Little Question Four of Question One
Whether Plato and Aristotle could acquire as much concerning divine things as Adam and Paul when placed in ecstasy
It is asked whether Plato and Aristotle could naturally acquire as great a theology as Adam and Paul when placed in ecstasy.
To this some answer by way of opinion that Adam and Paul were not greater philosophers than Plato and Aristotle. These persons maintain that the intellect, while remaining in the body, can, without the assistance and operation of the sensitive or phantastic power, bring itself into the contemplation of purely intellectual science and actualize itself with respect to species and habits which it has previously understood.
They prove this first because the noble intellectual power does not seem, in being brought to its act, to depend more upon the interior sensitive power than the interior sensitive power itself depends upon the exterior senses. Yet without the operations of the exterior senses, the interior sense often goes forth into its own acts, as is manifest in dreams.
Likewise, it does not seem likely that this nobler intellectual nature was so inseparably bound by God the Creator to those corporeal powers of sense that, without their actualization, it could bring itself into no act of cognition; and that, through no exercise in cognizing and understanding, it could acquire within its own nature intelligible species and habits by which, when every actualization of the sensitive powers had been suspended, it could cognize something celestial or something else in a purely intellectual manner.
Likewise, in the state of integral nature or of innocence, such a mode of cognizing and of contemplating purely and intellectually seems certainly to have been possible, just as it will be in the state of the glorified body. In that state, perhaps, although the intellect will inform the body, it will nevertheless be assisted in no respect by sensitive cognitions, whether interior or exterior.
And therefore the connection of the intellectual power existing in the body with the sensitive powers is not essential or so necessary that, without them, the noble intellectual power is not naturally apt to actualize itself cognitively.
Likewise, if this were so, then a rational soul divested of the body would, in the common course, understand nothing and know nothing concerning all those things which it knew in the body. Nor could it actualize itself with respect to any intelligible things from habits and species acquired in the body, which appears to involve great imperfection.
These are the arguments of Lord Master Henry of Hesse which he brought forward while disputing on this matter at Paris.
To the contrary is the whole common school, which says that the quiddity of a material thing is the object of the intellect of a wayfarer. Experience also demonstrates that the phantasy labors when we operate or are occupied intellectually.
It is evident, therefore, that no mere philosopher who is a wayfarer can compare himself in theology with Paul and the first parent. Thus the answer to the little question is evident.
These things are from Henry of Hesse, On Genesis.
Addition
Scotus, acutely, in Book II, distinction 3, question 3, and Henry of Ghent—taken from the Order of Servants into the archpresbyterate—demonstrate the opposite. Henry holds that God is the first object of our intellect, since he is the most perfect among all cognizable things, and first with a primacy, namely, of perfection.
In my judgment, however, I see that the opinion of Saint Thomas, which the author Sibylla follows, is more suited to the intellect:
namely, that the object proportioned to us for understanding in the state of the present life is the quiddity of a material and sensible thing, as he says in the First Part, question 5, article 2.
For since cognition occurs according as the thing cognized is in the one cognizing, and the thing cognized is in the one cognizing according to the mode of the one cognizing, the cognition of each thing is therefore according to the mode of its nature.
Since, therefore, the intellect is in the body in this manner—because the intellective soul is the form of the body, yet with the qualification that it is not a power in a bodily organ—a human being will possess a mode of being that is in some manner material and immaterial, so that in some manner he understands materially and immaterially. He understands immaterially for no other reason than that he understands material things without individual conditions; for he does not cognize individuals quidditatively, because intelligible species are abstracted from phantasms.
Therefore the first and proportioned being which is offered to the intellect is that which is represented through intelligible species abstracted from the phantasms of sensible and material things. This, however, is the material object. I call it material because it is not represented to the intellect under the formal account of material quiddity, but rather under the account of being, which is the formal object.
But because this account of being does not move the intellect in the state of this life unless it is joined to a material quiddity, it follows that the intellect need not be able to cognize all things in every mode, even if being is its formal object. Rather, it must be able in some mode to cognize all things, that is, according as the present state and the condition of its nature permit, since the object ought to be proportioned to the power, and the lowest intellect ought to possess only the lowest intelligible thing as its object.
From this it is apparent how theology and a supernatural light are necessary.
In order that we may examine this matter by way of an Addition, it must first be observed that the philosophers anxiously ask the theologians why, since we cannot attain from purely natural resources to the theology which Christians profess, we nevertheless say that it is exceedingly necessary for human beings.
Saint Thomas answers them at once, in the very beginning of the First Part of the Summa, saying that this is so because the human being is ordered to God as to an end which exceeds the comprehension of reason, according to that statement of Isaiah 64: “Eye has not seen,” and so forth.
But an end must be foreknown by human beings, who ought to order their intentions and actions toward the end. Hence it was necessary for salvation that certain things which exceed human reason be made known to the human being through divine revelation.
Scotus, however, is not pleased by an argument of this kind, because it presupposes that the human being is finally ordered to supernatural cognition, which has not yet been proved. Nor, if it had been proved, would this suffice, since it is not shown that natural cognition sufficiently disposes one for attaining supernatural cognition.
Therefore he answers in another manner, saying that a receptive power is compared either to the act which it receives or to the agent from which it receives it.
In the first way no supernaturality occurs, because if a power of this kind is naturally inclined toward that form, the form is called natural. If it is contrary to an inclination natural to the power, it is called violent. But if the power is inclined neither toward that form nor toward its opposite, it is called neutral.
When, however, the recipient is compared to the agent from which it receives the form, then the reception is called natural when the recipient is compared to an agent of such a kind as is naturally apt to impress the form upon the patient. But it is called supernatural reception when the recipient is compared to an agent of such a kind as is not naturally capable of impressing that form upon that patient.
Applying this to the matter proposed, Scotus says that if the possible intellect is compared to actual knowledge in itself, no cognition is supernatural to it, because the possible intellect is perfected by any cognition and is naturally inclined toward any cognition.
But if the possible intellect is compared to the agent from which it receives cognition, the cognition is called supernatural: namely, that which is produced by an agent which is not naturally apt to move the possible intellect toward such cognition.
Hence, because, when the operation of the agent intellect and of the phantasms—from which natural cognition is impressed—has been posited, certain propositions nevertheless remain unknown to us although cognition of them is necessary for us, it is therefore necessary that knowledge of those propositions be handed down to us supernaturally. No one could discover it naturally and hand it down to others by teaching.
In these things consists the mode of speaking of the Subtle Doctor.
But in my judgment—unless the opinion of the Holy Doctor, or, to speak more correctly, his mode of speaking, is corroborated by Scotus—the mode of Scotus is not sufficient. For Scotus presupposes that cognition of certain propositions is necessary for us, although it cannot be produced by the operation of the agent intellect and of phantasms. From this he afterward infers that cognition of this kind must necessarily be handed down supernaturally; and the handing down of it is called revelation.
Therefore, if that which is presupposed were denied, no way of proving the intended conclusion would remain, unless it is said with Saint Thomas that cognition of this kind is necessary because the human being is ordered to that which exceeds the comprehension of reason.
Although this is not proved by the Holy Doctor otherwise than by the authority of one of the prophets, it is nevertheless sufficiently evident that God, to whom all things are ordered, exceeds the comprehension of reason, since none of the philosophers, even with those who favor them, could perfectly cognize God from natural resources.
For Aristotle—to whom, in those things which pertain to nature, we cannot refuse credence without sin, since, as Macrobius says, not even nature herself resists his discoveries— did not sufficiently teach in what manner the nature of God exists, but flowed now in this direction, now in that, being unable to comprehend the nature of God.
And Plato, a divine man, says: “To discover the Begetter of the universe is as difficult as, once he has been discovered, it is impossible to proclaim him worthily.” These words are in the Timaeus.
And in the books of the Laws, as Cicero reports, he does not think that one ought to inquire at all what God is.
The same Cicero says in Book I of On the Nature of the Gods: “You ask me what or of what kind God is. I shall employ Simonides as my authority.” When the tyrant Hiero had asked Simonides this same question, Simonides requested one day for deliberation. When Hiero asked the same thing of him on the next day, he requested two days. When he repeatedly doubled the number of days, Hiero, wondering, asked why he did so. “Because,” he said, “the longer I consider it, the more obscure the matter seems to me.”
Moreover Pliny, a man most learned in every respect, in Book II of the Natural History, implies that God is nothing.
But what need is there of more, since those who asserted that God exists seem, when they wish to explain his nature, to describe a monster? From among them it is permissible to relate at least one, Zoroaster the Magus, who in the sacred book in which he collected Persian matters writes these words verbatim, as Eusebius testifies:
“God has the head of a hawk. He is the first of incorruptible things, everlasting, unbegotten, without parts, most like himself, the charioteer of all good things, expecting no gifts, the best, the most prudent, the father of right, thoroughly learned in justice without instruction, perfect by nature, wise, the sole inventor of the sacred nature.”
Likewise Empedocles says: “God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere but whose circumference is nowhere.”
Although these things can be referred to a good sense, they nevertheless do not lack obscurity. Therefore the philosophers must confess that God exceeds the comprehension of reason, as the Angelic Doctor used to say.
Therefore I shall leave Thomas entirely for Scotus, whose mode is certainly of no little value for investigating supernatural cognition. Yet although it follows from the foregoing that we need cognition of this kind, it has not nevertheless been proved that it is bestowed upon us.
Therefore, once its necessity has been presupposed, we can perhaps argue thus: if cognition of this kind is not bestowed upon us, we are ordered to God as to an end in vain. But we are not ordered in vain, because God and nature, as the Philosopher says, do nothing in vain. Therefore cognition of this kind is bestowed upon us.
This inference is sufficiently evident even to those who have merely knocked at the doors of dialectic. The premise is proved because there is no agent acting through cognition, such as a human being, which does not necessarily require a cognition of its own end—and indeed a distinct cognition.
For every agent acts for an end from an appetite for the end, and every agent per se acts for an end. Therefore every agent per se, in its own mode, desires the end. Consequently, just as an appetite for the end for which it ought to act is necessary to a natural agent, so an appetite for the end for which it ought to act is necessary to an agent through cognition—which also is an agent per se, from Book II of the Physics.
Scotus proves it thus in the prologue to the Sentences. His arguments, however, do not tend toward that toward which our argument tends. For he proves that supernatural cognition is necessary for us, but he does not prove that this cognition is bestowed upon us.
When its necessity has been presupposed, we hold that the human being, in acting through cognition, acts from an appetite for the end. An appetite of this kind, however, presupposes a distinct cognition if the end is distinctly desired. Therefore, if we are not ordered to God in vain, supernatural cognition is bestowed upon us.
That we are ordered to God is evident among theologians and philosophers. Therefore it remains that, in addition to natural teachings—that is, those which, as is commonly said, can be attained from purely natural resources—it is necessary that another teaching be handed down supernaturally if we wish finally to arrive at the best cognition of the ultimate end.
Nor is it astonishing if, through the light of the agent intellect which the soul now employs in understanding, a human being cannot naturally attain to any action which exceeds the nature of that light, as Henry of Ghent, our Doctor, deduces in question 16 of the Summa of Theology. This does not satisfy Scotus, to whom everyone is displeasing, just as Scotus does not satisfy everyone, especially in the three arguments which he devised to prove this.
For although the intellect of a wayfarer is naturally capable, passively, of many truths, it is nevertheless not efficacious passively.
Passive capacity is the aptitude of the soul whereby it is capable of being the subject of another thing. This is also called receptive capacity, and it is infinite, because, as far as the aptitude for receiving is concerned, it is not repugnant to the soul that it be able to receive any number of instances of knowledge, however acquired, whether naturally or supernaturally.
Hence, if it should happen that some instances of knowledge are in the intellect in such a way that others cannot be in the intellect, this would not arise from a defect of the aptitude for receiving, because the intellect is merely passive in receiving; that is, it resists in no way. Nor, therefore, must it be said that this arises because several instances of knowledge cannot exist at the same time, since instances of knowledge do not occupy space as bodies do. Rather, it arises from some other cause.
Active capacity, however, is the aptitude of the soul whereby it is capable of producing something. This is also called productive capacity and is finite, because it is delimited.
Nor is this to demean nature. Indeed, it is for nature’s dignity that it is naturally ordered to receive so eminent a perfection, which is not subject to the causality of a natural agent. Nor is nature ordered in vain, since it can naturally be disposed so that the potency is brought supernaturally into act. Nor does it lack necessary things, since the higher powers can possess from elsewhere what a natural agent cannot bestow.
Indeed, it is not inappropriate to say that nature lacks necessary things, taking “nature” as it is taken by Aristotle. Aristotle himself would have confessed this if he had not been ignorant that true felicity consists in intuitively cognizing God. But because he was ignorant of this, believing that no further cognition could be given beyond abstractive cognition concerning separated substances, he therefore spoke in this way and, consequently, could not compare himself with Adam or Saint Paul in naturally knowing divine things.
For Adam was created in supernatural grace which makes one pleasing, as Augustine proves in On Genesis. Thus, beyond the natural habits of the intellect and will, he possessed hope and charity concerning Christ the future Savior, whom he foresaw in the prophetic spirit as one who would be incarnated.
Similarly Paul’s intellect was elevated to such a degree that it arrived even at the vision of the divine essence. This elevation is indeed called rapture by reason of its violence, its terminus, and the higher nature through which it is elevated.
Not only Paul was elevated to this degree, as is said in 2 Corinthians 12, but it is also believed that John the Evangelist was elevated to it when he reclined upon the Lord’s breast at the supper, and perhaps all the apostles on the day of holy Pentecost.