THOMAS AQUINAS

Thomas Aquinas: translation

Thomas AquinasBrian Davies OPThomas Aquinas, son of Landulf d’Aquino and his wife Theodora,was born sometime between 1224 and 1226 in what was then theKingdom of Naples.¹After a childhood education at the Benedictinemonastery of Monte Cassino, he studied at the university of Naples.Here, possibly under Irish influence, he encountered the philosophy ofAristotle, which subsequently became a major source of philosophicalinspiration to him.²The thinking of Aristotle and Aquinas differ inmany ways. So it would be wrong to say, as some have, that Aquinas isjust an ‘Aristotelian’, implying that he merely echoed Aristotle.³But hecertainly used Aristotle to help him say much that he wanted to say forhimself. And he did more than any other medieval philosopher to makesubsequent generations aware of the importance of Aristotle.In 1242 or 1243 Aquinas entered the Dominican Order of preachingfriars founded by St Dominic (c.1170–1221).⁴He subsequently studiedunder St Albert the Great (c.1200–80) in Cologne and Paris, and by1256 he was a professor at the University of Paris. The rest of his lifewas devoted to teaching, preaching, administration and writing—notonly in Paris, but elsewhere as well. He taught, for example, at Orvietoand Rome. He was assigned to establish a house of studies in Rome in1265. In 1272 he moved to Naples, where he became responsible forstudies at the priory of San Domenico. But by 1274 his working lifewas over. In December 1273 he suffered some kind of breakdown. Ataround the same time he was asked to attend the second Council ofLyons. He set out for Lyons, but he became seriously ill on the wayand he died in the Cistercian Abbey of Fossanova.After his death Aquinas came near to being condemned at theUniversity of Paris. And teachings thought to derive from him werecondemned at Oxford in 1277. But his standing as a thinker grewsteadily and, in spite of continued opposition to his teaching, he wascanonized as a saint of the Catholic Church in 1323.Later medievalauthors often quote him and discuss him, and, though his influencewaned between the later medieval period and the age of the Counter-Reformation, his impact on post-Reformation figures was considerable,chiefly because St Ignatius Loyola arranged for his writings to be usedin the training of Jesuits. After another period in which his thinkingcame to be lightly regarded, the study of Aquinas was encouraged bythe papacy in the nineteenth century.PHILOSOPHER OR THEOLOGIAN?Does Aquinas deserve a place in a book on the history of philosophy?Anthony Kenny has described him as ‘one of the dozen greatestphilosophers of the western world’ ([11.27] 1). But others haveexpressed a different view. Take, for example, Bertrand Russell.According to him:There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. Hedoes not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to followwherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in aninquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know inadvance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knowsthe truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith.⁵Russell had little time for Aquinas considered as a philosopher. Andeven Aquinas’s supporters have sometimes characterized him as atheologian rather than a philosopher. According to Etienne Gilson, thephilosophy in Aquinas is indistinguishable from the theology.⁶Thesame opinion is expressed by Armand Maurer. Commenting onAquinas’sSumma theologiae,he says that, in this work,everything is theological, even the philosophical reasoningthat makes up such a large part of it. The water ofphilosophy and the other secular disciplines it contains hasbeen changed into the wine of theology. That is why wecannot extract from theSummaits philosophical parts andtreat them as pure philosophy.⁷Russell’s judgement will strike most modern philosophers as a dubiousone. And, as Kenny nicely observes, it ‘comes oddly from a philosopherwho [inPrincipia Mathematica] took three hundred and sixty densepages to offer a proof that 1+1=2’ ([11.27] 2). But there are goodreasons for agreeing with Gilson and Maurer. Aquinas was a priestand a Dominican friar. And most of his writings can be properly classedas ‘theology’. We have reason to believe that his greatest literaryachievement, theSumma theologiae,was chiefly intended as a textbookfor working friars.⁸And there is reason to suppose that his secondbest-known work, theSumma contra Gentiles,had an equally pastoraland Christian motive.⁹Yet any modern philosopher who reads Aquinas will be struck bythe fact that he was more than your average theologian. His writingsshow him to have been expert in matters of philosophical logic. And,like many medieval theology teachers, he presented his theology withan eye, not just on Scripture and the authority of Christian tradition,but also on what follows from what, what it isper sereasonable tobelieve, and what it makes sense to say in general. If Aquinas is firstand foremost a theologian, he is also a philosopher’s theologian whois worthy of attention from philosophers. He had an enviable knowledgeof philosophical writings and he was deeply concerned to theologizeon the basis of this knowledge. He was also a writer of considerableability with theses of his own, which are not just restatements ofpositions received from the Christian tradition and the history ofphilosophy. Whether one calls him a ‘theological’ thinker or a‘philosophical’ thinker does not really matter. The fact remains thathis writings are full of philosophical interest.AQUINAS AND GODReaders who want to get an overall sense of Aquinas’s teaching arebest advised to see it as defending what is usually called anexitusredituspicture of reality ([11.12] ch. 11). God, says Aquinas, is ‘the beginningand end of all things’.¹⁰Creatures derive from God(exitus),who istherefore their first efficient cause (that which accounts for them beingthere).¹¹But God is also the final cause of creatures, that to which theyaim, tend, or return(reditus),that which contains the perfection orgoal of all created things.¹²According to Aquinas, everything comesfrom God and is geared to him. God accounts for there being anythingapart from himself, and he is what is aimed at by anything movingtowards its perfection. Aristotle says that everything aims for its good(EthicsI, i, 1094a3). Aquinas says that any created good derives fromGod who contains in himself all the perfections found in creatures. Inso far as a creature moves to its perfection, Aquinas goes on to argue,the creature is tending to what is to be found in God himself.¹³AsFather, Son, and Spirit, Aquinas adds, God is the special goal of rationalindividuals. For these can share in what God is by nature.¹⁴Aquinas is sometimes reported as teaching that someone who claimsrationally to believe in the existence of God must be able to prove thatGod exists. But this is not what Aquinas teaches. He says that peoplecan have a rational belief in the existence of God without being able toprove God’s existence.¹⁵And he holds that, apart from the question ofGod’s existence, people may be rational in believing what they cannotprove. Following Aristotle, he maintains that people may rationallybelieve indemonstrable principles of logic.¹⁶He also maintains thatone may rationally believe what a teacher imparts to one, even thoughone is in no position to demonstrate the truth of what the teacher hastold one.¹⁷He does, however, contend that belief in God’s existence isone for which good philosophical reasons can be given. This is clearfromSumma theologiaeIa, 2, 2 andSumma contra GentilesI, 9, wherehe says that ‘we can demonstrate…that God exists’ and that God canbe made known as we ‘proceed through demonstrative arguments’.‘Demonstrative arguments’ here means what it does for Aristotle, i.e.arguments using premisses which entail a given conclusion on pain ofcontradiction.Aquinas denies that proof of God’s existence is given by arguingthat ‘God does not exist’ is a contradiction. So he rejects the suggestion,commonly associated with St Anselm, that the existence of God can bedemonstrated from the absurdity of denying that God exists.¹⁸He alsorejects the view that human beings are naturally capable of perceivingor experiencing God as they perceive or experience the things withwhich they are normally acquainted. According to Aquinas, ourperception and seeing of things is based on sensory experience.¹⁹SinceGod is not a physical object, Aquinas concludes that there can be nonatural perception or seeing of God on the part of human beings.²⁰Hedoes not deny that people might have a knowledge of God without themedium of physical objects. In talking of life after death, he says thatpeople can have a vision of God which is nothing like knowing aphysical object.²¹But he denies that human beings in this world have adirect and unmediated knowledge of God. On his account, ourknowledge of God starts from what we know of the world in whichwe live. According to him, we can know that God exists because theworld in which we find ourselves cannot account for itself.Aquinas considers whether we can prove that God exists in manyplaces in his writings. But his best-known arguments for the existenceof God come in Ia, 2, 3 (the ‘Five Ways’). His thinking in this text isclearly indebted to earlier authors, especially Aristotle, Maimonides,Avicenna and Averroes.²²And it would be foolish to suggest that thereasoning of the Five Ways can be quickly summarized in a way thatdoes them justice. But their substance can be indicated in fairlyuncomplicated terms.In general, Aquinas’s Five Ways employ a simple pattern of argument.Each begins by drawing attention to some general feature of thingsknown to us on the basis of experience. It is then suggested that noneof these features can be accounted for in ordinary mundane terms, andthat we must move to a level of explanation which transcends anywith which we are familiar.²³Another way of putting it is to say that, according to the Five Ways,questions we can raise with respect to what we encounter in day today life raise further questions the answer to which can only be thoughtof as lying beyond what we encounter.Take, for example, the First Way, in which the influence of Aristotleis particularly prevalent.²⁴Here the argument starts from change ormotion in the world.²⁵It is clear, says Aquinas, that there is such athing—he cites as an instance the change involved in wood becominghot when subjected to fire.²⁶How, then, may we account for it?According to Aquinas, anything changed or moved is changed ormoved by something else.Omne quod movetur ab alio movetur.This,he reasons, is because a thing which has changed has become what itwas not to begin with, which can only happen if there is somethingfrom which the reality attained by the thing as changed somehowderives.²⁷Therefore, he concludes, there must be a first cause of thingsbeing changed or moved. For there cannot be an endless series of thingschanged or moved by other things. If every change in a series ofconnected changes depends on a prior changer, the whole system ofchanging things is only derivatively an initiator of change and stillrequires something to initiate its change. There must be somethingwhich causes change or motion in things without itself being changedor moved by anything. There must an unchanged changer or anunmoved mover.Anything which is moved is moved by something else… Tocause motion is to bring into being what was previously onlyable to be, and this can only be done by something thatalready is… Now the same thing cannot at the same time beboth actuallyxand potentiallyx,though it can be actuallyxand potentiallyy:the actually hot cannot at the same time bepotentially hot, though it can be potentially cold.Consequently, a thing which is moved cannot itself causethat same movement; it cannot move itself. Of necessitytherefore anything moved is moved by something else…Now we must stop somewhere, otherwise there will be nofirst cause of the movement and as a result no subsequentcauses… Hence one is bound to arrive at some first cause ofthings being moved which is not itself moved by anything,and this is what everybody understands by God.(Summa theologiaeI q. 2, a. 3)If we bear in mind that Aquinas believes that time can be said to existbecause changes occur, the First Way is arguing that the reality of timeis a reason for believing in God.²⁸Aquinas is suggesting that the presentbecomes the past because something non-temporal enables the presentto become past.The pattern of the First Way is repeated in the rest of the Five Ways.According to the Second Way, there are causes in the world whichbring it about that other things come to be. There are, as Aquinas putsit, causes which are related as members of a series. In that case, however,there must be a first cause, or something which is not itself caused tobe by anything. For causes arranged in series must have a first member.In the observable world causes are found to be ordered inseries; we never observe, nor ever could, something causingitself, for this would mean it preceded itself, and this is notpossible. Such a series of causes must however stopsomewhere; for in it an earlier member causes an intermediateand the intermediate a last… Now if you eliminate a causeyou also eliminate its effects, so that you cannot have a lastcause, nor an intermediate one, unless you have a first.(ibid.)According to the Third Way²⁹there are things which are perishable(e.g. plants) and things which are imperishable (in Aquinas’s language,imperishable things are ‘necessary’ beings or things which ‘must be’).³⁰But why should this be so? The answer, says Aquinas, has to lie insomething imperishable and dependent for its existence on nothing.³¹Now a thing that must be, may or may not owe this necessityto something else. But just as we must stop somewhere in aseries of causes, so also in the series of things which must beand owe this to other things.(ibid.)In the Fourth and Fifth Ways Aquinas turns to different questions.Why are there things with varying degrees of perfection?³²And howdoes it come about that in nature there are things which, while notthemselves intelligent, operate in a regular or goal-directed way?³³Aquinas suggests that perfections in things imply a source of perfections.He thinks that where there are degrees of a perfection there must besomething which maximally embodies that perfection and which causesit to occur in other things. And he thinks that the goal-directed activityof non-rational things suggests that they are governed by what isrational.Some things are found to be more good, more true, more noble,and so on, and other things less. But such comparative termsdescribe varying degrees of approximation to a superlative; forexample, things are hotter and hotter the nearer they approachto what is hottest. Something therefore is the truest and bestand most noble of things. Nowwhen many things possess someproperty in common, the one most fully possessing it causes itin the others: fire,to use Aristotle’s example,the hottest of allthings, causes all other things to be hot.There is thereforesomething which causes in all other things their being, theirgoodness, and whatever other perfections they have.Some things which lack awareness, namely bodies, operate inaccordance with an end… Nothing however that lacksawareness tends to a goal except under the direction ofsomeone with awareness and with understanding…Everything in nature, therefore is directed to its goal bysomeone with understanding.(ibid.)WHAT IS GOD LIKE?Aquinas is often described as someone who first tries to prove theexistence of God and then tries to show that God has various attributes.But, though this description can be partly defended, it is also misleading.For Aquinas holds that the attributes we ascribe to God are not, inreality, anything distinct from God himself. According to Aquinas, Godis good, perfect, knowledgeable, powerful and eternal. But he does notthink that, for example, ‘the goodness of God’ signifies anything otherthan God himself. In the thinking of Aquinas, God does nothaveattributes or properties. Godishis attributes or properties.³⁴Aquinasalso maintains that, though we speak of God and ascribe certainattributes to him, we do not know what God is. Aquinas is often thoughtof as someone with a precise or definite concept of God, someone whothinks he can explain just what God is. But in a passage immediatelyfollowing the text of the Five Ways, he writes,Having recognized that a certain thing exists, we have still toinvestigate the way in which it exists, that we may come tounderstand what it is that exists. Now we cannot know whatGod is, but only what he is not; we must therefore considerthe ways in which God does not exist, rather than the waysin which he does.(ibid.)The same move is made in theSumma Contra Gentiles. Book I, Chapter13 of the treatise is called ‘Arguments in proof of the existence of God’.Chapter 14 begins with the assertion, ‘The divine substance surpassesevery form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehendit by knowing what it is.’In saying that God and his attributes are identical, Aquinas is notsaying that, for example, ‘God is good’ means the same as ‘God exists’.And he is certainly not saying that God is a property.³⁵He means thatcertain things that are true of creatures are not true of God. Moreprecisely, he means that God is nothing material. On Aquinas’s account,material things possessing a nature cannot be identified with the naturethey possess. Thus, for example, Socrates is not identical with humannature. But what is it that allows us to distinguish between Socratesand other human beings? Aquinas says that Socrates is different fromother human beings not because of his nature but because of his matter.Socrates is different from me because he was one parcel of matter andI am another. It is materiality which allows Socrates to be a humanbeing rather than human nature. And, since Aquinas denies that Godis something material, he therefore concludes that God and his natureare not distinguishable. He also reasons that angels and their naturesare not distinguishable. The angel Gabriel is not a material object.And neither is the angel Michael. So, says Aquinas, Gabriel is his nature,and Michael is his nature. Or, as we may put it, God, Gabriel andMichael are not individual members of a species or genus.³⁶With respect to the question of knowing what God is, we need to bewarned that Aquinas does not deny that we can know ourselves tospeak truly when we make certain statements about God.³⁷Aquinasspends a great deal of time arguing that many propositions concerningGod can be proved to be true in philosophical terms. But he deniesthat we can understand the nature of God. On his account, ourknowledge of what things are depends on our ability to experiencethem by means of our senses and to classify them accordingly. Since heholds that God is nothing material, he therefore denies that God isknown by the senses and classifiable on the basis of sensory experience.The knowledge that is natural to us has its source in thesenses and extends just so far as it can be led by sensiblethings; from these, however, our understanding cannot reachto the divine essence… In the present life our intellect has anatural relation to the natures of material things; thus itunderstands nothing except by turning to sense images… Inthis sense it is obvious that we cannot, primarily andessentially, in the mode of knowing that we experience,understand immaterial substances since they are not subjectto the senses and imagination… What is understood first byus in the present life is the whatness of materialthings…[hence]… we arrive at a knowledge of God by wayof creatures.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 12, 12; 88, 1; 88, 3)On Aquinas’s account, our knowledge of God is derived from whatwe know of things in the world and from what we can sensibly denyor affirm of God given that he is not something in the world. So, saysAquinas, God is not a physical object which can be individuated as amember of a class of things which can be distinguished from each otherwith reference to genus and species. Among other things, Aquinas alsoargues that God is unchangeable and non-temporal (since he is thefirst cause of change, and since time is real since changes occur).³⁸In distinguishing God from creatures, however, Aquinas lays thegreatest stress on the teaching that God is uncreated. One way in whichhe does so is to say that there is no ‘potentiality’ in God. To understandhis teaching on God it will help if we try to understand what he meansby saying this.We can start by noting what Aquinas means by ‘potentiality’. Andwe can do so by thinking of my cat Fergus. He is a lovely and lovingcreature, and I am deeply fond of him. But he is no Platonic form.Plato thought of the forms as unchangeable. But Fergus is changing allthe time. He gets fat as I feed him. And he is constantly changing hisposition. So he is a serious threat to the local mice.Aquinas would say that when Fergus weighs nine pounds he is alsopotentially eight and ten pounds in weight. Fergus might weigh ninepounds, but he could slim to eight pounds or grow to ten pounds.Aquinas would also say that when Fergus is in the kitchen, he ispotentially in the living room. For Fergus has a habit of moving around.What if Fergus ends up strolling on to a busy road? He stands astrong chance of becoming a defunct cat. Or, as Aquinas would say,Fergus is actually a cat and potentially a corpse. Fergus is vulnerable tothe activity of things in the world. And some of them can bring itabout that he ceases to be the thing that he is.We can put this by saying that Fergus is potentially non-existent asa cat. And that is what Aquinas would say. But he would add thatthere is a sense in which Fergus is potentially non-existent quite apartfrom the threat of a busy road and the like. For there might be noFergus at all, not just in the sense that there might never have been catswho acted so that Fergus was born, but in the sense that Fergus mightnot continue to exist. According to Aquinas, anything created ispotential since its existence depends on God (since anything created ispotentially non-existent). In his view, we are entitled to ask whyanything we come across is there. And, so he thinks, in asking thisquestion we need not be concerned with temporally prior causes oridentifiable causes in the world which sustain things in the state inwhich they are. We can be asking about the fact that there is anythingthere to be produced or to be sustained. What accounts for the factthat such things exist at all? What accounts for there being a world inwhich we can ask what accounts for what within it?Aquinas holds that, if we take these questions seriously, we mustbelieve in the existence of something which is wholly lacking inpotentiality, i.e. God. Fergus can change physically and he haspotentiality accordingly. But God is no physical thing, and, since heaccounts for there being a world, he cannot be potentially non-existent.He does not ‘have’ existence. His existence is not received or derivedfrom another. He is his own existence(ipsum esse subsistens)and thereason why other things have it.Properties that belong to a thing over and above its ownnature must derive from somewhere, either from that natureitself…or from an external cause… If therefore the existenceof a thing is to be other than its nature, that existence musteither derive from the nature or have an external cause. Nowit cannot derive merely from the nature, for nothing withderived existence suffices to bring itself into being. It followsthen that, if a thing’s existence differs from its nature, thatexistence must be externally caused. But we cannot say thisabout God, whom we have seen to be the first cause. Neitherthen can we say that God’s existence is other than his nature.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 3, 4)In Aquinas’s view, this would be true even if the created order containedthings which are not material. For suppose there were immaterial beingsother than God, as Aquinas took angels to be.³⁹They would differfrom material things since they would have no in-built tendency toperish or move around. In the language of Aquinas, they would be‘necessary’ beings rather than ‘contingent’ ones. They would also beidentical with their natures, for, as we have seen, Aquinas held thatthere are no two angels of the same kind or ‘species’. But they wouldstill be potentially non-existent since they would receive their existencefrom God. And, though they could not decay or perish at the hands ofother creatures, it would be possible for God to de-create (annihilate)them. They would not therefore exist simply by being what they are.‘Without doubt’, says Aquinas, ‘the angels, and all that is other thanGod, were made by God. For only God is his existence; in all elseessence and existence are distinct.’⁴⁰Or, as he also explains,Some things are of a nature that cannot exist except asinstantiated in individual matter—all bodies are of this kind.This is one way of being. There are other things whosenatures are instantiated by themselves and not by being inmatter. These have existence simply by being the natures theyare: yet existence is still something theyhave,it is not whatthey are—the incorporeal beings we call angels are of thiskind. Finally there is the way of being that belongs to Godalone, for his existence is what he is.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 12, 4)GOD AND HIS CREATIONHow does Aquinas think of God as relating to his creation? In writingabout the relation between God and creatures, one of the things hesays is that God is not really related to creatures, though creatures arereally related to God. In his own words:Since God is altogether outside the order of creatures, sincethey are ordered to him but not he to them, it is clear thatbeing related to God is a reality in creatures, but beingrelated to creatures is not a reality in God.⁴¹But what does he mean in saying this? And how does what he saysconnect with his belief that God is the creator and sustainer of everythingother than himself?One might suppose that the words of Aquinas just quoted constitutea flagrant violation of obvious truths. If A is related to B, then B mustbe related to A. What could be more obvious than that? But Aquinas’steaching on God and his relation to creatures is not a denial of theprinciple ‘If aRb, then bRa’. If one reads him on the question of God’srelation to creatures, one will find him endorsing all of the followingpropositions.1 We can speak of God as related to his creatures in view of the purelyformal point that if one thing can be said to be related to another,then the second thing can be said to be related to the first.2 Since God can be compared to creatures, since he can be spoken ofas being like them, he can be thought of as related to them.3 Since God knows creatures, he can be said to be related to them.4 Since God moves creatures, he can be said to be related to them.5 Since God can be spoken of as ‘first’, ‘highest’ and so on, he can besaid to be related to creatures since these terms are relational ones.⁴²In saying that ‘being related to creatures is not a reality in God’, Aquinas’sprimary concern is to deny that God is changed because he has created.Aquinas denies that God is something which has to create. In his view,God creates freely, and to understand what God is essentially would notbe to see that he is Creator of the world. God, indeed, has created theworld. But, says Aquinas, he does not produce the world as kidneys produceurine. For him, God is able to create, but he is not essentially a creator (askidneys are essentially producers of urine).⁴³So Aquinas reasons that theessence of God is in no way affected by the existence of created things andthat being the Creator of creatures is not something in God. God does notbecomedifferentby becoming the Creator of things. Nor does he changebecause his creatures change. For Aquinas, the fact that there are creaturesmakes no difference to God, just as the fact that my coming to know thatFred is bald makes no difference to Fred (my coming to know that Fred isbald does not change him, even though he might be deeply affected bylearning that I have come to know of his baldness). In Aquinas’s view,God is unchangeably himself. And he remains so even though it is truethat there are things created and sustained by him.This aspect of Aquinas’s teaching allows him to take a view of God’sactivity which is quite at odds with that to be found in the work ofmany philosophers and theologians both ancient and modern. It hasoften been said that the action of God is a process undergone by Godwith effects in the world of created things. When I act, I do somethingin addition to what I have been previously doing. I go through a seriesof successive states. And my going through these states sometimes leadsto changes in things apart from myself. By the same token, so it hasoften been argued, God acts by being a subject under-going successivestates some of which have effects in things other than him. But this isnot Aquinas’s position. On his account, the action of God is not aprocess undergone by him. It is a process undergone in things otherthan God. For Aquinas, God’s action is the history of created things.One of the things which Aquinas takes this to mean is that Godcannot, strictly speaking, be thought of as intervening in the world.According to the usual sense of ‘intervene’, to say thatXhas intervenedis to say thatXhas come to be present in some situation from whichXwas previously absent. Thus, for example, to say that I intervened in abrawl is to say that I moved into a fight of which I was not originallya part. But Aquinas holds that God can never be absent from anything.On his account, God is everywhere as making all places.⁴⁴He also saysthat God is in all things as making them to be. Hence, for example, herefuses to think of miracles as cases of divine intervention. It is oftensaid that to believe in miracles is to believe in a God who can intervene.The idea seems to be that a God capable of performing miracles mustbe one who observes a given scenario and then steps in to tinker withit. But God, for Aquinas, can never intervene in his creation in thissense. He therefore maintains that God is as present in what is notmiraculous as he is in the miraculous. Miracles, for him, do not occurbecause of an extra added wonder ingredient (i.e. God). They occurbecause something isnotpresent (i.e. a cause other than God, or acollection of such causes).⁴⁵This thought of Aquinas should be connected with another of hisprevailing theses: that free human actions are caused by God. Hefrequently alludes to arguments suggesting that people cannot be freeunder God’s providence. InOn EvilVI, for instance, we find the threefollowing arguments, from the twenty-four in all, against the thesisthat human beings have a free choice of their actions:If change is initiated in the human will in a fixed way byGod, it follows that human beings do not have free choice oftheir actions. Moreover, an action is forced when itsoriginating principle is outside the subject, and the victim offorce does not contribute anything to it. So if the originatingprinciple of a choice which is made voluntarily is outside thesubject—in God—then it seems that the will is changed byforce and of necessity. So we do not have free choice of ouractions. Moreover, it is impossible that a human will shouldnot be in accordance with God’s will: as Augustine says intheEnchiridion,either a human being does what God willsor God fulfils his will in that person. But God’s will ischangeless; so the human will is too. So all human choicesspring from a fixed choice.A similar kind of argument constitutes the third objection to Ia, 83, 1:What isfree is cause of itself,as the Philosopher says(Metaphysics1.2). Therefore what is moved by another isnot free. But God moves the will, for it is written (Prov.21:1):The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord;whithersoever He will He shall turn it;and (Phil. 2:13):It isGod Who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish.Therefore people do not have free-will.Yet Aquinas insists that the reality of providence (which means thereality of God working in all things as first cause and sustainer) is notincompatible with human freedom.To begin with, he says, people certainly have freedom. For one thing,the Bible holds that they do (in Ia, 83, 1 Aquinas citesEcclesiasticus15:14 to this effect). For another, people, as rational agents, have it inthem to choose between alternative courses of action (unlike inanimateobjects or animals acting by instinct).⁴⁶They also have it in them to actor refrain from acting. In fact, says Aquinas, human freedom is aprerequisite of moral thinking.If there is nothing free in us, but the change which we desirecomes about of necessity, then we lose deliberation,exhortation, command and punishment, and praise andblame, which are what moral philosophy is based on.(On Power,VI;Summa theologiae,Ia, 83, 1)Secondly, so Aquinas continues, human actions falling under providencecan be free precisely because of what providence involves. In his viewwe are not freein spite ofGod, butbecause ofGod.God does indeed change the will, however, in an unchangingmanner, because of the manner of acting of God’s changeinitiatingpower, which cannot fail. But because of the natureof the will which is changed—which is such that it is relatedindifferently to different things—this does not lead tonecessity, but leaves freedom untouched. In the same waydivine providence works unfailingly in everything, butnevertheless effects come from contingent causes in acontingent manner, since God changes everything in arelative way, relative to the manner of existence of eachthing… The will does contribute something when change isinitiated in it by God: it is the will itself that acts, though thechange is initiated by God. So though its change does comefrom outside as far as the first originating principle isconcerned, it is nevertheless not a forced change.(On Evil,VI)In other words, human freedom is compatible with providence becauseonly by virtue of providence is there any human freedom. God, forAquinas, really does act in everything. And since ‘everything’ includeshuman free actions, Aquinas concludes that God works in them asmuch as in anything else.People are in charge of their acts, including those of willing andof not willing, because of the deliberative activity of reason,which can be turned to one side or the other. But that someoneshould deliberate or not deliberate, supposing that one were incharge of this too, would have to come about by a precedingdeliberation. And since this may not proceed to infinity, onewould finally have to reach the point at which a person’s freedecision is moved by some external principle superior to thehuman mind, namely by God, as Aristotle himselfdemonstrated. Thus the minds even of healthy people are not somuch in charge of their acts as not to need to be moved by God.(Summa theologiae,Ia2ae, 109, 3, ad. 1)The same idea is expressed in Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’sOn Interpretation:If divine providence is, in its own right, the cause ofeverything that happens, or at least of everything good, itseems that everything happens of necessity… God’s willcannot be thwarted: so it seems that whatever he wants tohappen happens of necessity… [But] we have to notice adifference as regards the divine will. The divine will shouldbe thought of as being outside the ordering of existentthings. It is the cause which grounds every existent, and allthe differences there are between them. One of thedifferences between existents is between those that arepossible and those that are necessary. Hence necessity andcontingency in things have their origin in the divine will, asdoes the distinction between them, which follows from adescription of their proximate causes. God lays downnecessary causes for the effects that he wants to be necessary,and he lays down causes that act contingently—i.e. that canfail of their effect—for the effects that he wants to becontingent. It is according to this characteristic of theircauses that effects are said to be necessary or contingent,even though they all depend on the divine will, whichtranscends the ordering of necessity and contingency, as theirfirst cause… The will of God cannot fail: but in spite of that,not all its effects are necessary; some are contingent.(On ‘On Interpretation’,Bk I, lectio 14)By ‘necessary’ here Aquinas means ‘determined’ or ‘brought about bycauses necessitating their effects’. By ‘contingent’ he means ‘undetermined’or ‘able to be or not to be’. His suggestion, therefore, is that God willsboth what is determined and what is undetermined. Since he believesthat each must derive from God’s will, he locates them within the contextof providence. But since he also believes that the determined andundetermined are genuinely different, he concludes that providence caneffect what is undetermined as well as what is determined. And, on thisbasis, he holds that it can effect human free actions.One may, of course, say that if my actions are ultimately caused byGod then I do not act freely at all. But Aquinas would reply that myactions are free if nothing in the world is acting on me so as to makeme perform them, not if God is not acting in me. According to him,what is incompatible with human free will is ‘necessity of coercion’ orthe effect of violence, as when something acts on one and ‘applies forceto the point where one cannot act otherwise’.⁴⁷As Herbert McCabeexplains, Aquinas’s position is that ‘to be free means not to be underthe influence of some othercreature,it is to be independent of otherbits of the universe;it is not and could not mean to e independent ofGod’.⁴⁸For Aquinas, God does not interfere with created free agentsto push them into action in a way that infringes their freedom. Hedoes not actonthem (as Aquinas thinks created things do when theycause others to act as determined by them). He makes them to be whatthey are, namely freely acting agents. In Aquinas’s words,Free-will is the cause of its own movement, because by theirfree-will people move themselves to act. But it does not ofnecessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the firstcause of itself, as neither for one thing to be the cause ofanother need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the firstcause, who moves causes both natural and voluntary. Andjust as by moving natural causes he does not prevent theiracts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes he doesnot deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is hethe cause of this very thing in them; for he operates in eachthing according to its own nature.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 83, 1, ad. 3)HUMAN BEINGSOn this account, people are totally dependent on God for all that theyare. But the account is a very theological one. And one might wonderhow Aquinas thinks of people without also thinking about God. What,for example, would he write if asked to contribute to a modernphilosophical book on the nature of human beings?⁴⁹The first thing he would say is that human beings are animals. Sothey are, for example, capable of physical movement. And they havebiological characteristics. They have the capacity to grow andreproduce. They have the need and capacity to eat. These characteristicsare not, for Aquinas, optional extras which people can take up anddiscard while remaining people. They are essential elements in the makeupof any human being. And they are very much bound up with whatis physical or material.This line of thinking, of course, immediately sets Aquinas apart fromwriters who embrace a ‘dualistic’ understanding of human beings—writers like Descartes, for instance.⁵⁰For Aquinas, my body is notdistinct from me because it is a different substance or thing from me.On his account, if a human being is there, then so is a human body.For as it belongs to the very conception of ‘this human being’that there should be this soul, flesh and bone, so it belongs tothe very conception of ‘human being’ that there be soul, fleshand bone. For the substance of a species has to containwhatever belongs in general to every one of the individualscomprising that species.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 75, 4)Aquinas often refers to the thesis that people are essentially substancesdifferent from bodies on which they act (a view which he ascribes toPlato). But he emphatically rejects this thesis.Plato and his followers asserted that the intellectual soul is notunited to the body as form to matter, but only as mover tomovable, for Plato said that the soul is in the body ‘as a sailorin a ship’. Thus the union of soul and body would only be bycontact of power… But this doctrine seems not to fit the facts.(Summa contra Gentiles,II, 57)If our souls moved our bodies as sailors move ships, says Aquinas, mysoul and my body would not be a unity. He adds that if we are soulsusing bodies, then we are essentially immaterial, which is not the case.We are ‘sensible and natural realities’ and cannot, therefore, beessentially immaterial.⁵¹But this is not to say that Aquinas thinks of people as irreduciblymaterial. He is not, in the modern sense, a philosophical ‘physicalist’.⁵²We have just seen that he is prepared to speak about people as havingsouls. And, on his account, a proper account of the human soul(anima)will deny that it is wholly material. By ‘soul’, Aquinas means somethinglike ‘principle of life’. ‘Inquiry into the nature of the soul’, he writes,‘presupposes an understanding of the soul as the root principle of lifein living things within our experience’.⁵³And, in Aquinas’s thinking,the root principle of life in human beings (the human soul) is nonmaterial.It is also something ‘subsisting’.In arguing for the non-corporeal nature of the human soul, Aquinasbegins by reminding us whatanimameans, i.e. ‘that which makes livingthings live’. And, with that understanding in mind, he contends thatsoul cannot be something bodily. There must, he says, be some principleof life which distinguishes living things from non-living things, andthis cannot be a body. Why not? Because if it were a body it wouldfollow that any material thing would be living, which is not the case. Abody is alive not just because it is a body. It is alive because of a principleof life which is not a body.It is obvious that not every principle of vital activity is a soul.Otherwise the eye would be a soul, since it is a principle ofsight; and so with the other organs of the soul. What we callthe soul is the root principle of life. Now though somethingcorporeal can be some sort of principle of life, as the heart isfor animals, nevertheless a body cannot be the root principleof life. For it is obvious that to be the principle of life, or thatwhich is alive, does not belong to any bodily thing from themere fact of its being a body; otherwise every bodily thingwould be alive or a life-source. Consequently any particularbody that is alive, or even indeed a source of life, is so frombeing a body of such-and-such a kind. Now whatever isactuallysuch,as distinct fromnot-such,has this from someprinciple which we call its actuating principle. Therefore asoul, as the primary principle of life, is not a body but thatwhich actuates a body.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 75, 1)In other words, if bodily things are alive just because they are bodies,all bodily things (e.g. my alarm clock) would be alive, which they arenot. So what makes something a living thing cannot be a body.But why say that the human soul is something subsisting? The mainpoint made by Aquinas in anticipating this question is that the humananimal has powers or functions which are not simply bodily, eventhough they depend on bodily ones. For example, people can knowand understand, which is not the case with that which is wholly material.As Aquinas puts it, people enjoy an intellectual life and they are thingsof the kind they are (rational animals) because of this. Aquinas callsthat by virtue of which people are things of the kind they are their‘souls’. So he can say that human beings are bodily, but also that theyare or have both body and soul. The two cannot be torn apart in anyway that would leave what remained a human being. But they can bedistinguished from each other and the soul of a human being cantherefore be thought of as something subsisting immaterially.The principle of the act of understanding, which is called thehuman soul, must of necessity be some kind of incorporealand subsistent principle. For it is obvious that theunderstanding of people enables them to know the natures ofall bodily things. But what can in this way take in things musthave nothing of their nature in its own, for the form that wasin it by nature would obstruct knowledge of anything else. Forexample, we observe how the tongue of someone sick withfever and bitter infection cannot perceive anything sweet, foreverything tastes sour. Accordingly, if the intellectual principlehad in it the physical nature of any bodily thing, it would beunable to know all bodies. Each of them has its owndeterminate nature. Impossible, therefore, that the principle ofunderstanding be something bodily. And in the same way it isimpossible for it to understand through and in a bodily organ,for the determinate nature of that bodily organ would preventknowledge of all bodies. Thus if you had a colour filter overthe eye, and had a glass vessel of the same colour, it would notmatter what you poured into the glass, it would always appearthe same colour. The principle of understanding, therefore,which is called mind or intellect, has its own activity in whichbody takes no intrinsic part. But nothing can act of itselfunless it subsists in its own right. For only what actually existsacts, and its manner of acting follows its manner of being. Soit is that we do not say that heat heats, but that something hotheats. Consequently the human soul, which is called anintellect or mind, is something incorporeal and subsisting.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 75, 2)Aquinas’s notion that the human soul ‘subsists’ does not entail that itis a complete and self-contained entity, as, for example, Descartesthought the soul to be. For Aquinas, my human soul subsists becauseI have an intellectual life which cannot be reduced to what is simplybodily. It does not subsist as something with its own life apart fromme, any more than my left hand does, or my right eye. Both of thesecan be spoken of as things, but they are really parts of me. We do notsay, ‘My left hand feels’ or ‘My right eye sees’; rather we say, ‘I feelwith my left hand’ and ‘I see with my right eye’. And Aquinas thinksthat something similar should be said about my soul. I have a humansoul because I have intellect and will. But it is not my soul whichunderstands and wills. I do.One might put this by saying that my soul is not I. And Aquinassays exactly this in his Commentary of St Paul’s first letter to theCorinthians.⁵⁴In that case, however, what happens to me when I die?Aquinas maintains that people are essentially corporeal. This meansthat I am essentially corporeal. For I am a human being. So am I toconclude from what Aquinas holds that I cease to exist at death? CanI look forward to nothing in the way of an afterlife?Aquinas has a number of answers to these questions. Since he thinksof people as essentially corporeal, he agrees that there is a sense inwhich they cease to exist at death. But, since he believes that God canraise the dead to bodily life, he denies that the fact that I die entailsthat I cease to exist. On the other hand, he does not believe that mostof those who have died have been raised to bodily life. He is certainthat Christ has been raised to bodily life. But he would deny that thesame can be truly asserted of, for example, Julius Caesar. He wouldtherefore say that the soul of Caesar survives, though Caesar himselfdoes not.Given what we have now seen of Aquinas’s teaching, it should beevident why he would deny that now, when he has not been raised tobodily life, Caesar survives his death. But why should Aquinas thinkthat Caesar’s soul would survive his death? Does he subscribe to theview that the human soul is immortal? Does he maintain that, thoughCaesar might die, his soul must survive the death of his body?The answer to the last two questions is ‘Yes’. Aquinas does believethat human souls are immortal. He also believes that they must survivethe death of human beings. That by virtue of which I understand andthink, he reasons, is not the sort of thing which can die as bodies candie.⁵⁵He is well aware that people die and that their bodies perish. Aswe have seen, however, people, for Aquinas, are rational, understandinganimals who are what they are by virtue of what is not material. Hetherefore concludes that there must be something about them capableof surviving the destruction of what is material. He does not think wecan prove that the soul of Caesar must survive his death. In Aquinas’sview, whether or not Caesar’s soul survives the death of Caesar dependson whether God wills to keep it in being. And Aquinas does not thinkthat we are in any position to prove that God must do that. For him,therefore, there is no ‘proof of the immortality of the soul’. He holdsthat Caesar’s soul could cease to exist at any time. But he also thinksthat it is not the sort of thing of which it makes sense to say that it canperish as bodies can perish.On the other hand, however, he does not think of it as the sort ofthing which can survive as a human animal can survive. So the survivalof Caesar’s soul is not the survival of the human being we call ‘JuliusCaesar’. People, for Aquinas, are very much part of the physical world.Take that world away and what you are left with is not a human person.You are not, for example, left with something able to know by meansof sense experience.⁵⁶Nor are you left with something able to undergothe feelings or sensations that go with being bodily. On Aquinas’saccount, therefore, a human soul can only be said to survive its bodyas something purely intellectual, as thelocusof thought and will.Understanding through imagery is the proper operation ofthe soul so far as it has the body united to it. Once separatedfrom the body it will have another mode of understanding,like that of other disembodied natures… It is said, people areconstituted of two substantial elements, the soul with itsreasoning power, the flesh with its senses. Therefore whenthe flesh dies the sense powers do not remain… Certainpowers, namely understanding and will, are related to thesoul taken on its own as their subject of inhesion, andpowers of this kind have to remain in the soul after the deathof the body. But some powers have the body-soul compoundfor subject; this is the case with all the powers of sensationand nutrition. Now when the subject goes the accidentcannot stay. Hence when the compound corrupts suchpowers do not remain in actual existence. They survive in thesoul in a virtual state only, as in their source or root. And soit is wrong to say, as some do, that these powers remain inthe soul after the dissolution of the body. And it is muchmore wrong to say that the acts of these powers continue inthe disembodied soul, because such powers have no activityexcept through a bodily organ.(Summa theologiae,Ia, 75, 6 ad. 3 and Ia, 77, 8)Peter Geach observes that Aquinas’s description of the life that wouldbe possible for disembodied souls is ‘meagre and unattractive’.⁵⁷Andmany will agree. But the description now in question is all that Aquinasfeels able to offer as a philosopher. As a Christian theologian he feelsable to say that the dead will be raised to a newness of life of a highlyattractive kind. His final position is that, following the Incarnation ofGod in Christ, people can be raised in their bodies to share in God’slife.⁵⁸But the truth of this position, on Aquinas’s own admission, is inno way demonstrable by means of philosophical argument. It followsfrom the teachings of Christ. On Aquinas’s account, we are warrantedin believing what Christ taught. For Christ was divine. Yet, so Aquinasadds, though we can give some rational grounds for believing in thedivinity of Christ, we cannot prove that Christ was God.⁵⁹Belief in thedivinity of Christ is a matter of faith. It is not a matter of knowledge.Though it is not unreasonable, it is not demonstrably true. If wesubscribe to it, that can only be because God has given us the theologicalvirtue of faith.⁶⁰FAITH AND PHILOSOPHYAquinas’s writings on faith provide good examples of texts whichshould lead us to challenge a view of medieval philosophy which hasbeen referred to as ‘separationism’.⁶¹Some students of Aquinas tryrigidly to separate his theology from his philosophy. They then go onto write about him on the assumption that some of his texts are‘theological’ while others are ‘philosophical’. But Aquinas himself madeno such sharp distinction between theology and philosophy. And evenwhat he says of faith shows him to be weaving together what laterauthors separate under the headings ‘theology’ and ‘philosophy’. Theobject of faith is God, he says.⁶²Some will call this a statement oftheology. The virtue of faith, he continues, involves holding fast totruths which philosophy cannot demonstrate.⁶³That, too, might becalled a theological conclusion. But in calling God the object of faithAquinas draws on views about truth, falsity, belief and propositionswhich, in his opinion, ought to seem rationally acceptable to anyone.And in arguing that philosophy cannot demonstrate the truths of faithhe defends himself with reference to what he thinks about humanknowledge in general (apart from revelation) and what he thinks wemust conclude given what our reason can tell us of God. So his teachingon faith can also be viewed as philosophical.These facts bring us back again to the question touched on earlier. IsAquinas really a philosopher? From what we have now seen of histhinking, it should be clear why the question cannot be answered if ananswer must presume on our being able to draw a clear and obviousdistinction between the philosophy of Aquinas and the theology ofAquinas. In his writings, philosophical arguments and theses are usedto reach conclusions of theological import. And theses of theologicalimport lead to judgements which can readily be called philosophical.And the result can be studied as something containing matters of interestto thinkers with any religious belief or none. In this chapter I havetried to give some indication of what these matters are. A completeaccount of Aquinas’s thinking would have to report more than spacehere allows me. Those who read Aquinas for themselves, however, willquickly get a sense of what that might involve.NOTES1 For discussion of the date of Aquinas’s birth see Tugwell [11.8], 291ff.2 For the Irish influence on Aquinas see Michael Bertram Crowe, ‘Peter of Ireland:Aquinas’s teacher of the ARTES LIBERALES’, inArts Liberaux et Philosophieau Moyen Age,Paris, 1969.3 As well as being influenced by Aristotle, Aquinas was also indebted to elements in thethought of Plato and to later writers of a ‘Platonic’ caste of mind. He commented ontheBook about Causes (Liber de causis),an excerpted and adapted version of theElements of Theologyby the late Neoplatonist Proclus (c.410–85). He also commentedon Dionysu the Areopagite. And ‘Platonic’ theories and styles of argument abound inhis writings.4 Readers interested in understanding the origins and spirit of the Dominicans arebest advised to consult Simon Tugwell OP (ed.)Early Dominicans,New York,Ramsey and Toronto, 1982.5 Bertrand Russell,A History of Western Philosophy,London, 1946, pp. 484ff.6 For an exposition of Gilson on this matter see John F.Wippel, ‘Etienne Gilsonand Christian philosophy’, in [11.40].7St Thomas Aquinas: Faith, Reason and Theology: Questions I–IV of hisCommentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius,translated with introduction andnotes by Armand Maurer, Toronto, 1987, p. xv. Pegis elaborates his position in‘Sub ratione Dei: a reply to Professor Anderson’,The New Scholasticism39 (1965).Pegis is here responding to James Anderson’s ‘Was St Thomas a Philosopher?’,TheNew Scholasticism38 (1964). Anderson asked whether Aquinas was a philosopherand replied that he was.8 Cf. Leonard E.Boyle,The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas(Etienne Gilson Series 5), Toronto, 1982, pp. 17 and 30.9 On the basis of a fourteenth-century life of St Raymund of Peñafort (c.1178–1280), tradition holds that theSumma contra Gentileswas commissioned as anaid for Dominican missionaries preaching against Muslims, Jews and hereticalChristians in Spain and North Africa. This theory has been subject to recentcriticism, but it has also been recently defended. Cf.Summa contra Gentiles,I,text and French translation, with an Introduction by A.Gauthier, Paris, 1961,and A.Patfoort,Thomas d’Aquin: les Clés d’une Théologie,Paris, 1983.10 Introduction toSumma theologiae,Ia, 2.11Summa theologiae,Ia, 44, 1.12Summa theologiae,Ia, 44, 413Summa theologiae,Ia, 6, 1.14 Cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 12, 5; Ia2ae, 62, 1; Ia2ae, 110, 1; Ia2ae, 112, 1.15 Cf.Summa theologiae,2a2ae, 2, 4.16 For Aristotle, seePosterior Analytics,I, 10. For Aquinas, seeSumma theologiae,Ia, 2, 1;On Truth,I, 12; XV, 1. I am using ‘believe’ here in the loose sense of ‘taketo be true or accept’. Aquinas himself would not speak of believing first principlesof demonstration. These, for him, are known or understood.17 Cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 1, 1; 2a2ae, 2, 3. See also Aquinas’s inaugural lecture(principium)as Master in Theology at Paris (1256). This text can be found in theMarietti edition of Aquinas’sOpuscula theologica,Turin, 1954, and is translatedin Tugwell [11.8], 355ff.18 For Anselm, seeProslogion,II and III. For Aquinas, seeSumma theologiae,Ia, 2, 1;Summa contra Gentiles,I, 11. The argument discussed in the passages from Aquinasjust cited was not so much Anselm’s as a version of Anselm’s argument current inthe thirteenth century and offered by writers such as Alexander of Hales (c.1186–1245). For a discussion of the matter, see Jean Chatillon, ‘De Guillaume d’Auxerreà saint Thomas d’Aquin: l’argument de saint Anselme chez les premiers scholastiquesdu XIIIe siècle’, in Jean Chatillon,D’Isidore de Séville à saint Thomas d’Aquin,London, 1985.19 Cf.On Truth,X, 4–6;Summa theologiae,Ia, 84–8. For reasons of space I am nothere going into details on Aquinas’s teaching on the source of human knowledge.For an introductory account see Marenbon [Intr. 10], 11631 and 134–5.20 Cf.Summa contra Gentiles,I, 14;Summa theologiae,Ia, 12, 4 and 11.21 Cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 12, 1.22 See William Lane Craig,The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz,London, 1980, ch. 5; Elders [11.16], ch. 3; van Steenberghen [11.36], 165ff.23 One might reasonably deny that God is an ‘explanation’ of anything for Aquinas.One might say that an explanation of such and such is something we understandbetter than the thing with respect to which we invoke it as an explanation. Aquinaswould agree with this observation. But if ‘explanation’ means ‘cause’, he wouldinsist that God is an ‘explanation’ of what we find around us.24 Aristotle presents an argument like that of Aquinas inPhysicsVII. Aquinasacknowledges his debt to Aristotle’s argument inSumma contra Gentiles,I, 13where he offers a longer version of what appears in theSumma theologiaeas theFirst Way.25 Aquinas here is concerned with what he callsmotus. For him this includes changeof quality, quantity or place (hence the legitimacy of translatingmotusas ‘change’or ‘movement’).26 Aquinas calls the First Way ‘the most obvious’(manifestior)proof. That, I presume,is chiefly because what he callsmotusis something which impinges on us all thetime. Maimonides and Averroes are two other authors who thought that thetruth of the reasoning which surfaces in the First Way is particularly evident. Cf.Maimonides (see [4.13], I, 70) and Averroes (see [3.17] IV).27 Aquinas does not mean that the world does not contain things which can be thoughtof as changing themselves, e.g. people. He means that nothing in the world is whollythe source of its change. Cf. Christopher Martin [11.22] 61.28 For Aquinas on time and change seeSumma theologiae,Ia, 10, 1 and Lectures15–20 of Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’sPhysics. That the First Way is anargument from the reality of time is suggested by David Braine,The Reality ofTime and the Existence of God,Oxford, 1988.29 Some of the key concepts in the Third Way are found in Aristotle. Maimonidesoffers an argument very similar to that of the Third Way inThe Guide of thePerplexedII, 1. One can also compare the Third Way with a proof of God’sexistence given by Avicenna (cf. Arthur J.Arberry,Avicenna on Theology,London,1951, p. 25 for the text in English). But Aquinas’s Third Way is a distinct argumentand not just a straightforward repetition of earlier arguments with which it maybe compared.30 Cf. Patterson Brown, ‘St Thomas’ doctrine of necessary being’, in Kenny [11.27].31 There is a textual problem concerning the Third Way which my brief account ofit bypasses. For a discussion of the issues and for a treatment of differentinterpretations of the Third Way see van Steenberghen [11.36] 188–201, andCraig,Cosmological Argument,pp. 182–94.32 In the Fourth Way the background to the argument seems chiefly Platonic. Aquinasholds that perfection admits of degrees, a notion found in Plato, St Augustine, StAnselm and many others. The Platonic theory which seems to lie behind the FourthWay is expounded with reference to the Way in Kenny [11.28] ch. 5.33 Here Aquinas invokes the notion of final causality or teleological explanation,which can be found in Book II of Aristotle’sPhysics. For Aristotle, a final causeor a teleological explanation was an answer to the question ‘To what end orpurpose is this happening?’ For an exposition and discussion of Aristotle onpurpose in nature, see Richard Sorabji,Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectiveson Aristotle’s Theory,London, 1980, chs 10 and 11. The argument of the FifthWay is given in more detail by Aquinas inOn Truth,V, 2.34 For a more detailed account of this proposal see Brian Davies, ‘Classical theismand the doctrine of divine simplicity’, in Brian Davies (ed.)Language, Meaningand God,London, 1987.35 InDoes God have a Nature?,Milwaukee, 1980, Alvin Plantinga erroneouslyattributes to Aquinas the suggestion that God is a property.36Summa theologiae,Ia, 50, 4.37 P.T.Geach properly draws attention to this point inThree Philosophers,Oxford,1973, p. 117.38 Cf. note 27 above.39 Cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 50, 2.40Summa theologiae,Ia, 61, 2.41Summa theologiae,Ia, 13, 7. Cf. alsoSumma contra Gentiles,II, 11 andOnPower,VII, 8–11. For modern philosophical discussion of the suggestion, seePeter Geach, ‘God’s relation to the world’,Sophia8, 2 (1969):1–9 and C.J.F.Williams, ‘Is God really related to his creatures?’,Sophia8, 3 (1969):1–10.42On Power,VII, 10.43 Cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 19, 1, 3, 10.44Summa theologiae,Ia, 8, 2.45 Aquinas therefore holds that only God can produce miracles (Summa theologiae,Ia,110, 4). Aquinas treats of miracles at some length inSumma theologiae,Ia, 105,Summacontra Gentiles,III, 98–102, andDe potentia,VI.46Summa theologiae,Ia, 83, 1 andOn Evil,VI.47Summa theologiae,Ia, 82, 1.48 Herbert McCabe OP,God Matters,London, 1987, p. 14.49 The honest answer to the question is, ‘We do not know’. What follows is merelyan opinion based on what Aquinas actually said.50 Cf. René Descartes,Meditations on First Philosophy.For modern presentationsof dualism see H.D.Lewis,The Elusive Self,London, 1982 and R.G.Swinburne,The Evolution of the Soul,Oxford, 1986.51Summa contra Gentiles,II, 57, 3–5.52 I take physicalism to be the belief that people are nothing but bodies operating incertain ways. Cf. J.J.C.Smart, ‘Sensations and brain processes’,PhilosophicalReview,68 (1950): 141–56.53Summa theologiae,Ia, 75, 1.54Lecture on the first letter to the Corinthians,XV; cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 77, 8.55 Cf.Summa theologiae,Ia, 75, 6.56 Cf.On Truth,XIX.57 Anscombe and Geach [11.11] 100.58Summa contra Gentiles,IV, 82–6.59 Cf.Summa theologiae,2a2ae, 1, 4, ad. 2.60 For Aquinas on the virtue of faith seeSumma theologiae,2a2ae, 1–16.61 Marenbon [Intr. 10], 83ff.62Summa theologiae,2a2ae, 1, 1.63Summa theologiae,2a2ae, 1, 4–5.BIBLIOGRAPHYOriginal Language EditionsThe most authoritative study in English of Aquinas’s works is I.T.Eschmann, ‘Acatalogue of St Thomas’s works: Bibliographical notes’, in Gilson [11.17]. It issupplemented by ‘A brief catalogue of authentic works’, in Weisheipl [11.9]. Thedefinitive text of Aquinas’s writings is being published by the Leonine Commission,established by Pope Leo XIII in 1880, which has already produced editions of Aquinas’smost important works (e.g.Summa contra Gentiles, Summa theologiae). But thework of the Leonine Commission is still unfinished.Publication of Aquinas’s writings prior to the Leonine edition includeOpera omnia,Parma, 1852–73 (the Parma edition), andOpera omnia,Paris, 1871–82 (the Vivèsedition). Over many years most of Aquinas’s writings have also been published inmanual size by the Casa Marietti, Turin and Rome.TranslationsFor a modern English translation of theSumma theologiae,with notes andcommentary, readers are best advised to consult the Blackfriars edition of theSummatheologiae,London 1964–81. The translation is, unfortunately, sometimesunreliable. For a more literal rendering of the text, seeSt Thomas Aquinas SummaTheologica,translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, London, 1911and Westminster, Maryland, 1981. For an English translation of theSumma contraGentilesseeSaint Thomas Aquinas:Summa contra Gentiles, translated by AntonC.Pegis, James F. Anderson, Vernon J.Bourke and Charles J.O’Neil, Notre Dame,Ind. and London, 1975. The best modern translation ofDe ente et essentiaisAquinas on Being and Essence: a Translation and Interpretationby Joseph Bobik,Notre Dame, Ind., 1965. For other English translations of Aquinas, see the BriefCatalogue in Weisheipl [1 1.9].Bibliographical Works11.1 Bourke, Vernon J.Thomistic Bibliography: 1920–1940,suppl. toTheModern Schoolman,St Louis, MO., 1921.11.2 Ingardia, Richard (ed.)Thomas Aquinas: International Bibliography 1977–1990,Bowling Green, Oh., 1993.11.3 Mandonnet, P. and Destrez, J.Bibliographie Thomiste,2nd edn, revised byM.-D.Chenu, Paris, 1960.11.4 Miethe, Terry L. and Bourke, Vernon J.Thomistic Bibliography, 1940–1978,Westport, Conn. and London, 1980.Biographical Works11.5 Ferrua, A. (ed.)Thomae Aquinatis vitae fontes praecipuae,Alba, 1968.11.6 Foster, Kenelm (ed.)The Life of Thomas Aquinas,London and Baltimore,Md., 1959.11.7 Torrell, Jean-Pierre,Saint Thomas Aquinas,vol. 1,The Person and his Work,Washington, DC, 1996.11.8 Tugwell, Simon (ed.)Albert and Thomas: Selected Writing,New York,Mahwah and London, 1988.11.9 Weisheipl, James A.Friar Thomas D’Aquino,Oxford, 1974: republishedwith corrigenda and addenda, Washington, DC, 1983.General Studies and Introductions11.10 Aertsen, JanNature and Creature: Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought,Leiden, 1988.11.11 Anscombe, G.E.M. and Geach, P.T.Three Philosophers,Oxford, 1961.11.12 Chenu, M.-D.Towards Understanding Saint Thomas,trans. A.M.Landryand D.Hughes, Chicago, 1964.11.13 Chesterton, G.K.St Thomas Aquinas,London, 1943.11.14 Copleston, F.C.Aquinas,Harmondsworth, 1955.11.15 Davies, BrianThe Thought of Thomas Aquinas,Oxford, 1992.11.16 Elders, Leo J.The Philosophical Theology of St Thomas Aquinas,Leiden,1990.11.17 Gilson, EtienneThe Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas,London,1957.11.18 Kenny, AnthonyAquinas,Oxford, 1980.11.19 Kretzmann, Norman and Stump, Eleonore (eds)The Cambridge Companionto Aquinas,Cambridge, 1993.11.20 McInerny, RalphSt Thomas Aquinas,Notre Dame, Ind. and London 1982.11.21 ——A First Glance at St Thomas Aquinas: a Handbook for PeepingThomists,Notre Dame, Ind. and London, 1990.11.22 Martin, Christopher (ed.)The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas,London andNew York, 1988.Studies of Particular Topics11.23 Boland, VivianIdeas in God according to Saint Thomas Aquinas,Leiden,1996.11.24 Bonnette, D.Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s Existence,La Haye, 1972.11.25 Hankey, W.J.God in Himself Aquinas’s Doctrine of God as expounded inthe Summa Theologiae,Oxford, 1987.11.26 Henle, R.J.Saint Thomas and Platonism,The Hague, 1956.11.27 Kenny, Anthony (ed.)Aquinas: a Collection of Critical Essays,London andMelbourne, 1969.11.28 ——The Five Ways,London, 1969.11.29 ——Aquinas on Mind,London and New York, 1993.11.30 Kretzmann, N.The Metaphysics of Theism: Aquinas’s Natural Theology in‘Summa contra Gentiles’ I,Oxford, 1996.11.31 Lisska, AnthonyAquinas’s Theory of Natural Law,Oxford, 1996.11.32 Lonergan, BernardVerbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas,ed. D.B.Burrell,Notre Dame, Ind., 1967.11.33 McInerny, RalphAquinas on Human Action,Washington, DC, 1992.11.34 Owens, JosephSt Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God: Collected Papersof Joseph Owens S.Ss.R.,ed. J.R.Catan, Albany, NY, 1980.11.35 Person, Per ErikSacra Doctrina: Reason and Revelation in Aquinas,Oxford,1970.11.36 Steenberghen, Fernand vanLe Problème de l’existence de Dieu dans lesécrits de S.Thomas d’Aquino,Louvain, 1980.11.37 ——Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism,Washington, DC, 1980.11.38 te Velde, Rudi A.Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas,Leiden,1995.11.39 Westberg, DanielRight Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudencein Aquinas,Oxford, 1994.11.40 Wippel, John F.Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas,Washington,DC, 1984.

thomas aquinas—перс.тж. Saint Thomas Thomas Sanctus пол.u Фома Аквинский или философ и теолог систематизатор схоластики на базе христианского аристотелизма в истории политической мы...Англо-русский экономический словарь