ST. Ia. 89. 1-2 Outline

I am required to give a sketch of some assigned articles from the Summa Theologica for my class on Aquinas and Human Nature. My assigned articles are from the Prima Pars question 89 articles 1 and 2. In question 89 Aquinas is treating the problematic of the separated human soul's ability to understand without the body. Here is my sort of propositionalized outline of these questions meant to be read with the Summa not as a substitution. Two difficulties with the following. It was produced hastily so I used my own nomenclature and shorthand, and blogspot has a very difficult bulleting format. So I just pasted in my word document which is not tabbed very well in the pasted format.

Summa Theologica. Prima Pars Q. 89 Art. 1

Whether a human soul separated from its body (henceforth: SHS) can understand anything?

• It seems that the human soul separated from the body can know nothing.

Obj. 1: Aristotle asserts in the De Anima (i, 4) that
i. “Understanding is corrupted together with its interior principle.”
ii. In death all human interior principles are corrupted
iii. Ergo, the intellect [which is the faculty for understanding] is corrupted

Obj. 2:
i. The human soul is hindered from understanding when there is an impediment/distraction to the senses or imagination. (cf. 84.7/8)
ii. Death destroys the sense and imagination (cf. 77.8)
iii. Ergo, after death the SHS understands nothing

Obj. 3: If the SHS can understand it must be by means of an intelligible species.
i. However, the SHS does not understand by means of innate species.
a. B/c it is at first like a blank tablet
ii. SHS also cannot know by species abstracted from things
a. B/c separated the soul is w/o the organs of sensation and imagination which are both
necessary for the abstraction of species.
iii. SHS also cannot understand by means of previously abstracted species stored in the soul.
a. If this were the case, a child’s soul would have no means of understanding at all [after the
child has died and the soul is separated]. (This supposes that children have not yet come to the age of understanding and abstraction)
iv. Finally, the SHS does not understand by a Divine influx of species intelligibiles.
a. B/c that would not be natural cognition but gratuitous cognition. And this question is of
natural cognition.

Sed contra: Aristotle says in de Anima (i.1)

i. “If the soul had no proper operation, it could not be separated from the body.”
ii. But there is a SHS.
iii. Ergo, it has a proper operation, and this is above all, is understanding.
iv. Ergo, the SHS can understand apart from the body.

Reply:

I. Overview of the Problem w/ Platonic considerations

i. There is a problem here b/c when the soul is united to the body in can understand only by means of abstraction from the phantasms.
a. Platonic Psychology Digression: If this were accidental to the soul’s nature, as the
Platonists hold, the problem would vanish. B/c the Platonists held the soul’s natural state is w/o the body.
i. The soul would then understand things simply like the other separated substances.
b. However in this case the union of soul and body would not be for the soul’s good, but for
the body’s good. B/c the soul would understand worse united,
c. This is unreasonable b/c matter exists for the sake of form, not the reverse.
ii. And a SHS is without phantasms.
iii. And death does not change the soul’s nature.
iv. Ergo it cannot understand anything naturally.

II. Thomas's Initial Solution

i. Recall, nothing operates unless it is actual.
a. The mode of operation in a thing follows on its mode of existence (essendi ipsius).
ii. Soul has two modes of being w/ a nature that does not alter between the two modes. And this does not negate the soul’s natural union with the body, making it therefore accidental. (Example of objects natural location). The two modes accordingly are:
a. Soul unified to the body.
b. SHS
iii. The soul when unified to the body has the appropriate mode of operation.
iv. SHS has a mode of understanding, where it turns to simply intelligible objects, like separated substances.
a. But this is contrary to its natural union with the body and its natural mode of
understanding by phantasms, which is why it is naturally united to the body.

III. Challenge to God’s Providence

1. Nature is always ordered to what is best.
2. It is better to understand intelligibles simply than by phantasms.
3. God should have ordered the soul’s nature in accordance with the nobler mode of understanding.

IV. 2nd Solution

1. It is nobler in itself to understand by turning to something higher than lower.
2. But this mode of understanding was not so perfect given what was possible for the soul.

• Divergence: The Order of Intellects
• The further an intellects is from the first principle the more diversified its mode of
understanding.
• God > Higher Intellectual Substances > Inferior Intellectual Substances > Man.
• If lower intellects received species with the same degree of universality, it would be
incommensurate to their own faculties and they wound be confused and at best only have
improper knowledge.

3. Humans are the lowest of the intellectual substances.
4. Perfection of the universe required diverse grades of being.
5. If God has willed human souls to understand like separated substances, they would only understand confusedly.
6. Ergo: So that humans could come to perfect and proper understanding they were untied to bodies by nature.

V. Resolution

Therefore it is for the soul’s natural good that it is united to the body. Nevertheless it is possible for it to exist apart from the body and to understand another way.

Reply: Obj. 1
1. Aristotle asserts this assuming a the prior supposition that understanding is a movement of body and soul together, sensation is the same.
2. Also, he is referring here to the way of understanding by turning to phantasms.

Same Reply for Obj. 2

Reply: Obj. 3
1. The objection does prove: A) no innate species B) nor by abstracted species presently or C) retained.
2. SHS understands by means of participated species arising from the influence of the Divine Light. The SHS shares in this, like other separated substances; though to a lesser degree.

Summa Theologica. Prima Pars. Q. 89. Art. 2

Whether the separated soul understands separate substances?

• It seems the SHS does not understand separate substances.

Obj. 1:
1. Soul is more perfect with the body, b/c every part of a whole is more perfect in union with the whole.
2. Soul in the body does not understand separated substances (88.1)
3. Ergo, it is much less able to w/o the body.

Obj. 2:
1. Whatever is know by its presence or by its species.
2. Only God can enter the soul and be present.
3. Nor by abstraction of species, for angels are simpler than the soul.
4. Therefore the SHS cannot understand separate substances.

Obj. 3:
1. Some philosophers held man’s ultimate happiness is in knowing separated substances.
2. But if the SHS could understand them, its happiness would be obtained simply by separation which is unreasonable.

Sed contra:
1. SHS know other SHS: example of the rich man who saw Lazarus and Abraham.
2. Therefore SHS can see them.

Reply:
1. Our mind acquires knowledge of incorporeal things by knowing itself. (Augustine says the same.)
a. This operation will inform the present investigation. The operation of understanding itself through its own act.
2. SHS, does not turn to phantasms, but directly to simple intelligible objects.
a. Ergo, in this state it understands itself through itself.
3. Every Separated Substance: “understands what is above itself and what is below itself according to the mode of its subsistence.”
a. A thing is understood according as it is in the one who understands; while one thing is in another according to the nature of that in which it is.
4. SHS is inferior to angels, but is the same as other SHS
5. Therefore, the SHS has perfect knowledge of other SHS, but imperfect and defective knowledge of angels and only to the degree its natural knowledge is concerned.
6. The knowledge of Glory is otherwise.

Reply Obj. 1:
1. SHS is less perfect in consideration of its natural union with the body.
2. But the SHS has a greater freedom of intelligence as a SHS

Reply Obj. 2:
1. SHS understands angels by means of divinely impressas similitudes;
2. Yet these fail to give perfect representations of them.
3. B/c the nature of SHS is inferior to angels.

Reply Obj. 3:
1. Man’s happiness is in knowledge of God, not angles.
2. God is only seen by grace.
3. Perfect Knowledge of other separate substances does give great happiness, but not ultimate.
4. SHS however does not have perfect knowledge of them.