Aquinas on Fear, Part 2: Fear of Fear, Sudden and Irremediable Evils, and the Causes of Fear (Summa I-II Q.42 a.4–6, Q.43)

Orientation #

He does not say what was done last time. He refers back to Thomas’s earlier treatment of circumstances (“as he said above when he talked about circumstances”) and to the question on the causes of love, contrasting its structure with the present question on the causes of fear. The class ends at q. 43, a. 2 (“Should we stop there or what?”). The previous class read q. 42, aa. 1-3 on the object of fear; the next class takes q. 44 on the effects of fear.

The class, in order #

1. Whether fear can be feared, q. 42, a. 4 (“Nothing is fear but fear itself”) #

Point: fear can be feared, because there are diverse fears according to diverse objects, and fear is partly from an extrinsic cause.

Aside opening the article: the question “is inspired by FDR” (“nothing is fear but fear itself”).

Objections as read:

1. Whatever is feared is guarded by fearing (as one who fears to lose health guards it); so if fear were feared, one would by fearing keep himself fearful, which is “unfit”.
2. Fear is a flight, and nothing flees itself.
3. Fear is of the future, but the one who fears already has fear.

Sed contra: a man can love love and be pained about pain; so for like reason he can fear fear.

Response as he reads it:

1. Only what arises from an extrinsic cause, not from our own will, has the aspect of the terrible (as said before).
2. Fear arises partly from an extrinsic cause: it is a passion following on the imagining of an imminent evil. So one can fear fear, lest some excelling evil bring on the necessity of fearing.
3. Fear is partly subject to the will, insofar as the lower appetite obeys reason, and so a man can repel fear; in this respect fear cannot be feared (Augustine, 83 Questions).
4. Because the objections could be used to show fear is in no way feared, Thomas answers them.

Replies: (ad 1) not every fear is one fear; by one fear a man guards himself from another fear. His gloss: “by the one fear he kind of limits the other.” Student examples tried out: the man afraid of being thought a coward who goes into battle; the man afraid of losing his money but more afraid of looking “a stingy old jerk,” so he gives alms; grade-school shots, where some boy could not face up to it; his own nose trouble during Lent, asking for the cross and then complaining (“what a wimp”); being afraid to show fear, which does not keep one from fearing altogether: people talk rapidly because afraid, “whistling past the graveyard.” (ad 2) One fear fears the imminent evil, another fear fears the fear of it; so the same thing is not a flight from itself. His parallel: I know what a circle is, I know that I know it, I know that I know that I know, “all different knowings”; likewise those said to be “in love with love.” (ad 3) By a present fear a man can fear a future fear, on account of the diversity of fears.

2. Whether unaccustomed and sudden things are more terrible, q. 42, a. 5 (“surprise, you know, right? You tend to panic”) #

Point: sudden and unaccustomed evils are more feared, because they make the evil appear greater and make the one fearing weaker.

He pauses over the Latin: does the translation render repentina as “sudden”? insolita he takes as “uncustomary, unusual things.” Illustration: in an army, being surprised makes you panic more.

Objections: (1) as hope is of good, so fear of evil; experience increases hope in good, so it increases fear in evil. (2) Rhetoric II: those are more feared who are not sharp in anger but mild and “astute” (he settles on “cunning”; Shakespeare uses the word a lot); but those of acute anger have more sudden motions, so sudden things are less terrible. He asks what Caesar says about fearing Cassius (returned to below). (3) Sudden things can be less considered, but some things are more feared the more they are considered; Ethics III: some seem brave through ignorance, and would flee if they knew what they were looking at.

Sed contra: Augustine, Confessions II (translation read from the book): “fear startled at things unaccustomed and sudden which endanger things beloved, and takes thought for their safety.”

Response: the object of fear is an imminent evil not easily repelled; this can come from two things, the magnitude of the evil and the weakness of the one fearing; the unaccustomed and sudden works toward both. (a) It makes the evil appear greater, since all bodily things, good and bad, appear less the more they are considered (“tell that to your friend”); hence with length the pain of a present evil is mitigated (Tullius, Tusculan Questions III), and by premeditation the fear of a future evil is lessened. (b) It makes for weakness, subtracting the remedies a man could prepare against a foreseen evil, which cannot be done when the evil comes unforeseen.

Replies: (ad 1) the object of hope is an attainable good; what increases a man’s power increases hope and for the same reason diminishes fear; experience makes a man more able to act, so it increases hope and diminishes fear. (ad 2) Those of acute anger do not hide it, so the harms from them are foreseen; the mild and cunning hide their anger (“why does this make me think of our president?”), so harm from them cannot be foreseen; hence the Philosopher says such are more feared. He recalls Julius Caesar warning Mark Antony about Cassius, and Caesar’s line that he does not feel fear, but “if I could feel fear…”; he adds that even a fair man has “a sense of anger, you can’t get away from it.” (ad 3) Per se loquendo, bodily goods and evils appear greater at the beginning, because each thing appears greater set beside its contrary: one who passes at once from poverty to wealth esteems riches more, and the rich suddenly falling into poverty fear it more; so a sudden evil is more feared because it seems more evil. But per accidens the magnitude of an evil can be hidden, as when enemies hide themselves in ambush, and then diligent consideration makes the evil more terrible.

3. Digression: fallacies that grow more fearful the more considered (“the fallacy of the accident”) #

Point: an example of ad 3 — an evil whose magnitude is hidden becomes more terrible with consideration.

• Wednesday-night texts on the fallacy of the accident: Plato, Averroes and the modern philosophers all fall into it; the more you consider how many great minds have been deceived by it, the more it is to be feared.
• The fallacy of equivocation, which Aristotle says is the most common: the Greek commentators give the toy example of two men with the same name, but history shows how often it actually happens — the life of Columbus, where an uncle or cousin with the same name gets confused with the historical Columbus, misleading historians.
• Student aside: an American Express commercial where an unknown man announces a famous name (he substitutes “Frank Sinatra”) — it is really his name, and people mix him up with the famous one all his life.

4. Whether things without remedy are more feared, q. 42, a. 6 (“Can you fear going to hell?”) #

Point: irremediable evils are most feared because, once come, they are taken as perpetual, and perpetuity gives an evil a kind of infinite increase.

He calls the article “kind of strange,” and asks the class to set the strangeness aside.

Objections: (1) fear requires some remaining hope of salvation; in evils without remedy there is none; so such evils are in no way feared. A student presses: can you fear going to hell, where there is no remedy? Exchange: you can’t fear something that has already come; but “I’m not in hell,” so can I fear hell? — left to Thomas’s reply. (2) Death has no remedy, since by nature there is no return from death to life, yet death is not most feared (Rhetoric II). (3) Ethics I: what lasts longer is not more good than what lasts a day, nor the perpetual than the non-perpetual; so neither is the longer evil greater; but irremediable evils differ from others only by length or perpetuity.

Sed contra: Rhetoric II — all those things are more terrible which, if they happen, cannot be corrected, or of which there is no help, or not easily.

Response: the object of fear is evil, so what increases evil increases fear; evil is increased not only by its kind but by circumstances (referring back to Thomas’s treatment of circumstances), and among circumstances length or perpetuity most increases evil; things in time are measured by duration, so to suffer the same thing twice as long is apprehended as double evil (his illustration: King David choosing his punishment — three years, three months, or three days); hence to suffer for infinite time has in some way infinite increase; evils that once come cannot be remedied, or not easily, are taken as perpetual or long, and so are most feared.

Replies: (ad 1) remedy is twofold: one that impedes the future evil from coming — its removal takes away hope and consequently fear, and of this remedy Thomas is not speaking; the other removes an evil already present, and of this he speaks. A student is confused; his clarification: once the evil is there you cannot hope it not be there, but you can hope to remove it, and so fear that you might not be able to. The student remarks that Thomas says all this about the remedy he says he is not talking about; he lets that stand. (ad 2) Death, though irremediable, is not feared because it is not imminent. (ad 3) Aristotle speaks of what is per se good, good according to its species, which does not become better by length but by the nature of the good itself.

Break taken here.

5. Question 43 introduced: the cause of fear (“Notice the difference between that and the article or question on the causes of love”) #

Point: two articles — whether love is the cause of fear, whether a defect is. Contrast with the causes of love: love is the first emotion, so there the good, the object, is the first cause; here the object has been treated already and a further cause is sought, because the irascible passions presuppose the concupiscible, and even the concupiscible passions presuppose love.

6. Whether love is the cause of fear, q. 43, a. 1 (“no other is the cause of fearing than that which we love”) #

Point: love is the cause of fear by way of material disposition, since what deprives one of a loved good is thereby an evil to be feared.

Objections: (1) fear introduces the love of charity (Augustine, Super Canonicam Joannis), so fear causes love, not the reverse. (2) Rhetoric II: those are most feared from whom we expect evils, and this provokes hate rather than love; so fear is more the cause of hate than of love (he notes the objection shifts the connection: love of one’s own good makes one fear what interferes, and hate the one who threatens). (3) What comes from ourselves is not terrible; what comes from love comes most from intimo cordis; so fear is not caused by love.

Sed contra: Augustine, 83 Questions — no other is the cause of fearing than that which we love, either that having attained it we lose it, or that we not attain what we hope.

Response, as he reads it:

1. The objects of the passions are to them as forms to natural or artificial things, because the passions receive their species from their objects as those things do from their forms.
2. So as whatever causes the form causes the thing constituted through it (the carpenter), whatever in any way causes the object causes the passion.
3. Something causes the object either as efficient cause or as material disposition. Example: the object of pleasure is a suitable apparent good joined to one; the efficient cause is what makes the conjunction, or the suitableness, or the appearance of goodness; the cause by way of material disposition is the habitus or disposition by which something comes to be suitable, or the joined good appears such.
4. The object of fear is a future evil, near, not easy to resist; what can bring such an evil is the efficient cause of the object and of the fear; that by which one is disposed so that something is such to him is cause by way of material disposition — and so love is a cause of fear: because someone loves some good, what deprives him of it is evil for him, and consequently he fears it.

Replies: (ad 1) fear per se et primo regards an evil fled from, opposed to a loved good, so per se it arises from love; secondarily it regards him from whom the evil comes, and so sometimes fear induces love: the man who fears to be punished by God keeps his commands, begins to hope, and hope introduces love. His gloss: as with the theological virtues, faith introduces hope and hope love; here fear prepares for hope and hope for love. Illustration: the old man in the Republic who, getting old and thinking of what may come after death, goes to sacrifice to the gods rather than stay for the philosophical conversation with Socrates. (ad 2) The one from whom evil is expected is first hated, and once one begins to hope good things from him, loved; so the good contrary to the feared evil was loved from the beginning. His gloss: someone hates God because he fears punishment — “nasty character that God, punish you for enjoying yourself.”

7. Aside: Gary Wills on television and Flannery O’Connor (“I realized how perverse he’s become”) #

• Saturday CNN book interview with Gary Wills (a student confuses him with George Will): once a bright young writer with good style, at National Review, then a falling-out; now a book on the priesthood asking whether we need it, saying the apostles were not priests, that bishops should be elected by the people as Ambrose was, that the Vatican deserves disrespect, that no priest preaches against contraception any more and they never took it seriously.
• Flannery O’Connor, late fifties, asked why the church bothers with such questions rather than lofty spiritual things: “what could be more spiritual than to say, ‘Don’t do this because it’s wrong’?”

8. Ad 3 and love as source of the passions (“love is the source of all the other passions”) #

(ad 3) The objection proceeds about the cause of the terrible evil by way of efficient cause; love is its cause by way of material disposition (he finds the language strange and glosses: by loving this good you are disposed to fear what threatens to deprive you of it). He calls this an application of the common point that love is the source of all the other passions. Aside: in the Summa Contra Gentiles Thomas argues that there is pleasure in God before he argues there is love in God — from the perfection of operation in God follows pleasure, and pleasure presupposes love, since pleasure is in possession of the loved good; “we always quote St John, God is love,” but one could as soon say “God is pleasure.”

9. Whether the cause of fear is a defect, q. 43, a. 2 (“defects is not the cause of fear”) #

Point: on the side of the one fearing, a defect of power is per se the cause of fear; on the side of the one feared, power is per se the cause and defect only per accidens.

Objections: (1) those who have power are most feared (student: Hitler), and defects are contrary to power. He adds the boundary case: unless it is your car — a deficient car makes you fear to drive it, but that is on the side of the efficient cause. (2) Those already “decapitated” [ed.: reading of the Latin uncertain in recording] suffer the greatest defect but do not fear (Rhetoric II); his note: that is a present evil, not a future one. (3) Men compete with one another for strength and fear those who fight for the same thing (Rhetoric II), which comes from fortitude, not defect.

Sed contra: causes of contraries are causes of contraries — his instances: Empedocles’ love and hate as causes of the coming together and separation of the elements; tragedy and comedy; the biker he knew with L-O-V-E tattooed on one hand and H-A-T-E on the other, “the whole of life, right there.” Wealth, strength, a multitude of friends and power exclude fear (Rhetoric II); so from a defect of these fear is caused. Examples: “got no friends, no power, no money, I’m a weak man”; the Charles Atlas ads, the weakling who gets sand kicked on him at the beach and cannot defend his girl, builds himself up and beats the bully; a student’s story of a man who kept challenging an army veteran, got beaten each time, exercised a few months and challenged again.

Response: the cause of fear is twofold (as said above): by way of material disposition on the side of the one who fears, by way of efficient cause on the side of the one feared. (a) As to the first, defect per se is a cause of fear, since from a defect of power one cannot easily repel an imminent evil; but the defect must have a measure: a lesser defect causes fear of a future evil than the defect that falls under a present evil, about which there is sadness; and a still greater defect if the sense of the evil, or the love of the good whose contrary is feared, is wholly taken away. (b) As to the second, power and strength per se cause fear, since what is apprehended as harmful and powerful cannot have its effect repelled; per accidens a defect on this side can cause fear, insofar as from some defect someone wishes to injure — through injustice, or because he was injured before, or because he fears to be injured.

Replies: (ad 1) the objection concerns the efficient cause (“the weak guy is challenging me”). (ad 2) Those already decapitated are under a present evil, and this defect exceeds the measure of fear. (ad 3) Those competing fear not on account of the power by which they compete but on account of the defect of power, from which they lack confidence of overcoming. A student queries the translation “not confident of victory”; he checks the Latin, superaturos — that they themselves will be overcome. Class stops here.

His words #

• “terrible”: his rendering of the object of fear, what has the aspect of the fearful.
• “insolita” — “uncustomary, unusual things”; “repentina” / “subita” — “sudden”.
• “astute” corrected to “cunning” for the mild men who hide their anger.
• “Tullius, Tusculan Questions” — Cicero [ed.: Tusculan Disputations].
• “per se loquendo” — “speaking per se”.
• “material disposition” vs. “efficient cause”: the two ways of causing the object, and so the passion.
• “habitus”: the disposition by which something comes to be suitable.
• “intimo cordis”: the inward part of the heart.
• “per se and primo”: how fear regards the evil fled from.
• “decapitated”: his tentative reading of the Latin for those under the greatest present defect.
• “superaturos”: the Latin he checks against “not confident of victory”.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 42, aa. 4, 5, 6 (verified)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 43, aa. 1, 2 (verified)
• Augustine, Confessions II, the sentence on fear at things unaccustomed and sudden (read in translation)
• Handout “Nature and Kinds of Love”, p. 23 (verified sources report about ten minutes read from it; the transcript does not name it)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Rhetoric II (the mild and cunning more feared; death not most feared; irremediable evils more terrible; those from whom we expect evil; the decapitated; competitors; wealth, strength, friends, power exclude fear)
• Aristotle, Ethics III (brave through ignorance); Ethics I (longer not more good)
• Augustine, 83 Questions (fear cannot be feared; the cause of fear is what we love); Super Canonicam Joannis (fear introduces charity)
• Cicero, Tusculan Questions III (present pain mitigated by length)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles (pleasure in God before love in God; locus not stated)
• Plato, Republic (the old man going to sacrifice) (inferred title from “the Republic”)
• Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Caesar on Cassius)
• King David’s choice of punishment (scripture, locus not stated)
• Wednesday-night texts on the fallacy of accident; Aristotle on equivocation as the most common fallacy
• Printed volume: DHB Vol III, The School of Aristotle, p. 1128 (verified sources)

His questions #

• “Nothing is fear but fear itself” — can fear be feared? Yes: by one fear a man guards himself from another; fear is partly from an extrinsic cause.
• Are you afraid to show fear? Does that keep you from fearing? Some people; not altogether — they talk rapidly, “whistling past the graveyard.”
• Do they translate repentina by “sudden”? Left open; he takes “sudden” and insolita as “unusual”.
• What does Caesar say about fearing Cassius? He warns Mark Antony about him; Caesar claims he does not feel fear.
• Can you fear going to hell, since there is no remedy? Discussed and left to Thomas: an evil already present cannot be feared, only the loss of hope of removing it.
• Why does the question on the cause of fear differ from the question on the causes of love? Love is the first emotion, its object the first cause; the other passions, and the irascible especially, presuppose love.
• Which is argued first in God, love or pleasure? In the Summa Contra Gentiles, pleasure, from perfection of operation; then love, since pleasure presupposes it.
• Is a deficient car a cause of fear from defect? Yes, but on the side of the efficient cause.
• What is the Latin behind “not confident of victory”? superaturos: that they will be overcome.