...
our natural knowledge proceeds from the senses. Wherefore our
natural knowledge can reach as far as the point to which the
senses can lead it. But our intellect cannot stretch beyond the
realm of the senses so as to behold the divine Essence; for
creatures that are dependent on the senses are the productions
of God, which do not equal the virtue of their cause.
Therefore, the whole virtue of God cannot be known from the
knowledge of the sense world, and accordingly also His essence
cannot be seen. But since effects depend upon cause, we can be
brought by them to know if He exists, and to know of Him what
attributes He necessarily has is the First Cause of All, which
transcends all. {Summa Theologie a, I. Quaestio XII,
Art. XII.)
This is just the personal experience of this age — we
cannot penetrate by vision into the spiritual world [p.
70].
...
and God in His Essence cannot be seen in vision by the pure
man, unless he be separated from this mortal life. For the
reason that the manner of acquiring the knowledge
follows the manner of existence of the being concerned.
But as long as we are in this life, our soul has its existence
in corporeal matter, and therefore it gains knowledge naturally
of nothing which has not its form in matter, or which cannot be
known through matter ...
But
this modesty in the sphere of earthly thinking is not a lack of
will-power. As the gold heavens of early Christian art
disappeared behind the blue curtain, there grew out of humanity
the heaven-assaulting Gothic. And as Plotinism dried up, there
arose the “gothic” thought-technique of High
Scholasticism.
The
“Sun behind” is only a temporary condition. In the
transfigured body we shall one day see God in His Essence.
As
man's highest bliss consists in his most sublime activity,
mainly in the operation of the intellect, either man would
never attain this bliss, or it would consist of something other
than God, if the created Intellects were never to behold the
Essence of God — which is contradictory to faith. For in
that which is the origin of his existence lies the final
completion of the rational creature; and a thing is so far
complete as it attains to its origin. But it contradicts Reason
also. In man there is natural desire to know the cause when he
sees the effect, and from this arises wonder in men. If the
intellect of the rational creature were not to reach the first
cause of things, this desire of nature would have to remain in
vain. Therefore, it must be unconditionally granted that the
Blessed behold God's Essence.
This “natural desire for the origin,” is the
primary urge of Scholasticism, comparable with the plant-like
heavenward urge of Gothic art. As in early Gothic there was no
remission of tenseness, so Thomas never allows a
“piousness” — of whatever kind — the
power to dispense the intellect from activity.
For
Thomas the act of thought leads always upward, never to a
lying-down to rest. His praying has nothing to do with beds and
cushions.
...
God is not called incomprehensible because He has some quality
which is not seen; but because it is not seen so perfectly as
it can be ...
...
What is perfectly known, is comprehended, and that which is
known as deeply as it can be, is perfectly known. Thus, if
something, which is capable of being known by empiric science,
is held by one opinion, which originates from some reason of
probability, that thing is not comprehended. If, for instance,
someone knows by demonstration the proposition that the sum of
the angles of a triangle equal two right angles, he comprehends
it. But if someone assumes the opinion on the score of
probability, because the learned say so, or the majority, he
does not comprehend it, because he does not attain to that
complete manner of knowing it, in which it is capable of being
known. But no created intellect can reach up to knowing the
divine Essence, in that perfect manner in which it is capable
of being known ... For there is no limit to the knowledge of
God. No created intellect can have a limitless knowledge of
God. Now, a created intellect knows the Divine Essence more or
less perfectly in proportion as it is fathomed by a greater or
less Light of Glory. (S. Theol. Q,. XII. Art. VII.)
The
deepest work-impulse of Thomas is to limit as far as possible
the share of tradition — based on outer authority and
therefore probability — in the faith-content of the
Church, in favour of what can be gained “per
demonstrationem.” He wanted to lead with the Gothic
technique of his concept-temple those concepts “which can
come only from ourselves and our individuality” far into
the kingdom of faith-contents [pp. 41, 42.] To open up
faith-content to the understanding — also in order
to defend it against unbelievers — was the “main
problem in front of Albertus and Thomas,” [p. 72.]
This use of the intellect in the “natural light”
supplies therefore on the one hand, weapons for the fight of
the “Ecclesia militans” — and from this point
of view Thomas writes his “Summa contra Gentiles”
(against the “Heathen” — i.e., the Arabs)
— on the other hand, it supplies foundations, on which
the “Ecclesia Triumphans” can be built up —
which is the object of the Summa Theologica.
For
through grace — after death or even beforehand, through a
miracle (as in the case of Moses or Paul) — the natural
light can receive a lifting-up to the power of vision.
When something is raised to a degree which transcends its
nature, it must be given a disposition which is above its
nature. If, for instance, air is to receive the form of fire,
it must be disposed to this form by means of a certain faculty.
But when a created intellect beholds God in His Essence, God's
Essence itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect.
Wherefore a supernatural disposition must be added to it, so as
to raise it to such sublimity. For as the natural power of the
created intellect is not sufficient to see God's Essence, it is
necessary that by Divine Grace a power of intelligence should
be added to it. For this reason, we call the increase of the
power of intelligence the “illumination” of the
intellect; and this is the illumination of which it is said in
the Apocalypse xxi, 28, that “the light of God will
illumine them,” namely, the society of the Blessed who
see God. [Summa Theologica, I. Quaestio XII, Art.
V.)
Of
those who behold God in His Essence, one will behold Him more
perfectly than another ... because the intellect of one will
have more power or ability to see God than that of the other.
The capacity to see God, however, does not belong to the
created intellect according to its nature, but through Glory
and Light ... Therefore the intellect which has a greater share
of glory and light will see God more perfectly; and he will
have this greater share who has more of Charity, for where
there is more charity there is more desire, and desire makes
him who desires in some manner apt and prepared for the
reception of the objects desired. Whoever therefore shall have
more Charity will see God more perfectly, and be more blessed.
{Summa Theologica, I. Quaestio XII. Art. VI.)
But
the inner drama of the Aristotelian-Thomasian doctrine of
knowledge not only runs along an abstract line of development
from the less perfect to the more perfect, but already assigns
its quite special and distinguishing share to the lower steps
of learning.
According to the Platonists' supposition (that the soul carries
all knowledge in itself but has forgotten it on account of its
conjunction with the body, that all learning is a remembering
and that the turning towards the world of the senses is mere
imperfection) the soul is not united to the body for its
betterment, for because of this union it is less intelligent
than when separate, but this union is solely for the betterment
of the body, which is against reason, for matter exists for the
sake of form, not vice versa.
But
one might object that if a thing is always ordained towards
betterment (and the direct turning towards the intelligible is
a better kind of intellectual activity than the turning towards
phantasms) God might have arranged the nature of the soul in
such a manner as to make the nobler kind of intellectual
activity come naturally to it and so that it would not have to
be united to the body for the purpose.
It
must be noted that even if the application of the intellect to
higher things is more perfect than its application to physical
images, still, the former mode was less perfect, if one
considers how it would have been possible to the soul; which is
made clear in the following thoughts: In every intellectual
substance intellectual power exists through the influence of
the Divine Light. This is in its first principle one and simple
but divided and diversified in proportion as creatures are
further removed from the Source, as is the case with lines
which radiate from a central point. Thus it follows that God
knows all things through His one Essence. And if the higher
intellectual substances exercise their intellects through more
than form, still it is through less numerous and more universal
forms (than the lower substances) owing to the efficacy of the
intellectual virtue that is in them. But in the lower
substances there are forms, less universal and less efficacious
in comprehending, in proportion to their disparity in
intellectual virtue from the higher. Now if the lower
substances had the forms in that degree of universality in
which the higher have them, they would not gain through these
forms a perfect knowledge of things, because they cannot
develop such an intellectual power, but only a general and
confused knowledge. This applies correspondingly to men. For
those furnished with weaker intellects do not gain a complete
knowledge through the universal concepts of the more
intelligent, unless the details are specially explained to
them. It is obvious that among the intellectual substances
according to the arrangement of Nature, human souls are the
lowest. But the perfection of the whole demands that there
should be different grades in the world. Thus if God had so
arranged human souls that they understood in the same manner as
the separate substances can, they would not be capable of a
complete knowledge, but in general a confused one. But that
they might have a complete proportionate knowledge of things,
human souls are so made that they are united with bodies and
thus gain a proportionate knowledge from physical things, just
as uneducated people can be taught only through concrete
examples. Wherefore it is clear that it is for the soul's good
to be bound to the body, and to understand by turning to
phantasms.
Thus the Thomistic doctrine of knowledge leads from God,
who comprehends everything in one intellectual act,
through the separate substances, which need ever weaker
“universals,” to man, who must study the
universals from below, by releasing the phantasms from things
through the senses, and from these the species through the
“active intellect”, and from the species the
universal conceptions through the “possible
intellect.” With these by thought, not by vision, he
builds up his temple of knowledge through the kingdom of the
spirits, to heaven.
As
a background to the magnificent summary of Thomas' doctrine of
knowledge in the second of Rudolf Steiner's Addresses [pp. 59
et seq.], we will translate the short chapters of the
Compendium Theologiae, in which Thomas gave his brother
Reginald in compressed completeness the quintessence of his
doctrine.
Chapter 78. — That Man's Intellectual
Substance is the lowest of the Species.
As
it is not the property of things to stretch into eternity,
there must be among the intellectual substances not only a
highest which reaches nearest to God, but also a lowest, which
is nearest bodily matter. And this can be seen in the following
manner: Intellectual activity is the faculty of man above the
other animals; for it is clear that man reviews the universals,
the qualities of things and immaterial things, all of which are
comprehended only through intelligence. Now it is impossible
that this intellectual activity is carried out by means of a
bodily organ, as seeing is through the eye. For every
instrument of cognitive power must necessarily itself be void
of that kind of matter which is known through it, as the pupil
of the eye by nature is void of the colours. For the colours
are known by reason of the fact that the species of the colours
are taken up in the pupil; but that which takes up must be void
of what is taken up. But the intellect is in a position to
learn with regard to all physical nature. Thus if it were to
acquire knowledge through a bodily organ, this organ would have
to be void of all physical nature — which is
impossible.
Further: every cognitive instrument is itself known in the
manner according to which the species of the object known lies
in it; for this is for it the principle of knowledge. But the
intellect knows things immaterially, even those which in their
own nature are material, because it withdraws the universal
form from the material conditions which create the separation.
It is therefore impossible that the species of the thing known
is in the intellect materially; and it is not received in a
bodily organ, for every bodily organ is material.
Equally is it plain that the sense is weakened and destroyed by
exaggerated sense-qualities — as the hearing is by loud
sounds and the sight by blinding light; and this happens
because the harmony of the organ is destroyed. But the
intellect is rather strengthened through the exaggeration of
the intelligible qualities, for whoever uses his intellect for
higher things is able to understand the others not less well,
but better. Thus if man is discovered as an intellectual being
and his process of knowing does not take place through a bodily
organ there must necessarily be some kind of incorporeal
substance through which man comprehends.
For
anything that can itself be active without body does not depend
on the body according to its substance; and all powers and
forms which cannot exist without body can also have no
effectiveness without body. Thus warmth does not engender
warmth by itself but a body engenders warmth by means of
warmth.
This incorporeal substance therefore through which man
comprehends is the lowest in the order of intellectual
substances and that which stands next to matter.
Chapter 79. — Of the Difference of the
Intellect and of the Mode of its Activity
Since the intellectual Being is higher than the sensual, as the
Intellect is higher than the senses, and since the lower by
nature imitates as much as possible the higher, so bodies that
are subject to growth and decay imitate to a certain extent the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, it must be presumed that
the sensory qualities in their way resemble the intellectual;
and thus we can in some manner acquire knowledge of the
intellectual from the likeness to it of the sensual. Now in the
sensory we find a “highest” as it were, namely
actuality, or form, and a “lowest” potentiality, or
matter, and a “middle,” namely, that which is
composed of matter and form. Similarly, we must differentiate
in the intellectual Being; for the highest intellectual, God,
is pure actuality, the other intellectual substances have
something of actuality and something of potentiality according
to their intellectual nature; but the lowest intellectual
substance by which man uses his intellect, is in the
intellectual realm only in the condition of potentiality. This
strengthens the idea that originally man was made intellectual
only as a potentiality, and subsequently by degrees was brought
to actuality. Wherefore the intellectual substance of man is
called the “intellectus possibilis,” or potential
intellect.
Chapter 80. — That Maris Intellectus
Possibilis evolves the Intellectual Forms from Sensory
Things
Now
since, as already stated, the higher an intellectual substance
is, the more universal are its intellectual forms, it follows
that the human intellect, which we called
“possibilis,” has, among the other intellectual
substances, less universal forms; and here is the reason why it
evolves the intellectual forms from sensory things.
This can also throw light on another consideration. The form
must be proportionate to that which is to be comprehended
through it. Therefore, as the human intellectus possibilis
among all intellectual substances lies nearest to bodily
matter, its intellectual forms must also necessarily be nearest
to material things.
Chapter 81. — That Man needs the Powers of
the Senses for Intellectual Activity
It
is to be remarked that the forms in bodily things are composed
of separate particles and are material, but in the Intellect
they are universal and immaterial, which the mode of our
intellectual activity establishes, for we use our intellects
“universally” and “immaterially.” But
this mode must necessarily correspond with the intellectual
form and species, by means of which our intellects act.
Therefore, since we go from one extreme to another only by way
of a mean, forms proceed from bodily things to the intellect
through certain media. Of this kind are the sense-powers, which
comprehend the forms of material things apart from matter
— we see, for instance, the particular form of the stone
with the eye but not its matter — and on the other hand
they comprehend the forms of things in a particular way —
for the senses only comprehend the differentiated particles.
Senses therefore, were necessary to man for intellectual
activity; and this is confirmed by the fact that if anyone is
bereft of one sense, he loses also the knowledge which is
dependent on that sense, like a man born blind, who can have no
knowledge of colours.
Chapter 82. — That it is necessary to
assume an “Intellectus Agens”
It
becomes clear, therefore, that knowledge concerning things is
not caused in our intellect through a participation in some
kind of actual intellectual forms, that exist in and for
themselves, or through their influence, as the Platonists and
others who followed them, supposed. Rather the intellect
extracts this knowledge from physical things through the
mediation of the senses. But because, as already stated, the
forms of things are particularized in the sense-powers, they
are comprehensible not according to reality, but only to
potentiality. For the intellect works only universally. Now
something which is in the potential state can be transferred to
that of actuality only by means of some active agent. There
must therefore exist an “agent” which makes the
particularized forms which lie in the sense-powers
comprehensible in reality. But the “intellectus
possibilis” cannot bring this about: for it is itself
more in a state of potentiality with respect to the
comprehending qualities, than active in them. Another intellect
must therefore be postulated, which makes particularized forms
which are comprehensible in potentiality comprehensible in
reality, as light causes potentially visible colours to be
actually visible. And we call this the “Intellectus
Agens” — which we need not postulate, if the
forms of things were comprehensible in reality, as the
Platonists assumed.
...
The “intellectus possibilis” is receptive of
the comprehensible particularized forms ... the
“intellectus agens” makes them actually
comprehensible.
Chapter 83. — That the Human Soul is
Indestructible
“In this way the great logical questions of the
universals join up with the questions which concern the
world-destiny of each individual,” says Rudolf Steiner
[p. 73]: How this chapter 83 joins up with the preceding
chapter!
In
accordance with what has been said, the intellect, with which
man comprehends must be indestructible. Every Being is active
in proportion to its nature. But the intellect has an activity
independent of the body, as has been shown — from which
it follows that it is active of its own accord. Therefore, it
is a substance which subsists by itself. But it was shown above
that intellectual substances are indestructible. Thus man's
intellect is also indestructible.
Moreover, the real basis of growth and decay is matter, and a
thing is therefore as far removed from decay as it is from
matter. Things composed of matter and form are intrinsically
destructible; material forms are destructible through that
which is bound up with them and not through themselves; but the
immaterial forms which transcend the measure of matter are
definitely indestructible. The intellect is by its nature
exalted above matter, which is shown by its function: for we
comprehend nothing through something else, without separating
it from matter. Thus the intellect is, in accordance with its
nature, indestructible.
This confutes also Averroës, who supposed “there is
no immortality in the sense of an individual continuance after
death.” In the connection of problems as shown by Rudolf
Steiner, Thomas in the subsequent chapters of the Compendium
Theologiae collects together all the principal arguments of
his powerful battery against the Arabic antagonism to
individuality, by proving “that there is not one
intellectus possibilis only among all men” (Chapter 84);
“that the intellectus agens in all men is not a single
one” (Chapter 85); but “that the intellectus
possibilis and the intellectus agens are founded in the essence
of the individual soul.” (Chapter 86.)
The
Fight against Averroës
For
the fight against the denial of the individual by the Arab
doctor and philosopher, Averroës (1126-1198), Thomas
filled an arsenal with marvellously made and sharpened logical
weapons. From this armoury let us take one argument —
with which Thomas closes the terrific 73rd chapter of the
Second Book of the Summa contra Gentiles.
Averroës' standpoint is: “Each of us has his own
body, but not his own understanding.”
Thomas replies: —
|