Summa I, Q. 43, Art. 6 and a Logic Aside: Who Receives the Invisible Sending; How Names Signify Things Through Thoughts

Orientation #

He refers back to “as has been said above” (Thomas’s own back-reference in the corpus to the definition of mission) and to the Augustine quotation on the Son being sent when known and perceived, “as far as a quote was given before” (prev. lecture). At the end: “next time we’ll do the last two articles here” (7 and 8) “and then we’ll kick the bucket for the summer.” The previous class covered aa. 3–5 of q. 43 and the next covers a. 7 on the visible mission of the Holy Spirit.

The class, in order #

1. The four objections (“It seems that the invisible mission does not come”) #

He reads the four objections against the claim that invisible mission comes to all who partake of grace.

1. The Old Testament fathers had grace, but John 7:39 says “the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” His first comment: Pentecost may be “a very special way” the Spirit is given — “kind of by antonomasia” — one that “stands out in prominence,” not the only way.
2. Progress in virtue is only through grace; but such progress seems continuous (charity “either goes forward or fails”), so the mission would have to be continuous — which does not seem to be observed.
3. Christ and the blessed have grace most fully, but mission is to one “at a distance,” and they are perfectly united to God.
4. The sacraments of the New Law contain grace, yet no invisible mission is said to come to them — they have grace “another way than the soul does.”

2. Sed contra and corpus (“don’t be a victim of false imagination”) #

Point: mission is found wherever two things meet in the recipient — indwelling by grace and newness (“innovation”) through grace.

• Sed contra (Augustine): invisible mission is to sanctify creatures; every creature having grace is sanctified.
• Corpus: mission by definition implies the one sent either begins to be where he was not (as in created things) or begins to be in a new way where he already was — the latter is how mission is attributed to divine persons. Hence two things to consider in the recipient: the indwelling of grace and the “newness” through grace; mission comes to all in whom both are found.
• His warning: do not imagine the person “running out from the Father down to us,” coming to be where he was not before.
• He says what “innovation through grace” means will be expounded in the replies.

3. Reply 1: the fathers of the Old Testament; antonomasia (“did I ever love before”) #

Point: an invisible mission was made to the Old Testament fathers; John 7:39 is understood of the special giving at Pentecost.

• Augustine, De Trinitate IV: as the Son is sent invisibly, something comes about in men or with men, and this was done previously in the fathers and prophets — so the Son was sent to Abraham, to Isaiah, etc.
• The text “not yet given” is to be understood of that giving, i.e. by antonomasia, not as the objection reads it (that the Spirit was not given at all to Abraham).
• Examples of antonomasia: Romeo saying “did I ever love before?” — he had loved Rosaline, but this love so surpasses that he speaks as if he never loved; soldiers saying “we haven’t yet begun to fight” when the score is “18-nothing.”

4. Reply 2: growth of grace and new states (“proceeds to some new act or some new status”) #

Point: there is a mission according to growth in grace, but especially when someone goes forward to a new act or new state of grace.

• Augustine (De Trin. IV) again: the Son is sent to someone when he is known and perceived, as far as this is possible for the capacity (captus — a student supplies “capacity”) of the rational soul proceeding toward or perfected in God.
• Thomas’s distinction: mission in a sense at every progress in virtue and grace, vs. mission “especially” noted at a new status — the grace of miracles or prophecy, exposing oneself to martyrdom from the fervour of charity, renouncing one’s possessions (“like you guys have done,” or Francis taking off his clothes), or undertaking any new state.
• His examples: when Benedict was made pope, “there’s a real sending” — not that there wasn’t before while he progressed in knowledge and love of God; Bernard of Clairvaux saying the Son is sent to him from time to time does not mean he was “wasting time between the sendings,” only that there was “a very noteworthy sending.”

5. Reply 3: the blessed and Christ (“in the very beginning of their beatitude”) #

Point: the blessed receive a mission at the start of beatitude and thereafter by extension, Christ only at conception.

• The blessed: mission at the very beginning of beatitude (“very definitely a new status”); afterwards not by growth or intensity of grace but as mysteries are newly revealed to them, up to the day of judgment — a growth by the extension of grace to many things.
• Christ: mission at the beginning of his conception, not after, because from conception he was “full of all wisdom and grace” — “contrary to some popular” opinions.
• Student question: what does it mean that he “grew in grace”? Answer: it can mean the outward manifestation, and our knowledge of what was there all along — not that he was really growing; he had no more grace at 30 than at conception.
• Student: is that according to his human nature? Answer: there is no grace as God; grace is sharing the divine life — “partaking the divine nature,” as St Peter says.

6. Reply 4: grace in the sacraments (“grace is in the sacraments, the new law, instrumentally”) #

Point: mission is not to the sacraments but to those who receive grace through them.

• Grace is in the sacraments instrumentally, as in a tool — as the form of the artificial thing is in the tools of the art, flowing from agent to patient.
• Mission is said only with respect to the term, the goal; hence the divine person is sent not to the sacraments but to those who receive grace through them.
• (He had skipped this reply when assigning aa. 7–8 for next time and returns to it when a student asks.)

7. Digression: what logic is about (“logic is principally about the beings of reason”) #

Point: saying logic is about beings of reason (Thomas) and saying it is about names signifying things through thoughts (the commentators on the Categories) are not contrary.

• Occasion: an email today asking about his brother Richard’s view that logic is principally about beings of reason, against what he had said following the commentators — that the Categories is about names signifying things through thoughts.
• Thomas in many places: logic is about beings of reason, especially relations of reason. Albert the Great following Avicenna: logic is about things as they are in our knowledge. Boethius: a thing is singular when sensed and universal when understood — so the first thing that happens to things in reason is to be universal, agreeing with Albert that the first thing considered in logic is the universal.
• His own formula: the first thing considered in logic is “names said of many things” — “more sensible” (pun on the two senses of sensible), and in harmony with both.
• Argument that they agree: (1) what is up front in Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias is always a name or a speech; (2) names signify things through thoughts; (3) so what happens to things when thought — beings of reason — enters essentially into logic.
• Thomas says both: on genus and species he speaks of relations of reason (more universal to less universal exists only in the mind); but in the Summa Contra Gentiles, showing no name is said univocally of God and creatures, he uses genus, species, difference, property, accident as “a complete distinction of names said univocally of many things,” not as relations of reason.
• Aristotle defines noun, verb, statement, logos (speech: “vocal sound signifying by human agreement, having parts signified by themselves”) as vocal sounds, not relations of reason — no contradiction, since these sounds signify things through thoughts.
• Commentators on the Categories: not names as names, not thoughts as thoughts, not things as things, but names signifying things through thoughts.
• Aside — “three is enough”: Natural Hearing I, tenth reading, change between contraries is common to the early Greeks; eleventh reading, there must be a third thing, then “three is enough.” Not always enough, but very common; “some say it’s a reflection of the Trinity.” Here again three: names, things, thoughts — but one must see how they are connected.

8. Combinations of name, thought and thing (“Can two names signify the same thing”) #

Point: the one–one–one pattern is not the only one; each departure from it has a name or a puzzle.

• A graduate asked: can two names signify the same thing through the same thought? Yes — synonyms: two vocal sounds, one thing, one thought (translation between languages; sometimes two words in one language).
• The obvious case: two names, two things, two thoughts — circle and square.
• Can one name signify many things through many thoughts? Yes — a common name; the analogous name is one kind, and it can be by chance (equivocal).
• Can one name signify many things through one thought? “Animal” is said of dog, cat, horse, elephant, but does not mean these; it means what is common — a living body with sensation. Students sometimes think it means one thing said of a dog and another of a cat, but the name does not signify the difference. Only an angel sees many things distinctly by one thought; God sees everything distinctly by one thought — “the best thought.” So he thinks this “not a real possibility.”
• “This is the subtle thing”: can two names signify one thing through two thoughts? A student proposes dog and animal — rejected, they do not signify exactly the same thing. Another: the divine attributes — accepted as “a very difficult thing”: unchangeableness of God and goodness of God are two names of one thing; they are not synonyms, since synonyms require the same thought. Thomas devotes a chapter to this (the names of God) — the passage the verified source matches to Summa Contra Gentiles I, ch. 35.

9. One name, one thing, different thoughts: four ways (“one name signifying one thing through two thoughts”) #

Point: many names (or one name) signifying the same thing through different thoughts is possible, but in several different ways, and the divine case is unlike the others.

• Way 1, whole/parts: “continuous” defined in the Categories as that whose parts meet at a common boundary, and in Natural Hearing VI as the divisible forever — same thing, one definition by composition, one by resolution. Likewise “whole” as put together from parts / divisible into parts. Related: acting-upon and undergoing are both motion, “a little different thought.”
• Way 2, transcendentals: being, one, something, true, good signify the same thing, are not synonyms, so differ in thought. Plato’s Parmenides speaks of being and one as if two things partaken of, like whiteness and health — “up to you” to judge; actually two words, one thing, different thoughts. Thomas: one means undivided being — negation is a being of reason, adds nothing real; good is what all want — desirable being, being-desired a relation of reason. So one, true, good add to being a being of reason (negation, or relation).
• Way 3, matter vs. end (Posterior Analytics): a definition from the end vs. from matter or parts. “Definition” as speech making known what a thing is (end) vs. speech composed of genus and differences (matter/parts); a complete definition would have both. Demonstration: syllogism making known the cause, and that it is the cause, not otherwise (end); later demonstrated to be from necessary premises (matter), the second from the first.
• Way 4, God: cannot be way 3 — God has no parts, no matter, no end. The circle: the centre is the beginning of line A, of line B, of line C — three different notions of one point, none adequate to it, and I know it better saying all three. Creatures’ perfections are divided (my knowledge is not my love, my hand not my foot); God is the beginning of all of them, so many thoughts of him “whereby these things descend.” Dionysius’s De Divinis Nominibus: all its names signify the same thing, God, through different thoughts. Left as a question: is the divine way the same as the way of being and one? “Think about that a little bit.”
• Summary: once one sees names signify things through thoughts, the cases multiply, and “the most difficult thing to understand” is the last.
• Aside: a doctoral thesis opening with Shakespeare’s “what’s in a name?” — answer, “sometimes there are many things in a name”; but Shakespeare means names signify arbitrarily, by custom or agreement.

His words #

• antonomasia — speaking as if a prominent instance were the only one (Pentecost, Romeo’s love).
• innovation / newness through grace — the second requirement for mission, beside indwelling.
• captus — rendered “capacity” of the rational soul.
• extension of grace — the blessed’s growth by mysteries newly revealed, not by intensity.
• instrumentally — grace in the sacraments as the form of the artefact in the tools of the art.
• beings of reason, relations of reason — what logic is about, on Thomas’s phrasing.
• names signifying things through thoughts — the commentators’ account of the Categories.
• names said of many things — his own “more sensible” first object of logic.
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics]; “reading” [ed.: lectio].
• “three is enough” — Aristotle’s stop after finding the third principle of change.
• synonyms — two names, same thing, same thought.
• common name — one name, many things, many thoughts; analogous one kind; by chance [ed.: equivocal].
• logos — speech: vocal sound signifying by agreement, with parts signified by themselves.
• transcendentals — being, one, something, true, good; add a being of reason (negation or relation).
• De Divinis Nominibus — Dionysius on the divine names.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 43, a. 6 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies 1–4).
• Augustine, De Trinitate IV (quoted within the replies).
• John 7:39. Mentioned
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I, ch. 35 (verified source; he cites SCG on no univocal name of God and creatures and “a chapter devoted to” the names of God not being synonyms).
• Aristotle, Peri Hermeneias, and Thomas’s commentary.
• Aristotle, Categories (definition of continuous); Natural Hearing I lect. 10–11 and VI; Posterior Analytics.
• Albert the Great, Avicenna, Boethius (on the object of logic).
• Plato, Parmenides.
• Dionysius, De Divinis Nominibus.
• 1 Peter (partaking of the divine nature) (inferred).
• Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

His questions #

• Does John 7:39 mean the Spirit was not given at all to Abraham? No — it speaks of the Pentecost giving by antonomasia.
• Is there a mission every time the soul progresses in grace? In a sense yes, but especially at a new act or new state of grace.
• What about the blessed, who do not progress in grace? Mission at the start of beatitude, then by extension as mysteries are newly revealed.
• What does it mean that Christ “grew in grace”? Outward manifestation and our knowledge of it, not real growth.
• Why is there no mission to the sacraments? Grace is in them instrumentally; mission regards the term, those who receive grace.
• Are “logic is about beings of reason” and “about names signifying things through thoughts” contrary? No — names signify through thoughts, so beings of reason enter logic essentially.
• Can two names signify the same thing through the same thought? Yes, synonyms.
• Can one name signify many things through one thought? He thinks not (animal signifies only what is common).
• Are the divine names synonyms? No — same thing, different thoughts.
• Is the way God’s names differ in thought the same as the way being and one differ? Left open.