"The gift of knowledge"

“THE gift of knowledge makes for the correct management of temporal matters and shows us how to lead good lives in the midst of wicked persons; understanding enables us to study the Creator and His invisible creation; wisdom affords us the contemplation solely of eternal truth and a delight in it.”

~St. Thomas Aquinas: In III Sententiarum, 35, Proemium.

The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas (west wall), by Andrea da Firenze.
Fresco, 1366-67; Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

Garrigou-Lagrange: On Angels

Angelic nature, knowledge, will, merit and demerit from Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange 

Chapter 23: Angelic Nature And Knowledge

1. Nature Of Angels

St. Thomas [596] teaches clearly that the angels are creatures purely spiritual, subsistent forms without any matter. Scotus says they are composed of form and incorporeal matter, without quantity, because, being creatures, they must have an element of potentiality. The Thomistic reply runs thus: This potential element is first the angelic essence, really distinct, as in all creatures, from existence. Secondly, the real distinction between person and existence, between quod est and existence. Thirdly, real distinction of substance from faculties, and of faculties from acts. All these distinctions are explicitly formulated by St. Thomas himself. [597].

From their pure spirituality St. Thomas concludes that there cannot be two angels of the same species, because the only principle by which a substantial form can be individualized is matter, matter capable of this quantity rather than any other. Thus, to illustrate, two drops of water, perfectly similar, are by their matter and quantity two distinct individuals. But angels have no matter. [598].

Scotus, on the contrary, since he admits a certain kind of matter in the angels, maintains also that there can be many angels of one and the same species. Suarez, in his eclecticism, admits this conclusion of Scotus, although he sides with St. Thomas in maintaining that the angels are purely spiritual and immaterial beings. Thomists reply: if the angels are purely spiritual, you can find in them no principle of individuation, no principle capable of multiplying within one and the same species.

Form unreceived in matter, they say with St. Thomas, is simply unique. Whiteness, for example, if conceived as unreceived in this or that white thing, would be one and unique. If you deny this, then you simultaneously deny the principle which demonstrates the unicity of God, the principle, namely, which St. Thomas thus formulates: [599] Existence unreceived is necessarily subsistent and unique.

2. Angelic Knowledge

There are three orders of knowledge: human, angelic, divine. The object of knowledge in general is intelligible reality. The proper object of human intelligence is the intelligible being of sense objects, because the human intellect has as its proportioned object the lowest order of intelligible reality, the shadowy reality of the sense world. By opposition, then, the proper object of angelic intelligence is the intelligible reality of spiritual creatures. Hence, the proper intelligible object of each particular angel is that angel's own essence, just as God's proper intelligible object is His own divine essence. [600].

This position granted, let us see its consequences. The human idea, by which man knows, is an abstract and universal idea, drawn forth, by the intellect agent, from particular sense objects. But the angelic idea, not being drawn from external sense objects, is a natural endowment of the angelic intellect, infused into it by God at the moment of creation. Hence the angelic idea is at once universal and concrete. The angel's infused idea of the lion, say, represents not only the nature of the lion, but all individual lions that either actually exist or have in the past been objects of the angel's intellect. Angelic ideas are thus participations in God's own creative ideas. Infused ideas, then, which Plato and Descartes falsely ascribed to men, are, on the contrary, an angelic characteristic.

Thus these angelic ideas, at once universal and concrete, represent whole regions of intelligible reality, and each angel has his own distinctive suprasensible panorama. The higher the angel, the stronger is his intelligence and the fewer are his ideas, since they are more rich and universal. Thus, with ever fewer ideas, the higher angels command immense regions of reality, which the lower angels cannot attain with such eminent simplicity. [601] A human parallel is the sage, who, in a few simple principles, grasps an entire branch of knowledge. The stronger is the created intellect, to say it briefly, the more it approaches the preeminent simplicity of the divine intellect.

A further consequence. The nature of his ideas, at once universal and concrete, make the angel's knowledge intuitive, not in any way successive and discursive. He sees at a glance the particular in the universal, the conclusion in the principle, the means in the end. [602].

For the same reason his act of judging does not proceed by comparing and separating different ideas. [603] By his purely intuitive apprehension of the essence of a thing, he sees at once all characteristics of that essence, for example, he simultaneously sees all man's human and created characteristics, for instance, that man's essence is not man's existence, then man's existence is necessarily given and preserved by divine causality. [604].

Why this immense distance between angel and man? Because, seeing intuitively, the angel sees without medium, as in clearest midday, an immensely higher object, sees the intelligible world of spirits, whereas man's intellect, the most feeble of all intellects, having as object the lowest order of intelligibility, must be satisfied with twilight glances into the faint mirror of the sense world.

A further consequence is that the angel's intuitive vision is also infallible. But while he can make no mistake in his natural knowledge, he can deceive himself in the supernatural order, on the question, for example, whether this or that individual man is in the state of grace. Likewise he may deceive himself in forecasting the contingent future, above all in attempting to know the future free acts of men, or the immanent secrets of man's heart, secrets which are in no way necessarily linked with the nature of our soul or with external physical realities. The secrets of the heart are not fragments of the material world, they do not result from the interplay of physical forces. [605].

Contrary to this view, Scotus holds that the angel, though he has no sense faculties, can still receive ideas from sense objects. This view arises from his failure to distinguish intellects specifically by their proper and proportioned object. Thus he goes on to say that, had God so willed, the unmediated vision of the divine essence would be natural to both angels and men. Thus the distinction between uncreated intelligence and created intelligence is, for Scotus, a distinction not necessary, but contingent. A fortiori, then, he denies any necessary distinction between the proper object of the human intellect and that of the angelic intellect.

Scotus further denies that the ideas by which higher angels know are less numerous and more universal than those of lower angels. Perfection of knowledge, he says, derives less from the universality of ideas than from their clearness and brightness. Here Thomists distinguish. In the empiric order, yes, clearness does not depend on the universality of ideas. But in the order of perfection, in the order of higher principles, themselves concatenated with the supreme principle—in this order doctrinal clearness most certainly depends on the universality of its ideas.

Scotus holds also that the angel can know discursively, can engage in reasoning, a view which notably depreciates the perfection of the pure spirit. On the other hand, he holds that the angel can know, naturally and with certitude, the secrets of man's heart, though God, he adds, refuses this knowledge to the demons.

Suarez, again eclectically, admits with St. Thomas that the angelic ideas are innate, but holds, with Scotus, that the angel can use reasoning, and can be mistaken regarding the characteristics of the object he knows.

__________________________________________

Chapter 24: The Angelic Will

St. Thomas seeks to understand the angelic will by the object to which that will is specifically proportioned. Scotus insists rather on the subjective activity of that will.

Studying the object of the angelic will, St. Thomas concludes that certain acts of that will, though voluntary and spontaneous, are nevertheless not free, but necessary, by reason of an object in which the angelic intelligence sees no imperfection, but perfect happiness. As regards angelic freedom of will, he holds that angelic choice, like human choice, is always determined by the last practical act of judgment, but that the act of choice by accepting that judgment makes it to be the last. Scotus, on the contrary, holds that freedom belongs essentially to all voluntary acts, and that free choice is not always determined by the last practical act of judgment. On this point Suarez follows Scotus. Against them Thomists invoke the following principle: "If nothing can be willed unless it be foreknown as good, then nothing can be here and now preferred unless it be here and now foreknown as better." [606] In other words, there can be no will movement, however free, without intellectual guidance, otherwise we confound liberty with haphazard, with impulse, which acts necessarily and without reflection. Here lies the source of the chief doctrinal divergences concerning the angelic will.

St. Thomas teaches that the objects which the angel loves, not freely, but necessarily, at least necessarily as regards specification, are, first, his own happiness, second, himself, third, God as author of his nature, the reason being that in these objects he can find nothing repulsive. [607] Hence it is more probable that the angel cannot, at least not directly and immediately, sin against the natural law, which he sees intuitively as written into his own essence. [608] Yet the demons, in sinning directly against the supernatural law, sin indirectly against the natural law which prescribes that we obey God in everything He may command.

Further. If the angel sins, his sin is necessarily mortal, because, seeing end and means with one and the same intuitive glance, he cannot be disordered venially, i. e.: in regard to means, without previous mortal disorder in regard to his last end.

Again, the sin of the angel is irrevocable, and hence irremissible. In other words, since the angel chooses with perfect knowledge after consideration, not abstract, discursive, successive, but intuitive and simultaneous, of all that is involved in his choice, he can no longer see any reason for reversal of his choice. Hence arises the demon's fixed obstinacy in evil. Nothing was unforeseen in his choice. If we were to say to him: "You did not foresee this," he would answer, "Surely I foresaw it." With fullest knowledge he refused obedience, and refuses it forever in unending pride. Similarly the choice of the good angel is irrevocable and participates in the immutability of God's free act of choice. [609] St. Thomas cites approvingly the common expression: Before choice the free will of the angel is flexible, but not after choice. [610].

Scotus admits none of these doctrines. No act of the angelic will is necessary, not even the angel's natural love of his life or of the author of life. The will can sin even when there is no error or lack of consideration in the intellect, because free choice is not always conformed to the last practical judgment. The first sin of the demon is not of itself irrevocable and irremissible. The demons, he says, committed many mortal sins, before they became obstinate in evil, and could have repented after each of those sins. And their obstinacy itself he explains extrinsically, as due to God's decree that, after a certain number of mortal sins, He would no longer give them the grace of conversion. On these points Suarez follows Scotus, since he too holds that free choice is not always conformed to the last practical judgment. But he does not explain how free choice can arise without intellectual direction. Thomists repeat: Nothing can be willed unless here and now foreknown as better.

Contrast shows clearly that St. Thomas has a higher conception of the specific distinction between angelic intelligence and human intelligence than have Scotus and Suarez. Faculties, habits, and acts are proportionally specified by their formal objects. To this principle, repeatedly invoked in the Summa, Thomism insistently returns.

This treatise on the pure spirit, on intuitive knowledge, lies on a very high level. Its conclusions on the angelic will are faithful to the principle: nothing willed unless foreknown as good. From the speculative point of view this treatise is a masterpiece, a proof of the intellectual superiority of the Angelic Doctor, an immense step forward from the Sentences of Peter the Lombard. Scotus and Suarez did not maintain this elevation, did not see the sublimity, intellectual and voluntary, of the pure spirit as contrasted with the lowly intellect and will of man.

__________________________________________

Chapter 25: Angelic Merit And Demerit

St. Thomas holds that all the angels were elevated to the state of grace before the moment of their trial, because without sanctifying grace they could not merit supernatural happiness. With this doctrine Scotus and Suarez agree. They also agree in saying that most probably all angels received this gift at the moment of their creation. All three teachers, following St. Augustine, [611] hold that the revelation had the obscurity of faith. [612] The three agree also in saying that after their trial the good angels were immovably confirmed in grace and received the beatific vision, while the wicked angels became obstinate in evil. But, notwithstanding this agreement, there remain three problems concerning the state of the angels before and during their trial. On these problems St. Thomas again differs widely from Scotus and Suarez.

1. Natural Happiness

St. Thomas holds that at the very moment of their creation the angels received all their natural perfection of spirit and their natural happiness, because their innate knowledge proceeds instantaneously, without succession, from faculty to act. Hence, at the very moment of creation, they have perfect intuition of their own nature, and in that nature as mirror they know God as author of that nature, on which their own natural law is inscribed. Simultaneously also in that same moment they know all other angels, and have instantaneous use of their own infused ideas.

Here Scotus and Suarez do not follow St. Thomas. They deny, first, that angels had natural beatitude from the moment of creation. They hold, secondly, that the angels could, from that first moment, sin against the natural law directly and immediately. In reply, Thomists simply insist that pure spirits must from their first moment of creation, know their own selves perfectly as pure spirits, and hence know their own nature as mirror of the Author of that nature, and consequently must love that Author as the source of their own natural life, which they necessarily desire to preserve.

2. Instantaneous Choice

At the very moment of creation, so St. Thomas, the angels could not sin, but neither could they fully merit, because their very first act must be specially inspired by God, without their own self-initiated interior deliberation. But at the second instant came either full merit or full demerit. The good angel after the first act of charity, by which he merited supernatural beatitude, was at once among the blessed. [613] Just as immediately the demons were repudiated.

Hence, with St. Thomas, we must distinguish three instants in the life of the angel: first, that of creation; second, that of merit or demerit; third, that of supernatural beatitude [614] or of reprobation. We must note, however, that an angelic instant, which is the measure of one angelic thought, may correspond to a more or less long period of our time, according to the more or less deep absorption of the angel in one thought. An analogy, in illustration, is that of the contemplative who may rest for hours in one and the same truth.

The reason for the instantaneousness of the divine sanction after the first angelic act, fully meritorious or fully demeritorious, has been given above. Angelic knowledge is not abstract and discursive like ours, but purely intuitive and simultaneous. The angel does not pass successively, as we do, from one angle of thought to another. He sees at once, simultaneously, all the advantages and disadvantages. Hence his judgment once made is irrevocable. There is nothing he has not already considered.

What kind of sin was that of the demons? Pride, says St. Thomas. [615] They chose as supreme purpose that which they could obtain by their natural powers, and hence turned away from supernatural beatitude, which can be reached only by the grace of God. Thus, instead of humility and obedience, they chose pride and disobedience, the sin of naturalism.
Scotus and Suarez, as we have seen, since they hold that the angelic knowledge is discursive and successive, maintain likewise that the angel's practical judgment and act of choice are revocable, but that after many mortal sins, God no longer gives them the grace of conversion.

3. Source Of Angelic Merit

St. Thomas holds that the essential grace and glory of the angels does not depend on the merits of Christ, because "the Word was made flesh for men and for our salvation." Christ merited as Redeemer. Now the essential grace of the angels was not a redemptive grace. [616] And their essential glory, he says elsewhere, [617] was given them by Christ, not as Redeemer, but as the Word of God. Yet the Word incarnate did merit graces for the angels, graces not essential but accidental, to enable them to cooperate in the salvation of men.
Scotus again differs. Since the Word, he says, also in the actual plan of Providence, would have become man even if man had not sinned, we should hold that Christ merited for the angels also their essential grace and glory. And Suarez holds that Adam's sin was the occasion and condition, not of the Incarnation, but of the Redemption. Even if man had not sinned, he says, the Word would still perhaps have become incarnate, but would not have suffered. Hence, he concludes, Christ merited for the good angels their essential grace and glory, and is therefore their Savior.

Thomists reply that Christ is the Savior only as Redeemer. But for the angels He is not Redeemer. Further, they reflect, if the angels owed to Christ their essential glory, the beatific vision, they would, like the just of the Old Testament, have had to wait for that vision until Christ rose from the dead.

Let us summarize this Thomistic treatise on the angels. The main point of difference from Scotus and Suarez lies in the specific difference between angelic intelligence and human intelligence, a difference that depends on their respective formal object, his own essence for the angel, for the man the essence of the sense world known by abstraction. Hence angelic knowledge is completely intuitive. From this position derive all further conclusions of St. Thomas, on angelic knowledge, will, merit, and demerit. This Thomistic [618] conception of pure spirit is much higher than that of Scotus and Suarez. This treatise also throws much light on the following treatise where St. Thomas, in studying the nature of man, dwells on the quasi-angelic state of the separated soul.

A last remark. St. Thomas, as he proceeds, corrects the grave errors of the Latin Averroists, who looked upon all immaterial substances as eternal and immutable, as having a knowledge eternally complete, as depending on God, not for creation, but only for preservation. [619].

__________________________________________

ENDNOTES

596. 596 Ia, q. 50, a. 1, 2.
597. Ia, q 54, a. 1, 2, 3.
598. Ia, q. 50. a. 4.
599. Ipsum esse irreceptum est subsistens et unicum. Ia, q. 7, a1; q. 11, a. 3.
600. Ia, q. 12, a. 4.
601. Ia, q. 55, a. 3.
602. Ia, q. 58, a. 3.
603. Componendo et dividendo.
604. Ia, q. 58, a. 4.
605. Ia, q. 57, a. 3, 4, 5.
606. Nihil volitum nisi praecognitum ut conveniens, et nihil praevolitum nisi praecognitum ut convenientius hic et nunc.
607. Ia, q. 60, a. 5.
608. Ia, q. 63, a. 1, ad 3;De malo, q. 16, a. 3.
609. Ia, q. 62, a. 4, 5; q. 63, a. 5, 6. 
610. Ia, q. 64, a. 2.
611. De civ. Dei, XII, 9. Cf. Ia, q. 62, a. 3.
612. Ia, q. 64, a. 1, ad 4.
613. Angelus post primum actum caritatis quo beatitudinem (supernaturalem) meruit, statim beatus fuit. Ia, q. 62, a. 5.
614. This instant is already the one unique instant of eternity.
615. Ia, q. 63, a. 3616 Cf. De ver..: q. 29, a. 7, ad 5.
617. IIIa, q. 59, a. 6.
618. See Cajetan, Banez, John of St. Thomas, the Carmelites of Salamanca, Gonet, and Billuart.
619. Cf. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averoisme latin au XIIIe siecle, and ed.: Louvain, 1908-610. Introd. and chap. 6; also Denifle, Chartularium univ. parisien.: I, 543.

Pieper: "The truth of all things"

33) The “Truth of All Things”

IF you study any philosophical treatise of our present era you will with almost absolute certainty not encounter the concept, and much less the expression, “the truth of all things”. This no mere accident. The generally prevailing philosophical thinking of our own time has no room at all for this concept; it is, as it were, “not provided for”. It makes sense to speak of truth with regard to thoughts, ideas, statements, opinions—but not with regard to things. Our judgments regarding reality may be true (or false); but to label as “true” reality itself, the “things”, appears to be rather meaningless, mere nonsense. Things are real, not “true”!

Looking at the historical development of this situation, we find that there is much more to it than the simple fact of a certain concept or expression not being used; we find not merely the “neutral” absence, as it were, of a certain way of thinking. No, the nonuse and absence of the concept, “the truth of all things”, is rather the result of a long process of biased discrimination and suppression or, to use a less aggressive term: of elimination.

34) Things Can Be Known Because They Are Created

The fundamental statement about the “truth of all things” is found in St. Thomas’ Questiones disputatae de veritate; it reads: res naturalis inter intellectus constituta (est); whatever is is real in nature is placed between two knowing agents, namely— so the text continues—between the intellectus divines [God’s mind] and the intellectus humanus [human mind].

These “coordinates” places all reality between the absolutely creative, inventive knowledge of God and the imitating, “informed” knowledge of us humans and thus present the total realm of reality as a structure of interwoven original and reproduced conceptions.

Based on this twofold orientation of all things—so Thomas continues his reasoning—the concept of the “truth of all things” is also twofold: first, it means “thought by God”; second, it means “knowable to the human mind”. The statement, “All things are true”, would therefore mean, on one hand, that all things are known by God in the act of creation and, on the other hand, that all things are by their nature accessible and comprehensible to the human mind.

All things can be known by us because they spring from God’s thought. Because they originated in God’s mind, things have not only their specific essence in themselves and for themselves, but precisely because they originated in God’s mind, things have as well an essence “for us”. All things are intelligible, translucent, clear and open because they are created by God’s thought, and for this reason they are essentially spirit related. The clarity and lucidity that flows from God’s knowledge into things, together with their very being (more correctly: as their very being)—this lucidity alone makes all things knowable for the human mind. St. Thomas, in a commentary on the Liber de causis, we find a profound statement that expresses the same thought in almost mystical terms: ipsa actualitas rei est quoddam lumen ipsius; “the reality of a thing is itself its light”—and “reality” is understood here as “being created”! It is precisely this “light” that makes a thing visible to our eyes. In short: things can be known because they are created.

~from Josef Pieper: An Anthology  

• Amazon

Description: "Near the end of a long career as one of the most widely read popular Thomistic philosophers of the twentieth century, Josef Pieper has himself compiled an anthology from all his works. He has selected the best and most representative passages and arranged them in an order that gives sense to the whole and aids in the understanding of each excerpt."

Brother Benignus: The Nature of Knowledge

4. Form and Knower. St. Thomas makes an equation not only between knowability and form but also between the power to know and form. When I know a thing, I have in some manner become that thing; that is, I have received its form. We have already become acquainted in preceding chapters with what it means for matter to receive a form. When some matter receives a substantial form, it becomes physically the substance determined by that form; thus, the food which I eat becomes my flesh. When some matter receives an accidental form, it is physically altered to that accidental determination; for example, it becomes hot or red or square. But my mind does not turn to flesh when I know what flesh is, nor does it become flat I know what a plane is. Therefore, it must be concluded that it is not the matter in me that assumes the forms of the things which I know. In other words, I do not, in knowing things, assume their forms in my capacity of a composite substance; if I did I would literally turn into the things which I know. I receive these forms into my form as such, and consequently the modification wrought in me is not material. (8) From this St. Thomas concludes that only those beings whose forms are to some degree free from their matter are capable of having knowledge. “Free from matter” does not here mean separated from matter; certainly substantial forms (i.e., the souls) of animals are inseparable from matter and yet animals have a certain degree of knowledge. Their soul may be said to be free from matter in the sense that although it can never exist or operate except in and through their body, yet its whole energy is not limited to or used up in forming and animating their own body but reaches also to the reception of the forms of other bodies in an immaterial way. Thus a kitten first possesses in itself cognitively and immaterially the milk which it is about to add to itself materially; the milk is part of the kitten’s life in two distinct way, but one of these ways, the cognitive way, is purely formal. The milk, on the contrary, can never contain the kitten formally but only materially, the form of the milk is to no degree free from matter, and consequently the milk cannot receive any purely formal determination by which it becomes something else while yet remaining itself; therefore it is incapable of knowledge. (9) 

“Knowing beings are distinguished from non-knowing beings,” wrote St. Thomas, (10) “in that the latter possess only their own form, while knowing being is by nature capable of having also the form of another thing.” And by receiving the forms of other things knowing beings become those things without ceasing to be themselves.

“In beings which have knowledge, each is so determined to its own natural being by its own natural form that it is nevertheless capable of receiving of all intelligible things. And so the human soul, in a certain manner, becomes everything through sense and intellect.” (11)

5. Form and Intelligibility. Intelligibility means capacity to be understood or to be an idea. It is St. Thomas’ teaching that forms are themselves intelligible; that is to say, they are ideas, either potential ideas, when they are immersed in matter, or actual ideas, when they are free from matter. The form in anything is its idea, and this form, in the mind, makes the thing known to the mind.

“What is called idea in Greek is called forma in Latin. Whence by ideas we understand the forms of certain things existing apart from the things. Now the form of a thing existing apart from the thing can have a twofold being: it may either be the exemplar of that of which it is called the form, or it may be the principle by which the thing is known, for which reason the forms of things known are said to be in the one knowing.” (12)

When a form is not actually intelligible, this is not due to anything in itself as form, but to its mode of existence in matter. Every form existing free from matter is actually intelligible, that is to say, is an actual idea.

6. Form and Intelligence. St. Thomas goes further than this. He not only equates form with intelligibility, but also with intelligence. Every form subsisting in itself apart from matter is an actual intelligence. How far the Angelic Doctor goes in identifying form with intelligibility and intelligence is made clear by the following passages:

“Just as matter is the principle of particularity, so is intelligibility due to form. For this reason form is the principle of knowledge. Wherefore, it follows necessarily that every forM existing in itself apart from matter is intellectual in nature; and if, indeed, it subsists in itself, it will also be an intelligence. If, on the other hand, it is not subsistent but rather a perfection of some subsistent being, it will not be an intelligence, but a principle of understanding.” (13)

“If there were a box subsisting in itself without matter, it would understand itself; because immunity from matter is the cause of intellectuality, and because of this, the box without matter would not differ from the intelligible box.” (14)

“Every form subsisting in itself without matter is an intellectual substance, for immunity from matter confers intelligibility.” (15)

7. Actuality, Intelligibility, and Intelligence. This teaching of St. Thomas is no special, peculiar doctrine, but is simply a particular application of principles which he constantly employs. Creatures are ordered in a hierarchy of degrees of perfection, and perfection itself is measured by actuality of being. Primary matter is pure potentiality; and consequently the more any form of being involves materiality the more potential and the less actual it is, and the more free the form is from matter the less potential and the more actual it is. Actual intelligibility is a high degree of perfection, attained by form only when it is completely free from matter, as a form is in an intellect. Hence, every form separated from matter and received in an intellect is an actual idea. But actual intelligence, being an operation, can belong only to a substance, since every operation must be attributed to some substance. Therefore, an actually intelligible form, if it is a substance, that is, if it subsists in itself, will also be an actual intelligence; for intelligence is simply subjective intelligibility. An idea which is in a subject, but which is not itself a subject, is understood but does not understand; an idea which is itself a subject understands itself. In the final analysis intelligibility and intelligence are identical, because, as St. Thomas says so often, and as shall be explained below, “the intelligible thing in act is the intellect in act.”

~Brother Benignus, F.S.C., Ph.D.: Nature, Knowledge and God: An Introduction to Thomistic Philosophy, pp. 221-223. Bruce Publishing Co. (1947)
--------------
Notes

8. S. Theol., I, 50, 2, ad 2; Con. Gen., II, 50, fourth arg.
9. S. Theol., I, 84, 1, c.
10. S. Theol., I, 14, 1, c.
11. S. Theol., I, 80, 1, c.
12. S. Theol., I,  15, 1, c. Cf. De Ver., III, 2, c.
13. In I Sent., d. 35, q. 1, 1, c.
14. De Spirit. Creat., I, ad 12.
15. Con. Gen., II, 91.

• At Amazon

"If you want the best, readable exposition of Thomistic philosophy available in a single volume, this is it. A must-have book for anyone seriously interested in Thomism. Brother Benignus Gerrity wrote a practical masterpiece summarizing the essential elements of Thomistic philosophy, containing all the main philosophical sciences, except ethics. It contains a splendid presentation of the philosophy of nature, philosophical psychology, epistemology, metaphysics, and natural theology -- together with the necessary relevant historical context. There are other works that give exquisite analyses of parts of Thomism, but, having taught philosophy for over forty years, I do not hesitate to direct students immediately to this book as essential to their understanding of most of sound Thomistic thought in a single place. I recommend this fine work without qualification."

~Dennis Bonnette, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy

"The gift of understanding"

"UNDERSTANDING implies an intimate knowledge, for "intelligere" [to understand] is the same as "intus legere" [to read inwardly]. This is clear to anyone who considers the difference between intellect and sense, because sensitive knowledge is concerned with external sensible qualities, whereas intellective knowledge penetrates into the very essence of a thing, because the object of the intellect is "what a thing is," as stated in De Anima iii, 6.

"Now there are many kinds of things that are hidden within, to find which human knowledge has to penetrate within so to speak. Thus, under the accidents lies hidden the nature of the substantial reality, under words lies hidden their meaning; under likenesses and figures the truth they denote lies hidden (because the intelligible world is enclosed within as compared with the sensible world, which is perceived externally), and effects lie hidden in their causes, and vice versa. Hence we may speak of understanding with regard to all these things.

"Since, however, human knowledge begins with the outside of things as it were, it is evident that the stronger the light of the understanding, the further can it penetrate into the heart of things. Now the natural light of our understanding is of finite power; wherefore it can reach to a certain fixed point. Consequently man needs a supernatural light in order to penetrate further still so as to know what it cannot know by its natural light: and this supernatural light which is bestowed on man is called the gift of understanding."

~St. Thomas Aquinas: ST, II-II, q. 8, a. 1.

St. Thomas Aquinas, by Fra Angelico.
Tempera on wood, 1340-45; Collezione Vittorio Cini, Venice.

Maritain: types of knowledge

THERE is a multitude of assertions which are, in themselves, reformable: not only the hypothetical or probable assertions, but also the assertions themselves with which explanatory theory (I do not speak of that which is mere verification of fact) constructs itself in the sciences of phenomena, which are a knowledge of the observable as such, and refrain from piercing the crust of the observable. However far indeed one may extend it the observation remains inevitably limited, it is impossible to extend it infinitely far: so that, in itself, every system of rational interpretation of phenomena on the plane itself of phenomena can have to give way to a different system, occasions by new observations and more fully comprehensive. No scientific theory is irreformable or absolutely true; it is true only relatively to the state of science at the different stages of its progress. In the rationalization of the observable effected by the sciences of phenomena, truth is the adequation of the intelligence with that which falls under an observation as complete as possible at a given time of human history.

It is altogether different with knowledges such as philosophy and theology. Philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of nature, moral philosophy…) is capable of emitting irreformable assertions, in other words absolute truths, because it bears on intelligible being itself, or the real attained purely and simply (and not only as to the observable as such). When it says the true, and to the extent that it says the true, that which it says is absolutely true, and true for always. This is that to which the primary and most deep-seated ẻlan of the intelligence tends, and that for which it is most fundamentally thirsty.

When we say that truth is the adequation of the intelligence and of that which is, this is understood therefore primarily and above all of the adequation of the intelligence with “that which is” purely and simply, as it is the case for philosophy and theology. And it is understood secondarily (by extension to a type of knowledge enclosed completely in that which appears to the senses) of the adequation of the intelligence with “that which is” under a certain relation only (under the relation of observability), as it is the case for the sciences of phenomena.

Philosophy, which bears on the intimate intelligible structure of that which is, absolutely speaking, and theology, which bears on the intimate superintelligible mystery of Him Who is, absolutely speaking, are types of knowledge exceptionally difficult in themselves. This is why man has so often erred in them.

In science, knowledge less elevated and more narrow, which is a late fruit of human thought (it began only in the sixteenth century to disengage itself in its proper nature), and which bears on the rational interpretation and the rational organization (above all, there where it is possible, mathematization) of that only which appears to the senses, man errs also but does not cease to correct his errors with an inviolable regularity, because the retracing of the intelligence imposed by such a type of knowledge requires particularly rigorous methods and specializations; but the truth which we have then to do is truth only secundum quid, approximate truth.

The Scientists know this; the noninitiated do not know it. Let us turn, in a last remark, to the side of the human community. If the idea that no higher knowledge, neither philosophy, nor theology, is capable of absolute truth became generally accepted, the result would be that the world of culture would find itself, ─not through the fault of science, ─mystified by science. For it is the assertions of science, haloed with its dazzling application, which a multitude of people who are not scientists would take then for “the truth” (absolute) of which by virtue of the very nature of the intelligence they experience unconsciously the need; whereas the scientists would continue to know, and better and better, that, however precious the progresses of science may  be, irreformable assertions and absolute truths are not of the domain of the latter.

~Jacques Maritain: On the Church of Christ, Chap. IV, n. 4.
 

• Amazon