Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

The order of the present treatise is sufficiently clear from the text. Hence, descending to the first article, note in its title, first, that processio is taken commonly, without descending to this or that procession. Second, that sit is taken properly, as distinguished from esse against intelligi, that is, being in reality against being in reason. Third, that in is taken properly, as denoting the mode of being in something formaliter. Fourth, that divinis is taken most strictly, for those things that are truly God. So that the sense of the question is: Whether in God himself there is formally found, in reality, any procession.

II. In the body he does three things: first, he answers the question as to what is evident; second, he treats of two errors concerning what is hidden¹; third, he answers the question by determining and unfolding what is obscure².

III. As to the first, one thing is said about which there is no doubt, namely: that Divine Scripture uses names signifying procession when it speaks of God. For from this, given the understanding that Scripture does not speak falsely, nor speaks metaphorically in this matter, it is manifestly evident that there must be some procession in the divine and that it must be preserved. But it remains ambiguous what sort of procession that is. Hence, concerning this ambiguity, the remainder of this passage is occupied.

IV. As to the second, first the error of Arius is set forth, who said that this procession is that of an effect from a cause. And it is refuted by the authorities of Scripture. — Then the error of Sabellius is set forth, who explained this procession as that of a cause into an effect. And it is likewise refuted. Indeed, these errors are touched upon briefly here, since they have been refuted and treated more fully elsewhere, as is clear in Book IV of Contra Gentiles³.

V. As to the third, he says three things. First, preparing the way to the two kinds of procession, he lays open the blindness of each error, from the fact that, to one who considers attentively, while each of them strives to save procession in God, neither places procession in Him, but outside Him. And the cause was that each posited procession only toward what is outside.

Second, he says that a twofold kind of procession is found, namely, ad extra and ad intra. This is made clear as follows. Just as action is twofold, namely transient and immanent, so one procession is according to transient action and another according to immanent action, since every procession follows upon an action. Therefore there is some procession according to that action which is understanding. — And this consequence is proved: because procession ad intra, that is, according to immanent action, is most evident in the intellect. That this is proved: because in whatever being understands, from the very fact that it understands, there proceeds a conception of the thing understood, arising from the power of the intellective faculty and its knowledge, called the word of the heart, and signified among us by the vocal word.

Third, and last, he sets down the responsive conclusion: In God there is procession according to intelligible emanation. — And it is proved thus. God is above all things: therefore the things said of God must be understood by way of likeness, not of bodies, but of intellectual substances: therefore procession is not in him according to an action producing an exterior effect, but according to intelligible emanation. And it is confirmed: because thus the Catholic faith posits procession in the divine persons. — The first consequence is proved from the fact that bodies are the lowest of creatures, while intellect is the highest: although even intellectual substances fall short of the divine likeness. The second, however, is left as evident by induction in local motion and alteration.

VI. Concerning the foregoing, several doubts arise. First, concerning that proposition: according to immanent action there is a certain procession ad intra⁴. For, as is clear from Capreolus, at the twenty-seventh distinction of the First Book, question II⁵, Scotus, Aureolus, Durandus, Peter of Palude, and Gerard of Carmel argue against this. And the force of the argument consists in this. Between immanent and transitive action there is this difference, that by the latter something is wrought, by the former nothing: therefore the fundamental proposition collapses in the matter of divine procession. The antecedent is clear from Metaphysics IXMetaphys.⁶, and Ethics IEthic.⁷. But the consequence is self-evident. — And it is confirmed, says Durandus, because from sensing and willing nothing is produced: therefore neither from intellection. – And it is confirmed, Gerard adds, because of whatever operation there is something wrought, that thing is nobler than it: but in the case of an immanent act in the second sense of act, nothing is nobler: therefore.

VII. Concerning the same proposition another doubt arises⁸: whether the immanent act itself is itself the active production of that which is said to proceed according to it. Scotus, indeed, in distinction XXVII of the First Book, question I, holding the negative part, argues against this in three ways. First, from the reason already given⁹: because immanent operation is an ultimate act. — Second, because if intellection were a productive action of its term, it would be impossible to understand it to be, and not to be the term of it, as is clear in the case of heating and heat: but it is not impossible to understand intellection to be without its term: therefore. — Third, because thus the understanding would generate the word, and not memory: which is against Augustine¹⁰.

VIII. Concerning that proposition, namely: whoever understands, by the very fact that he understands, something proceeds within him, a doubt arises¹¹. First, because the blessed, as such, understand God, and yet do not form a word of him: therefore the said proposition is false. The antecedent is clear: because otherwise God, as the object of beatitude, could be represented by some created species; which was censured in XII q.¹² — Second, because, setting faith aside, we know that God understands: and yet from this we cannot prove that procession exists in him. Therefore this proposition is believed, and not known or understood: or it is false.

IX. Concerning the same proposition a doubt arises¹³: whether the concept of the intellect is something other than the actual intellection itself (as the letter wishes), or whether it is the same as the latter. For Scotus, in the twenty-seventh distinction of the First Book¹⁴, holds the opposite, along with many others cited there by Capreolus, qu. II¹⁵. The opponents, moreover, are divided in four ways. For some attack the very distinction from the act of understanding; others attack its true cause; still others its cause not as true but as imposed, namely for representing or knowing more perfectly; and finally others lead it to an impossibility.

And Scotus and Durandus indeed attempt to break down this very distinction by reason and authority. Scotus's reason, in the twenty-seventh distinction of the First Book, proceeds by way of division to infer that the word is an actual intellection. And since the exclusion of our way, adduced in the second doubt, was already treated¹⁶, let us now pass over it.

But Durandus argues there¹⁷ as follows. The word, or concept, consists in the character of manifesting to oneself or to another; therefore, lest there be a process to infinity, the first word, which is the word of the heart, is itself manifestation by essence; but this is the very act of intellection; therefore. — And it is confirmed: because such a thing by extrinsic denomination is reduced to such a thing intrinsically; therefore, since the character of manifesting belongs to the exterior word only extrinsically, a reduction must be made to something that intrinsically manifests by essence; but this is the act of intellection; therefore, as before. — Second, thus: whenever some power needs two forms in order to act, even when one is present it remains in essential potency, because it is in potency not only to operation but also to form. Therefore, if a word is posited, the intellect in first act will still be in essential potency. — Third, he argues in distinction VI of Book I¹⁸: because two forms of the same species would be in the same subject.

As for the other objections brought against the cause of the distinction, or against its possibility, see them, if you wish, treated one by one in Capreolus; for once what is to be said has been set forth, the solution of all of them will easily be clear to the practiced reader.

X. Concerning the other proposition, namely: the conception of the thing understood proceeds from the power of the intellect and its knowledge, there is a doubt as to what kind of knowledge is meant, whether habitual or actual¹⁹. That it is not verified of habitual knowledge, Durandus proves, in distinction XXVII of the First Book²⁰: because what is more perfect does not proceed from what is less perfect; but the intellect with only the species is less perfect than the word, or concept. — Nor does it avail to say that, although the species is less perfect than the concept, nevertheless the intellect with the species is more perfect than the concept. This, I say, is nothing. Both because, as the producer is the intellect with the species, so the product is the intellect with the word; and because the question concerns which of them is more perfect, as it were the formal principle and term of the procession, and not the composites, as appears inductively in all cases. Here, however, it is evident that the term, that is, the concept, is nobler than the species: therefore the species is not that knowledge from which it proceeds.

That there is no actual knowledge, Scotus proves in many ways, in Book I, distinction II²¹ I omit his arguments, because, as will become clear²², they are not against us.

XI. To the first doubt²³ it is said that that difference between immanent and transitive action is not to be understood so broadly as it sounds; but either with respect to necessity, or with respect to order. And according to the first gloss, the sense is: a transitive operation necessarily has a product, whereas an immanent one does not necessarily entail any product. And thus all the objections cease, as is evident. And without doubt this was the mind of the Philosopher; and it manifestly contains the truth. For from the fact that habits are generated from repeated immanent acts, it is manifestly clear that it does not conflict with an immanent action to have a work beyond itself. — According to the second gloss, however, the sense is that a transitive action has a work in such a way that it is ordered to that very work; whereas an immanent action does not have a work, because it is not ordered of itself to some work, but if at any time it has a work, that work is ordered to it.

And both of these occur in the matter at hand. For understanding does not necessarily produce a concept; nor, when it forms the concept, is it ordered to the concept, but rather conversely, the concept is ordered to the perfection of understanding itself. — Hence the response to all objections is clear. And also to Gerard's addition: for the operation is nobler when the operation is ordered per se to it the agent; but not when it is rather the other way around, as is manifestly clear in act and habit.

XII. To the second doubt²⁴ it must be said that all seem to agree on this point, that the intellectual production of the Word is to speak intellectually, except Durandus, in distinction XXVII of the First Book²⁵. But the difference of opinions lies in this, whether speaking, in its own nature, includes the act of understanding, or only the production: whether that production is some other second act, or a relation signified in the manner of a second act. For Scotus, as is clear in I, dist. II, qu. ult., and dist. XXVII²⁶, and in the Quodlibets, qu. I²⁷, distinguishes in the intellect two kinds of second act, one which is an operation, and another which is a production: and he holds that understanding is the second act which is an operation, while speaking is the second act which is a production. And he orders these two acts with respect to one another, in relation to the same principle, namely the intellect in first act, such that the intellect is naturally prior in operating than in producing or speaking. And thus, according to him, to speak, or to produce the Word, is not an act of understanding; although it is an act of the intellect.

But that this position is not fitting is urged by a single argument against the man, thus. A cause having two effects ordered to one another in such a way that neither is the cause of the other has this property: that the comparison of each to the cause is more essential than their comparison to one another, so that if—per impossibile—the first were taken away, the relation of the second to the cause would not on that account have to be denied. But the intellect in first act is as a cause having these two effects, namely understanding and speaking, ordered to one another in such a way that neither is the cause of the other. Therefore if—per impossibile—understanding were subtracted, it would not follow on that account that speaking be subtracted. And so that conditional is possible: if the intellect did not understand, it would speak—which manifestly implies a contradiction. For what would it say, if it considered nothing? — The major is Scotus's own, in II, dist. 1, qu. 1, art. 3. The minor, however, is his in the places cited above. The impossibility of the conclusion, moreover, is evident.

XIII. St. Thomas, however, everywhere²⁸ holds that to speak is to understand by expressing, or to express by understanding, in such a way that each of these belongs to its definition. And if the words of this article are considered more carefully, the intellection itself is the production of the concept; leaving aside for now whether every intellection is a production of the word or not. For the text expressly states that through the immanent action which is to understand, the concept or word proceeds: therefore there remains in him no other action distinct from understanding which would be the action or production of the concept: for if he intended a third genus of action, this whole process would collapse.

Objections are now raised against this position in two ways. For some argue that understanding is not a productive action; others, that speaking is not the same as understanding. The former have been adduced by way of raising doubt; the latter, however, since they involve notions proper to the divine persons, will be resolved in question XXXIV²⁹, where the Word will be treated of specifically. Here the discussion is in general terms. And since we are at the beginning, it is fitting that our treatment be lengthy, according to Plato's precept³⁰: so that, once the principles have been well examined, access to what remains may be easier.

XIV. To the first objection of Scotus, then, the response is already clear from what was said³¹. For this is why immanent operation is said to be and is the ultimate act, and because it does not necessarily produce a work; and because, if it does produce it, it is more for its own sake than conversely. But to the second it is said that some operation's being an action productive of its term occurs in two ways: in one way necessarily, in another way permissively. And that the conditional assumed by Scotus is not true in an action productive permissively, such as intellection, as was said in the solution of the first doubt³².

To the third objection it is replied that the term is equivocal. For intelligence, according to Augustine, does not generate the word as the formal or active principle by which, but memory does; yet this stands together with the fact that some intelligence is itself the generation of the word, as we say.

XV. To the third doubt³³ it is said that the term whoever distributes only over wayfaring human beings: for he intends, from those things that appear in us, to raise the mind to the invisible and incomprehensible things of God. For we, in understanding, always form some concept, adequate or inadequate to the first act of being, perfect or imperfect, etc. Hence the objections are not otherwise to be answered; but their conclusion must be conceded, namely that not every intellect in act must utter a word. And not only in God and the blessed, but also in the intelligences, with respect to the intellection of themselves, this seems true. For a blessed spirit can utter a partial word, but not one adequate to its vision: for it sees more than it could say by any created word. An angel, however, having itself through itself even objectively present to itself, would form a word about itself to itself in vain. Hence, speaking universally of every intellect, that proposition, whoever understands etc., is believed, not known.

XVI. To the fourth doubt³⁴, although many, with Scotus, in the twenty-seventh distinction of the First Book, respond by affirming the identity of the concept and a certain actual intellection, that is, the generated, etc., nevertheless St. Thomas, as is expressly stated below, question XXXIV, article 1, ad 2, holds that the concept is something other than the act of understanding, as the term is other than that of which it is the term.

To make this evident, it must be known that in the intellectual part, besides the powers, acts, and habits, he posited a term of the act, out of this necessity: that the object of the second act might be held present to the act itself objectively. For the object of the intellect can be present to the intellect in two ways. First, as co-principle of the act of understanding: and this comes about through the intelligible species. Second, as object: for an object, as object, does not signify a cause or principle of the act, but the term of the act. And this must come about through the concept, which is sometimes called the word and the expressed species; otherwise the object of the intellect would not be within actually, with the actuality of the second act. That the intelligible species does not suffice for this office is clear from this, because this is the office of a term, whereas there belongs to it the character of a principle. That the very act of understanding also does not suffice is proved from this, that the office of the object is not the office of the second act itself, except by reflex intellection. Hence the concept or word, in us, is a thing not intelligible but understood in act, in intentional being (esse): and it is posited out of the same necessity by which the object of the intellect is posited as actual within.

But if anyone doubts that this was the mind of St. Thomas, let him read him in I Cont. Gent., chapter LIII, and in IV, chapter XI, and in the Questions On the Power of God, question VIII, article 1, and question IX, article 5. Hence it is clear that those (among whose number Durandus seems to be, in distinction XXVII of Book I³⁵) who charge us with positing the word for the sake of a more perfect knowledge, or a more expressive representation, have spoken less well.

XVII. Note, however, and carefully, that the concept or word can be understood as the object and term of the act of understanding in two ways. In one way, insofar as it is the image of another thing, that is, according to the thing represented: that is, the very thing conceived terminates the act of understanding; and the mode of being thus spiritually within is a condition of the object as a thing and as understood. In the other way, insofar as the thing is such a being, for instance a spiritual quality, etc. And in the first way we intend the concept to be the object of the intellect in act; and not in the second, except with respect to a reflex act. Hence the collapse of all the arguments proceeding against this way is evident, both from the fact that the things themselves, for instance a lion, an ox, etc., are understood in a direct act, and not the species in the soul; and from the fact that the same what-it-is is the object of all acts of understanding; and from other considerations of this kind. For failing to distinguish between the object as a thing and the object as the image of a thing is, in this way, the cause of error. But those who distinguish these, and attend to the two aforementioned conditions of the concept, namely that it is a thing and that it is an image, using that proposition of Aristotle in On Memory and Recollection³⁶: the motion toward the image is the same as that toward the thing of which it is the image, easily resolve everything, and explain in what sense it is said that the word is the object, etc. And since the act of understanding and the concept are and are not together, so too together they are and are not the principle of something: so that, just as the act of understanding can happen to be the cause of another act of understanding or of willing, so also the concept: for they are reckoned as one with respect to acting.

XVIII. To Scotus's argument to the contrary, however, there is no need to respond otherwise: for it has been answered in the second doubt³⁷.

But against Durandus it is said that the first argument errs in four ways. First, in its foundation. For manifestative esse, although it belongs to the notion of the word, does not do so as a constitutive difference of it, since it belongs also to what is not a word; as is clear if we consider God with respect to the absolute attributes only, as the philosophers do; for we would understand all things to be manifested by simple intellection, without a concept. – Second, because the notion of the manifestative, since it is ordered to what is manifested, signifies only a relation of reason. Hence it will be said below³⁸ that the Father manifests himself, and the Holy Spirit, and all things, by his word. – Third, because manifestative esse does not belong to the word in just any way whatever; but as a manifestative esse expressed by another, as will become clear below³⁹. Hence the reduction must not be made to manifestation simply, through the essence, but to manifestation expressed by another. Now such is not intellection, which, as is shown in question XXXIV,⁴⁰ is acknowledged not to include being from another. – Fourth, because, unless we abuse words, if the word is manifestative of the thing spoken, then manifestation is consequently nothing other than the very utterance of the word. But it is clear that the word ought not to be reduced to utterance in that order of reduction by which the participant is reduced to that which is such through its essence, of which the objector speaks. The external word, therefore, must be reduced to the internal, as the dependent to that on which it depends: and among the words of the heart, every created word is reduced to the divine word, which alone is such through its essence, according to that saying: and the Word was God⁴¹.

To the second it is answered that the major premise is not true, unless the form of the water is prior to the act; but the concept is a form, not prior to, but terminating the act, as is clear from what has been said⁴².

To the third, it is said that the concept, the act, and the species are not forms of the same species in their being; rather, the species is the completing element of the subject, the act is the esse, and the concept is the object: although in representing or attaining—that is, objectively—all are of the same account, as partial elements concurring toward one complete being in act of such a kind, etc.

XIX. To the fifth doubt⁴³ it must be said that there are three opinions here. The first is that the knowledge which concurs in the production of the concept, or word, as the form by which an agent acts, is a second act, namely understanding itself. And Henry seems to follow this way⁴⁴. – The second is that such knowledge is only like a first act. And Scotus seems to follow this way, in I, dist. II, q. VII. – The third is that knowledge is necessarily in the manner of a first act, yet contingently it is sometimes actual understanding. And this is the way of St. Thomas.

For the evidence of this, know from Qq. de Ver., qu. IV, art. 2, that the knowledge from which a concept proceeds can be threefold, according to the threefold mode in which actual knowledge is caused in us. The first is quasi-habitual, that is, by way of first act: for understanding comes about from first act. The second is complex knowledge of the principles: for knowing itself comes about from it. The third is simple understanding of the prior quiddity: for it comes about from the very knowledge of the posterior. And since these latter modes regard such a concept, and not a concept absolutely, therefore, speaking absolutely and per se, a concept proceeds only from knowledge by way of first act. Yet such a concept can proceed from elsewhere. Hence one need not be much concerned here.

XX. To Durandus's argument, however, it must be said that species or habit and act can be compared in two ways: in one way, with respect to their mode of being; in another way, with respect to specification. For each of these is found in either of them. If they are compared in the first way, then act is nobler than habit or species, as is said in I Ethic.⁴⁵ And the reason is that act is simply an act, whereas those things have a mode of being intermediate between act and potency. And this is nothing other than saying that the thing known is present to the soul in a nobler way when it is present in second act than when it is present by a habit or first act; and the soul stands in a nobler relation when it reaches the thing through act than through habit. Nor, with respect to the aforementioned mode of being, is act produced by the species, but by the intellect. — But if they are compared in the second way, then, speaking with respect to the same object, they are of equal nobility. And thus an act adequate to its species flows from it as an effect from a univocal cause: for the act has what makes it such from the formal principle, which is the species, as happens also in other cases. — And so the solution to Durandus's argument is clear: an argument which fought not only against us but against Aristotle himself.

XXI. Concerning the second consequence leading to the principal conclusion⁴⁶, a doubt arises: because it is false that procession according to action toward something outside is proper to the lowest creatures, namely bodies. For it is evident that the intellectual substances themselves proceed from God according to action toward something outside. And thus the course of the argument seems falsely to rest upon its foundation.

To this doubt it is briefly answered that proceeding according to an action directed outward seems to be counted in the text among bodily processions, not on the ground that it is found only in bodily things, but because it is so common as to be found even in bodies, and in these bodily things it shines forth more manifestly. For the procession must be of very little worth which befits every being whatsoever, however lowly. Wherefore in the matter at hand, where processions are graded, it was rightly counted among the bodily ones, as the lowest; and, once excluded from the proper mode of procession found in intellectual substances, which hold the highest place in the universe.

XXII. In response to the third objection, take care not to be hasty in concluding from those words that a real procession is contained in the notion of the first principle: a procession which the faith posits absolutely. But how this is to be understood will be made clear below, question XLV, article 6.