Christ's Infused Knowledge: Reasoning Step by Step, Compared with the Angels, Held as a Habit, Split into Many Habits (Summa III, Q.11, aa.3–6)

Orientation #

He picks up in mid-question, at article 3 of the question on Christ’s infused knowledge, and runs straight through articles 4, 5 and 6. The previous class treated the first two articles of the same question, on whether Christ knew all things by this knowledge and whether he understood without turning to phantasms.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3, objections: is the infused knowledge discursive? (“which means literally what bringing together”) #

He glosses collatio as literally “bringing together”: you must bring together the major and minor before you can run (discurrere) to the conclusion.

• Obj. 1 (Damascene, book III): in Christ we speak neither of counsel nor of choice — and these are excluded only insofar as they imply bringing-together in discourse.
• Obj. 2: man needs discourse to inquire into what he does not know; Christ knew all things.
• Obj. 3: Christ’s knowledge was in the manner of comprehensors, conformed to the angels (Matt. 22:30), and in angels there is no discursive knowledge — “as is clear through no less a man than Dionysius,” Divine Names.
• Sed contra: Christ had a rational soul, whose proper operation is to bring together and run from one thing to another. Aside: Shakespeare defines it by discurrere, “because that implies that you can conferre” — you define something by the ultimate; “Shakespeare knows what he’s doing.”

2. Article 3, body: acquisition vs. use (“as regards its what use”) #

Knowledge can be called discursive in two ways.

1. As to its acquiring, proceeding from one thing to another, effect through cause and the reverse. In this way Christ’s infused knowledge was not discursive, because it was given divinely, not acquired by investigation of reason.
2. As to its use: one already knowing concludes effects from causes, not learning anew but using what he has. In this way Christ’s knowledge can be discursive, since he can conclude one from another as it pleases him.

• Digression on the division of discourse: sometimes Thomas gives four — cause to effect (as in geometry), effect to cause (commonly in natural science), like to like, opposite to opposite; sometimes only the first two; and in the Posterior Analytics two demonstrations, propter quid (cause to effect) and quia (effect to cause).
• Examples of Christ syllogizing: Matt. 17, the tribute — kings take tribute from aliens, not sons, therefore the sons are free; and the question whose son Christ is — if David’s, how does David call him Lord?
• He notes his own surprise at the start: the body takes the side apparently opposite the objections, but the resolution is the acquisition/use distinction.

3. Article 3, replies (“counsel that is with what doubt”) #

1. Damascene excludes from Christ counsel with doubt, and consequently choice, which in Aristotle’s definition includes such counsel; he does not exclude the use of counselling.
2. The second argument holds only of discourse ordered to acquiring knowledge.
3. The blessed are conformed to angels as to gratuitous gifts, but a difference remains according to nature: discourse and collation are connatural to the souls of the blessed, not to angels.

• Asides: “So I’ll still be doing Euclid there in heaven” — the morning’s theorem, subtracting an odd from an even gives an odd, subtracting odd from odd gives an even; you can often guess the result before seeing the proof. Then: will there be music in heaven, and do angels, having no ears, appreciate it? Mozart — John Paul II singled out the Requiem, the Great Mass, and “the incomparable motet, the Ave Verum Corpus”; he cannot imagine anything more beautiful, though in heaven there must be.

4. Article 4: was this knowledge less than the angels’? (“a little bit less than the angels”) #

• Obj. 1: perfection is proportioned to the perfectible; the human soul is by order of nature below the angelic; Christ took a nature inferior to the angels, though not a condition inferior.
• Obj. 2: Christ’s knowledge was in some way collative, which cannot be said of angels'.
• Obj. 3: the more immaterial a knowledge, the more potent; the angels’ is more immaterial, since Christ’s soul was the act of a body (“the first act of a natural body composed of tools”) and had turning to phantasms.
• Sed contra: Heb. 2:9, “he who was made a little less than the angels… crowned with glory and honour,” going back to the psalm. Body — two considerations:

1. On the side of the cause pouring it in: Christ’s infused knowledge far exceeds the angels’, both in the multitude of things known and in the clarity/certitude, since the spiritual light poured into his soul is greater than the light of the angelic nature.
2. On the side of the subject receiving: it is below the angelic knowledge, as regards the way of knowing natural to the human soul, by conversion to images. He notes Thomas does not reply to the objections in detail here. Asides: he uses that part of the psalm as one way of dividing the six mysteries about Christ — three where he is humbled, three where he is glorified. And: “See my guardian angel… what’s he creating these images all the time for?”

5. Article 5, objections: was it habitual knowledge? (“no habitual knowledge”) #

He first notes that in God there is no habitual knowledge, only actual knowing — otherwise he would have a potency to be actualized, and an accident.

• Obj. 1: the greatest perfection befits Christ’s soul; knowledge in act is more perfect than knowledge in habit; so he should know all things in act, with no habit. (He answers in passing: but in his human nature he is not pure act — he was tired at the well in Samaria, lassus; that is in the hymn, and the old Mass’s Kyrie eleison asks mercy on the ground of that great work — “don’t let that go to waste.”)
• Obj. 2: habit is ordered to act, so a habit never reduced to act is in vain; Christ knew all things, and one cannot go through an infinity one by one. — His comment: he doubts the infused forms were infinite in number; Christ may know by one form what we know only by many. “We’re the guys that have infinity” — to think of all numbers in particular I must think two, then three. (Children: “Daddy, can you count to a hundred?"… “and if you’re the president of the states, you can count to trillions.”)
• Obj. 3: a habit of knowledge is a perfection of the knower, and perfection is nobler than the perfectible; then something created would be nobler than Christ’s soul.
• Sed contra: this knowledge of Christ was univocal to ours, since his soul is of one species with ours, and ours is in the genus of habit.

6. Article 5, body and replies (“received in the receiver in the what mode of the receiver”) #

Body: the mode of this knowledge suits the subject receiving it, from the general principle that “the received is in the receiver in the mode of the receiver” — his gloss: “that’s always a consolation to a professor,” since what the professor says is received in each student according to that receiver’s preparation. The human soul is sometimes understanding in act, sometimes in potency; the middle between pure ability and complete act is habitus, of the same genus as the extremes (Aristotle, De Anima III). So Christ’s infused knowledge was habitual — he could use it whenever he wanted. Replies:

1. There was a twofold knowledge in Christ, each most perfect in its own way: one exceeding the human mode, seeing God’s essence and other things in it — most perfect simpliciter, and not habitual but actual as to all it knows (in the beatific vision one is always seeing him as he is, never habitually); the other proportioned to human nature, by divinely poured-in species — most perfect in the genus of human knowledge only, so it need not always be in act.
2. Habits are reduced to act at the command of the will — “a habit is that by which someone acts when he wants to.” The will is related to infinite things in a not-determinate way, and this is not in vain so long as it tends actually to what is suitable to place and time. Example: “I can’t go to Euclid now… wouldn’t be appropriate at this time.” — He adds he is surprised Thomas answers this way rather than by the one-form-many-things point; and wonders why Christ did not tell us more about such things as relativity — “maybe he had more important things to inform us about.”
3. Being and good are said two ways: simply, of substance, which subsists in its being and goodness; and secundum quid, of accident, which is not that it has being, but that by it a subject has being and good. So habitual knowledge is not simply better than Christ’s soul, only secundum quid. Example: the geometry I have from Euclid is a perfection of me, not a perfection of geometry. He notes the recurring problem — accident seems to perfect substance, so is accident better? — and leaves the distinction as “a little hard to understand… we’ll leave that for the time being.”

• Digression on humour: people do not find Christ telling jokes in the Gospels, though wit is a virtue Aristotle treats in the Nicomachean Ethics and is necessary to human life; the public life was short, but in the thirty years with Joseph and Mary there must have been humour, though none is preserved. Chesterton at the end of Orthodoxy — a student says it is about God and the divine nature, something too great for him to show us. The story of Thomas and the elephant: “I’d rather believe there was an elephant going down the street than that one of my brothers could lie.”

7. Article 6: one habit or many? (“distinguished by diverse habits”) #

• Obj. 1: the more perfect a knowledge, the more one — higher angels understand through more universal forms (Prima Pars); Christ’s was most perfect, therefore most one.
• Obj. 2: our faith is derived from Christ’s knowledge (Heb. 12:2, “looking towards the author and consummator of faith”), and faith, “the substance of things hoped for,” is one habit about all things to be believed (Secunda Pars) — not one virtue about Christ’s humanity, another about his divinity, another about the Blessed Virgin.
• Obj. 3: sciences are distinguished by diverse rationes of the knowable, but Christ knew all by one, the divinely poured-in light.
• Sed contra: Zech. 3:9, upon one stone, that is Christ, there are seven eyes, understood as knowledge. Aside: a student locates the other Zechariah text, 14:9 — “the Lord will be one and his name one”; in this life many names for God, in the vision one. “Can’t neglect Zechariah. Every bit of Scripture is good for teaching, as Saint Paul says.”

8. Article 6, body and replies (“one science which is of one genus subject”) #

Body: the poured-in knowledge has the mode connatural to the human soul, which receives species in less universality than the angels, so it knows diverse specific natures (the natures of things themselves) through diverse intelligible species (in the mind). Hence in us there are diverse habits of science, since things reduced to one genus are known by the same habit — “one science is of one genus subject” (Posterior Analytics I). Therefore Christ’s infused knowledge was distinct according to diverse habits.

• Comment: man is naturally perfected by virtues, which are habits; so far as this knowledge is due to the receiver, it is fitting that there be many perfections in the manner of habits. Aside on the Secunda Secundae going through nearly all the virtues — “what a complicated thing!” — and on Thomas’s prayer after communion about removing vices and perfecting virtues; one thing wrong and everything gets fouled up, “as Shakespeare says.” Replies:

1. As said, the knowledge exceeds the angels’ on the side of God pouring in, but is below it as to the mode of the receiver; and to this mode belongs the distinction into many habits, through more particular species.
2. Our faith rests upon the first truth (as Thomas teaches at the start of the Secunda Secundae), so Christ is author of our faith according to his divine knowledge, which is simply one. He quotes the Adoro te devote: credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; nil hoc verbo veritatis verius — “nice rhyme there.”
3. The divinely poured-in light is the common reason of understanding revealed things, as the natural light is for what is naturally known; so species of singular things must be placed in Christ’s soul for knowing each by its proper knowledge, hence diverse habits. He draws the parallel: as Aristotle compares the agent intellect to light — one light, but illuminating different images yields different forms and different sciences — so the one divine light, illumining this or that particular known by this or that form, multiplies habits.

• Closing aside: “it would be interesting to talk to him.” Nixon at the Waldorf Astoria with Douglas MacArthur — there are different ways of having conversations, and with MacArthur you let him do all the talking. “Is that what a conversation with Christ would be like?”

His words #

• collatio / “bringing together” — his literal rendering; you must bring together major and minor before running to the conclusion.
• discurrere / “to run from one thing to another” — the proper operation of the rational soul.
• demonstration propter quid / quia — from cause to effect, and from effect to cause.
• counsel with doubt — what Damascene denies of Christ, as against “the use of counselling.”
• “the first act of a natural body composed of tools” — his rendering of the definition of the soul [ed.: organic body].
• “the received is in the receiver in the mode of the receiver” — the governing principle of articles 4–6.
• habitus — the middle between pure ability [ed.: potency] and complete act; “that by which someone acts when he wants to.”
• simpliciter / secundum quid — simply, vs. in some way; applied to being and good, substance and accident.
• specific natures vs. intelligible species — the natures of things themselves vs. what is in the mind.
• “one science is of one genus subject” — the principle distinguishing habits of science.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 11, a. 3 (discursive knowledge), a. 4 (compared to the angels), a. 5 (habitual), a. 6 (many habits) — objections, sed contra, body and replies throughout.
• Hebrews 2:9; Hebrews 12:2; Zechariah 3:9; Zechariah 14:9 (read out by a student).
• Matthew 17 (tribute) and the “whose son is Christ” exchange (Matt. 22, inferred).

Mentioned

• John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa III; Dionysius, Divine Names; Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I, De Anima III, Nicomachean Ethics (wit); Matt. 22:30; Summa Theologiae I (angelic forms), II-II (faith, the virtues); Thomas’s Adoro te devote and prayer after communion; Chesterton, Orthodoxy; Euclid; Mozart’s Requiem, Great Mass and Ave Verum Corpus; Bach, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

His questions #

• Is Christ’s infused knowledge discursive or “collative”? Not as to acquiring it — it was divinely given; but yes as to its use, since he can conclude one thing from another when he pleases.
• Why does Damascene deny counsel and choice to Christ? He denies counsel with doubt, and choice as defined through such counsel, not the use of counselling.
• Are the blessed like the angels in not discoursing? They are conformed as to gratuitous gifts, but by nature collation stays connatural to human souls — “So I’ll still be doing Euclid there in heaven.”
• Was this knowledge less than the angels’? Greater on the side of the light poured in (multitude and clarity), less on the side of the receiver, which knows by turning to images.
• Was it habitual, or always in act? Habitual, because the received is in the receiver according to the receiver’s mode, and habit is the human middle between potency and act — only the beatific knowledge is always actual.
• If Christ knew all things, is not a habit never fully reduced to act in vain? No: habits are used at the will’s command, and it suffices that what is suitable to place and time be reduced to act. (He would rather have argued from one form knowing many things.)
• Is habitual knowledge then nobler than Christ’s soul? Only secundum quid: substance is being and good simply, accident only as that by which a subject is good.
• One habit of knowledge, or many? Many, because the human soul receives species less universal than the angels, and diverse genera of knowables make diverse habits of science.
• If faith is one habit derived from Christ’s knowledge, must not his knowledge be one? Christ is author of faith by his divine knowledge, which rests on the first truth and is simply one.
• Do the angels appreciate music, having no ears? Left open — “maybe they could produce it for us.”