CHAPTER XV

RESOLUTION OF THE AFOREMENTIONED POSITIONS

             80.--With these points in mind, we may easily reply to the objections set down above. For it is not necessary, as the first argument alleged, that the intellect of God and the angels cannot know singulars if the human intellect cannot know them. And that the nature of this difference might appear more clearly, we must consider that the order of knowledge is according to the proportion of the order found in things according to their being. For the perfection and truth of knowledge consists in this, that it has the likeness of the things known. In things, however, the order that obtains is that the higher among beings have being and goodness more universally; not indeed, that they should come to have being and goodness only according to their common nature--insofar as the universal is said to be that which is predicated of many--but because whatever is found in lower beings is found more eminently in the higher; and this is seen from the operative power that is found in things.

             For lower beings have powers which are restricted to determinate effects, whereas higher beings have powers that extend universally to many effects; and yet, a higher power among particular effects, is more effectual than a lower power; and this is especially evident among bodies. For in lower bodies, fire heats through its own heat and the seed of this animal or plant so determinately produces an individual of this species, that it does not produce an individual of another species.

             It is clear from this that among higher beings, a power is called universal not because it does not extend to particular effects but because it extends to more effects than does a lower power and acts more strongly on singulars among them.

             81.--In this way, therefore, the higher the knowing power, the more universal it is; not indeed, in such a way that it knows only a universal nature, for thus the higher it would be, the more imperfect it would be. For to know something universally is to know it imperfectly and, in a manner, midway between potency and act. But a higher knowledge is called more universal on this account, that it extends to more individuals and knows singulars better. In the order of knowing powers, however, the sensitive power is lower and thus it can know singulars only through the proper species of singulars.

             And because matter is the principle of individuation among material things, hence it is that the sensitive power knows singulars through individual species received in corporeal organs. Among intellectual cognitions, however, that of the human intellect is the lowest. Therefore intelligible species are received in the human intellect according to the weakest mode of intellectual knowledge, so that through them, the human intellect can know things only according to the universal nature of genus or species; to the representation of which, in its sole universality, the species are determined and in a manner limited by the fact that they are abstracted from the phantasms of singulars. And thus man knows singulars through the sense but universals through the intellect. But the higher intellects are of a more universal power in knowing, so that, namely, they are able to know both the universal and the singular through an intelligible species.

             82.--The second argument has no force. For when it is said that the thing understood is a perfection of the one understanding, this indeed is true according to the intelligible species which is the form of the intellect so far as it is actually understanding. For it is not the nature of the stone in matter that is the perfection of the human intellect, but the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasms through which species the intellect understands the nature of the stone. Accordingly, since every form that is by derivation in some being must proceed from an agent, and since an agent is more noble than the patient or recipient, it is necessary that the agent from which the intellect has an intelligible species is more perfect than the intellect; just as in the case of the human intellect, we see that the agent intellect is nobler than the possible intellect, which receives species made actually intelligible by the agent intellect. But the physical things themselves that are known are not nobler than the possible intellect. The higher intellects of the angels, however, receive intelligible species either from the Ideas--according to the Platonists -or from the first substance, which is God--according to that which follows from Aristotle's position and what is in reality true.

             The intelligible species of the divine intellect, however, through which it knows all things, is nothing other than his substance, which is likewise his understanding as was proved above through the words of the Philosopher. Hence it remains that in the case of the divine intellect there is nothing nobler through which it is perfected; but from the divine intellect itself as from a higher source, intelligible species come to the intellects of the angels; whereas to the human intellect, intelligible species come from sensible things through the action of the agent intellect.

             83.--It is easy to solve the third argument. For nothing prevents something from being fortuitous and by chance, when it is referred to the intention of a lower agent which, yet, is ordered according to the intention of a higher agent. This is evident if some person treacherously sends someone else to a certain place where he knows that there are robbers or enemies. For the one who is sent, the meeting with these persons is fortuitous, being beyond his intention. But it is not by chance to the sender who knew this in advance. Consequently, nothing prevents certain things from taking place fortuitously or by chance so far as pertains to human knowledge, which yet are ordered according to divine providence.

             84.--We can derive the answer to the fourth argument from the fact that the necessary order of consecution of an effect to cause must be understood according to the nature of the cause. For not every cause produces an effect in the same way. A natural cause does it through a natural form, through which it is in act. Therefore a natural agent must produce an effect like unto itself. A rational cause, however, produces an effect according to the nature of an understood form which it intends to bring into being; and thus an intellectual agent produces such an effect as it understands should be produced, unless the producing power fail.

             Furthermore, whatsoever power is concerned with the production of any genus, must be concerned with the production of the proper differences of that genus. For example, if it pertains to some one to make a triangle, it likewise pertains to him to make an equilateral or isosceles triangle. For the necessary and the possible are proper differences of being. Therefore it pertains to God, to Whom the power to produce being properly belongs, to give to things produced by Him according to His foreknowledge, either the necessity or possibility of being. Therefore it must be conceded that divine providence, preexisting from eternity is the cause of all the effects which are made in accordance with it and which proceed from it by an immutable disposition. Nevertheless all do not so proceed as to be necessary. But just as the providence of God disposes that such effects be, so it likewise disposes that certain of these effects be necessary for which it has ordained necessarily acting proper causes, while certain others should be contingent for which it has ordained proper contingent causes.

             85.--The answer to the fifth argument is evident from these points. For just as from God Whose being is essentially and supremely necessary, there proceed contingent effects because of the condition of their proper causes, so likewise, from Him Who is the highest good there proceed certain effects which, to be sure, are good in that they exist and are from God; and yet they are affected by certain defects of secondary causes because of which they are called evil. But this, too, is a good, namely, that such effects are allowed by God to take place in reality, both because it befits the order of things, in which the good of the universe consists, that effects follow according to the condition of their causes, and also because from the evil of one, the good of another arises; just as in natural things the corruption of one thing is the generation of another; and in the case of moral realities, from the persecution of the tyrant there follows the patience of the just person. Accordingly, it was not fitting that evils should be completely prevented through divine providence.