Quality in Theology: Powers, Grace, Sacramental Character and Words Taken from the Continuous

Orientation #

He passes over the handout’s sections 10-11 on the senses of “how” (“we’ll have that text here and we’ll have to refresh our minds on it”), picking up at the bottom of page 11 of the handout on quality (Categories ch. 8). He refers to “last night” (another class) where Aristotle’s five genera of powers of the soul were treated, and to “last time” when he mentioned Thomas’s point about names starting from the continuous. The previous class treated quality and the senses of “end”; the next takes up the last six categories.

The class, in order #

1. Why relation comes third; power and knowledge are qualities (“that which is this beginning of action, passion”) #

Point: Aristotle enumerates the categories with quality before relation but treats relation third, because of Plato’s accepted definition making everything “of another” relative; Aristotle answers that some things are not basically relations but have a relation following upon them.

• Thomas (bottom of p. 11) makes the same point about potentia: the ratio principii (notion of a beginning) belongs to potency and that ratio is in the genus of relation; nevertheless what is the beginning of action or passion is not a relation but a forma absoluta (absolute as opposed to “towards another”), and that is the essence of potency. Hence the Philosopher places power in quality, not relation.
• Knowledge (scientia) is Aristotle’s own example of the same thing: basically a quality with relation to the known following upon it. So Thomas gives two examples, power and knowledge; “to both some relation happens.”

2. Second species: natural ability; the powers of the soul (“acquired abilities” vs. “natural ability”) #

Point: the second species is natural ability or inability; keep the word “natural” in mind because the first species (habits, dispositions) are acquired abilities.

• Thomas places the powers of the soul in the second species: in the Ethics/Prima Secundae (virtues) he goes to quality, first species; in the study of the soul (powers) to quality, second species.
• Text 1 (Summa Theologiae, p. 12): since the power of the soul is not its essence (as he also argues for the angel), it must be an accident, in the second species of quality. Accident here not in Porphyry’s sense (Isagoge) but as defined in the Antepredicaments: what exists in another.
• Text 2 (De Spiritualibus Creaturis, a disputed question): powers are not the essence of the soul and manifestly not other substances, so they are accidents in one of the nine genera; they are in the second species, called potentia et impotentia naturalis.
• Boundary case, distinction acquired vs. natural: the boy sent back to the store to return what he didn’t pay for, and who over time becomes able to avoid such things — an acquired ability (student: “not natural”); Mozart playing the violin the first time — natural ability.
• Asides: he wishes Aristotle and Thomas had known Mozart and Shakespeare; Msgr. Dionne and De Koninck admired Shakespeare (a cleric at St Mary’s College expected him to be shocked); Politics VIII on music suitable for kids — cousin Donald in the Navy, chairs flying to wild music; disputed questions “delicious reading,” twenty-four objections against the truth.

3. Third species: sensible qualities and alteration (“alteration is a transmutation in the passions”) #

Point: alteration is change according to the third species, sensible or passive quality; Physics VII proves there is no alteration in the first and fourth species.

• Aristotle: omnis alteratio fit secundum qualitatem sensibilem; bodies are altered by what first bodies differ in — hot/cold, wet/dry distinguish earth, air, fire, water; also gravitas, levitas, dulcedo, mollities, perceived by touch. These are called passiones because they engender a passion in the senses, or are caused from some passion (Predicaments) — his face turning red in embarrassment.
• Physics V (bottom p. 12): “alteration” is from alterum, what differs secundum qualitatem; not quality as in the genus of substance (a substantial difference predicated in quale quid, “how something is what it is”), but de quali passivo, the third species; quale dicitur aliquid pati aut non pati. These are per se but proper (private) sensibles.
• Physics VII (top p. 13): no alteration in first and fourth species, only in the third.
• Objection he raises: doesn’t a man go from vicious to virtuous? Aristotle: by doing courageous things we become courageous. Counter: if you do courageous things you already are courageous. Reply (with student): you don’t do them with perseverance/ease; you do a kind of violence to yourself.
  • College friend afraid of public speaking who took a speech course and was forced to talk in front of the class, building up until he could speak without fear; grade-school kids reading petitions at Mass unafraid; a student’s story of a speech teacher dropping a nail in a metal bucket at every stutter (“we gotta do that for a preaching class”).

4. Appendix: grace in the category of quality (“grace is reduced to the first species”) #

Point: grace is a quality reduced to the first species but is not properly a habit or virtue; it is a habitudo of the soul itself, root of the infused virtues.

• Objection (handout): grace is a quality; not fourth species (form and figure, not in the body); not third (a passio in the sensitive part, Physics VII; grace is chiefly in mente, the immaterial part — mens not opposed to will); not second (potentia naturalis, but grace is super naturam and not to good and bad as a natural power); therefore first species, habit; habits of the mind are virtues, even scientia is in some way a virtue; therefore grace = virtue. He notes the objection treats Aristotle’s four species as exhausting, though Aristotle himself says there may be others (Fr Henri Dulac, his college logic teacher, raised this).
• Reply (top p. 14): grace is reduced (led back) to the first species, not placed there simply; not the same as virtue but a certain habitudo, way of having oneself, presupposed to the infused virtues as their beginning and root (radix).
• Second text: grace is a quality not known by the philosophers; reduced to the first species but not properly a habit, because not immediately ordered to act as faith is to believing, hope to hoping, charity to loving God and neighbour; rather a way of having oneself, as health to the body — Chrysostom: grace is sanitas mentis. Hence numbered neither among the sciences nor virtues nor the philosophers’ qualities, who knew only natural and acquired habits.
• Third text: not properly a habit because ordered not immediately to act but to a quoddam esse spirituale, which it makes in the soul rather than in its powers; a disposition with respect to glory (gratia consummata in gloria); nothing like it among accidents the philosophers knew, which are ordered to acts proportioned to human nature.
• His development: Peter’s “partaking of the divine nature” is in the very soul. As natural powers (reason, will) proceed from the soul’s nature like properties (in the sense of the predicables, accidental but following the nature), so from the soul elevated by grace proceed faith, hope and charity, which are in the powers (faith in reason, hope and charity in will), not in the soul. “Sanctifying grace” gives the soul a more elevated existence than by nature. He notes the interplay of habitus and habitudo — different sense, but an affinity.

5. Sacramental character: which species of quality? (“Sed hoc non potest stare”) #

Point: the long Latin text (not available in English) argues by elimination that character is reduced to the second species of quality as a spiritual power.

1. All the moderni agree character is pressed on the soul and implies a threefold relation (sign, distinguishing, configurative); some say only relations with no absolute accident beneath. This cannot be: a sign makes something known through a form; nothing is distinguished except by a form; likeness is a relation founded on unity of quality (Metaphysics V — as equality etc. are founded on unity, beginning of number). So a form must underlie; not a substantial form (none given in sacraments); therefore a quality whose unity makes likeness. (“Absolute” here = opposed to “towards another,” not our modern “absolutely true.”)
2. Some: not in any of the four species, relying on Aristotle’s fortasse (“perhaps other modes of quality will appear”). Thomas: this is a fuga (flight); other modes are all led back to these species, as is clear from the fact that no other species can be found. (“I didn’t have this text to quote to Father Dulac” — aside on Dulac raising money for the college.)
3. Some: fourth species, since configuratio implies unity of figure; some say the figure is the cross of Christ. Sed hoc non potest stare: figure taken properly is the termination of dimensive (continuous) quantity, not in the soul; taken metaphorically, a metaphor must be led back to something proper, since a thing isn’t placed in a genus by what is said of it metaphorically — the apostles aren’t in the genus of quality because “you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).
4. Some: third species, a certain sweetening/passion insofar as it ornaments the soul. Cannot stand: Physics VII, the third species is only in the sensible part, but character is placed in the understanding part (as we say the will is in the understanding part); and third-species qualities always have order to a bodily change they produce or are caused by.
5. Some: first species, a middle between disposition and habit (hard to change like habit; not ultimate perfection but disposes for grace, like disposition). Cannot stand: Ethics II, habit is that by which we have ourselves well or badly to passions; universally, power is that by which we can do something simpliciter, habit that by which we do it well or badly — understanding vs. science; concupiscence vs. temperance/intemperance; disposition is an incomplete habit. Character is ordered to something simpliciter, not bene vel male: the priest can confect/consecrate, but the power doesn’t determine that he uses it well (he might use it to make money or reward nephews).
6. Therefore reduced to the second species: whatever has a nature has proper operations, and proper operations need proper beginnings; as natural powers serve natural operations, so those reborn to spiritual life (Dionysius) have spiritual powers. Reply to second: reduced to the second species but in a different mode than the Philosopher’s natural ability, since he knew only natural operations and powers; the power of consecrating (conficiendi), absolving sins, et huiusmodi — not reduced as natural powers, but as infused habits share a species with natural/acquired ones.

• Which sacraments give character (exchange): baptism, confirmation, holy orders; not matrimony (he thinks); not Eucharist or confession, since repeated.
• Chapter’s division into three noted on the last page.

6. Names equivocal by reason start from the continuous (“we do take names from the continuous”) #

Point: Thomas (first question of the disputed questions on potency, asking whether there is procession in God) is more precise than “we name things as we know them, starting from the senses” (Metaphysics V): names equivocal by reason are taken from the continuous or what is in the continuous — not from proper sensibles like red and green, too immersed in the sensible.

• “In”: De Koninck’s favourite (teaching physics since the 1930s, a whole semester on place; “Isn’t this wonderful?”). First sense: in a place — place a species of continuous quantity (chapter on quantity). Eight senses: place, part in whole, species in genus, form in matter, … “I got you in my power,” “I left my heart in San Francisco”; all start from place. Thomas: didn’t Aristotle omit “in time”? — laid alongside the first, place and time being extrinsic measures.
• “Before”: the fundamental text is in the Categories (not Metaphysics V); four chief senses; first meaning is time, a species of continuous quantity.
• Processio: going forward first names change of place, a continuous motion (“unless I stop and get hamburgers”). “Form”: first meaning shape, something in the continuous; then to substantial form.
• Two definitions of the continuous: logic — quantity whose parts meet at a common boundary; natural philosophy — divisible forever. Magnitude, motion over it, and time it takes go together (Physics VI); he admires how Aristotle “kills two birds with one stone”: the faster covers the same distance in less time, the slower less distance in that time, so both time and magnitude divide forever.

7. Shakespeare’s definition of reason (“large discourse looking before and after”) #

Point: the definition draws on all three continua.

• Large: from magnitude; reason discourses about the universal, which covers a “large area” as said of many (“no odd number is even”; “something” is said of everything — “even nothing is something in the mind”).
• Discourse: from running, motion. Aristotle “last night” used both nous and dianoetikon, the latter (compared to Latin cogitare) touching discourse.
• Before and after: from time. “How illuminating… how beautiful that is” — Thomas and Shakespeare brought together.

8. Act and ability; beginning and end (“the first meaning of act is motion”) #

Point: act and ability (Metaphysics IX) are the key to knowing God’s existence and substance, and these words too come from the continuous.

• Book IX in three parts: (1) abilities for motion — active, passive, rational, natural; (2) other senses of act than motion, importantly motion vs. form (motion continuous, form in the continuous); (3) order of act and ability. Act is before ability: what goes from ability to act does so by something already in act (water able to be hot becomes hot by the heat of the stove); so simply speaking act is first, pointing to the first being as pure act (Thomas: “first act”). From pure act one proves God simple, unchanging, perfect — “kill many birds with one stone”; developed more fully in Summa Contra Gentiles (his favourite) than in the Summa Theologiae.
• Aside: De Koninck in Quebec calling the newsreel les actualités — the actual is what’s going on; “What’s new, Berquist?”
• “Beginning” (first word of Metaphysics V): first meaning in the continuous — the curb is the beginning of his property; point of the line, line of the surface, surface of the body. Second: fundamental part, foundation of the house. Later: a beginning not a part or limit — father of the son, carpenter of the table — closer to how God is beginning (not the edge of things, not the foundation except metaphorically).
• “End”: first, end of the magnitude (end of the table); second, end of motion (walk and stop); third, intention/purpose; fourth, definition — strange, but we know a thing outwardly first and move inward by discourse.
• Apocalypse: “I am the Alpha and Omega,” then “the first and the last,” then “the beginning and the end” — Aristotle’s arche and telos. SCG: Book I God in himself, II God as beginning, III God as end.
• Closing: “small talk”/“large talk” — another sense of large; “bigger and better — the American way of life.”

His words #

• forma absoluta; absolute = opposed to “towards another,” not modern “absolutely true”
• natural ability or inability; second species of quality [ed.: potentia et impotentia naturalis]; vs. acquired abilities (habits, first species)
• accident as in the Antepredicaments (exists in another), not Porphyry’s Isagoge
• passiones / passive quality; sensible quality; third species — engender a passion in the senses or caused by a passion
• in quale quid; substantial difference “how something is what it is”
• per se sensibles but private sensibles [ed.: proper sensibles]
• reduced (led back) vs. placed simply in a species
• habitudo: way of having yourself; vs. habitus, habit
• quoddam esse spirituale: a kind of spiritual being given to the soul itself
• sanitas mentis (Chrysostom): health of the mind
• gratia consummata in gloria
• fuga: flight (Thomas on appealing to Aristotle’s fortasse)
• Sed hoc non potest stare: this can’t stand up
• confect = consecrate (conficiendi)
• equivocal by reason [ed.: analogous names]; “we name things as we know them”
• continuous: (logic) parts meet at a common boundary; (natural philosophy) divisible forever
• act and ability [ed.: act and potency]; pure act, first act
• arche and telos: beginning and end
• nous / dianoetikon; the latter compared to cogitare, sense of discourse
• fifth/ninth “book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas on potentia and the ratio principii (handout p. 11 bottom)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, powers of the soul as accidents in second species (handout p. 12)
• Thomas Aquinas, De Spiritualibus Creaturis (handout p. 12)
• Aristotle/Thomas on alteration secundum qualitatem sensibilem; Physics V; Physics VII (handout pp. 12-13)
• Thomas Aquinas, objection and reply on grace as quality; two further texts on grace (handout appendix, pp. 13-14)
• Thomas Aquinas, on sacramental character and the species of quality (handout, Latin)
• Aristotle, Categories, ch. 8 (handout “Quality - Chapter 8”)

Mentioned

• Plato’s definition of relation; Aristotle on knowledge and relation
• Porphyry, Isagoge; Antepredicaments
• Aristotle, Politics VIII (music for kids)
• Aristotle, Ethics II (habit well or badly); Prima Secundae (virtues)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (likeness founded on unity; beginning; end; equivocal names); Metaphysics IX (act and ability)
• Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, first question (procession in God)
• Aristotle, Categories (senses of “before”; place and time as continuous quantity)
• Aristotle, Physics VI (divisibility of magnitude, motion, time)
• Matthew 5:14; 2 Peter, partaking of the divine nature (inferred); Apocalypse (Alpha and Omega)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I-III
• Shakespeare, “large discourse looking before and after”; Dionysius; Chrysostom

His questions #

• Why does Aristotle treat relation third though enumerating quality first? Because of Plato’s definition making all “of another” relative; power and knowledge are qualities with relation following.
• Is the boy’s learned honesty a natural ability? No, acquired; Mozart’s playing is natural.
• Can a man go from vicious to virtuous if alteration is only in the third species? By doing courageous acts without ease, doing violence to oneself, one builds the habit.
• Is there a place for grace in the category of quality? Reduced to the first species as a habitudo of the soul, root of the infused virtues, not properly a habit.
• Why is grace not a habit? Not immediately ordered to act but to a quoddam esse spirituale in the soul itself.
• In which species is sacramental character? Reduced to the second, as a spiritual power (to consecrate, absolve), ordered to acting simpliciter, not well or badly.
• Which sacraments impress a character? Baptism, confirmation, holy orders; not the repeatable ones; probably not matrimony.
• Where do names equivocal by reason start? From the continuous or what is in it — place, time, motion, shape — not from proper sensibles.
• Where does “large” in Shakespeare’s definition of reason come from? From magnitude; discourse from motion; before and after from time.
• What is the first meaning of beginning, of end, of act? The point/curb (limit in the continuous); the end of a magnitude; motion.