Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

152 After we have examined the first argument of St. Thomas, the force of the second must be disclosed, and for this purpose we raise the present difficulty.

§ UNICUS. Decision of the Difficulty.

It must therefore be said that the second argument of the Angelic Doctor—and consequently the impossibility of the aforementioned impressed species—is sufficient proof. Thus do the disciples whom he cites, dub. 4. The assertion is proved by adducing the aforementioned argument, which the Saint Doctor proposes in these words: The essence of God is His very being, as was shown above, which cannot belong to any created form. Therefore no created form can be a likeness representing to the one who sees the essence of God.

153 Opponents meet this argument by saying that just as in us, a species, which is an accident, can represent a substance quidditatively, so also an impressed and created species, although it is not its own being, can represent quidditatively and clearly God, who is His own being.

Nevertheless, this solution remains sufficiently refuted by what we said in the preceding difficulty. For precisely because that species could not represent God quidditatively, as God is His own being, it could not have its own being in the representational being; and precisely because it has this in the representational being, it is most aptly inferred that it must also have its own being in entitative being, and conversely, as is established from the first objection brought against the solution of Suárez in the preceding difficulty. Hence, from the fact that a created form having that actuality according to its entitative being is repugnant, St. Thomas most aptly inferred that such a form cannot represent God, who is His own being.

154 Next, the same solution is refuted, and at the same time St. Thomas’s argument is elucidated, on the supposition, according to the common opinion of the Doctors, that just as an intellectual power which reaches an object quidditatively and clearly by the mode of a simple and perfect power has it by its own merits, and consequently reaches it connaturally, so also an intelligible species, which represents an object quidditatively and clearly by its own merits, naturally represents it, since what belongs to the species by its own merits must also belong to it connaturally.

From this, therefore, the following objection follows, and St. Thomas’s argument is further elucidated. For it is repugnant that an intellectual power should reach some object quidditatively and clearly by the mode of a simple and perfect power, and consequently connaturally, if it be surpassed by that object in the degree of immateriality and actuality: therefore it will likewise be repugnant that an impressed species should represent some object in the same way if it be surpassed by that object in immateriality and actuality. Therefore, since it is repugnant that there should be a created form not surpassed by God in the degree of immateriality and actuality, it will likewise be repugnant that by its own force, and consequently naturally, it should represent Him quidditatively and clearly as He is in Himself.

155 The antecedent is proved. For when, as Aristotle testifies in the second and third books of de Anima (whom all philosophers follow), knowledge requires that the known be in the knower, we must conclude that for connatural knowledge the known cannot have a mode of being more excellent than that of the cognitive power: for if the mode of being of the known object were above the mode of being of the knower, the knower would not receive it connaturally, but above its nature; and consequently its knowledge would not be connatural to the knower either. Since the mode of being required in itself for the knowability of an object and for the cognitive power’s faculty is immateriality, and elevation above matter and its condition, namely potentiality (because, as St. Thomas and the theologians commonly teach below q. 14, from immateriality and an immaterial mode of being the cognitive power has its character as a cognitive power, the species its character as representative, and finally the object its character as knowable), it follows that if the known and the knower are to be connatural with one another, they must agree in their mode of being in such a way that the known does not have a mode of being more excellent than the knower; then the known cannot surpass the knower in the degree of immateriality and actuality.

From this, the first consequence, on which the force of the second argument depends, is sufficiently established: both from the parity of reason and because the intelligible species is posited so that, through it, the known may be in the knower. Thus, unless they have a mode of being as immaterial as the object’s—as we shall explain more fully immediately—[the species] will in this way perform the office of a more immaterial object. Above all, because, as we said in nn. 123 and 141, the intelligible species does not perform the office of an object as an instrument of it, but by the mode of an intelligible form making the object actually intelligible to the intellect in which the aforementioned species is received.

156 This is confirmed and explained by St. Thomas’s reason in arts. 4 and 11 of this question. For according to the multiplicity and diversity of the degrees of immateriality of knowable things, there are multiplied and distinguished just as many degrees of faculties and intentional species corresponding to them: therefore there must be a correspondence in the degree of immateriality and actuality between the power, the impressed species, and the object: therefore, since it is repugnant for there to be a created form corresponding to God in the degree of immateriality and actuality, and consequently possessing such actuality that it is its own being, it will likewise be repugnant for there to be a created form that represents Him quidditatively and clearly. Both consequences are evident.

The antecedent, however, can be proved more excellently only by adducing and explaining the four degrees of immateriality corresponding to knowable things, which St. Thomas assigns in art. 4 of the following question with sufficient elegance. The first and lowest is that of things which have being in individual matter and cannot be separated from it by the intellect, such as singular and material things. The immateriality of this degree consists only in a certain actuality sufficient to change the sensitive power, which is a power elevated in some way above matter, as is commonly said in the De Anima. To this object correspond the sensitive power and sensible and material species possessing the same degree of immateriality, and consequently capable of changing the sensitive power, and no more excellent one.

157 The second is that of things which are in some way in individual, sensible matter, and in some way separated from it, such as the quiddities of material things, because in reality they have being in individual, sensible matter, yet can be separated from it by the intellect. Hence, to this knowable object possessing the aforementioned immateriality corresponds our cognitive power, namely our intellect insofar as it is partly in matter, because it is the act of a soul which is the act of the body, and partly separated from matter, insofar as the soul does not depend in its being on the body, and the intellect is not the act of the body as an organ, but is entitatively spiritual and immediately inheres in the substance of the soul. Hence, to this object and to the cognitive power considered in this state correspond intelligible species, which are partly separated from matter and partly joined to it. Then because they inhere in the intellect and the soul in the same way in which the intellect itself is received in the same soul in this state. Thus, just as the intellect is partly in matter and partly not in it, as we have already explained, so also the species. Moreover, because although species are spiritual according to their entity, they nevertheless depend on matter, namely on phantasms, and so are something material in the process of becoming and operating, and thus in this respect have a certain materiality.

The third is that of things which have being wholly separated from matter, though not from potentiality, because they are not pure acts, but in them potentiality with respect to being and operating is found. To this object corresponds a cognitive power wholly separated from physical matter, though not from potentiality, such as the angelic intellect; and likewise intelligible species separated in the same way from matter, but not from potentiality.

158 The fourth and last, finally, is that of the being which is a pure act, separated not only from every physical matter but also from every potentiality, and consequently is not in potentiality with respect to being, but by the mode of the purest act is its own being: such is God alone. To this object corresponds an intellectual faculty separated as well from every matter and from every potentiality, so that it is its own being; and likewise species separated from both, and consequently a pure act and its own being, such as the divine intellect alone and the divine essence insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, because no creature can possess such purity that it is its own being, and therefore it must necessarily have a potency with respect to being.

From this it also follows that no obstacle is posed by the instance which the solution of the opponents adduces on its own behalf, namely that intellectual species in us are accidents and yet can represent a substance: hence also an impressed species of God can represent God, who is His own being, although it is not its own being. For, as is evident from what has been said, the case is different, because species that represent a substance in us can have the same immateriality as the represented substance, although often they cannot have the same perfection in the being of the thing as it does. Nevertheless, no form can correspond to God in the degree of immateriality and actuality, but it must necessarily be surpassed by Him in that degree, and therefore cannot represent God quidditatively and connaturally. Hence, although in other intelligible species it is not necessary that these two things coincide in one, namely being of the same immateriality as its object and being of the same perfection in the being of the thing as the object, it is otherwise in the species representing the divine essence as it is in itself: because such great immateriality, namely by the mode of the purest act, already explained, cannot be found except in an uncreated being, and essentially, so that it is supremely and infinitely perfect.