Summa I-II, Question 10, Articles 1–2: Does the Will Will Anything Naturally, and Is It Moved Necessarily by Its Object?

Orientation #

He opens “We’re up to question ten right now” and closes: “We’ll see whether it’s moved necessarily by my emotions next week” (a. 3). The previous class finished q. 9 (the will moved by exterior principle, celestial body, angel, God); the next takes q. 10 aa. 3–4.

The class, in order #

1. Question 10 announced; the three objections and sed contra of a. 1 (“are asked four things”) #

The point: q. 10 asks in what way the will is moved, in four articles: naturally? of necessity by its object? by the lower desire (the emotions)? by the exterior mover, God?

• Obj. 1: the natural agent is divided against the voluntary, “beginning of the second book of the Physics”; so the will is moved to nothing naturally. (Aside: “I gave a talk on this subject once.”)
• Obj. 2: what is natural is always in a thing, as heat in fire; but no motion is always in the will (“I’m sleeping. My willing?”); so nothing is natural to the will.
• Obj. 3: nature is determined to one, the will has itself to opposites, “first part of Book Nine of the Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics IX].
• Sed contra: the will’s motion follows the understanding’s act; the understanding understands some things naturally; so the will wills some things naturally.

2. Aside on Boethius, eternity and future contingents (“the central question”) #

The point: Boethius (the great guy, “respect for him”) is the source of what Thomas uses on God knowing future contingents: everything past, present, future is present to God, which rests on Boethius’s teaching on eternity.

• In the Consolation Boethius announces himself as of the Academy, Plato’s school; but in book five Lady Wisdom introduces Aristotle as the true follower.
• What he calls “the central question”: does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? One must first see these need not be the same in man before seeing that God’s way of knowing can differ from the way things are, so that he knows time eternally without falsity—“in fact, he knows time better than we know it”; student adds: “contingent things necessarily.”

3. Nature said multipliciter: from birth to substance (“nature loves to hide”) #

The point: Thomas, citing Boethius On the Two Natures (the two natures of Christ) and Metaphysics V, says nature is said in many ways; Thomas gives only the later meanings, not all.

• First meaning: birth (nativity, pre-natal, post-natal). Because in birth the baby comes from within the woman—unlike the apple pie, which acts on something outside—nature always keeps the sense of something within or from within.
• Second: the source of the baby within the mother. Third: generalised, the physics meaning—intrinsic principle of motion and rest in movable things, which can be matter or form in different ways (Physics II). Last: quaelibet substantia, et quidlibet ens—nature as what a thing is.
• Why does Heraclitus say “nature loves to hide”? First reason: what is within is hidden. “But these guys [my colleagues] haven’t studied this. It’s very bad.”
• Thomas uses “substance or nature” as near-synonyms for what a thing is.

4. The per se / per aliud axiom and the body of a. 1 (“reduced in something that is within per se”) #

The point: what belongs to a thing not per se is reduced to what belongs per se as to a principle; hence in whatever belongs to a thing there is always something natural as a beginning.

1. The through-itself is before, and the beginning or cause of, the through-another—an axiom, he says, applicable to many things.
2. Applications: the moved mover (his hand moving the book) leads to an unmoved mover, a mover through itself; some statements are known through others, but if none were known through themselves there would be no statements known; we will some things through others, but if nothing were willed for itself we would will nothing.
3. Conclusion: as the beginnings of our knowledge are things naturally known (naturaliter nota)—“the natural road in our knowledge is always a beginning”—so the beginning of voluntary motions must be something naturally willed. The three naturally willed objects:

• the good in general, toward which the will tends as every power to its object;
• the last end, “the famous proportion of Aristotle”: as first beginnings of demonstrations in understandable things, so the last end in desirable things;
• universally, all things that belong to the one willing according to his nature—not only what pertains to the power of the will but what pertains to the individual powers and the whole man: knowledge of truth (understanding), to be and to live, and the like regarding his natural consistency, all comprehended under the object of the will as particular goods.
• Aside: Fr. Owen Bennett’s 1940s cartoon—“What do you think of life, sir?” “I’m in favor of it”; drifts to a candidate “pro-life from conception on,” Romney and Roe v. Wade.

5. Student: how explain those who will not to live? (“under the aspect of what?”) #

The point: if to live is naturally willed, those who will not to live do so under some other aspect.

• His first answer: suicide is willed to escape misery—the man sees suicide as a way out. (Aside: the “mercy” petition people, already in Oregon and Washington, now trying Massachusetts.)
• Student’s case is martyrs. He: St Paul—“for me the better thing is to die and be with Christ, but it’s more necessary for you that I stay”; the better thing is obviously to die and be with Christ. Student: yet he doesn’t want to die; even Thomas More doesn’t want to die. Student recalls (vaguely) St Bonaventure comparing degrees of willing: the souls in purgatory want what God wants and to stay, “the least amount of willing possible,” but really want to be with God; something similar of martyrs; whereas happiness you cannot not want. Left largely as stated, not resolved further.

6. Reply 1: the will is founded in a nature (“nature not being able to be more than one”) #

The point: when will is divided against nature as one cause against another, the will’s proper mode is to be lord of its acts, unlike nature determined to one; yet since the will is founded in a nature, nature’s motion is partaken of in the will, as the prior cause in the posterior: first in each thing is its being, through nature, then to will, through the will.

• Shakespeare, on the causes of Coriolanus’s downfall: “nature not being able to be more than one.”
• Sometimes Thomas says instead that the nature of the will itself requires this. Dividing will from nature does not deny the will has a nature; it divides it from what is only nature.
• Same pattern elsewhere: wisdom vs. science—Ethics VI divides sophia from episteme, yet the Metaphysics calls sophia an episteme; two vs. two-plus-one, which gets the new name three, though there is a two in three. (Cat vs. kitten, he says, is a different kind of distinction.) So too reason: considered as a nature, as reason, as open to opposites.
• “A thing has to be what it is before it can be anything else. It’s almost obvious. Amazing how many people don’t know that.” Even in God nature is first secundum rationem: in the Summa after q. 2 one takes up what God is—not a body, pure act—before his operation, showing the nature of God is the same as God and then the same as his being, as a conclusion; all under the genus divine substance. Aside: the new liturgical “consubstantial,” homoousion, “not one in being.”

7. Replies 2 and 3: form vs. matter; the one proportioned to a nature (“as hot in fire”) #

The point (reply 2): what is natural as following form only is always in act (hot in fire); what is natural as falling upon matter is sometimes in potency only, since form is act and matter is ability [ed.: potency], and motion is the act of what exists in ability.

• Stone not always falling, fire not always moving up, only when outside its place; likewise the will, reduced from potency to act, wills in act only when in a determined disposition. God’s will, pure act, is always in the act of willing—no potency to actualise. Aside: “can we get God to love us?”; Shakespeare’s “Stranger, give welcome.” Reply 3: to nature always corresponds something one proportioned: to nature in general, one in genus; in species, one in species; to the individual nature, one individual. The will, an immaterial power like the understanding, has as its natural correlate something one and common—the good—as the understanding has the true, being, the quod quid est; under the good in general many particular goods, to none of which the will is naturally determined.
• Meaning: one cannot will except under the aspect of good, true or apparent. Even the contrary Scotsman in the English novel who contradicts whatever you say sees it as good—like the sophist making you contradict yourself.

8. Article 2, the objections: the object as mover (“the mover to the mobile”) #

The point: three objections that the object moves the will of necessity.

• Obj. 1: the object is to the will as mover to mobile (De Anima III). His gloss: Aristotle there, on the locomotive power of animals, traces it to both knowledge and desire, but these are united in the object, known and desired—one mover. What moves me into the restaurant: my knowing, my desire, or the food? Both powers; the bakery smell, “like a kid”; the fried-chicken stands down south, “overpowering.” A sufficient mover of necessity moves.
• Obj. 2: will and understanding are both immaterial powers ordered to a universal object; the understanding is moved of necessity by its object.
• Obj. 3: whatever one wills is end or ordered to end; the end is willed of necessity, like a beginning in looking things [ed.: speculative matters] (“the whole is more than the part”); the end is the reason for willing the means; so the means too. His counter: reason is not necessarily moved to conclusions—Euclid’s amazing theorems don’t compel assent until shown.
• Digression, Euclid’s last even-number theorems: numbers doubled from two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32) are even-even only; even numbers whose half is odd (6, 10 = 2×5) are even-odd only; those neither doubled from the dyad nor with odd half (12 = 3×4 = 2×6) are both. 64 is even-even only however you cut it (2×32, 4×16, 8×8), and is both square and cube—“which numbers are both? just a teaser.” “Beautiful”; the way in is to give examples and then ask, is there a rule?
• Aside: “put your thinking hat on”—lecturing in the Middle Ages with hat on, so peasants thought that is where thinking is.

9. Sed contra: rational powers are to opposites (“the rational ability and the natural ability”) #

The point: rational powers, per the Philosopher (Metaphysics IX, beginning, ability before act), are to opposites; the will is a rational power, in reason (De Anima III); so it is not necessarily moved to either opposite.

• Natural ability determined to one: fire burns, doesn’t cool. Rational: the doctor can cure or kill; logic lets me reason well or badly, teach or deceive; grammar lets me say “I is your professor.”
• Aside: dialectic and rhetoric correspond to reason’s ability to go to opposites—dialectical reasoning from probables even to contradictory conclusions, as in the disputatio and debate teams.

10. Body of a. 2: exercise vs. specification (“to will or not to will”) #

The point: the will is moved in two ways: as to exercise of the act (to will or not to will) and as to specification (the object). As to exercise, no object necessitates: a man can not think about any object, so can not will it in act.

• Student cites Fr. Hardon: the most important use of the will is to determine what you think about; “nothing better to think about than God.” As to specification, some objects necessitate, some not. The reason: each power is moved by its object under a notion—sight by color in act; color proposed necessarily moves sight unless one averts the eyes (which belongs to exercise).
• Same with the ear: De Koninck’s soundproofed office (you knocked, couldn’t hear, so you opened and walked in—“the perpetual motion machine”); the skating-rink music; “some people act as if they own the air”; Maria getting beach radios turned down; the doctor’s waiting room, “if anybody wants a nervous breakdown”; Fr. Boulay sending money up to the restaurant musicians to stop—“probably the only time in their life.”
• Something colored in act only secundum quid, not simpliciter, sight need not see: it can tend to the part not colored in act—the magic trick, “the hand is quicker than the eye.”
• Applied: the good is the will’s object as color is sight’s. An object universally good under every consideration the will tends to of necessity, if it wills at all—if you saw God as he is you could not will the opposite. An object not good under every consideration need not be willed. Since the defect of any good has the notion of not-good, only the perfect good lacking nothing—beatitude—cannot not be willed; Boethius: beatitude is a state made perfect by the sum of all goods; “I will show you every good” (to Moses).
• Particular goods, insofar as they fall short of some good, can be taken as not good—his gloss: any particular good prevents pursuing some other; so they can be repudiated or approved under diverse considerations. Examples: mass this morning vs. a full night’s sleep; Euclid vs. Homer as relaxation; Homer vs. raking the leaves. Student: some things are “determined to one”—the bed made every day (“nobody’s coming to examine the place”); Rosie’s mother: “Italian girls don’t do that.”

11. The three replies (“a sufficient mover of some power”) #

• Reply 1: a sufficient mover is only an object that totally has the notion of mover; if it fails in some respect, it does not necessitate.
• Reply 2: the understanding is necessitated only by what is always and necessarily true, not by the contingent; sic et de bono. Example: who will be the Republican nominee—he goes up and down, may be assassinated, “put his foot in his mouth.”
• Reply 3: the last end necessitates because a perfect good; likewise what is ordered to it without which it cannot be had—to be, to live. Means without which the end can be had are not necessarily willed in willing the end, as conclusions without which the principles can be true are not necessarily believed in believing the principles. So must I will to study logic? Dionne’s course: whether logic is necessary for intellectus, scientia, sophia—one must distinguish; if I see logic necessary for wisdom and love wisdom, then… “but I suppose I could find reasons for not studying logic tonight.”

His words #

• “the Wisdom”: his name for the Metaphysics [ed.: Metaphysics].
• “about the soul”: De Anima.
• nature, first meaning: birth; nature “always keeps the sense of something within or from within.”
• quaelibet substantia / quidlibet ens: nature as what a thing is; “substance or nature” used as synonyms.
• through itself / through another: per se / per aliud; the through-itself is before and cause of the through-another.
• naturaliter nota: things naturally known, the beginnings of our knowledge.
• “natural consistency”: what regards a man’s being and living.
• “ability”: potency [ed.: potentia]; motion is the act of what exists in ability.
• “looking things”: speculative matters.
• secundum quid vs. simpliciter: in some respect vs. simply.
• exercise of the act (to will or not to will) vs. specification of the act (from the object).
• beatitude (Boethius): a state made perfect by the sum of all goods.
• “consubstantial,” homoousion: the new liturgical rendering in place of “one in being.”

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 10, a. 1 (whole article, Latin and translation)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 10, a. 2 (whole article) Mentioned
• Aristotle, Physics II beginning (natural vs. voluntary agent; nature as matter and form)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (meanings of nature); IX beginning (rational vs. natural ability)
• Aristotle, De Anima III (object as mover; will is in reason)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI (episteme vs. sophia)
• Boethius, On the Two Natures; Consolation of Philosophy (Plato’s Academy; book V, Aristotle)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 2 and following (nature of God before operation); on God’s knowledge of future contingents (locus not stated)
• Heraclitus, “nature loves to hide”
• Euclid, Elements, even-even / even-odd theorems (inferred: Book IX)
• Shakespeare, Coriolanus; “Stranger, give welcome”
• St Paul (Philippians, inferred), “the better thing is to die and be with Christ”; Exodus, “I will show you every good” (inferred)
• St Bonaventure (student’s vague recollection); Fr. Hardon; Dionne’s course on logic’s necessity

His questions #

• Why does Heraclitus say nature loves to hide? What is within is hidden.
• If there were no statements known through themselves, no willing for itself? There would be no statements known, nothing willed.
• How explain people who will not to live (suicide, martyrs)? Suicide: to escape misery; martyrs: the better thing is to be with Christ—otherwise left open.
• Do you see the will/nature distinction elsewhere? Wisdom vs. science; two vs. three.
• Is God’s nature or his being first? Nature, secundum rationem, as the Summa’s order shows.
• What moves me into the restaurant—knowledge, desire, or the food? The object, moving both knowing and desiring power.
• Which even numbers are even-even only, even-odd only, both? Doubled from two; half odd; neither (e.g., 12).
• What does it mean that a particular good can be taken as not good? It prevents pursuing some other good, so it can be refused.
• Must I will to study logic if I will the end? Only if logic is necessary for the end (wisdom)—one must distinguish; left with a joke.