Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 2: Does the Will Will Everything of Necessity? The Last End, Particular Goods and the Vision of God

Orientation #

He opens on the feast of the Guardian Angels with the class prayer and says “up to Article Two here in Question eighty-two”, i.e. continuing from a. 1 (prev. lecture), recalling “as we said, appetitus means there [desire]” and the comparison of the end to the will with beginnings to the understanding as “seen before”. Verified source: ST I q. 82 a. 2 (matched 28 min); the matcher also flagged a. 3 (7 min), but the transcript shows no reading of a. 3 — the class ends at the reply to the third objection of a. 2. The previous class treated q. 82 a. 1 on the will and necessity; the next takes up whether the will is higher than the intellect.

The class, in order #

1. The three objections and the sed contra (“the will of necessity wills whatever it wills”) #

He reads the objections, adding a gloss to each.

1. Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4: the bad is aside from the will, so the will always wills something good; therefore of necessity it tends to the good proposed.
2. The object of the will is to it as mover to movable; his gloss: the heart (emotions or will) “undergoes”, is acted upon by its object, as reason and senses are. Motion of the movable follows necessarily on the mover, so the object moves the will of necessity.
3. A proportion: as the sensed is object of the sense desire, so the understood is object of the intellectual ability to desire (appetitus, voluntas). Augustine, Genesis to the letter: animals are moved by what they see (“true about the cat, the dog”). So the understood moves the will of necessity. He flags that Thomas will show the two objects are not related to their powers “exactly the same”; the first two look at the will itself. Sed contra (Augustine): the will is that by which one sins and lives rightly, so it has two opposites; not of necessity does it will whatever it wills.

• Aside: psychosomatic = “psyche affecting the soma”, on his sniffles and exam-correcting.

2. Body: three things in the understanding (“adheres to the first what beginnings”) #

The point: Thomas manifests the answer by a likeness — the last end is to the will as the axioms are to the understanding, a comparison “we make use of … for many reasons”.

1. The understanding naturally and from necessity (“by natural necessity”) adheres to the first beginnings.
2. Some understandables have no necessary connection to the beginnings: contingent propositions — “Berquist is sitting now” does not follow from “impossible to be and not be” or “a whole is larger than its part”; removing such a proposition does not remove the beginnings, so one holds the beginnings whether accepting or rejecting it.
3. Others have a necessary connection — demonstrable conclusions, like geometry: deny a conclusion and you must deny a beginning. To these the understanding assents of necessity, when the connection is known through demonstration. He recalls from logic: a demonstration is a syllogism making one know the cause and that it cannot be otherwise; a syllogism is a speech in which, some statements laid down, another follows necessarily. If premises are seen as necessary and the following is seen, assent is necessary; if not seen, one can reject.

3. Not seeing the connection: mathematical cases and the heretic (“before it knows necessity of the connection”) #

The point: before the demonstration is seen the mind may be wishy-washy or even think something false.

• Pythagorean theorem heard without its demonstration: “you might think that maybe isn’t so”.
• Euclid book II [ed.: as he cites it]: same perimeter but more area, even less perimeter and more area — people “tend to reject that”.
• Arithmetic: a + b greater than x + y yet ab less than xy; someone without a mathematical mind says “that doesn’t seem right”.
• Theology parallel: a man mistaken on a matter not defined by the Church is no heretic; only when he sees his position contradicts what follows from the articles of faith and still adheres does he begin to be one.

4. Likewise three things in the will (“particular goods which do not have a necessary connection”) #

The point: the will necessarily wills the last end (you necessarily want to be happy and refuse being wretched); other things are willed necessarily only if necessarily connected and seen to be.

1. Particular goods without necessary connection to beatitude, “because without these one is able to be blessed”: the will does not will them of necessity. Example: must he wear a tie today? this tie? — his wife allows either of two ties, so he wills neither of necessity.
2. Goods with a necessary connection: those by which man adheres to God, in whom alone true beatitude consists. People may think believing unnecessary, or that one can love God without loving one’s neighbour (as one can love one man and not another); yet if you cannot love God without believing, believing too is necessary. St Paul: without belief it is impossible to please God — “an often quoted text” on the necessity of faith. But before the necessity is demonstrated through the certitude of the divine vision, the will does not adhere to God or the things of God from necessity: some people today do not see adhering to God as necessary for their happiness, so do not will it necessarily, “even though in fact it is necessary”.
3. One seeing God as He is, face to face, of necessity adheres to God, as now we necessarily wish to be happy: “you cannot not will Him”. Conclusion: the will does not will from necessity everything it wills.

5. Review for a student; happiness known “in a kind of confusion” (“Who in this world ever gets what he wants”) #

A student asks for the basic points again; he restates the three-and-three, adding: first beginnings can be denied “in words” but not in the mind; axioms, “Greek word for worthy”; contingent: “George Washington was the first president / was not” — one could think either. The basis of the comparison: what the will wills of necessity is the last end, but confusedly — some perfect good, without knowing what it consists in.

• Thackeray, Vanity Fair (his greatest novel; the title suggests the vanity of happiness in this life); at the end, close to: “Who in this world ever gets what he wants? or having gotten it is satisfied.”
• As a boy he thought his father foolish for not filling the refrigerator with soda; had he done so, “something missing still”. Then: wait for college, graduate school, teaching — each has its problems, “exams to be corrected”.
• Augustine: made for thyself, hearts restless till they rest in thee — hearts rest in what cannot satisfy until one sees only in God is happiness; fully only when God is seen as He is.
• Restaurant menu: salmon is not against his happiness, but no dish is necessary for it, so he wills no one of necessity. Even things necessary for happiness are not willed necessarily “unless I see that”.
• Aside: an exam on Anaximenes (air as beginning, soul imagined as air, Genesis’ God breathing into the clay) answered “Adam breathed into Eve air, he didn’t pour water into her” — “some things make you laugh, other things make you want to weep”.

6. Reply to the first objection: the good is universal (“the bad is aside from the will”) #

The point: Dionysius (praeter voluntatem) means we never will the bad as such but the good or the apparent good; since good is universal and multiplex, this necessitates no particular object.

• Delicious poison: willed because delicious, not because poisonous.
• His standard example, the last drink at the party: willed as continuing the good time, in fact ending it.
• Harder cases: Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment — the young man murders an innocent old woman to show he is “above the law”; a false appearance of good, a “perverse understanding”, since murder puts one below others. The bank robber asked by the judge why he robs banks: “that’s where the money is”. Getting rid of you because you annoy me: not because unjust, but as a way of removing annoyance. “Some good, however tenuous … is moving my will” — “That’s very important to see.” The reply: the will tends to nothing except under the notion of good; but good is multiplex, so it is not determined of necessity to one. Good is a transcendental: it transcends the ten genera and fits being as being; Thomas distinguishes the transcendentals — being, thing, one, good, true, and “something” — at the beginning of De Veritate (“takes a long time to understand”). Vice versa: nothing is so good it cannot be seen as bad in some way, since anything done prevents something else — praying prevents sleeping, studying prevents playing; so anything proposed can be refused.
• Student’s case, the bully: he sees an appearance of superiority over those who cannot defend themselves.

7. Reply to the second objection: the mover must exceed the mobile (“an offer you can’t resist”) #

The point: Thomas examines the premise “the mover necessarily moves the mobile”.

1. The mover moves of necessity only when its power exceeds the mobile’s power to resist, so that the mobile’s whole possibility is subject to it (he moves the glass, not the building or the pillar — “maybe Samson could”).
2. The will’s possibility regards good universally and the perfect good; its whole possibility is not subject to any particular good.
3. So no particular good moves it of necessity — ex necessitate, “from” necessity, as the Latin has it.

• Salesman’s incentives make an offer “harder to resist”, but “I doubt if the car salesman could give an offer that I could not resist”; car, house, computer in the same week — none exhausts or absorbs the ability to will; it can will infinitely many and more perfect goods. The wife’s “they made him an offer he couldn’t resist” — a hyperbole.
• Seeing God face to face fills the will completely, like a Thanksgiving stomach, but heaven is a convivium, a banquet of which one cannot have too much; then one necessarily wills God and need not worry about sinning — the saint “sins” to the deathbed (St John: if you say you have no sin, you are a liar), but not there.
• How good God is, two helps from Thomas: God and creatures are no better than God alone. (a) Creature’s goodness is to God’s as a point to a line, not a shorter to a longer line — otherwise God would be under a moral necessity of willing the better; God wills us in no way necessarily, pure liberality; Avicenna, whom Thomas always quotes: God alone is liberal, giving without return. (b) As a whole to one of its parts — “Duane Berquist and the arm of Duane Berquist is no more than Duane Berquist”. Christ: “why do you call me good? God alone is good”; to Moses and Abraham, “I will show you every good” — Thomas: id est myself.
• Aristotle: the soul is in some way all things; the will is open to all good, an infinite capacity met only by the divine goodness; Thomas argues the same from the infinity of God for the mind. Juliet in the garden scene takes her love back “to be frank” (frank = free, a freeman) so as to give it again, then sees she can always give more — love as infinite. With God you give all your love and it is still not enough: love the Lord with your whole heart.
• Contrast: consumer society, “happiness is one purchase away”; the old businessman near tears over not making another killing; Alexander weeping for no more worlds; Caesar’s ambition (Plutarch). Partial goods cannot move the heart necessarily; before God face to face, “I can’t resist you”.

8. Reply to the third objection: sense is not a vis collativa (“the sensing power is not a vis collativa”) #

The point: the sense power is not collativa but grasps simply one thing, so the sense desire is moved in a determined way; reason brings many things together, so the will can be moved from many and not from one of necessity.

• Collativa, from collatio, bringing together: reasoning brings together two statements and runs to a conclusion; defining brings together genus and difference; adding, multiplying bring together two numbers. Albert the Great, Thomas, Averroes describe reason as collativus and discursivus; recalling “Shakespeare’s definition”, discourse = running, coming to know what one does not know through what one does. Thomas’s own body of the article is his vis collativa, setting understanding and will side by side.
• The cat at the lake going for the fish-cleanings in the wastebasket: it smells one thing, compares nothing.
• Hence the newborn is not responsible as one with use of reason is. The cause of sin: the will moving to a good known by reason “but not sufficiently considered” — the bank robber sees easy money, not that it is unjust.
• Hamlet on choosing Horatio: “since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could of men distinguish, her election hath sealed thee for herself”; “give me that man that is not passion’s slave” — some are slaves of fear, anger, lust, drugs; reason compares men and sees which is the better friend; the soul is mistress of her choice when it has the vis collativa and discursiva.
• Student: the will is a blind faculty, dependent entirely on reason? He agrees but adds (repeated at request): a will too inclined to money does not wait for reason’s full consideration but “jumps” at any suggestion of quick money, even unjust.
• Student: isn’t that the sensitive appetite rather than the rational? He: the sense appetite has no control of the members without the will’s consent. Aristotle, Ethics II–VI virtues and vices, VII things above or below vice, continence and incontinence: sense appetite not habituated to good, reason and will not wholly corrupt, a struggle — the money left about that one could take uncaught: struggling, one is neither virtuous nor vicious. When passion subsides one repents: the angry man who hits, the coward who runs.
• Shame: the virtuous man has nothing to be ashamed of; shame shows one is not wholly bad and is a stepping stone to virtue, not virtue; Aristotle says it is good the young blush; movies now “kill the shame of the young”. Thomas, Secunda Secundae on temperance: verecundia (shame) and honestas (spiritual beauty) as integral parts; Aristotle places shame a little below virtue.
• Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece — a narrative poem (37 plays, sonnets, two narrative poems; Venus and Adonis comic, Lucrece tragic), a powerful study of temptation, inner struggle, shame and consequences. Still, the will must consent to what the body urges: the rapist and the man who kills in anger have consented to their emotions.
• Why the emotions weigh so much: what you do is in the singular (Aristotle) — “I don’t kill man, I kill this man”; reason knows the universal directly, the senses the singular (De Anima), so senses and emotions are closer to the deed. Considering adultery only as pleasant, without applying the universal moral law, is not sufficient consideration; emotions not habituated to reason make the application hard. He rereads the reply to close.
• Closing aside: a student’s text has more sentences than his; “you got that Spanish edition there?”

His words #

• beginnings — the first principles/axioms of knowledge [ed.: principia]; “axioms, Greek word for worthy”.
• understanding — the intellect; the ability to desire — appetitus; the intellectual ability to desire — voluntas, the will.
• by natural necessity — “naturally and from necessity” put together.
• demonstration — a syllogism making one know the cause and that it cannot be otherwise; syllogism — a speech in which, some statements laid down, another follows necessarily.
• last end / beatitude / blessed — happiness, willed of necessity but “in a kind of confusion”.
• praeter voluntatem — the bad is “aside from the will” (Dionysius).
• transcendental — what transcends the ten genera and fits being as being; being, thing, one, good, true, “something”.
• ex necessitate — “from necessity”, which he prefers to “by necessity”.
• convivium — banquet, of heaven.
• liberal — giving without any return (Avicenna, of God alone).
• frank — free, a freeman (Juliet).
• vis collativa — a power bringing together (collatio); collativus and discursivus — reason as bringing together and running from known to unknown; discourse — “running”.
• continence / incontinence — the middle state between virtue and vice (Ethics VII).
• verecundia — shame; honestas — spiritual beauty; integral parts of temperance.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q. 82 a. 2: objections, sed contra, body, three replies. Mentioned
• Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4 (in obj. 1); Augustine, Genesis to the letter (obj. 3); Augustine on the will as by which one sins (sed contra); Augustine, “our hearts are restless”; St Paul, “without belief it is impossible to please God”; St John, “if you say you have no sin”; Christ, “why do you call me good”; “I will show you every good” (to Moses/Abraham, with Thomas’s gloss).
• Thomas, De Veritate, beginning (transcendentals); Thomas, Secunda Secundae on temperance (verecundia, honestas); Thomas on God and creatures no better than God alone; Avicenna on God alone liberal.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II–VII; De Anima (reason knows universal, sense singular); “the soul is in some way all things”.
• Euclid, book II (perimeter and area); Pythagorean theorem.
• Thackeray, Vanity Fair; Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment; Shakespeare, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Rape of Lucrece, Venus and Adonis; Plutarch on Caesar; Albert the Great and Averroes on reason as collativus.

His questions #

• Does “I am sitting now” follow necessarily from “impossible to be and not be” and “a whole is larger than its part”? No; contingent propositions can be removed without removing the beginnings.
• If a + b is greater than x + y, wouldn’t ab be greater than xy? One tends to think so, and thinks something false for not seeing the connection.
• Do I necessarily will to put a tie on today, or this particular tie? No; it is indifferent to happiness, and either tie meets his wife’s requirements.
• Does a man rob the bank because it is unjust? No — “that’s where the money is”; he pursues some good, however tenuous.
• Does the bully see some good in what he does? Yes, an appearance of superiority over those who cannot defend themselves.
• Is “an offer you can’t resist” true? No, a hyperbole; only God seen face to face cannot be resisted.
• What does collativa mean? Bringing together, as in reasoning, defining, adding.
• Isn’t the will a blind faculty, dependent on reason? (student) Yes, but a will too inclined to money does not wait for reason’s full consideration.
• Wouldn’t it be the sensitive appetite rather than the rational? (student) The sense appetite has no control of the members without the will’s consent; the will consents to the emotions.