A. First Opinion, which is that of Henry of Ghent

355. Here Henry of Ghent says, Quodlibet 5 q.14, that an angel understands all quiddities through a single scientific habit. Now his way of positing it is this, that although the habit is in the intellect as a form in a subject (or by impression), yet the object that shines forth in the habit does so only objectively.

356. And if it be asked how an object could be present as shining forth through a habit, the answer is that “although scientific habits are qualities in the first species of quality, yet there is founded on this quality a respect essential for it (which cannot be removed from it) to the knowable object as to that on which it depends in its essence and its existence.. .so that the intellect cannot take hold of this quality without taking hold of the knowable object with resect to which it exists,” because of “the natural connection of correlation” that it has to it; and even if the quality is “divinely bestowed, it no less has the essential respect to the knowable object,” so that “the knowable object, from the nature of the scientific habit, always shines back on the intellect with that of which it is the object...and it as much more naturally shines forth than could happen through a species as the science depends more essentially on the knowable object than the species on the thing, from which thing the species does not get its being caused.”

357. And if it be asked how it is that through one habit many objects can be present, the response is that “a single habit of science contains virtually the many intelligibles that the science concerns, and contains them the more actually the more simple it is; so that, if there were infinite species of creatures, that one habit would suffice for understanding all of them one after another, even by an infinite process, and this by understanding each of them the more simply and clearly the more indeterminate the habit is and the less determinate in its nature and essence, according as the higher angels are reckoned to understand by more universal and simpler habits than the lower ones do.”

358. And if it is asked how this habit reduces the angel’s intellect from potentially understanding to actually understanding, the answer stated is that “an angel’s intellect is naturally inclined by the habit co-created with it to understanding the quiddities of simple things, in the way an unimpeded heavy object is at once made to tend downwards by its heaviness; and an angel’s intellect is inclined so much the more naturally by the habit to understanding this thing rather than that thing the more essentially the habit is ordered to one thing rather than another (as to an intellection of itself or of a more abstract and more perfect creature that has more intelligibility). And then, when the intellect has been put into first act for first understanding, it runs discursively by a free choice of will to understanding particular things both propositional and simple (I mean by ‘discursively’ to know this thing after that thing, not to know this thing on the basis of that thing).. and according as it tends determinately to something by command of will, so the habit inclines determinately to that same thing;” for the habit “moves determinately to something according as it is impelled toward it by command of will.”

359. Now, in support of this opinion, five reasons can be elicited from the statements of the author of it. The first of these is that the Philosopher Ethics 2.4.1105b19-21 says there are only three things in the soul: power, habit, and passion. But the reason of understanding in an angel cannot be only his power (because thus something natural would be a sufficient principle for representing all knowables), and it is certainly not his passion; therefore it is his habit.

360. The second is as follows: in an intellect that has no habit a habit can be generated by frequent elicited acts; therefore if a scientific habit for knowing were not cocreated in an angel, he could generate in himself such a habit, and thus he would be in essential potency, not only to second, but also to first act (the way our intellect is), which is unacceptable.

361. The third is that Dionysius Divine Names ch.7 says that ‘the connection of the universe consists in the fact that the highest of the lower is conjoined with the lowest of the higher’; but the highest in human knowledge is that he should be ready for knowing through a scientific habit; therefore this sort of knowledge must be posited in an angel.

362. The fourth is that if there were no other reason save that a species without a habit does not suffice for perfect knowledge while a perfect habit without a species does suffice, in vain is a species posited for an act of understanding.

363. The fifth is that several elements are not posited in the will as principles for willing diverse objects; therefore neither are diverse principles of understanding posited in the intellect, but a single habit in a perfect intellect will suffice for representing whatever is naturally knowable to it.