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billcu1
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Does Thomism teach that what we hear is temporal while what we see is spatial? It seems like I read that somewhere and I just can’t find the page.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I’ve never read anything like that in Aquinas.
If he wrote anything like that I’d like to know the source.
Why do you ask?
If he wrote anything like that I’d like to know the source.
Why do you ask?
Me too.
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hicetnunc
Guest
Yes, Billcu1: your memory serves you well. St Thomas does indeed go into that in his Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima (L23.554). Here’s the passage I think you are referring to:
“Nor is this simultaneity to be understood in the order of time only; for in sight the medium is affected by the visible and the eye by the medium, and yet sight occurs without succession in time. Smelling and hearing, however, take place with some temporal succession, as it is said in the De Sensu et Sensato. The succession is due to the way the cause of the action operates; for whereas in the other senses a change in the medium is itself the cause of the sense being affected, it is not so in touch; for in other sensations the medium is present of necessity, whilst it is only as it were an accidental accompaniment of touch, due to the fact, for example, that the bodies in contact are moist.”
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
O.K. But where does this get us? 
That is, aside from the fact that Aristotle is dead wrong. Sight also is temporal.
That is, aside from the fact that Aristotle is dead wrong. Sight also is temporal.
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polytropos
Guest
I think what he is getting at is something like this: we can make sense of a photograph, but if we listened to 0.1 seconds of an audio recording, we would not understand much of anything.O.K. But where does this get us?
That is, aside from the fact that Aristotle is dead wrong. Sight also is temporal.
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billcu1
Guest
Thou MUST not question the church. It can’t be wrong. Remember? Are you speaking of science? That is the devil’s work!
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billcu1
Guest
Would everything really just be a set of “temporal sequences”? That’s about what we are. What we see has already occurred hasn’t it?
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billcu1
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billcu1
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I was sure I read that somewhere. But I have no idea what writing til now of Aquinas this was mentioned in.
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hicetnunc
Guest
Aristotle does not represent the Church; he was not even a Christian. So questioning Aristotle—or even the works of any speculating saint for that matter—is not the same as questioning the Church, unless they are teaching something held and taught by the Church herself. We are free to disagree with Aristotle. As for science being the Devil’s work, I assume you are being sarcastic.
It’s important to understand this passage of St Thomas in context. It is not intended as science, even though it relies on an assumption about the material world. St Thomas could not have known what we know today about the nature of light and sound waves. But he is not trying to teach something scientific here; this is not a work of physics. As the title of the Commentary suggests, the intention here is to understand the nature of the Soul. The fact that St Thomas, and Aristotle, did not fully understand or misunderstood modern physics is not really the point of the passage.
When we read the whole of the Commentary in context, and what St Thomas says elsewhere about the nature of the soul, we find that he is getting at something quite profound: the soul is not some disembodied substance which is encumbered by the body. The soul is the form of the body; we are spiritual beings for whom knowledge and even God’s grace is mediated through the tangible, physical realm in which we find ourselves. This mediation occurs in both the context of time and space; this is the nature of the senses through which reason come to know what it does. But at the same time the operation of reason transcends both the limitations of time and space, while operating within them through the medium of the sensory world. In examining the way in which the soul engages the bodily experience of time and space, St Thomas notes that, at a certain level, there is a function of the spiritual faculties that is not contained by these, but which step outside of these limitations in order to make sense of them. He goes on to talk about memory, for example; which holds both time and space in the present, even when they have changed or passed.
In the Summa, we find St Thomas considering this operation of the rational creature in the context of time and space; mortal sin, he says for example [ST I-II, q.89, a.1] occurs when one treats the temporal or spatial as a thing loved in and of itself. God’s grace, however, rectifies the limitations of space and time. This could only be possible—that is, grace could only be efficacious—if we were not totally limited by space and time in some respect. It is for this reason that St Thomas is at pains in De Anima to show that the rational agent operates in space and time, but that the proper end of its highest activity is neither spatial nor temporal, otherwise we could never be receptive to grace, nor make judgment on what occurs within the limits of time and space.
Hope this helps…pax.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
O.K.
On the other hand, if you are at the race track you also can’t make much sense of what the horses are doing unless you saw them in motion and time.
By the same token, you can see the sun rise very slowly in the morning and very slowly set in the evening … both operating through motion and time.
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billcu1
Guest
Everyone remember too that this idea of time is a creation itself. If it really exists. God is outside of it and is not subject to it. I think though we all know this. The thing about the Mass and the cross is outside of time. I’m not quite sure when during the Mass or what part of us is taken outside of time but it happens. ibid. “The 7 secrets of the Eucharist”.
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