itself as something complete and finished, distinct from all other things.
It is an individual whole, subsisting by virtue of a single act of being, and
cannot be shared with another. Its characteristic marks are its
individuality, subsistence, and incommunicability or unsharedness. The
subsisting subject (suppositum) is composed of act of being, essence,
and accidents. The names that designate it include the whole, the concrete,
the singular, the individual, the suppositum or hypostasis,
and the first substance (primary substance), which is the individual
something that exists in reality. Man is a particular type of suppositum,
namely, a rational suppositum. Boethius was the first philosopher to
formulate an adequate definition of the person as an individual substance of a
rational nature (individua substantia rationalis naturae). The most
perfect beings that exist are persons, namely, God, angels, and men.
Psychological
definitions of the human person which reduce him to self-consciousness
(Descartes[108]) or will
to power (Nietzsche) or to making-freedom (Sartre), for example, are totally
inadequate since self-consciousness and free-will are merely accidents that
belong to the human suppositum, both accidents and subject being
actualized by the act of being, the act of acts and perfection of perfections.
The ultimate metaphysical foundation of understanding, willing, and personhood
itself is the participated act of being given him by the Divine Act of
Being.
The
Cartesian immanentist path could only lead logically to atheism. Once we are
unable to recuperate reality itself, then we are not able to demonstrate the
existence of God commencing with real beings in the extra-mental world and
going up, through the principle of causality, to God. One becomes either an
agnostic or, one step further, an atheist. If we are unable to know reality
then there is no objective truth, for truth follows being, logical truth being
defined as the conformity or adequation of our judgments with reality. And if
we are unable to know reality, as Hume and Kant maintain, then we are unable to
know stable human nature as it is in reality, leading to the denial of
objective morality. So, no God, no objective truth, no objective morality, as
preached by the likes of Marx, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, and Comte, and what do we
have? The mass murders of the twentieth century with the likes of such
“supermen” as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Is there a direct link between
immanentism, the dissolution of the ontological concept of the human person for
a merely psychological one (a consequence of immanentist gnoseology), and the
horrors against the human person during the last century, undeniably the
bloodiest of centuries? Yes, a direct link, leading all the way up to the
Cartesian Cogito.
All the horrors of the last century on such a
vast scale led a number of thinkers to exchange the corrupt psychological
definition of the person for a personalistic, dialogical (intersubjective),
one. The founder of the personalist school was a Frenchman by the name of
Charles Renouvier (1815-1903), who came out with his most famous work entitled Personalism,
at the end of his life (1903). Personalism had as its epicenter the France of
the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. Another
famous French personalist is Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950), whose most famous
work goes by the same name as Renouvier’s –
Personalisme – which was first published in 1949. Others who have
used the dialogical (intersubjective) perspective include the Frenchmen Maurice
Nedoncelle and Paul Ricoeur (born in 1913), the Germans Max Scheler (1874-1928)
and Romano Guardini (1885-1968, a German of Italian origins), the Jewish
philosophers Martin Buber (1878-1965) and Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), the
Russian Nikolai Berdjaiev (1874-1948), the Italian Luigi Stefanini (1891-1956),
and the Spaniard José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955).
Against
all forms of totalitarianism and other systems that degrade man (such as
absolute idealism, nazism, marxism and other forms of materialism), personalism
has, as the center of its philosophy, the human person, unrepeatable, of
absolute value, worthy of the highest esteem and respect, and in continual
dialogue with others. For Renouvier, the foundation of all philosophical
inquiry must be man in his concreteness and individuality. Personalism
highlights that which is unique in the human person, such as his freedom, his individuality,
his unrepeatableness, his capacity for culture, language and communication, his
human rights, his responsibilities, his capacity for vocation and love.
Personalists stress being instead of having; man should be respected for what
he is, rather than for what he has. They also stress human freedom instead of
determination, openness to dialogue instead of egoism, and altruism instead of
greed. Man is not a closed being, but open to others, a communicator who lives
with and encounters others. He is an interpersonal reality, a being in
dialogue. For the most part, personalists have been theists, either Catholic,
Protestant, or Jewish, open to transcendence and to the transcendent One (who
is the Supreme Thou).
For
Mounier, the psychological definition of the person (which reduces man to
thought, will etc.) is inadmissible,
for “I cannot think without my being and be without my body: by means of my
body I am exposed to myself, the world, and others; by means of my body I
escape from the solitude of a thought which would only be the thought of my
thought. Refusing to concede a complete transcendence to myself, the body
continually projects me outside of myself, into the problematics of the world
and the struggle of man.”[109]
Instead of thought or self-consciousness, man is rather an “incarnate
existence,” an “incorporated existence.” The primary properties of the human
person brought out by Mounier and many of the personalists, who consider man
from the dialogical perspective, are vocation (“every person has such a meaning
that he cannot be substituted for in the place he occupies in the universe of
persons”[110]), action
(“the incessant activity of the person
is a search until death for an anticipated, longed-for unity that is
never realized”[111]),
and communication or encounter with others: “the first movement revealing a
human being in the prime of infancy is a movement towards others: the baby of
six to twelve months of age, leaving vegetative life, discovers himself in
others, recognizes himself in some attitudes regulated by his gaze at others.
It is only later, at about three years of age, that he will have his first wave
of conscious egocentrism…The first experience of the person is the experience
of the second person: the you, and therefore the we, comes before
the I, or at least accompanies it. It is in material nature (which we
are partially subjected to) that exclusion reigns, in that one space cannot be
occupied twice; the person, instead, through the movement that makes him exist,
expresses himself, he is by nature communicable, and is even the only one who
can be himself.”[112]
In
Personalism, Mounier develops his following theses: 1. The human person
is psycho-physical. He is, as was mentioned, an “incarnate existence,” an
“incorporated existence,” not just thought, will, etc.; 2. The human person is
transcendent with respect to things in the world. He is able to free himself
from the rest of nature; only man knows the profundities of the universe, only
he can transform it, shape it in conformity to his designs; 3. The human person
is open towards others through communication; 4. The human person is active or
dynamic; he is in an incessant quest or search for a never to be realized
unity; 5. Man has a vocation, someone in the universe that can never be substituted
for someone or anything else; and 6. Man has freedom, not as a condemnation in
the Sartrean sense (“man is condemned to be free”), but rather as a gift that
he can accept or refuse.
For
Gabriel Marcel the human person cannot be studied by means of the instruments
of the empirical sciences, in a totally objective air, for the person is not a
problem but a mystery who is revealed by means of a metaphysical inquiry. Like
Mounier, he defines man as an incarnate being. But he intends this to mean
something dynamic; he does not mean incarnate being in the Platonic sense of
soul, of spirit being incarnated in a body but rather, the human person is
incarnated in action. For him, the I becomes a person only in the measure that
he commits himself to action and assumes responsibility for his own acts. I
find that this position falls into the very doctrine that the personalists
which to avoid, the reduction of the human person to consciousness, thought,
will, and this particular case, to making. I retain that Marcel and the
other personalists are woefully lacking in an adequate metaphysical grounding
of the person, which can only be provided by a realist ontology which centers
on being (ens) and on esse as act of acts and perfection of
perfections. Only the ontological or metaphysical definition of man is truly
adequate. Man is the rational suppositum, the rational subsistent, his
very dignity derived from the particularly intense possession of the act of
being that he participates in. For Battista Mondin, “the one (definition of the
person) that best expresses what is indispensable to the concept of person is
the ontological definition of Boethius and Thomas. In fact, without the
autonomy of being, without subsistence, all the rest (self-consciousness,
freedom, communication) can be shipwrecked in the ocean of the impersonal. For
an essential definition, what is expressed in the ontological concept is
sufficient, because it includes both the generic element (subsistence) and the
specific element (rationality).”[113]
Instead of the definition of the person as a rational subsistent, Mondin
substitutes the term rationality for the following three qualities:
self-consciousness, communication, and self-transcendence. “The person can be
defined as a subsistent gifted with self-consciousness, communication, and
self-transcendence…by virtue of subsistence he is distinct from all others;
through self-coonsciousness he recognizes himself as unique and unrepeatable
but at the same time free, social, and perfectible; through communication he
enters into rapport with others – in a rapport of love, friendship, and
sympathy, but also in a rapport of aversion, hate and hostility; through
self-transcendence he is called to surpass all the confines with which space
and time seek to block his ascension, as he attempts to penetrate the realm of
the absolute and eternal.”[114]
With this definition of the person (which he calls “global”), he incorporates
and roots the properties described in the psychological and dialogical concepts
of the person in the metaphysics of being.
B: THE TRANSCENDENTALS OF BEING
5.10. The Nature of the Transcendentals
What
are the transcendentals of being? The transcendentals of being, such as one,
true, good, and beautiful, are analogous perfections of being, transcending the
categories, not being generic or specific perfections (which are univocal and
do not admit of gradation). They are certain supreme modes or attributes
necessarily connected with every being, different aspects of the same fundamental
being, but are not explicitly contained in its concept as such. These
transcendental modes are called ‘transcendental’[115]
inasmuch as they are not confined to the categories or classification of being,
but are rather found in all beings. They ‘transcend,’ or ‘go beyond’ all the
categories.
Transcendentals
are not just notions but also realities identical with being, and flow from the
act of being (esse) and therefore can
be attributed to all things that are.
They are not realities distinct from being but are aspects or properties of
being. When we say “properties” here we do not refer to properties in the
strict sense, for then they would express something that is extrinsic to the
nature of being, which is impossible. Rather, we mean “properties” in the wide
sense, as inseparable from being and designating it under another aspect.[116]
In
reality, the transcendentals are identical with being, but as regards human
knowing, they are conceptually distinct, and cannot be synonymous with the
notion of being, as they express aspects which are not expressly signified by
the notion of being.[117]
The transcendentals are convertible and interchangeable with being in reality,
but gnoseologically speaking, though they are interchangeable as predicates of
the same subject, they are nevertheless distinct notions. The notions of “one”
and “something” add a negation to the notion of being. “One” negates a being’s
internal division, while “something” negates the identity of one thing with
another. The transcendentals truth (verum),
goodness (bonum), and beauty (pulchrum) add a relation of reason to
our notion of being.
The
conceptual or notional distinction between the transcendental modes of being
and being itself is what is called a “virtual distinction,” which means that it
is a distinction which has a basis, a foundation, in reality. Let us explain
virtual distinction again. A real distinction is a distinction that exists
independently of one’s mind, pertaining to elements of reality of which one is
not actually the other or others. A logical distinction or a distinction of
reason exists only in the mind. It is but a product of mental activity,
occuring when the mind forms different concepts of what in itself is simply
one. On the other hand, we have what is called the virtual distinction, which
is a distinction of reason having a foundation in reality. If there be not a
foundation in reality, the distinction of reason would be a product of the mind
pure and simple; it would be is a purely logical or verbal distinction. This is
not the case with the distinction of the transcendentals from being, for while
not real, it nevertheless has a foundation in the order of being (the
ontological order or order of reality). It is a virtual distinction. But let us
be even more precise as regards the virtual distinction. There are two types of
virtual distinctions: the major virtual distinction and the minor virtual
distinction. In a major virtual distinction the concepts distinguished may be
such that one contains the other or others only potentially, as genus the
species. In a minor virtual distinction, on the other hand, one concept
contains the other or others actually but not explicitly, as analogue does the
analogated perfections, and being the transcendental properties or attributes.
This latter, the minor virtual distinction, regards the type of distinction of
the transcendentals from being.
A
being can be considered in itself absolutely or in relation to others. As regards
a being in itself, one could consider it affirmatively (as such, it signifies
an essence or thing [res]) or
negatively (as undivided being, that is, as “one” [unum]). Regarding being in relation to others, being has two
opposite attributes: 1. Its distinction from all other beings, and 2. Its
conformity with certain other things.
1.
Being in its distinction from all other beings can be said to be “something” (aliquid); 2. As regards being in its
conformity with other things considered in relation to the intellectual soul
(as it encompasses being as such) we can say that (a) Being, in its conformity
with the intellect, is true (verum);
(b) Being, in its relation to the will, is good (bonum); and (c) Being, in its conformity with the soul through a certain
interaction between knowledge and appetition, is beautiful (pulchrum). Of the six transcendental
notions of being, four are more basic and apply to God as well as to His
creatures, namely, unum, verum, bonum, and pulchrum.
A
cause is defined as that which really and positively influences a particular
being (ens) or thing, making this
particular being (ens) or thing be
dependent upon it in a certain way. Causality[118]
is the aspect of a thing insofar as it influences the being of something else. It is that which exercises a positive
influence upon the “to be” of something else.[119]
It is truly the dynamic aspect of being which,
through the act of being (esse), is
capable of communicating its various perfections as well as to produce new
things. We experience causality in our everyday lives. For example, we know
that the cause of Jimmy’s black eye was Victor who gave him a punch in the
schoolyard after class the other day. Or the fact that the cause of The Messiah was George Frideric Handel
who composed it. Or, going to St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, we know that the
cause of the Pietà was Michelangelo
who sculpted it. We also have the internal experience that we are the cause of
our own actions, such as the moving of our arms, of our walking to the
supermarket, etc. We also have a concurrent internal and external experience of
causality, that is, we are conscious of our causal actions on the extra-mental,
extra-subjective beings around us, as well as the influence that these
particular beings have on us. The existence of causality in our world is an
evident truth which requires no demonstration (only something that is not
immediately evident requires demonstration). What is necessary, though, is an
inquiry into its basis. Such a basis is provided by being (ens), which can exercise causality because of its esse.
The
most characteristic observations that are affirmable after a basic
consideration of the notions of cause and effect are: 1. That the effect’s very
dependence on its cause with regard to esse is the counterpart of the
real influence of the said cause on the effect. A cause is said to be a cause
precisely to the extent that the effect cannot come to be or exist without it.
For example, Michelangelo’s Mausoleum of
Julius II in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains) in
Rome, which contains the famous sculpture of Moses, would not exist without the materials of which it is made
and without the proper arrangement of these elements. Neither would this
sculpture work exist without the genius of Michelangelo, even though his master
hand more directly influenced the coming into being of the sculpture series
than its actual being. This two-fold way of influencing the effect enables us
to define a cause as anything by which something depends with regard to its
being or to its coming into being ; 2. That there is a real distinction between
the cause and the effect since the real dependence of one thing upon another
would necessarily demand that they be really distinct from one another ; 3.
Lastly, the cause is prior to the effect. The cause comes before the effect as
the perfection which the cause confers upon or produces in the effect must
first exist in the cause in some manner. The fact that the cause is prior to
the effect entails, in many instances, a precedence in time. For example, Mr.
and Mrs. Leopold Mozart preceded their son Wolfgang Amadeus, Leonardo preceded
the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo preceded
the Last Judgment, and Beethoven
preceded the Ninth Symphony. But as
far as the causal action is concerned, effect and its cause are simultaneous
and correlative as the cause is a cause when it causes and an effect is an
effect at the very moment it is being caused. If Michelangelo stopped painting
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel the coming into being of that particular work
of art would immediately cease. If Leo Tolstoy stopped thinking during the
writing of War and Peace, the coming
into being of War and Peace would
immediately stop.
A
proper efficient cause is an agent that exercises its influence over the being
of some other being (which is here called the effect), by means of an activity
that is properly its own, that is, by means of an activity that flows from its
own nature, its own form, an activity which is proportioned to the very nature
of the agent cause. For example, in the painting of The Transfiguration, many causes have exercised their activity, but
working together as a causal unit. We have the intelligence of Raphael, his
various motor faculties or nerves, his fingers, the moved movement of his
various paintbrushes, and so forth. And the complexity of this causal activity
is beautifully mirrored in the complexity of the effect produced: The Transfiguration, which carries
profound meaning. The various elements that constitute the unity of the effect,
a profound painted masterpiece, are proportioned to what in the agent has
properly produced them. For example, the shapes, colors, shades, and textures
of the painting are properly proportioned to the oilpaints and brushes
utilized, whereas the meaning or intelligibility that these shapes, forms, and
colors carry is properly proportioned to the intelligence of the artist. Hence,
the proper cause of the meaning of the painting has not been the oilpaints,
paintbrushes, and canvas, which have no intelligence, but rather the artist who
has utilized these artistic tools. Therefore, this is the first characteristic
of a proper cause, that is, it produces the effect by an activity that is proportioned
to its own nature or being. Now regarding the argument from the existence of an
effect to the existence of God, it will be proper to argue for the existence of
God as the proper cause of the very being of the effect.
One
can also observe how one particular set of causes may have been needed to bring
about a certain effect into being, and another set needed to sustain the effect
in being. Let us take as an example the painting of Leonardo, the famous Mona Lisa. Once the work of art had been
painted it is no longer the effect of
the painter, the paint brushes and the oil paints. Rather, it was their effect. It was painted. But it
is to be observed that the painting, the Mona
Lisa, is not here and now being caused by Leonardo and his painting
instruments. And yet, the Mona Lisa
remains in existence. It exists to be enjoyed by art lovers all over the world.
It keeps on keeping the being it has received, and thus, it keeps on depending
on a series of causes that preserves it in being. The existence of the canvas
conserves the existence of the oil paint and the oil paint conserves the
existence of the meaning intended by Leonardo. And all these must exist simultaneously. This aspect of the
simultaneous existence of cause and effect, as far as causal action is
concerned, is of crucial interest in the demonstration of the existence of God,
for once it is seen that God is needed as the sole possible proper cause of the
act of being of any being, it will also be seen that God must simultaneously be if anything is to be at all.
5.12.
Material Cause, Formal Cause, Efficient Cause, and Final Cause
Causes
are classified according to the various ways of real subordination which takes
place, that is, the various ways of dependence of being which happen. There are
four main kinds of causes: material cause, formal cause, efficient
cause, and final cause.
A
material cause[120]
is anything out of which and of which something is made. It is characterized as
an indeterminate potential principle which remains within the effect (matter
playing the role of the receptive subject of the form). In the case of
Michelangelo who scultpted the Pieta, for example, the material cause
here would be the marble. There are two types of material cause: prime
matter, having the features of a material cause in the fullest sense, and secondary
matter, which is the substance itself, exercising a material causality over
the accidental forms which it is able to receive. The substance is called
secondary matter since it already presupposes prime matter.
A
formal cause can be defined as an intrinsic act of perfection by which a
thing is whatever it is, either in the realm of substance or of accidents. In the
case of our example, the formal cause would be the form of the Pietà
statue, which corresponds to the idea that Michelangelo had of it in his mind.
These two causes, material cause and formal cause, are called intrinsic causes
as there is a dependence of the effect on its intrinsic constituent principles.
Material and formal causality are present in all corporeal beings. By losing
both or either of two in a thing makes the thing cease to be what it is. Matter
is in potency which respect to form and form is the act of matter. Matter and
form are causes of the entire substance of a corporeal being. As regards prime
matter and substantial form, the form is the cause of matter insofar as it
gives it a specific organization and confers being on it (form gives the
composite esse by which both prime matter and substantial form subsist),
whereas matter does not give being to the form but only supports it. Prime
matter exists for the sake of the substantial form (but not the other way
around), while, on the contrary, accidental forms exist for the sake of the
perfection of the substance, which is secondary matter.
The
next two causes to be defined are efficient cause and final cause. An efficient
cause (also called the agent cause) is that primary principle or origin of
any act which makes a thing to be, or to be in a certain way. The agent or
efficient cause in our example would be Michelangelo himself. Unlike both the
material and formal causes, the efficient cause is a principle extrinsic to the
effect.
Lastly,
we have the final cause which is defined as that for the sake of which
something is done, that is, that which determines the agent to act or the goal
towards which it tends through its operations. I would like to think that the
final cause in our example would be to give glory to God rather than merely to
be famous. Our two last causes are termed extrinsic causes where the being of
an effect is dependent on two extrinsic principles, the efficient and final
causes. To conclude our treatment of the four causes, we can say that the
matter from which something is made is a cause (the material cause), the
intrinsic form of the thing actualizing the matter is a cause (the formal
cause), the principle which draws out the form from matter is a cause (the efficient
cause), and, finally, the goal towards which the agent tends is also a cause
(the final cause).
6.1. The Nature of Philosophy of God
Also
called natural theology,[121]
theodicy,[122]
philosophical theology,[123]
and rational theology,[124]
philosophy of God[125]
is defined as the science of God as knowable by unaided human reason.[126]
It is the philosophical science which sets forth all that unaided human reason
can discover about God, His existence, nature, attributes, and operations. It
is to be distinguished from sacred or supernatural theology which is based upon
God’s revelation. The material object of philosophy of God is God.
The formal object of philosophy of God is God as knowable by unaided
human reason.
Philosophy
of God is an essential part of metaphysics. The former is a branch, and the
highest branch at that, of the latter (which is divided into three principal
parts: general metaphysics, gnoseology and philosophy of God). Metaphysics is
the science of being as being (ens qua ens), and philosophy of God is
the science of the Supreme Being, the First Cause of all things. Metaphysics’
goal is to demonstrate whatever it can concerning being qua being,
especially the first and highest causes of being, whether those causes be
intrinsic and constitutive of being (ens), like act of being (esse)
and essence (essentia), or extrinsic and productive of being (ens),
like its efficient and final causes. Now, God is the first and only proper
cause of being as being, and hence to conclude to the knowledge of God’s
existence is the proper goal of metaphysics. In fact, it is the principal and
most important goal of metaphysics (which is divided into three principal
parts: general metaphysics, gnoseology, and philosophy of God). God in His
existence and nature is the principal object or term towards which the whole
science of metaphysics tends. Philosophy of God is the most important branch of
metaphysics: just as metaphysical knowledge is the crown of all natural
knowledge (or knowledge gotten by means of the light of natural reason alone),
so philosophy of God is the crown of all metaphysical knowledge.
3.
Philosophy of God and Sacred Theology
What
is the difference between philosophy of God and sacred theology? Though both
sciences have God as their material object, their formal objects are different.
While the formal object of philosophy of God is, as was mentioned, God as
knowable by unaided human reason, the formal object of sacred theology is God
as He is known by faith from Divine Revelation. Sacred theology is the
scientific exposition of the truths about God under the light of Revelation.
Jacques Maritain writes that “the knowledge or science of God which is
unattainable naturally by the unassisted powers of reason, and is possible only
if God has informed men about Himself by a revelation from which our reason,
enlightened by faith, subsequently draws the implicit conclusions, is supernatural
theology or simply theology.”[127]
Respecting the hierarchy of theoretical wisdoms, all knowledge from philosophy
of God is ultimately ordered to the knowledge of sacred theology.
The
existence of God is what is called a preamble of faith (praeambulum fidei).
Praeambula fidei are those truths knowable by the unaided light of human
reason that are the necessary a priori cognitive conditions that make
the act of faith rationally possible. They are truths that prepare and bring
the human person closer to faith. These truths include the existence of God,
the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, human freedom and the
natural law.
Philosophy
of God is the most perfect and sublime of all the human sciences, of all merely
natural human knowledge, for in this science the highest of man’s faculties,
the intellect, is functioning in reference to the most perfect and highest of
all intelligible objects, God. It is the most satisfying and enjoyable of all
human sciences, for though what this science can tell us about God may be small
in quantity, the little knowledge that it does tell us gives our intellects
greater joy and satisfaction and contributes more to its perfection than all
the knowledge we can discover about creatures and cosmos by means of the other human
sciences. Nevertheless, it is the hardest to learn of all the human sciences.
Though this science begins with sensible intelligible experience, it goes on to
penetrate into the ultimate causes of things, which cannot be sensed or even
imagined. And since God is absolutely immaterial, any knowledge concerning Him
will be but indirect and analogical.
Philosophy
of God is divided into two parts: 1. the existence of God ; and 2. the nature
of God. The first part begins by examining the various errors concerning the
existence of God as expressed, for example, in agnosticism and atheism. Then,
the erroneous ontological argument is considered. After that, the valid
demonstration of the existence of God is examined which is the a posteriori
quia (effect to cause) demonstration. In the second part, God’s essence and
attributes, as well as His immanent and transient operations, are all
examined.
That
God exists is self-evident in itself, but is not self-evident to the human
mind. Therefore, a demonstration[128]
of His existence is needed departing from that which is more known to us,
namely, His effects (real phenomena in the world around us). The four stage
structure of the a posteriori (effect to cause) demonstration of the
existence of God that St. Thomas perfected is summarized by Mondin for us: “1.
The attention is drawn to a certain phenomenon (change, secondary causality,
possibility, the grades of perfection, finality); 2. The relative, dependent
and caused character (that is, the contingency) of the phenomenon is evidenced.
Whatever changes is moved by another; second causes are in turn, caused; the
possible receives its being from others; the grades of perfection receive
perfection from the highest perfection; finality always requires intelligence,
while natural things in themselves do not have intelligence; 3. It is
demonstrated that the effective and actual reality of a contingent phenomenon
cannot be explained by postulating the intervention of an infinite series of
contingent causes; and 4. It is concluded that the only valid explanation of
the contingent is God. He is the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, necessary
being, the most perfect being, and the supreme ordering intelligence.”[129]
The
five ways[130] as presented
in the first part of the Summa Theologiae, q. 2, a. 3, by St. Thomas are
all a posteriori quia effect to cause demonstrations of the
existence of God.[131]
All their starting points are facts experienced in the physical world but must
then be interpreted metaphysically. All ways utilize causality as their second
stage and all conclude to the certainty of God’s existence, but only three of
them (the first three ways) utilize the third stage (the impossibility of
infinite regress), as they are superfluous to the argumentation of the fourth
and fifth ways. The five ways are five specifically distinct proofs.[132]
To see this we must look, not at the formal principle of the demonstration but
at the distinct starting points of each and on the basis on which they rest:
“One sometimes wonders if the five ways of Thomas Aquinas are but different
aspects of one and the same proof or if they constitute five specifically
distinct proofs. In my opinion, the proper reply to this question is that the
nerve of the proof, the formal principle of the demonstration, is the same in
each of the five ways, to wit, the necessity of a cause which is pure Act of
Being, itself subsistent in its own right. From this point of view one could
say that they form but one proof presented under different modes or aspects.
But that which makes a proof is in reality not its formal principle alone, but
also its point of departure and the basis on which it rests. And because the
proofs of St. Thomas rest on the facts of experience (‘philosophic facts’), and
because these facts are typically distinct data discerned in the world of
experience, it is necessary to say purely and simply that the five ways of
Thomas Aquinas constitute specifically distinct proofs.”[133]
For Maritain, what brings about the distinction between the five ways lies in
their starting points.
6.2.1. The A
Posteriori Quia Demonstration
from the Motion of Things to God as Unmoved First Mover[134]
This demonstration starts from the experience of motion
in things and concludes with the affirmation of the existence of God as the
Unmoved First Mover. This is the first way (prima via) of St. Thomas in
the Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3: “The first and more manifest way is
the argument from motion. It is certain and evident to our senses that in the
world some things are in motion. Now whatever is moved is moved by another, for
nothing can be moved except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is
moved, whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing
else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But
nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality except by something in a
state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which
is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now
it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and
potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is
actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot, but it is simultaneously
potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in
the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should move
itself. Therefore, whatever is moved must be moved by another. If that by which
it is moved be itself moved, then this also must be moved by another, and that
by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would
be no first mover and, consequently, no other mover, seeing that subsequent
movers move only inasmuch as they are moved by the first mover, as the staff
moves only because it is moved by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive
at a first mover, moved by no other, and this everyone understands to be God.”[135]
The point of departure here is the experience of
movement or motion in things. Now, motion or movement should be understood in
the broad sense of change (metabolé in Greek, mutatio in Latin).
Though change includes substantial change (that is, the change from one
substance to another, as in the case of wood being turned into ashes by fire)
the type of change intended by St. Thomas for his first way primarily regards
the most immediately observable change, namely, accidental change (which
includes local motion or the going from one place to another). Such accidental
changes of corporeal things are changes immediately apparent to the senses. In
qualitative change, for example, we easily observe the passage from cold water
to hot water. As concerns local motion or locomotion, we see change happening,
for example, when a stick is moved from one place to another by the hand.
Because movement is a common fact in the world, Thomas characterizes the prima
via as the most manifest way, as one easily experiences the movement of a
variety of bodies around him. But it should be noted that the starting point of
the argument from motion is motion not considered physically or scientifically,
but metaphysically. What is considered here is a metaphysical
explanation of the existence of motion in the various corporeal beings of the
world.[136] From the
metaphysical perspective, motion is the transition from being in potency to
being in actuality, that is, it is the successive actualization of the potency.
There are three principles involved in every change: the subject that undergoes
a certain modification, the fact that there is a form that comes to be
acquired, and, at the point a quo (starting point) there is a privation
of the said form.
The second constitutive element of the demonstration
entails the application of the formulation of metaphysical causality, quid
quid movetur ab alio movetur, to the starting point (which is motion or
change in things understood metaphysically as the passage from being in potency
to being in act). We reason that that which is moved is moved because of
another. Since motion is the transition of a thing from potentiality to
actuality, it demands an extrinsic reason of being by which this is put into
action and determined or limited. For it is not possible that one and the same
thing at the same time and under the same respect be in potency as it is in
act, or that it be the thing moved and the thing moving. Therefore, if a thing
is set in motion, it must be set in motion by another. For example, cold cooking
oil starts to become hot. Now, the cooking oil’s passage from being cold to
being hot must have been caused by something already in act, which, in this
case, is the fire from the stove. In short, nothing is moved from being in
potency to being in act except by a being already in act.
The third constitutive element of the a posteriori argument from motion is
this: it is not possible to proceed to infinity in the matter of those moving
and of those moved, that is, it is impossible to go back to infinity through an
ordered series of moved movers which are actually and essentially subordinated
in the present. It is not possible for actual motion to have its own sufficient
reason for being in a series of moved movers, these moved movers being simply
transmitters of movement. If all movers were themselves merely moved, and if
there were no first mover that moves without being moved, then there never is
any motion. St. Thomas writes: “In movers and moved things that are ordered,
where one, namely, is moved in order by another, it is necessary that if the
first mover is removed or ceases from moving, none of the others will either
move or be moved. And this is so because the first is the cause of the moving
for all the others. But if there are ordered movers and moved things into
infinity, there will not be any first mover, but all will be as intermediate
movers. And so none of them will be able to be moved. And thus nothing will be
moved in the world.”[137]
Seeing the necessity of positing a first unmoved
mover, the mind now concludes to the existence of God (our fourth and final
constitutive element). He is the Unmoved First Mover, the Mover that gives
motion, but in no way receives it, a Being who is Pure Act and in no way in
potentiality to change.
Objection 1: The first way demonstration utilizes the principle
quid quid movetur ab alio movetur. But it is evident that we move
ourselves and so are the cause of our own motion. Thus man would himself be a
first unmoved mover, not God. Therefore, the first way is inconclusive.
Reply to Objection 1: We do indeed move
ourselves but this is so because we are moved by another. Let us give an
example to prove this. John sits up and starts writing. He is clearly moving
himself to write. Before he exerted himself he was not writing; he did not have
the perfection he has now. We see that John cannot be in act and potency at the
same time with regard to the same perfection. He is a human being composed of
body and soul, a composite being having many “parts.” One part is able to move
another part but no part is able to give to itself a perfection it does not
have. So, before John started writing, as a human being he had the potency or
active power to write, and not merely the passive potency to be moved to write
like a puppet. One part of John moved another part. John’s operative faculty of
will moved the nerves in his hand and they, in turn, moved his hand to write.
But the question must be asked: what moved John’s will? In the order of final
causality it was his desire to write to his friend about the great places he
experienced during his recent trip to France. However, regarding our prima
via demonstration ex parte motus, we are concerned with the adequate
efficient causality of a given motion. Where then does the efficacy of the
operative power of the will to move the hand originate? We can say from itself
since the will is free and has the power to “move itself,” but we must also say
from another since that very power of the will to move itself has been received
from another. This “other” is the immaterial soul (the substantial form of the
body), of which both the will and the intellect are operative faculties or
powers (which are qualitative accidents). But now we must ask at this point the
following: what moved the soul into being? The soul is not the cause of its own
existence, its own being. It must have received its being, its very act of
being which actualizes it, which moves it, from another. Again, we cannot go to
infinite regress in an ordered series of moved movers essentially subordinated
in the present, for there would be no first mover to set all others in motion.
We must arrive, therefore, at the Unmoved First Mover (God), who moves the soul
into being.
Objection 2: Does not the law of inertia (which states that
every body continues in a state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight
line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it)
render the principle of causality utilized by the first way (quid quid
movetur ab alio movetur) invalid, and therefore, the demonstration itself
erroneous?
Reply to Objection 2: The law of inertia in no
way renders the principle “whatever is in motion, is put into motion by
another” invalid since physics here is treating of motion and rest as two
states. A body is seen here in the eyes of physics as already in motion or
already at rest, not as a body that begins to move or comes to a
rest. The metaphysician wants to know why a certain body begins to move, or
whence came this body’s power to move? Now, even if a certain corporeal being
is in a state of motion, if there is an acceleration of that motion, the law of
inertia itself demands that such an acceleration come from some extrinsic
force. Therefore, our formulation of the principle of causality, quid quid
movetur ab alio movetur, remains a valid principle and is even, at the
level of the phenomenon of local motion, verified in a certain sense by
Newton’s first law of motion.[138]
6.2.2. The A
Posteriori Quia Demonstration
from Secondary Efficient Causality to God as First Efficient Cause[139]