Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, possit without a special miracle, insofar as this concerns this life: and the term possit is not taken to mean that it does not involve a contradiction.

II. In the body, one conclusion, answering the question in the negative: God cannot be seen through His essence by a mere human being in this mortal life. – Where note two terms: ly mere, on account of Christ, who was at once wayfarer and comprehensor; ly mortal, on account of the state of human beings after the resurrection, in which the body will not impede the vision of God through essence.

The conclusion is proved in two ways. First a priori. The mode of cognition follows the mode of the nature that knows: therefore, the mode of being of our soul by which it is in a mortal body entails knowing forms in matter, or through them: therefore, in such a state it cannot see God through essence. – The antecedent, together with the first inference, is evident: because this knowing is a certain mode of knowing, especially with respect to things above us. The second inference, however, is proved: because through no created species or nature can God be seen.

Second it is proved by a sign. The more our soul is abstracted from bodily things, the more capable it becomes of abstracted intelligibles; therefore elevation to the highest of intelligibles, which is the divine essence, requires separation from this mortal life. – The antecedent is made manifest: because in dreams and in alienations from the senses of the body, divine revelations are perceived more, and foreknowledge of things to come.

III. Against the sign brought forward in the text, Scotus inveighs, in IV, dist. XLV, qu. II. Against the dream, in two ways. First, because then, the deeper the sleep would be, the more such things would be seen. This is false. Therefore. The consequence is proved: because then there is a greater abstraction from the senses. – Second, because it seems a greater miracle that truth is revealed in sleep than in waking, when the intellect is not too intent upon sensible things: since it is natural to have the use of reason in waking, but not in sleep.

But he inveighs against ecstasies, because this foundation seems to have been taken from the fictions of Mohammed, who is said to have been epileptic, and, in order to conceal his misery, claimed that he had to fall while an angel was speaking to him, etc. Hence Avicenna, fearing for his law, taught in his metaphysics these things about ecstasies.

IV. To make these things evident, know first, from St. Thomas, in Qu. de Ver., qu. XII, art. 9, and IIa IIae, qu. CLXXII, art. 1¹, that two things concur to cognition, namely reception and judgment. As regards the reception of things knowable, abstraction from the senses is of help; as regards judgment, however, it is not. For we perceive better the subtle impressions of higher things when they are at rest; but we cannot judge perfectly unless a resolution has been made as to whether they accord with sensible things, as is said in III Caeli² and VI Ethic.³ Hence the text always uses terms pertaining to reception, namely to be capable of receiving and to perceive.

Know secondly that, since the discussions to be understood must fall beneath the genus of which we are speaking, and here we are speaking of our intellect, and consequently of phantasy in act (because the one understanding must contemplate phantasms), it manifestly follows that here we are not speaking of any abstraction whatsoever from bodily things, but of what lies within the breadth of intellect in act.

V. And from these all things⁴ are resolved. For it is clear that the first objection is of no force: because deep sleep draws one outside the breadth of the intellect in act. – And likewise, although the judgment of truth in sleep is the greater miracle, the reception is not. – And it is the same with judgment in all alienations, from whatever source they come. For if they are drawn from within the breadth of the intellect in act, then the more the phantasy is occupied with spiritual things in ministering to the intellect, the more capable the intellect is of higher intelligibles, as being nearer and less disturbed. And from this it comes about that some of the melancholics are altogether devoid of knowledge of higher things: namely, because they have their phantasy so disturbed that the intellect cannot be in act; as happens in children on account of moisture. Others speak much of higher things and predict truths, others little; according as the interior powers are hindered more or less, and according as they have their phantasms better disposed, and according as the phantasms in these are of higher things than in those, etc.

Nor are these things from the law of Muhammad, as this man did not fear to say here; but from natural philosophy, from experience, from Sacred Scripture, and from the sacred doctors. And concerning philosophy and experience it has been said: although the authorities of the philosophers are not lacking in On Sleep and Waking⁵. Sacred Scripture, moreover, is full of visions in dreams. Indeed, in Numbers XII⁶ God promises that He will speak to the prophets in dreams; and in Joel II⁷ it is said, among the effects of the Holy Spirit, they shall dream dreams, etc. Augustine also, in book XII of the Literal Commentary on Genesis⁸, says: it befits the human soul, insofar as it is abstracted from the senses, to foresee things to come. Gregory also, in book IV of the Dialogues⁹, teaches this same thing; indeed, he says that this befits the soul either from the subtlety of nature or from the revelation of those above. Let this presumptuous voice therefore be silent: this is a most Christian doctrine, and at the same time philosophical.