Single Question. Whether a Guardian Angel can effectively cause Something in the Intellect of the Man whose Guardian he is

1. About the eleventh distinction where the Master deals with the guarding of men by the good angels, I ask whether a guardian angel can effectively cause something in the intellect of the man whose guardian he is.

2. That he can:

Because otherwise he would guard in vain if he could not direct a man in human actions (and rule him as a man), which actions are a man’s as far as intellect and will are concerned; nor could he otherwise do anything about a man as far as man is rational, because not about will or intellect.

3. Further, an angel can effectively cause something in the intellect of another angel (as was said in 2 d.9 nn.50, 67-69), so he can do the same in the intellect of a man. - Proof of the consequence, because an active thing that can cause something in a more excellent passive thing can also cause something in a less excellent passive thing. Also because every agent possessing first act can cause second act in anything receptive (for by this was the proposition proved in d.9 n.52); now an angel is knower in act and our intellect is in potency to second act,     therefore etc     .

4. Further, a sensible object can do something immediately to our intellect, as is plain about phantasms [On the Soul 3.7.431a14-15], wherefore     etc . Therefore      much more can what is actually intelligible do so, of which sort is what is in the intellect of an angel.

5. On the contrary:

On Psalm 118.73, “Your hands have made and molded me; give me understanding and I will learn your commands,” Augustine’s gloss, “‘Your hands have made me,’ means, ‘only God illumines the mind’.”

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Avicenna

6. There is here the opinion of Avicenna On the Soul p.5 ch.6.“Either we will say that the ‘intelligible forms’ are things per se existing, each of which is a species and a thing per se existing, but the intellect sometimes looks at them and sometimes turns away from them and later turns back to them... Or [we will say that] from the acting principle there flows into the soul form after form according to the request of the soul...and when later the soul turns from the principle, the flowing ceases; which if it were so, the soul would have to learn again every time just as at the start. We will say, therefore, that the last part of this division is true... , and so that ‘learning’ is nothing but the perfect aptitude of joining oneself to the agent intelligence until understanding comes to be from it. For when what coheres with the sought-for understanding passes ‘into the mind of him who is learning’ and the soul turns itself to look at it (now this looking at is the turning of the soul to the principle giving the understanding), the soul is wont to be conjoined with the intelligence and the virtue of simple understanding flows therefrom, which is followed by the flow of ordering; but if the soul turns away from the first principle, the forms come to be in potency, but in proximate potency. For when Plato is said to be ‘knowing intelligibles’, the sense is that, when he wishes, he will recall the forms to his mind; and the sense too of this is that, when he wishes, he can be joined to the agent intelligence so that understanding is formed in him by it. For this way of ‘understanding in potency’ is the virtue which acquires understanding for the soul whenever it wishes - because, whenever it wishes, it will be joined to the intelligence from which flows into it the understood form, which form is understanding most truly attained.” ²³ Look at it.a, b

a. a[Interpolation] because the superior intelligence is cause of the inferior as to being and as to knowledge, and so on by descending from the supreme intelligence; and at last a certain separate intelligence, superior to the intellective soul, causes in it intellectual knowledge (or an intelligible species), and thus the soul understands through actual intellectual conversion to that intelligence.

b. b[Interpolation] because the species of things flow from the separate intelligence for men’s having natural knowledge, so that - according to him - it is natural for our intellect to be turned to the separate intelligence so that it may understand (which whether it is true is plain from Reportatio IA d.3 nn.139, 153-155).

7. Against the opinion of Avicenna the argument is made [by Aquinas] that then [sc. if the soul had to turn to the separate intelligence to have intelligible species of things] the soul would be united to the body in vain, because this would be for no perfection of the united soul; for it is not for the perfection of it in itself, because form is not for matter but the reverse (Physics 2.9.200a24-34); nor is it for its perfection in operating, because it could have when not united intelligible species from the intelligence just as when united.

8. This reason [n.7] seems at fault because it seems to conclude that a blessed soul would in vain be united to the body; because this uniting is not for any perfection necessary to its operation, for it has an operation in which it neither receives nor will receive anything from the body.

9. Besides, according to some of them [sc. followers of Aquinas], the soul understands insofar as it is above the body - therefore it does not belong to it to understand insofar as it is united to the body; therefore neither is it united per se because of any perfection that might be necessary for its operation, namely for understanding.

10. The stated position [sc. of Avicenna, n.6] is rejected in another way:

First because all our knowledge arises from the senses (Posterior Analytics 2.19.100a3-8), and when a sense is lacking the science is lacking that accords with that sense (Posterior Analytics 1.18.81a38-b9, Metaphysics 1.9.993a7-8, Physics 2.1.193a7-9); for someone born blind cannot have a determinate knowledge of colors. But all this would be false if the intelligible species were impressed on the soul by the intelligence.

11. Further, if no habitual knowledge remained when the act of understanding does not remain [sc. as Avicenna supposed], then it would follow that the intellect was always equally in essential potency to understanding. For although some facility would be generated from the acts for turning the intellect toward understanding, yet because a form would never be possessed by which the intellect could understand (which would be the first act making it to be in accidental potency), but there would always be need to receive de novo such a form whereby it could operate - then in the intellect when not understanding would always be an essential potency for the act of understanding (because the intellect would always be in that potency to the form which is the principle of intellection), although an intellect possessing the acquired habit (consequent to act) could more easily acquire that form than another intellect not possessing it. Hence, although one passive thing is more disposed to undergoing the process than another, yet both are in essential potency before they receive the form; just as, if a piece of wood (when it was not heating) were not hot, and one piece of wood were dry and another damp, then although the dry piece would be more easily receptive of heat and the damp one with more difficulty, yet each (when not heating) would be in essential potency to heating. So it is here.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

12. To the question therefore I reply first that an angel cannot effectively cause anything in the intellect of a man whose guardian he is; second what an angel can do.

1. An Angel cannot effectively cause anything in the Intellect of the Man whose Guardian he is

13. On the first point I say that no actual intellection or intelligible species can be caused in our intellect by an angel as by a total cause. But the reason is not because of any lack of power on the part of the angel (because he is sufficiently in first act and can cause second act in another angel [n.3; d.9 n.52]), but the reason is because of our intellect which, for this present state, is a passive thing determined to a determinate active thing, that is, to phantasm and agent intellect; and so it is prevented from being able immediately to be affected by any actual intelligible without a phantasm, because ‘phantasms are for this present state disposed to our intellect as sensibles are to the senses’ [n.4] - namely to this extent, that as the senses are only first affected by the external sensible thing, so our intellect is only affected, as to first affect, by the phantasm. Now why this is so was touched on earlier [1 d.3 n.187], namely, that it is from the order of powers - which order is not merely from the nature of man as man, because then there would not be another order in blessedness; so the order is either because of guilt, or because of this present state on account of something pertaining to guilt (let the cause of this be sought elsewhere [2 d.3 nn.289-90, Lectura 2 d.11 nn.15-16]).

14. Now from this there follows a certain corollary, namely that an intellect cannot be caught up in rapture by an angel to intellectual vision, and that any rapture -done by the power of the devil - is precisely to intensely imagining something; and so raptures by devils are rather madnesses than raptures, because intense imagination makes the mind very distracted from all other thought of anything of actual intellection which the mind seems to be seeing intellectually; and perhaps there accompanies the intense imagination of a thing an intellection of the imaginable thing, but there is there no intellection of a merely intelligible and non-imaginable thing. Thus too any rapture for which a man can by custom dispose himself in this life is not to any intellectual vision but to an imaginative one (and to an intellection concomitant with the imaginative vision), although however (perhaps) such quieting in a man from all extrinsic things by such a vision sometimes disposes him so that God may catch a mind thus tranquil up to intellectual vision.

2. What an Angel can do in the Intellect of the Man whose Guardian he is

15. On the second point, namely what an angel can do in the intellect [n.12].

Because of the statements of the saints (especially of Dionysius Celestial

Hierarchy 4 who says that ‘revelations are made to us through the angels’), it is manifest that an angel can teach a man just as a man does (though more perfectly), because a man teaches by proposing certain signs known to the hearer, and when these have been proposed the hearer is occupied with them as much as possible and is thus united in himself (which sort of union does not exist in someone who is finding out a science, because someone finding out a science is distracted about many things). Likewise from these signs the hearer puts together in turn the simple concepts (the way the speaker and teacher puts them together), conjoining in turn complex concepts (the way the signs of ordered conjoining are in the speaker), and from such signs he perceives the truth of the propositions from their terms, and the relation of proposition to proposition, from which he gets his own truth and so learns; which truth or proposition he would not learn by himself or get hold of without any teacher, even though he had the species of all the terms; for a possessor of the concepts of many terms does not know how and in whatever way he may put them together, nor does he know the propositions ordered in any way to the terms; and if he did this he could from the terms quickly conceive the truth of many propositions, and from these propositions the truth of other propositions - and this is how the clever learn, finding things out for themselves; but the slower need to have someone propose known signs to them so that they may learn through teaching.

16. And in this way it is certain that an angel can teach, either by using conventional signs and doing this by forming the signs in an assumed body (or in something else [sc. the air]), or by using natural signs, namely the things themselves, applying to the senses those present to hand, by which the senses are in turn affected and from these the phantasms are in turn generated and so further - from the phantasms -intelligible species are in turn abstracted.

17. However there might be doubt whether an angel could use natural signs more quickly than he himself (or a man) could use conventional signs. - For it would seem remarkable if he could affect sight more quickly with many sensible or visible objects -from which objects species would be abstracted necessary for one great argumentation -than he (or a man) could use conventional signs representing those objects.

18. But as to other affirmations [sc. about an angel’s power as to phantasms and intelligible species, n.16], namely about what an angel can do or cause in a man’s power of imagination - whether he can effectively cause a new phantasm (as by offering a new imaginable thing) or transpose phantasms already possessed, is matter for doubt.

19. However it is commonly conceded that he cannot cause a new phantasm without a natural cause as intermediary, namely the object that is of a nature to cause such a phantasm.

20. About the transference too of a phantasm from the organ of one man to the organ of another there seems to be doubt whether he could transfer the spirit or humor -informed with a phantasm in the organ of Socrates - to the organ of Plato while the same phantasm remains (for he cannot transfer a phantasm other than by transferring the subject of it [sc. the spirit or humor]).

21. And perhaps it might be said that, when the humor is transferred from the organ of Socrates, the phantasm would not remain in it, because the phantasm would not be in the same proportion to its cause [sc. the particular sense] by which it was generated.

- But this reason is not conclusive, because the particular sense in respect of a phantasm is only a cause of the phantasm’s being made and not of its being when made.

22. Also, if such a transfer might be made, with the phantasm formed in Socrates still remaining, it might be denied that he to whose organ the transfer was made could use such phantasm, because no one’s imagination is of a nature to use a phantasm save one generated by a sensible object present to his own senses. - But this reason too is not conclusive, because if God impressed on a man born blind a phantasm of color, he could use it when awake to imagine colors; for what is not a cause of the being of a form but only of its coming to be does not seem to be a necessary cause of the form as to the second act of it.

23. Now as to neither of these two doubts does there seem to be a necessary reason for one side or the other.

24. In a third way, about the transference of phantasms in the same man, it is said that an angel can cause local motion of humors and spirits, on which motion there follows the transference of phantasms and the affecting in turn of the possible intellect by them. -But this seems difficult to understand; for not just any phantasm has spirit or humor for its subject, because there could be so many phantasms together in the power of imagination that proper subjects could not be assigned to them; also, no motion of spirit or humor seems to make any phantasm move more than before unless it does something to the phantasm by way of alteration.

25. Finally fourth, one can concede the following, that an angel can remove an impediment from the power of imagination; for example, if the impediment to orderly affecting by phantasms was a disturbance of the spirits or humors, an angel can quiet them, and when these are quieted the phantasms can occur in turn.

26. It can also be said - besides the way in which an angel can teach by sensible signs more excellently than a man can [nn.15-16], and besides any way he can act about the power of imagination [nn.18-25] (although no way is very certain save the last one about the removal of an impediment [n.25]) - that an angel can do something as regard the possible intellect; not indeed by immediately causing an intelligible species as total cause of it but as partial cause, by the joint action of his agent intellect with the agent intellect of the man, so that the two agent intellects (namely of man and angel), which are of the same nature, could operate along with the phantasm more effectively than the agent intellect of the man could alone, and thus produce a more perfect intelligible species and one that more perfectly represents the quiddity.

II. To the Principal Arguments

27. To the arguments.

To the first argument [n.2] I say that an angel does not in vain guard a man, because he can do something with respect to man’s intellect - teaching through sensible signs - more efficaciously than a man can, and perhaps by doing something with respect to his imagination, and perhaps with respect to his possible intellect (in the last way stated [n.26]). Given even that an angel could do none of these things, the guarding of the angels would not be in vain, because they guard us from many of the assaults of the demons, according to what Jerome [Hilary] says in his homily (on Matthew 18.10, “Their angels always see, etc.”), “Nor would the life of mortals be safe [among so many assaults unless it were fortified by the guarding of the holy angels].”Hilary, Tractate on Psalms, psalm 134 n.17: “For there are angels for little ones who behold God every day. These spirits therefore are sent out for the salvation of the human race. For our infirmity, without the gift of the angels to be our guard, would not withstand so many and so great wickednesses of celestial spirits. God then produces these winds [sc. the good angels] from his storehouse, giving through them aid to human infirmity, so that these divine protectors for us against the worldly powers of the present darkness might keep watch in inheriting salvation for us.” ²⁴

28. To the second [n.3]: the consequence is not valid, because the lower passive thing [sc. our possible intellect, n.13] is not able in this present state to be affected by that agent [sc. an angel], and this because the passive thing is impeded for the present state from receiving anything such; hence this lack of power is not because of any defect in the active power of the angel or of impotency in the passive power of our intellect absolutely, but because of an impediment in it for this present state.

29. By this is also plain the answer to both proofs of the consequence [n.3]; for the active thing can act on the passive thing when the passive thing is not impeded from receiving such form as such an agent acts for - but when there is an impediment, the active thing cannot act by immediate power although it could by remote power.

30. And if you say that ‘then God cannot for this present state act immediately on the intellect without a phantasm’ - I say that the consequence is not valid, because the impediment for the present state is an order among the inferior powers [n.13], and this order is subject to the causality of God but not to the causality of any creature - and therefore in the case of any created agent (which presupposes this order) there is an impediment, but not in the case of God, who is above this order.

31. As to the final argument [n.4], it is plain that sensible things can affect the intellect for this present state but purely intelligible things cannot; not, however, because they are not active, nor because our intellect is not passive with respect to them absolutely, but because it is for this present state impeded from being immediately acted on by, or receptive to, such things. But when this sort of impediment is removed, then it will receive, as it will in blessedness; for then an angel will speak to a blessed man and a blessed man to another blessed man, as was said before that ‘angel speaks to angel intellectually’ [n.13, d.9 nn.49-52]; for then, according to the promise of the Savior (Matthew 22.30), we will be “like the angels of God in heaven”.

32. And from this is plain why a teacher cannot cause science in his students; not because of a defect of active power in the science of the one teaching, but because of a blindness in this present state in the intellect of the student - for which state he is prevented from being thus affected, because for this present state he is determined to phantasms as to what affects him, as is plain from what has been said [nn.31, 28, 13].a

a. a[Interpolation] Question: Whether matter can exist without form, that is, whether it is repugnant to matter to exist in fact without form. Here Avicenna replies [that it cannot] Metaphysics 2 ch.3 -and for this he has several reasons. First it seems that what is indefinite [sc. matter] cannot exist without a definite term; second, either matter would exist in place, and then either divisibly and as of determinate quantity, or indivisibly, and thus it would be a point; or it would not exist in place, and then it would be an intelligence; the third reason he gestures to is that form is the cause of matter’s existing in fact and not conversely. See what he says there. - For the opinion [sc. of Avicenna, that matter cannot exist without form] there are the reasons of the moderns [identity unknown] who hold this opinion, and their Achilles is: because if matter can exist without form then for the same reason it can exist without privation, which is more separable or alone separable (because it is other than matter). They prove this in many ways by means of problems about the same and different, Topics 7.1-2.151b28-153a5. The falsity of the consequent is plain, because thus matter would be deprived [sc. not have form] and not deprived [sc. not have privation], and would lack [sc. lack form] and not lack [sc. lack privation, which is to lack nothing]. Against this opinion are the reasons of Scotus [Reportatio IIA d.12 q.2] and other reasons [William of Ware et al.]

[The Twelfth Distinction (on matter and form in corruptible things) is lacking in the OrdinatioThe Vatican Editors point out that the absence of the twelfth distinction was supplied in various ways by different editors, who excerpted passages from Scotus’ other works and from the Additiones Magnae complied by William of Alnwick. ²⁵]