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.