ARTICLE V

In the Fifth Article We Ask: DID ADAM IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE SEE THE ANGELS THROUGH THEIR ESSENCE?

Difficulties:

It seems that he did, for

1. Gregory says: "In paradise man was accustomed to enjoy the words of God and to share in purity of heart and loftiness of vision with the spirits of the beatified angels." Therefore, through the loftiness of his vision he seems to have attained even to the vision of the angels.

2. On the words of Genesis (2:21), "Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam," the Gloss reads: "The correct interpretation of this ecstasy is that it was given so that Adam's mind, sharing the company of the heavenly court, might enter into the sanctuary of God and understand the last things." But he could not share the company of the heavenly court unless he knew the angels. Therefore, he had knowledge of the angels.

3. The Master says: "Man had a knowledge of the things which were made for his sake." But, along with other creatures, even the angels are made in some way for man's sake, as the Master says. Therefore, he had knowledge of the angels.

4. It is more difficult to make something which is intelligible in potency become intelligible actually and to understand it than to understand that which is of itself actually intelligible. But Adam's understanding could make species of material things, which of themselves are intelligible in potency, become actually intelligible, and in this way understand material things. Therefore, with much more reason he was able to understand the essences of the angels, which of themselves are actually intelligible, since they are free of matter.

5. That someone does not better understand things which are of themselves more intelligible is due to a defect of his understanding. But the essences of the angels are of themselves more intelligible than the essences of material things, and there was no defect in Adam's understanding. Accordingly, since he knew material things through their essence, with much more reason he could know the angels through their essence.

6. The intellect can understand material things by abstracting the quiddity from the material supposite. And, if that quiddity is again a supposite having a quiddity, it can with equal reason abstract the quiddity from it. And, since this cannot go on to infinity, it will at last arrive at the understanding of some simple quiddity, which does not have [another] quiddity. But such a quiddity is the quiddity of a separate substance, that is to say, of an angel. Therefore, Adam's intellect could know the essence of an angel.

7. According to the Philosopher, since understanding is a power not joined to an organ, it is not destroyed by an excessively intelligible object. "For, after it has understood the highest intelligible, it does not understand the lowest intelligibles less, but more," contrary to what takes place in sense. But Adam's understanding in the state of innocence was whole and complete. Therefore, the excellence of an intelligible object was not an impediment to his understanding of it. Consequently, he was able to know the angels through their essence, since the only impediment to this knowledge seems to be the excellence of the intelligible object.

8. As was mentioned above, Adam, as soon as he was created, had all the knowledge to which a man can come naturally. But man can naturally come to a knowledge of the separated substances through their essence, as is clear from the statements of many philosophers, which the Commentator mentions. Therefore, Adam knew the angels through their essence.

9. It is evident that Adam knew his own soul through its essence. But the essence of the soul is free from matter, just as an angel's essence. Therefore, he could also know the angels through their essence.

10. Adam's knowledge was intermediate between our knowledge and that of the blessed. But the blessed see and know the essence of God, and we know the essence of material things. But between God and material things are spiritual substances, that is, the angels. Therefore, Adam knew the angels through their essence.

To the Contrary:

1'. In its knowledge no power can reach beyond its object. But the objects of the intellective soul are phantasms, to which the intellective soul is related, as sense is to sensibles, as is said in The Soul. Therefore, our soul can attain to knowledge only of those things which it can derive from phantasms. But the essence of the angels is beyond all phantasms. Therefore, by natural knowledge, the perfection of which we assign to Adam, man cannot reach a knowledge of the angels through their essence.

2'. It was said that, although an angel cannot be perceived through phantasms, some effect of an angel can be grasped under the guise of a phantasm, and from such an effect the angel can be known.--On the contrary, no effect which is not equal to its cause is sufficient of itself to be a means to knowledge of the essence of its cause. Otherwise, those who know God from creatures would see the essence of God, which is false. But a physical effect, which alone can be grasped in a phantasm, is the kind of effect which is not equal to the power of the angels. Therefore, through this kind of effect one cannot know what an angel is, but only whether he exists.

3'. It was said that Adam was able to know the angels through some intelligible effect, according to the dictum of Avicenna that the presence of intelligences in us is nothing other than the presence of their imprints in us.--On the contrary, what is received in a thing is received there according to the mode of being of that in which it is received. But the mode of being of the human soul is lower than that of the angelic nature. Therefore, the imprint made on the human soul by an angel, or by the angelic light, with which it enlightens the mind, is in the human soul in a lower manner than in the angelic nature. Accordingly, since the soul knows a thing through the mode in which the thing known is within it, through this kind of imprint the soul does not reach knowledge of an angel as it is in its essence.

REPLY:

There is a twofold knowledge by which something can be known. One is that by which we know whether a thing exists, and according to this in the state of innocence Adam knew the angels both by natural knowledge and divine revelation far more fully and familiarly than we know them. The other is that by which we know what a thing is, and this is to know it through its essence. And, as I see it, Adam in the state of innocence did not know the angels in this way. The reason for this is that a twofold knowledge is ascribed to Adam: natural knowledge and knowledge due to grace.

That he did not know angels through their essence with natural knowledge can be seen with certainty from this. In no genus does a natural passive power extend farther than that to which the active power of the same genus extends, just as in nature there is a passive power only with reference to those things to which some natural active power can extend, as the Commentator says. In the understanding of the human soul, however, there is a twofold power: one passive, the possible intellect, and the other active, the agent intellect. Consequently, the possible intellect is naturally in potency to have produced in it only those things which the agent intellect is naturally constituted to produce. However, this does not exclude the possibility of other things being produced in it by divine activity, as they are produced in physical nature through miraculous activity. But the action of the agent intellect does not make intelligible those things which are of themselves intelligible, such as the essences of the angels, but things which of themselves are potentially intelligible, such as the essence of material things, which are received through sense and imagination. Hence, in the possible intellect there are naturally produced only those intelligible species which are abstracted from phantasms. However, it is impossible to reach vision of the essence of separated substances through this type of species, since they have no proportion to separated substances and belong, as it were, to a different genus from spiritual essences. Therefore, by natural knowledge man cannot attain to knowledge of the angels through their essence.

Similarly, Adam was not capable of this even through the knowledge due to grace. For knowledge due to grace is higher than knowledge due to nature, but this elevation can be taken with reference either to the intelligible object or to the manner of understanding. With reference to the intelligible object, man's knowledge is indeed raised through grace even without a change of state, as when we are raised to a knowledge of things which are above reason through the grace of faith, and similarly through the grace of prophecy. But, in so far as its manner of knowing is concerned, human knowledge is not elevated without a change of man's state. But the manner in which his understanding knows naturally is by receiving from phantasms, as has been said. Consequently, unless there is a change in man's state, his understanding, even in the knowledge due to grace, which is through divine revelation, must always recur to phantasms. This is what Dionysius says: "It is impossible for the divine radiance to shine on us in any other way, except as shrouded in a variety of sacred veils." But in the state of innocence Adam was in the state of a wayfarer. Hence, in all knowledge due to grace he had to look to phantasms. The essences of angels, however, cannot be seen with that mode of knowledge, as has been said. Thus, Adam did not know the angels through their essence either through natural knowledge or through knowledge due to grace, unless, perhaps, we say that he was elevated to a higher state through grace, as Paul was in his rapture.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. All we can conclude from the authoritative citation from Gregory is that Adam knew the angels in some lofty vision, not, however, so lofty that it reached a knowledge of their essence.

2. If we understand that Adam's sleep was of the same nature as Paul's rapture, there would be nothing to prevent us from saying that he saw the angels through their essence in that rapture. But this was above the common mode of knowing which then belonged to him. However, if we understand that his sleep was not of such a nature that in it Adam in some respect was elevated to the state of the blessed, but was like that in which it is customary for the minds of the prophets to be raised to vision of the divine mysteries, as the words of the Gloss seem to intend, then he is said to have shared the company of the heavenly court through a certain pre-eminence of knowledge, which still did not reach their essence.

3. Adam had knowledge of the angels in so far as they were made for his sake. For he knew that they would be companions of his beatitude and helpers for his salvation in this life, in so far as he knew the distinction of [angelic] orders and their duties much better than we know them.

4. Difficulty in understanding arises in two ways. In one, the difficulty comes from the thing known; in the other, from the one knowing. On the part of the thing known, it is more difficult to make something intelligible and understand it than to understand that which of itself is intelligible. But, on the part of the one knowing, it can be more difficult to know that which is of itself intelligible. And this is the case with the human understanding, since naturally to understand separated essences is out of proportion with its power, for the reason we have given.*

5. Adam's understanding did not suffer from the lack of any perfection which should have been in it at that time. However, it did have some natural deficiencies, among which one was that in knowing it had to look to phantasms. But this is a natural condition of human understanding by reason of its union with the body, and by reason of the fact that by its nature it is the lowest in the order of intellects.

6. By abstraction, understanding can reach a quiddity of a natural thing which does not have another quiddity, and which it can understand because it abstracts it from phantasms and makes it intelligible through the light of the agent intellect. From this it receives the possibility of being perfected by the quiddity as by a proper perfection. But it cannot rise from this quiddity to a knowledge of the essence of a separated substance, because the former quiddity is completely incapable of representing the latter, since quiddity does not exist in separated substances and in material things in entirely the same manner, but, as it were, equivocally, as the Commentator says. And, granted that through this quiddity he could know in some general way that the quiddity of separated substance is of such a nature, he nevertheless would not see the essence of an angel in such a way that he could know the difference between any one separated essence and the others.

7. Although human understanding is not destroyed by an excessively intelligible object, it lacks the proportion needed to be able naturally to reach the highest intelligibles. Hence, we cannot conclude from what the Philosopher says that it understands the highest intelligibles, but only that, if it did understand them, it would not understand others less.

8. The Philosopher leaves this question unsolved when he inquires whether an intellect joined [to a body] can understand separated substances. Nor does he solve the question anywhere else in the works which have come down to us. And his followers have disagreed on this point.

For some have said that our intellect cannot achieve an understanding of separated essences. Some, however, have held that it can. Some of these men have given insufficient reasons, as Avempace, who gave the argument about quiddity, and Themistius, who gave the argument about ease of understanding. Both of these arguments, the Commentator answered. Some, however, as Alexander and the Commentator himself, have taken non-Aristotelian positions, which are against the faith. For Alexander says that, since the possible intellect can be produced by generation and can perish, it can in his theory in no wise reach an understanding of the separated substances. But, at the term of its perfection, it does reach the point where the agent intellect, which Alexander makes one of the separated substances, is united to us as form. In that state we understand through the agent intellect, just as now we understand through the possible intellect. And it is because the agent intellect, as a separated substance, understands separated substances that we understand separated substances in that state. In his opinion it is in this that the final happiness of man will consist.

However, since it does not seem possible for something which is incorruptible and separated, as the agent intellect, to be united as the form for the possible intellect, which, for Alexander, is corruptible and material, it has seemed to others that the possible intellect itself is separated and incorruptible. Hence, Themistius says that the possible intellect, too, is separated, and that it is natural to it to understand not only material things but also separated substances. He adds that its intelligible objects are not temporal, but eternal, things, and that the speculative intellect, by which we understand, is made up of the agent and the possible intellects. But, if this is so, we can know separated substances from the beginning, since the possible intellect is united to us from the beginning.

Therefore, the Commentator takes a third way, between the opinion of Alexander and that of Themistius. For he says that the possible intellect is separated and eternal, in which he agrees with Themistius and differs from Alexander, and, nevertheless, that the objects of the speculative understanding are temporal things and produced through the activity of the agent intellect. In this he agrees with Alexander and differs from Themistius. He says that these objects have a double existence: one, by which they are based on phantasms, and in this sense they are in us; the other, by which they are in the possible intellect. Consequently, through the mediation of these intelligible objects the possible intellect is united to us.

Now, the agent intellect is related to these intelligible things as form to matter. For, since the possible intellect receives intelligibles of this type which are grounded in phantasms, and also receives the agent intellect, and since the agent intellect is more perfect, the proportion of the agent intellect to intelligibles of this sort, which are in us, must be like the proportion of form to matter. This is like the reciprocal proportion between light and color which are received in the transparent, as also between all things, one of which is more perfect than the other, which are received in one thing. Therefore, when the production of such intelligibles takes place in us, then the agent intellect is united to us perfectly as a form. And in this way we will be able to know separated substances through the agent intellect, just as we are now able to know through the understanding which is in its habitual state.

It is evident from the statements of these philosophers that they could find no way for us to understand separated substances except by understanding through some separated substance. But it is not in harmony with the truths of the faith to say that the possible or the agent intellect is a separated substance. Neither does it agree with the opinion of the Philosopher, who holds that agent and possible intellects are part of the human soul.

Accordingly, if we retain that position, it does not seem possible for man by his natural knowledge to achieve a knowledge of separated essences.

9. In the state of innocence man knew his act of understanding perfectly because he understood some intelligible object perfectly. And, since the act of understanding is an effect proportionate to, and commensurate with, the power from which it proceeds, it follows that he understood the essence of his soul perfectly. But it does not follow from this that he understood the essence of the angels, since that act of understanding is not commensurate with the power of his understanding.

10. As the angelic nature is intermediate between the divine and physical nature, so the knowledge by which an angelic essence is known is intermediate between the knowledge by which the divine essence is known and by which the essences of material things are known. But there can be many things intermediate between two extremes. And it is not necessary for anyone who exceeds one extreme to reach every intermediate level, but to reach some intermediate level. Accordingly, in the state of innocence man reached one intermediate level, namely, that of receiving knowledge of God not from sensible creatures but from internal revelation. However, he did not arrive at the level of knowing angelic essences. Nevertheless, when the angels were created and not yet beatified, they had arrived at this level.