Question Two Whether it can be Known by Natural Reason that there will be a General Resurrection of Men

44. Secondly I ask whether it can be known by natural reason that there will be a future general resurrection of men.

45. That it can be:

A natural desire cannot be in vain, according to the Commentator on Metaphysics 2 com.1; but man has a natural desire to exist always, and this desire can be known by natural reason;   therefore etc     . Proof of the minor: because nothing is naturally fled from save by virtue of a natural desire or of love in respect of it; but man naturally flees from death (this is plain from experience; plain too from the Apostle II Corinthians 5.4, “We do not wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon”).

46. Again, it is naturally known that beatitude is naturally desired (this is plain from Ethics 1.5.1097b1 about beatitude in general, and 10.4.1174b18-75a1 about beatitude in particular); but it is known by natural reason that there can only be beatitude if it is eternal. Therefore it is known by natural reason that man is ordered to some eternal perfection. The proof of the minor: Augustine On the Trinity XIII 8.n.11 proves it thus by reason: “Life itself, even if blessed, abandons the dying man. It abandons him either as he is not willing or as he is willing or as he is neither. If he is not willing, how is a life blessed that is in his will in such a way that it is not in his power? But if he is willing, how will a life be blessed which he who has it wants to end? If you say he is neither, neither wanting nor not wanting - but neither is that life blessed which is such that it not be worthy of the love of him whom it makes blessed.”

47. Again, it is naturally known that the whole species does not so lack its end that this end is not realized in some individual; but it is naturally known that blessedness is the end of the human species; therefore it is naturally known too that man can attain it, at least in the case of some individual. But it cannot be realized in this life because of the many miseries that accompany this life, as changes in fortune, infirmity of body, imperfection of knowledge and virtue, and inconsistency and fatigue in exercising acts of perfection, so much so that no activity, however delightful in the beginning, can be delightful continually; on the contrary, desisting from it through disgust will be delightful. And it is known by natural reason that beatific activity does not disgust. Nor can it be had by the separated soul alone, because man would not attain his end thereby. Therefore it will be had in another life by the whole man joined together. And, consequently, natural reason seems at least to conclude what the things are wherein man may reach his end.

48. Again, it is known by natural reason that every species that belongs to the integrity of the universe is perpetual, because the integrated whole is perpetual; but man is the most perfect species, at least among things here below, “For we are in some way the end of all things,” Physics 2.2.194a34-35.

49. To the opposite:

Augustine On the Trinity XIII.8-9 n.12, when speaking of immortal and eternal life, says, “Whether human nature lacks this life is no small question; indeed, of those who try to find it by human arguments scarcely a few - endowed with great intelligence, in leisure unbusied, instructed in the most subtle doctrines - have been able to track down only the immortality of the soul.”

50. Again, in Acts 17.18 it is said of certain Athenians listening to Paul that they said “he seemed to be a preacher of new daimons, because he was preaching to them Jesus and the resurrection.” And yet those Athenians were philosophers, very able in natural reason (clear about Dionysius the Areopagite, who was one of them).     Therefore this fact of the resurrection, which seemed to them to be so remote from the truth, did not seem to be well known through natural reason; hence all that Paul adduces there is only certain persuasive considerations, as is plain in the text.

51. Again in Acts 26.23-24, although Paul was saying “If Christ is capable of suffering, if he is first of the resurrection etc     .,” Festus said with a loud voice, “You are mad, Paul.”

I. To the Question

52. Here it is manifest that if any reason prove the resurrection, it must be taken from something that is proper to man such that it not belong to other corruptible things. But this is not matter, even incorruptible matter; nor is it any destructible form, because although there be such form in man, and more excellent than any form of a brute, yet a sufficient reason cannot be taken from it to prove the resurrection of the whole. Therefore, a reason must be taken from the specific form of man, or from an operation belonging to man according to that form.

A. About the Three Propositions for Proving the Resurrection of Man

53. Proceeding in this way, one can prove the intended conclusion from three propositions; and if all these were known to natural reason, we would have that conclusion. Now the propositions are as follows:

That ‘the intellective soul is the specific form of man’; second that ‘the intellective soul is incorruptible’. From these two it follows that the specific form of man is incorruptible. The added third is that ‘the specific form of man will not remain perpetually outside, or without, its whole’. Therefore the consequence follows that the whole will at some point return the same. This repeated return is called ‘resurrection’ according to Damascene Orthodox Faith ch.100, “Resurrection is a second raising up of that which was dissolved.”

54. As to these three propositions let us see how they are known.

1. About the First Proposition, that ‘the Intellective Soul is the Form of Man’

a. The Opinion of Others and the Weighing and Putting Together of it

55. It is said of the first [by Aquinas] that it is known by natural reason.

56. This is shown in two ways: in one way by authorities from the Philosophers who asserted this, and only as something known to natural reason; in another way by adducing the natural reasons from which it follows.

α. Proof by Authorities from Philosophers

57. As to the first point [n.56]: Aristotle On the Soul 2.1.412a19-b6 defines the soul as ‘the act of an organic physical body’ etc. And at 3.4.429a10-11 he says, “About the part of the soul by which it knows and is wise,” where he seems to posit the intellective soul as at least a kind or species of soul previously defined in general terms.

58. Again, all philosophers have commonly put ‘rational’ in the definition of man as his proper difference, meaning by ‘rational’ that the intellective soul is an essential part of man.

59. Nor, in short, is any noteworthy philosopher found who denies this, although the accursed Averroes in his fiction in On the Soul III com. 5, 36 - a fiction that is nevertheless intelligible neither to him nor to anyone else - posits a certain separate intellective substance that is conjoined [to man] by the medium of phantasms. This conjunction neither he nor any of his followers has been able to explain, or to save by means of it, the fact that ‘man understands’. For, according to him, a man would formally be only a sort of excelling irrational animal, though because of an irrational and sensitive soul more excellent than the other animals.

β. Proof by Natural Reasons

60. On the second point [n.56]. No a priori or a posteriori reason can easily be found for the intended conclusion save one taken from man’s proper operation, since form is made known by proper operation as matter is made known by change. So, argument for the intended conclusion is taken from the operation of understanding as follows: understanding is the proper operation of man; therefore it comes from man’s proper form; therefore the intellective soul is the proper form of man.

61. But this reason has an objection against it, that the intellect, according to them, is related only passively and not actively to the act of understanding. Therefore the proposition ‘proper operation comes from proper form’ does not prove that the intellective soul is the proper form of man, since this operation, according to them, does not come from the intellective soul but from the intelligible object or, according to others, from the phantasm.

62. Therefore I form the argument from that operation in another way as follows: man understands formally and properly; therefore, the intellective soul is the proper form of man.

63. The antecedent here seems sufficiently clear according to the authorities from Aristotle On the Soul 3.4.429a21-24 and Ethics 1.6.1098a3-4, 1.7: that ‘to understand’ is the proper operation of man; but operation, as it is distinct from action or making, exists formally in the one operating and does not proceed therefrom to something else. Likewise, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-b1, 8.1158b7-32, 9.1179a22-32, places man’s happiness in an act of understanding, and it is manifest that happiness is in man formally; therefore the operation in which happiness consists is in man formally.

64. But it is necessary to prove the antecedent by reason (against him who impudently denies it), and this by taking in the antecedent ‘understanding properly speaking’, by which I mean ‘an act of knowing that transcends the whole genus of sense knowledge’.

65. This antecedent, therefore, is proved in one way as follows: man understands by a non-organic act of knowing; therefore, he understands properly.

The consequence is plain from the reason already set down [n.63-64], that a proper act of understanding is knowing that transcends the whole genus of sensation; but all sensation is organic knowing, from On the Soul 2.1.412a21-b9, 2.11.423b31-42a7. The proof of the antecedent of this enthymemeThe antecedent is “man understands by a non-organic act of knowing” and the argument it is the antecedent of is an enthymeme because the premise that a non-organic act is an act of understanding properly is left unexpressed. This premise itself is proved by the statements that understanding properly is knowing that transcends the whole genus of sensation, and that sensation does not so transcend because it is the act of an organ and an organ is tied to a determinate class of sensibles. The inadequacy of this argument is shown in what follows. ² is that an organ is determined to a definite genus of sensibles, from On the Soul 3.426b8-23, and this for the reason that it consists in a proportion between the extremes of the genus. But we experience some knowledge in ourselves that does not belong to us according to such organ, because then it would be determined precisely to the sensibles of a determinate genus, the opposite of which we experience; for we know by such act the difference between any genus of sensibles and something else that is not anything of the genus; therefore we know each extreme (the consequence is plain according to the Philosopher when he argues about the common sense in On the Soul 2.11.423b31-4a7).

66. But objection is made here:

First, that organic knowledge is that which is present according to a determinate part of the body; but the knowledge about which it is argued that we distinguish by it sensibles from non-sensibles is present first in the whole body, and so it does not come through any organ properly speaking. However, it does not transcend in perfection the whole genus of sensitive knowledge, because it is present first in the whole body, and consequently it is as material as that which is in the whole part by part; for thus is a property of the whole as material as that which is in the whole part by part.

67. Second, the assumption is denied, namely that the act is not present according to any organ; for it is present according to the organ of imagination. The proof of this is that when this organ is damaged knowledge is impeded. Nor is the proof sound [n.65] about the determination of the organ to a certain genus, because imagination extends itself to all sensibles.

68. However, the first objection [n.66] is excluded by something touched on there [n.65], because we discriminate by the act [sc. of understanding] between the whole genus of sensibles and something that is outside that whole genus.

69. Nor is the proof sound [n.67] that when the organ of imagination is damaged knowledge is impeded; for this happens because of the order of these powers in their operation, and not because understanding is exercised through the medium of this organ.

70. The principal antecedent [nn.65, 62], that there is some immaterial knowledge in us, is proved in another way: no sensitive knowledge can be immaterial,     therefore etc     .

71. This term ‘immaterial’ is frequently used by the Philosopher in the issue at hand, but it seems ambiguous. For it can be understood in three ways relative to the issue at hand:

Cognition is immaterial either because it is incorporeal in the following way, that it does not come through a bodily part and organ; and then it is the same as the proposition already set down about non-organic knowledge.

Or it is immaterial in another way, that it is in no way extended, and then it states more than ‘non-organic’ does; for although all organic cognition is extended because it is received in something extended, yet not only so; because if it were received in the whole composite first, then since the whole composite is extended the operation would still be extended.

In a third way its immateriality can be understood in relation to the object, namely that it regards the object under immaterial ideas, that is, to the extent it abstracts from the here and now and the like, which are said to be material conditions.

72. Now if immateriality in the second way were proved, the proposed conclusion would be obtained more than from a proof of it in the first way. But it does not seem it can thus be proved (save from the conditions of the object that the act regards), unless perhaps by reflection, because, as much as the act of this knowing is not reflexive on itself, we experience ourselves reflecting back on it. And     therefore , it is from the object of the act that a proof of the antecedent is finally reached.

73. In this way: we have in ourselves some knowledge of the object under the idea under which there cannot be any sense knowledge of it; therefore etc     .

74. The proof of the antecedent [n.73] is that we experience in ourselves that we know the universal actually.

75. And we experience that we know being or quantity under an idea more common than is the idea of the first sense object, even as regards the highest sense soul.

76. We also experience that we know the relations consequent to the natures of things, even non-sensible things.

77. We experience too that we distinguish the whole genus of sensible things from anything that is not of that genus.

78. We even experience that we know relations of reason (which are second intentions), namely the relation of universal, of genus and species, of opposition and other logical intentions.

79. We experience too that we know the act by which we know these intentions and know that by which the act is present in us, which is by an act that reflects back on the direct act and is receptive of it.

80. We experience too that we assent to certain propositions, as the first principles, without possibility of contradiction or error.

81. We experience too that we come to know the unknown from the known by a discursive process, such that we cannot dissent from the evidence of the discursive process or from the knowledge inferred.

82. Each of these ‘knowings’ is impossible for any sense power;     therefore etc     .

83. But if someone stubbornly deny that these acts are present in man, and deny that he experiences them in himself, one should not dispute with him further but should say to him that he is a brute thing. Just as one should not dispute with someone who says ‘I do not see color there’, but should say to him ‘you need senses because you are blind’. So we we experience these acts in us by a certain sense, that is, by an interior perception. And therefore, if someone denies them, one must say that he is not a man because he does not have the vision that others experience.

84. The proof of the assumption, namely that ‘none of these acts can be present according to any sense power’ [nn.82, 73], is because the universal in act is known with as much indifference [to any particular] as the thing thus known can be asserted of every singular in which it is found to be preserved. Sense does not know in this way [n.74].

85. But this is more evident from the second point [n.76], because no power can know anything under an idea more universal than its proper object (as sight does not know anything under an idea that is indifferent as to color and sound); therefore the knowledge that is of something under an idea more common than any posited object, even of the highest sense, cannot be any sensation.

86. The third point [n.77] proves the same, because no sensation can distinguish its first sense object, that is, its most common object, from what is not of that sort, because neither can it distinguish both the extremes.

87. About relations consequent to things not mutually sensed by each other, or are non-sensible in relation to things sensible [n.78], the answer is plain from the same point [n.86], that the senses have no power for them. And this is much plainer about those relations that are called relations of reason, because a sense cannot be moved to know something that is [not?]There is no ‘not’ in the Latin but it seems to be necessary, unless ‘sensible qua sensible’ means ‘sensible under the idea of sensible’, for sense perceives the sensible thing and not the idea of what it is to be a sensible thing. ³ included in a sensible object as sensible. The relation of reason is not included in anything as it is existent; but sense is of the existent as it is existent. And hereby can also be proved the principle too about a universal act, because to be an existent as it is existent is repugnant to a universal in act.

88. The other point, about reflection back upon act and power [n.79], is proved by the fact that a quantum is not reflexive on itself.

89. The other two points, about composition and assent to composition, and about discursive reasoning and assenting to the evidence of discursive reasoning [nn.80-81], are proved from relation of reason, because they are not without relation of reason.

90. The consequence of the first enthymeme [n.65] is proved as follows: if such an act is in us formally (since it is not our substance because sometimes it is present and sometimes not present), then one must grant there something properly receptive of it; but not anything extended, whether it is an organic part or a whole composite, because then the operation would be extended, and it could not be such as it is said to be about objects such as they are said to be; therefore it must be present according to something nonextended and that is formally present in us; but that cannot be without the intellective soul, because any other form is extended.

91. Or the consequence can be proved in another way, by going to the condition of the object of the act; because any form lower than the intellective form, if it has an operation, has it precisely in respect of an object under ideas opposite to those that have been stated. Therefore, if we have an operation about an object under those ideas, it will not be in us according to any form other than an intellective one; therefore it is in us according to an intellective one. Therefore an intellective form is in us formally, otherwise we would not be operative formally according to that operation.

92. The same thing can be proved from the second human operation, namely the will, because man is lord of his acts such that it is in his power to determine himself by his will to this thing or its opposite, as was said in Lectura II d.25 n.94. And this fact is known not only from the faith but also by natural reason. Now this indetermination cannot be in any sense appetite, either organic or extended, because any organic or material appetite is determined to a certain genus of desirables that is agreeable to it, such that when the genus is apprehended it cannot not be agreeable nor can the appetite not desire it. Therefore the will by which we thus indeterminately will is an appetite that is not of any such form, namely material form, and consequently it is an appetite of something that surpasses every such form. We set down the intellective form as of this sort, and then, if that appetite is formally in us, because desiring is so as well, it follows that that form is our form.

2. About the Second Proposition, that ‘The Intellective Soul is Incorruptible or Immortal’

93. About the second main proposition, which is that ‘the intellective soul is immortal’ [n.53] the procedure is the same as about the first one, by first bringing forward the authorities of the philosophers who held this opinion.

a. Proof through Authorities of Philosophers

Aristotle, On the Soul 2.2.413b25-27, says that “the intellect is separated from other things as the perpetual from the corruptible.” If it be said that it is separated as to its operation, on the contrary: from this the proposed conclusion follows, that if it can be separated as to operation then as to being as well (according to Aristotle On the Soul 1.1.403a7-12).

94. Again, On the Soul 3.4.429a29-b5, a difference is set down between sense and intellect, that “a surpassing sensible object destroys the sense”, and so, after the sensation, the sense perceives a lesser sensible thing less. But it is not so with the intellect; rather after it has understood things supremely intelligible, it understands lesser things more; therefore the intellect is not weakened in its operation; and then it follows further that it is incorruptible in its being.

95. Again Metaphysics 12.3.1070a21-27, “Moving causes, just as they exist beforehand, are yet as the rational nature (that is as the form) simultaneous with the caused thing as a whole. For when a man is being healed, health exists then also. But whether anything remains afterwards needs to be examined. For nothing prevents this in some cases, as suppose the soul is such - not every soul, but the intellect     etc .” The Philosopher means to say, then, that the intellect is a form that remains after the composite but not beforehand.

96. Again Generation of Animals 2.3.736b27-28, “It remains then that only the intellect comes from without.” Therefore     , it does not receive its being through generation but from an extrinsic cause. And, consequently, it cannot receive non-being through corruption or through any other inferior corruptive cause, because its being is not subject to any such cause, for it is immediately from a superior cause.

97. Again, a number of reasons can be formed from the Authorities of the Philosopher [3.18, n.45].

There is one principle the Philosopher has that ‘natural desire cannot be vain’; but there is a natural desire now in the soul to exist always.

98. Again, in Metaphysics 7.15.1039b29-30 he maintains that ‘matter is that whereby a thing can be and not be’; therefore, according to him, what does not have matter does not have the possibility not to exist; the intellective soul, according to him, does not have matter, because it is a simple form.

99. Again, in Ethics 3.9.1115a32-b1 he maintains that a brave man should expose himself to death for the sake of the republic, and he maintains the same in Ethics 9.8.1169a18-20, and speaks according to the judgment of natural reason. Therefore, the immortality of the soul can be known according to natural reason. The proof of this consequence is that no one should or can desire his own complete non-existence for any good of virtue, whether a good in himself or in another or of the republic. For, according to Augustine On Free Choice of the Will 3.7-8 nn.68-84, non-existence cannot be desired; but now, if the soul were not immortal, someone would get, by dying, total nonexistence.

b. Proof through Arguments of Doctors [of Theology]

100. Again, one doctor [Aquinas] gives, as if from the words of the Philosopher, the following argument: what is corrupted is either corrupted by its contrary or by a lack of something necessarily required for its being; but the intellective soul has no contrary, nor is the being of the body simply necessary for its being, because it has its own proper being per se and has it the same in the body and outside the body; nor is there any difference involved save that in the body it communicates it to be corrupted and outside the body does not communicate it. Again, what is simple cannot be separated from itself; the soul is simple; therefore it cannot be separated from itself, and consequently cannot be separated from its being, because it does not have being from a form other than itself. Things are otherwise in the case of a composite thing, which has being through a form and this form can be separated from matter, and so the being of the composite can be destroyed.

101. But the Philosopher seems to have thought the opposite, because at the end of Metaphysics 7.17.1041b11-33 he expressly maintains that all the parts that can remain when separated from the whole are elements, that is, material parts, as he there takes the term ‘elements’. And one must, besides such elements, posit in the whole some form whereby the whole is what it is, and this form could not remain in separation from a material part when the whole does not remain. Therefore, if he conceded that the intellective soul is the form of man, as is plain from the proof of the preceding proposition [nn.62-63], he does not posit that it remains separated from matter when the whole does not remain.

102. Again, it appears to be a principle with the Philosopher that ‘what begins to be ceases to be’; hence in On the Heavens 1.10.279b17-21 he seems to hold, against Plato, that it is incompossible for something to begin to be and yet to be perpetual and incorruptible; and in Physics 3.4.203b8-9, on the infinite, he says that what has a beginning has an end.

α. The Proofs of the Philosophers are not Demonstrative

103. It can be said that although the reasons for proving this second proposition [nn.53, 93] are probable, they are not however demonstrative, or indeed necessary.

104. And what is adduced for it in the first way, from the authority of philosophers, can be solved in a twofold manner:

In one way that it is unclear what the Philosopher thought about the matter, for he speaks variously in different places; and he held different principles, from some of which one of the opposed sides seems to follow and from others the other. Hence it is probable that he was in doubt about this conclusion, and seemed to incline now more to one side and now more to the other, as he treated of material consonant with the one side more than with the other.

105. There is also another response, a more real one, that not everything said assertively by the philosophers was something they had proof for through necessary natural reason, but that frequently they had only certain probable convictions, or the common opinion of preceding philosophers.

106. Hence the Philosopher says On the Heavens 2.12.291b25-28, “One must try to say what appears, considering it proper that eagerness be attributed rather to modesty than daring if, for the sake of philosophy, one prefers to make a stand and embraces slight indications as sufficient where the doubts we have are very great.” Hence the philosophers were content with slight indications when they were unable to reach anything greater, lest they go against the principles of philosophy.

107. And in the same chapter [n.106] he says, “accounts of the other stars are given by the Egyptians and Babylonians, from whom we get much of what we believe about individual stars.”

108. Hence the philosophers are content sometimes with probable arguments, sometimes with assertions of their principles beyond any necessity of reason. And this response might suffice for all the authorities, many though they be, because these authorities do not prove their conclusion.

109. However response can be made to them in order.

To the first [n.93], that Aristotle only understands this separation in the precise sense that the intellect does not use the body in its operation; and for this reason it is incorruptible in its operation -meaning by ‘corruption’ that by which an organic power is corrupted because of the corruption of the organ. And this is the only corruption that belongs to an organic power, according to the Philosopher On the Soul 1.4.408b21-22, “If an old man were to be given the eye of a young man, he would see just as a young man does.” Therefore, the seeing power is not weakened or corrupted as far as its operation is concerned, but only the organ is. Nor yet from this in-corruption in the intellect (namely that it does not have an organ by the corruption of which it could be corrupted in its operation) does it follow that it is simply incorruptible in operating (for then it would follow that it would be incorruptible in being, as is then [n.94] argued); but all that follows is that it is not corruptible in its operating the way an organic power is. Still, it would be posited to be simply corruptible, according to On the Soul 1.4.408b21-22, “The intellect is corrupted in us when something within is corrupted,” and this to the extent that it would be posited as the principle of operating its proper operation for the whole composite; but a composite is corruptible; therefore the operating principle of it is corruptible too. And that the principle of operating is for the whole, and that the operation of it is an operation of the whole, seem to be what Aristotle says in On the Soul above.

110. To the next argument [n.94] I say that a surpassing sensible object destroys the sense per accidens, because it corrupts the organ, for it disrupts the mean proportion in which the good disposition of an organ consists; and, by contrast, the intellect, because it does not have an organ, is not destroyed by a surpassing object; but from this does not follow that the intellect is incorruptible, unless it be proved not to depend in its being on the whole thing that is corruptible.

111. To the third [n.95], about Metaphysics 12.3.1070a21-27, the answer is that Aristotle made that statement in a state of doubt, for he says ‘perhaps’, but he does not say ‘perhaps’ as regard the fact that the intellect remains afterwards, that is, after the whole; but he says, “not every soul, but the intellect;” and then follows, “for it is perhaps impossible that every soul should etc.,” where he was in doubt whether it is possible for every soul to remain after the composite. But as to the intellect he does not doubt but that it does not depend in its being on the whole that is corrupted. If then he expressly asserts it, one can say that nevertheless it was not proved to him by necessary reasoning but that he was persuaded by probable reasons.

112. To the next [n.96], it is very doubtful what he thought about the beginning of the intellective soul. For if he did not posit that God does something afresh immediately but only moves the heaven with an eternal motion, and does so as remote agent, by what separate agent would Aristotle posit that the intellective soul is freshly produced?

113. For if you say it is produced by some intelligence, there is a double unacceptability: first, because an intelligence cannot produce a substance (Ord. IV d.1 n.75); second, because an intelligence cannot more produce something new immediately than God can - according to the principles of the Philosopher about the immutability of the agent, and so about the agent’s eternity in acting. Nor can Aristotle posit, according to his own principles, that the intellective soul is the term of a natural agent, because, as appears from Metaphysics 12.3.1070a25-27, he posits that it is incorruptible (and no form that is the term of a natural agent is simply incorruptible).

114. One can say he posits that it receives being, and new being, immediately from God, because the fact that it receives being follows sufficiently from Aristotle’s principles, since he does not posit that it had perpetually preceded without a body nor that it existed beforehand in another body. And it is not provable by reason from whom it could receive such being (nothing else being presupposed) save from God.

115. But on the contrary: then Aristotle would be conceding creation.

I reply: this does not follow, because he did not posit a different production for the composite and for the intellective soul, as neither for fire and the form of fire; but he posited the animation of an organic body to be a production per accidens of the soul itself.

116. We, however, posit two productions: one from the non-being of the soul to its being, and this is creation; a second from non-animation of the body to animation of it, and this is production of an animate body and is through a change in the proper sense of change. Someone, then, who posited only the second production would posit no animation,That is, presumably, no making of a soul by creation. ⁴ and thus Aristotle did.

117. But although you may, according to him, avoid creation, how can the proposition be saved of an unchangeable agent producing something?

I reply: in no way except because of a newness in the passive receptive thing. For the fact that an effect, dependent totally and precisely on its active cause, should be new would be reduced, according to Aristotle [nn.94-99], to some variation in the efficient cause itself; but the fact that an effect that is dependent on the agent and on the receptive thing is new can be reduced to the newness of the passive thing itself, without newness in the agent.

118. And thus it would be said here that by natural necessity does God move an organic body to animation as soon as there is a body susceptible of this animation, and that by natural causes does this susceptible thing sometimes newly come to be. And for this reason is there then a new movement for animation from God himself.

119. But why must this newness be reduced to God as to the agent cause?

I say because it is like a first agent, and therefore, according to Aristotle, it is always acting with some action on the passive subject, being disposed always in the same way, so that, if some passive subject can be new and be receptive of some form, which form cannot be subject to the causality of a second cause, God is the immediate cause of it. And yet he is so newly, because one must posit to every passive power in an entity some corresponding active power; and so, if no created active power corresponds to a new passive power, the divine active power will immediately correspond to it.

120. To the next argument [n.97], about natural desire, response will be given in replying to the initial reasonings [nn.138-145], because the first initial reason and the second and third [nn.45-47] proceed on the basis of natural desire.

121. To the next [n.98] from Metaphysics 7 about matter, the description there of matter is true, not only when understanding ‘matter is that whereby the thing of which the matter is part can be and not be’ about the thing of which matter is part, but about the thing whether it is that of which matter is part or that which is received in matter; otherwise the form of fire would not be able not to be, because matter is not part of the form of fire.

122. To the next argument [n.99] about the brave man, there is considerable disagreement whether one should, according to right reason, expose oneself to death. Yet one can say, as the Philosopher replies in Ethics 9.8.1169a17-33, that the brave man gives himself the greatest good in performing that great act of virtue; and he would deprive himself of that good, indeed he would be living viciously, if, by omitting the act, he were then to save his being for however much being. But a simply greatest and momentary good is better than a diminished good of virtue, or than a vicious life, for a long time. Hence from this argument it is clearly proved that the common good, according to right reason, is more to be loved than one’s own proper good, because a man should expose to destruction simply all his own proper good, even if he not know his soul is immortal, so as to save the common good; and the good for whose preservation the being of something else is despised is more to be loved simply.

β. To the Arguments of the Doctors

123. To the arguments of the Doctors:

As to the first argument [n.100], if it take the soul to have the same per se being in the whole and outside the whole (insofar as ‘per se being’ is distinguished from the ‘being-in’ of an accident), the form of fire in this way, if it were without matter, would have per se being, and then one could admit that the form of fire would be incorruptible. But if the argument take ‘per se being’ as what belongs to a composite thing in the genus of substance, then it is false that the soul without the body has per se being, because then its being would not be communicable to another; for in divine reality too per se being in this way is taken to be incommunicable. Hence the argument, that because the soul has per se being without the body therefore it does not need the body, altogether fails. For in the second way of understanding ‘per se being’ the antecedent is false, and in the first way the consequence is invalid - unless you add to it that the soul naturally or without a miracle has per se being in the first way; but this proposition is something believed and is not known by natural reason.

124. To the other argument [n.102]: not every corruption is by separation of one thing from another; for if one takes the being of an angel - supposing this to be, according to some [Aquinas], different from the angel’s essence - it is not separable from itself, and yet it is destructible by the succession to its being of the opposite of being.

3. About the Third Proposition, that ‘The Specific Form of Man will not Perpetually Remain Outside its Whole’

125. About the third proposition it is said [Aquinas] that it can be proved from the fact that a part outside its whole is imperfect; but a form so noble will not remain imperfect perpetually; therefore not separate from the whole either.

126. Again, “nothing violent is perpetual” according to Aristotle On the Heavens 1.2.269a19-28. But the separation of the body from the soul is violent, because against the natural inclination of the soul, according to the Philosopher; for the soul is naturally inclined to perfecting the body.

127. Now as to this proposition [n.125], it seems that if the Philosopher had posited the soul to be immortal he would rather have posited it to remain perpetually without the body than in the body, because ‘everything composed of opposites is corruptible’.

128. Nor do the above reasons prove it:

Not the first [n.125] because the major premise, ‘a part outside its whole is imperfect’, is only true of a part that receives some perfection within the whole; now the soul does not receive perfection but communicates it. And thus an argument to the opposite can be formed, because it is not repugnant for something to remain equally perfect in itself though it not communicate its perfection to another. This is clear about the efficient cause, whose remaining however much without its effect is not repugnant to it. But the soul remains equally perfect in its proper being whether it is joined or separated, being different however in this, that when separated it does not communicate its being to another.

129. Hereby also to the next argument [n.126], because natural inclination is double: one is to first act and is the inclination of the imperfect to the perfect, and accompanies essential potency; and the other inclination is to second act, and is of the perfect to the communicating of perfection, and accompanies accidental potency.

About the first inclination it is true that its opposite is the violent and is not perpetual, because it posits perpetual imperfection, which the Philosopher considers unacceptable [On the Heavens 2.14.296a32-34], for he placed causes in the universe that at some time take away any imperfection. But the second inclination, even if it be perpetually suspended, is not properly called anything violent, because neither is it an imperfection; but as it is now the inclination of the soul for the body is only in the second way.

130. Or one can say, according to Avicenna [On the Soul 1.1, 3], that the appetite of the soul is satisfied by the fact that it once perfected a body, because its conjunction with the body is so that by means of the body the soul acquire its perfections through the senses, which it could not acquire without the senses, and so not without the body either. But when the soul has been once conjoined, it has acquired as much as it desires simply to acquire in that way.

B. Recapitulation of the Things Said about the Three Propositions

131. I say, then, about these three propositions [n.53], from which is formed a reasoning for the resurrection that is in some way a priori (because the propositions are taken from the form of man who is to be resuscitated), that the first of them is naturally known. And the error opposed to it, which is proper to Averroes and his alone [n.59], is worst, not only against the truth of theology but also against the truth of philosophy. For it destroys science, because it destroys all acts of understanding as distinct from acts of sensing, and all acts of choice as distinct from acts of sensitive appetite, and so destroys all the virtues, which are not generated without choices made according to right reason. And consequently, someone who so errs would need to be exterminated from the community of men who use reason.

132. But the other two propositions are not sufficiently known by natural reason, although there are certain probable persuasions for them. For the second, indeed, the persuasions are more numerous and more probable, and hence the Philosopher seems to have more expressly perceived it; for the third proposition, however, they are fewer. And consequently, the conclusion that follows from them is not in this way [sc. a priori, n.131] sufficiently known by natural reason.

133. The second way to the conclusion is from arguments a posteriori, some probable ones among which were touched on in the initial arguments, as about the beatitude of man [nn.46-47].

134. Added to this is also the argument about the justice of God as exacting retribution, whereas now in this life the virtuous suffer greater pains than the vicious. And this argument the Apostle seems to touch on I Corinthians 15.19, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all men etc.”

135. But these reasons a posteriori [nn.133-134] are less conclusive than those taken a priori from the proper form of man [n.131]; for it does not appear through natural reason that there is for all men a single Judge ruling according to the laws of retributive and punitive justice.

136. Let that also be true which might be said in this way, that for each man there is in his own good act a sufficient retribution, as Augustine says [Confessions 1.12 n.19], “You have commanded, O Lord, and so it is, that every sinner is a punishment to himself,” so that sin itself is the first punishment of sin. Hence it is plain that the Saints, when arguing for the intended conclusion a posteriori, only intend to give certain probable persuasions. As Gregory says, after he has set down certain persuasions for the purpose [Moralia 14.55 n.70], “He who will not believe for these reasons, let him believe because of the faith.” Likewise too is the teaching of St. Paul in Acts 17.4, 12, 34; 26.8, 19-20, and I Corinthians 15.12, 35-38, 42-51, through the example of a grain of wheat that falls [in the ground], and through the resurrection of Christ, that if Christ is risen the dead too will rise, and through just retribution - these are only probable persuasions, or taken only from premises of faith. The fact is plain by running through them one by one.

137. In brief, then, it can be maintained that neither a priori (namely by reason of the intrinsic principle in man), nor a posteriori (namely by reason of some operation or perfection befitting man), can the resurrection be proved necessarily by relying on natural reason. Hence the resurrection is only held as absolutely certain through faith. Indeed, neither is the second proposition taken in the first way [nn.93-102] held by reason, as Augustine says On the Trinity 13.9 n.12,See above n.49. “Of those indeed who tried to find these things out by human argumentation scarcely a few, endowed with great genius...and educated in the most subtle doctrines, were able to attain to tracking down the immortality of the soul alone. But that the whole man, who consists of soul and body, will be immortal, and for this reason truly blessed, is promised by this Faith, not with human argumentation, but by divine authority.” ⁵ but only through the Gospel, when Christ says [Matthew 10.28], “Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

II. To the Initial Arguments

138. To the first argument [n.45]:

139. Either the argument is about natural desire properly speaking, and that is not any elicited act but only the inclination of nature toward something; and then it is plain that a natural desire for anything cannot be proved unless a possibility in nature for it is first proved; and so, by arguing in the reverse direction, there is a begging of the question.

Or the argument is about natural desire less properly speaking, namely that it is an elicited act but in accordance with natural desire; and then again it cannot be proved that some elicited desire is natural in this way unless it first be proved that there is a natural desire for it in the first way.

140. But if you argue that that is naturally desired which, as soon as it is apprehended, is desired by an elicited act, because this proneness seems to come only from a natural inclination - the first would in this one way be denied, that a vicious man is inclined at once to desire, in accord with his habit, what is offered to him; but because nature is not vicious immediately in itself or in everyone, and because anyone at all immediately desires what is apprehended, the upshot is that the desire is not vicious; therefore this response is not a general one.

141. Therefore it can be said that one must show the apprehension to be in accord with right reason and not vicious - otherwise if upon an erroneous apprehension everyone immediately desires it with an elicited act, what follows is not that the desire is consonant with the inclination of nature but rather that it is opposed to it. Now it is not manifest by natural reason that, when reason displays eternal existence as desirable for man, it is not an erroneous reason, for one would first have to show that this existence is capable of belonging to man.

142. Briefly then, every middle term taken from natural desire seems not to work, because for it to work one must show either a natural potency in nature for such existence, or show that the apprehension of it (upon which this desire immediately follows if it is an elicited act) is a correct and not erroneous apprehension. And of these alternatives the first is the same as the conclusion that is drawn from natural desire, and the second is more difficult or less known than this conclusion.

143. But as to the proof of the claim that ‘the natural desire of man is for immortality because he naturally flees death’ [n.45], one could say that this proof would prove the same equally of a brute. And if the remark of the Philosopher On Generation 2.10.336b27-29 is brought forward that “in everything to be is better than not to be,” it is to the opposite effect: first because it would be equally conclusive of a brute as of man, and second because Aristotle adds [ibid. 30-32], “but this continual existence is not possible in all things, because of their great distance from the Principle,” and therefore “God has completed nature in another way, making generation continual,” as if he were to say: since natural desire is for existence always, in things in which this existence is impossible in itself the desire is for it in the way possible, namely by continuing the species in diverse individuals. And thus might it be conceded about man as about other generable things, that he has a natural desire to exist always, not in a single individual but in this sort of succession.

144. But the drive seems always to remain, that in fleeing one opposite it only flees it because of love of the other opposite. One can concede that from this follows that, when it flees death for the moment now, it loves life for the moment now, and so on about any designated now; but it does not follow that therefore it flees it for an infinite [of nows].

145. To the remark of the Apostle [n.45] I reply: we who are inspired or confirmed by faith ‘do not wish’, and so ‘we do not wish naturally’, such that this ‘not wishing’ is according to natural inclination; but it is not known by natural reason that this ‘not wishing’ is according to natural inclination.

146. To the second argument [n.46] I concede that it is true, not only universally but even specifically, that beatitude is desired naturally by man, as will appear below in d.49 [Rep. IVA d.49 nn.6-8]. But it is not known by natural reason that beatitude in particular, namely which consists in what we believe it to consist, is naturally desired by man; for one would first need to know by natural reason that that act would be suitable for us as the end.

147. When therefore you prove [n.46] through the Philosopher that, from Ethics 1, beatitude not only in general but that also, from Ethics 10, beatitude in particular is naturally desired, I reply: the idea of beatitude that the Philosopher reckons particular, namely what consists in the most perfect speculation of the highest causes, is very universal. But, when descending to it in particular, the Philosopher does not seem to have gone beyond the speculation that is most perfect in this life. Hence, after he has inquired into man’s beatitude, he adds, “The body too must be healthy, and there must be food and servants; but the happy man must not be supposed to need much and great things” [Ethics 10.5-9.1175a3-78b35].

148. Therefore the specific happiness that we posit (for we posit a speculation possible for man far more perfect than any perfection possible for him in this life) is not naturally known to be our end, nor is it naturally known that it is naturally desired by us as the end.

149. When you prove through Augustine’s reason that beatitude cannot be but eternal [n.46], he who holds that human beatitude can be had in this life will grant this, that he loses it willingly, because, according to right reason, he ought to will the condition of his life; but right reason shows to him who does not have the faith that, as it seems to him, the condition of his nature is mortality of soul as well as of body; and therefore just as he ought to will the loss of life so also of blessed life.

150. And when you say ‘a life which was not loved by him who has it is not blessed’ [n.46], this is true if it were not loved for the time when it is possible and fitting the lover of it; but that ‘it is fitting thus forever’ is not known by natural reason.

151. As to the next argument [n.47], it is conceded that it is known to man that he can attain his end in some individual and, consequently, attain beatitude in that degree in which it is known that beatitude is the end of man.

152. And when you say that this is impossible in this life [n.47], I say that this impossibility is not known through natural reason.

153. When you appeal to misfortunes (infirmity of body, imperfection of virtue and of science) [n.47], the response will be that all these are repugnant to the sort of perfect happiness known to belong to the intelligence, but not to the sort known to be capable of belonging to man.

154. To the fourth argument [n.48] it might be said that the species will be perpetual in the universe by continual succession of individuals, which the Philosopher would posit through continuous generation; but it will not be continued in the life of any one or several within the species.

155. From these facts is apparent how great are the thanks that should be given to our Creator, who has made us by faith most certain in matters that pertain to our faith and to eternal continuance, which matters the most clever and most learned were not able, by natural reason, to attain to in almost any way at all, according to what was brought in from Augustine above about ‘scarcely a few’ [n.49]. But if faith is present, which is in those to whom Christ has given it to become sons of God, there is no question, because Christ himself has made his believers most certain of it.