ARTICLE IX

In the Ninth Article We Ask: ARE THE FORMS BY WHICH ANGELS KNOW MATERIAL THINGS INNATE OR RECEIVED FROM THINGS?

Difficulties:

It seems that they are not innate, for

1. Speculative knowledge differs from practical inasmuch as practical knowledge is directed to things, while speculative is derived from things. Now, as Damascene says, angels do not make material things; consequently, they do not have practical but only speculative knowledge. Their knowledge, therefore, is taken from things, and not from innate species.

2. In the Epistle to the Ephesians (3:10) we read: "That the manifold wisdom of God may be known to the principalities and power in heavenly places through the church." Jerome understood this to mean that the angels learned the mystery of the Incarnation from the Apostles. Now, knowledge had through innate species is not received from others. Consequently, angels' knowledge is not had through innate species.

3. Angels' innate species are equally related to the present and future. Their knowledge, however, is not equally related to the present and future, because they know the present but are ignorant of the future. Consequently, their knowledge is not had through innate species.

4. Angels have distinct knowledge of material things. Now, distinct knowledge of things can be had only through that which is a principle of distinction, because the principle of being and that of knowing are the same. But the principle of distinction in material things is their form. Consequently, the knowledge angels have of material things must be through forms received from things.

5. Things that are innate or naturally inborn remain always the same. Angels' knowledge, however, does not remain always the same, for they know things now which they did not know previously; and, for this reason, Dionysius says that some angels have to be freed of their ignorance. Hence, their knowledge is not had by means of innate forms.

6. The forms that exist within angels are universal. But, as is said in The Soul: "A universal is either nothing or posterior [to something]." Consequently, those forms are either nothing or posterior to things, since they are received from them.

7. A thing is known only in so far as it is in the knower. Consequently, if an angel knows material things, these very things must be in his intellect by means of forms which they have imprinted there.

8. The intelligible light in angels is more powerful than that in a human soul. But we can abstract species from phantasms by means of the light of the active intellect. Therefore, an angel can to an even greater degree abstract forms from sense-objects.

9. A superior power can do what an inferior can. Now, our soul, which is inferior to angels, can conform itself to things by producing forms within itself that are neither innate nor received from things. For example, our imagination can form a phantasm of a golden mountain, which it has never seen. For a much better reason, therefore, an angel can conform himself to things present to him and know them in this manner. Thus, there will be no need for him to know material things by means of innate species; he can know them by means of species which he will make within himself.

To the Contrary:

1'. According to Dionysius, angels do not gather their knowledge by means of sense, or from things subject to division. Therefore, they do not know by means of forms received from things.

2'. The superiority of angels over all physical things is greater than that of higher bodies over lower. But, because of their nobility, higher bodies do not receive any influence from the lower. Consequently, much less will angelic intellects receive forms from physical things in order to understand them.

REPLY:

Taking as already proved that angels know material things not by means of their own essence but by means of forms, we can now consider three opinions about these forms.

Some say that the forms by which angels know material things are received from them. This, however, is impossible; for an intellect that receives forms from things is related to them in two ways, as something active and as something passive--taking active and passive in their broad meaning. Now, forms of material things are only potentially, not actually, intelligible when they are in the senses or in the imagination, because they are not entirely stripped of matter. Consequently, an intellectual action is required in order that they become actually intelligible. For this reason, we must necessarily affirm the existence of an active intellect within ourselves.

Moreover, even when these forms have been made intelligible, we cannot understand things through them unless they are truly united to our intellect in such a way that the knower and the known become one. Consequently, our intellect must receive the forms of these things; and so, in a way, it is passive in their regard in so far as all reception is a kind of passivity.

Now, just as a form is related to matter as act is to potency, so also is something active similarly related to something passive, because a thing acts in so far as it is in act, and is passive in so far as it is in potency. Moreover, since a definite act has a definite relation to a definite potency, a definite passivity corresponds to a definite agent and vice versa--just as matter and form are mutually related. Consequently, what is active and what is passive must belong to the same class, for potency and act divide every class of being that there is. For example, "the white" is not passive with respect to "the sweet" (except indirectly) but only with respect to "the black."

Now, material things and intelligibles belong to entirely different genera; for, as the Philosopher says, those things that do not have matter do not belong to the same genus as those that do. Consequently, it is not possible for a material thing to be passive immediately in relation to the intellect or to act upon the intellect. The Creator of our nature has therefore provided us with powers of sensation, in which forms exist in a mode between intelligibility and materiality. They have this in common with intelligible forms, that they are forms without matter, and this in common with material forms, that they are not yet stripped of material conditions. Hence, there can be activity and passivity between material things and the sense faculties in their own proper way, and, similarly, between the sense faculties and the intellect.

Therefore, if the intellect of an angel were to receive forms from material things, it would have to have sense powers and, consequently, a body naturally united to it. This opinion seems to make angels animals (an actual opinion of certain Platonists and to have them receive forms from material things. Moreover, it contradicts the authority of the saints and right reason itself.

Consequently, others say that angels do not know by means of forms received from things or by means of innate forms, but angels are able to conform their essence to anything present to them. These persons hold that knowledge of a thing follows from a conformity of this kind. Their opinion, however, seems to be of little value, because one thing can be conformed to another only if the form of the latter becomes present within it. Now, it cannot be said that the essence of an angel by its own activity becomes the form of a material thing, because its essence retains a single formal character. Hence, the form by which an angel conforms himself to a thing is something added to his essence and was previously in him potentially, because an angel could not have conformed himself to a thing unless he was previously in potency to such a conformity. Indeed, nothing is reduced from potency to act except by that which is in act. Consequently, in an angel, we should assume that forms must pre-exist by which he can reduce himself from being potentially conformable to being actually conformed, as our imagination forms a new species, say, of a mountain of gold, from species it had previously, namely, of mountain and of gold, and as our intellect forms the definition of a species from the forms it has of genus and of differentia. Hence, we must return to the position holding that forms pre-exist in angels; and these are either innate or received from things.

As a result, it seems that we must say what the third opinion says--an opinion more widespread and closer to the truth--namely, that angels know material things by means of innate forms. Therefore, just as from the eternal archetypes existing in the mind of God come the material forms by which things subsist, so also do the forms of all things come from God to the minds of angels in order that they may know things. Hence, an angelic intellect excels our intellect as a thing possessing a form excels matter that is formless. Our intellect may be compared to a tablet on which nothing has been written, but that of an angel, to a painted tablet or to a mirror in which the intelligible characters of things shine forth.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. That difference between speculative and practical knowledge is not essential but accidental; that is, it arises only in so far as these knowledges are human. Man knows things which he has not made only by means of forms received from things. The case is otherwise with angels, however, because they have the forms of things given them from the moment of their creation.

2. The mystery of the Incarnation was known by angels before it was known by men. Indeed, as Dionysius says, men learned of it from angels, who knew this mystery of the Incarnation, hidden from the world for ages; and, as Augustine explains, God revealed this mystery to the princes and powerful ones of this world through the church of the angels, which is in heavenly places. What is said there about the Church should therefore be taken as referring to the church of angels, as Augustine explains--even though Jerome seems to say the contrary.

However, Jerome's words are not to be understood in the sense that angels acquire knowledge from men. He meant that while the Apostles were announcing the things that had taken place and had been previously predicted by the prophets, the angels understood them more fully, just as they know the present more fully than the future--a point that will be clarified later.

3. Even though the angels do not know any future events, they know events when they take place. From this it does not follow, however, that they receive species from the things which they know. For knowing takes place through an assimilation of the knower to the known. Hence, a person will receive new knowledge of a thing in so far as he is assimilated to it in a new manner. This happens in two ways: either through his own motion or through the motion of another with respect to a form which he already possesses.

Similarly, he begins to know something new in one way by newly receiving a form for the first time from an object which he now knows. This happens with us. Or the object known arrives for the first time at a form already in the knower; and this is how angels have new knowledge of present things that previously were future. For example, if a man did not yet exist, an angelic intellect would not yet be assimilated to him by means of the form of man which it has within itself; but, when he comes into existence, the angelic intellect begins to assimilate itself to him by means of this form, without any change being made within itself with respect to that object.

4. Just as it is not the form by which a thing exists but only a likeness of it that is in the intellect, so also distinct knowledge of things does not demand that the very principles of distinction themselves be in the knower but that their likenesses be there. Moreover, as far as distinct knowledge is concerned, it makes no difference where these likenesses come from.

5. Without acquiring new intelligible forms, an angelic intellect can have new understanding in two ways. First, as was mentioned before,* it can have new understanding by something being newly assimilated to those forms [which it already has]. Second, it can be strengthened by some stronger light, enabling it to draw more knowledge from the same forms. Similarly, when the light of prophecy operates from forms already existing in the imagination, knowledge is received which could not be received by means of the natural light of the active intellect.

6. The Philosopher's statement should be taken as referring to the universal as it exists in the understanding, by which we understand things in nature. This universal is received from things. But even the universal existing in our understanding is prior, not posterior, to artificial things, because we produce artificial things by means of universal forms of art already existing within us. In a similar way, God produces creatures by means of eternal archetypes; and, from these, forms flow down into the angels' intellects. Hence, it follows that the forms in angels' intellects are posterior, not to things, but only to the eternal archetypes.

7. The known is in the knower in the same way, whether its form, existing in the knower, has been received from the thing known or not. Consequently, the argument does not touch the problem.

8. No proportion exists between the light of an angelic intellect and sensible things that is such as to allow the latter to be rendered intelligible by means of this light. This is clear from what has been said.* Hence, the conclusion does not follow.

9. The soul does not produce forms within itself unless some forms already exist there. Consequently, as is clear from what has been said,* the argument does not hold.