ST THOMAS AQUINAS, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part,
Treatise on God, QQ 16 – 17, Treatise on Man (QQ 83 ) QQ 84 – 88
Aquinas wrote:
…knowledge is of things that are true, after the consideration of the knowledge of God…
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, pg. 94
Aquinas wrote:
The Philosopher says, “The true and the false are not in things, but in the intellect.” I answer that as the good denotes that towards which the appetite tends, so the true denotes that towards which the intellect tends.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, pg. 94
Aquinas wrote:
… truth is found in the intellect according as it apprehends a thing as it is, and in things according as they have being conformable to an intellect. This is to the greatest degree found in God. …And so it follows not only that truth is in Him, but that He is truth itself, and the supreme and first truth.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 5. Whether God is Truth? pg. 97
Aquinas wrote:
“As from one man’s face many likenesses are reflected in a mirror, so many truths are reflected from the one divine truth.”
… Reply Obj. 1 The Soul does not judge of all things according to any kind of truth, but according to the primary truth, in so far as it is reflected in the soul, as in a mirror… yet it is true that nothing subsisting is greater than the rational mind, except God.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 6. Whether There Is Only One Truth, According to Which All Things Are True? pg. 98
Aquinas wrote:
Obj. 2 …that which is always, is eternal. So therefore is truth, which is the most universal.
Obj. 4 … all that is without beginning and end is eternal … for if their truth had a beginning, since it was not before, it was true that truth was not, and true, of course, by reason of truth so that truth was before it began to be. … if it be asserted that truth has an end, it follows that it is after it has ceased to be, for it will still be true that truth is not.
Reply Obj 3. That which now is, was future before it (actually) was, because it was in its cause that it would be.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 7. Whether Created Truth Is Eternal? pg. 99
Aquinas wrote:
Since true and false are opposed, and since opposites stand in relation to the same thing, we must seek falsity where primarily we find truth, that is to say, in the intellect.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 1. Whether Falsity Exists in Things? pg. 101
Aquinas wrote:
Thus sins themselves are called untruths and lies in the Scriptures, according to the words of the text, Why do you love vanity, and see after lying (Ps 4.3)
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 1. Whether Falsity Exists in Things? pg. 101
Aquinas wrote:
Obj.3 On the contrary, Augustine says (Soliloq. Ii, 6) “it appears that the sense entrap us into error by their deceptive similitudes.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 2. Whether There Is Falsity In The Senses? pg. 102
Aquinas wrote:
Objection 1. For Augustine says (QQ. LXXXIII, 32) “Everyone who is deceived understands not that in which he is deceived.”
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 3. Whether Falsity Is In The Intellect? pg. 102
Aquinas wrote:
…some things act without judgment, as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge. And some act from judgment, but not free judgment; as brute animals … the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned from a natural and not a free judgment. … from natural instinct.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
But man acts from judgment because by his knowing power he judges that something should be avoided or sought… from some ac of comparison in the reason…
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
… the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determined to one. And since man is rational man must have free choice.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
Reply Obj 3. God … does not prevent their acts from being natural … does not deprive their actions of being voluntary, but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them, for He operates in each thing according to its own nature.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
Reply Obj 5 The qualities that come from without are habits and passions, by virtue of which a man is inclined to one thing rather than to another. And yet even these inclination are subject to the judgment of reason. … as it is in our power either to acquire them, whether by causing them or disposing ourselves to them, or to reject them. And so there is nothing in this that is contrary to the freedom of choice.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
… Augustine says that “man, by abusing free choice, loses both it and himself.”
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 2 Whether Free Choice Is a Power?, pg. 438
Aquinas wrote:
… free choice is indifferent to good or evil choice; hence it is impossible for free choice to be a habit.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 2 Whether Free Choice Is a Power?, pg. 438
Aquinas wrote:
The proper act of free choice is election. For we say that we have a free choice because we can take one thing while refusing another, and this is to choose.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 3 Whether Free Choice Is an Appetitive Power?, pg. 439
Aquinas wrote:
For what is in a continual state of flux cannot be grasped with certitude, for it passes away before the mind can form a judgment of it, according to the saying of Heraclitus that “it is not possible twice to touch a drop of water in a passing torrent,”
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 1 Whether the Soul Knows Bodies Through the Intellect?, pg. 441
Aquinas wrote:
Objection 1. For Gregory says, in homily for the Ascension, that ‘man has understanding in common with the angels,” But angels understand all things through innate forms;
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 3 Whether the Soul Understands All Things Through Innate Species?, pg. 443
Aquinas wrote:
Consequently whenever Augustine, who was imbued with the doctrines of the Platonists, found in their teaching anything consistent with faith be adopted; and those thing which he found contrary to faith he amended.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 5 Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Material Things in the Eternal Types?, pg. 446
Aquinas wrote:
… as one may see in a mirror the images of things reflected there. In this way the soul, in the present state of life, cannot see all things in the eternal types, but the blessed know all things thus in the eternal types for they see God, and all things in Him.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 5 Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Material Things in the Eternal Types?, pg. 447
Aquinas wrote:
Now a perfect judgment concerning anything cannot be formed, unless all that pertains to that thing is known;
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 8 Whether the Judgment of the Intellect is Hindered Through Suspension of the Senses?, pg. 450
Aquinas wrote:
..so that sometimes while asleep a man may judge that what he sees in a dream, discerning, as it were, between things and their likenesses. Nevertheless, the common sense remains partly suspended, and therefore, although it discriminates some likenesses from the reality, yet is it always deceived in some particular. Therefore, while man is asleep, according as sense and imagination are free, so the judgment of his intellect is unfettered, though not entirely. Consequently, if a man syllogizes while asleep, when he wakes up he invariably recognizes a flaw in some respect.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 8 Whether the Judgment of the Intellect is Hindered Through Suspension of the Senses?, pg. 451
Aquinas wrote:
…God sees all things at the same time because He sees all in one, that is, in His Essence. But whatever things the intellect understands under different species it does not understand at the same time. …it is impossible for one and the same subject to be perfected at the same time by many forms of one genus and diverse species just as it is impossible for one and the same body at the same time to have different colours or different shapes.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 85 Of the Mode and Order of Understanding, Article 4 Whether We Can Understand Many Things at the Same Time?, pg. 457
Aquinas wrote:
Obj 3 But some animals know the future; thus crows by their frequent cawing foretell rain.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 86 What Our Intellect Knows in Material Things, Article 4 Whether Our Intellect Can Know the Future Things?, pg. 463
Aquinas wrote:
The future cannot be known in itself save by God alone, to Whom even that is present which in the course of events is future, since from eternity His glance embraces the whole course of event is future… …if, indeed, the cause be such as to have a necessary connection with its future result, then the future is known with scientific certitude, just as the astronomer foresees the futre eclipse.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 86 What Our Intellect Knows in Material Things, Article 4 Whether Our Intellect Can Know the Future Things?, pg. 464
Aquinas wrote:
It is not natural for the soul to know the future when withdrawn from the sense; rather does it know the future by the impression of superior spiritual and corporeal causes. By the impression of spiritual causes when by Divine power the human intellect is enlightened through the ministry of angels and the phantasm are directed to the knowledge of future events; or by the influence of demons when the imagination is moved regarding the future known to the demons, as explained above. The soul is naturally more inclined to receive these impressions of spiritual causes when it is withdrawn from the sense as it is then nearer to the spiritual world and freer to external distractions. …the influence of the heavenly bodies causes imagination to be affected, and so, as the heavenly bodies cause many future events, the imagination receives certain signs of some such events. These sign are perceived more at night and while we sleep than in the daytime and while we are awake because, as stated in Prophesying (Aristotle), impressions are made in sleep when slight internal movements are felt more than in wakefulness, and such movements produce tin the imagination phantasm from which the future may be foreseen.
Reply Obj. 3. Brute animals have no power above the imagination to regulate the phantasm, as man has his reason, and therefore their imagination follows entirely the influence of the heavenly bodies. Thus from such animals’ movements some future things, such as rain and the like, may be better known rather than from human movements directed by the counsel of reason.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 86 What Our Intellect Knows in Material Things, Article 4 Whether Our Intellect Can Know the Future Things?, pg. 464
Aquinas wrote:
…God is not the first object of our knowledge. Rather do we know God through creatures, according to the Apostle (Romans 1:10).
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 88 How the Human Soul Knows What is Above Itself, Article 3 Whether God is the First Thing Known by the Human Mind?, pg. 472
VOCABULARY
FROM The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas
Enunciations, pg. 99
Enunciate: to announce, to state definitely, to pronounce words (QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 7. Whether Created Truth Is Eternal?)
Quiddity, pg. 103,
Essential quality, a quibble
Quid: A piece, as of tobacco to be chewed;
British slang – a sovereign, or one pound sterling
(QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 3. Whether Falsity is in the Intellect?)
Roman Numerals Review
L = 50
C = 100
Corporeal, pg. 441
of or for the body; of a material nature; physical; tangible. (QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 1 Whether the Soul Knows Bodies Through the Intellect?)
Syllogize, pg. 450
Syllogism – a form of reasoning in which two statements or premises are made and a logical conclusion drawn from them. Example. All mammals are warm blooded. Whales are mammals. Therefore whales are warm-blooded. Reasoning from the general to the particular
(QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 8 Whether the Judgment of the Intellect is Hindered Through Suspension of the Senses?)
phantasms, pg. 451
a figment of the mind, esp. a ghost or spector; a deceptive likeness of something
( QQ 85 Of the Mode and Order of Understanding)
Treatise on God, QQ 16 – 17, Treatise on Man (QQ 83 ) QQ 84 – 88
Aquinas wrote:
…knowledge is of things that are true, after the consideration of the knowledge of God…
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, pg. 94
Aquinas wrote:
The Philosopher says, “The true and the false are not in things, but in the intellect.” I answer that as the good denotes that towards which the appetite tends, so the true denotes that towards which the intellect tends.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, pg. 94
Aquinas wrote:
… truth is found in the intellect according as it apprehends a thing as it is, and in things according as they have being conformable to an intellect. This is to the greatest degree found in God. …And so it follows not only that truth is in Him, but that He is truth itself, and the supreme and first truth.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 5. Whether God is Truth? pg. 97
Aquinas wrote:
“As from one man’s face many likenesses are reflected in a mirror, so many truths are reflected from the one divine truth.”
… Reply Obj. 1 The Soul does not judge of all things according to any kind of truth, but according to the primary truth, in so far as it is reflected in the soul, as in a mirror… yet it is true that nothing subsisting is greater than the rational mind, except God.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 6. Whether There Is Only One Truth, According to Which All Things Are True? pg. 98
Aquinas wrote:
Obj. 2 …that which is always, is eternal. So therefore is truth, which is the most universal.
Obj. 4 … all that is without beginning and end is eternal … for if their truth had a beginning, since it was not before, it was true that truth was not, and true, of course, by reason of truth so that truth was before it began to be. … if it be asserted that truth has an end, it follows that it is after it has ceased to be, for it will still be true that truth is not.
Reply Obj 3. That which now is, was future before it (actually) was, because it was in its cause that it would be.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 7. Whether Created Truth Is Eternal? pg. 99
Aquinas wrote:
Since true and false are opposed, and since opposites stand in relation to the same thing, we must seek falsity where primarily we find truth, that is to say, in the intellect.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 1. Whether Falsity Exists in Things? pg. 101
Aquinas wrote:
Thus sins themselves are called untruths and lies in the Scriptures, according to the words of the text, Why do you love vanity, and see after lying (Ps 4.3)
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 1. Whether Falsity Exists in Things? pg. 101
Aquinas wrote:
Obj.3 On the contrary, Augustine says (Soliloq. Ii, 6) “it appears that the sense entrap us into error by their deceptive similitudes.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 2. Whether There Is Falsity In The Senses? pg. 102
Aquinas wrote:
Objection 1. For Augustine says (QQ. LXXXIII, 32) “Everyone who is deceived understands not that in which he is deceived.”
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on God, QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 3. Whether Falsity Is In The Intellect? pg. 102
Aquinas wrote:
…some things act without judgment, as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge. And some act from judgment, but not free judgment; as brute animals … the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned from a natural and not a free judgment. … from natural instinct.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
But man acts from judgment because by his knowing power he judges that something should be avoided or sought… from some ac of comparison in the reason…
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
… the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determined to one. And since man is rational man must have free choice.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
Reply Obj 3. God … does not prevent their acts from being natural … does not deprive their actions of being voluntary, but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them, for He operates in each thing according to its own nature.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
Reply Obj 5 The qualities that come from without are habits and passions, by virtue of which a man is inclined to one thing rather than to another. And yet even these inclination are subject to the judgment of reason. … as it is in our power either to acquire them, whether by causing them or disposing ourselves to them, or to reject them. And so there is nothing in this that is contrary to the freedom of choice.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 1 Whether Man Has Free Choice?, pg. 437
Aquinas wrote:
… Augustine says that “man, by abusing free choice, loses both it and himself.”
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 2 Whether Free Choice Is a Power?, pg. 438
Aquinas wrote:
… free choice is indifferent to good or evil choice; hence it is impossible for free choice to be a habit.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 2 Whether Free Choice Is a Power?, pg. 438
Aquinas wrote:
The proper act of free choice is election. For we say that we have a free choice because we can take one thing while refusing another, and this is to choose.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 83 Of Free Choice, Article 3 Whether Free Choice Is an Appetitive Power?, pg. 439
Aquinas wrote:
For what is in a continual state of flux cannot be grasped with certitude, for it passes away before the mind can form a judgment of it, according to the saying of Heraclitus that “it is not possible twice to touch a drop of water in a passing torrent,”
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 1 Whether the Soul Knows Bodies Through the Intellect?, pg. 441
Aquinas wrote:
Objection 1. For Gregory says, in homily for the Ascension, that ‘man has understanding in common with the angels,” But angels understand all things through innate forms;
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 3 Whether the Soul Understands All Things Through Innate Species?, pg. 443
Aquinas wrote:
Consequently whenever Augustine, who was imbued with the doctrines of the Platonists, found in their teaching anything consistent with faith be adopted; and those thing which he found contrary to faith he amended.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 5 Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Material Things in the Eternal Types?, pg. 446
Aquinas wrote:
… as one may see in a mirror the images of things reflected there. In this way the soul, in the present state of life, cannot see all things in the eternal types, but the blessed know all things thus in the eternal types for they see God, and all things in Him.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 5 Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Material Things in the Eternal Types?, pg. 447
Aquinas wrote:
Now a perfect judgment concerning anything cannot be formed, unless all that pertains to that thing is known;
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 8 Whether the Judgment of the Intellect is Hindered Through Suspension of the Senses?, pg. 450
Aquinas wrote:
..so that sometimes while asleep a man may judge that what he sees in a dream, discerning, as it were, between things and their likenesses. Nevertheless, the common sense remains partly suspended, and therefore, although it discriminates some likenesses from the reality, yet is it always deceived in some particular. Therefore, while man is asleep, according as sense and imagination are free, so the judgment of his intellect is unfettered, though not entirely. Consequently, if a man syllogizes while asleep, when he wakes up he invariably recognizes a flaw in some respect.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 8 Whether the Judgment of the Intellect is Hindered Through Suspension of the Senses?, pg. 451
Aquinas wrote:
…God sees all things at the same time because He sees all in one, that is, in His Essence. But whatever things the intellect understands under different species it does not understand at the same time. …it is impossible for one and the same subject to be perfected at the same time by many forms of one genus and diverse species just as it is impossible for one and the same body at the same time to have different colours or different shapes.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 85 Of the Mode and Order of Understanding, Article 4 Whether We Can Understand Many Things at the Same Time?, pg. 457
Aquinas wrote:
Obj 3 But some animals know the future; thus crows by their frequent cawing foretell rain.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 86 What Our Intellect Knows in Material Things, Article 4 Whether Our Intellect Can Know the Future Things?, pg. 463
Aquinas wrote:
The future cannot be known in itself save by God alone, to Whom even that is present which in the course of events is future, since from eternity His glance embraces the whole course of event is future… …if, indeed, the cause be such as to have a necessary connection with its future result, then the future is known with scientific certitude, just as the astronomer foresees the futre eclipse.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 86 What Our Intellect Knows in Material Things, Article 4 Whether Our Intellect Can Know the Future Things?, pg. 464
Aquinas wrote:
It is not natural for the soul to know the future when withdrawn from the sense; rather does it know the future by the impression of superior spiritual and corporeal causes. By the impression of spiritual causes when by Divine power the human intellect is enlightened through the ministry of angels and the phantasm are directed to the knowledge of future events; or by the influence of demons when the imagination is moved regarding the future known to the demons, as explained above. The soul is naturally more inclined to receive these impressions of spiritual causes when it is withdrawn from the sense as it is then nearer to the spiritual world and freer to external distractions. …the influence of the heavenly bodies causes imagination to be affected, and so, as the heavenly bodies cause many future events, the imagination receives certain signs of some such events. These sign are perceived more at night and while we sleep than in the daytime and while we are awake because, as stated in Prophesying (Aristotle), impressions are made in sleep when slight internal movements are felt more than in wakefulness, and such movements produce tin the imagination phantasm from which the future may be foreseen.
Reply Obj. 3. Brute animals have no power above the imagination to regulate the phantasm, as man has his reason, and therefore their imagination follows entirely the influence of the heavenly bodies. Thus from such animals’ movements some future things, such as rain and the like, may be better known rather than from human movements directed by the counsel of reason.
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 86 What Our Intellect Knows in Material Things, Article 4 Whether Our Intellect Can Know the Future Things?, pg. 464
Aquinas wrote:
…God is not the first object of our knowledge. Rather do we know God through creatures, according to the Apostle (Romans 1:10).
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, First Part, Treatise on Man QQ 88 How the Human Soul Knows What is Above Itself, Article 3 Whether God is the First Thing Known by the Human Mind?, pg. 472
VOCABULARY
FROM The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas
Enunciations, pg. 99
Enunciate: to announce, to state definitely, to pronounce words (QQ 16 Of Truth, Article 7. Whether Created Truth Is Eternal?)
Quiddity, pg. 103,
Essential quality, a quibble
Quid: A piece, as of tobacco to be chewed;
British slang – a sovereign, or one pound sterling
(QQ 17 Of Falsity, Article 3. Whether Falsity is in the Intellect?)
Roman Numerals Review
L = 50
C = 100
Corporeal, pg. 441
of or for the body; of a material nature; physical; tangible. (QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 1 Whether the Soul Knows Bodies Through the Intellect?)
Syllogize, pg. 450
Syllogism – a form of reasoning in which two statements or premises are made and a logical conclusion drawn from them. Example. All mammals are warm blooded. Whales are mammals. Therefore whales are warm-blooded. Reasoning from the general to the particular
(QQ 84 How the Soul While United to the Body Understands Corporeal Things Beneath it, Article 8 Whether the Judgment of the Intellect is Hindered Through Suspension of the Senses?)
phantasms, pg. 451
a figment of the mind, esp. a ghost or spector; a deceptive likeness of something
( QQ 85 Of the Mode and Order of Understanding)
