Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The CONCLUSION is affirmative, which he proves by five reasons.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING the conclusion of this article, which is defined in the chapter Firmiter de summa Trinit., St. Aug. is to be seen, 6 On the Trinity, ch. 6 and 7.

Concerning the fifth reason of St. Thomas, in which he says that in wholes of heterogeneous parts no part is the whole, as no part of a man is a man, there could be a doubt whether this holds universally. For the nominalists assert the contrary. Yet this difficulty is philosophical. Master Soto is to be seen, 1 Physics, q. 5. The resolving truth is that although not any part of a whole of heterogeneous parts receives the denomination of the whole (as that part in which the form is not conserved when separated, as the hand of a man is not a man), nevertheless any part of a man which can subsist per se in human nature is a man, even when it is in the whole itself, for example the whole man with the hand removed.

Concerning the solution to the first, in which St. Thomas says that it is of the account of the caused that it be composite, it must be noted, against Scotus, in 1, d. 8, q. 1, that this saying of St. Thomas is not to be understood of the caused taken broadly, as it extends to the parts of some whole and to accidents: for these are not caused, but are co-caused and co-produced; but it is to be understood of the caused subsisting per se: and thus the objections of Scotus cease.

Concerning the solution to the second, where St. Thomas says that among us composites are better than simples, because the perfection of the goodness of a creature is not found in one simple thing, but in many, whereas it is found in one most simple thing: note that simplicity is not a perfection simply. For as St. Anselm teaches in the Monologion, ch. 15, a perfection simply is that which in each thing is better than its negation; which description requires two conditions for something to be a perfection simply. The first, that what is attributed import a perfection, for lack of which its negation is not a perfection simply, as is the case with relation as such. The second condition is that that perfection be better than anything incompossible with it, not in the individual of this or that nature, but in the individual of being. For lack of which, risibility, neighing, and the like are not perfections simply: because although they are better for this man and this horse, they are not better for this being insofar as it is this being. Simplicity, therefore, for lack of the first condition, is not a perfection simply, because it does not say a perfection, but the negation of imperfection. Hence it is also called a negative predicate by Cajetan, in On Being and Essence, ch. 2, where he disputes this matter at greater length against Scotus, in 1, dist. 8.