Summa II-II, Question 1, Articles 8–10: The objections on the articles answered, the Creed as a summary of Scripture, the Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, and the Pope's authority over the Creed

Orientation #

He picks up mid-article: “got a few objections here” — the replies to the objections of a.8, whose body was treated before (prev. lecture). He says the meaning of “I believe God / believe in God” will be treated “when it gets to the act of faith” (next question), and the last remark of the class is a scribble found in the book at q.2 a.1. The previous class covered aa.7-8 (growth and enumeration of the articles); the next opens q.2 a.1 on what it is to believe.

The class, in order #

1. a.8 ad 1: what the philosophers know is under “one God” (“contained under the article of the unity”) #

Point: many things about God which philosophers investigate by natural reason (his providence, his omnipotence, that he alone is to be worshipped) are still held by faith, and all fall under the article of the unity of God.

• Aside on the order of treatment: in the Summa Theologiae the last thing shown about God’s substance is that God is one; in the Summa Contra Gentiles unity is next-to-last and infinity last, whereas in the ST infinity comes right after goodness. His guess why: in the Prima Pars you pass straight from the unity of God to the Trinity of persons (q.27 — “the cube of” 3, a mnemonic), so you want to end on “there is only one God” before the Trinity; in the SCG the Trinity is not taken up until book 4 (what is known of God only by faith), books 1-3 being what is known by reason as well as faith, so there is less need to stress it. Also the common phrase De Deo uno et trino.
• Aside: Muslims think Christians polytheists — they cannot understand the Trinity and take us to say three gods (“he has no son, no wife”).

2. a.8 ad 2: divinity, providence, omnipotence (“the name of divinity itself implies”) #

Point: the very name of divinity implies providence; and omnipotence in one who understands includes knowledge and providence.

• Argument as he reads it: power in those having understanding operates only according to will and knowledge; God cannot will inferior things unless he knows them and has providence over them; so omnipotence includes in some way knowledge of all things and providence.
• Prudence = providence: the Greek cardinal virtue of reason is “prudence”, which means providence; Churchill uses “foresight” rather than prudence, and foresight is really a principal part of prudence.

3. a.8 ad 3: one article or three for the persons — the distinction of distinction (“as regards the distinction of persons”) #

Point: of Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is one knowledge as regards the unity of essence (the first article, “I believe in one God — stop there”), but as regards the distinction of persons, which is by relations of origin, the knowledge of the Father includes the Son (no Father without a Son), and the Holy Spirit is “the joining”; so those who lay down one article for all three are “well moved”.

• Digression, Thomas’s use of the first post-predicament of the Categories (the four opposites: contradictories, contraries, having and lacking, relatives) in the Trinity. It is an article of faith that the persons are really distinct, not names of one person doing different things (he is husband, father, teacher, but one person). Thomas’s distinction of distinction:
  1. Material distinction, by division of the continuous (dividing the apple pie among us) — impossible in God, who is not a body.
  2. Formal distinction, by opposites. Three of the four opposites are eliminated because one member involves a kind of non-being (being/non-being; having/lacking; even one contrary lacks something compared to the other), and God is “I am who I am”. So the persons differ by the fourth, relatives — as the names Father and Son indicate; the Holy Spirit from Father and Son together.
• But because errors arose about the individual persons, three articles are laid down against the heretics: Arius held the Father omnipotent and eternal but the Son not co-equal and consubstantial (“God from God, true God from true God, begotten not made”); against Macedonius a third article that the Holy Spirit is equally God and equally adored.
• Likewise conception, nativity, resurrection, eternal life may be one article as ordered to one thing, or distinguished by their special difficulties. Hence “the 12 party and the 14 party”: Bonaventure, he thinks, recognized both counts; Thomas leaves it open but seems to bring up the 14 more.

4. a.8 ad 4: why more articles about the Son and the Holy Spirit (“it belongs to be sent”) #

Point: to the Son and Holy Spirit it belongs to be sent for the sanctifying of creatures, about which many things must be believed; the Father cannot be sent (“qui nunquam mittitur”, as he says was said in “my first book”); so more articles about them than about the Father.

• Jokes: “if he had sent himself he would have got more press — that’s his fault.” A prayer that gives the Father his due: “May God the Father strengthen you, God the Son enlighten you, God the Holy Spirit fill your heart with his love.”

5. a.8 ad 5: appropriation to Son and Holy Spirit (“by appropriation according to diverse reasons”) #

Point: sanctification by grace and consummation by glory come about through charity (appropriated to the Holy Spirit) and wisdom (appropriated to the Son), so each work pertains to both by appropriation under different reasons.

• His trochaic tetrameter “Move us, God, to know and love you”: knowing is the Son, loving the Holy Spirit, and you address the Father.

6. a.8 ad 6: the Eucharist (“two things can be considered”) #

Point: as a sacrament the Eucharist has the same reason as the other effects of sanctifying grace; as containing the body of Christ it falls under omnipotence, like all other miracles.

• Sunday hymn he likes, referring to both: “Fast and pray he did as man, great deeds he performed as God.”
• Grace is in some way contained in all the sacraments, but only in the Eucharist the body and blood of our Lord, the source of grace in the sacraments — hence its “special difficulty”.

7. a.9 objections: is the creed a suitable gathering? (“unsuitably the articles of faith are placed”) #

Point: he reads the six objections against the symbolum, glossing the word first.

• Symbolum: Greek ballo “throw”, syn “together” — “thrown together”; “put together” would be better; you throw haphazardly or at a target.
• Obj. 1: Scripture is the rule of faith to which nothing may be added or taken away (Deut 4:2); so no symbolum after Scripture was edited. Aside: interesting how Protestants accept the creed thanks to the Scriptures.
• Obj. 2: one faith (Eph 4), but the creed is a profession of faith; so not many creeds (Athanasian, Apostles’, etc.).
• Obj. 3: the confession pertains to all the faithful, but credere in Deum belongs only to those with faith formed by charity; so the form “I believe in one God” is unsuitable. Augustine somewhere explains “I believe God / believe in God”; deferred to the act of faith.
• Obj. 4: the descent into hell is an article, but the “symbol of the fathers” does not mention it. Aside: in the article on whether the Father is before the Son Thomas quoted the Athanasian Creed (“no before and after in the Trinity”), perhaps because the other creeds do not say it explicitly. Athanasius is “my model of what a church father should be” since a college course; a tough life; an early account (via Dr. Carroll) gives him red hair and blue eyes — red-haired people more irascible.
• Obj. 5: Augustine on John 14:1 (“believe in God and believe in me”): we believe Peter and Paul but do not believe in them; the Church is purely created, so “in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam” is unsuitable.
• Obj. 6: the rule of faith should be proposed to all publicly, so every creed should be sung at Mass, as the symbol of the fathers is. Class exchange: which is the “symbol of the fathers”? Settled: the Nicene (“Council Fathers”), since the descent into hell (“suffered, died and was buried”) is in the Apostles’ Creed, not the Nicene.
• Sed contra: the universal Church cannot err, governed by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth who “will teach you all truth”; the creed is edited by her authority.

8. a.9 body and replies (“not thrown together, but gathered together”) #

Point: the reply is “very short”: to approach God one must believe (Heb 11:6), one cannot believe unless the truth is proposed, so the truth of faith had to be gathered into one so it could more easily (facilius) be proposed to all, lest anyone fail from ignorance; the name symbolum is taken from this collection. English says “creed”; the symbol is “all together”.

• Ad 1 (“isn’t it all in the Bible?”): in Scripture the truth of faith is contained diffusely (diffuse), in various ways, with some obscurity, so eliciting it requires long study (longum studium), which not all can give, being occupied with other businesses; so something manifest is collected in summary — not added to Scripture but taken (assumptum) from it; a student: “distilled”.
• Ad 2: all creeds teach the same truth; the people need more diligent instruction where errors arise (ubi errores surgunt), lest the faith of the simple be corrupted by heretics; creeds differ only in that one makes explicit more fully (plenius) what the other contains implicitly. Aside: some fathers say heresy is necessary for the development of theology, since answering it forces going deeper; Paul VI’s Creed of the People of God in the sixties — “maybe he could do that again” for today’s errors, fifty years later.
• Ad 3: the confession is made as from the person of the whole Church, united by faith; the Church’s faith as a whole is formed faith, found in all who are of the Church in number and merit; so it is set out as belonging to formed faith, that those without it may strive to attain it.
• Ad 4: no error arose among heretics about the descent into hell, so no explanation was needed; it was not repeated in the symbol of the fathers but presupposed from the Apostles’ Creed, since a later symbol does not cancel the preceding but expounds it.
• Ad 5: if “in sanctam ecclesiam catholicam” is said, understand it as referred to the Holy Spirit sanctifying the Church; but it is better, and more common use, to omit “in”: “I believe the holy catholic Church.” (Aside about “Leo Papa” — [unclear in recording].)
• Ad 6: the symbol of the fathers is declarative of the Apostles’ symbol and was given when the faith was manifest and the Church at peace, so it is sung publicly; the Apostles’ symbol, edited in time of persecution, was not published but said secretly at Prime and Compline, “as it were against the darkness of the errors of the past and the future” — “that’s ideal”. Now in the Roman rite either creed is optional.

9. a.10 objections and sed contra: who may edit the creed? (“does not pertain to the Summum Pontifex”) #

Point: three objections against the Supreme Pontiff’s authority to make a new edition of the symbol.

• Obj. 1: new editions are needed to make the articles explicit; in the Old Testament they grew more explicit with proximity to Christ (the prophets unfolding the sense of the law); that cause ceases in the new law; so no further explicitation — “that’s what a lot of people wish.”
• Obj. 2: what is forbidden under anathema (accursed) by the universal Church cannot be subject to one man; the Council of Ephesus, after reading the Nicene symbol, decreed it not licit to bring forth, write or compose another faith, under anathema; repeated at Chalcedon.
• Obj. 3: Athanasius was patriarch of Alexandria, not pope, and yet constituted a symbol sung in the Church (it was in Prime of the Roman rite; some Benedictines sing it once a year at Prime; it takes very long). “If Athanasius could do it, I’m an Athanasian man.” Aside: a man in the eighties with a button “I love Saint Athanasius” — he went to St. Athanasius high school.
• Sed contra: the addition was made in a general synod, which only the pope can gather (Decrees, distinction 17 — he must check).
• Pontifex = bridge builder (pons); Catherine of Siena’s Christ the bridge. Student question whether the Orthodox have created a symbol since (they balk at the Filioque): no; their first general synod since then was last year, with Russians, Bulgarians, Georgians absent, Rome sending representatives, not the pope — “so much for unity.”

10. a.10 body and replies (“I have prayed for you Peter”) #

Point: a new edition of the symbol is needed to avoid errors arising; it belongs to the authority which finally determines what is to be held unshaken by all; this is the pope, to whom the greater and harder questions of the Church are referred (Decrees, dist. 17); Luke 22 to Peter, “that your faith fail not, and confirm your brothers” (often quoted by popes); and because there should be one faith of the whole Church, “all say the same thing, no schisms” (1 Cor), which cannot be unless questions of faith are settled by the one over the whole Church; so to him alone belongs the new edition, as convoking a general synod and the like.

• Ad 1: in the teaching of Christ and the apostles the truth is sufficiently explicit, but perverse men (perversi homines) pervert the apostolic doctrine and Scriptures to their own perdition, so explanations against arising errors are needed. Aside: reading the De Anima with Joshua last night — Thomas on Averroes’ possible intellect as separated substance: “quam leviter errant”, since Aristotle plainly speaks of a part of the soul.
• Ad 2: the synod’s prohibition extends to private persons, who may not determine about faith; it does not take away a subsequent synod’s power to edit anew, not another faith but the same more exposed, as each synod expounds beyond the previous on account of some heresy arising; and this belongs to the pope, by whose authority the synod is gathered and whose sentence is confirmed.
• Ad 3: “my friend Athanasius” composed not by way of a symbol but of a teaching, as his way of speaking shows; because it contains the whole truth of faith briefly, it was accepted by the pope’s authority as a rule of faith — the Quicumque, split in two, divinity and humanity.

11. Closing question: is Amoris Laetitia Thomistic? (“do you find it to be Thomistic”) #

A student asks, not to attack Pope Francis, who said “read it, it’s Thomistic” (with Schönborn as authentic interpreter, supposed to be Thomistic). He answers: no; he finds insisting on the pope’s loose statements “a bit scandalous”. Last aside: a previous owner of the book scribbled “Not important” at the start of q.2 a.1 — “just skip this one.”

His words #

• unity of God: the article under which providence, omnipotence, sole worship fall.
• prudence: “means providence”; Churchill’s “foresight” is a principal part of it.
• relations of origin: what distinguishes the persons.
• distinction of distinction: material (division of the continuous) vs formal (by opposites) [ed.: Thomas’s division].
• first post-predicament: the four opposites in the Categories.
• co-equal and consubstantial: what Arius denied of the Son.
• the 12 party and the 14 party: the two enumerations of the articles.
• qui nunquam mittitur: the Father, who is never sent.
• appropriation: charity to the Holy Spirit, wisdom to the Son.
• symbolum: “thrown together” (syn + ballo); better “put together”, “gathered together”; English “creed”.
• symbol of the fathers: the Nicene Creed (settled in class); symbol of the apostles: the Apostles’ Creed.
• credere in Deum: belongs to formed faith [ed.: fides formata].
• diffuse / longum studium / facilius / plenius: Thomas’s terms for Scripture’s scatter, the study it needs, the ease and fullness of the creed.
• ubi errores surgunt: where errors arise, the cause of new creeds.
• Summum Pontifex: pontifex, bridge builder (pons).
• anathema: accursed.
• Quicumque: the Athanasian Creed, a “teaching” not a symbol.
• quam leviter errant: Thomas on Averroes (aside).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II q.1 a.8 ad 1-6
• Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II q.1 a.9 (objections, sed contra, body, ad 1-6)
• Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II q.1 a.10 (objections, sed contra, body, ad 1-3) Mentioned
• Deuteronomy 4:2; Ephesians 4 (“one faith”); John 14:1 with Augustine; Hebrews 11:6; Luke 22 (Peter); 1 Corinthians (no schisms)
• Aristotle, Categories, post-predicaments (four opposites)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I (order: unity then Trinity at q.27); Summa Contra Gentiles (unity next-to-last, infinity last; Trinity in book 4)
• Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon (anathema on another faith); Decrees, distinction 17
• Athanasian Creed (Quicumque); Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds; Paul VI, Creed of the People of God
• Aristotle, De Anima with Thomas’s commentary (Averroes on the possible intellect) — aside
• Catherine of Siena, Christ the bridge — aside
• Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia — student question

His questions #

• Why does Thomas put “God is one” last in the ST but next-to-last in the SCG? Because the ST passes directly to the Trinity (q.27), so end on one God; in the SCG the Trinity waits till book 4.
• What does prudence mean? Providence — foresight is its principal part.
• What’s a distinction of distinction? Material (division of the continuous) and formal (by opposites); in God only formal, by relatives.
• Are you a 12 man or a 14 man? Left open; Bonaventure recognized both, Thomas seems to favour 14.
• What about the Eucharist — what is its special difficulty? As sacrament, like other effects of grace; as containing the body of Christ, under omnipotence like miracles.
• Isn’t it all in the Bible — what do we need this thing for? Scripture is diffuse and obscure and needs long study; the creed is a summary taken from it, not added to it.
• Which creed is the “symbol of the fathers”? The Nicene, since the descent into hell is only in the Apostles’ Creed.
• Have the Orthodox created a symbol or synod since Athanasius? No; their first general synod was only last year, with several churches absent.
• Do you find Amoris Laetitia Thomistic? No.