Thomas as Teacher of Things and Words; Q.2, Art. 9: The Greatest of Unions, and Things That Differ Only in Thought

Orientation #

He begins “up to the ninth one”, i.e. after article 8 of question 2 (prev. lecture), and announces no next topic beyond that he will “take off here”. He refers back to “that comparative study” on the distinction of reason between the Father and the divine nature, and to Prima Pars on God being one. The previous class treated q. 2, aa. 7-8 on whether the union is created and how union differs from assumption; the next moves to De Potentia on generation, creation and grace.

The class, in order #

1. Thomas teaches things or teaches words (“Whoever teaches, either he teaches things”) #

Point: from Thomas’s exposition of Psalm 48 he takes a “simple but profound” division of teaching, and uses it to place Thomas’s works.

• Teaching things (res) vs. teaching words (verba): what is “up front”. One who teaches things uses words, and one who explains words must talk about what the words signify; what separates them is what is up front. Faith and morals (dogmatic and moral theology) teach things: that is the Summa Theologiae, and its things are mainly God and the Incarnation. Exposition of Scripture teaches words: the words of John, Matthew, Paul.
• Student: but you want to explain the realities of the words. Answer: obviously, but what is up front is John’s words, and one does not go into the things.
• Boundary case: Dionysius (the pseudo-Areopagite) is “in between”. His book is De Divinis Nominibus, about the divine names, not De Deo; since his books are divided by proper names of God, metaphorical names and so on, he is closer to verba.
• Why such a book arises: God is said to be good, or metaphorically fire, in many places of Scripture; rather than repeat everything each time, treat the word “good” in one book and the metaphors in another. Cornelius a Lapide does the same when he says he has explained “fire” more fully at Acts (the Holy Spirit as fire).
• Thomas teaches both (Summa, Contra Gentiles, Compendium, Catechetical Instructions vs. commentaries on Matthew, John, Paul) and is praised for both; the first page of the handout treats him as teacher of res, the second as teacher of verba.

2. Vatican II on the order of dogmatic theology (“first these biblical themes are proposed”) #

Point: the Council’s decree on priestly training gives three stages of dogmatic theology, and Thomas belongs to the third.

1. Biblical themes proposed first.
2. What the Fathers of the East and West contributed to transmitting and unfolding singulas revelationis veritates. He stresses “singulas”: the Fathers have an ad hoc character, defending this article against the heretic who denied it; then the history of dogma in relation to the history of the Church and the councils.
3. The mysteries of salvation integre, as a whole, as opposed to singulas; quantum fieri potest illustrando, bringing them into the light by speculation, with Thomas as teacher, to penetrate them more intimately and see their connection. He restates the three reasons for Thomas as teacher: to cast light on the mysteries as a whole as far as possible; to penetrate them more inwardly; to see their connection.

3. Leo XIII on Thomas as teacher of words (“fresh and welcome progress in the study of the Bible”) #

Point: Providentissimus Deus, “the first encyclical on Scripture” on the Vatican site, gives a view of the whole (Fathers, Scholastics, moderns) the later ones lack, and praises the Scholastics for:

• the accurate distinction of the senses of the sacred words. He objects to translating sensus literalis as “literal sense”, since that excludes metaphors, which belong to the sense of the letter: “the Lord is a rock” means not that he is a rock but what the author means by calling him one, stable support. Then the spiritual sense, which the Summa at the beginning of question one divides into three.
• the assignment of the value of each sense in theology;
• division of books into parts with summaries: Matthew, represented by the man because he stresses Christ’s humanity, divided into Christ coming into this world, proceeding through it, leaving it, then subdivided;
• investigation of the writers’ objects (Greek skopos);
• the connection of sentence with sentence and clause with clause, throwing light on obscure passages. “The greatest name among them all is Saint Thomas Aquinas. So I rest my case. We won’t throw him out.”

4. Aside: the two objects of hope (“Hope has two objects”) #

Reading Thomas on hope: its objects are eternal life (seeing God face to face) and doing so by God’s help. Theology, the science by which faith is engendered, nourished, strengthened and defended, prepares hope: as God is the Omega, end of all things and especially of the rational creature, he is hope’s first object; as the Alpha, beginning, with his omnipotence and mercy singled out, he is the second. Mercy and hope go together, as in the Hail Holy Queen (“Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope”); Sister Faustina probably has something on it, “but I don’t claim to be an expert on her”.

5. Article 9: objections and sed contra (“greatest of unions”) #

Point: whether the union of the two natures is the greatest of all unions.

• Obj. 1: “united” falls short of “one” (united by participation, one essentially); in created things something is simply one, especially the one that is the beginning of number; so this union is not the greatest unity. His gloss: “can’t get more one than one.”
• Obj. 2: the more distant the things united, the less the union; divine and human nature are infinitely distant; so this is the least of unions (minima). Joke: things infinitely apart must be “barely united, by a string, a definitely long string.”
• Obj. 3: soul and body make something one in person and in nature; divine and human nature make something one only in person; so the union of soul and body is more.
• Sed contra, Augustine, De Trinitate I: man is more in the Son than the Son in the Father; but the Son is in the Father by unity of essence, man in the Son by the union of incarnation; so that union is more than the unity of the divine essence, which is the greatest of unities. He calls it “a little strange” and says Thomas will reply to the sed contra itself.

6. Thomas’s response and reply to obj. 1 (“on the side of those things which are joined”) #

Point: union is a joining of things out of which one is formed in something one, so it can be taken on two sides.

• On the side of that in which they are joined: the unity of the divine person is maxima, so this union has preeminence. On the side of the things joined: no preeminence; the natures remain distinct and infinitely distant. Example: Christ’s “Why call me good? God alone is good” shows him aware of the difference between himself as God and as man.
• Reply to obj. 1 rests on what “one” is. Plato and Avicenna mixed up the one that is the beginning of number with the one convertible with being; Aristotle first saw the distinction, and Thomas with his help, “most people since him have not.”
  1. The unity of a divine person (not a human person) is a unity subsisting by itself, not received by partaking, complete in itself.
  2. So it lacks the notion of part, which numerical unity has, being a part of a number and partaken of in numbered things.
  3. So the incarnation exceeds numerical unity by reason of the person, not of the human nature, which is not the person’s unity but united to it.
• Student: is he saying one is a unit, a part of a number? Answer: he is saying the one that begins number is less one than the divine person; go back to the Prima Pars on God being one. One convertible with being means undivided being, so to be most one is to be most being and most undivided; the divine person subsists per se and has more being than the unit, while number as the arithmetician considers it exists fully only in the mind (though number is also an accident).
• Example, “white geometry”: there is something by which I am white (a color) and something by which I am a geometer (a science), but nothing by which I am a white geometer, and no way of becoming one; so it hardly has being (Aristotle praises Plato for saying sophistry is about non-being, the accidental), and correspondingly hardly unity: color and geometry are one only per accidens, because they belong to the same man, and do not come together to make anything. Contrast: body and soul make one man, and I am “very much a man, but not much a white geometer.” Lesson: as a thing is in being, so is it in unity; the first case of accidental being is also the first case of accidental unity.
• The one that begins number belongs to quantity, from division of the continuous; a point is very much one but does not exist by itself. Against the student who doubts points: bodies do not go on forever, so there is a surface; surface ends in a line; line ends in a point; so they exist in some way. But you cannot cut a point off a line, nor cut a line (length without width) off a table. So this one, like the point, does not subsist.
• Aside: “you probably get special studies in black geometry at Harvard.”

7. Replies to obj. 2, obj. 3 and the sed contra (“in some way, is more in the Son”) #

• Obj. 2: Thomas sees some truth in it; it proceeds on the side of the things joined. “Hypostatic union” means union in the hypostasis, the person of the Word; on that side greatest, on the side of the natures, which form no one nature, not.
• Obj. 3: the unity of a divine person is greater than the unity of person and nature in us; so the union of the incarnation is greater than that of soul and body.
• Sed contra supposes something false, that the union of incarnation is greater than the unity of the divine person in the essence. Human nature is not more in the Son of God than the Son in the Father, but much less. But “this man” is in some way more in the Son than the Son in the Father, in that the same suppositum is meant by “man” (taken for Christ) and “Son of God”, one person; while Father and Son are two persons. In that respect only, more union. Since the Son is the same thing as the divine nature and that nature is in the Father, Father and Son are more one, though two persons.
• Student: is Thomas correcting Augustine or giving a benevolent interpretation? Answer: that is how Thomas understands him; someone as great as Augustine you understand in a way that makes sense. The student admits the sed contra “didn’t sound right” this morning.
• Aside on reading the wiser with reverence: Thomas does the same with Aristotle on God’s knowledge. Aristotle shows God’s knowledge must be of God; some conclude God knows only God, which is ridiculous, since in at least two places Aristotle rejects Empedocles’ view (we know hate by having hate in us; God has no hate, so would not know it) precisely because we would know something God does not. So Thomas reads Aristotle as saying what God knows chiefly, not all he knows. Thomas will not, like Augustine in his retractions, [unclear in recording].

8. Affirming of one, denying of the other: real or rational distinction (“the second figure syllogism a lot in theology”) #

Point: the reply depends on the merely rational distinction between the Father and the divine nature (God altogether simple; Father and Son really distinct), and this raises a logical rule he wants to test.

• Second-figure syllogisms, used constantly in theology, always conclude negatively by affirming of one what is denied of the other. Objection recalled: the Son is generated, the divine nature is not, so they are not the same. Thomas: a distinction follows, but either real or of reason. “That’s a very subtle thing.”
• “Being kind of a crafty fellow,” he tries the same on philosophy:
  • Being and good. Good is said of all, though there are bad things, because the bad is a privation, a lack: non-being of what a subject can and should have (Augustine exaggerates: sin is nothing, the sinner becomes nothing). Being divides by the figures of predication (substance, quantity, quality, relation) and into act and ability; ability is for act, so act is better, but ability is good as related to act; hence being as such is good. Then the syllogism: good is the opposite of bad; being is the opposite of non-being, not of bad; therefore being is not good. “I’ve never seen Thomas do this.” It shows a distinction, but not which kind. De Veritate, opening question: these most universal names are convertible but not synonyms; good is “what all want”, from De Anima’s “the soul is in some way all things”, so being means what is, good what is desirable. They differ in meaning, not in thing.
  • Simpler: Euclid calls the factors of a number its sides. The number whose sides are 3 and 4 and the number whose sides are 2 and 6 are the same number, but 3 and 4 are not 2 and 6; one has an odd and an even side, the other two even sides; something is affirmed of one and denied of the other because of different definitions, not different numbers. Student adds: twelve inches and one foot, same length, known differently (and if I call it twelve inches I mean to cut it into inches).
  • Being and knowable. Aristotle, ninth book of wisdom: ability is known through act, act through itself; so all being is knowable. Converse: can I know nothing? Only by giving “nothing” being of reason; the Greeks’ “nothing comes from nothing” means something by “nothing”, a being of reason, not a contradiction. Convertibility means every A is B and every B is A. Then: knowable is the opposite of unknowable, being is not; so not the same, but the difference is in thought.
  • God: “I am who am” and Christ’s “He alone is good” are the same thing, two thoughts.
  • Divine mind and will: the will chooses, the mind does not choose, so they are not the same; but they must be one in God. The distinction in thought comes from starting with creatures, where mind and will are really distinct. “So we have two thoughts about one thing.”
  • Square and cube: 64 is 8×8 and 4×4×4, both; 8 is only cube, 9 only square; the definitions differ but one number can be both. First square 4, first cube 8, next square 9, next cube 27. Euclid: between two squares one mean proportional, between two cubes two (8, 12, 18, 27 in ratio 2:3); two numbers both square and cube would have both. Contrast: odd and even, prime (measured only by one, one not being a number) and composite never coincide; but square and cube, first seen as separate, later coincide. Comparison (“limps like every comparison”): creatures are like 4 and 8, God like 64, both square and cube; man’s soul, where mind and will are two things, is the gateway to God, where they are one.
• Aside: Euclid, after book five on proportion, shows that regular figures like pentagons on the sides of a right triangle equal the pentagon on the hypotenuse, as with squares; “you realize the power he’s got.” Proportions dominate understanding in dialectic and philosophy. He leaves early to go to the window, “so I get a rush.”

His words #

• res / verba: things taught vs. words explained; what is “up front”.
• singulas / integre: article by article (Fathers) vs. as a whole (Thomas).
• illustrando: bringing into the light, speculation.
• sense of the letter: his rendering of sensus literalis, refusing “literal sense” so as to include metaphor.
• skopos: the object or aim of a sacred writer.
• minima union: the least of unions (obj. 2).
• hypostatic union: union in the hypostasis, the person of the Word.
• one: undivided being; convertible with being vs. the one that begins number, “the unit”.
• per se subsistence: the divine person’s unity, not received by partaking.
• ability [ed.: potency]; act.
• privation / lack: non-being of what a subject can and should have.
• figure of predication [ed.: category].
• convertible: every A is B and every B is A; distinct from synonyms.
• distinction of reason: difference in thought or meaning, not in thing.
• sides of a number (Euclid): factors.
• ninth book of wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics IX].
• mean proportional.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 2, a. 9 (objections, sed contra, response, replies).
• Thomas, Exposition of Psalm 48 (teaching things or words).
• Vatican II, decree he calls De Institutione Sacerdotali, passage on the order of dogmatic theology.
• Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, on the Scholastics and Thomas.

Mentioned

• Augustine, De Trinitate I (sed contra); Augustine’s retractions; “sin is nothing”.
• Dionysius, De Divinis Nominibus; Cornelius a Lapide on “fire”.
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Compendium of Theology, Catechetical Instructions, commentaries on Matthew, John, Paul; Summa I q. 1 on the senses of Scripture; Prima Pars on God being one; Thomas on hope (omnipotence and mercy); De Veritate, opening question.
• Aristotle, De Anima (“the soul is in some way all things”); Metaphysics IX; two passages against Empedocles.
• Euclid, Elements: sides of a number, square and cube, mean proportionals, odd/even, prime/composite, book five and regular figures on a right triangle.
• Mark/Luke “Why call me good?”, Exodus “I am who am”, Hail Holy Queen, Acts (Pentecost fire).

His questions #

• Whoever teaches, does he teach things or words, and which does the Summa teach? Things: God, the Incarnation; the Scripture commentaries teach words.
• Why does Thomas’s Summa say it is about God, while Dionysius’s book is about the divine names? Dionysius is in between but closer to verba, since his books are divided by names.
• Isn’t the one that begins number more one than this union? No: the divine person is a self-subsisting unity, not a part of a number.
• How can you unite things infinitely apart? On the side of the natures the union is not greatest; on the side of the person it is.
• Is there anything called white geometry, and can one become a white geometer? No; so it hardly has being, and hardly unity; as a thing is in being, so in unity.
• Is he correcting Augustine or giving a benevolent interpretation? Reading him with reverence, Thomas takes him to mean one person vs. two persons.
• If the Son is generated and the divine nature is not, aren’t they different things? A distinction follows, but of reason only.
• Is the number whose sides are 3 and 4 the number whose sides are 2 and 6? The same number, known by different definitions.
• Are being and knowable convertible, and can I know nothing? Convertible; nothing is known only as a being of reason.
• Does the divine mind choose, or only the divine will? Only the will; yet they are one in God, two thoughts about one thing.