Summa I, Q.89 a.1–4: Replies on the Separated Soul; Its Knowledge of Angels, Natural Things and Particular People

Orientation #

The recording opens in the replies to article 1 of q. 89; he refers back to “the article on the interior senses” for the cogitative power and to what “has been said above” on how the soul knows itself in this life. He does not name last time or next time; he says “we take a little break here before we do article two” and “we got time for another article.” The previous class had begun q. 89 a. 1 and stopped mid-argument.

The class, in order #

1. Aristotle’s text in obj. 1 of a. 1 (“the philosopher says this from a certain supposition”) #

The point: the text of Aristotle that understanding is a motion of the conjunction of soul and body does not tell against the separated soul’s understanding.

Thomas’s first explanation (read in the reply): in Book I Aristotle speaks “from a certain supposition previously made,” that understanding is a motion of the composite just as sensing is, “for he has not yet shown the difference between the understanding and sense.” He admits this may “seem kind of gratuitous,” and defends it:

1. Aristotle sometimes speaks according to the opinions of his contemporaries until he has shown they are not true, and in Book I he is treating the early Greeks, for whom understanding, like sensing, is bodily.
2. He himself does the same: he speaks of “my brain being my reason” though he does not think the brain is his reason.
3. Example he first noticed with Thomas: in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle says the end of the household art is wealth, a common opinion; in the beginning of the Politics, in the formal consideration of the household, “he says that’s false.” So Aristotle gives examples his students would accept even when he does not think them true, to illustrate a point.
4. In Book III, at the end of the consideration of the possible, undergoing and acting-upon understanding, Aristotle is “quite clear” this part of the soul is immortal; but he first had to show that reason is not a form of sensing nor even of imagining.

Shakespeare parallel: the chorus/prologue of Henry V appeals to the audience to fill out the battle with their imagination, but says “imagination” and “thoughts” interchangeably; in daily speech “I think so / I imagine so” are used without distinction. Yet elsewhere Shakespeare is clear on the distinction: lovers and madmen with “shaping fantasies” apprehend more than “cool reason” comprehends, hot imagination vs. cool reason. So one can speak loosely while knowing the difference.

Second explanation (from the reply): Aristotle may be speaking of that way of understanding which is by turning to images, which the second objection had urged and the body of the article already answered.

Third explanation (he says Thomas gives it elsewhere): Aristotle may mean the inward sense called the cogitative power, which is “sometimes called reason too.” As he might speak of “the cat’s mind”: something bodily, an inward sense.

2. Reply to obj. 3: how the separated soul understands (“forms from the influence of the divine light”) #

The point: the separated soul understands neither by inborn forms (as angels, created with their forms), nor by forms it abstracts, nor only by forms conserved from this life, but by forms partaken of from the influence of the divine light, as the other separated substances do, “although in a lesser way.” As soon as it ceases its turning to the body it is turned toward higher things. Nor is this knowledge unnatural, since God is author of the natural light as well as the gratuitous.

Illustrations of the soul turning from the bodily:

• Plato, Republic: in this life the soul can turn from the material world, looking first at the mathematical world, “sort of in between,” then at the immaterial.
• Christian asceticism, “the dark night of the soul”: the soul in a way turns away from the bodily, and may then receive something from above.
• But prophets usually receive prophecy under a sensible or imaginable form (Isaiah sees the man on the throne).
• Augustine and Thomas held Moses and St Paul were given a transitory vision of God in himself (Paul’s man caught up to the third heaven, “whether in the body or not, he did not know”): the attention suddenly turned from the body. “Those are not usual happenings.”

3. Article 2, objections and sed contra (“the separated soul does not understand the separated substances”) #

Whether the separated soul understands separated substances (“meaning the angels mainly”).

• Obj. 1: the soul is more perfect joined to the body, since a part is more perfect in its whole; joined, it does not understand separated substances; much less separated. His gloss: in some way the soul is more perfect separated, “even though simply it’s better in the body”; for understanding separated substances “it might be better off.”
• Obj. 2: everything known is known by presence or by form; angels are not present in the soul (“nothing is inside the soul except God alone,” God closer to you than you to yourself); nor by abstracted forms, since what you abstract is always simpler than what you abstract from, and the angel is simpler than the soul.
• Obj. 3: some philosophers placed man’s ultimate happiness in knowledge of separated substances; then separation alone would give happiness.
• Sed contra: separated souls know other separated souls; the rich man in hell saw Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom (the drop of water; Abraham’s gulf that cannot be crossed).

4. Article 2, body: knowing itself through itself (“our mind gets knowledge of bodiless things through itself”) #

The point: from how the separated soul knows itself one sees how it knows other separated substances.

1. Augustine, On the Trinity IX: our mind gets knowledge of incorporeal things through itself, by knowing itself. Hence knowledge of the soul is “a gateway” to understanding, so far as we can, the angels and God: we must understand our own understanding and willing before an angel’s.
2. In this life, united to the body, the soul understands by turning to images, and knows itself only insofar as it becomes actually understanding through a form abstracted from images, and so through its own act. His chain: through the objects the acts, through the acts the powers, through the powers the soul. Example: understand what a triangle is; then what it is to understand a triangle; then the ability to understand it; then “some understanding of my soul.”
3. Separated, it understands not by turning to images but toward things understandable in themselves; so it understands itself through itself, as an angel does.
4. Common to every separated substance: it knows what is above and below it by way of its own substance, for “something is understood according as it is in the one understanding,” and received according to the way of the receiver.
5. The separated soul’s substance is below the angelic but conformed to other separated souls: hence perfect knowledge of other souls, imperfect and deficient knowledge of angels. “My soul will understand your souls perfectly, but not the angels perfectly.” Qualification he stresses: this is the natural knowledge of the separated soul; the knowledge of glory and vision has “another account,” since some saints are raised above some angels in the supernatural order.

5. Article 2, replies (“freer for understanding”) #

• Reply 1 (distinction): the separated soul is more imperfect as to the nature by which it communicates with body, but in some way freer for understanding, since the body’s weight and occupation impede the purity of understanding. Aside: Proclus, mathematics purificat oculum mentis (mathematics purifies the eye of the mind); Manciodian [ed.: name unclear in recording] says logic even more so, being more immaterial than geometry; the Pythagoreans saw mathematics as turning the eye of the mind from the sensible.
• Reply 2: the separated soul knows angels through likenesses impressed by God, which fall short of perfect representation because the soul’s nature is below the angels’. You know angels by forms poured in by God, but not as the angels know themselves. Story from his old teacher (name unclear in recording): when you see your angel you will say “This is God,” and the angel says “No, no, you’ve got a long way to go.”
• Reply 3 (against the Arab philosophers who placed happiness in union with the angels, corrected by Thomas in the treatise on happiness): ultimate happiness is in God alone, seen only by grace; in knowledge of the other separated substances there is magna felicitas, great but not final happiness, and even that only if they are perfectly understood, which natural knowledge does not do. Asides: his teacher on studying the angels, “very much more interesting than we are, not as interesting as God”; the Thomas line, study body to understand soul, soul to understand angels, angels to understand God; Augustine: happy who understands God though nothing else, miserable who understands all things but not God, blessed who understands both, not more so for the other things; God will be omnia in omnibus.

6. Article 3: does it know all natural things? (“a common one and a confused one”) #

• Obj. 1: in separated substances are the notions of all natural things; souls know separated substances; so all natural things (“when I see my guardian angel, I see all his ideas”).
• Obj. 2: who understands the more understandable can understand the less.
• Sed contra 1: in demons natural knowledge is more vigorous than in separated souls, yet demons learn many things by long experience (Isidore). Sed contra 2: otherwise study would be in vain.
• Body: the separated soul understands by forms from the influx of divine light, as angels do; but this way is natural to the angel (we get forms from things), and the soul’s nature is below the angel’s; so the angel has perfect knowledge of all natural things through these forms (God made all things in the angelic understanding as well as in their natures, Augustine on Genesis), the separated soul only a common and confused knowledge, not certain and particular.
• Reply 1: even the angel knows natural things not through its substance but through forms; knowing the angel in some way does not give all his thoughts.
• Reply 2: as it does not perfectly understand separated substances, so it understands natural things only under confusion.
• Reply 3: Isidore speaks of future things, which neither angels, demons nor separated souls know except in their causes or by revelation; the angels do not know the day of judgment unless God reveals it.
• Reply 4: knowledge acquired here by study is particular and perfect, there confused; so study is not in vain. Example: distinct knowledge of this cat now vs. confused knowledge of cat and horse in the next world; the entomologist’s distinct knowledge of insects vs. his own confused one.

7. Article 4, body: knowing singulars (“a twofold way of understanding”) #

• Obj. 1: only understanding remains, and understanding does not know singulars (Boethius: singular when sensed, universal understood). Obj. 2: knowledge of singulars is more determinate than of universals, and the soul lacks distinct knowledge even of the forms of all natural things. Obj. 3: if it knew singulars, and not by sense, it would know all; it does not; so none.
• Sed contra: the rich man in hell, “I have five brothers.”
• Body: separated souls know some singulars, not all, and those present, not past and future. Argument:
  1. Understanding by abstraction from images cannot know singulars directly, only indirectly, because the source of singularity is matter and the form must be separated from matter to be understandable.
  2. Understanding by influx of forms from God can know singulars, because God’s forms are productive not only of form but of matter, of the whole creature “even in singularity”; God through his essence, as cause of universals and of individual principles, knows both. (He notes Thomas proceeds in the theological order, having already treated God.)
  3. Separated substances know through forms not derived from things but likenesses partaken of the divine essence; so they too can know singulars. His restatement: God’s forms are not derived from what he makes, things proceed from his forms; a form received from God carries something of that character, a likeness of what is individual as well as universal. “Interesting, right? We know you by a universal form.”
  4. Difference: angels, by the efficacy of their understanding, know through these forms both natures in particular and the singulars under the species; separated souls, whose knowledge is confused, know only those singulars to which they are somehow determined: by preceding knowledge, by some affection, by natural relation, or by divine ordination, since what is received is determined by the way of the receiver.
• Illustration: the film of St John Bosco seen as a child: the seminary pact that whoever dies first will return; Bosco praying at night in the dormitory, light behind the door, “John Bosco, I am saved.” That is preceding knowledge and affection. Also mothers said to feel something when a son dies on the battlefield: “there’s got to be something particular that attaches you to this person.” Or a divine movement: “Berquist is praying again for illumination, Thomas.”

8. Article 4, replies and the saints (“some relation that it does not have to others”) #

• Reply 1: the soul by abstraction does not know singulars, but the separated soul does not understand by abstraction; so the objection from this life does not show it cannot know singulars in another way, by inflowing forms that are likenesses of the divine form.
• Reply 2: the separated soul’s knowledge is determined to species or individuals when it has some determined relation to them (he corrects his first misreading of the text), those spelled out in the body: special knowledge, special affection, “my son or my brother,” or God wanting to unite this soul with that. Divine ordering: St Dominic dying, “I’ll be more useful to you on the other side”; founders watching over their orders, Dominic over Dominicans, Bernard over Cistercians.
• Reply 3: the soul is not equally related to all singulars; to some it has a relation it lacks to others, father, mother, brother, child (generated or generated by the same parents), and by divine ordering: images of two saints whose hearts Christ welds together; Margaret Mary Alacoque and Claude Colombière (their bodies in neighbouring churches; Christ telling her whom he would meet in England); Teresa of Avila on John of the Cross, “here comes that friar and a half.” He begins Teresa appearing to one of her sisters after death when the recording cuts off [unclear in recording].

His words #

• “the philosopher speaks from a supposition previously made”: Aristotle’s way of using current opinions before refuting them.
• “possible understanding, the undergoing understanding, and the acting upon understanding”: his renderings of the parts of intellect in On the Soul III [ed.: possible / passive / agent intellect].
• “hot imagination and cool reason”: Shakespeare’s distinction, used for imagination vs. reason.
• “cogitative power”: the inward sense “sometimes called reason too”; “the cat’s mind.”
• “influence / inflowing of the divine light”: the source of the separated soul’s forms.
• “gratuitous light” vs. “natural light”: both from God, so the separated soul’s knowledge is natural.
• “dark night of the soul”: the soul turning away from the bodily in Christian asceticism.
• “objects, acts, powers, soul”: the order in which we come to know the soul in this life.
• “received according to the way of the receiver”: why the soul knows angels imperfectly and singulars selectively.
• “mathematics purificat oculum mentis”: Proclus’ saying, mathematics purifies the eye of the mind.
• “magna felicitas”: great happiness in knowing separated substances, not the final one.
• “omnia in omnibus”: God all in all in heaven.
• “common and confused” vs. “certain and particular” knowledge: separated soul vs. angel on natural things.
• “preceding knowledge, affection, natural relation, divine ordination”: what determines a separated soul to a singular.
• “friar and a half”: Teresa of Avila’s joke about John of the Cross.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 89, a. 1, replies to obj. 1 and 3
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 89, a. 2 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 89, a. 3 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 89, a. 4 (whole article, to reply 3)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, On the Soul I and III (immortality of the understanding; reason not sensing or imagining)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I (end of household art is wealth) and Politics I (rejected)
• Augustine, On the Trinity IX; On Genesis (cited by Thomas); Augustine on the happy man who understands God
• Isidore (cited by Thomas); Boethius (cited by Thomas)
• Plato, Republic
• Luke, the rich man and Lazarus (inferred locus); Isaiah’s vision; St Paul caught up to the third heaven
• Proclus on mathematics purifying the mind’s eye
• Shakespeare, Henry V prologue; “lovers and madmen” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, inferred)
• Thomas’s treatise on happiness (correcting the Arab philosophers)

His questions #

• What does Aristotle mean when he says understanding is a motion of the composite? He speaks from a supposition of his contemporaries before showing the difference of understanding from sense; or of understanding by turning to images; or of the cogitative power.
• Is the soul less perfect separated, since it is only a part? More imperfect as to its nature communicating with body, but freer for understanding.
• How does the separated soul understand at all? By forms partaken of from the influence of the divine light, as angels do though in a lesser way.
• How does the separated soul know the angels? Through likenesses impressed by God, falling short because its nature is below theirs.
• Does knowing the angel mean I know all his thoughts? No; the angel itself knows natural things through forms, not through its substance.
• Why bother studying in this life? Study gives particular and perfect knowledge; the next world’s is confused.
• Do the angels know when the last judgment is? Not unless God specially reveals it; future things are known only in their causes or by revelation.
• Can the separated soul know singulars without senses? Yes, through forms from God, likenesses of the divine form productive of matter as well as form; but only those singulars to which it is determined.
• Which singulars does a separated soul know? Those to which it is related by preceding knowledge, affection, natural relation or divine ordination.