Comprehension and Rectitude of Will in Beatitude (Summa I-II, Q.4, A.3–4)

Orientation #

He picks up “before our break” with article 3 and, after a break, article 4; the last exchange of the class (“I need my body…”) points toward whether the body is required, i.e. the next article. He refers back to “the two meanings of comprehension” and to the discussion of “before and after” and of “the good is what all want” as things already treated (prev. lecture). The previous class had treated q. 4 a. 2 on whether beatitude consists in vision or in delight; the next takes up a. 5 on whether the body is required.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3: the objections and the sed contra (“whether for beatitude is required comprehension”) #

He reads the three objections and the sed contra of a. 3, the question being whether comprehension is required for beatitude.

• Obj. 1: Augustine to Paulinus: to attain God by the mind is great beatitude, but to comprehend is impossible. His gloss: we will never see God as much as He is understandable, nor love Him as much as He is lovable; so beatitude is without comprehension. He remarks at once: “I suspect there’s some equivocation here in the word comprehension.”
• Obj. 2: beatitude perfects man in his understanding part, where there are only two powers, understanding and will; vision perfects the understanding and pleasure the will, so no third thing (comprehension) is needed.
• Obj. 3: beatitude is operation; operations are determined by objects (Aristotle’s principle in the Ethics: you know abilities by acts and acts by objects — seeing vs. hearing by color vs. sound); the general objects are two, the true (vision) and the good (pleasure), so no third.
• Sed contra: Paul, 1 Corinthians 9, “so run that you may comprehend” — spiritual running is a race ending at beatitude, as 2 Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have completed the running, I have kept the faith, and there is set forth for me a crown of justice.”

2. The body of article 3: man’s order to the end (“the order of men to the end”) #

The point: what beatitude requires is read off from how man is ordered to his end — “Thomas is looking before and after here.”

1. Man is ordered to the intelligible end partly through understanding, partly through will.
2. Through understanding: some imperfect knowledge of the end preexists. He connects this to the Hebrews definition of faith (“substance of things hoped for, conviction of what is not seen”; Thomas takes “substance” as foundation, a foretaste of what we hope to see). His illustration: studying the Trinity now, “this is the way it’s going to be, even though I don’t know how”; and Thomas’s ladder — study the body to understand the soul, the soul to understand the angel, the angel to understand God, “nothing else.”
3. Through will: first by love, the first motion of the will; second by a habitudo (“kind of hard to translate exactly” — having oneself towards) of the lover to the loved, which is threefold: (a) the loved is present, so no longer sought; (b) not present and impossible to attain, so not sought; (c) possible but elevated above the lover’s ability, not to be had at once — the relation of the one hoping, “the only relation that makes one investigate the end.”
4. To these three (he says: the three theological virtues, since God is their object) correspond three things in beatitude: perfect knowledge (vision) to imperfect knowledge; presence of the end (comprehension) to hope; delight to love. “Three is enough. Two is not enough.”

• On “presence”: “seeing him face to face” brings out presence more than “seeing him as he is.”
• Pleasure implies the resting of the lover in the loved; the lover is said to be in the loved — “I left my heart in San Francisco.”
• Asides: Thomas “is really subtle”; Father Paul’s “mental indigestion” — slow down and savor; the joke of Brother Mark about locking the professor in a cell and dropping in one page of Thomas a day.

3. Reply 1: two senses of comprehension (“comprehension is said in two ways”) #

The point: the equivocation he suspected is resolved by Thomas’s distinction, which comes only at ad primum.

• Sense A: the including of the comprehended in the comprehender; whatever is comprehended by something limited is limited; so God cannot be comprehended by any created intellect — “you never know God as much as he is knowable.”
• Sense B: nothing but the holding of something had in the present, as one who catches somebody comprehends him when he holds him. This sense is required for beatitude.
• Boundary illustrations for A: you may not hear Mozart as much as he is hearable; a famous painting where you keep noticing more — his Worcester canal print that seems to look straight down the canal wherever you stand; Washington Irving’s portraits whose eyes follow you. Even with God having your full attention, “I don’t think you’re going to see everything that is seeable.”
• He recalls Aristotle: the most common mistake is mixing up the senses of a word; “don’t confuse the two.”

4. Reply 2: why not just two things (“to the will pertains both hope and love”) #

The point: intellect and will being two powers does not make the requisites two.

• As hope and love both pertain to the will (it belongs to the same to love something and to tend to it when not had), so comprehension (in the sense of a. 1) and pleasure both pertain to the will (it belongs to the same to have something and to rest in it).
• Student objection: comprehension seems to belong to the intellect, “like the police catching somebody.” His answer: comprehension as intellectual enclosing was just denied in ad 1; you seek God by your will and want to have Him — “kind of interesting.”

5. Digression: Aristotle on “perfect” and its attached words (“three basic senses of the word perfect”) #

The point: “to have” belongs to perfection, which explains why having God is required.

• Three senses of perfect/complete in the fifth book of wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics V]: (1) having all one’s parts — repas complet in Quebec restaurants, even if the dessert is jello; (2) having all the ability of its kind — Homer the perfect poet, Mozart the perfect musician, Aristotle the perfect philosopher; (3) having reached its end.
• Averroes saw, and Thomas agrees, that a creature is perfect in its kind, lacking nothing of its kind, while God is universally perfect.
• Words Thomas says are attached to “perfect”: habere (to have), “through itself,” and limit.
• Limit: Sherlock Holmes in “The Norwood Builder” (the murderer who adds one piece of evidence too many and is smoked out): he “lacked the supreme gift of the artist, knowing when to stop” — said also of Titian, Mozart, Shakespeare, Mark Antony persuading the crowd. Limit is close to end, the third sense of perfect.
• Have: I am not perfect unless I reach my end, to see God as He is; “but then I’ve got to have Him.” Student: grace, even if imperfect here, is the gift by which we possess and are possessed by God. The opposite of having is lacking, which is the meaning of the bad — lacking what one can and should have (a professor telling students “you’re sadly lacking”). “God so loved the world that he gave his only son”: if someone gives, we have.

6. Digression: hope and the ranking of the three virtues (“hope is what higher even than faith”) #

The point: hope is less understood than faith and charity, yet ranks above faith.

• “It remains faith, hope and charity, but the greatest is charity” — looking before and after, which comes next? Warren Murray found in Thomas’s disputed questions on hope that hope is higher than faith.
• Thomas’s simple distinction: by faith we know the end in some way; by hope we tend to it; by charity we are joined to it. Talking about God is knowing the end; praying to God is tending to Him — so Augustine and Thomas treat prayer together with hope.
• “Which is better” is the fourth sense of before and after.

7. Reply 3 and having God in the vision (“comprehension is not some operation”) #

• Comprehension is not an operation distinct from vision but a relation to the end now had; the thing seen, as present, is the object of comprehension.
• His extension: in the beatific vision you see God by God joined to your mind; God joined to your mind forever is compared metaphorically to marriage (“I have betrothed you,” the prophet — by faith). “If God is inside your mind, as that by which you see as well as what you see, then don’t you have God?” Break.

8. Article 4: the objections and the sed contra (“rectitude of the will is not required”) #

• Obj. 1: beatitude consists in the operation of the understanding, for which rectitude of will is not needed; Augustine in the Retractions withdraws his saying that God wishes only the clean to know the truth, since many unclean know many true things. His gloss: Augustine once said you must be pure to see God and seems to retract it.
• Obj. 2: the before does not depend on the after; understanding is before will.
• Obj. 3: what is ordered to an end is not needed when the end is attained — the boat once you have reached port; rectitude of will (through virtue) is ordered to beatitude as end.
• Sed contra: Matthew 5, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”; Hebrews 12:14, pursue peace with all and holiness (sanctimonia — “words are degraded in meaning”), without which no one sees God.

9. The body of article 4: before and along with (“both before and concomitant”) #

1. Antecedently: rectitude of will is a suitable order to the last end; the end is to what is ordered to it as form to matter; matter cannot receive form unless suitably disposed (aside: we lose our soul when the body gets too corrupt); so no one reaches beatitude without a right will.
2. Concomitantly: ultimate beatitude is vision of the divine essence, which is the very essence of goodness (“God is not only good, but goodness itself”); so the will of one seeing God of necessity loves whatever he loves under order to God — a proportion: just as the will of one not seeing God loves whatever it loves under the common notion of the good. He recalls “the good is what all want”: people want bad things only under the aspect of good — eliminating you to be free of an annoyance; skipping Mass because it interferes with sleep. Loving things under order to God is what makes the will right; so beatitude cannot be without a right will.

• Aside on the Psalm (“the 33rd Psalm, with the correct number”): servants bless the Lord in the house at night, then the Lord blesses you from Zion — you must bless (hallow, honor) God first before He gives the vision. Contrast the devils: Thomas in the Summa (angels in qq. 50-64, guilt and punishment in 63-64) explains their sin as wanting beatitude from themselves rather than as a gift. Falstaff’s “more flesh”: compared to angels we are flesh — “if they fall, can’t we fall?”

10. The replies of article 4 and loving wisdom once had (“the right motion of the arrow”) #

• Ad 1: Augustine speaks of knowledge of the true, which is not the essence of goodness.
• Ad 2: every act of will proceeds from some act of understanding, but some act of will is before some act of understanding — not every act of will is after every act of understanding. The will tends toward the last act of understanding, beatitude; so right inclination of the will is presupposed as the right motion of the arrow to the target (aside: Robin Hood episodes with the grandchildren; Aristotle uses the arrow a lot).
• Ad 3: not everything ordered to the end ceases when the end comes, only what has the aspect of imperfection or motion; the instruments of motion are no longer needed, the suitable order is.
• His development with the philosopher, lover of wisdom: must he love wisdom to reach it? yes; once he has it does he still? Thomas’s distinction: wanting is in the absence of the good, pleasure in its presence, love in both but more in the presence. So the philosopher loves wisdom more once he possesses some (it becomes more connatural); student adds that at the beginning love is exercised in removing obstacles. Boundary: if you find something unlovable in the loved, you do not love it more on getting it; love is conformity of heart with the object, and the heart is more conformed once in possession. Hence we will love God more when we see Him as He is than ever in this life — “much more.”
• Closing exchange (unclear in recording): a student asks something about needing the body; he answers that “according to Thomas you will” — pointing to the next article.

His words #

• “beatitude”: his standard rendering throughout [ed.: beatitudo, happiness]
• “understandable end”: the end as object of understanding [ed.: intelligible end]
• “habitudo”: “kind of hard to translate exactly,” having oneself towards [ed.: relation, disposition]
• “comprehension”: two senses — including the known in the knower; holding what is had in the present
• “fifth book of wisdom”: [ed.: Metaphysics V]
• “perfect / complete”: all parts; all ability of its kind; having reached its end
• “the bad”: lacking what one can and should have [ed.: privation]
• “the fourth sense of before and after”: which is better
• “rectitude / rightness of the will”: suitable order to the last end
• “essence of goodness”: God as goodness itself, not only good
• “sanctimonia”: holiness
• “love”: conformity of the heart with the object

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 4, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 4, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• 1 Corinthians 9 and 2 Timothy (as cited in the sed contra)
• Matthew 5 and Hebrews 12:14 (as cited in the sed contra)
• Psalm 133/134 (“the 33rd Psalm, with the correct number”) (inferred)

Mentioned

• Augustine, letter to Paulinus; Augustine, Retractions
• Hebrews, definition of faith
• Aristotle, Ethics (acts known by objects); Aristotle, Metaphysics V on “perfect” (inferred locus)
• Averroes on the perfection of creatures and of God
• 1 Corinthians 13 (faith, hope, charity)
• Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Hope
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, qq. 50-64 (angels; 63-64 guilt and punishment)
• John 3:16 (inferred), “God so loved the world”
• Conan Doyle, “The Norwood Builder”; Washington Irving on portraits; Shakespeare (Mark Antony, Falstaff)

His questions #

• Is there an equivocation in “comprehension” in the first objection? Yes: enclosing the known vs. holding what is present; only the second is required.
• Which relation of the lover to the loved makes one seek the end? Only that of hope — possible but not to be had at once.
• Why are three things, not two, required if there are only two powers? Because hope and love both belong to the will, and so do comprehension and pleasure.
• Can you hear Mozart as much as he is hearable? No; you keep hearing more — nor will you see all in God that is seeable.
• After charity, which is greater, faith or hope? Hope, per Thomas’s disputed questions on hope.
• If God is joined to your mind as that by which you see, don’t you have God? Left open at the break.
• Do people want bad things? Only under the common notion of good.
• Once the philosopher has wisdom, does he need to love it anymore? Yes, and he loves it more; so we will love God more when we see Him.