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The Great Thinkers of Western Philosophy |
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In determining or defining the relationship of God with the world, Aquinas departs not only from the doctrine of the Averroist Aristotelians, but also from the teaching of Aristotle himself. For Aristotle matter was uncreated and co-eternal with God, limiting the divinity itself (Greek dualism). Aquinas denies this dualism. The world was produced by God through His creative act, i.e., the world was produced from nothing. Besides, all becoming in matter is connected with God, since He is the uncaused Cause and the immovable Mover of all that takes place in created nature. God has created the world from nothingness through a free act of His will; hence any necessity in the nature of God is excluded. Again, we know that Aristotle did not admit providence: the world was in motion toward God, as toward a point of attraction; but God did not know of this process of change, nor was He its ordinator. For Aquinas, on the contrary, God is providence: creation was a knowing act of His will; God, the cause and mover of all the perfections of beings, is also the intelligent ordinator of them" all that happens in the world finds its counterpart in the wisdom of God. Now, how the providence and the wisdom of God are to be reconciled with the liberty of man is a problem which surpasses our understanding. It is not an absurdity, however, if we keep in mind that the action of Divine Providence is absolutely distinct and can be reconciled with the liberty of man without diminishing or minimizing this latter.
VIII. The Human Soul (Rational Psychology) Besides God, the spiritual substances are the angels and human souls. Angels are not destined to inform any matter; the human soul, on the contrary, is ordered to be the form of the body. Hence the question arises as to the nature of the soul and its relations with the body. In regard to the first question, at the time of Aquinas, the Averroists held that "the agent intellect" was a form existent per se and that it was separated from human souls, in which, however, it made its appearance occasionally in order to impress the intelligibles on the passive intellect. The logical conclusion in this theory is that the human soul will perish when the conditions of the body make impossible the presence of the Unique Intellect. Aquinas was always a strong opponent of Averroism. He rejected the unity and transcendence of the agent intellect not only for theological but for philosophical reasons. As Aquinas observes (1), he who receives an intelligible form does not thereby become an "intelligent being." For instance, a house which receives the intelligible form of the idea of the artist, is intelligible but not intelligent. Man not only is intelligible but also intelligent; he is intelligent, because he make intelligent operations. The principle of these intelligent operations, therefore, must be the soul itself and not a separate intellect. (2) The second question deals with the relationship of the human soul to the body. In man there are many operations -- vegetative, sensitive, and intellective. Now, unquestionably the intellective operations are performed by the rational soul. But who performs the others? Platonic-Augustinian philosophy solved the question by admitting a multiplicity of inferior forms which are subordinated to the rational soul. Thus there was a sensitive form as well as a vegetative form. Aquinas, following Aristotle in this matter, denies any multiplicity of substantial forms in the same individual. The form for man is one as is the form for any individual thing; in man this form is the rational soul. It is the principle of all operations, whether material or spiritual. We know that the one soul understands and performs all the operations. We express this identity of the subject when we say: "I understand and I feel, and I see." Proper to the human soul is the understanding, which does not need the cooperation of any organ in its operations. But the human soul is also the "form of the body"; and just as every form is the principle of all the operations of the informed matter, so also the human soul is the principle of all operations performed by the body through its various organs. (3) The doctrine that "the soul is the form of the body" gives rise to another difficulty, which seems to spring from the same principle of matter and form taken from Aristotelian metaphysics. According to Aristotle, the forms of natural bodies depend on the conditions of matter, so that when these conditions become unfit the permanence of the form is no longer possible; then it will be corrupted and another form will take its place. Hence the doctrine of the soul as the unique form of the body seems to lead logically to the mortality of the human soul. Aquinas overcomes the difficulty with the same Aristotelian principles. The operations of any being follow from its nature; thus any form leading only to organic operations is bound to matter and follows the conditions of matter, as, for instance, the animal soul, which is corrupted with the organism. But the human soul has superorganic operations. The intellect does not need any organ in its understanding; hence the human soul is a superorganic substance, not dependent for its being upon any matter. And despite the fact that the human soul is the form of the body, it will last as a separate substance of intellectual nature, even when the conditions of the body render impossible the functioning of the soul as the form of the body. (4) Thus the doctrine of Aquinas concerning the soul in general and the human soul in particular, may be summed us as follows: When the form in matter is the origin of immanent actions, it gives origin to life and as such is more particularly called the "soul." There is a vegetative soul, such as the principle of plants, whose activity is fulfilled in nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Superior to the vegetative is the sensitive soul, which is present in animals; besides the processes of nutrition, growth and reproduction the sensitive soul is capable of sensitive knowledge and appetition. Superior still to the sensitive soul is the rational soul. The rational soul is created directly by God; it is distinct for each man; it is the true form of the body. The human soul performs the functions of the vegetative and sensitive life, but besides these functions it has activities which do not depend upon the body, i.e., understanding and volition. The intellect and the will are the faculties of the soul, the means through which it operates. The intellect has for its object the knowledge of the universal, and operates by judging and reasoning. The will is free; that is, it is not determined by any particular good, but it determines itself. From an analysis of the intellect and the will, Aquinas proves the spirituality, the simplicity, and the immortality of the soul. The intellect has, in fact, for its proportionate object the universal, the understanding of which is a simple and spiritual act. Hence the soul from which the act of understanding proceeds is itself simple and spiritual. Since it is simple and spiritual, it is by nature also immortal. The same conclusion is reached through an analysis of the will, which, as we have said, is free, i.e., not determined by any cause outside itself. In the physical world everything is determined by causal necessity, and hence there is no liberty. The faculty which is not determined by causal motives declares its independence of these causes and hence is an immaterial faculty. The soul upon which such a faculty depends must be of the same nature as the faculty; that is, the soul must be immaterial. The human soul, since it is immaterial and performs acts which are not absolutely dependent upon the bodily organs, does not perish with the body -- although, as Aquinas says, the soul separated from the body is not entirely complete but has an inclination to the body as the necessary instrument for its complete and full activity. References: (1) Contra Gent., II, 76).
In opposition to the voluntarism of Augustinian thought, Aquinas holds the primacy of the intellect over the will. Reason precedes volition. Aquinas extends this law even to God. Creation is founded upon the essence of God in so far as this essence is known by God's intellect and can be produced through the creative act. The divine will freely selects from among the possibilities in the divine essence. Thus even in God this present order of creation has been willed because it was reasonable, and not vice versa, reasonable because willed. Analogously, in man the act of understanding precedes the movement of the will. Nevertheless the will is free and hence is not constrained to select necessarily what the intellect presents to it as reasonable. In order to demonstrate the freedom of our will, Aquinas goes to the very root of the will. The will is determined by good as is the intellect by truth. Thus if the will were presented with an object which is essentially good -- good under every aspect (God) -- the will in this case would not be free, because it would find itself confronted with the adequate object of its nature. But our will is dependent on the intellect, and the intellect, as we know, is dependent upon sensations, i.e., upon particular goods, which may be good from one standpoint and evil from another. In this case the will is free to select from among the various objects presented to it by the intellect. But all of this is not yet sufficient to form the moral act in its entirety. Freedom of the will and the free volitional act are the subjective part of morality. To complete the moral act, it is necessary to have also the objective part, or the conformity of volition to the supreme norm of morality. This supreme norm is called by Aquinas the eternal law; it resides in God and is the norm of the order established by God in the creature. The eternal law, in so far as it is manifested and recognized by the intelligence, constitutes the natural law. This latter, then, is none other than the eternal law in so far as it is manifested to our conscience. The morality of an act depends upon its conformity to the law of conscience and hence to the eternal law; nonconformity brings about moral evil, sin. The more regularly moral law is observed, the easier such observance becomes; hence, virtue consists in the habitual and conscious conformity of action to the moral law. The natural virtues, for Aquinas as for Aristotle, are four: prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice. In opposition to Augustinian teaching, which affirmed that society is not natural but is the consequence of original sin, and in conformity with Aristotle, Aquinas discovers the necessity of society by analyzing human nature. Society is necessary for the perfection to which man by his nature has been destined. Man is hence a political animal. The first form of society is the family, an imperfect society because it is destined by nature solely for the propagation of the species. Society has for its end the common good, and man does not exist for society, but society exists for man. The duties of society are of a positive and a negative nature; i.e., the state not only must provide for the defense of its citizens and for their free exercise (negative duties), but must also provide educative and formative measures for the elevation of the members of society. Since the end of the state is the common good of material nature, the state must recognize another society, the Church, to which has been entrusted the spiritual good of the same citizens; and since the material must be coordinated with the spiritual, the state, although complete in itself, must recognize the rights of the Church in matters of morality and religion. In The Radical Academy
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