¹ Is. 45 v18-19 The Holy Bible RSV Ecumenical Edition Collins 1973.

² Jn 1 v 9-16.

³ Jn 1 v 14 v 2.

⁴ Summa Theologiae Blackfriars, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1964. Foreword Thomas expresses the wish to avoid ‘pointless questions, articles and arguments’........ ‘repetitiousness which breeds muddle and boredom’, and to use a ‘sound educational method’....in order to ‘pursue the things held by Christian theology, and to be concise and clear, so far as the matter allows’. (This edition of the Summa is used throughout as source.)

⁵ ST1a 93, 1 The specific likeness of image is participative.

⁶ ST1a 45, 3 & 44,4.

⁷ ST 1a, 93, 3.

⁸ ST1a2ae 55,1; 1a2ae 109,3.

⁹ The Blackfriars translation is used. ST1a 1, 6 ad 3; Quote from St Paul: 1 Cor 2, 15; Quote from Dionysius: De Divinis Nominibus II, 9, PG 3, 648.

¹⁰ ibid, 2.

¹¹ ST2a2ae 45, 2; 3 ad 1; 4 ad 3.

¹² Thomas refers to Paul: ST2a2ae 8, 6.

¹³ ST1a 1, 8 ad 2.

¹⁴ de Ver 14, art 2.

¹⁵ Thomas’ handling of the question of the nature of virtue will be discussed more fully below.

¹⁶ ST1a2ae 57, 4.

¹⁷ Thomas’ thoughts on the nature and causality of the good is discussed below.

¹⁸ The Vulgate has, ‘Nos autem sensum Christi habemus’. ‘Sensum’ also contains the meanings: ‘perception’, ‘disposition’, ‘understanding’ – terms which, unlike the term ‘mind’ do not tend to be immediately associated with speculative knowing.

¹⁹ quoted in the following text discussed.

²⁰ ST2a2ae 45, 2 Thomas refers in various ways to this kind of forming of the soul. In other places he speaks about forming, ‘per modum inclinationis’, ‘per habitum virtutis’, as ‘compassio’, and as in this question, ‘secundum quondam connaturalitatem...’ . Though the last term best describes the meaning Thomas wishes to convey, i.e. the intelligibility of a good, or divine good becomes an originating principle in the agent so that the formation becomes natural, a second nature, I have generally stuck to the term ‘inclination’.

²¹ ST2a2ae 45, 2.

²² ST2a2ae 23, 2, 1.

²³ ST 1a 93, 1, 3; 35, 2 ad 3.

²⁴ ST1a 90, 2 Thomas quotes again from Genesis: ‘“God created man to his own image”. Now it is by the soul that man is after God's image. So the soul emerged into being by being created’.

²⁵ ST 1a 45, 1 & ad 3.

²⁶ ST1a 45, 3.

²⁷ Ibid ad 2 However, as Thomas notes, the relationship of God to the creature is not real in God.

²⁸ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Introduction to Christianity, p 184.

²⁹ De Ver 21 art 1, ad 1 In discussing the relationship between good and being Thomas argues that .. ‘from one point of view the essence (of a creature) is considered as something other than that relation to God by which it is constituted as final cause and is directed to God as its end. From another point of view a creature does not exist without a relation to God's goodness’. Relationship to God and the world is not thought of as simply accidental to a prior act of existence, like the whiteness of something, to use Thomas’ favourite example. It is a different order of relationship, and, though not prior in time to a creature's act of existence, is that which gives, sustains, and contains the substantial existence of every creature.

³⁰ De Ver 22 art 1 Reply.

³¹ ‘Each and every creature stretches out to its own completion, which is a resemblance of divine fulness and excellence’(ST1a 44,4).

³² ST1a 93, 1 & 2.

³³ ST 1a 93, 6 & 7 Thomas says that the likeness of the image of God is in man with reference to both the divine nature and the Trinity of persons, ‘for after all, that is what God actually is, one nature in three persons’. In the uncreated Trinity, the persons are distinguished in terms of the procession of a word from its utterer and of love from both. The rational creature also exhibits a word procession in regard to intelligence and a love procession in regard to the will.

³⁴ ST1a 77, 1 & ad 5 Thomas uses the example of the quinque voces, the five types of predicable, to show the way in which he approaches the problem of the relationship of necessity of the powers to the soul ; Also 54, 3; 27, 1&2.

³⁵ ST1a 27, 1.

³⁶ ST1a 12, 4 Thomas says: ‘the way something knows depends on the way it exists’. Also in ST1a 77,7, Thomas argues that ‘the essence of the soul is related to its powers both as their active and final principle, reason for being, and also as their recipient, whether on its own or taken together with the body’.

³⁷ ST1a 93,7 ad 4; 8 ad 3 Thomas argues that God's image remains always as source of knowing and loving.

³⁸ ST1a 4, 2, also 44, 4: God intends ‘only to communicate his own completeness, which is his goodness’. Looking at Thomas’ view from another perspective Pavel Florensky says, in The Pillar and Ground of Truth 23-26 – ‘The truth is a sun that illuminates both itself and the whole universe. Its abyss is the abyss of power, not of nothingness’.

³⁹ For instance, the ideas of Jacques Derrida: Thomas’ understanding of personhood is a very different idea to the post-modernist notion of the ‘self’ as a dynamic alterity – a ‘place’ having no origin or end, inscribed, so to speak, by the play of signs, equally without truth, fault or origin, which appear in engaging the world. Potentiality does not belong to this vision of mankind – understanding is merely an event, an essentially passive reflex occurring within the fluid and ephemeral arena of experience. Jacques Derrida argues that humans cannot ever fully recognize the self – they are the play of chance and necessity. The notion of such a groundlessness, intended to combat the isolated autonomy of the Cartesian/Kantian human subject, actually isolates it radically. The groundlessness is an abyss, a wholly passive, neutral zone in which any ‘self’, knowing or willing may fleetingly happen as signs are woven together in what must be a void. That a pattern and not chaos briefly occurs is inexplicable, so that meaningless and lawlessness ‘govern’ the ephemeral happenings which – for no reason – are called human. The ever-changing, transient occurrence, called a self, which briefly gains shape in the flux which characterizes the nature of both human consciousness and world cannot love, know, intend or be responsible in any way for actions. There is no reason to distinguish such a being as human. See: Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology, trans. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. The Johns Hopkins University press Baltimore and London, 1997Google Scholar).

⁴⁰ ST1a2ae 113, 10.

⁴¹ ST1a 1, 8, De Ver 10, art 7 ad 7.

⁴² ST1a 95, 1 sed contra and body of article.

⁴³ ST1a 94, 1.

⁴⁴ ST1a2ae 110, 4.

⁴⁵ ST1a 95, 1.

⁴⁶ ‘[Christ] is the first-born of creation; for in him all things were created.......he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross’.

⁴⁷ It is also important to note ST1a 75, 1; 76, 1: ‘This matter and the intellectual soul form a unity such that the act of being of the compound whole is the soul's act of being’.

⁴⁸ This enormous subject is noted only briefly in this essay, only to show why mankind's capacity for God is bound up, in Thomas’ view, with his salvation.

⁴⁹ ST1a2ae, 82, 3.

⁵⁰ ST 1a 93, 4: On Psalm 4, 7.

⁵¹ ST1a 94, 1.

⁵² ST1a 88, 3 ad 3.

⁵³ ST1a2ae 109, 2.

⁵⁴ Thomas’ distinguishes between the obscurity belonging to anything created compared with the immensity of the divine brightness, and the obscurity which things acquired as a consequence of original sin which impedes awareness of the intelligibility of things. So, he does not think that the relative ‘lowness’ of the senses, and the limited ‘whatness’ of things, though necessarily obscure and dim, disqualifies them as such from a role in knowing God, but that, on the contrary, if the ordering of human nature is ‘right’, so that the formal objective of divine good is not obscured by external interest, they both serve a knowledge of God which is more immediate than that achieved by discursive methods of demonstration. The via negativa, it seems, is the shadowy path man must stumble along because of the obscuring effect of a disordered disposition.

⁵⁵ ST1a 94, 1.

⁵⁶ ST1a 94, 1 ad 3.

⁵⁷ St1a 94, 1.

⁵⁸ ST1a 1, 1 ad 2; See ST2a2ae 1, 1: Formal objective: that by which something is known: either the medium of demonstration, or assent, or, practically speaking, the specific goal with respect to an objective which shapes activity directed to it. In the act of faith the formal object is the reality of divine truth itself, the material object the content: articles of doctrine for instance.

⁵⁹ ST 1a 85, 1 ad 4 and appendix 1 of Blackfriars ed. p 167 See also De Ver 10, art 8: ‘One perceives that he understands only from the fact that he understands something. For to understand something is prior to understanding that one understands.’ See also ST1a 54, 1 ad 3 ‘I mean that inasmuch as a thing understood becomes one with the mind understanding it, the act of understanding follows as a sort of effect distinguishable from the one and the other’.

⁶⁰ ST1a 85, particularly art 5.

⁶¹ ST1a 85, 2 ad 3.

⁶² App 1 Vol 12 Blackfriars Translation Ed & Trans: Paul T. Durbin Quote from CG 1, 53: ‘The intellect, given form (formatus) by the species of a thing, in understanding formulates (format) in itself an intention (intentio) of the thing understood which is the aspect (ratio) of the thing signified by a definition’. Here the understood intention is referred to as intentio intellecta, and the form which puts the intellect in a state of actuality and is the principle of the intellectual act, though both are a similarity of the thing understood, is referred to as species intelligibilis.

⁶³ ST1a 16, 2 Thomas argues that ‘...the perfection of the intellect is truth as known...........truth is in the intellect in its function of affirming and denying one reality of another, and not in sense, nor in intellect knowing the meaning.

⁶⁴ ST1a2ae 1,1.

⁶⁵ ST1a2ae 1, 3 & ad 1 & 2.

⁶⁶ ST1a 44, 4 & 20, 2 Thomas argues that the will is not the cause of things being good but responds to that goodness as to its objective, our love in willing good for a thing is not the cause of that goodness. ......goodness, real or only imagined, evokes our love, which cherishes the goodness it possesses and wishes it to gain that which it is yet to have; to this we bend our energies. God's love, however, pours out and creates the goodness in things. Also St1a 44, 4 It is only God's love which pours out and creates the goodness of things. Also ST1a2ae 1, 4 ad 1.

⁶⁷ ST1a 5, 2 ad 1.

⁶⁸ Ibid ad 1, also ST1a2ae 51, 2.

⁶⁹ ST1a 56, 1, ST1a 55, 1.

⁷⁰ ST1a2ae 49, 2 Thomas also refers here to his earlier quote from Aristotle: 49, 1 ad 3 ‘A state is always a relation of the parts of a complex – either spatial, potential or formal…physical states are referred to by the world ‘spatial’…’potential refers to those states which are at a preparatory and undeveloped stage….’formal refers to the fully developed states which are called ‘dispositions’.

⁷¹ Preparatory to the questions on virtue, Thomas establishes that rational powers require habit in order to achieve a state appropriate to each action ST1a2ae 49, 4 ad 1; 55, 1. The appetitive power is poised before many incompatible things, so a single judgment of reason is generally not influential enough to direct it to one particular end. Similarly, though a virtue is achieved through its activity, a single act is not sufficient to create a virtuous disposition. Thomas concludes that, ‘a virtuous disposition cannot be caused by a single action, but only by many actions’, ST1a2ae 51, 3.

⁷² ST1a2ae 52, 2; 53, 3 & 2a2ae 47, 4: With reference to the specific virtue of prudence Thomas argues that ‘we can speak of being good in two ways, materially and formally: materially to refer to the thing which is good; formally, to mean the very reason why it is good, and it is as such that a good is the objective of an affective or loving faculty’. On a slightly different note, ‘if a formal objective is merely an apparent good’, Thomas argues, ‘then the corresponding virtue also will not be true, but a false likeness of virtue’. Thomas quotes Augustine's example of the prudence of misers ‘by which they think up all sorts of ways to make a little money’. This is not a true virtue.

⁷³ De Ver 10, art 9 reply.

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ Ibid.

⁷⁶ To examine more closely what Thomas has to say about the perception of a habit as principle of an act, he explains that, as we perceive that the soul exists in us only through its act, so also a disposition is unknowable in itself and has to be known by means of its actualization – that is, either by perceiving the act proper to it, or by investigating its nature by a speculative consideration of its acts (ST1a2ae 50, 5). The tendency is perceived as principle however , and he adds, in de Ver 10,9 ‘the measure of any habit is that to which the habit is ordained, and it is according to this that judgment can be made’.

⁷⁷ ST1a 87 1, 2 & 4 In order for the intellect to know itself, it must be ‘made actual by species abstracted from sensible realities by the light of the agent intellect, which is the actuality of intelligible objects and by means of them, also of the possible intellect. Therefore our intellect knows itself, not by its own essence, but by means of its activity’. Thomas sees two senses in which the intellect may be said to know itself. The first sense is that in which Socrates, for instance, perceives himself to have an intellectual soul from the fact that he perceives himself to be intellectually acting. The second sense is speaking universally, as when we consider the nature of the human mind from the nature of the intellect's activity. With respect to knowledge of acts of the will, Thomas argues that the human will is an intellectual inclination (we will what we know) and so is intelligible.

⁷⁸ de Ver 10 art 9 reply.

⁷⁹ Ibid ad 4 and 5.

⁸⁰ Kant would argue against Thomas’ claim that teleological laws can play a role in our capacity to know. He would say that since the ground of Thomas’ claim is the supersensible summum bonum, taking ‘mechanical’ and teleological laws together as a principle for judging can only be used as a maxim of the reflective, not the determinate judgment (pt II, pg 72 Critique of Judgment). In his view, it is intrinsically impossible for a discursive mind to encounter unity or finality in nature. And, in so far as these cannot be objects of knowledge over against a knower, he is right. However, Thomas’ understanding of the ‘remoteness’ of habit as source of knowing shows that though he is aware of this problem, he does not see it as entailing the impossibility of cognition. Finality can, in his view, be source of non-discursive knowing.

⁸¹ ST1a 87, 3 also ST1a 87, 4 …’Acts of the will are understood by the intellect, both inasmuch as a man perceives himself as willing things, and inasmuch as he perceives the nature of this act and, as a result, the nature of its principle, which is a habitual disposition or a power’.

⁸² ST1a2ae 110, 4.

⁸³ ‘The gift of grace is an expression of divine love in the essence of the soul’ which qualifies it as principle through its powers. ST1a2ae 110, 1.

⁸⁴ ST1a2ae 109, 2, ST1a 94 1, and ST1a2ae 68, 1 Thomas argues that there are two principles of movement in man: one which is intrinsic to him, namely reason; the other extrinsic, namely God. For mankind to be moved by God, however, he needs to be able to receive the prompting – ‘the higher the mover, the more perfect must be the disposition by which the moved is proportioned to it. Thus, as virtues perfect mankind in disposing him to act according to reason, and conform him to the natural good, so the Gift of the Holy Spirit disposes mankind to be moved by God, and conforms him to Christ.

⁸⁵ ST 1a2ae 111, 1.

⁸⁶ ST1a 2ae 108, 1.

⁸⁷ ST1a2ae 112, 1 & ad 2.

⁸⁸ ST1a 43, 5 ad 2.

⁸⁹ ST1a 43, 1.

⁹⁰ ST1a 43, 2 & ad 3.

⁹¹ ST1a 43, 3.

⁹² Ibid ad 3.

⁹³ ST1a 43, 5, ad 2 & 3.

⁹⁴ ST2a2ae 24, 12.

⁹⁵ Ibid and Super Gen. Ad litt. Viii, 12 PL 34, 383.

⁹⁶ ST2a2ae 23, 7 ad 2.

⁹⁷ ST1a2ae 110, 2 ad 2. ‘..since the soul participates in the divine goodness imperfectly, that participation in the divine goodness which constitutes grace has a more imperfect mode of being in the soul than the being in which the soul subsists in itself’.

⁹⁸ ST 1a2ae 110, 2 ad 2 & 3.

⁹⁹ Thomas argues that ‘by grace we were reborn as sons of God. But birth and generation reach their term in the essence, formally speaking, prior to the powers. Therefore grace, formally speaking, is in the essence of the soul prior to the powers’ sed contra 1a2ae 110, 4.

¹⁰⁰ ST1a2ae 110,1.

¹⁰¹ The accidental presence of grace ‘is of a a higher order than the nature of the soul, so far as it is the expression of the divine goodness or its participation, though not as regards mode of being’ (ST1a2ae 110, 2 ad 2).

¹⁰² ST1a2ae 110, 2.

¹⁰³ Ibid ad 1& 2 ST 1a2ae, 110, 4.

¹⁰⁴ ST1a2ae 68, 1.

¹⁰⁵ ST1a2ae 68, 1.

¹⁰⁶ ST2a2ae 45, 3.

¹⁰⁷ ST1a2ae 112, 5 Reply and ad 1. What is known by essential presence is known by experiential knowledge, in the sense that man experiences his inner originating principles by their activity. In note a, and also in Reply, Thomas does not rate knowledge by experience highly – but he says that such imperfect knowledge of God is greater than knowledge of the world (in De Ver 10, 7 reply 5) because through knowledge of God the mind becomes more conformed to God.

¹⁰⁸ ST1a2ae 112, 5.

¹⁰⁹ ST1a. 1, 8 ‘St Paul speaks of bringing into captivity every understanding unto the service of Christ…’ 2 Corinthians 10,5.

¹¹⁰ William of St Thierry calls the union with Christ the ‘true reality’ of the soul, in which it shares, by likeness, in the way appropriate for a human creature, in the processions of the Holy Trinity.

¹¹¹ Jn 17, v 19.

¹¹² ST1a2ae 62,3; 27, 4; 28, 1 ad 3. Thomas argues that ‘In knowledge the object known is united with the person who knows it by means of a representation; but in love it is the object itself which is united with the person who loves its. Love is therefore a more powerful unifying force than is knowledge’.

¹¹³ Thomas argues that love is a more powerful unifying force than is knowledge because ‘in love it is the object itself which is united with the person who loves it’, while in knowledge ‘the object know is united with the person who knows it by means of a representation’. Also ST 1a 82, 3 Thomas argues that, ‘when the thing in which goodness exists is nobler than the soul itself in which the thought of that thing exists, then in relation to such a thing will is superior to understanding. But when the thing in which the goodness exists is of less worth than the soul, then in relation to that thing understanding is superior to will’.

¹¹⁴ ST1a2ae 26, 4.

¹¹⁵ ST1a2ae 28, 2.

¹¹⁶ ST2a2ae 47, 1.

¹¹⁷ ST2a2ae 47, 4. Previously to this remark, Thomas says that ‘we can speak of being good in two ways, materially and formally. Materially to refer to the thing which is good; formally, to mean the very reason why it is good, and it is as such that a good is the objective of an affective or loving power’.

¹¹⁸ Marion, J-L. God without Being, Trans Carlson, Thomas A.. University of Chicago Press, 1995Google Scholar, preface to the English Edition.