Aquinas on Beatitude II: The Vision of God's Essence, the Wonder to Know What Things Are, and Pleasure in Beatitude (q.3 a.8, q.4 a.1)

Orientation #

He refers back to “that earlier text” on the angels and their natural desire not being contrary to the supernatural, and to Thomas quoting Aristotle “in the article on whether the angels merit the vision” (prev. lecture); he also says he “mentioned before” Aristotle’s final treatment of happiness in Ethics X. At the end of a. 1 he says the next article will be “more precise” about what beatitude principally consists in. The previous class read q. 3 aa. 6-7 (speculative sciences, contemplation of angels); the next continues with q. 4 a. 2 (vision vs. delight).

The class, in order #

1. Article 8: objections and sed contra (“beatitude of man is in the vision of the divine essence”) #

He reads the two objections and the sed contra of I-II q. 3 a. 8 with running comment.

• Obj. 1 (Dionysius, Mystical Theology ch. 1): at the height of his understanding man is joined to God “as to one entirely unknown”; what is seen in its essence is not entirely unknown. His first comment: one must be careful taking Dionysius out of context; Dionysius is speaking of our knowledge in this life, where whatever we say of God falls short of Him.
• Obj. 2: the higher the nature, the higher its perfection; seeing its own essence is the perfection proper to the divine understanding, so human understanding stays below it.
• Sed contra, 1 John 3:2 (“we shall see him as he is”): to his knowledge the most explicit statement of this, even more precise than Paul’s “face to face.”
• The conclusion: last and perfect beatitude “can only be in the vision of God, divine nature, divine substance.” Then: how does he get at that?

2. The body: two considerations, and the what-it-is as the object of understanding (“the object of the understanding is the what it is”) #

Thomas’s two premises, as read:

1. A man is not perfectly blessed while something remains for him to desire and seek.
2. The perfection of any power is judged by the ratio of its object; and the object of the understanding is the what-it-is, the essence (On the Soul III). Illustrations of (2): Socrates in the dialogues always asking “what is it?”; one explanation of the Greek horos (definition) is that it is the limit, the goal of our knowledge; seeing an eclipse for the first time, one asks “what is it?”; “manna” means “what is it?”. So the understanding is perfected so far as it knows what a thing is. If it knows the essence of an effect but not the essence of the cause, it has not attained the cause simply, though it knows that the cause is.

3. Digression: the mind wants to know what things are (“the mind naturally wants to know what these things are”) #

Examples of the drive toward the what-it-is:

• On the Soul I: the Greeks before Aristotle all held there is a soul, a cause of life in living bodies, but not what it is; Aristotle thinks out what the soul is in book II, and only then is satisfied and goes on to the powers.
• Physics: he must know what motion is, and defines it (aside: Descartes quotes the definition in garbled form and asks “who understands those words?”). He defines place and time too; against Augustine’s “if nobody asks me I know what time is,” the mind still wants to know what time is.
• Place (Physics IV): the Greeks’ common opinion that whatever is must be somewhere made place seem “the first of all things”; so what is it — the extension between the walls? A “beautiful, beautiful” investigation. Joke: the courses on place and on time had to be given at a different time and place.
• His own first great effort: to find what comedy is, since Aristotle’s definition of comedy is lost.
• Shakespeare’s definition of reason: “the best definition we have of reason as reason” if understood; everyone talks about reason, very few can say what it is.
• The good: even the first definition helps a lot, and is a good start toward knowing it better; people who talk about the good without knowing what it is are in no position to talk about it.

4. The four questions, wonder, and “What is God?” (“What is God? What is God?”) #

Posterior Analytics: the four questions of the looking sciences — does it exist? what is it? is this so? why is it so? — and the two pairs are alike: as knowing that something is so makes us wonder why, so knowing that something is makes us wonder what it is. This desire is the desire of wonder, which causes inquiry (Metaphysics I): one who knows the sun’s eclipse considers from what cause it proceeds, and not knowing what that is, wonders and inquires; hence wonder is the beginning of philosophy. The inquiry does not rest until one knows the essence of the cause. Story: Thomas as a student blurting out in class “What is God? What is God?” — that natural wonder.

5. Digression: how modern customs dull wonder (“the union of science and technology”) #

A student asks him to explain the “dulling of wonder.” His account:

• Tocqueville, Democracy in America: democratic customs turn men toward the practical.
• Heisenberg (his Gifford lectures): the union of science and technology turned men from a contemplative attitude to a practical one — the interest is not what nature is but what you can make it do (student: how to make money on it). Natural science became a kind of technical science.
• The modern city’s commercial origin (from “the world historian” on Greek vs. modern city): the Greek city’s origin was aristocratic, the modern city’s mercantile, giving it a practical stamp from the start.
• His more general principle, put as a question: when two arts or sciences unite, which dominates, the higher or the lower? The lower. Opera: drama joined to music; the drama is the higher (more rational) form, yet music dominates — Mozart said the words must be “altogether the obedient servant of the music,” and one enjoys Mozart opera without knowing the words. Ballet: music joined to dance; music is higher, yet dance dominates and music is its obedient servant — Tchaikovsky suits ballet, Mozart would be “too good,” the dancing a distraction from his music. So too science subordinated to technology.
• The experiment, being made by us, is closer to art than to speculative science.
• Aside (student): living and working in boxes, people lose touch with higher realities.

6. Back to the body: knowing God only that He is (“the natural desire of inquiring for the cause”) #

Application: the human understanding knowing the essence of a created effect (what motion is, Physics III) knows of God only that He is — the unmoved mover known through motion, and “unmoved” is a negation: I know what he is not. The natural desire of inquiring into the cause remains, so he is not yet perfectly beatified. Conclusion: perfect beatitude requires that the understanding arrive at the very essence of the first cause; its perfection is through union with God as object, in which alone man’s beatitude consists. Reply to obj. 1: Dionysius speaks of knowledge of those in via, on the road toward beatitude — that is Thomas asking “What is God?”

7. Reply to obj. 2: comprehending vs. seeing without comprehending (“not knowing it as much as it’s knowable”) #

“End” taken two ways: (a) the thing desired — the same for the higher nature, indeed for all things: God; (b) the achievement of that thing — diverse for higher and lower natures according to a diverse relation to it. So God’s beatitude, comprehending His essence (knowing it as much as it is knowable), is higher than man’s or an angel’s, who see it without comprehending. Examples of enjoying a thing but not “as much as it is enjoyable”:

• Hearing Mozart and not being sure which instrument is playing: hearing, but not as much as it is hearable.
• Brother Mark’s palate: at Ron McCarthy’s dinner (first president of the college) only Mark could identify the wine from a covered label; in their weekly tastings at Saint Mary’s he got maybe fifty percent, Mark always knew — tasting the wine, but not as much as it is tastable.
• Artist friends in Detroit (“never seen a shade of blue exactly like that”), women’s color names (teal, aqua) men don’t see; the Paris professor’s unmatched jacket and pants, husbands consulting wives about which tie — seeing color, but not as much as it is seeable. So we never know God as much as He is knowable, but that is not opposed to seeing Him as He is; Augustine: seeing Him as He is in any grade is great happiness; we see Him in the grade of clarity to which He has predestined us.

8. Student question: natural desire vs. supernatural hope (“natural desire to see God”) #

Objection (student): Thomas says elsewhere the supernatural virtue of hope is needed even to desire to see God as He is; here he speaks of a natural desire. His answer: Thomas is showing the harmony of the supernatural with the natural, as in the earlier text on the angels where the natural desire is not contrary to the supernatural, and where we naturally love God more than ourselves (the part loves the whole more than itself); otherwise the supernatural desire would contradict nature rather than perfect it. Without revelation the mind might not be sure it will see God as He is, but it is reasonable given the natural desire to know what a thing is and what the cause of a known effect is: how deny this of God? So we naturally desire to see God as He is even though we cannot reach it by natural power — at best merit it, and even that is more than we deserve. Further student objection: how desire what is impossible to nature? Boundary case offered by a student: the natural desire to fly, beyond natural power. His reply: that belongs to imagination and the body, not the soul itself; but in heaven one will be able to fly — the gift of agility — again the harmony of nature and grace. Acts of the body have already been excluded from being happiness: no happiness in running or jumping, though one may like exercise. Aside: the child who could never be happy without Rover — you don’t admit Rover will be there, because he won’t. Aside: “Exercise is for people who will go to purgatory. Rest is for the souls in heaven.”

9. Loving God as much as He is lovable (“as much as He’s lovable”) #

Finishing the reply: even Thérèse of Lisieux, even Mary, perhaps even Christ in His human nature, cannot love God as much as He is lovable (a student recalls Francis de Sales making this comparison). The neglected lady “not loved as much as she’s lovable” makes the phrase intelligible. It would be part of our satisfaction to know that God knows Himself as much as He is knowable and loves Himself as much as He is lovable; we know and love Him as much as we have been destined to.

10. Question 4: the eight things required for beatitude (“eight things are asked”) #

He reads the prologue of the new question and comments on each article:

1. Whether pleasure is required — good question, since Aristotle in Ethics X treats happiness finally and has a long section on delectatio, some (Epicureans) holding happiness consists in it. Dialectically, that pleasure is beatitude is a probable opinion, on Aristotle’s definition: the opinion of all or most men, or of the learned in that science, all, most, or the most famous of them (jokes: “probable because Einstein said so”; Mozart on opera). If most men think pleasure the best thing in life, the number holding it makes it probable.
2. Which is more chief, pleasure or vision — the very order of articles shows Thomas sees some truth in pleasure.
3. Whether comprehension is required — taken strictly this would leave us all out; cf. the beautiful end of Summa Contra Gentiles I on God’s beatitude surpassing all others'.
4. Rectitude of the will — “that article makes you very nervous.”
5. Whether the body is required — no one blessed until the resurrection? there is imperfection without the body, only part of you is there, though the most important part, the part that sees God.
6. Perfection of the body — a lost limb, being fat, a midget. Order: the two body articles come after those on what is in the soul (pleasure, will), and pleasure there is pleasure in the act of seeing, not bodily pleasure.
7. Exterior goods — lower than the body: the “I love my library” bumper sticker; he wouldn’t need his books, his garden, his car in heaven; the man who asked whether we’ll have the pleasure of driving in heaven — “I don’t think that’s going to attract our attention.”
8. Society of friends — a friend is a very unusual exterior good, hence placed last. Joke: the Quakers are the Society of Friends; look at Fra Angelico’s paintings to find out who’s there.

11. Article 1: objections and sed contra (“the whole reward of faith”) #

• Obj. 1 (Augustine, On the Trinity I): vision is the whole reward of faith; the reward of virtue is beatitude (Ethics I, as Thomas quoted in the article on angels meriting the vision); so nothing but vision is required.
• Obj. 2: beatitude is the through-itself most sufficient good (Ethics I); what needs something else is not sufficient. His comment: “you’ll see God but you won’t enjoy” — something wrong with that.
• Obj. 3: the operation of beatitude must be unimpeded (Ethics VII); pleasure corrupts the estimation of prudence. His comment: that is probably bodily pleasure.
• Sed contra (Confessions X): beatitude is gaudium de veritate — “what a guy Augustine was.”

12. The body and replies: pleasure as following upon beatitude (“in four ways something is required”) #

Four ways one thing is required for another (he says “I never knew that”):

1. as preamble or preparation — learning for science;
2. as perfecting — the soul for the life of the body;
3. as extrinsic aid — friends for doing something;
4. as going along with — heat for fire. Pleasure is required in the fourth way: it is caused by the appetite resting in the good obtained; beatitude being the attaining of the highest good, it cannot be without pleasure following. Cf. Aristotle in the Ethics: pleasure follows upon perfect operation — the better I hear Mozart, the more joy.

• Reply 1: when a reward is rendered, the will of the one meriting rests, which is to be pleased; desire is a kind of motion toward the thing, pleasure the resting in it possessed; so delight is included in “the whole reward.” The next article will be more precise.
• Reply 2: from the vision itself delight is caused, so one who sees God cannot need pleasure. Aristotle on the virtuous man: the courageous, temperate, just man takes delight in his own acts — not being pleased with moderate eating and drinking is a sign one lacks temperance; one who takes no pleasure in his activity must go outside it to be “entertained.” Story: a friend setting type all summer joined the workers’ Saturday night out, rushing from place to place for a little pleasure, because there was none in the week’s work.
• Reply 3: pleasure accompanying the operation of understanding does not impede but strengthens it — delight in a theorem of Euclid makes one work it more intensely; pleasure in Mozart makes one listen more carefully; pleasure in wine makes one savor it and so taste it better; what we do delectabiliter we do more attentively and perseveringly. “This is the point”: it is delectatio extranea that impedes — Brother Mark at Laval leaving the library because of a girl’s long hair; a student watching the girl instead of the lecture; a student’s law-school memory of the woman toying with her hair in the front row (“hair is a woman’s glory”). Extraneous pleasure impedes (a) by distraction of intention, since intending one thing vehemently withdraws intention from another — Mozart’s “whole soul in his ear,” the painter’s in his eye; (b) by contrariety, as sense pleasure contrary to reason impedes the estimate of prudence more than that of the speculative intellect — Aristotle’s rule for hitting the mean: watch out for pleasure, it easily pulls you off the middle.

His words #

• ratio (of the object): the account by which a power’s perfection is judged.
• the what it is: his rendering of the object of the understanding, the essence [ed.: quod quid est].
• horos: Greek for definition; explained as the limit, goal of knowledge.
• manna: “what is it?”
• the looking sciences: [ed.: speculative sciences].
• in the road / in the via: knowledge in this life, tending toward beatitude.
• comprehending: knowing a thing as much as it is knowable; seeing without comprehending: seeing it as it is, in a lesser grade.
• probable opinion: what all or most men, or the learned (all, most, or most famous), hold.
• delectatio: pleasure, delight; gaudium de veritate: joy over the truth.
• delectabiliter facimus: what we do with pleasure, we do more attentively.
• delectatio extranea: extraneous pleasure, the kind that impedes operation.
• gift of agility: the ability of the risen body to fly.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 3, a. 8 (objections, sed contra, body, both replies).
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 4, prologue and a. 1 (inferred: he announces “a new question,” lists the eight articles and reads the first).
• Dionysius, Mystical Theology, ch. 1 (as quoted in obj. 1).
• 1 John 3:2.
• Augustine, On the Trinity I; Confessions X (as quoted in a. 1).
• (The matching system reports a page of his handout “Paper on the Phaedo” and DHB Vol. II, The School of Plato, p. 27; the transcript does not show him naming either — probably behind the remarks on Socrates asking “what is it?” and horos.)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, On the Soul I-III; Physics III-IV; Posterior Analytics; Metaphysics I; Nicomachean Ethics I, VII, X.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I (end).
• Descartes on the definition of motion; Augustine on time; Shakespeare’s definition of reason (no locus given).
• Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Heisenberg’s Gifford lectures; “the world historian” on the Greek and modern city; Mozart on words in opera; Francis de Sales.

His questions #

• Perfect beatitude can only be in the vision of the divine essence — how does he get at that? From two premises: no one is blessed while something remains to desire, and the understanding’s object is the what-it-is, so knowing only that the cause is leaves desire unsatisfied.
• What is place? Is it the extension between the walls of this room? Left open; he points to Aristotle’s investigation in Physics IV.
• When two arts or sciences come together, which dominates, the higher or the lower? The lower (opera: music over words; ballet: dance over music; technology over science).
• In opera, what takes place primarily, the words or the music? The music.
• How reconcile a natural desire to see God with Thomas’s saying hope is needed to desire it? Thomas is showing the harmony of the supernatural with the natural; the natural desire to know what the cause is cannot be denied of God.
• How can you desire something impossible to nature? The desire follows from the natural desire to know what things are; the flying case belongs to the body and imagination, and is fulfilled by the gift of agility.
• Must you enjoy the vision — is pleasure required for beatitude? Yes, in the fourth way: as something following upon it, the appetite resting in the good obtained.
• Does pleasure impede the operation of understanding? No, it strengthens it; only extraneous pleasure impedes, by distraction or contrariety.