A. The Opinion of Others

263. Here the following is saida [Aquinas ST Ia q.56 a.1, SG II ch.98],ST: “In the case of an action that remains in the agent there is need for the object to be united to the agent in order for the action to proceed, just as there is need for the sensible to be united to the sense so that it may actually perceive. And the object united to the power is, for this sort of action [sc. intellection], disposed in the way that the form is that is the principle of action in the case of other agents; for just as heat is the formal principle of heating in fire, so the species of the seen thing is the formal principle of vision in the eye.” SG: “Hence a separated substance, although it is per se intelligible in act, is not however understood according to itself save by the intellect with which it is one. And thus does a separated substance understand itself through its essence.” ⁶⁷ that although the object is separate from the agent in the case of an action that passes over to something extrinsic, yet in the case of an action that is immanent the object must be united to the operator, and, as united, it is the formal idea of such immanent operation, as the species of vision is in the eye; and from this it is further said that, since the essence of an angel is of itself united to his intellect, it can be the principle of the intellection, which is an immanent operation.

a.a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] Here there is the opinion of Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5 q.14, that an angel does not know himself through his essence but through a scientific habit, in which his essence is presented to his intellect just as are also the essences of other things, “such that if an angel per se, in his bare substance, is posited, per impossibile, to be without any scientific habit, he would be moved to an act of understanding by nothing at all, neither by his own essence nor by any other.”

    Now the reason that is there relied on is the following: “The angelic intellect per se and first understands per se no particular essence, just as neither does ours,” because “essences are not represented to the intellect save as they are abstracted from all particular conditions, because science is only of things that are necessary and possess an unchangeability for their essence (according to Boethius On Arithmetic 1 ch.1), and of this sort are only essences as abstracted from singular conditions;” but the essence in itself, in actual existence, is not present to the intellect save as particular, while in the habit it is present and shines forth under the idea of a universal; therefore an angel first understands his essence as it shines forth in the habit, and the essence “as known universally by the angel is the means for knowing his own singular essence, just as any other species is also for him the reason of knowing any singular under it.”

    I argue against this opinion:

    It is unacceptable that a perfect created intellect, out of the whole order of natural causes, has no power for an act of understanding an intelligible object proportioned to it, because a more imperfect intellect - namely the human - has this power along with the order of natural causes, as with phantasms and the agent intellect; but this consequence follows if an angel can understand nothing save by the habit, because the habit is from God alone [Henry Quodlibet 5 q.14]; and thus all natural causes, active and passive, are unable to cause the habit.

    Further, if an angel cannot understand his essence save as it shines forth in the habit, this is either because the object is not intelligible unless it shines forth in the habit, or because it is not intelligible to this intellect save as thus shining forth, or because it is not proportionally present to the intellect in the idea of being intelligible save as it shines forth in the habit. Not in the first way, because then God could not know the angel’s essence save in the habit, because he cannot know anything unless the thing is intelligible. Nor in the second way, because the angel’s essence is supremely proportioned to his intellect, for everything intelligible in itself is a proportionate intelligible to some intellect, and this object is not more adequate and proportionate to any intellect than to its own. Nor in the third way, because presence through informing is not required for something intelligible to be present to an intellect, because then God would not know his own essence; hence it is sufficient that the essence be present under the idea by which an angel can return to it by a complete return; therefore it is proportionately present to his intellect otherwise than through a habit; therefore it is intelligible to him in some way other than by a habit.

    Further, according to him who thus thinks [Henry], the idea of immateriality is the same as the idea of intelligibility; but the essence of an angel is immaterial in itself, therefore it is intelligible in itself; but each thing has as much of intellectivity as it has of intelligibility; therefore an angel in himself, without such habit, is intellective.

    Further, if an angel cannot understand save through such a habit, the consequence is that he cannot know the existence of a thing. Proof: a knower that knows a thing through an idea indifferent to existence and non-existence cannot precisely know the existence of the thing; but such a habit, if it is posited, is disposed indifferently to representing the existence and the nonexistence of the thing, because it naturally represents whatever it represents;     therefore either it represents that a will be and will not be, and then it represents nothing because these are contradictories; or it represents only that a is, and so the intellect would not know it when a is not, and the same conversely; therefore etc     .

    There is a confirmation, because a thing cannot be representative secondarily of something unless the first object represented determines it to it; but the quiddity, which is first represented by the habit, is not determined to existence;     therefore etc     .

    Further, against the statement [above] that the angel does not per se understand the particular save through the universal: because singularity does not prevent a thing from being understood (otherwise God could not understand himself), nor either does limitation (because thus the angelic quiddity would not be per se intelligible to him), nor is there materiality there or any impeding condition;     therefore etc     .

    Further, the reasons that he makes against the species [Henry, ibid.] work equally against the habit, as is plain to anyone who looks at them.

    Therefore something else is said:

264. And if it be objected that such a form should be in that in which there is such an operation (it is not in this way in the essence itself of the angel, where however the reason for acting is), the response seems to be [Aquinas ST Ia q.56 a.1] that the form existing in something else and inhering in something else is the principle of operating; and if the form existed per se, it would no less be per se the reason for acting - just as heat, if it were separate, would, as far as concerns itself, be the principle of heating. Therefore so it is with the essence of an angel, that, although it subsists per se, yet it can be the reason for operating with the above immanent operation.a

a.a [Interpolation] The reason for the opinion is formed as follows: that which is for something the per se reason for acting can, if it is separate, be the principle of acting, as is plain of heat; but the object united to a thing active with an intrinsic or immanent action is the reason for acting; therefore, although it is separate, it will be the principle of that action; therefore although the essence of an angel is not united to the intellect of the angel by informing it, but by another reason for the uniting, it will be for the angel the reason for understanding himself.

265. And if it be again objected that the thing acted on should receive something from the agent (but here the intellect receives nothing from the essence itself, because no species preceding the act is posited), the response is [Aquinas ibid.] that some cognitive power is at times potentially knowing and at times actually knowing, but some other cognitive power is not so. Now, the fact that there is need for a cognitive power to receive something is not because it is a cognitive power, but only because it is sometimes in potency to act; in the issue at hand it is not so;     therefore etc     .

266. Against this:

This opinion posits, as it seems, that the intellect is in essential potency to operation and intellection (which it posits to be an immanent operation), and the whole reason for the operation is the object as it is united to the power, the way heat in wood is the whole reason for heating [nn.263-64].

From this I argue: nothing can have the principle of immanent action of any agent unless it is in act through that which is the principle of such action; but the intellect is not in act through its own essence in that which is per se subsistent, because the essence does not inform or impose any activity on the intellect itself; therefore the fact that such per se existing essence is present to an intellect itself cannot make the intellect have an operation where the essence (or its likeness) is, through the intellect, of a nature to be the reason for understanding.

267. His own example [about heat, n.264] confirms this against him; because although heat is what heats or is the reason for heating, yet it would not in the wood -from which it was separated - be the reason for heating, so that, if ‘to heat’ is called an immanent operation, it would be impossible for the wood to heat by the heat separated from the wood;     therefore it is impossible for the wood to have this immanent operation, which is ‘to heat’. So it is in the issue at hand; therefore etc     .a

a.a [Interpolation] Hence that which is the per se reason for operation, if it exists per se, is the principle of the operation - but it is not the principle of the operation for anything susceptive of the reason; thus, if heat were separate, it would not be the principle of heating for fire. So it is impossible for anything to act through that which is separate from it; hence the Philosopher, On the Soul 2.1.412a27-b6, 414a12-13, proves that the soul is ‘first act of the body,     etc .’ because it is

    ‘that by which we live and sense etc .’ Therefore      nothing acts by any reason for acting unless that reason informs it; but the essence of the angel is posited as subsistent; therefore it cannot be for the angelic intellect the reason for understanding.

268. Further, second, against what he says, that ‘the power does not receive anything because it is not sometimes in potency and sometimes in act’ [n.265] - the object in respect of that which is in the intellect about it (namely in respect of intellection) is not only the cause in its coming to be (the way a builder is cause in respect of the house), but is cause both in its coming to be and in its being (otherwise, just as the house remains when the builder is corrupted, so when the object is at all absent or corrupted in idea of object that which is in the intellect about it as object would remain); but a cause of coming to be and of being is always equally causing, as is plain about the sun with respect to rays of sunlight [1 d.3 nn.602-603]; therefore the object that is posited as the principle of the operation of intellection [n.263] is always equally causing, and consequently the intellect is always equally receiving. The intellect then receives from the object not merely because it receives a new act which it is sometimes not receiving, but because the object is cause of being with respect to that which is always from it receiving.a

a.a [Interpolation] Further, according to him who thus thinks, ‘an angel is so much the higher the more he understands through a species that is more universal’ [Aquinas ST Ia q.55 a.3], which is not true by universality of commonness but by universality of virtue and perfection. And they [sc. those who think like Aquinas] do not first have to posit that species with respect to accidents, because accidents are known through the species of the substances in which they are virtually included; nor even do they first have to posit it with respect to subalternate species, because all the intermediate things can be known through the species of the most specific species. Therefore they have to posit this sort of intelligible species with respect to the most specific species, so that an angel is so much the higher the more he knows more things (as the inferior species) through the species of a superior species; therefore the highest angel knows inferior species through that by which he knows his own quiddity. So if he knows himself through his own essence, he would know all other created things through his own essence, which the author of this opinion himself denies [Aquinas ST Ia q.55 a.1].