Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

33 So that the complete causality which the light of glory has within the genus of material cause may be understood exactly, there remains only to be explained whether it also concurs materially with the vision of God; and consequently whether it is necessarily required for its reception. And so, to explain this, we raise the present Difficulty.

§ I. The negative opinion.

The negative part is held by Scotus in 4. dist. 49. quaest. 45. and in 3. dis. 14., by Vazquez in the present work, disp. 43., and by others among the later theologians. It is proved, first. For a habit is not a disposition for receiving an act, but rather the contrary: therefore the light of glory is not desired as a disposition for receiving the beatific vision. The consequence is evident, since they are compared as habit and act. The antecedent is likewise evident. Then, because a habit is made through an act, and so is presupposed to have been received in the potency before it is a habit, and so the habit does not dispose for its reception: then also, because in supernatural habits, such as the habit of grace and of charity, grace does not dispose for the reception of the love of God, but rather that very love is required as a disposition to grace.

34 Second. For whenever a subject is ordered to several forms to be received, it is then ordered above all to the most perfect form, and to that one immediately, and it receives it first: but the vision of God is the most perfect form among all those to which the intellectual creature is ordered: therefore the intellect will be ordered to that form in the highest degree, and will receive it immediately and first; and consequently no other form will be desired for its reception. Both consequences are sufficiently clear. The minor, however, seems to be a matter of common knowledge. For the vision of God is the beatitude of the intellectual creature, and so it will be the most perfect of all the forms which the aforesaid creature can have; since the highest good of that creature consists in its beatitude. The major, however, is clear from the example of prime matter, which, although it regards both substantial and accidental forms, is nevertheless ordered in preference to the former rather than to the latter, and receives those before the accidental forms, as is clear from what the Complutensian doctors, on the common consent of the Thomists, teach in 1. de Generat. disp. 2.

35 Third. The intellect, of itself, is proportionate and fit as a subject for receiving the vision, and the vision itself, of itself, presupposes no light superadded to the entity of the intellect as a reason for being received: therefore on no ground is a light desired in the intellect for the reception of the vision. The consequence is evident, since the necessity of a light in the intellect for this can arise only from the two grounds assigned. The antecedent, as to its first part, is proved. Because the natural entity of the intellect is of itself proportionate for receiving the light of glory, just as also the natural entity of the soul is for receiving grace; and the entity of that same intellect for this, that it should receive within itself the light of faith: therefore it will be proportionate in the same way with respect to the reception of the vision of God, since the disproportion between intellection and vision could arise only (if there were any) from the distance which exists between the natural entity of the intellect and the supernatural entity of the vision; and this same disproportion is found between it and the light of glory, or of faith. As to the second part, moreover, the same antecedent is evident, since the vision is neither something of a light, namely, nor a mode, nor an intensification of it, nor does it receive from it, as from a formal cause, anything necessary to it in order to adhere to the intellect, as material accidents receive from quantity their being extended, and by reason of this adhere to substance: therefore the vision, of itself, has nothing on account of which it presupposes in the intellect the light of glory, as the mean by which it adheres to it.

Fourth. For otherwise the intellect would act upon the light of glory, if indeed it were to elicit the vision which is to be received in it; but this is false: for an agent that is inferior cannot act upon a thing of a higher order; for just as this thing is superior, so it cannot be subject to that one.

§ II. The opinion of the Thomists is preferred.

36 Nevertheless, it must be said that the light of glory is necessarily required in the intellect for this, that it receive the vision of God by essence. D. Thomas sufficiently indicates this assertion both in the places cited above, in the preceding Difficulty, and also in others to be brought forward at once. He is followed by Palud. in 4. disp. 49. quaest. 1., by Caiet. and Gonzal. in the present work, by Petrus de Ledes. de divina perfect. quaest. 8. art. 8., on the difficulty which he raises after the third conclusion; and, in general, by the younger disciples of St. Thomas, as Gonzalez testifies in the place cited. The same is held by Maior in 3. dist. 14. quaest. 2. dub. 2., and in 4. disput. 49. quaest. 4.; by Marsilius in 3. quaest. 10. art. 3.; by Ricardus dist. 14. quaest. 1. art. 2.; by Valentia in the present work, disp. 1. punct. 3.; and by many others.

So that we may lay down the fundamental reason, it must be noted first, from D. Thomas in 4. dist. 4. quaest. 1. art. 1. in the body, that this is the distinction between habit, or disposition, and potency: namely that a habit or disposition is given for the ability to do something well or badly, or for the ability to do it promptly and easily; whereas a potency is given for the ability to do something simpliciter; and thus without a habit or disposition we can do something simpliciter; but otherwise without a potency we cannot. Whence the holy Doctor concludes: This seems to be the difference between habit and potency, because a potency is that by which we can do something simpliciter; a habit, however, is that by which we can do it well or badly: as the intellect, by which we consider, knowledge, by which we consider well, the concupiscible appetite, by which we desire, temperance, by which we desire well, and intemperance, by which we desire badly, and so likewise it is of a disposition.

37 Second, it must be noted, from the same holy Doctor in the place cited, in 4. sentent. and in quaest. 24. de verit. art. 4. ad 9., that supernatural habits, or dispositions, agree with the natural ones in part, but differ from them in part. They do indeed agree, because they also incline and make easy the fact that a potency can act well and with pleasure, as can be seen in the habit of charity; and so they presuppose a radical and remote potency; but they do not confer it, so as to be able to communicate to it the facility of operating. They differ, however, because, although they are something most supreme among habits and dispositions, from the fact that they belong to the supreme order, namely to the divine, they have something admixed of the proper nature of a potency, because in fact they confer posse simpliciter, such that without them posse simpliciter is not given with respect to supernatural operations of divine order; but only a remote and radical posse, or a commensurability that is only essential with respect to them. For, as Dionysius teaches, and D. Thomas repeats in various places, the supreme of the lowest reaches the lowest of the supreme; and so the supreme habit, namely the supernatural one, will reach to the order of the powers, conferring posse simpliciter.

The reason for which the same holy Doctor touched there, saying that as within the natural order proper operations are given, and therefore proper powers, required per se for the posse of those operations, must be assigned; so also within the supernatural order proper supernatural operations are given; and thus proper powers must be given with respect to them, which confer posse simpliciter; it is certain, however, that supernatural habits, or dispositions, have in their own way the role of powers within the supernatural order, or confer posse simpliciter together with natural powers that concur radically and remotely. For, as is clear from what was said in art. 2. and 4., this involves the positing of a supernatural power, for example an intellectual one, which should tend toward God as He is in Himself by the mode of a simple and total power, and should consequently elicit the supernatural act of vision: otherwise, as we proved there, it would agree with God in the degree of immateriality and actuality, which is involved. And therefore the power that is simply intellectual within the supernatural order necessarily coalesces from the natural entity of the intellect, or from the supernatural obediential power of the same (as others say) and from the elevation which is made through the habit, or supernatural assistance already mentioned; and so that elevation has both the role of habit, or disposition, since it presupposes at least a radical posse, and then also, in the way indicated, the role of potency, insofar as it confers posse simpliciter. Whether, however, the aforesaid dispositions conferring posse simpliciter differ from habits on the part of form, or rather on the part of the mode of having it, since assuredly they have the same essence on the part of form, although a habit has it by the mode of the permanent, whereas a disposition conferring posse simpliciter does so by the mode of the transient: that is another question, to be discussed elsewhere.

38 From this, therefore, and from what the holy Doctor teaches in 1. part. quaest. 18. art. 3. ad 1. and quaest. 23. art. 2. ad 1. and quaest. 54. art. 1. ad 3., the fundamental reason for the assertion is drawn, which can be reduced to the form of the vision. For with respect to a vital and immanent action, it is perfect that it be received in the same proximate power from which it is elicited; hence corporeal vision is received in sight, by which it is made; and audition in hearing, and so of the rest; but the created intellect, unless flooded with the light of glory, is not the proximate power eliciting the vision of God by essence, as has been shown: therefore it will not receive that vision unless it be elevated by the same light.

It is confirmed. For angelic intellection as such, just as it cannot be elicited except by the angelic intellect, from the fact that it is a vital action seeking to arise from this determinate principle of life, namely the intellect of the angel, so it cannot be received except in the angelic intellect; and the same is true of human intellection as such, and so of the rest; therefore the created vision of God, which is supernatural and of divine order, just as it can be elicited only by a power that is proximately intellectual, by the created intellect, deified, or of divine order by participation, so it will be able to be received only in that same intellect thus elevated.

It is confirmed, second. For although intellection, as it is a vital immanent act, does not seek to be received in the adequate principle eliciting it, and so ought not to be received in an intelligible species, it is nevertheless required that it be subjected in that in which it holds itself on the part of potency, and it concurs by the mode of potency: therefore, since the intellect alone does not hold itself by the mode of potency, but the intellect as elevated, it follows that the intellect alone, thus elevated, is capable of receiving it. The connection follows from itself. The antecedent is likewise evident both by a general induction from all vital immanent acts, and also because: although the object and the intellectual power concur in intellection, the power nevertheless inflows by the mode of a woman giving birth, whereas the object does so by the mode of a man begetting it. Hence, because the fetus is not received, or remains, in the man, although it ought to proceed actively from him, but is received well in the woman; therefore intellection, which whether alone or together with the word, when it is produced through it, is a kind of intellectual fetus (in the way, however, explained above) and not just any kind, but immanent, so that in this matter, and in the reception of such a birth, it is consummated, it ought not to be received, or to remain, in the object, or in an intelligible species, but well in the potency. Therefore, since the intellect is not an intellectual power, or an intellectual woman, with respect to the vision of God as it is in itself, unless elevated by the light of glory, as has been proved, but well together with that same light, it follows that it can be received in it thus elevated, and in no other way.

39 Second, the assertion is principally proved by the reason touched at num. 32 above by D. Thomas. Since intelligere is the formal secondary effect of the intelligible form, from the fact that it has being by the mode of existence in the intelligible order: therefore that very thing which is required for the reception, or quasi-reception, of the species will be desired for the reception of the intellection: therefore, since the light of glory is required for this, that the intellect receive, or be united with, the divine essence, as it has the role of an intelligible form with respect to the vision of God, as is clear from what has been said, it will also be desired for the reception of that same vision. The antecedent is clear from what we shall say in tract. 4. disp. 1. num. 21. and following: where we shall show that, just as the existence of the natural, or entitative, order is the formal secondary effect of the form taken in the same way, so intelligere, because it is the existence of the intelligible order, from the fact that it is the ultimate actuality of this order, will be the formal secondary effect of the form of that same order, namely of the impressed species; and consequently, since the species, as it possesses esse entitative and natural, and exists through the existence of this order, causes intellection in the genus of an efficient cause: yet insofar as it belongs to the intelligible order, and is the first act of that order, it also causes the aforesaid intelligere in the genus of a formal cause, and as its formal secondary effect.

The first conclusion, however, is clear. Since the same disposition which is required for the reception of any form is desired for the esse of an existence flowing from it, as is clear by induction in all forms: hence too it will follow that the light of glory is desired on a twofold ground for the reception of the vision. First indeed, because it constitutes the intellectual power in the esse of a power that is simply able to see God. Second, because it is desired by the mode of a disposition to the union, or reception, of the divine essence, as it has the role of an intelligible form, and consequently in its own way, and at least mediate, for the union with the vision itself, which is the ultimate form, or actuality, of the created power of seeing God.

§ III. The arguments of the negative opinion are met.

40 To the first it will be answered that the antecedent is true at its highest with regard to acquired habits, but not with regard to infused habits, and to those which constitute the potency in the esse of potency. For just as, for the reception of the aforesaid acts, a proximate power eliciting them is required, so also that by which such a potency is constituted in the esse of a proximate potency is required. Therefore, since the habit of the light of glory is infused per se, and constitutes the potency in the esse of the proximate potency of seeing God according to what is required on the part of potency, it follows that the aforesaid light is desired for the reception of its proper act, namely the vision of God.

This is clear from what has just been said, with regard to the first proof. As to the second, however, it must be said that the love of God and justifying grace have a mutual causality with respect to the reception of either of them in its proper subject, although this belongs to them in different ways. For the act of love is required for the reception of grace by the mode of a proper cause and, taken strictly, a disposing cause; grace, on the other hand, is desired for the receiving of the love of God, not indeed by the mode of a proper cause and, taken strictly, a disposing cause, but by the mode of constituting its subject first and absolutely, at least as a subject connatural to it. For just as, for the reception of natural love, the soul concurs, for example, by the mode of a subject that is radical and absolutely first, and the will by the mode of the subject quo, yet neither inflows by the mode of a proper disposition taken strictly; so, for the reception of the supernatural acts of love, the will inflows as elevated by a supernatural habit, and the soul as elevated by grace: the former indeed by the mode of the subject quo, the latter, however, as the subject quod; yet neither by the mode of a proper disposition taken strictly, although, using the name of disposition in a broad sense, it can be said that grace and charity dispose for the aforesaid reception of the love of God.

41 To the second it will be answered that the major is true when those forms are so compared with one another that one of them is substantial and the rest accidental; otherwise when all of them are accidental and of a higher order. For then that which constitutes the potency in the role of a potency with respect to the others cannot fail to be received first: otherwise the others would not be received in their corresponding subject. Therefore, since the light of glory and the vision are accidental forms, and the light constitutes the intellect in the role of a potency with respect to the vision of God, it cannot fail to be received in it before the vision, and the vision itself is received by reason of the light, even if we granted (of which elsewhere) that the vision is more perfect than the light. The reason, however, for which, after a comparison between the substantial form and the accidental forms, the former must necessarily be received at the instant of substantial generation before the latter, is this: because, as our Complutensian doctors show in 1. de Generat. disp. 3. following D. Thomas, matter cannot have esse secundum quid unless it first has esse simpliciter. Hence, since the latter comes to it from the substantial form, whereas the former comes from the accidental forms, it follows that it is incapable of receiving the accidental forms unless nature first has the substantial form.

42 To the third, the antecedent is to be denied with regard to each of its two parts (in the way, however, to be explained at once). And having granted the antecedent of the first proof, the conclusion is to be denied. Because the light is infused by God alone, as by a principal cause; whereas the vision is made by the created intellect by the mode of a vital operation which seeks as its subject that very same proximate vital power from which it is elicited, as has been shown: and so, since the light constitutes the intellect in the role of the proximate power eliciting the vision, in the way already indicated, it confers upon it also that it be receptive of that same vision. Hence what is said there is false, namely, that the disproportion between the intellect, from which it is taken, and the vision, on account of which the intellect thus accepted cannot receive it, arises only from the distance in the role of natural and supernatural being which intervenes between the two: because in truth it does not arise from precisely this ground, but from that which we have already explained.

As to the proof, however, of the second part of that same antecedent, it must be said that the vision seeks, as the subject quo, or as the reason for being received, the light of glory, not indeed on account of those things which are enumerated there, but because, since it is a vital immanent act, it seeks to be received in that same proximate power from which it is elicited, or it seeks to be received in the power of seeing God: the intellect, however, of itself without the light of glory is not a power of seeing God, even though it has an essential commensurability with the vision.

43 To the fourth, the consequence is to be denied. Because the intellect and the light are not reckoned as two partial causes, each of which has the proximate force of acting, like two persons carrying a stone; but as one and the same indivisible cause in the esse of a cause. Because a single cause in the esse of a cause, even a partial one, seeks an essential commensurability with respect to its action, and over and above a quantity of power and efficacy; but the intellect of itself has the essential commensurability with respect to the vision, and the quantity of power from the light of glory: and so, from the fact that the vision is received in the intellect elevated by the light of glory, it does not follow that the intellect acts upon the light; but that the intellect, elevated by the light of glory, acts upon itself, which is not inconvenient, but rather necessary for the role of an agent through a vital and immanent action. For just as together with the light it is the active principle, and constitutes one and the same indivisible principle eliciting the vision, so also it is one and the same indivisible principle receptive of it.