Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The FIRST conclusion is negative. The second conclusion: To know subsistent to-be itself is connatural to the divine intellect alone.

COMMENTARY.

NOTE, concerning the first conclusion, that it is certain according to Catholic faith. For there was once, in the year of our Lord 1311, around the times of John XXII, the error of the Beghards and Beguines, asserting that every intellectual nature is in itself naturally blessed, and not by the grace of God. That error is condemned in the Council of Vienne, and is had in the Clementine Ad nostrum, On heretics. And it is proved from that passage Rom. 6: "The grace of God is eternal life"; and John 14, the manifestation of God is promised as the reward of one who loves God. But it is agreed that we cannot love God from the powers of nature so as to merit God: therefore we cannot see God by nature. It is confirmed: faith necessary for eternal life is not by the powers of nature, but from grace: therefore neither will that vision itself be from the powers of nature. See St. Thomas in 3 Against the Gentiles ch. 52; Capreolus in 4 d. 49 q. 4 where he best explains the argument of the article. But Cajetan explains the same, and answers the arguments of Scotus.

IT IS DOUBTED whether the argument of St. Thomas is sufficient? It is argued against it. For from that foundation that what is known is in the knower according to the nature of the knower, there does not follow the equality which St. Thomas intends, namely, that the nature of the knower must be equaled to the object: but it can only be gathered that knowledge is a perfection proportioned to the knower. It is confirmed: for from the proportion between object and potency there rather follows dissimilarity and inequality, as between mover and movable, between matter and form: for such is the proportion between potency and object.

Second. For if the argument of St. Thomas were worth anything, it would follow that the lower angel would not see the higher, since the mode of being of the higher exceeds the mode of being of the lower angel.

Third. For from it there would follow, against the conclusion of the first article, that a created intellect, even illumined by the light of glory, could not see God. The consequence is proved: since the mode of being of God exceeds every mode of being of a created intellect, however illumined by the light of glory.

Fourth. For from the same argument it would follow that the Blessed would never see God as he is. The consequence is proved: since the mode of being of God exceeds every adequate account of the object of a created intellect. Scotus makes these arguments in 1 d. 3 q. 3 and in Quodlib. 14, art. 2, and in 4 d. 49 q. 11. But for the solution it must be noted that the conclusion of St. Thomas expressly speaks of evident knowledge by which a thing is known as it is. For the rest, concerning confused and obscure knowledge, it is not needed for a thing to be known that there be so great a proportion between the mode of being of the knower and of the thing known. Note second, that the root and beginning of knowledge comes from this, that some nature is not only what it is, but also other things besides itself. But since being other things besides itself does not happen in only one way, hence it is that diverse orders of knowers arise from diverse modes of being other things besides itself. Again, diverse modes of being other things besides itself arise from diverse modes of the natures themselves: and therefore according to the order of the knowing natures themselves, diverse modes must be posited by which the knower is the known. Whence from the first to the last it follows that to-be known is modified according to the nature of the knower, and not conversely. Hence also the natural measure of knowledge must be the nature of the knower itself: and this is the reasoning of St. Thomas, when from the manifold mode of being of the thing he gathers that knowledge of God as he is cannot be connatural to any creature.

To the first argument it is answered that although from that foundation there does not follow equality of knower and known in specific natural being, it is gathered nevertheless that one who connaturally knows a thing as it is cannot be of a lower nature than what is known, as regards the mode of being which is the root of the mode of knowing: e.g. the rational soul, as long as it has the mode of being united to the body as form, cannot know an angel as it is, since the knowledge of the soul is not without turning to a bodily phantasm, inasmuch as it is itself the act of the body, and thus naturally it cannot evidently know except a quiddity in matter. To the confirmation it is answered that St. Thomas does not infer equality between the known and the cognitive nature according to itself and specifically, but only as regards the generic mode of being according to which the grades of being are distinguished, and consequently the grades of knowing.

To the second, the consequence is denied. Since the lower angel has the same mode of being as the higher, although the higher in its specific difference is more excellent; but nevertheless the modes of being which distinguish the modes of knowing are not naturally distinguished by the specific differences of things, but by the generic grades according as to-be is received in matter, or is received without matter, yet limited in essence therein, or wholly subsistent. And again that first mode of being is distinguished by St. Thomas into two modes. One is when to-be itself is so received in a material essence that that essence or form cannot have to-be except in matter, and this is the lowest grade of all corporeal things apart from man. The other mode is proper to the rational soul, which holds a certain middle between higher and lower things. For thus it is the act of the body, by which it can exist naturally without the body, and hence comes a twofold mode of knowing of it: one of which is so bound to corporeal things that it extends only to individuals, of which sort is all sensitive knowledge; but according to the other mode of knowing, it is connatural to man to know those things which have to-be only in individual matter, yet he is not bound of himself to know them according as they are in matter, but also according as they are abstracted by the consideration of the intellect from individual matter; and thus the quiddities of material things are known in the universal, which exceeds the faculties of sense; but the angelic intellect, of itself first, knows the quiddity of the angel himself, and by its power other quiddities which have the same mode of being: this nevertheless does not hinder but that the angel naturally and evidently knows material quiddities, since what is more excellent can reach by its action what is lower; but what is lower cannot naturally be raised above its nature.

To the third, the consequence is denied: for the argument and conclusion of St. Thomas is understood of natural knowledge. For the rest, what is naturally known by confused and obscure knowledge will be able to be known supernaturally by distinct knowledge, from the fact that it falls under the account of the object of the intellect at least in common and in confusion. For example, the eye of the night-owl can be strengthened and raised by God above its nature to see the light of the Sun distinctly; but it cannot be raised to know sound, from the fact that sound in no way falls under the object of sight. So likewise the human intellect, although it has for its proportioned object the quiddity of a material thing, yet its adequate object is being in all its community, which also includes, although in confusion, that being which is wholly subsistent of itself, to-be itself. Wherefore by supernatural power, derived from the same first being, the intellect will be raised to see subsistent to-be itself, which is pure and infinite light. So much concerning this article 4.