Summa II-II, Question 1, Articles 7–8: How the articles of faith grew over time, and why there are fourteen (unity, Trinity, the humanity of Christ; the rule of two or three)

Orientation #

He opens with the prayer and says “We’re up to Article 7 here, in Question One”; he refers back to the definition of faith being “said” in an earlier article (Article 6 or 4, he is unsure) (prev. lecture). He says nothing about next time. The previous class covered q. 1 aa. 4–6 on the object of faith and why the articles are distinguished; the next continues with the replies of a. 8 and aa. 9–10 on the creed.

The class, in order #

1. Article 7: the four objections and Gregory (“the articles of faith do not what increase”) #

He reads the objections that the articles do not grow with time, remarking ironically after each that he is “convinced.”

1. Faith is “the substance of things hoped for” (Hebrews 11:1); the same things are hoped for at all times; therefore the same things believed.
2. Human sciences grow because the first finders were defective in knowledge (Aristotle, Metaphysics II, “the philosopher by antonomasia”); but faith is handed over from God (Ephesians 2), in whom there is no defect; so knowledge of believables was perfect from the start. “That’s a darn good objection.”
3. Grace proceeds no less orderly than nature, and nature begins from the perfect (Boethius, Consolation). Aside: some hold Boethius “the greatest mind between Augustine and Thomas.” So the first teachers of the faith would know it most perfectly — otherwise “you’ll be wiser than the apostles.”
4. Faith came to us through the apostles as in the Old Testament through the fathers (“ask your father,” Deuteronomy 32:7); the apostles were “plenissime” instructed, having the first fruits of the spirit (gloss on Romans 8:23). “We just got hand-me-downs.”

• Sed contra: Gregory the Great — the knowledge of the holy fathers grew with time; the nearer to the coming of the Savior, the more fully they received the sacraments of salvation.

2. Digression: the rule of two or three (“I’m a great teacher of the rule”) #

Point: division should be into two or three, or both, then subdivided.

• Plato/Socrates always divide into two, with good reason: we divide by opposites, and opposites are two.
• Aristotle’s sign (from the discussion of three dimensions): three is the first number of which we say “all” — “you and I, both”; “you and I and he, all.”
• Thomas on the ten categories: not ten at once but first three — said of Michael by reason of what he is; by reason of something in him beyond what he is; by reason of something outside him (in this room, clothed). Sitting belongs to the second, he corrects a student.
• Thomas dividing Aristotle or Scripture: the four Gospels as three against the fourth, the three then divided into three.

3. Body of Article 7: implicit containment and explicitation (“some are contained in the others implicitly”) #

Point: the articles are to the teaching of faith as self-known principles are to natural doctrine.

1. Euclid’s axioms and postulates (all right angles equal; whole more than part) are known to themselves; among such principles some are implicit in others, all reduced to “impossible at once to affirm and negate” (Aristotle, “fourth book of first philosophy”). Illustration: “To be or not to be” is a question precisely because you cannot both be and not be.
2. Likewise all articles are implicitly in the first believables: that God is and has providence over men’s salvation (Hebrews 11:6, “that he is, and is the rewarder”).
3. In the divine being are included all we believe to exist in God eternally, in which beatitude consists; in providence, all God has dispensed in time as “the via, the road into beatitude.” Subsequent articles contain others: redemption implicitly contains incarnation and passion.
4. Conclusion: as to the substance of the articles, no growth; what later ones believed was contained implicitly in the faith of the earlier. As to explicitation, the number of articles increases — e.g. Immaculate Conception to Assumption, “the Marian century”: known before, but made much more explicit.

• Digression on implicitness: the Compendium of Theology takes the attributes after simplicity in the reverse order of the Summa (Summa: simple, perfect, infinite, one; Compendium: one, infinite, perfect); one can argue from any to the other, as Euclid’s theorems could be reordered — “these things are really tied together.” Same in the Contra Gentiles, where after four or five basic arguments for simplicity he adds arguments from goodness and perfection. “Kind of amazing.”
• De Koninck had a private session with Pius XII on whether the Assumption should be defined; he used Thomas’s teaching that strictly Peter is not in heaven now (a creature of body and soul, his body not there), so of Mary the whole must be there. Aside: his Lutheran aunt met Pius XII and was very impressed.
• Texts for explicitation: Exodus 6:2–3 (God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, “my name I have not indicated”); David, “above the ancients I have understood”; Ephesians, the mystery of Christ not known to other generations as now revealed.
• Student: is this the same as “development of doctrine”? He: you could say so; Vincent of Lérins compared it to seed growing into a plant — same life, develops but does not change.

4. Replies to objections 1 and 2 (“the more that they were remote from Christ”) #

• Reply 1: the same things were always hoped for, but men reach them only through Christ; the more remote in time, the longer from achieving them (Hebrews: “all these died not having received the promises, but regarding them from a long distance”). What is seen at a distance is seen less distinctly; so goods hoped for were more distinctly known by those near Christ.
• Student question before reply 2: did the apostles have explicit faith about infallibility, Immaculate Conception, Assumption? He: perhaps they knew more than we do, being in contact with the teacher; certainly implicit faith, “the substance”; we have no account of every conversation with Christ — left partly open.
• Reply 2: growth of knowledge happens in two ways: (a) on the part of the teacher who grows, one or many through time — the reason human sciences grow; (b) on the part of the learner: the teacher who knows the whole art does not treat it all at once because the learner cannot grasp it, but “paulatim, bit by bit” (Thomas’s favourite word), condescending to his capacity. So men grew in knowledge of faith; Galatians compares the Old Testament to childhood.
• Illustration: Metaphysics IX (“the ninth book of Wisdom, my favorite”) is divided into three: first motion and the abilities for motion (to be moved, to move another, rational and natural), then the senses of act and only then the many senses of ability — “you weren’t ready.”
• Aside: his undergraduate teacher Kasurik, wisest man at the College of St Thomas (St Paul), said that compared to Aristotle “I got the brain of an angle” [ed.: probably “ant”; ASR uncertain].

5. Reply to objection 3: agent cause vs. material cause (“two causes are presupposed: the agent and matter”) #

Point: nature takes its origin from the perfect according to the order of the agent, from the imperfect according to the order of matter.

1. Natural generation presupposes agent and matter (“act and ability”).
2. In the order of the agent cause, the more perfect is naturally before, since the imperfect is perfected only by something already perfect; in the order of the material cause, the more imperfect is before.
3. Link to the Categories: “before” has five senses, one of them the cause before the effect, which subdivides because “cause” has many meanings; here agent vs. material.
4. Application: Thomas argues to God’s perfection as the first maker (agent), hence more perfect than what he made — one way among many.
5. Where the moderns break down: like the early Greeks they make matter the beginning of all things, hence the least perfect thing. This gives a “split personality”: (a) the end of knowledge is to know why things are, i.e. the first cause; (b) knowledge of a better thing is better knowledge, so the end of knowledge is the best thing. If first cause = best thing, “all things harmonize” (Aristotle); if the first cause is matter, the two ultimate ends split. Marx: “we got to get busy and start making things”; De Koninck studied Marxism long because it dominated.
6. Aside built from this: why did Christ institute the Eucharist with bread and wine, things we make, rather than water and apples, purely natural? We understand best what we make ourselves (as the moderns insist); so taking what we made and saying “this is my body” demands a greater act of faith. A student adds he wanted our cooperation; he agrees but keeps the point. Aside: his daughter’s ten children make their own bread, so “they know what bread is.”
7. Application to faith: God is the agent with perfect knowledge from eternity; man is like matter receiving the inflow of the divine agent (“that’s my little prayer: move us, God, to know and love you”); so knowledge of faith in men proceeds from imperfect to perfect. Those men who are agents (teachers of the faith) receive the manifestation of the spirit for the common utility, so the fathers were given what was needed for that time, “either openly or in a figure” — which explains much in the creation account of Genesis.

• Student: at Cana Christ used a natural thing, water, turning it into wine — a different level. He: “amazing thing,” his first public miracle; glad it was wine not beer, “they were Middle Easterns, not Germans.”

6. Reply to objection 4 and student questions on future explicitation (“his time is said to be the time of fullness”) #

• Reply 4: the ultimate consummation of grace was made through Christ, whose time is the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4); those nearer Christ, before (John the Baptist) or after (the apostles), “plenius,” more fully knew the mysteries of faith. Analogy: in man’s bodily state perfection is in youth, and one is more perfect the nearer to youth, before or after. He flags “sicut plenius mysteria fidei cognoverunt” as interesting: they knew more fully even if they did not manifest it to everybody.
• Student: so the apostles had fuller knowledge and explicitation came over time through the Church? He: yes; Paul gave milk to the children.
• Student: any future explicitation foreseen? He: De Koninck (peritus at Vatican II for the Cardinal of Quebec) thought that after the Marian century the mysteries of Joseph would be unfolded; John Paul II has a document on Joseph. Aside: parish churches of his boyhood (Nativity, St Paul) all had chapels for Mary and Joseph; at his sister’s wedding the couple went to the two altars.
• Student: Mary as mediatrix of all grace, on which Rome hesitates? He: there are already very explicit texts; Vatican II completes Vatican I by defining the mysteries of the Church, with a chapter on Mary, Mother of the Church. Monsignor Dionne’s article in Laval théologique et philosophique, “The Grace of Mary is of the Hypostatic Order”: Mary’s grace is of a different order from other saints’ because of universal mediation, with good papal quotations; available on the internet. “I’m always suspicious of anybody suspicious of Mary’s dignity.”

7. Article 8: six objections against the enumeration (“unsuitably are the articles of faith enumerated”) #

He reads the objections (“Six objections. Oh my gosh!”), with digressions.

1. What can be known by demonstration does not pertain to faith; but that God is one is demonstrated (Aristotle, Metaphysics XII — “first philosophy,” named Metaphysica by Andronicus of Rhodes after the natural books); so it should be a preamble, not an article.
2. We must believe God omnipotent, but also all-knowing and provident, and people have erred about both; so wisdom and providence should be articles as omnipotence is. “Very convincing for a dummy like me.”
3. Knowledge of Father and Son is the same (John 14, “who sees me sees the Father”); so one article for Father and Son, and likewise the Holy Spirit.
4. The Father is not less than Son and Spirit, but many articles are laid down about them and few about the Father. Digression: in the Sentences Thomas asks explicitly whether the Father is before the Son (not asked in the Summa, he thinks) and denies it in duration, nature, knowledge, dignity — almost exactly the order of “before” in the second post-predicament of the Categories (time first, duration alongside it; nature answering to being; knowledge and dignity last); the first post-predicament is opposites, since you must see opposites before before-and-after. Thomas “must know that text.”

• Aside on disputation: the Marietti prints Thomas’s answers in large type; he jokes about locking students in a shed with only the objections for a week; the quaestiones disputatae have fifteen or twenty arguments a side, the Summa an abbreviation for beginners; medieval disputations staged at St Mary’s College; Albert the Great set a debate with Thomas and said the “dumb ox’s” bellow would be heard round the world.

5. Something is appropriated to each person (appropriation: a likeness between a divine attribute and a personal property); the creed gives a work to the Father (creation, though the whole Trinity creates) and to the Spirit (spoke through the prophets), so there should be a work appropriated to the Son according to divinity. He is unsure of the objection; “light of everyone coming into the world” is in the Gospel, not the creed. Aside: the Arabic creed adds “through the prophets and the apostles” — source unknown, but it connects with the Church.
6. The Eucharist has a special difficulty, so should be a special article. Aside: Eucharistic miracles in Europe, Portugal (Santarém); the sisters’ stories of a host in a handkerchief turning to blood; the St Joseph sisters’ black robes showing snowflakes, “God’s beauty.”

• Sed contra: the authority of the Church enumerating them.

8. Body of Article 8: the two definitions and the fourteen articles (“two things are proposed for us to be seen”) #

Point: things pertain to faith per se by the vision of which we enjoy eternal life and through which we are led to it; these are two — the hiddenness of the divinity, whose vision makes us blessed, and the mystery of Christ’s humanity, through which we have access to the glory of the sons of God (Romans 5:2); John 17:3.

• Hebrews 11:1 in Latin and Greek: “sperandarum rerum substantia” is “elpizomenon pragmaton hypostasis” — not Aristotle’s word for substance but “foundation.” Illustration: he believed the Pythagorean theorem on his teacher’s word before the demonstration; belief is a foundation for what one later sees, even in human learning. “Argumentum rerum non apparentium” should not be rendered “argument” (not a syllogism); the Greek is “elenchos,” refutation (as in the Sophistical Refutations); a real refutation overcomes you and makes you change your mind, so he translates “conviction of things not seen” — check Bibles by how they translate this.
• John 17:3 read in Latin and Greek (“ton monon alethinon theon… Iesoun Christon”): eternal life is to know the only true God and whom he sent. “Christ” is said of him by reason of his human nature — anointed as man, not as God. So the first distinction: the majesty of the divinity vs. the mystery of the humanity, “sacrament of piety” (1 Timothy).
• Rule of two or three again: he is “not a fanatic”; it is true for the most part, which suffices for a rule. Signs: no more than three examples in a speech; “repas complet” in Quebec (appetizer, main course, dessert); three meals a day; Homer praised by Aristotle for beginning, middle, end; Heisenberg said there must be a third unit beside Einstein’s and Planck’s; one log will not burn nor two, you need three; trilogies; youth, prime of life (Aristotle’s Rhetoric), old age; grade school, high school, college. Some see the Trinity reflected. Hegel always divides by three, Plato by two; combining Plato and Aristotle gives “two or three, or both.” Practical sign: to divide a table in equal parts you start with two or three, not ten — the metric system “is not sensible.”
• Seven about the divinity: (1) unity of the divinity, one article; (2) Trinity of persons, three articles; (3) proper works of the divinity — being of nature (creation), being of grace (sanctification), being of glory (one article for resurrection of the flesh and eternal life).
• Seven about the humanity: incarnation/conception; nativity from the Virgin (his mother admired that he “came through the wall”); passion, death and burial (one difficulty — that God should die; if he can die he can be buried); descent into hell (often misunderstood, as if he suffered there); resurrection; ascension; coming for judgment (as in the Te Deum). “Sic in universo,” fourteen.
• Sevens: fourteen books of the Metaphysics, “two sevens”; seven angels before God; seven wise men of Greece; Philip’s seven virgin daughters, prophets (a student supplies); the II-II divided into seven virtues; seven parts of philosophy (natural, mathematical, first; ethics, domestic, political; logic the tool) — why seven is a symbol of wisdom he is not sure. Joke: the Contra Gentiles begins God’s perfection in chapter 28, the second perfect number — by chance?
• Thomas is not a fanatic: some count twelve, six and six, taking the three persons under one article (the same knowledge of relatives, as Aristotle said), joining glorification and resurrection, and joining consubstantiality; the Catechism has twelve; tradition says each apostle wrote one — “a beautiful little story” for children, “and maybe adults too.”

His words #

• antonomasia; “the philosopher” as Aristotle’s name by antonomasia
• rule of two or three; divide into two or three, or both, then subdivide; true for the most part
• beginnings [ed.: principles]; “known to themselves” [ed.: self-evident]
• first philosophy, “books of Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]
• ability / act [ed.: potency / act]
• paulatim; bit by bit
• Marian century; explicitation / unfolding vs. substance of the articles
• split personality (of the modern mind); first cause vs. best thing as end of knowledge
• appropriation: likeness between a divine attribute and a personal property
• hypostasis: foundation, not Aristotle’s substance
• elenchos: refutation; “conviction of things not seen” (his rendering of argumentum)
• “Christ”: said of him as man, anointed as man not as God
• sacrament of piety (1 Timothy)

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 7 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 8 (objections, sed contra, body; replies not reached)
• Hebrews 11:1, in Latin and Greek
• John 17:3, in Latin and Greek
• Hebrews 11:6

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics II, IV (inferred from “fourth book”), IX, XII; fourteen books
• Aristotle, Categories, post-predicaments (opposites; senses of “before”)
• Aristotle, Parts of Animals; Rhetoric (ages of life); Poetics on Homer (inferred); Sophistical Refutations
• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
• Gregory the Great (sed contra, a. 7)
• Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology; Summa Contra Gentiles (simplicity, perfection, ch. 28); Commentary on the Sentences (whether the Father is before the Son); Quaestiones disputatae
• Euclid, Elements (axioms, postulates, Pythagorean theorem)
• Deuteronomy 32:7; Ephesians 2; Romans 8:23 with gloss; Exodus 6:2–3; Galatians 4:4; Romans 5:2; John 14; 1 Timothy
• Vincent of Lérins (seed to plant)
• Dionne, “The Grace of Mary is of the Hypostatic Order,” Laval théologique et philosophique
• John Paul II on Joseph; the Catechism (twelve articles); the Te Deum; Arabic creed

His questions #

• Why does Thomas divide the ten categories first into three? Because the mind divides by two or three and subdivides; by how something is said of an individual substance (what he is, something in him, something outside him).
• Are the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption new? Known before, implicitly; made much more explicit now.
• Did the apostles have explicit faith about later definitions? Certainly the substance, implicitly; perhaps more than we, being with the teacher — left partly open.
• Why does knowledge of faith grow if God, the teacher, is perfect? Growth on the part of the learner: the teacher condescends bit by bit to his capacity.
• Why does the modern mind have a “split personality”? It makes matter the first cause, so the first cause and the best thing, both ends of knowledge, come apart.
• Why did Christ take bread and wine, things we make, for the Eucharist? Because we think we understand what we make, so a greater act of faith is required.
• How should “argumentum rerum non apparentium” be translated? Not “argument”; elenchos, refutation — “conviction of things not seen.”
• Why is “Christ” said of the one sent? By reason of his human nature; he is anointed as man.
• How many articles are there in all? Fourteen, seven on divinity and seven on humanity; others count twelve, six and six.