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Tannhauser_1509
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From Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, it reads:
Now it is clear that in the natural order human souls hold the lowest place among intellectual substances. But the perfection of the universe required various grades of being. If, therefore, God had willed souls to understand in the same way as separate substances, it would follow that human knowledge, so far from being perfect, would be confused and general. Therefore to make it possible for human souls to possess perfect and proper knowledge, they were so made that their nature required them to be joined to bodies, and thus to receive the proper and adequate knowledge of sensible things from the sensible things themselves; thus we see in the case of uneducated men that they have to be taught by sensible examples.
It is clear then that it was for the soul’s good that it was united to a body, and that it understands by turning to the phantasms. Nevertheless it is possible for it to exist apart from the body, and also to understand in another way. [bold added] (Part I, q. 89, art. 1)
Is St. Thomas implying that, without a body, the human intellect would be incapable of understanding the material realm? If so, then does this mean that the angels (being incorporeal) are incapable of interacting with matter in an efficacious manner? If so, then are angels’ interactions with humans at the level of the intellect only?
Could anyone point me to a place where Aquinas deals with any of these questions? Please and thanks
I have a feeling I already know the answer, as article 8 of the same question indicates that separated souls, and by extension incorporeal substances, have no knowledge of matter save by the gift of Divine light:
Now the souls departed are in a state of separation from the living, both by Divine order and by their mode of existence, whilst they are joined to the world of incorporeal spiritual substances; and hence they are ignorant of what goes on among us. Whereof Gregory gives the reason thus: “The dead do not know how the living act, for the life of the spirit is far from the life of the flesh; and so, as corporeal things differ from incorporeal in genus, so they are distinct in knowledge” (Moral. xii). Augustine seems to say the same (De Cura pro Mort. xiii), when he asserts that, “the souls of the dead have no concern in the affairs of the living.” [bold added]
Now it is clear that in the natural order human souls hold the lowest place among intellectual substances. But the perfection of the universe required various grades of being. If, therefore, God had willed souls to understand in the same way as separate substances, it would follow that human knowledge, so far from being perfect, would be confused and general. Therefore to make it possible for human souls to possess perfect and proper knowledge, they were so made that their nature required them to be joined to bodies, and thus to receive the proper and adequate knowledge of sensible things from the sensible things themselves; thus we see in the case of uneducated men that they have to be taught by sensible examples.
It is clear then that it was for the soul’s good that it was united to a body, and that it understands by turning to the phantasms. Nevertheless it is possible for it to exist apart from the body, and also to understand in another way. [bold added] (Part I, q. 89, art. 1)
Is St. Thomas implying that, without a body, the human intellect would be incapable of understanding the material realm? If so, then does this mean that the angels (being incorporeal) are incapable of interacting with matter in an efficacious manner? If so, then are angels’ interactions with humans at the level of the intellect only?
Could anyone point me to a place where Aquinas deals with any of these questions? Please and thanks
I have a feeling I already know the answer, as article 8 of the same question indicates that separated souls, and by extension incorporeal substances, have no knowledge of matter save by the gift of Divine light:Now the souls departed are in a state of separation from the living, both by Divine order and by their mode of existence, whilst they are joined to the world of incorporeal spiritual substances; and hence they are ignorant of what goes on among us. Whereof Gregory gives the reason thus: “The dead do not know how the living act, for the life of the spirit is far from the life of the flesh; and so, as corporeal things differ from incorporeal in genus, so they are distinct in knowledge” (Moral. xii). Augustine seems to say the same (De Cura pro Mort. xiii), when he asserts that, “the souls of the dead have no concern in the affairs of the living.” [bold added]