ARTICLE III

In the Third Article We Ask: CAN ONE IN THIS LIFE HAVE HIS UNDERSTANDING RAISED TO SEE GOD THROUGH HIS ESSENCE WITHOUT BEING

CARRIED OUT OF HIS SENSES?

Difficulties:

It seems that he can, for

1. Man's nature is the same in this life and after the resurrection. For, if it were not specifically the same, numerically the same man would not arise. But after the resurrection the saints will see God mentally through His essence and no transport out of the senses will take place. Therefore, the same thing is possible for those in this life.

2. But it was said that, since the body of one in this life is corruptible, it weighs down the understanding so that it cannot be drawn freely to God unless it is carried out of the senses of the body. And this corruption will be gone after the resurrection.--On the contrary, nothing is hindered, just as nothing suffers, except through the activity of its contrary. But bodily corruption does not seem to be opposed to the act of understanding, since understanding is not an act of the body. Therefore, corruption of the body does not prevent the understanding from being drawn freely to God.

3. It is certain that Christ took on our mortality and the corruption which is a punishment for us. But His understanding enjoyed the sight of God continuously, although He was not always transported out of his external senses. Therefore, corruption does not make it impossible for the understanding to be drawn to God without being transported out of the senses.

4. After Paul had seen God through His essence, he remembered the things which he had seen in that vision. Otherwise, if he had not remembered them, he would not have said: "He heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter" (2 Cor. 12:4). Therefore, while he saw God through His essence, something was being imprinted on his memory. But memory belongs to the sensitive part of man, as the Philosopher plainly shows. Therefore, when in this life someone sees God through His essence, he is not entirely transported out of his bodily senses.

5. The sensitive powers are closer to each other than the intellective powers are to the sensitive powers. But the imagination, which is one of the sensitive powers, can actually grasp any of its objects whatever without being cut off from the external senses. Therefore, the understanding, too, can actually see God without being cut off from the sensitive powers.

6. That which is according to nature does not require for its existence anything which is contrary to nature. But it is natural for the human understanding to see God through His essence, since it was created for this. Therefore, since transport out of the senses is contrary to nature for man, inasmuch as sensitive cognition is natural to him, it seems that he does not require transport from the senses as a prerequisite to see God through His essence.

7. Only those things which are joined together can be cut off from each other. But intelligence, whose object is God, as is said in Spirit and Soul, does not seem to be joined to the bodily senses but rather seems extremely distant from them. Therefore, for man to see God through His essence by means of intelligence he does not need to be cut off from the senses.

8. Paul seems to have been raised up to the sight of God so that there would be a witness of the glory which is promised to the saints. Hence, Augustine says: "Why should we not believe that it was God's wish to show to this great Apostle, the Teacher of the Gentiles, that life which is to be lived forever after this life? [God did this] while Paul was raised in rapture to that most lofty sight." But, after the resurrection, in that vision of the saints which will be given to those who see God in the next life, there will be no transport out of the bodily senses. Therefore, it seems that this kind of transport did not take place in Paul either, when he saw God through His essence.

9. During their sufferings and torments the martyrs inwardly perceived something of the divine glory. Hence, Vincent says: "Behold, I am already raised on high, and from above the world I look down on all your distinguished men, O tyrant." And in other records of the sufferings of the saints we read many passages which seem to have the same tenor. But it is obvious that there was no withdrawal from the senses in these people. Otherwise, they would not have felt the pain. Therefore, there is no transport out of the senses in order for one to share in the glory by which God is seen through His essence.

10. The practical understanding is closer than the speculative understanding to the activity which has sensible things as its object. But, as Avicenna says, it is not necessary for the practical understanding always to pay attention to man's operations which are concerned with sensible objects. Otherwise, the best harpist would seem to be the worst if it were necessary for him to give artistic reflection to each stroke of the strings. For, in such a case, there would be too much interruption of the sounds, which would hurt the proper melody. Therefore, it is far less necessary for the speculative understanding to pay attention to man's operations which concern sensible things. Thus, it remains free to be drawn to any act of understanding, even to the divine essence itself, while the sense powers are engaged in sensible activities.

11. While Paul saw God through His essence, he still had faith. But it belongs to faith to see darkly through a mirror. Therefore, while Paul saw God through His essence, at the same time he saw darkly through a mirror. But this obscure knowledge is through a mirror and through sensible things. Therefore, while he saw God through His essence, he also gave his attention to sensible things. The conclusion is the same as before.

To the Contrary:

1'. As Augustine says, and is quoted in the Gloss on the second Epistle to the Corinthians (12:2): "No man who sees God, as He is in Himself, lives the mortal life which we live in the bodily senses. But unless one in some way dies to this life, either leaving the body completely, or so turning away and cutting himself off from the bodily senses that with good reason he does not know whether he is in the body or outside of it, he is not enraptured and transported to that vision."

2'. The Gloss on the second Epistle to the Corinthians (5:13), "Whether we be transported in mind, it is to God," says: "He calls ecstasy that by which the mind is raised to an understanding of heavenly things, so that in some sense lower things drop from the memory. All the saints to whom secrets of God which surpass this world have been revealed were in this ecstasy." Therefore, it is necessary for everyone who sees God through His essence to be withdrawn from the consideration of lower things, and, consequently, also from the use of the senses with which we see only lower things.

3'. The Gloss on Psalms (67:28), "There is Benjamin, a youth in ecstasy of mind," says: "Benjamin, (that is, Paul), in ecstasy, that is, with his mind unconscious of the bodily senses, as when he was carried up into the third heaven." But the third heaven means vision of God through His essence, as Augustine says. Therefore, the vision of God through His essence requires loss of consciousness of the bodily senses.

4'. The activity of an understanding which is raised to see the essence of God is more effective than any activity of the imagination. But, sometimes, a man is transported out of the bodily senses because of the intensity of the activity of the imagination. Therefore, he should be transported out of them with much greater reason when he is lifted up to the vision of God.

5'. Bernard says: "Divine consolation is sensitive and will not be given to those who admit any other." So, for the same reason, the divine vision does not tolerate sight of anything else along with it. Therefore, neither does it tolerate the use of the senses along with it.

6'. The greatest cleanness of heart is needed to see God through His essence, according to Matthew (5:8): "Blessed are the clean of heart." But the heart is sullied in two ways, namely, by the contamination of sin, and by phantasies of material things. This is clear from what Dionysius says: "Those [celestial essences] should be considered pure, not in the sense that they are free of unclean stains and defilements (in which he refers to uncleanness because of guilt, which never existed in the blessed angels), nor in the sense that they are receptive of phantasies of material things" (in which is included the uncleanness which comes through phantasies, as is clear from Hugh of St. Victor. Therefore, the mind of one who sees God through His essence must be transported not only out of the external senses, but also out of the internal phantasms.

7'. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians (13:10) we read: "When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be put away." But, here, "perfect" refers to the vision of God through His essence, and "imperfect" refers to vision through a mirror darkly, which is through sensible things. Therefore, when one is raised to the vision of God through His essence, he must be deprived of the vision of sensible things.

REPLY:

As is clear from the authoritative statement of Augustine, a man living in this mortal body cannot see God through His essence, unless he is made unconscious of the bodily senses. We can see the reason for this from two things. First, from that which is common to the understanding and the other powers of the soul, for with all the powers of the soul we find that, when the act of one power becomes intense, the act of another is either weakened or entirely suppressed. Thus, it is clear that, when one is giving very close attention to the activity of sight, his hearing does not perceive the things which are being said, unless, perhaps, their force attracts the sense of the hearer to them.

The reason for this, as Augustine proves, is that attention is needed for the act of any cognoscitive power. Moreover, one's attention cannot be given to many things at once, unless they are related to one another in such a way that they can be taken as one, just as the motion or activity of a thing cannot have two termini not related to each other. Hence, since there is one soul, in which all cognoscitive powers are rooted, the attention of one and the same soul is needed for the acts of all the cognoscitive powers. Therefore, when the soul gives complete attention to the act of one power, the man is cut off from the act of another power.

But for the understanding to be raised up to the vision of the divine essence, the whole attention must be concentrated on this vision, since this is the most intensely intelligible object, and the understanding can reach it only by striving for it with a total effort. Therefore, it is necessary to have complete abstraction from the bodily senses when the mind is raised to the vision of God.

Second, we can find a reason for this in that which is proper to the understanding. For, since we know things in so far as they are in act, and not in so far as they are in potency, as is said in the Metaphysics, the understanding, which holds the highest place in knowledge, properly deals with immaterial things, which are most in act. Hence, every intelligible thing is either free from matter or separated from it by the activity of the understanding. Therefore, the freer the understanding is of contact, as it were, with material things, the more perfect it is.

For this reason, the human understanding, which reaches material things by considering phantasms from which it abstracts intelligible species, has less efficacy than the angelic understanding, which always considers purely immaterial forms. Nevertheless, in so far as the purity of intellectual knowledge is not wholly obscured in human understanding, as happens in the senses whose knowledge cannot go beyond material things, it has the power to consider things which are purely immaterial by the very fact that it retains some purity.

Therefore, if it is ever raised beyond its ordinary level to see the highest of immaterial things, namely, the divine essence, it must be wholly cut off from the sight of material things at least during that act. Hence, since the sensitive powers can deal only with material things, one cannot be raised to vision of the divine essence unless he is wholly deprived of the use of the bodily senses.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. After the resurrection the beatified soul will be joined to the body in a different way from that in which it is now united to it. For, in the resurrection, the body will be entirely subject to the spirit to such an extent that the properties of glory will overflow from the spirit into the body. Hence, they will be called spiritual bodies.

Moreover, when two things are united and one of them has complete control over the other, there is no mixture there, since the one falls completely under the power of the other which rules it. Thus, if one drop of water is poured into a thousand jars of wine, the purity of the wine is not at all impaired. Therefore, in the resurrection there will be no defilement of the understanding and its power will not be weakened in any way by any union whatsoever with the body. Hence, even without transport out of the bodily senses, it will contemplate the divine essence. However, the body is not now subject to the spirit in this way, and, therefore, the reasoning does not have the same force.

2. Our body is corruptible because it is not fully subject to the soul. For, if it were fully subject to the soul, immortality would also overflow into the body from the immortality of the soul, as will happen after the resurrection. It is for this reason that the corruption of the body oppresses the understanding. Although in itself it is not directly opposed to the understanding, its cause impairs the purity of the understanding.

3. From the fact that Christ was God and man, He had full power over all the parts of His soul and over His body. Hence, as Damascene says, by the power of the Godhead He permitted each power of the soul to do that which is proper to it in so far as it fitted in with our redemption. Thus, it was not necessary for Him to have an overflow from one power to another, nor for one power to be deprived of its act because of the intensity of the act of another power. Consequently, the fact that His understanding saw God did not necessitate any transport out of the bodily senses. However, it is different with other men, in whom redundance or interference of one power with another necessarily follows from the intimate connection of the powers of the soul with one another.

4. After Paul had stopped seeing God through His essence, he remembered what he had known in that vision by means of certain species which remained in his understanding and were relics, so to speak, of the previous vision. For, although he saw the very Word of God through His essence, and from the vision of that essence knew many truths, (and thus neither for the Word Himself nor for the things which he saw in the Word did this vision take place through any species, but only through the essence of the Word), nevertheless, by reason of the vision of the Word, certain likenesses of the things which he saw were imprinted on his understanding. And with these likenesses he could see afterwards the things which he had previously seen through the essence of the Word. Later, by applying these intelligible species to the individual intentions or forms which were stored in his memory or imagination, he could remember the things which he had seen previously, and this even through the activity of memory, which is a sensitive power. Thus, it is not necessary to hold that in the act of seeing God something took place in his memory, which is part of the sensitive power, but only in his mind.

5. Although transport from the external senses does not arise from every act of imaginative power, the transport mentioned above* does take place when the act of the imagination is very intense. Similarly, it is not necessary that transport out of the senses take place because of every act of understanding; nevertheless, it does come about through the most intense act, which is the vision of God through His essence.

6. Although it is natural for the human understanding at some time to reach the vision of God through His essence, it is not natural for it to reach this in the conditions of this life, as we have said.* For this reason the conclusion does not follow.

7. Although our intelligence, with which we grasp things divine, does not combine with the senses in the process of perception, it does combine with them in the process of judging. Hence, Augustine says: "Through the light of our intelligence we judge even of the lower things and we perceive things which are neither bodies nor bear forms like those of bodies." Therefore, our intelligence is said at times to abstract from the senses when it does not make judgments concerning them, but focuses its attention on the vision of heavenly things alone.

8. The essence of the beatitude of the saints consists in the vision of the divine essence. Hence, Augustine says: "Vision is the whole reward." For this reason one could be a suitable witness of that beatitude because he had seen the divine essence. Still, it would not be necessary for him to experience all the privileges which belong to the blessed. But, from that which he did experience, he could also know the other things. For he was not enraptured to become blessed, but to be a witness of beatitude.

9. In their sufferings the martyrs perceived something of divine glory, not as if they drank it at its source, as do those who see God through His essence, but, rather, they were refreshed by a sprinkling of that glory. Hence, Augustine says: "There," where God is seen through His essence, "the blessed life is drunk from its source. From that source some of it is sprinkled on this human life, so that in the temptations of this world that life may be lived temperately, justly, bravely, and prudently."

10. The speculative understanding is not forced to turn its attention to the activities in which one is occupied with sensible things, but it can busy itself with other intelligible things. Moreover, the intensity of the act of speculation can be so great that it is altogether abstracted from sensible activity.

11. Although in that act Paul had the habit of faith, he did not have the act of faith.