Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

WE PRESUPPOSE that it is not the same for a term or the thing it signifies to be common and to be universal, as St Thomas expressly teaches in Sentences I, To Hannibald, d. 19, q. 4, a. 2, ad 2¹: “Universal is not the same as common. They differ because common, of itself, does not determine whether what is communicated to many is numerically the same or not; but universal does determine this, because it is never numerically the same in many.” Likewise, in Summa theologiae I, q. 30, a. 4, ad 3, he says that “in God there is no particular and universal, genus and species”; nevertheless, in q. 13, a. 9, he counts God among common terms.

This is clear in the vague individual, which is a common term, as “some man.” It has supposition not singular but common and determinate; yet it is not universal, because it cannot be distributed, and the thing signified does not wholly abstract from individuating conditions. Rather it signifies a common nature together with a mode of individuation that is not perfectly singularized, which prevents it from being universal although it is common. Hence St Thomas says in De potentia, q. 9, a. 2, ad 1², that just as a name signifying a nature is common and definable, so is a name signifying a nature with a certain mode of existing, such as “some man.”

THE ANSWER TO THE PROPOSED DIFFICULTY, THEN, IS that for something to be common to many, it is not required that many individuals actually or possibly exist in reality. It is enough that from the mode of conceiving it be conceived as communicable to many; a term signifying that nature in this way is called common.

That a plurality of actually existing individuals is not required is plainly taught by St Thomas in Metaphysics VII, lect. 13³, explaining Aristotle’s definition of universal, “what is naturally apt to be in many.”⁴ He notes that it says “naturally apt to be in many,” not “is in many,” because there are universals that contain beneath them only one singular, such as the sun and the moon. “This,” St Thomas says, “is not because the nature of the species is not of itself naturally apt to exist in many, but because something else prevents it, such as the whole nature of the species being comprised in one individual.” This teaching also applies to natures for which a plurality of individuals is impossible, as Thomists commonly hold of angels; we shall discuss this below in the question on species.⁵

That the mode of knowing suffices to constitute something as common is taken from St Thomas himself, Summa theologiae I, q. 13, a. 9. He teaches that if we knew simple forms as they are in themselves, we would not apprehend them as common or communicable either through or by reason of them. But because they are apprehended in the manner of composite things, and not adequately as they are in themselves, they are apprehended as communicable insofar as the mode of signifying and knowing is concerned, even if they are not communicable in reality. For this reason we said in book I of the Summulae, ch. 7, with many others, that a common term is one that signifies many distributively, that is, communicably in many, either by reason of the thing signified or by the mode of conceiving. In this way the name “God” is a common term by its mode of signifying.

When reality itself contains a plurality of things sharing a likeness in some common aspect, something is taken as common on the side of the thing signified. But when reality contains neither plurality nor likeness among many, the thing signified itself directly and per se provides no foundation for conceiving a common nature. It does so indirectly, however, since it is not impossible to conceive such a nature inadequately and imperfectly, without apprehending its singularity but only its nature, as one does with things in which the nature is multiplied. By this mode of conceiving, that nature and the term signifying it are called common.

Does this alone suffice for a nature to be called universal, as genus or species, especially with predicable, logical universality? We shall answer below in the question on species, where this will be discussed more fully in connection with angels. For now it is enough to say that for something to be universal and predicable of many, it is not enough to conceive it as common by setting singularity aside negatively. It must abstract from inferiors in such a way that it can also be contracted to them by adding an inferior difference to a superior nature. This cannot occur without some potentiality in what is conceived as contractible to what is conceived as contracting. For a created nature to be apprehended with potentiality is not repugnant to it, but altogether fitting; consequently logical universality is not repugnant to it. The divine nature, however, cannot be conceived with any potentiality, even if its perfections are conceived inadequately. It can therefore be conceived as common without singularity, but not as contractible and universal.

AND IF YOU SAY that it is also repugnant to pure act to be conceived without singularity and as common to many: a concept representing only the nature and not singularity is conceived as multiplicable by its mode of signifying, and therefore as contractible and in potency to singularity.

The answer is to deny the antecedent. For the divine nature to be conceived without singularity, it is not required that it be conceived with some potentiality; it is enough that we conceive it inadequately, as its quiddity alone and not its mode or singularity. So we conceive the nature without the persons and one attribute without another—not because we conceive it as in potency to them, since it actually includes them, but because it does not actually express them. But for the same nature to be conceived as contractible and multiplicable into many singulars, it must be conceived not only as not expressing singularity, but also as not including singularity, or as existing in potency to it. This is repugnant to the concept of pure act. Although it is conceived as common to many by its mode of signifying, it is not conceived as multiplicable by contraction and the addition of a contracting difference. It is conceived as common to many by its mode of signifying without expressing a mode of multiplication through potentiality. Universality requires indifference to many things that contract and add to the common concept; addition presupposes that what is added is lacking in the thing to which it is added, and this implies potentiality. To leave singularity unexpressed and so remain common, it is enough that our concept is limited and does not represent everything.

BUT IF YOU INSIST: then analogues would not be called universals, because they cannot abstract perfectly from their inferiors so that the latter are not actually included in their differences, as we shall say below in treating analogy.⁶

It is confirmed because the complex term “Peter and Paul” has the force of a common term when “and” is taken distributively, as we said in the Summulae⁷, and functions like a distributing universal, since it distributes the following term in a proposition, as when I say “Peter and Paul is an animal.” Yet it does not abstract from those individuals. Therefore abstraction of this kind is not required for the nature of a universal.

The answer is that analogues with two concepts behave like equivocal terms, which are not universals because they lack unity of concept. If they have one concept, because they do not abstract perfectly from their inferiors, they are not perfectly universal, since they lack perfect unity; rather, their unity is proportional, and they are reduced to the universal. For the universal is adequately divided into the five predicables, and an analogue is neither genus nor species nor any other predicable; therefore it is not per se a universal. Still, it does not contain its inferior differences actually in the way God contains singularity and attributes: it contains them confusedly and imperfectly, not in pure act as God does.

To the confirmation, that complex term has the force of a common term with respect to its component parts, insofar as it applies the predicate said of it distributively to those parts, or to each of them. Because it supposes for each, it is said to have the nature of a common term and a distributing universal, as it were by its mode of signifying. It does not, however, have all the conditions of a universal term, much less of a thing taken universally, which abstracts one nature from many. The complex term does not signify this nature; nevertheless, in its own way it abstracts complexly from many, insofar as the complex whole signified abstracts confusedly from the parts signified determinately and without composition.

FINALLY, YOU WILL INSIST: It is repugnant for the true God to be common to many, even by the mode of signifying. If the mode of signifying is true, it must conform to the mode of being; but it is repugnant for there to be a true God who is not one and singular. Therefore it is repugnant that he be taken as common by a true mode of signifying.

It is confirmed because Peter can never be conceived as common, since he is essentially and intrinsically singular. But God is much more intrinsically singular than Peter; therefore it is still more repugnant for him to be conceived as common. For although one attribute in God can be apprehended without another, it cannot be apprehended with an opposite attribute: he may be considered without mercy, but not with cruelty. Therefore, although he may be considered without singularity, he cannot be considered with commonness to many.

The answer is that God, as adequately known and in the mode in which he is in himself, cannot be conceived as common. But when known inadequately and in the manner of a composite thing, he is conceived as common by the mode of knowing, although not as communicable in reality. The mode of signifying and knowing does conform to the mode of being as regards affirmation and negation, so as to be true or false; but as regards the mode of representation it does not follow the mode of being that exists in things, but the mode in which a thing is presented to cognition. Thus if the intellect conceiving God in a common mode judged that God is common, it would be mistaken; but in representing and apprehending him without singularity, in the manner of a common thing, it is not mistaken. Hence St Thomas says in Summa theologiae I, q. 13, a. 9, ad 2, that “names follow the mode of being that is in things, but the mode of being insofar as it is in our cognition; and yet, according to the truth of the thing, that name is incommunicable.” For in representing, the mode of knowing does not always conform to the mode of being, except when it conceives the thing as it is in itself; in judging, however, it always conforms to the mode of being if the judgment is true. Thus God is represented in a common mode, but is not affirmed to be communicable.

To the confirmation, singularity is more essential to God than to Peter on the side of the thing known, but not on the side of the mode of signifying. Peter signifies only the singularity of a nature, so by the force of that name he cannot be conceived as common. God, however, does not directly signify singularity but the divine nature, to which singularity belongs essentially, as do the other attributes, from which an inadequate concept nevertheless abstracts. Hence St Thomas says in Summa theologiae I, q. 13, a. 9, ad 2, that “God is an appellative name and not a proper one”; and in a. 8 he says it is a name of the nature. It is therefore not a name of singularity, although that nature is singular in itself. Nor is this to apprehend the nature together with something opposed to it, since commonness, which is opposed to singularity, is not attributed to it; rather, by the mode of knowing, it is represented without singularity in the manner of a common thing. Cruelty cannot follow from the mode of knowing in God; if it is apprehended in him, it is by attribution of that form, which is always false.