Summa I q.12 a.8–10: What the Blessed See in God, Seeing Without Likenesses, and Seeing All at Once

Orientation #

He opens with “the next article” (a. 8) and says it “follows upon” the previous article, where it was shown that no created understanding comprehends God (prev. lecture). He closes at the start of the next question, “whether someone in this life is able to see God,” saying it will be three weeks before they take it up. The previous class covered aa. 6-7 (degrees of vision, non-comprehension); the next covers aa. 11-12.

The class, in order #

1. Article 8, the objections and sed contra (“those seeing God through His essence see all things”) #

The point: four arguments that whoever sees God sees all things, against Dionysius on the angels.

1. Gregory, Dialogues IV: what do they not see who see the one seeing all things?
2. Whoever sees a mirror sees what shines in it; all that is and can be shines in God as in a mirror, since He knows all in Himself.
3. On the Soul III: who understands the greater can understand the lesser. He glosses the passage: after a very bright light or loud sound the sense is impeded, but after the highly intelligible the mind understands the lesser better. God is the greatest intelligible; all He makes or can make is less; so whoever understands God can understand all these. “That’s always to me a very striking argument.”
   • Aside, attached to premise 1: his teachers respected Shakespeare and Mozart, yet these are less understandable than philosophy (music is understandable “in potency or participation, the way the emotions partake of reason”); the good philosopher judges them better after the more understandable. Baroque/Mozart vs. Romantic music: the former holds emotion in harmony with reason, the latter “won’t quite admit” it; Tchaikovsky going out to drown himself, then listening to Mozart to escape the madness. Shakespeare “keeps you on an even keel” where other fiction disperses the faculties.
4. The rational creature naturally desires to know all things; if this desire is not put to rest in seeing God, he is not blessed, “which is unfitting.” Sed contra: angels see God’s essence yet do not know all things, for the lower are purged of ignorance by the higher (Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy 7); they do not know future contingents or the thoughts of the heart, which belong to God alone.

• Aside: his teacher Kostik said to make an act of will opening your heart to your guardian angel.
• Aside: people who read Thomas carefully develop an “English Latin word order”; he tells the class to follow the Latin order in his English.

2. Article 8, the body (“effects are in the power of their cause”) #

The point: the created intellect seeing God does not see in Him all He makes or can make.

1. Some things are seen in God as they are in Him; all other things are in God as effects in the power of their cause, and are seen there as effects in a cause.
2. The more perfectly a cause is seen, the more of its effects can be seen in it. Example: a man of elevated understanding, given one demonstrated principle, draws many conclusions (Einstein seeing consequences others miss); the weaker understanding must have each explained (a teacher sees this all the time).
3. Only one who totally comprehends the cause knows all its effects and their reasons.
4. No created understanding comprehends God (previous article). Conclusion: none sees all He makes or can make, “for this would be to comprehend His power”; but the more perfectly one sees God, the more one sees in Him.

• Aside: the two Summas are better ordered for learning than the Disputed Questions or the Sentences (where “this reminds me of this”); that order of the discipline is why he wrote the Summa.

3. Replies 1-3 (“the sufficiency of the object”) #

• To 1 (Gregory): he speaks of the sufficiency of the object, which in itself contains and demonstrates all things; it does not follow that the seer knows all, since he does not comprehend it.
• To 2: one seeing a mirror need not see all in it unless he comprehends the mirror.
• To 3 (“the most interesting in some ways to me”): it is more to see God than all other things, but it is more to see God such that all things are known in Him than to see Him such that fewer are known; the multitude known in God follows the perfection of the vision. Distinction: knowing a thing in itself vs. in God: a thing may be more easily known in itself than God is, but to know it in God requires knowing God better.

4. Reply 4, the natural desire (“the species and genera of things and their reasons”) #

The point: the natural desire is for what perfects the understanding, and that is satisfied in seeing God.

• The desire is for the species and genera of things and their reasons, which whoever sees the divine essence sees. It does not extend to singulars such as others’ thoughts and doings (he has no natural desire to know what students have been doing all day, or how much they understand), nor to things that are not but could be made by God. Thomas says more fully in the Summa Contra Gentiles (his report) that we desire to know the existing universe and all its kinds; all this is seen in God, and all at once.
• Example of the cycle of study now: reading the Sentences but wanting to go back to Euclid or the Physics; his Mozart CDs, the 150 chapters of the Contra Gentiles, the commentaries on the Psalms, John, Matthew—“only a little bit at a time,” a circle; in seeing God, all of it at once.
• Augustine, Confessions V, “always a beautiful quote”: unhappy the man who knows all those things but not You; blessed who knows You even if ignorant of them; who knows You and them is not more blessed on their account, but on Yours alone.
• Aside on heaven: he does not know whether we will pay much attention to each other, or want to ask Thomas “do I understand that right?”, or be curious to see Christ or Mary in the flesh.
• Dog in heaven: the answer for a child is “if your dog is necessary for your happiness in heaven, your dog will be there.” The statement is true even if its parts are not (the dog has no immortal soul, so it is not necessary). Logic of the if-then: “if Socrates is a mother, Socrates is a woman” is true with both parts false; Hamlet’s “if man’s chief good is but to sleep and feed, he is a beast no more” likewise; “if I am a man, then I am a father” is false though both parts are true. So falsity means something different in the conditional; in an if-then argument one uses a regular statement to reach a regular conclusion. Same for “if candy is necessary…” and “if that person is necessary for your happiness, they’ll be there.”

5. Article 9, the objections (“seen through some likenesses”) #

The point: are the things seen in God seen through some likenesses? Not “a bunch of likenesses floating around in God.”

1. All knowledge is by likening of knower to known; the understanding in act is the understood in act, the sense in act the sensible in act (Aristotle), as the pupil is informed by the likeness of colour; having the definition of square “in a way I’ve become a square.” So one who sees creatures in God must be informed by their likenesses.
2. What we have seen we hold in memory. Paul (and Moses—“just those two,” the position of both Augustine and Thomas) saw God’s essence in a passing way; Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram XII: after the rapture ceased he recalled many things and “heard hidden words not licit to speak.” So likenesses remained in him, and likewise while the vision lasts. Sed contra: through one species the mirror and what appears in it are seen; all things are seen in God as in an intelligible mirror; so if God is not seen through a likeness, neither are they.

6. Article 9, the body (“in himself and in his image”) #

The point: what is seen in God is seen through the very essence of God joined to the understanding, one form adequate to knowing God and other things in Him.

1. A thing is known as its likeness is in the knower, in two ways: (a) directly, informed by the thing’s own likeness, so the thing is known in itself; (b) informed by the form of something like it, so it is known not in itself but in what is like it—as a man is known in himself or in his image.
2. To know things through likenesses in the knower is to know them in their proper natures; to know them as their likenesses pre-exist in God is to see them in God. These two knowledges differ. Conclusion: things seen in God are seen only through the divine essence, through which God Himself is seen. His gloss: every agent makes what is like itself (Aristotle); since God made all, all bear some likeness to Him and are contained in His power; knowing Himself fully He knows all else, and we, the more perfectly we see Him, the more we see in Him.

• Angels: the higher have fewer ideas but see things more distinctly. Our thin imitation: Euclid inscribes a square in a circle, then bisects the arcs, giving polygons approaching the circle as a limit never reached (divisible forever); knowing polygon-approaching-circle, one seems to know circle and polygon distinctly in one idea. “A sign of the intellectual decadence of our time” (attributed to “the connect” [ed.: likely De Koninck]) that people are not impressed by this. Ordinarily we need one idea for polygon and another for circle.
• Numbers: if ten understood itself fully it would understand nine, eight, seven…; knowing the human soul, one somewhat knows the animal and plant soul—a potential whole.
• Attached aside: reading Thomas on baptism (removes original sin in a baby, original and actual in a contrite adult), he speaks of baptism as a potential whole doing what confession does and more; confession has part of the power of baptism. He was “happy to see it there.”
• Nine imitates ten, eight less, and so down: creatures are like God more or less, never exactly. Fourth Lateran Council (quoted by Benedict, referred to by Paul VI): no likeness between creature and God without a greater unlikeness; cf. the Psalm “who is like the Lord our God?” His conversation with Hamilton eight years ago, who objected to reason being called “godlike” in Shakespeare: deny all likeness and you deny God’s causality and that the agent makes its like. Univocal cause (dog produces dog) gives exact likeness; a higher cause contains the lower like ten producing nine, with some likeness still—otherwise “you wouldn’t be giving somebody what you have.”
• Thomas elsewhere (his report) allows knowledge of other things through their own likenesses in the next world, but that is not in the vision of God.

7. Article 9, the replies (“the likenesses of all things pre-exist”) #

• To 1: the seer is assimilated to what he sees in God insofar as he is united to the divine essence in which all likenesses pre-exist—a more perfect likeness than the one proper to the thing. “The central question of philosophy”: the way of knowing need not be the way of being; one knows the creature better in God than in itself.
  • Aside: Father Bernard Lonergan makes the concept what we know rather than the means by which we know, “one of his main problems,” and attributes it to Thomas.
• To 2 (Paul): when the vision passed, effects remained, which can be multiple likenesses. Some knowing powers form new species from those first conceived: imagination forms gold mountain from gold and mountain (the diamond mountain of the fairy tale); the understanding forms the ratio of the species from genus and difference (Porphyry; square from quadrilateral + equilateral + right-angled); from an image we form a likeness of what it is of. So Paul formed in himself likenesses of what he saw, which remained; but that vision through conceived species differs from the vision in God.

8. Digression: timeless, Theobald, Homer and Shakespeare (“looking before and after”) #

Prompted by “you are going to be partaking of eternity”: in Shakespeare “timeless” means untimely (“timeless death”), noted in the Yale Shakespeare. Theobald on Hamlet’s “looking before and after” in the definition of reason: “a phrase almost Homeric”; Iliad XVIII, Polydamas “looks before and behind himself” and urges retreat before Achilles returns, Hector calls him coward, the Trojans thunder with Hector and (Homer says) Zeus/Athena took away their minds; the next day Achilles mows them down. Polydamas better with words, Hector with muscles. Chaucer’s man of prudence has eyes before and behind; “watch your back.” Theobald also made “the happiest emendation” in Shakespeare: “a table of green fields” to “a babbled of green fields” in the account of Falstaff’s death (Henry V, told by the hostess; he complained women are devils incarnate, and she “never could stand incarnation”—barbarous but true to the character). The greatest poets bring out what is most known about reason; the philosopher, “too much into reason,” gets lost, so the poet helps him see where to begin. Falstaff’s first words (Henry IV Part 1) ask Prince Hal the time—the before-and-after of reason, though his life is tavern and brothel: “genius.” Does Shakespeare see all this? “Of course.”

9. Article 10, the objections (“to know many things, but to understand one”) #

The point: do the blessed see together all they see in God?

1. Aristotle: it happens to know many things but to understand one (he possesses geometry but thinks one theorem at a time; “almost dead, as De Koninck would say”). Things seen in God are understood; so not many at once.
2. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram VIII: God moves the spiritual creature through time (understanding and affection); the angel sees God; so successively. His gloss: angelic time is discrete, not the continuous time of “Natural Hearing” IV [ed.: Physics]; in natural knowledge the angel does not know all by knowing himself but by additional forms, going from one to another. Sed contra: Augustine, last book of De Trinitate: our thoughts will not be in motion from these to those, but we will see all our knowledge in one sight together (simul, conspectu).

• On simul: Greek hama; Categories has a chapter on before (and after) and the next on simul; English “at once,” “together,” “at the same time.”

10. Article 10, the body (“just as one body is not able to be shaped”) #

1. We cannot understand many things at once in this life because we know them through diverse species (one syllogism for each theorem in Euclid).
2. The understanding cannot be informed by many species so as to understand through them together, as one body cannot be shaped at once by diverse figures: the mind is like clay, one shape then another. Qualification he stresses: forms not of the same kind can coexist (clay yellow and spherical, not spherical and cubical); this matters later for having actual knowledge alongside the direct vision.
3. When many things can be understood by one form, they are understood together: parts of a whole known each by its own form are known successively (seat, then back of the chair), but by the one form of the whole, together. Conclusion: since things in God are seen through the one essence, they are seen together, not successively.

• Chesterton: the chief demonstration for immortality is that you can’t get enough of a good thing; his “self-sustaining collection” of CDs, each played twice, long before he returns to it.

11. Article 10, the replies and close (“a dog is not a triangle”) #

• To 1: we understand one only insofar as by one species; many by one species are understood together, as in the species man, animal and rational; in house, wall and roof. Last night’s example: understanding dog and triangle, which are not one, one cannot understand both at once each by its own definition, only successively; Aristotle (he thinks “the fourth book of Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]) says who understands must understand something one; in the statement “a dog is not a triangle” they become one as subject and predicate. In the vision all is known by the same form, the divine substance, hence together—“quite an improvement upon our mental state.”
• To 2: angels in their natural knowledge, through diverse innate species, do not know all at once and are moved through time; as they see things in God they see them together. He doesn’t know whether our Euclid will be of use in heaven, “but they’ll be around.”
• Next starting point: whether someone in this life can see God; three weeks.

His words #

• “inconvenient” / “unfitting” — inconveniens, “in my stronger sense that doesn’t fit together”
• “order of the discipline” — the order in which things are best learned, why Thomas wrote the Summa
• “comprehend” — to see the cause wholly, hence all its effects; impossible for a creature with God
• “known in itself” vs. “known in its likeness” — a man in himself vs. in his image
• “potential whole” — ten containing nine, eight…; soul; baptism vs. confession
• “univocal cause” — dog producing dog, exact likeness
• “the central question of philosophy” — the way of knowing need not be the way of being
• “timeless” — in Shakespeare, untimely
• “discrete time” — angelic succession of understanding and affection, not continuous time
• “Natural Hearing” — [ed.: Physics]
• simul / hama — at once, together, at the same time
• “the fourth book of Wisdom” — [ed.: Metaphysics IV (inferred)]

Texts #

Read in class

• Summa Theologiae I, q. 12, a. 8 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 12, a. 9 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 12, a. 10 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Augustine, Confessions V (the “infelix” passage, as quoted in a. 8 ad 4) Mentioned
• Gregory, Dialogues IV; Aristotle, On the Soul III; Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy 7; Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram XII and VIII; Augustine, De Trinitate, last book
• Summa Contra Gentiles (fuller treatment of natural desire; 150 chapters); Sentences of Lombard; Disputed Questions; Thomas on baptism and character; commentaries on Psalms, John, Matthew
• Euclid (inscribing a square in a circle); Porphyry (genus and difference); Aristotle, Categories (before/after, simul); “fourth book of Wisdom”
• Fourth Lateran Council; Benedict’s speech; Paul VI
• Shakespeare, Hamlet (definition of reason; “chief good… beast no more”); Henry V (Falstaff’s death); Henry IV Part 1 (Falstaff asks the time); Theobald and the Yale Shakespeare; Homer, Iliad XVIII; Chaucer; Chesterton; Lonergan; De Koninck; Kostik

His questions #

• Whoever understands the greater can understand the lesser—so does whoever understands God understand all things? Only as far as he sees God; to know all effects one would have to comprehend the cause, and no creature comprehends God.
• What about the natural desire to know the whole universe? It is for the genera, species and reasons of things, all seen in God at once; not for singulars or mere possibles.
• Will your dog be in heaven? If necessary for your happiness, yes—a true conditional whose parts are false.
• Are the things seen in God seen through likenesses? No; through the one divine essence, in which all likenesses pre-exist.
• How could Paul recall what he saw in rapture? He formed likenesses in himself from the vision, which remained; a different vision from seeing in God.
• Why can’t we think of all we know at the same time? We know each by its own species, and the mind, like clay, can’t take two figures at once.
• When you understand what a dog is, are you understanding what a triangle is? Not if each by its own form; only by making them one, e.g. in a statement.
• Is there any way to know two things distinctly in one idea? The polygon approaching the circle as a limit—a thin imitation of the angels.
• Whether someone in this life is able to see God? left open (next class).