Summa I q.12 intro and a.1: we name things as we know them; can a created mind see God's essence?

Orientation #

He says the questions “we just finished before vacation” were on the very substance of God (simple, perfect, infinite, unchanging, one); now “he’s going to pause” and treat our knowledge of that substance (q. 12), and then our naming of it (q. 13). He also mentions “the 14th question” on God’s knowledge as coming later. The previous class finished q. 11 (God’s unity) and the next continues the objections and body of the article on whether a created intellect can see God’s essence.

The class, in order #

1. Things, knowledge, names: the before and after (“we name things as we know them”) #

Point: the three things (things, our knowledge of things, names) have an order, and knowledge sits between things and names.

• Opening aside: the three things he asks the angels for in the prayer are together, in that order, in Thomas’s writing on the Sentences.
• “Look before and after” (Shakespeare’s exhortation to use reason): things are before our knowledge of things; knowledge is before naming.
• The Categories (first book in the order of learning): Greek commentators split over whether it is about things, thoughts or words; each opinion is part of the truth; they settled on “words naming things through thoughts” — the same order. Words are most sensible, thoughts hidden in the mind, so we get at thoughts through how words signify things.
• Application to words equivocal by likeness of ratios: “before” (Categories), “beginning” (start of Metaphysics V, “fifth book of Wisdom”), “to see”, “in” (the eight meanings). When Thomas explains the order of meanings he comes back to “we name things as we know them”: names go first on sensible things, then are carried to things we cannot sense, either by likeness of ratios or by the ratio of later things to former.
• Logos: placed first on the spoken word, then on the thought (the word signifies the thought), then on the power that has thoughts, reason. “To see”: act of the eye, then imagining, then understanding.

2. Where q. 12 and q. 13 sit (“it remains to consider how He is in our knowledge”) #

Point: q. 12 (our knowing God) and q. 13 (our naming God) follow the substance of God in the same three-fold order.

• Reads the prooemium of q. 12: having considered how God is secundum se ipsum, it remains to consider how He is in our knowledge, i.e. how He is known by creatures. SCG does the same after simplicity and perfection, without waiting for the full treatment of the substance.
• Aside: SCG on why God makes intellectual creatures: to communicate a likeness of Himself in a new way; material things bear a “vestige” of Him, our minds get another likeness.
• Reads the start of q. 13’s prooemium: each thing is named by us as we know it. Two principles: (1) we name things as we know them (one must at least be aware of the thing); (2) the order in naming follows the order in knowing, not the order in things.
• Water vs hydrogen: in naming, water is before hydrogen (hydro = water, gen = generates); in things, if water is H₂O, hydrogen is before water; water is sensible and known from the beginning of human history, hydrogen only discovered by Lavoisier (18th century, before the Revolution beheaded him). This is why the order in naming follows knowing.
• That is also why we use “sense” for the meaning of a word: knowledge begins with the senses.

3. The thirteen articles of q. 12, surveyed (“we ask thirteen things. How unlucky”) #

Point: a walk through the articles, with what he expects each to answer.

1. Whether some created understanding can see God’s essence (what He is) — the first article, read below.
2. Whether it is seen through some created form or species — no: God joins Himself to the mind so that He is both what we see and that by which we see.
3. Whether God’s essence can be seen by the bodily eye — no (“some people are disappointed”).
4. Whether a created intellectual substance suffices from its natural powers — no; only God naturally sees Himself as He is; the creature must be raised by the light of glory, a created light that does not make God understandable (He already is) but raises the mind to receive God as the form by which it sees.
   • Asides: “Father of lights” (Catholic epistles, plural): natural light of reason, light of faith, light of glory as the most perfect gifts; John’s Gospel, “the light which enlightens every man”; Psalm, “in Your light we shall see light.”
5. Whether one who sees the nature of God sees it more perfectly than another — yes. Aside: “Our Father who art in the heavens” (plural in the original): many heavens, many levels; Paul’s man carried to the third heaven; yet, as Thomas says elsewhere, everyone is satisfied, seeing God as much as he loves Him.
6. Whether any created understanding comprehends the divine nature, i.e. sees it as much as it is knowable — no, only God.
7. Whether in seeing God we know all things — yes and no: the whole created world, not everything God could have made.
8. Whether we know those things through likenesses — no: the divine substance itself is the likeness of all things, since every maker makes what is like itself.
9. Whether we know them all together — yes, in one act, not dog, then cat, then triangle, then courage. Contrast our stretched-out knowing (his SCG reading day by day, “barely staying alive on my mind”). Going down from God to our mind, the lowest possible, there are more and more thoughts knowing less and less perfectly. His poem: the Father said it all in one Word; made man, that Word spoke few words and said much — “the brevity and soul of it”; the Latin translators say Aristotle’s Metaphysics is small in size, great in power.
10. Whether in this life one can see the nature of God — generally no; but Augustine, and Thomas following him, hold that Moses and Paul saw God as He is in a transitory way, because their eminence as prophets/teachers; “some controversy”, he does not know whether the Church has pronounced.
11. Whether we can know God in this life by natural reason — yes, per Vatican I’s constitution and Romans 1:20, but very imperfectly, as a cause through effects that do not do it justice.

• Aside: why God made so many different things, compared to an artist who has not said all he can say (a few of Shakespeare’s plays, or only Mozart’s sonatas, would not show the range); even the whole universe is not adequate to Him.
• Aside from Lombard: God loves the human nature of Christ more than the whole universe. “Loves more” does not mean more intense (one act of love) but wills a greater good: Mary above the apostles, apostles above us, Christ’s human nature joined to His very person above all. Objection “he’s just one man” / “the whole is greater than the part”: God is a universal cause containing everything simply.

12. Whether above natural reason there is knowledge of God in this life by grace — faith, and things like Paul’s.

• Structure: articles 1–11 all concern seeing God face to face; 12 natural knowledge; 13 the one in between. “I do the extremes first.” Article 4 is important for distinguishing the vision from natural knowledge. The order is “kind of theological”: in SCG he ascends (confused common knowledge, philosophers’, faith, then vision as the end); here it is almost reversed.
• [ed.: he numbers only twelve items here although he counts thirteen; his “twelfth” (natural reason) and “thirteenth” (grace) correspond to Thomas’s a. 12 and a. 13, so his article on comprehension and the following ones seem to have been run together; the notes keep his items.]

4. Article 1, the objections (“no created understanding is able to see God”) #

Point: four objections, two from authority, two from reason.

1. Chrysostom on John 1:18 (“No one has ever seen God”): not prophets, angels or archangels see what God is; how can a created nature see the uncreated?
   • Aside: Thomas would rather have Chrysostom’s commentary (on Matthew or John) than the whole city of Paris; in his own commentary on John he mainly gives Augustine’s and Chrysostom’s opinions as masters.
2. Dionysius (whom Thomas thought the convert of the Areopagus), Divine Names ch. 1: of God there is neither sense, image, opinion, reason nor science.
3. Everything infinite as such is unknown; God is infinite (shown above); so He is unknown. His caution: “infinite” has many meanings; Aristotle’s infinite in the Physics (“Natural Hearing”) is tied to lack of form, incompleteness, or to quantity counted step by step, which cannot be known — not the way God is infinite.
4. The created understanding knows only what exists, since being is what first falls into its grasp; but God is above existing things (Dionysius); so He is above every understanding. His gloss: the proper object of reason is what is, where “what it is” is distinct from its being; God is above that — “I am who am.”
5. Of knower to known there must be a proportion or ratio, since the known perfects the knower; but there is no ratio of creature to God, they differ infinitely. Recalled from the goodness of God: is God plus creatures better than God alone? No, two ways: (a) the creature’s goodness only partakes (Duane Berquist plus his arm is no more than Duane Berquist); (b) infinite distance, so the creature’s goodness is to God’s not as shorter line to longer but as point to line — the line is no longer for adding the point. His warning: “proportion” is equivocal; strict ratio (a half, a tenth, a billionth) — none between creature and God; broad sense (one has relation to the other) — there is. Thomas sometimes denies, sometimes affirms, and will distinguish here.

• [ed.: the transcript gives five objections; Thomas’s article has four. He himself calls the second “second objection”, so the Chrysostom and Dionysius authorities together form his objection 1 and his “fourth” is the proportion argument.]

5. Sed contra (“We shall see him as he is”) #

1 John 3:2 (“one, three, two — easy to remember”). Scripture has two ways of speaking of the vision: “as He is” and Paul’s “face to face” (also in the Psalms, “seek the face of God in Jacob”); “as He is” is the more proper, “face to face” more metaphorical, proportioned to us.

6. The body: knowable as in act; most knowable in itself vs to us (“each thing is knowable according as it is in act”) #

Point: God, pure act, is most knowable in Himself; what is most knowable is least knowable to us. Argument:

1. Each thing is knowable as it is in act — from Metaphysics IX (“the ninth book of Wisdom”, on act and ability): ability is knowable only through act.
2. God is pure act without admixture of passive potency — from Metaphysics IX: what goes from ability to act is in ability first in time, but simply act is before ability, since ability is reduced to act only by something in act; so the first being must be pure act (otherwise something would be before it). In SCG this stands as an argument by itself, with a chapter on no potency in God; here it was brought out in q. 3 a. 1 (in the context of whether God is a body), which he reads: the first being must be in act and in no way in potency; and in the concrete form of the unmoved mover.
3. Therefore in Himself God is maxime knowable.

• Then Aristotle’s distinction, more knowable by nature vs more knowable to us (beginning of Physics I; again Metaphysics II and IX) — “one of the hardest things to understand”. Why? Our mind begins purely in potency, and as it goes from potency to act it knows first what is less act.
• What act is most known to us? Motion (Metaphysics IX). Shakespeare, Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida: “things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.” Discourse (from Latin for running) is an act of reason like a motion, and it is reason in motion that catches our attention. Yet motion barely exists: walking across the room, past part gone, future part not yet, and no more than a point here (else in two places at once) — as Aristotle says of time, whose parts do not exist. So the least actual of acts is the most known to us. Same reason “before” in Categories ch. 12 starts with before in time: time is the number of before and after in motion.
• So the first way to God reasons from what is most knowable to us (motion) to what is least knowable to us but most knowable simply (pure act). In the vision this reverses, as geometry knows cause before effect (a more perfect way, but not characteristic of us) — and as God knows everything by knowing Himself.
• Difficulty: what is most knowable in itself is not knowable to a given understanding because the intelligible exceeds it. Aristotle’s bat: it cannot see the sun, most visible because most light, from excess of light (Aristotle thought the bat flew at night because daylight was too much). Plato’s cave: the escaped prisoner blinded; things more visible in sunlight but less visible to him from weakness of his eyes. Metaphysics II: the chief cause of difficulty in knowing is the weakness of our mind, not the object.
• Aside, following Thomas’s commentary that the difficulty distinction extends beyond knowing: difficult to love can be because unlovable (cancer, rock and roll, terrorists) or from a weak heart (if truth, wisdom, God are hard to love). Chief difficulty: the weakness of the will.

7. Those who denied the vision, and Thomas’s two reasons (“this is not suitably said”) #

Point: some, attending to this, laid down that no created intellect can see God’s essence; Thomas: not suitably said, against faith and against reason.

1. Against faith: man’s last beatitude consists in his highest operation, understanding; if the intellect never saw God’s essence, either it never attains beatitude, or beatitude is in something other than God — alien to faith, since the rational creature’s ultimate perfection is in Him who is the beginning of its being, each thing being perfect insofar as it attains its beginning.
2. Against reason: there is in man a natural desire to know the cause when he sees the effect (opening of the Metaphysics; his addition: reason wants to know not only that a thing is but what it is, so not only that God is but what He is); from this wonder arises; if the intellect could not reach the first cause, the desire of nature would be in vain.

• Conclusion: simply, it should be conceded that the blessed see the essence of God. Christ on the angels: they always see the face of my Father; Paul, the Psalms (“seek His face forevermore”).

8. Digression: the three theological virtues and hope as the arduum (“what’s left for hope?”) #

Point: why three virtues with one object, God.

• Faith: God as first truth (fits faith in reason, whose object is truth). Charity: God as summum bonum, “the good of every good” (Augustine), fits the will. Hope: God as the supreme arduum (from the Sentences), analogous to the irascible, which aims at the difficult, not the pleasant — an animal fights not for pleasure but to overcome. Tabitha the cat chasing strange cats round the yard.
• Thomas: beatitude, per Boethius, is a state perfected by the gathering of all goods — as arduous as can be, not pursued without God’s mercy and merits through grace; God is every good (“follow me and I’ll show you every good” to Moses — “that is myself”).
• Tie-in: the “some laid down” who despair of the vision show why hope is needed. To pursue a good one must know it (faith), love it (charity), and see it as possible, promised (hope).
• Closing: when Thomas shows what beatitude finally consists in, he says they will blush who seek the end of man in money, power, a woman or whatever.

His words #

• “before and after”: the order among things, knowledge, names; also Categories ch. 12 senses of “before”.
• “equivocal by likeness of ratios”: the way “before”, “beginning”, “to see”, “in” carry over.
• “we name things as we know them” / “the order in naming follows the order in knowing”: his statement of Thomas’s principle.
• “sense” (of a word): meaning, so called because knowledge begins with the senses.
• “fifth / ninth / second / fourteen books of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V, IX, II; Metaphysics as a whole].
• “Natural Hearing” [ed.: Physics].
• “ability” [ed.: potency]; “pure act”: act with no admixture of passive potency.
• “light of glory”: a created light raising the mind to receive God as the form by which it sees Him.
• “comprehend”: to see the divine nature as much as it is knowable.
• “proportion / ratio”: strict (definite ratio, none between creature and God) vs broad (one has relation to the other).
• “maxime knowable”: most knowable in Himself.
• “more knowable by nature vs more knowable to us”: Aristotle’s distinction.
• “discourse”: from Latin for running; an act of reason like a motion.
• “hoc attendentes … posuerunt”: paying attention to this, some laid down (that no created intellect sees God).
• “arduum”: the difficult, object of hope, analogous to the irascible.
• “summum bonum”, “the good of every good”: God as object of charity.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 12, prooemium and list of 13 articles; a. 1, objections, sed contra, body (verified source).
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 13, prooemium (opening lines).
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 3, a. 1 (the “secondly” argument that the first being is pure act).
• Chrysostom on John 1:18 and Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 1, as quoted in the objections.
• 1 John 3:2. Mentioned
• Summa Contra Gentiles: parallel pause on knowing and naming God; why God makes intellectual creatures; chapter that there is no potency in God; ascending order of knowledges of God; SCG IV ch. 15 per verified sources (locus not named by him).
• Thomas on the Sentences: the three things asked of the angels; hope as supreme arduum; Lombard on God loving Christ’s human nature more than the universe.
• Aristotle, Categories (Greek commentators; ch. 12 senses of “before”); Metaphysics V (beginning), IX (act before ability; motion most known), II (difficulty from weakness of mind), I (natural desire to know); Physics I (more knowable by nature/to us), Physics on infinite and time; bat and sun.
• Plato, Republic, cave.
• Shakespeare: “look before and after”; Troilus and Cressida (Ulysses); his poem on brevity; the plays read this year.
• Scripture: James, “Father of lights” (inferred locus, he says “Catholic epistles”); John, light enlightening every man; Psalm, “in Your light we shall see light”; Our Father “in the heavens”; Paul, third heaven; face to face; Romans 1:20 with Vatican I’s constitution; Christ on angels seeing the Father’s face; Psalms seeking His face; God to Moses, “every good”.
• Boethius, definition of beatitude; Augustine on Moses and Paul.

His questions #

• What’s the before and after of things, our knowledge of things, and names? Things, then our knowledge, then naming.
• Is the order in naming the order in things? (water and hydrogen) No, it follows the order in knowing: water is before hydrogen in naming though hydrogen is before water in things.
• Does any created understanding, even seraphim or St John, comprehend the divine nature? No; only God sees it as much as it is knowable.
• When we see God as He is, do we know all things? Yes and no: the whole created world, not all God could have made.
• What part of philosophy is “each thing is knowable as it is in act” taken from? Wisdom, the ninth book (on act and ability).
• Where did we learn that God is pure act? Where is it brought out in the Summa? Metaphysics IX (act simply before ability); q. 3 a. 1.
• Why is what is most knowable not most knowable to us? Because our mind begins in pure potency and knows what is less in act first.
• What act is most known to us? How actual is motion? Motion; barely actual, its parts past and future not existing.
• How can there be three theological virtues if God is one object? God as first truth (faith), as highest good (charity), as supreme arduum (hope).