Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The divine intellect


A reader asks:

[I] was curious, given your work in philosophy of mind, what you would say is the most plausible notion we have of God's mental content… [T]he popular theories (functionalism, phenomenology, holism, etc) all seem to violate the doctrine of divine simplicity… I have a hard time conceiving of any conception of minds on which the mind is not, in some sense of the word, modular, or complex.  Minds have got to have thoughts at the very least on the most basic, primitivist conceptions, and that seems to require that minds have parts.

A fair question.  Suppose we said (as a contemporary functionalist philosopher of mind might) that a mind is a system of states -- beliefs, desires, perceptual experiences, sensations, etc. -- constituted by their causal relations to each other and to inputs to and outputs from the system.  Such a system (so the idea goes) might be embodied in the neural structure of the brain, or in the circuitry of a computer, or in the eccentric physiology of an extraterrestrial.  Or (the functionalist continues) it might in principle even be instantiated in the states of an immaterial substance, even though (the functionalist will go on to insist) the supposition that there are such substances violates Ockham’s razor.  (To be sure, this is inept, because it assumes that when Cartesians and others speak of “immaterial substances” they mean objects that are like material objects in having myriad parts, only parts that are immaterial rather than material.  But in fact it is central to the notion of an immaterial substance that it is simple in the sense of non-composite, and doesn’t have any “parts” that might “causally interact.”  Anyway, that is how functionalists -- who don’t always have an accurate understanding of what non-materialists actually think -- sometimes argue that their position is compatible with the view that minds are immaterial.)

Now, if we took this sort of view, then it might naturally seem that to attribute mind to God is to assert that He has “mental states” causally interrelated in something like the ways functionalists describe -- that He is a kind of “eternal brain,” only made out of a gigantic blob of ectoplasm (I guess) rather than neurons, silicon chips, or the like.  Naturally, it is hard to see how this could be squared with the classical theist’s core doctrine of divine simplicity.  But of course, for a classical theist -- and certainly for an Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) philosopher -- this whole way of characterizing mind in general and the divine mind in particular is completely wrongheaded.  There are a number of points to be made in explaining why.

First, when the classical theist attributes mind to God, he is not attributing to God everything that contemporary philosophers of mind place under the “mental” category and seek to explain in terms of theories like the ones to which the reader alludes (functionalism, etc.).  In particular, the classical theist is not attributing to God qualia (such as the color qualia we have when we see red and green objects, the qualia associated with feeling hot or cold objects, etc.), or mental images, or the like.  These are (certainly according to Thomists and other Aristotelians) all of a corporeal or bodily nature, and God is incorporeal.  What the classical theist does attribute to God is intellect and the knowledge that goes along with intellect, as well as will.  

Second, at least for Thomists, when attributing intellect, knowledge, etc. both to God and to us, we have to understand the relevant terms analogously rather than univocally.  It’s not that God has knowledge in just the sense we do, only more of it.  It’s rather that there is in God something analogous to what we call knowledge in us, even if (since He is absolutely simple, eternal, etc.) it cannot be the same thing we have.  

Third, for these reasons we have to be especially careful not to fall into the trap of trying to imagine God’s attributes – in this case, to try to imagine “what it’s like” to be God.  There’s nothing it’s “like” to be God if we mean by that a certain kind of stream of thoughts and conscious experiences, like ours but (say) more vivid and encompassing a perceptual awareness of every part of the world at once.  That’s a completely wrongheaded way of conceptualizing the divine, because it at least implicitly involves attributing changeability to God (such as the transition from one thought or experience to another).  Here as elsewhere we cannot properly understand metaphysical ideas unless we stop trying to visualize the realities to which they refer.  To grasp the divine intellect (to the extent that we can grasp it) we have to use our intellects, not our senses or our imaginations.

Fourth, while one might be tempted to conclude from these first three points that God’s intellect and knowledge must be decidedly sub-personal compared to ours, that is precisely the reverse of the truth.  To see how, compare the example of divine power.  When the classical theist says that God has power, what is meant is not that God has what a mere creature has or might be imagined to have – large muscles, political influence, rhetorical skill, or even telekinesis – only more of it.  What is meant is rather that there is in God something analogous to what we call power in us, though it cannot be the same thing since God is immaterial, incorporeal, absolutely simple, etc. 

Now this does not entail that God is less than powerful in the sense of “power” we have in mind when we speak of human power.  Rather it entails that He is unimaginably more than powerful in that sense.  For instance, what has “power” in the ordinary sense has the capacity merely to alter preexisting materials in various ways – to mold clay, or lift a heavy box, or cause an earthquake, or split an atom, or what have you.  But divine power is not limited to altering things.  In causing the world, for instance, God does not alter or modify preexisting materials after the fashion of a human artisan; rather, He creates it ex nihilo.  He does not make an X by taking some existing matter and imparting a new form to it, but rather makes it the case that the whole thing -- the matter and form of X together -- exists at all.  God is not like a human watchmaker, only cleverer and more skillful -- not because His causality is less than the sort represented by watchmaking, but because it is more than that.  Watchmaking is simply too trivial a sort of thing to model worldmaking on.  

Similarly, to say that it is a mistake to try to grasp the divine intellect by modeling it on our thought processes does not entail that God is less than “personal” in the sense that we are personal (as contrasted with impersonal objects and forces like stones and gravity).  Rather, God is more than personal, in that everyday sense of “personal.” His intellect is not inferior to our conscious thought processes (as a stone, gravity, or even the unconscious informational states of a computer are to that extent inferior to our conscious states) but on the contrary beyond and higher than them, just as divine power is beyond and higher than the relatively trivial capacities in created things that we characterize as “powers.”  “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8).

Fifth, we need to understand what intellect is in the first place, and at least for the A-T tradition, it is, even in the case of human beings, not the sort of thing contemporary philosophers of mind typically have in mind when they talk about “beliefs” and other “representational states.”  Modern philosophers often conceptualize the mind in a kind of doubly bastardized Cartesian way.  In effect they start with Descartes’ notion of the mind as a kind of substance in its own right rather than a power of a complete substance (that’s their first mistake).  Then they rework Descartes’ conception in a Humean direction by supposing that this purported substance is really a kind of accidental collection comprised of a number of distinct “representations” modeled on images, or sentences, or symbols of some other sort (second mistake).  Finally, they suppose that these “representations” are as inherently devoid of content as material symbols in general are, and must therefore somehow derive whatever content they have from their relations (whether causal relations, relations of resemblance, or what have you) to something else (third mistake).

Now this is in my view just one more chapter in the long history of compounded errors that constitutes modern, post-Cartesian philosophy, and which I have discussed in detail in The Last Superstition.  But whether you agree with that assessment or not, the conception of mind in question is one that the A-T philosopher rejects.  

Aquinas’s account of what it is to have intellect is summarized in a passage in which he explains why we must attribute knowledge to God:
In God there exists the most perfect knowledge.  To prove this, we must note that intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent beings in that the latter possess only their own form; whereas the intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower.  Hence it is manifest that the nature of a non-intelligent being is more contracted and limited; whereas the nature of intelligent beings has a greater amplitude and extension; therefore the Philosopher says (De Anima iii) that “the soul is in a sense all things.”  Now the contraction of the form comes from the matter.  Hence, as we have said above (Question 7, Article 1) forms according as they are the more immaterial, approach more nearly to a kind of infinity.  Therefore it is clear that the immateriality of a thing is the reason why it is cognitive; and according to the mode of immateriality is the mode of knowledge.  Hence it is said in De Anima ii that plants do not know, because they are wholly material.  But sense is cognitive because it can receive images free from matter, and the intellect is still further cognitive, because it is more separated from matter and unmixed, as said in De Anima iii.  Since therefore God is in the highest degree of immateriality as stated above (Question 7, Article 1), it follows that He occupies the highest place in knowledge. (Summa Theologiae I.14.1)

For Aquinas, then, what makes you intelligent and a stone non-intelligent is that you can have both your own form and the stone’s form -- as you do when you grasp what a stone is -- whereas the stone can have only its own form.  You possess the form of a stone “intentionally” -- in the intellect -- rather than “entitatively” -- that is to say, without being a stone.  In a looser sense, though, the soul “is” all things precisely insofar as it can have the forms of all things at least “intentionally” or in the intellect.  This is one reason why intellect cannot be material.  Material things can possess only one substantial form at a time.  Hence for a parcel of matter to posses the substantial form of a tree (for example) is just for it to be a tree, and for that same parcel to come to possess the substantial form of ashes is just for it to lose the substantial form of a tree and become ashes.  But the intellect can possess multiple substantial forms -- “intentionally” -- at the same time, and without ceasing to be an intellect.  (This sense of “intentionally” is the source of the modern technical philosophical term “intentionality.”)  

Indeed, as the passage quoted indicates, for Aquinas the further from matter a thing is the more intelligent it is, so that God -- as pure actuality and thus maximally devoid of the potentiality that is characteristic of matter -- is supreme in intellect.  Consider also the Scholastic principle of proportionate causality (which I have discussed and defended in Aquinas), according to which whatever is in an effect must in some way be in its total cause (whether “formally,” “virtually,” or “eminently”).  Now God is the sustaining cause of the world, that which keeps all things in existence from moment to moment.  The forms of all things -- that which makes them what they are -- must therefore exist in Him, not in an “entitative” way (since He is not a material thing nor in any other way limited) but rather in something analogous to the way in which forms exist “intentionally” in our intellects.  (Cf. ST I.15.1)

To be sure, given divine simplicity, they cannot exist in Him in exactly the way forms exist in our intellects.  But how, then, are we to understand the ideas in the divine intellect?  For A-T, anything other than God that exists or might exist is an imitation of God.  In creation, that which is unlimited and perfect in God comes to exist in a limited and imperfect way in the natural order.  (Recall the doctrine of divine simplicity, as Thomists understand it: Attributes that are distinct in us are analogous to what in God is one.)  The divine ideas according to which God creates are therefore to be understood as the divine intellect’s grasp of the diverse ways in which the divine essence -- which is one, unlimited, and perfect -- might be imitated in a limited and imperfect fashion by created things.  Aquinas writes:

Now, it is not repugnant to the simplicity of the divine mind that it understand many things; though it would be repugnant to its simplicity were His understanding to be formed by a plurality of images.  Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things understood by it; as can be proved thus.  Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He knows it according to every mode in which it can be known.  Now it can be known not only as it is in itself, but as it can be participated in by creatures according to some degree of likeness.  But every creature has its own proper species, according to which it participates in some degree in likeness to the divine essence.  So far, therefore, as God knows His essence as capable of such imitation by any creature, He knows it as the particular type and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other creatures.  So it is clear that God understands many particular types of things and these are many ideas. (ST I.15.2)

Again, the conception of the divine intellect that the doctrine of divine simplicity entails does not imply that what we call “intellect” in God is inferior to our intellects (as dogs, plants, and stones are each inferior to us cognitively speaking) but rather that it is superior.  What exists in a metaphysically simple or non-composite way in God is not sub-intellectual; on the contrary, it is “Intelligence Itself,” in which our puny intellects merely participate.  (I have discussed the manner in which ideas exist in the divine intellect in an earlier post.)

Naturally, someone who is unsympathetic to the A-T approach to these issues is bound to reject many or all of the metaphysical assumptions underlying these various points.  Obviously a blog post isn’t the place to settle all that.  But we see, here as elsewhere, that you have not understood classical and Scholastic philosophy in general and A-T in particular until you see how radically they differ from modern philosophy across the board.  The errors of the moderns (as we philosophical reactionaries see things) are not just errors in philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and pretty much everything else, and the errors are all deeply interrelated.

501 comments:

  1. The first part--"grasping the quiddity of a thing"--is prior to esse intentionale. In fact, this would be the medium through which the object becomes intentional in the intellect. Thus, you are correct in one sense that the intellect "contains" things, while I am correct that the intellect's knowledge equals becoming the thing known. However, as the tinyurl link and Aquinas's quote make clear, God is not known by the same medium as finite essences. Rather, in the case of God, he is simultaneously the medium and the object (i.e. the thing assumed via intention). The medium is "created grace", which can expand forever. And, as grace expands, the object becomes more perfectly known; which means that the intellect assumes the object more perfectly. Thus are knowledge of God and deification linked.

    The Ground of Union does a better job elaborating on created grace than does the tinyurl link, but I think I'm finally getting a clear idea of how this works.

    With any luck, this debate will be concluded soon.

    It doesn’t, and your interpretation actually presupposes possession and containment to make sense at all. I mean, otherwise, how does an intellect become what it knows? And note that the above quote puts “becoming” in scare quotes, implying that it is not a real becoming, but only a kind of becoming, probably in the sense of the acquisition and possession of a form.

    See above. We're both right.

    Aquinas’ theory of beautific vision contradicts Aquinas’ theory of knowledge, your revisions and evasions notwithstanding.

    Nope.

    Except that he did.

    Not in the way that you're thinking.

    It should do more than weird you out. It should make you question your entire account if you prefer Aquinas’, or you must reject his account altogether for Hart’s account, but then you cannot act like you are defending Thomism here.

    Rejecting that one aspect of Aquinas's account has no effect on anything else. Why would it? It's a tiny detail that is not connected to the rest of his argument.

    Cool. Except that his entire system is geared up towards the beatific vision as the final end of mankind, and thus if he has no account of the final end of mankind, then his entire system is compromised.

    I never said that he had no account of the final end of mankind. I merely said that his idea that man could reach the end of knowledge seemed nonsensical given tradition. Omit that part and it runs smooth as butter--and, for a Catholic, it's likely that it works just fine as-is.

    But do you agree that the whole idea of an infinite drawing closer to God is an incoherent idea? I mean, you are on a road that never gets you closer to your destination, and thus you can never say that you have progressed at all.

    It's possible to say that you've progressed, because you have traveled. Travel is progress. To say that you're nearer to a point in the distance that is infinitely far away is of course contradictory, though.

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  2. Again, the core idea is that the form must be possessed within the intellect in order for knowledge to be possible. Any idea about the intellect becoming a known object only makes sense within the context of a shared and identical form within the knower's intellect and the known object.

    It's really not that complicated.


    It actually is pretty complicated, as evidenced by this long argument we've had. It should be clear now, at least, that we have both been arguing for aspects of Aquinas's larger system: you for the medium, I for the object. You are correct that "reaching implies sharing", but this is to say that the object implies the medium. But I am correct that the object is assumed intentionally in a process of "becoming". As Aquinas writes, the known is the perfection of the knower. In the case of God, the "containment" medium that you discuss is not present, because, per Aquinas, God is higher than that which may be abstracted by the intellect. Hence, to know God, created grace ("light of glory", etc.) is necessary; it is the medium by which we know God. I still have a lot of reading to do about the exact nature of grace (in The Ground of Union), but I think I finally have a better idea of why it's necessary.

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  3. Rank:

    The idea that you would find a contradiction in essence and existence that eight hundred years of philosophers failed to locate strikes me as such a remote possibility that it is not even worth debating. And, if prime matter and existence are in the same boat on this point--which they are--, then I find it even less plausible that you've found a contradiction.

    So, you have no answer to my arguments, except an argument from authority? I could easily imagine an Aristotelian replying to Aquinas’ criticisms of Aristotle using the same line of reasoning as you are using here: “Are you telling me that you have uncovered problems with Aristotle’s system that have not been described by anyone else in over 1,400 years?” If you wouldn’t accept an argument from authority in that situation, then you should understand why I am hesitant to accept such an argument as valid in our discussion.

    And remember that not everyone accepted Aquinas’ positions as valid. After all, debates continued for the next 800 years with most of his positions rejected at one time or another by someone or other. I mean, do you really think that no-one else in the last 800 years who has studied Aquinas’ doctrines has come up with the same arguments that I have? I find that highly unlikely.

    I've only been a Thomist for about a year, so I still have a lot to learn.

    Well, we both have a lot to learn. I think that I have a pretty compelling argument for a contradiction within Aquinas’ system. That does not mean that I am right, and perhaps there is an answer from within the system that someone else can explicate.

    I'm not quite squared on prime matter yet, among other things. But I'm kind of tired of arguing about it, particularly when it seems so unbelievably unlikely that you are correct--given that your account implicates esse as well.

    I know. It is pretty awesome.

    If Prof. Feser wants to set us straight, I'm all ears

    That would be very helpful.

    otherwise, I'd prefer to focus my energy on the Beatific Vision argument, if you don't mind.

    Okey dokey.

    "Takes" means "assumes".

    So you say.

    What's confusing us, I think, is the medium by which the intellect assumes the form. It seems--I might be wrong--that Aquinas believed that every act of knowing includes A) a knower, B) a medium and C) a thing known.

    By (B), do you mean the intellect, or the form within the intellect, or perhaps something else entirely?

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  4. In fact, this would be the medium through which the object becomes intentional in the intellect. Thus, you are correct in one sense that the intellect "contains" things, while I am correct that the intellect's knowledge equals becoming the thing known.

    First, I still don’t understand what the medium is supposed to be.

    Second, you have to explain what you mean what you say that X becomes Y. As far as I can tell, there are two types:

    (1) X becomes identical to Y, i.e. the knower becomes identical to the known
    (2) X becomes similar to Y, i.e. the knower becomes similar to the known

    If you want to endorse (1), then you are stuck with the absurdity that Peter becomes identical to a dog in order to know anything about dogs. So, (1) is probably out. If you want to endorse (2), then the onus is upon you to explain what is partially identical and partially different between the knower and the known. It has always been my contention that what is identical is the form, and what is different is the mode of being of the form (i.e. esse naturale or esse intentionale), and I have backed this position up with a wealth of citations from Aquinas and Thomists. I still do not know what your answer is here. Perhaps you can explain now. What is identical between knower and known and what is different between knower and known?

    However, as the tinyurl link and Aquinas's quote make clear, God is not known by the same medium as finite essences. Rather, in the case of God, he is simultaneously the medium and the object (i.e. the thing assumed via intention). The medium is "created grace", which can expand forever. And, as grace expands, the object becomes more perfectly known; which means that the intellect assumes the object more perfectly. Thus are knowledge of God and deification linked.

    First, if grace can expand forever, then grace is infinite, and yet Aquinas says that the light of glory, i.e. grace, cannot be infinite. So, that’s a problem, which you never actually resolved, except by saying that we can always know more about God.

    Second, you are correct that God is both the medium and the object: “that by which a created intellect sees God through His essence is the divine essence itself” (DV 8.1).

    Third, I would think that the medium consists of (1) the created intellect, (2) the light of glory, and (3) the divine essence as an intelligible form within the intellect. You would need (1) to (3) I order to be said to know the divine essence at all. Would you agree?

    Fourth, none of this solves the problem of how the divine essence can be present within a created intellect as an intelligible form, which is what Aquinas says must occur:

    “in some way or other, and even though it is pure act and has an act of being entirely distinct from the intellect, the divine essence becomes related to the intellect as its form in the act of understanding” (DV 8.1).

    “A created intellect never attains the divine essence so as to be of the same nature. It does attain it, however, as an intelligible form.” (DV 8.1).

    His very essence must become the intelligible form of the understanding which sees Him. This cannot take place unless the created intellect is disposed for it through the light of glory. And in thus seeing God through His essence by reason of the disposition of infused light, the mind reaches the end of its course, which is glory, and so is not in this life.” (DV 10.11).

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  5. Most interesting is the second passage from DV 8.1, which denies that the intellect can “be of the same nature” as the divine essence, which rejects the possibility of a created intellect actually becoming identical with God’s essence as an impossibility. In fact, it argues that the only way that a created intellect can know God is if the divine essence is an intelligible form within the intellect in question. However, that is impossible, because that means that God himself is fully present within the intellect, which would negate his lack of boundaries and limitations, because he would have to be contained within the intellect in question, and thus is equally impossible.

    I know that you reject this account of mine entirely, and claim that the knower becomes assimilated to the known. However, I have contended from the beginning that the assimilation between the knower and the known only makes sense when interpreted as referring to the identical form contained within the knower within the intellect and the known within itself. I honestly do not understand what your alternative to this account is, as it is incredibly vague and imprecise. Furthermore, my position is supported by Aquinas and Thomist scholars, as I’ve shown by a number of quotes above. And here’s more from Stump:

    “Aquinas thinks cognition is a kind of assimilation because he thinks that there is a similitude of the thing cognized in the cognizer. As we have seen, a similitude is a matter of sharing forms, and forms can be shared in a variety of ways. The cognizer is the thing cognized only in the sense that they share a form in one of these ways” (Aquinas, p. 274)

    and

    “The intellect is all things in the sense that it can receive the forms of all things in a suitably encoded mode” (Ibid., p. 275).

    I don’t know how much more clear it can be. Unless you can show that your account does not necessarily reduce to mine, and stands as something independent, which will require you to fully flesh out what you mean by “X becoming Y”, as I mentioned above.

    See above. We're both right.

    We’re both right only because your account ultimately reduces to mine. You have not shown that every time Aquinas talks about possessing and receiving a form in an intellect, he is not talking the language of an intellect containing forms. I mean, what else does “possessing”, “receiving” and “in” mean? All of these presuppose boundaries, and anything within a boundary is contained within that boundary.

    I never said that he had no account of the final end of mankind. I merely said that his idea that man could reach the end of knowledge seemed nonsensical given tradition. Omit that part and it runs smooth as butter--and, for a Catholic, it's likely that it works just fine as-is.

    So, Aquinas could be wrong about something?

    It's possible to say that you've progressed, because you have traveled. Travel is progress. To say that you're nearer to a point in the distance that is infinitely far away is of course contradictory, though.

    First, aimless wandering is not progress at all.

    Second, if you agree that it makes no sense to talk about getting closer to an infinitely distant destination, then why don’t you also agree that it makes no sense to talk about a human intellect becoming God? I mean, your entire account of deification is such that a human being becomes like God somehow. That implies that the human being becomes closer to becoming God, which you have agreed is impossible. So, what sense is there to deification at all? There is simply no way for a human being to become God or to become like God.

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  6. You are correct that "reaching implies sharing", but this is to say that the object implies the medium. But I am correct that the object is assumed intentionally in a process of "becoming".

    But you are just dodging the problem again. If “reaching implies sharing”, then what is shared between the human being and God? And you still have to explicate “becoming” in a way that does not ultimately reduce to the possession of a shared form by knower and known.

    In the case of God, the "containment" medium that you discuss is not present, because, per Aquinas, God is higher than that which may be abstracted by the intellect. Hence, to know God, created grace ("light of glory", etc.) is necessary; it is the medium by which we know God.

    This actually raises an important issue. Why is grace necessary at all? Grace is only necessary if one assumes that it is possible to know God’s essence at all. We already know that it is impossible for a created being to know God using its natural intellectual faculties, because a created being’s intellect operates according to a limited and finite mode of understanding that cannot contain or possess the unlimited and infinite divine essence, as well as for a whole lot of other reasons, some of which we have already gone through. But why not just stop right there? I mean, it seems perfectly fine to say that we can never know God’s essence, because he is too transcendent. I’m sure this position has an important pedigree in Christianity.

    We cannot stop there, however, because it is a core tenet of faith that the blessed will see God’s essence, and thus Aquinas has to come up with a way for this to be possible, because under his system, it clearly is impossible. What is his solution? Grace! Grace somehow transforms the intellect to be able to contain God’s essence as an intelligible form. This remains a problem, because the grace-infused intellect remains a finite and created intellect, and that means that the same reasons that made it impossible for a created intellect to know God’s essence remain in full force, because they all were rooted in the very finite, imperfect and created nature of such an intellect. So, how does grace solve this problem? Shut up, that’s how.

    It seems to me that Aquinas is just saying “and then a miracle happens” here that completely violates the tenets of his system. He still talks about God’s essence being an intelligible form of the created intellect as the very condition of the possibility of knowing God’s essence at all, which was supposed to be impossible, and for excellent reasons. However, simply by waving the magic wand of grace over his account, what was impossible suddenly becomes possible, even though the exact same dynamic remains in place that made it impossible to begin with! It is not that grace allows the intellect to know God’s essence without it becoming an intelligible form within the intellect, which would be absurd in and of itself, but rather Aquinas continues to use his account of knowledge as still applicable in the beatific vision, even though it has been shattered and fragmented into tiny pieces. It is like arguing that triangles cannot have four sides, and then talking about a super special circumstance in which triangles can have four sides after all. It would have been better to just say that the triangles became squares and are no longer triangles at all rather than to pretend that they are still triangles.

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  7. And remember that not everyone accepted Aquinas’ positions as valid. After all, debates continued for the next 800 years with most of his positions rejected at one time or another by someone or other. I mean, do you really think that no-one else in the last 800 years who has studied Aquinas’ doctrines has come up with the same arguments that I have? I find that highly unlikely.

    And I find it unlikely that they haven't been rebutted, given that Thomism has been around for just as long. Regardless, I have no interest in discussing this point further. I have no doubt that, eventually, we could discover why both esse and prime matter are knowable despite lacking forms. But we have been arguing for weeks straight since the virtual distinction business, and I'm getting kind of ready to end it--so let's just focus on this Beatific Vision thing and let it die.

    By (B), do you mean the intellect, or the form within the intellect, or perhaps something else entirely?

    Again: http://tinyurl.com/8pddnfk

    "Aquinas explains the formal presence of the object in the power as by way of species or similitudo; I have left the former untranslated and rendered the latter as "likeness." The species or likeness is the formal medium through which (medium quo) the cognitive power attains its object; Aquinas insists that the medium is not itself the object cognized, but is rather a purely transparent medium through which the object itself is obtained. So in any cognitive activity, there are three elements: (1) the cognitive capacity or power, (2) its object, and (3) the species or likeness whereby the power comes into union with its object. The question at issue here is what could possibly function as the medium whereby the created intellect is brought into union with the essence of God? Any created medium would be inadequate to explain cognitive union with the uncreated God. So it would appear that only the divine essence itself as medium can explain how the created intellect could have the divine essence as object."

    It continues from there. In any case, B is the species, the "likeness", that Wippel is talking about in that quote I keep reposting. It is through this likeness that the mind is capable of "reaching" and becoming--that is, holding other essences intentionally.

    (1) X becomes identical to Y, i.e. the knower becomes identical to the known
    (2) X becomes similar to Y, i.e. the knower becomes similar to the known

    If you want to endorse (1), then you are stuck with the absurdity that Peter becomes identical to a dog in order to know anything about dogs. So, (1) is probably out. If you want to endorse (2), then the onus is upon you to explain what is partially identical and partially different between the knower and the known.


    Peter, through the medium of intellectual likeness, obtains his object of knowledge intentionally. This is to say that the exact essence of the dog is embodied in his intellect (intentionally), but differently than it appears in the dog. So, it isn't a matter of becoming "similar", but of the intellect taking on the same form in a new way. In other words, it's more of that great medieval talk about "modes" that you loved so much with the virtual distinction.

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  8. First, if grace can expand forever, then grace is infinite, and yet Aquinas says that the light of glory, i.e. grace, cannot be infinite. So, that’s a problem, which you never actually resolved, except by saying that we can always know more about God.

    This was resolved. Aquinas lays it out pretty plainly:

    "Even though the charity or grace of a wayfarer can increase to infinity, it can never arrive at equality with the grace of Christ. That something finite can by a continuous increase attain to any finite degree however great, is true if the same sort of quantity is referred to in both of the finite factors (for example, if we compare a line to a line or whiteness to whiteness), but not if different sorts of quantity are referred to. This is evident in dimensive quantity; for no matter how much a line is increased in length, it will never reach the width of a surface."

    Third, I would think that the medium consists of (1) the created intellect, (2) the light of glory, and (3) the divine essence as an intelligible form within the intellect. You would need (1) to (3) I order to be said to know the divine essence at all. Would you agree?

    The light of glory is the medium, as the link (The Treatise on the Divine Nature by Brian Shanley) explains. Using the light of glory as the medium, the intellect is able to "become" God intentionally--again, "reaching" to God. Because it takes on God's existence as well as his essence, this is a much more extreme becoming than with other finite essences; and, unlike with finite essences, the change does not end.

    The only existence of the divine essence within the intellect is the medium, which is the light of glory. This is not exactly the same as God's essence appearing and being contained in the intellect, which, again, is not what Aquinas believed knowledge meant to begin with. Knowledge is the intentional existence of an essence in the intellect, wherein the intellect does not contain or limit, but expands out and becomes. The interior possession that you're concerned about relates to the medium, which really is contained. This is the likeness or species within the intellect. Here's more talk regarding intentional esse, from a Heideggerian take on Aquinas (http://tinyurl.com/9aqufsv):

    "Again, the soul is a radical openness capable of encompassing the world of things and intelligibles, a reaching toward (intentio) that world. [...] It is the soul's ability to be all things cognitionally that makes present those beings under the finite mode of esse intentionale which stands distinct from esse naturae, that is to say to the being a thing possesses when it exists in its own nature, its finite delimited materiality."

    This is what knowledge entails.

    in some way or other, and even though it is pure act and has an act of being entirely distinct from the intellect, the divine essence becomes related to the intellect as its form in the act of understanding

    In other words, the intellect reaches out (through the light of glory) to the divine essence and is deified.

    A created intellect never attains the divine essence so as to be of the same nature. It does attain it, however, as an intelligible form.

    Which is to say that the intellect knows it intentionally.

    His very essence must become the intelligible form of the understanding which sees Him. This cannot take place unless the created intellect is disposed for it through the light of glory.

    The intellect must reach through the medium in order to intentionally become its object, which, here, is God's essence.

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  9. In fact, it argues that the only way that a created intellect can know God is if the divine essence is an intelligible form within the intellect in question. However, that is impossible, because that means that God himself is fully present within the intellect, which would negate his lack of boundaries and limitations, because he would have to be contained within the intellect in question, and thus is equally impossible.

    Again, knowledge is not containment. That which is contained is not known: it is a transparent medium through which the intellect reaches beyond itself to take on other essences intentionally.

    I know that you reject this account of mine entirely, and claim that the knower becomes assimilated to the known. However, I have contended from the beginning that the assimilation between the knower and the known only makes sense when interpreted as referring to the identical form contained within the knower within the intellect and the known within itself. I honestly do not understand what your alternative to this account is, as it is incredibly vague and imprecise.

    The alternative is the three-point theory of knowledge put forth by Shanley. The knower is assimilated to the known (object) by reaching through the medium, which really is in the intellect. Knowledge is when the intellect intentionally reaches up to other essences. Until that happens, there is no real knowledge; containment is not knowledge. As Aquinas says in De veritate:

    "the nature of truth is first found in the intellect when the intellect begins to possess something proper to itself, not possessed by the thing outside the soul, yet corresponding to it, so that between the two—intellect and thing—a conformity may be found. In forming the quiddities of things, the intellect merely has a likeness of a thing existing outside the soul, as a sense has a likeness when it receives the species of a sensible thing. But when the intellect begins to judge about the thing it has apprehended, then its judgment is something proper to itself—not something found outside in the thing."

    This is to say that merely possessing the form or species (the likeness) is not truth or knowledge. It is only when the intellect takes on intentional existence through the transparent medium of the likeness that it obtains truth.

    The intellect is all things in the sense that it can receive the forms of all things in a suitably encoded mode

    This is to say that it can receive forms intentionally, which is to say, once again, that it "reaches up" and "becomes". Stump is speaking in shorthand, here.

    Unless you can show that your account does not necessarily reduce to mine, and stands as something independent, which will require you to fully flesh out what you mean by “X becoming Y”, as I mentioned above.

    Hopefully, I have succeeded in this.

    All of these presuppose boundaries, and anything within a boundary is contained within that boundary.

    A boundary is applicable to the medium, but not to the known. (This is why, by the way, Aquinas so carefully explains that grace has an ever-expanding boundary.)

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  10. So, Aquinas could be wrong about something?

    As I said before, I think he was completely wrong in his treatment of sin (venial, mortal, original, etc.), in his ideas of predestination and in other matters. Every single orthodox Catholic believes that he got the immaculate conception wrong. No one believes that Aquinas is infallible--myself less than many of his followers. I am not here merely as a groupie of Aquinas, despite what you seem to imply. I find his thought extremely well-developed and I take those parts of it that I believe are strong while rejecting those which are weak. As it happens, I've found over time that the strong parts vastly outnumber the weak ones, and our arguments in these last months have really helped me develop that view.

    First, aimless wandering is not progress at all.

    It's very much a teleological directedness of the intellect (or vehicle) toward an object (or distant point). It isn't aimless at all.

    Second, if you agree that it makes no sense to talk about getting closer to an infinitely distant destination, then why don’t you also agree that it makes no sense to talk about a human intellect becoming God? I mean, your entire account of deification is such that a human being becomes like God somehow. That implies that the human being becomes closer to becoming God, which you have agreed is impossible. So, what sense is there to deification at all? There is simply no way for a human being to become God or to become like God.

    That's not true at all. Recall, once again, that Hart declares God both the infinite point and the distance traveled. In the case of grace and deification, God is both the medium and the object: that through which we expand in knowledge and the infinitely distant object that we seek. And, because esse is transferred in this process, deification occurs alongside knowledge.

    But you are just dodging the problem again. If “reaching implies sharing”, then what is shared between the human being and God? And you still have to explicate “becoming” in a way that does not ultimately reduce to the possession of a shared form by knower and known.

    What is shared is the medium, which, here, is the light of glory. How? I don't know the details yet. But, again, I'm reading an entire book on the subject.

    We cannot stop there, however, because it is a core tenet of faith that the blessed will see God’s essence, and thus Aquinas has to come up with a way for this to be possible, because under his system, it clearly is impossible.

    Actually, it's perfectly consistent with the rest of his system. There never was any "knowledge in containment", despite the view you're convinced all of these Thomists hold. Aquinas says it right in the quote I mentioned above: the contained medium is not truth or knowledge. It is intentional existence--reaching, becoming and "radical openness"--that is knowledge.

    This remains a problem, because the grace-infused intellect remains a finite and created intellect, and that means that the same reasons that made it impossible for a created intellect to know God’s essence remain in full force, because they all were rooted in the very finite, imperfect and created nature of such an intellect. So, how does grace solve this problem? Shut up, that’s how.

    Actually, considering the massive amount of material that's been written on grace, I seriously doubt that this is the case.

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  11. He still talks about God’s essence being an intelligible form of the created intellect as the very condition of the possibility of knowing God’s essence at all, which was supposed to be impossible, and for excellent reasons. However, simply by waving the magic wand of grace over his account, what was impossible suddenly becomes possible, even though the exact same dynamic remains in place that made it impossible to begin with!

    This should be proof enough that your understanding of Aquinas's knowledge theory is false. Mine is consistent not only with multiple accounts in the sources I cited above, but with every single quote you've mentioned, including the ones from Aquinas that supposedly contradict each other.

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  12. In any case, B is the species, the "likeness", that Wippel is talking about in that quote I keep reposting. It is through this likeness that the mind is capable of "reaching" and becoming--that is, holding other essences intentionally.

    Okay, so the medium is the form within the intellect. Thanks for clarifying.

    Peter, through the medium of intellectual likeness, obtains his object of knowledge intentionally. This is to say that the exact essence of the dog is embodied in his intellect (intentionally), but differently than it appears in the dog. So, it isn't a matter of becoming "similar", but of the intellect taking on the same form in a new way. In other words, it's more of that great medieval talk about "modes" that you loved so much with the virtual distinction.

    The “likeness” or “similarity” or “imitation” of the knower and the known is a matter of partial identity and partial difference, and cannot be total identity, because then the knower would be the known, and that is only the case with God. When the knower is a human being it must be a matter of becoming similar, because similarity implies partial identity and partial difference. The part that is identical is the form F, and the part that is different is the mode of being of the form F, i.e. F-in-immaterial-intellect versus F-in-material-entity, for example. So far so good.

    But notice how all of this ultimately reduces to my account, and that all your talk about “stretching” and “becoming” just comes down to the intellect possessing the same form within itself as the known object, but in different modes of being. So, I don’t think that you have demonstrated your position, which was that “stretching” and “becoming” are independent of any kind of containment. In fact, their coherence in Thomism presupposes containment within an intellect.

    "Even though the charity or grace of a wayfarer can increase to infinity, it can never arrive at equality with the grace of Christ. That something finite can by a continuous increase attain to any finite degree however great, is true if the same sort of quantity is referred to in both of the finite factors (for example, if we compare a line to a line or whiteness to whiteness), but not if different sorts of quantity are referred to. This is evident in dimensive quantity; for no matter how much a line is increased in length, it will never reach the width of a surface."

    I already responded to this quote earlier:

    First, we are not talking about “something finite” continuously increasing “to any finite degree”, but rather something finite increasing to an infinite degree.



    Second, for the analogy to work, there must be “the same sort of quantity” in God and in the intellect. What would this be?



    Third, it does not resolve the contradiction between saying that X goes on forever, but X is not infinite. They both necessarily imply “no limit”, and so ultimately it comes down to saying that X has no limit, but X has a limit, which is contradictory, unless the limit in the former is different from the limit in the latter. That would work with the line and surface example. The line has no limit with respect to length, but the line does have a limit with respect to width. So, what is the limit involved in “forever” that is different from the limit involved in “infinite”? It seems that the limit involved in “forever” is a temporal limit, and thus “forever” is simply “temporal infinity”. If that is true, then what you have is temporal infinity without infinity, which seems like saying triangular shape without shape, which is clearly incoherent.

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  13. The light of glory is the medium, as the link (The Treatise on the Divine Nature by Brian Shanley) explains. Using the light of glory as the medium, the intellect is able to "become" God intentionally--again, "reaching" to God. Because it takes on God's existence as well as his essence, this is a much more extreme becoming than with other finite essences; and, unlike with finite essences, the change does not end.

    First, I thought that for knowledge, the form possessed within the intellect was the medium? Now the light of glory is the medium?

    Second, if the intellect becomes God intentionally by virtue of God’s essence being present within the intellect as an intelligible form, then that means that God himself is actually and fully present within the intellect, as I have said, ad nauseum. And that means that the intellect necessarily had to have received God within itself, because that is how the intellect knows anything. However, this contradicts his infinity, as I mentioned in a quote above: “the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite” (ST 1a.7.1). This means that God himself cannot be received by an intellect at all, because he is “not received in any other”, and if he cannot be received into an intellect, then he cannot be known, period.

    Third, it is not only a “much more extreme becoming”. That is like saying that a four-sided triangle is just a much more extreme kind of triangle.

    The only existence of the divine essence within the intellect is the medium, which is the light of glory. This is not exactly the same as God's essence appearing and being contained in the intellect, which, again, is not what Aquinas believed knowledge meant to begin with. Knowledge is the intentional existence of an essence in the intellect, wherein the intellect does not contain or limit, but expands out and becomes. The interior possession that you're concerned about relates to the medium, which really is contained. This is the likeness or species within the intellect.

    Exactly. In order for there to be expansion towards the known object in a relationship of knowledge there first has to be the containment and possession of the intelligible form of the known object within the intellect of the knower. The latter is necessary for the former to be possible at all. If the latter cannot occur, then the former cannot occur. My contention has always been that the latter cannot occur if we are talking about God’s essence, because if God’s essence is an intelligible form contained within the intellect, as even you now concede – “the interior possession … which really is contained” – then God himself is actually contained within the intellect, because God’s essence is his existence, and this is impossible, because containment implies a limitation, which is impossible for an infinite being, such as God, which is exactly why Aquinas explicitly states that God cannot be received into any thing, including an intellect.

    In other words, the intellect reaches out (through the light of glory) to the divine essence and is deified.

    You keep ignoring the part where the divine essence “really is contained” as an “interior possession” of the intellect of a finite human being, which is an essential and necessarily part of knowing God’s essence at all. In fact, that is the whole reason why deification is necessary. If God remained outside the intellect, never actually had to enter the intellect at all, and the light of glory was the mediating link between God and the intellect, then you wouldn’t need deification at all. It is only because God must enter the human intellect, according to Aquinas’ own model of knowledge, that deification is necessary, because in order for such an entry to be possible, the intellect must become divine itself, in some sense. Otherwise, why is it even necessary? In other words, the entire account of deification presupposes containment and possession.

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  14. The intellect must reach through the medium in order to intentionally become its object, which, here, is God's essence.

    Once again, there is an ambiguity in “become its object”. Do you mean “become identical to its object” or “become similar to its object”? Here’s what that ultimately means:

    (1) The intellect becomes identical to the divine essence iff the intellect shares everything in common with the divine essence
    (2) The intellect becomes similar to the divine essence iff the intellect shares something in common with the divine essence

    You seem to endorse (2) rather than (1), and thus the intellect becomes the divine essence only in the sense that the intellect contains and possess the divine essence as an intelligible form within itself, which is what counts as the “something in common” in (2).

    And this means that even though the light of glory is the medium through which the human intellect reaches out and possesses the divine essence within itself, the fact remains that the divine essence is within the intellect, which also means that God himself is fully and actually received into the human intellect. Unfortunately, Aquinas himself has ruled this out as impossible, and so the account remains completely muddled and contradictory, even when you include the light of glory as the means by which the intellect knows God. As long as his account is burdened by the necessity of the possession of an intelligible form within the intellect, it remains impossible, because the unpossessable must be possessed somehow.

    Again, knowledge is not containment. That which is contained is not known: it is a transparent medium through which the intellect reaches beyond itself to take on other essences intentionally.

    Containment is necessary, but not sufficient, for knowledge. You yourself have admitted that I am absolutely correct that in order for knowledge to be possible, an intelligible form must be contained within an intellect. There are certainly other conditions required, but none of that changes the fact that without the possession and containment of an intelligible form within the intellect, you cannot have knowledge.

    To be a triangle requires lines, and without lines, you cannot have a triangle, but it does not follow that something with lines is a triangle. Similarly, to be knowledge requires containment, and without containment you cannot have knowledge, but it does not follow that something with containment is knowledge.

    Agreed?

    The knower is assimilated to the known (object) by reaching through the medium, which really is in the intellect. Knowledge is when the intellect intentionally reaches up to other essences. Until that happens, there is no real knowledge; containment is not knowledge.

    I think that I have explained why this is correct, and why it does not help your position at all. Containment may not be sufficient, but it is necessary, for knowledge. No containment, no knowledge. That is what necessary means.

    And knowledge is not just when the intellect reaches out to other essences. If the intellect fails to connect with other essences, then there is no knowledge. It must connect via the contained and possessed intelligible forms within the intellect, and if there are no such contained and possessed intelligible forms within the intellect, then the intellect cannot possibly connect with other essences, no matter how hard it reaches out.

    Hopefully, I have succeeded in this.

    Actually, I think that you have demonstrated by position quite nicely.

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  15. A boundary is applicable to the medium, but not to the known. (This is why, by the way, Aquinas so carefully explains that grace has an ever-expanding boundary.)

    The intellect has a boundary, because it has an inside and an outside. Intelligible forms are inside the boundary. The intelligible forms within the intellect are the medium, and thus you are correct that the medium has a boundary. All I need you to concede is that the intelligible form is within the boundary of the intellect. I agree that -- usually -- the known object itself is not within the boundary of the intellect, but remains firmly outside of it in is esse naturale state. And this usually works perfectly well.

    The problem is when you talk about knowing God’s essence. To know God’s essence means that it is necessary for the intelligible form of God’s essence to be contained within the boundary of the intellect. Yes, I know, that is not the whole story, but it is a necessary part of the story, and it is what I want to focus upon. Since the intelligible form of God’s essence just is God’s essence, and God’s essence just is his existence, then it follows that God himself actually exists within the boundary of the intellect. You rightfully see that this is an impossibility, because God cannot be received into any thing, including the intellect. However, if this is impossible, then a necessary condition for knowledge is impossible, and thus knowledge is impossible.

    Don’t you see that you have conceded everything that I need for my refutation? You keep focusing upon what happens after God’s essence is contained within the intellect as an intelligible form, and that is where your “ever-expanding boundary” and other matters becomes relevant. But you completely ignore and bypass the fact that to have an “ever-expanding boundary” presupposes the existence of a boundary, and that there must be something inside the boundary that connects it to what is outside the boundary. I have offered a wealth of quotations from Aquinas and Thomist scholars that what is inside the boundary, which we now both agree exists, is a form F, existing as esse intentionale within the boundary of the intellect an existing as esse naturale outside the boundary of the intellect, while being the same form F in both cases albeit in a different mode of being in each.

    It's very much a teleological directedness of the intellect (or vehicle) toward an object (or distant point). It isn't aimless at all.

    But it never gets anywhere close to its goal. How can you say that you have progressed towards your goal when you never get close to your goal? Progress is not just movement, but movement that brings one closer towards a destination.

    That's not true at all. Recall, once again, that Hart declares God both the infinite point and the distance traveled. In the case of grace and deification, God is both the medium and the object: that through which we expand in knowledge and the infinitely distant object that we seek. And, because esse is transferred in this process, deification occurs alongside knowledge.

    First, I do not understand what it means to say that God is “the distance travelled”.

    Second, deification is the process by which human beings become divine, which can only occur via grace and the light of glory. However, that is ambiguous, because it can either be that a human being becomes identical to God or that a human being becomes similar to God.

    You clearly reject the possibility that a human being becomes identical to God, and so does Aquinas. That is why he says that although a human being can have essential knowledge of God during the beatific vision, a human being can never have comprehensive knowledge of God, because only God can have such knowledge, which necessarily means that there cannot possibly be an identity relation between a human being and God.

    That only leaves the similarity option, which you endorse below.

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  16. What is shared is the medium, which, here, is the light of glory. How? I don't know the details yet. But, again, I'm reading an entire book on the subject.

    The light of glory is the medium by which God’s essence is seen during the beatific vision. The problem is your claim that God also has the light of glory as the medium by which he sees his essence, and the problem is due to the fact that there is no medium between God and his knowledge of his essence, because he is metaphysically simple. So, how can God have the light of glory as a mediating lens into knowledge of his essence when he cannot possibly have any mediating window between himself and his knowledge since they are identical?

    I think that it is far more reasonable to say that what is shared is the intelligible form F of the divine essence. F is present within the intellect infused by grace and the light of glory as an intelligible form F, and F is also present in God as the divine essence. In that sense, F is identical in both God and the human intellect, but has a different mode of being, i.e. as esse intentionale in the intellect and as esse naturale in God. However, the problem here is that there is no sense in which the divine essence can exist either as esse intentionale or esse naturale. It only exists, because its essence is its esse, and its esse is esse subsistens, which cannot be divided due to its metaphysical simplicity. So, the only thing that can be shared identically in both the human intellect and God himself is something that cannot possibly be shared at all.

    Actually, it's perfectly consistent with the rest of his system. There never was any "knowledge in containment", despite the view you're convinced all of these Thomists hold. Aquinas says it right in the quote I mentioned above: the contained medium is not truth or knowledge. It is intentional existence--reaching, becoming and "radical openness"--that is knowledge.

    As I’ve explained above, the containment of an intelligible form within the intellect that receives and possesses it is a necessary – but not sufficient – condition of knowledge. You yourself have agreed with this above, saying that the intelligible form “really is contained” as an “interior possession”. You are correct that this is not the whole story of what counts as knowledge, but it is a necessary part of it. And as you know, if X is necessary for Y and X is impossible, then Y is impossible. So, if containment of an intelligible form F is necessary for knowledge of an object with natural form F, and containment of an intelligible form F is impossible, then knowledge of an object with natural form F is impossible. And you are correct that the intelligible form F is necessary for knowledge of an object with F, because the intelligible form F is the medium by which we connect in a knowing relationship with an object with F. It is like the lens within the intellect that allows us to know the known object, and without the lens, you simply cannot see.

    Actually, considering the massive amount of material that's been written on grace, I seriously doubt that this is the case.

    Then explain where I am wrong. We agree that no created and finite intellect can know God’s essence, because it is impossible for God’s essence to be an intelligible form within a created and finite intellect. A created and finite intellect remains created and finite even while infused with grace, and thus the very reasons why knowledge of God’s essence were declared impossible remain in effect. Why don’t they obstruct knowledge in this scenario? No explanation of how, except that it miraculously does. Again, that is like saying that all triangles have three sides, but in this situation, this triangle has four sides and yet remains a triangle.

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  17. This should be proof enough that your understanding of Aquinas's knowledge theory is false. Mine is consistent not only with multiple accounts in the sources I cited above, but with every single quote you've mentioned, including the ones from Aquinas that supposedly contradict each other.

    What part of what I wrote is incorrect? During the beatific vision, “the divine essence becomes related to the intellect as its form in the act of understanding” (DV 8.1). Crystal clear that the divine essence becomes an intelligible form within the intellect. Also, “since a created intellect, because present in a created substance, is less perfect than the divine essence, the divine essence bears to it in some way the relation of a form as long as it exists in it” (DV 8.1). Crystal clear that the intelligible form of the divine essence exists “in” the intellect. Finally, he writes that “[a created intellect] does attain [the divine essence], however, as an intelligible form” (DV 8.1). Crystal clear that the divine essence exists as an intelligible form within the intellect. I mean, do you really deny that Aquinas endorses the view that the divine essence must exist as an intelligible form within the intellect as a necessary condition for God’s essence to be known at all?

    Furthermore, the objections to this being possible in this life were rooted in the intellect’s created, finite and imperfect nature. The divine essence simply surpasses the capacities of the intellect to know it. How does grace and the light of glory change any of this? This is what is unclear, and all explanations are simply invocations of a magical and miraculous intervention such that everything remains the same but some super-secret ingredient that suddenly makes a four-sided shape a triangle. I mean, even Aquinas is aware of such contradictions, which leads him to write things like, “His entire mode will be seen, but not entirely” (DV 8.2). How can you see an entire X but not entirely? Doesn’t that just say it all?

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  18. But notice how all of this ultimately reduces to my account, and that all your talk about “stretching” and “becoming” just comes down to the intellect possessing the same form within itself as the known object, but in different modes of being. So, I don’t think that you have demonstrated your position, which was that “stretching” and “becoming” are independent of any kind of containment. In fact, their coherence in Thomism presupposes containment within an intellect.

    After doing some reading, I'd like to revise my position slightly. As it happens, the "likeness" and "intentional esse" and "intelligible form/species" are in fact the same thing. That is, they are the medium quo--the middle step--, in which the intellect "becomes" and "reaches". The object is outside of the mind entirely.

    However, this once again is not containment. The intellect is related to intentional beings but does not contain them. It is, as always, a "becoming". More quotes to support my position:

    "The immanent activity of knowing, then, is that whereby we become, cognitionally, the thing itself" http://tinyurl.com/9azrasf

    "However, later, through an act of abstractive understanding (or “simple apprehension” as many Thomists would say), in abstracting a form from matter, at an intellectual level, a second kind of identity is experienced and known. The inner sense or meaning which belongs to something that is other than a knower begins to live within the inner life or the inner consciousness of a knower. The intelligible in act is the intellect in act. Intelligibile in actu est intellectus in actu. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 14, a. 2, cited by Lonergan, Verbum, pp. 83-84, n. 114. At a deeper level within the human soul, at an intellectual level, a person is joined with something that is other than himself. A sensible material identity is succeeded by an intellectual immaterial identity." http://lonergan.org/?p=646

    "Rather, in cognition we become the thing, in such a way that we do not cease being what we are. This way of becoming another is called the intentional order. In knowledge we become the intentionally the object known, and thus acquire a new perfection for ourselves, the same perfection of the things we know. And since, for Aquinas "form" is the principle of perfection, knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know and thereby becoming one with them." http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/cognitn.html

    "Sometimes, however, the recipient receives the form into a mode of existence other than that which the form has in the agent; when, that is, the recipient’s material disposition to receive form does not resemble the material disposition in the agent. In these cases the form is taken into the recipient ‘without matter’, the recipient being assimilated to the agent in respect of form and not in respect of matter. And it is thus that a sense receives form without matter, the form having, in the sense, a different mode of being from that which it has in the object sensed. In the latter it has a material mode of being, but in the sense, a cognitional and spiritual mode."

    "If accepted, this explanation of cognition in terms of being offers adequate protection against a dogma that has plagued western philosophy since the time of Descartes, namely that nothing can be more present to mind that mind itself and its own ideas. The Aristotelian conception of awareness means that what the mind is cognitionally, is first and foremost and directly the external sensible object. Only concomitantly and in virtue of being the external thing cognitionally, can the mind, as far as cognition is concerned, be itself." http://tinyurl.com/8p2tsdc

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  19. "Here, of course, he is simply reechoing the Aristotelian theme that a cognitive being becomes in some way that which it knows when it cognizes it, and hence that by reason of its intellect the soul can in some way become all things, i.e., all intelligible objects. Most important for the argument is its claim that to be intelligent is to enjoy a perfection and indeed a pure perfection, the kind that does not necessarily entail a limited or imperfect mode of being." http://tinyurl.com/9crbgzo

    Here's another quote, dealing with "possession" of objects both in the Beatific Vision and otherwise:

    "All things, it will mean, are possessed in the beatific vision of the divine creative essence. They are possessed cognitionally in it in their highest kind of existence. Anything missed or sacrificed for the sake of the right or the holy is accordingly never lost. Rather, eternal possession of it is assured. 'Possession,' in fact, may be a weak word here. The 'possession' consists in being those things cognitionally, and not in the comparatively weak way of a cognition that follows upon and is dependent upon the things in their sensible existence. Rather, it is like the angelic cognition in having them as objects in their highest way of being."

    Possession is merely being other things cognitionally--not containment. Regular human knowledge is "weak" cognitional becoming, because it relies on sensible species as well as intelligible species. As we see on this other site:

    "Angels participate more perfectly in God’s goodness, as they are higher in the order of creation. This means that material things pre-exist in the intellects of angels (having been put there by God). As angels are purely intellectual beings and because the existence of a thing is in the mode of that in which it exists, this pre-existence of material objects in the angels must be an intellectual existence (an esse intentionale as we saw in Ia.q56.a2). Hence angels do know material things." http://readingthesumma.blogspot.com/2012/02/question-57-angels-knowledge-of.html

    This is the difference between angelic and human knowing. But nowhere does this tell us that human knowing--"possession"--is not becoming, while angelic knowing is. In every case, the medium quo/intentional esse/intelligible species is the intellect becoming some other thing, increasing its own perfection, "reaching right up to reality" and so on. It is not containment, nor is it limitation. In fact, the entire point of intelligible cognition is that it is not a limitation, but in fact sets free a form from the limitations of matter. Aquinas:

    "Now, the potency of each individual thing is such as its perfection is found to be; for a proper act requires its own proper potency. Now the perfection of any intellectual substance, insofar as it is intellectual, is intelligible because it is in the intellect. The sort of potency then that we must seek in spiritual substances is one that is proportionate to the reception of an intelligible form. Now the potency of prime matter is not of this sort, for prime matter receives form by contracting it to the individual being. But an intelligible form is in the intellect without any such contraction; for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it."

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  20. Wippel on this passage:

    "Thomas's remark is interesting because it indicates that prime matter not only receives but restricts or limits the form it receives. This squares, of course, with his much earlier statement in the Commentary on the De Hebdomadibus to the effect that matter participates in form insofar as it determines (limits) the form to this or that subject. It also indicates that Thomas continues to maintain that act as such, and hence that form as such, is not self-limiting. If a form is present in a given material entity in a limited to restricted fashion, this can only be because it is received by a distinct limiting principles, i.e., prime matter."

    In other words, the intellect understands the form more perfectly, in a less limited way. It understands the form qua the form, without any limiting principle. The intellect is not limiting or containing; rather, it itself expands by being joined to other things cognitionally.

    First, we are not talking about “something finite” continuously increasing “to any finite degree”, but rather something finite increasing to an infinite degree.



    You've gotten confused in the exact same spot as Scotus. Infinity of degree is not real infinity, but is actually finite. Any finite thing could be "infinite" in the same way as God, for instance, if infinity of degree was actually infinite. Aquinas is only interested in infinity of kind. Hence his comparison between a line and a surface.

    Second, for the analogy to work, there must be “the same sort of quantity” in God and in the intellect. What would this be?



    He's specifically referring to Christ the man in that quote, and not to the Son in the Trinity, so it isn't a perfect analogy. However, he is still comparing the holder to the participant. God might be called "grace itself", while others have grace by participation.

    Third, it does not resolve the contradiction between saying that X goes on forever, but X is not infinite. They both necessarily imply “no limit”, and so ultimately it comes down to saying that X has no limit, but X has a limit, which is contradictory, unless the limit in the former is different from the limit in the latter.

    Again, your definition of infinity is invalid in this setting. You're free to argue that infinity of degree is just as real--perhaps more real--than infinity of kind, but, for the purposes of debating Aquinas's self-consistency, it is irrelevant.

    First, I thought that for knowledge, the form possessed within the intellect was the medium? Now the light of glory is the medium?

    Got confused here. Today, I read that there are actually several different types of "medium", and the light of glory is not the same kind of medium as an intelligible species. Apologies.

    As for what the light of glory really is, I'm not entirely clear yet. It is not an intelligible form.

    Second, if the intellect becomes God intentionally by virtue of God’s essence being present within the intellect as an intelligible form, then that means that God himself is actually and fully present within the intellect, as I have said, ad nauseum.

    You're wrong, though. Per above, an intelligible species in the intellect is a mode by which the intellect becomes some other thing cognitionally. It is not a limitation. To "receive" or "possess" another form is merely to become that form cognitionally, without being wiped out. God works the same way, but he brings his existence, too. However, because God remains the intelligible form of the intellect, the intellect becomes him not really (esse naturale) but intentionally. This applies even when God's existence comes along for the ride--which merely results in deification, rather than total destruction.

    Further, because there is no containment involved, it follows that God remains unlimited.

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  21. However, this contradicts his infinity, as I mentioned in a quote above: “the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite” (ST 1a.7.1). This means that God himself cannot be received by an intellect at all, because he is “not received in any other”, and if he cannot be received into an intellect, then he cannot be known, period.

    You've taken it out of context. God's not being "received in any other" means that he is not limited in the laundry list of ways that I usually rattle off. It does not mean that intellectual substances cannot attain to union with him in a one-way manner, because this is not a reception of his form (in a straight sense) but rather a transformation of the intellect.

    Third, it is not only a “much more extreme becoming”. That is like saying that a four-sided triangle is just a much more extreme kind of triangle.

    You don't provide an argument to that effect.

    Exactly. In order for there to be expansion towards the known object in a relationship of knowledge there first has to be the containment and possession of the intelligible form of the known object within the intellect of the knower.

    I got this slightly wrong. The intellect unifies with some other thing intentionally/cognitionally, and, from here, "reaches" toward the object that is beyond cognition entirely. However, there is no possession involved, except as shorthand.

    My contention has always been that the latter cannot occur if we are talking about God’s essence, because if God’s essence is an intelligible form contained within the intellect, as even you now concede – “the interior possession … which really is contained” – then God himself is actually contained within the intellect, because God’s essence is his existence, and this is impossible, because containment implies a limitation, which is impossible for an infinite being, such as God

    1. The intellect does not contain anything.
    2. I was wrong that there was any containment.
    3. God's existence is not in any way limited by its union with the intellect, because that union is entirely one-way.

    Aquinas explicitly states that God cannot be received into any thing, including an intellect.

    Aquinas never said anything of the sort, so no.

    You keep ignoring the part where the divine essence “really is contained” as an “interior possession” of the intellect of a finite human being, which is an essential and necessarily part of knowing God’s essence at all.

    Again, I got it wrong. Not even the intelligible species or form is contained: it is only unified. As Aquinas says, the intellect knows the form according to the form itself, which means that it is in no way limited.

    Once again, there is an ambiguity in “become its object”. Do you mean “become identical to its object” or “become similar to its object”? Here’s what that ultimately means:

    (1) The intellect becomes identical to the divine essence iff the intellect shares everything in common with the divine essence
    (2) The intellect becomes similar to the divine essence iff the intellect shares something in common with the divine essence

    You seem to endorse (2) rather than (1), and thus the intellect becomes the divine essence only in the sense that the intellect contains and possess the divine essence as an intelligible form within itself, which is what counts as the “something in common” in (2).


    The intellect holds the divine essence intentionally, rather than naturally, and so it cannot ever be the same kind of thing. And, again, knowledge is not containment.

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  22. And this means that even though the light of glory is the medium through which the human intellect reaches out and possesses the divine essence within itself, the fact remains that the divine essence is within the intellect, which also means that God himself is fully and actually received into the human intellect.

    The medium is the divine essence, which is the intelligible form of the intellect. It is through this (transparent) medium that the object (God) is known.

    As long as his account is burdened by the necessity of the possession of an intelligible form within the intellect

    It never has been.

    Containment is necessary, but not sufficient, for knowledge. You yourself have admitted that I am absolutely correct that in order for knowledge to be possible, an intelligible form must be contained within an intellect. There are certainly other conditions required, but none of that changes the fact that without the possession and containment of an intelligible form within the intellect, you cannot have knowledge.

    Without cognitional becoming of the object of knowledge, you cannot have knowledge. Very different.

    The intellect has a boundary, because it has an inside and an outside. Intelligible forms are inside the boundary.

    What is inside the soul? As that quote at the beginning states, there is no inside: the soul becomes what it is by union with external things. The idea of an "inside" was alien to Aquinas and the other ancients.

    So, no. The intellect unites with external forms intentionally, which is to say that it becomes what it knows.

    The intelligible forms within the intellect are the medium, and thus you are correct that the medium has a boundary. All I need you to concede is that the intelligible form is within the boundary of the intellect.

    I was wrong that the medium has a boundary, unfortunately. The medium is itself that which the intellect becomes as it reaches toward the object.

    I have offered a wealth of quotations from Aquinas and Thomist scholars that what is inside the boundary, which we now both agree exists, is a form F, existing as esse intentionale within the boundary of the intellect an existing as esse naturale outside the boundary of the intellect, while being the same form F in both cases albeit in a different mode of being in each.

    And I, now, have offered a fair number of quotes to suggest that the intellect does not contain anything, but rather unites with external objects. Even your oft-quoted word "possession" has been shown to be shorthand for this process.

    But it never gets anywhere close to its goal. How can you say that you have progressed towards your goal when you never get close to your goal? Progress is not just movement, but movement that brings one closer towards a destination.

    Progress may be defined as directed change. I would do so here.

    First, I do not understand what it means to say that God is “the distance travelled”.

    God is both immanent and transcendent. This means that he is always already everywhere--even in our movement toward his transcendence. He is not merely present as a distant point, but also in all of the conditions for our trying to reach it.

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  23. Second, deification is the process by which human beings become divine, which can only occur via grace and the light of glory. However, that is ambiguous, because it can either be that a human being becomes identical to God or that a human being becomes similar to God.

    Again, I'm reading the best book on this that I know of, so we'll see if I can't find a better explanation in the future.

    The light of glory is the medium by which God’s essence is seen during the beatific vision. The problem is your claim that God also has the light of glory as the medium by which he sees his essence, and the problem is due to the fact that there is no medium between God and his knowledge of his essence, because he is metaphysically simple. So, how can God have the light of glory as a mediating lens into knowledge of his essence when he cannot possibly have any mediating window between himself and his knowledge since they are identical?

    This section was confused and confusing, and I don't think it's worthwhile to go back and try to sort it out. See above for my new and improved understanding after reading a bunch of material.

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  24. After doing some reading, I'd like to revise my position slightly. As it happens, the "likeness" and "intentional esse" and "intelligible form/species" are in fact the same thing. That is, they are the medium quo--the middle step--, in which the intellect "becomes" and "reaches". The object is outside of the mind entirely.

    Right. To say that the knower becomes the known just means that the knower and the known share the exact same form. In the intellect, that form exists as esse intentionale, and in the known object, that form exists as esse naturale. That is all “becoming” and “reaching” mean. If you deny this condition, then there is neither “becoming” nor “reaching”.

    However, this once again is not containment. The intellect is related to intentional beings but does not contain them. It is, as always, a "becoming".

    The intellect becomes the known object iff the form of the known object is received and possessed within the intellect. Again, you cannot make sense of “possession”, “receiving” and “in” without a schema of containment. And just regurgitating “becoming” does not help, because “becoming” only makes sense by presupposing “possession”, “receiving” and “in”, which depend upon a schema of containment to make any sense whatsoever. Think about it. If you receive X from me and take it into your possession, then how can you make sense of this process without X passing from outside a boundary to inside a boundary, i.e. without a schema of containment? Honestly, explain how knowledge is possible without making any mention of a boundary between the knower’s intellect and the known object. And for bonus points, explain where the intelligible form exists if not within the intellect.

    "The immanent activity of knowing, then, is that whereby we become, cognitionally, the thing itself"

    This just means that the form of the known object is received and possessed by an intellect, and you know that is all it means. And furthermore, you know that is all it means. As I said, when you talk about the knower becoming the known object, this is fundamentally ambiguous between the knower becoming identical to the known object, which is absurd, and the knower becoming similar to the known object, which only makes sense if the knower and the known share the same form, existing within the intellect in an esse intentionale state and within the known object in an esse naturale state. Again, you are fudging the issue by relying upon an equivocal formulation that, when made precise and coherent, ultimately aligns with my interpretation and not yours.

    At a deeper level within the human soul, at an intellectual level, a person is joined with something that is other than himself. A sensible material identity is succeeded by an intellectual immaterial identity."

    This is incredibly vague, and depends upon what is meant by “joined”, and “sensible material identity”, and “intellectual immaterial identity”. I read this passage as saying that a human intellect joins with a known object in a relation of knowledge by sharing the identical and same form, albeit in an “intellectual immaterial identity”, or esse intentionale, as opposed to a “sensible material identity”, or esse naturale. However, the whole paragraph is ambiguous and equivocal, and should be made more precise before it can be helpful here.

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  25. In knowledge we become the intentionally the object known, and thus acquire a new perfection for ourselves, the same perfection of the things we know. And since, for Aquinas "form" is the principle of perfection, knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know and thereby becoming one with them.

    Again, this passage depends upon what is meant by “becoming” the object known. The only way it can make sense is if you mean becoming similar to the known object, and if that is your account, then you have to explain what is partially identical and partially different between the knower and the known object. As you have already conceded, what is partially identical must be the shared form, and this is confirmed by the above passage, i.e. “knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know”, and that once this occurs, we have a relation of knowledge with them, i.e. “thereby becoming one with them”. However, “becoming one with them” is ambiguous, because it needs to clarify what is meant by “one with them”. Could this unity be as a relationship between the knower and the known, i.e. a knowledge relationship? Could this unity be as the identity between the knower and the known, i.e. an identity relationship?

    In these cases the form is taken into the recipient ‘without matter’, the recipient being assimilated to the agent in respect of form and not in respect of matter.

    I can only quote Stump: “Aquinas thinks cognition is a kind of assimilation because he thinks that there is a similitude of the thing cognized in the cognizer. As we have seen, a similitude is a matter of sharing forms, and forms can be shared in a variety of ways. The cognizer is the thing cognized only in the sense that they share a form in one of these ways” (Aquinas, p. 274).

    This whole talk of “assimilation” and “becoming” is horribly imprecise, and ultimately masks a simple idea that you are trying very hard to avoid, i.e. that it is shorthand for the sharing of an identical form in an esse intentionale mode of being within the intellect of the knower and in an esse naturale mode of being within the known object. And the only way that you can make sense of X receiving and possessing Y within itself is to incorporate the concept of boundary. X receives and possesses Y within itself only if Y crosses a boundary such that Y did exist outside the boundary and now exists within the boundary. If you reject the notion of boundary in this setting, then you have utterly drained “possesses”, “receives” and “in” of all meaning, and are left with vague and ambiguous terms, such as “becoming”, “assimilation”, “reaching”, and “stretching”.

    The Aristotelian conception of awareness means that what the mind is cognitionally, is first and foremost and directly the external sensible object. Only concomitantly and in virtue of being the external thing cognitionally, can the mind, as far as cognition is concerned, be itself."

    Again, saying that the mind is the external sensible object is either plainly false or plainly true. It is plainly false if the copula is an identity relationship, because the mind is immaterial and the external sensible object, and thus they cannot possibly be identical in that sense. It is plainly true if the copula is a similarity relationship, and that only supports my account. Seriously, are you really endorsing an identity relationship over a similarity relationship between the knowing intellect and the known object?

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  26. "All things, it will mean, are possessed in the beatific vision of the divine creative essence. They are possessed cognitionally in it in their highest kind of existence. Anything missed or sacrificed for the sake of the right or the holy is accordingly never lost. Rather, eternal possession of it is assured. 'Possession,' in fact, may be a weak word here. The 'possession' consists in being those things cognitionally, and not in the comparatively weak way of a cognition that follows upon and is dependent upon the things in their sensible existence. Rather, it is like the angelic cognition in having them as objects in their highest way of being."

    I don’t think this clarifies the matter of “possession” at all. Can you cite where you got it from?

    Possession is merely being other things cognitionally--not containment. Regular human knowledge is "weak" cognitional becoming, because it relies on sensible species as well as intelligible species.

    How does one become another thing “cognitionally”? Only by sharing the same form, but in an state of esse intentionale rather than a state of esse naturale. Nothing new here, as far as I can tell.

    This means that material things pre-exist in the intellects of angels (having been put there by God). As angels are purely intellectual beings and because the existence of a thing is in the mode of that in which it exists, this pre-existence of material objects in the angels must be an intellectual existence

    Look at what it says: “material things pre-exist in the intellects of angels”. They do not exist alongside the intellects of angels, or by becoming identical to the intellects of angels, but rather within the intellects of angels as intelligible forms in a state of esse intentionale. Nothing here is inconsistent with my account, which is the plain and clear meaning of all these texts that you are citing.

    But nowhere does this tell us that human knowing--"possession"--is not becoming, while angelic knowing is.

    Even angelic knowledge presupposes possession of intelligible forms: “Angels know singulars, when actual, by forms already possessed, not by forms newly acquired” (De Malo 16.6).

    In every case, the medium quo/intentional esse/intelligible species is the intellect becoming some other thing, increasing its own perfection, "reaching right up to reality" and so on. It is not containment, nor is it limitation. In fact, the entire point of intelligible cognition is that it is not a limitation, but in fact sets free a form from the limitations of matter.

    And here you hit a brick wall. A form freed from matter cannot free-float as it were without being immanent in something else, unless you want to endorse Platonism. Rather, the form must be present within something else once it is freed from matter, and that “something else” necessarily must be an immaterial intellect. I mean, “immanent” just means “inside a boundary”, and it is contrasted by “transcendent”, which means “outside a boundary”, and thus the entire Aristotelian account of immanent forms presupposes forms being inside a boundary.

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  27. Now the potency of prime matter is not of this sort, for prime matter receives form by contracting it to the individual being. But an intelligible form is in the intellect without any such contraction; for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it.

    The question in which this quotation occurs is whether spiritual substances are composed of matter and form. Aquinas is trying to understand the principle of potency in a spiritual substance, which is necessarily immaterial and intellectual. He argues that the principle of potency cannot be prime matter, because “prime matter receives form by contracting it to the individual being”. The contraction in question here is the contraction from a universal to a particular, meaning what when form is conjoined to matter, you end up with a particular or individual being. This kind of contraction does not occur in an intellectual substance, because when you add an intelligible form to an intellectual substance, you do not get a contraction into a particular and individual being. After all, “the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it”, which just means that “the intellect understands the intelligible chiefly according to a common and universal nature, and so the intelligible form is in the intellect according to its universality”, which necessarily precludes particularity. In other words, this quote does nothing to support your position, because you are misinterpreting “contraction” here to mean any contraction, when it specifically refers to the contraction of a universal into a particular and individual being.

    You've gotten confused in the exact same spot as Scotus. Infinity of degree is not real infinity, but is actually finite. Any finite thing could be "infinite" in the same way as God, for instance, if infinity of degree was actually infinite. Aquinas is only interested in infinity of kind. Hence his comparison between a line and a surface.

    Let’s put that aside, and focus upon your account that the intellect suffused with grace and the light of glory knows God by an ever-expanding knowledge that advances into eternity forever. As I mentioned earlier, this account presupposes temporality, because there is a transition from less knowledge of God to more knowledge of God that occurs, and any kind of transition implies temporality, because temporality is coextensive with change. Does Aquinas say that the beatific vision occurs inside of time or outside of time? In fact, he writes that time stops in the afterlife: “Time will at length cease, when the heavenly movement ceases. Yet that last "now" will not be the beginning of the future.” (ST Supplement.91.2) It seems that Aquinas says that there will no longer be any temporality in the afterlife, and without temporality, there can be no change, and without change, your account is impossible.

    Again, your definition of infinity is invalid in this setting. You're free to argue that infinity of degree is just as real--perhaps more real--than infinity of kind, but, for the purposes of debating Aquinas's self-consistency, it is irrelevant.

    The definition of “infinity” is just “without limit or end or boundary”. To say that something goes on forever, but is not infinite, is simply incoherent. It has nothing to do with whether infinity is real or not, but with what it means to say that something goes on forever. I think it means that something continues to occur without a limit/end/boundary, which is the exact meaning of “infinite”. So, to say that something goes on forever, but is not infinite, ultimately comes down to saying that something goes on without limit, but it has a limit. That is clearly contradictory.

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  28. Got confused here. Today, I read that there are actually several different types of "medium", and the light of glory is not the same kind of medium as an intelligible species. Apologies.

    No problem.

    As for what the light of glory really is, I'm not entirely clear yet. It is not an intelligible form.

    Agreed.

    You're wrong, though. Per above, an intelligible species in the intellect is a mode by which the intellect becomes some other thing cognitionally. It is not a limitation. To "receive" or "possess" another form is merely to become that form cognitionally, without being wiped out.

    I honestly do not know why you choose the more loose, ambiguous and imprecise formulation of your doctrine. What do you mean when you say that “the intellect becomes a form cognitionally”? I think the most accurate meaning is that the intellect possesses the form in an cognitive mode of being. If you mean the same thing, then the issue is the status of “possessing”, “receiving” and “in”. My contention is that these terms only make sense within a schema of boundaries and containment. Seriously, explain what they mean without making any reference to a boundary. Go for it. And “becoming” is just ambiguous, because you have to clarify whether you mean becoming identical or becoming similar. Until you resolve this ambiguity, your explanation is just equivocal.

    You've taken it out of context. God's not being "received in any other" means that he is not limited in the laundry list of ways that I usually rattle off. It does not mean that intellectual substances cannot attain to union with him in a one-way manner, because this is not a reception of his form (in a straight sense) but rather a transformation of the intellect.

    First, under your account, every reception of a form within an intellect is a transformation of the intellect, which literally becomes what is known, whatever that means. So, you have cited a distinction that makes no difference.

    Second, you have to remember that God’s inability to be received into anything is opposed to his self-subsistent existence. In other words, to exist self-subsistently is to not be received in anything. Why? It seems that the reason is that self-subsistent being is necessarily infinite, because there is nothing outside of being that could limit being itself, and thus self-subsistent being must be infinite. However, any kind of reception of one thing into another is a limiting and finite process, and thus God cannot possibly be received into anything. In other words, it is only because being received into X necessarily implies being delimited by X that God cannot be received into anything. If you have any other explanation that associates receivability with finitude other than mine, then I’d love to hear it.

    Third, what do you mean by “union”?

    You don't provide an argument to that effect.

    If knowledge presupposes containment within a boundary of some kind, then the absence of containment within a boundary of some kind means that there is no knowledge. If this is correct, then it is incoherent to say that one can have knowledge without containment within a boundary of some kind. Simply saying that it is a more extreme kind of knowledge is ludicrous, because it contradicts the core definition of knowledge, much like saying that a four-sided triangle is just a more extreme kind of triangle.

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  29. I got this slightly wrong. The intellect unifies with some other thing intentionally/cognitionally, and, from here, "reaches" toward the object that is beyond cognition entirely. However, there is no possession involved, except as shorthand.

    You got it totally backward, and continue to hedge and use ambiguous phrases to support your position. The only way that an intellect “unifies” with an external object is via the internalization and possession of the form of the external object, but in a cognitive mode of being. Every quote and citation supports this position, and even Feser has written in support of it. Furthermore, the intellect reaches toward the object through the intelligible form. If there is no intelligible form within the intellect, then there cannot possibly be any reaching the external object. It would be like saying that the only way to see Pluto is through a telescope that you possess, and then saying that you can still see Pluto even though you do not possess a telescope to look through.

    Again, I got it wrong. Not even the intelligible species or form is contained: it is only unified. As Aquinas says, the intellect knows the form according to the form itself, which means that it is in no way limited.

    First, the intelligible form is contained within the intellect. Honestly, do you really deny that the intelligible form is within the intellect? And if it is within the intellect, then what does “within” mean if not that it is contained within the boundary of the intellect? What else could “within” mean?

    Second, what does “unified” mean?

    Third, what Aquinas meant was that form is contracted by matter into a particular being, and that form known by an intellect is about the universal nature and essence, because of the absence of particularizing matter within the intellect. This has nothing to do with whether the form is present within the intellect.

    The medium is the divine essence, which is the intelligible form of the intellect. It is through this (transparent) medium that the object (God) is known.

    I thought the medium was the light of glory? Is the light of glory the divine essence?

    And I, now, have offered a fair number of quotes to suggest that the intellect does not contain anything, but rather unites with external objects. Even your oft-quoted word "possession" has been shown to be shorthand for this process.

    First, all of your quotes better support my position than yours.

    Second, you have to explicate what “unites with external objects” means without making any reference to any boundary whatsoever between the knower’s intellect and the known object. If you mention any kind of boundary such that the form exists in one way on one side and the form exists in another way on another side, then you have a model of possession and containment.

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  30. This can be resolved fairly quickly if you just answer the following question:

    (1) Is the intelligible form contained within the intellect?

    If you answer “yes”, then we are done. There is containment, and all my objections stand.

    If you answer “no”, then you have to explain where the intelligible form exists. It either exists within the knower’s intellect, the known object, or somewhere in between. You reject the possibility that it exists within the knower’s intellect. It cannot exist within the known object, because it an intelligible form exists as esse intentionale, and the form within the known object exists as esse naturale. A form cannot simultaneously be esse intentionale and esse naturale within the same thing. Can it exist somewhere in between? If that is true, then Platonism is true, but since Platonism is false, the intelligible form cannot exist between the knower’s intellect and the known object.

    So, your choice is either say “yes” to (1), which means that all my objections stand, or you say “no” to (1), and you are left with the implication that either Platonism is true or that a form can exist as esse intentionale and esse naturale at the same time, which is contradictory. To me, the best option is to say “yes” to (1), and bite the bullet about the beatific vision’s impossibility, because to say “no” to (1) ultimately compromises much more of Aquinas’ system.

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  31. If you answer “no”, then you have to explain where the intelligible form exists. It either exists within the knower’s intellect, the known object, or somewhere in between. You reject the possibility that it exists within the knower’s intellect. It cannot exist within the known object, because it an intelligible form exists as esse intentionale, and the form within the known object exists as esse naturale. A form cannot simultaneously be esse intentionale and esse naturale within the same thing. Can it exist somewhere in between? If that is true, then Platonism is true, but since Platonism is false, the intelligible form cannot exist between the knower’s intellect and the known object.

    Here's a rough analogy: think of the intellect like a key ring. Various keys can be attached to it, but it would be inappropriate to say that they are "contained" by the key ring. Rather, there is a union involved between the ring and the keys.

    This analogy is not perfect, because, unlike a key ring, the intellect really becomes the forms that attach themselves to it. This happens not naturally, but cognitionally--which is to say that the forms are embodied, but by a different mode. Again, though, it's completely inappropriate to see the intellect as "containing" anything at all--the intellect is like an unused key ring before it receives a form. Adding keys (forms) perfects it and expands its function.

    The passive (possible) intellect receives forms through sensible species, from which the active intellect takes intelligible species. Once the intelligible species is taken from the sensible species, it attaches itself to the passive intellect intentionally/cognitionally. As New Advent says, "The passive intellect [...] receives the forms abstracted by the active intellect and ideally becomes the object." The intellect becomes these forms, but not in the same way that a form takes to prime matter. First, intentionally embodied forms are not limited; second, the passive intellect's identity is not determined or limited by the forms, which means that it can embody innumerably many of them.

    Now, I'm about to go a little beyond my certain knowledge here, but it seems like the passive intellect, once it embodies a form, gives rise to the "speculative intellect". Here, contemplation of truth (that is, the conformity between the intellect and some exterior thing) occurs, as in the Beatific Vision. It seems, then, that contemplation consists in using the medium of the embodied forms in the passive intellect to know truth as related to an extra-mental object.

    Once this account is accepted, it is clear that God becoming the intellect's intelligible form neither limits God nor destroys the intellect. First, this is because the passive intellect is not destroyed by taking on any form intentionally--and the addition of esse to that form does not change this fact. Second, the passive intellect does not limit anything, unlike prime matter, and for this reason is capable of taking on infinitely many forms in their true shape. Hence, the Beatific Vision consists in the union of God with the passive intellect (as actuality to potentiality), during which the passive intellect becomes the essence and existence of God; and then, as medium quo, it allows speculative contemplation of the object, which is also God. This process seemingly also includes the passive intellect infinitely becoming more like God, because an infinite essence is unified with infinite potency. And, once I figure out how grace figures in, I'm sure it'll make even more sense.

    As it stands now, though, I think it's clear that Aquinas's account of the Beatific Vision contains no contradictions.

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  32. Here's a rough analogy: think of the intellect like a key ring. Various keys can be attached to it, but it would be inappropriate to say that they are "contained" by the key ring. Rather, there is a union involved between the ring and the keys.

    That won’t work.

    First, it makes no sense to talk about the keys being “within” or “in” the key ring, and yet Aquinas talks often about intelligible forms being both within and in the intellect. Why would he use the terms “within” and “in” when discussing the relationship between intelligible forms and the intellect if this was so highly misleading? He should have said “attached” or “linked” or something along those lines if your interpretation was plausible. But he did not. He spoke the language of containment and possession.

    Second, if an intelligible form in an intellect is like a key attached to key ring, then that would imply that part of the intelligible form was outside the intellect and part of the intelligible form was inside the intellect. That makes no sense, because the intelligible form exists as a holistic unit with virtual composition, according to your own account, and thus it either exists wholly inside the intellect or wholly outside the intellect.

    Third, you still haven’t come up with an account that is consistent with how Aquinas talks about the relationship between intelligible forms and the intellect. He uses words like, “possesses”, “receives”, “within”, “in”, “becoming”, “assimilated”, and “union”. My account is consistent with all of these ways of describing the relationship in question, and yours flatly contradicts many of them. It is quite clear that every quote supports my interpretation, i.e. that the intelligible form exists within the intellect, and that you cannot find a single Thomist that clearly rejects this interpretation. In fact, whether you read Davies, Stump, Feser or anyone else, they all agree with me, and not you.

    Fourth, has any Thomist ever described the intellect like a key ring? Can you quote anyone to support you?

    This analogy is not perfect, because, unlike a key ring, the intellect really becomes the forms that attach themselves to it. This happens not naturally, but cognitionally--which is to say that the forms are embodied, but by a different mode. Again, though, it's completely inappropriate to see the intellect as "containing" anything at all--the intellect is like an unused key ring before it receives a form. Adding keys (forms) perfects it and expands its function.

    Again, the analogy does not work, and you’ve pointed out why. It makes no sense to say that X becomes Y when Y attaches itself to X. X can only become Y if Y becomes immanent within X somehow. I mean, the entire account reeks of immanence, which simply means containment. Forms are contained within individual beings and within an immaterial intellect. What does “immanence” even mean without containment? And you talk about “embodied”. What does “embodied” mean without containment?

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  33. Once the intelligible species is taken from the sensible species, it attaches itself to the passive intellect intentionally/cognitionally.

    Untrue. The intelligible forms are stored within the passive intellect. Aquinas says within and in when talking about this process, and whenever he talks otherwise, it is ultimately reduced to these concepts.

    As New Advent says, "The passive intellect [...] receives the forms abstracted by the active intellect and ideally becomes the object."

    This just means that the passive intellect contains the intelligible forms that are abstracted by the active intellect. It becomes like the object in that they are partially identical by virtue of sharing the exact same form, but they differ in that that same form exists in different ways. That is all that “becomes the object” means.

    First, intentionally embodied forms are not limited

    What? Who says that they are not limited? They are limited in a number of respects. Form F cannot be form G, and thus is limited in this way.

    second, the passive intellect's identity is not determined or limited by the forms, which means that it can embody innumerably many of them.

    Right. But so what? None of this contradicts the fact that the intelligible forms are stored within the passive intellect.

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  34. First, it makes no sense to talk about the keys being “within” or “in” the key ring, and yet Aquinas talks often about intelligible forms being both within and in the intellect. Why would he use the terms “within” and “in” when discussing the relationship between intelligible forms and the intellect if this was so highly misleading? He should have said “attached” or “linked” or something along those lines if your interpretation was plausible. But he did not. He spoke the language of containment and possession.

    This is irrelevant. I already provided proof that "possession" means nothing more than conformity between the intellect and the object. Recall: "'Possession,' in fact, may be a weak word here. The 'possession' consists in being those things cognitionally". Who wrote this? Thomist scholar Joseph Owens. Arguing over the accuracy of Aquinas's use of the word "within" will not save the containment theory.

    Second, if an intelligible form in an intellect is like a key attached to key ring, then that would imply that part of the intelligible form was outside the intellect and part of the intelligible form was inside the intellect. That makes no sense, because the intelligible form exists as a holistic unit with virtual composition, according to your own account, and thus it either exists wholly inside the intellect or wholly outside the intellect.

    False dichotomy, because there is no inside of the intellect. Owens again: "The Aristotelian conception of awareness means that what the mind is cognitionally, is first and foremost and directly the external sensible object. Only concomitantly and in virtue of being the external thing cognitionally, can the mind, as far as cognition is concerned, be itself." The difference is between union and non-union with the passive intellect.

    Third, you still haven’t come up with an account that is consistent with how Aquinas talks about the relationship between intelligible forms and the intellect. He uses words like, “possesses”, “receives”, “within”, “in”, “becoming”, “assimilated”, and “union”. My account is consistent with all of these ways of describing the relationship in question, and yours flatly contradicts many of them.

    The passive intellect possesses a form in the sense that prime matter possesses a form, except without the limitations of prime matter, per Aquinas.

    The passive intellect receives a form in the sense that prime matter receives a form, except without the limitations of prime matter, per Aquinas.

    The form is "within" the passive intellect in the sense that a form is "within" matter, which is to say that it is taken on by matter as act to potency. Likewise for "in".

    The passive intellect becomes, unifies with and is assimilated to the form in the sense that it passively receives a form and becomes that form cognitionally.

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  35. It is quite clear that every quote supports my interpretation, i.e. that the intelligible form exists within the intellect, and that you cannot find a single Thomist that clearly rejects this interpretation. In fact, whether you read Davies, Stump, Feser or anyone else, they all agree with me, and not you.

    The legendary Thomist Bernard Lonergan, summarized by a follower: "However, as questions arise which now ask if a knower knows that he or she is cognitionally joined to something which is other than him or herself and which is truly known (something which exists independently of whether or not it is being known by him or her as a knower), a species of reflection is initiated which begins to reveal that the principle of identity cannot be employed as a sufficiently satisfactory explanation for the kind of knowing which occurs in human cognition. By itself, the principle of identity cannot explain why, in human knowing, a form of self-transcendence exists (a form of self-transcendence which unites human knowers as subjects to objects which are other than subjects but which, through knowing, are participated in by human subjects)."

    Owens, who is a Thomist: "The Aristotelian conception of awareness means that what the mind is cognitionally, is first and foremost and directly the external sensible object. Only concomitantly and in virtue of being the external thing cognitionally, can the mind, as far as cognition is concerned, be itself."

    Wippel: "Here, of course, he is simply reechoing the Aristotelian theme that a cognitive being becomes in some way that which it knows when it cognizes it, and hence that by reason of its intellect the soul can in some way become all things, i.e., all intelligible objects."

    New Advent (the Catholic encyclopedia that hosts the ST): "As the active intellect actuates the passive, it bears to it a relation similar to that of form to matter in physical bodies. The active intellect "illuminates" the object of sense, rendering it intelligible somewhat as light renders colours visible. It is pure energy without any potentiality, and its activity is continuous. It is separate, immortal, and eternal. The passive intellect, on the other hand, receives the forms abstracted by the active intellect and ideally becomes the object."

    Aquinas Online: "Rather, in cognition we become the thing, in such a way that we do not cease being what we are. This way of becoming another is called the intentional order. In knowledge we become the intentionally the object known, and thus acquire a new perfection for ourselves, the same perfection of the things we know. And since, for Aquinas "form" is the principle of perfection, knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know and thereby becoming one with them."

    Seems like quite a few Thomists offer quotes completely impossible to reconcile with your system.

    Fourth, has any Thomist ever described the intellect like a key ring? Can you quote anyone to support you?

    That's my original contribution. However, it's a well-known fact that Aquinas's system does not allow for self-reflection of the kind associated with Descartes. As Owens says, the precondition for self-reflection is conformity with external objects. Hence, it is impossible for there to be an "inside" to the intellect, except metaphorically: the passive intellect is something that is wholly indefinite until it receives and thereby becomes a form. Union and non-union are the options: not "inside" and "outside", which imply the post-Cartesian gap between the subjective and objective.

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  36. Again, the analogy does not work, and you’ve pointed out why. It makes no sense to say that X becomes Y when Y attaches itself to X. X can only become Y if Y becomes immanent within X somehow.

    Form attaches to the intellect similarly to how it attaches to prime matter, only without limitations.

    And you talk about “embodied”. What does “embodied” mean without containment?

    Conformity.

    Untrue. The intelligible forms are stored within the passive intellect. Aquinas says within and in when talking about this process, and whenever he talks otherwise, it is ultimately reduced to these concepts.

    Again, your account is contradicted by numerous Thomists, and "within" can be reconciled with "assimilated", just as "possession" was.

    This just means that the passive intellect contains the intelligible forms that are abstracted by the active intellect. It becomes like the object in that they are partially identical by virtue of sharing the exact same form, but they differ in that that same form exists in different ways. That is all that “becomes the object” means.

    You're grasping at straws, and I think you know it. It's about time you admit that you were wrong--and there's no shame in that. I was largely wrong about Aquinas's theory of knowledge when we started as well, and I have made numerous mistakes throughout this debate. However, we have arrived at a conclusion that must be accepted.

    What? Who says that they are not limited? They are limited in a number of respects. Form F cannot be form G, and thus is limited in this way.

    Limited by the law of identity, perhaps. But you know what I'm talking about. Aquinas: "The sort of potency then that we must seek in spiritual substances is one that is proportionate to the reception of an intelligible form. Now the potency of prime matter is not of this sort, for prime matter receives form by contracting it to the individual being. But an intelligible form is in the intellect without any such contraction; for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it." The intellect understands the form qua that form, without limiting it or contracting it at all.

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  37. And here’s another way to look at it.

    For X to be known by Y, the intelligible form of X must be received by the intellect of Y. Forget about containment and possession, and just focus upon the reception of the intelligible form of X within the intellect of Y. If the form of X cannot be received by the intellect of Y, then Y cannot possibly know X. This holds true whether or not you agree that reception necessitates containment. The bottom line is that reception is necessary for knowledge, and no reception equals no knowledge.

    We also know that “the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite” (ST 1a.7.1). That means that God cannot be received by anything, presumably because all reception implies limitation, and no limitation is possible in an infinite being. You even endorse this position when you wrote that the impossibility of reception is because “he is not limited in the laundry list of ways that I usually rattle off.” Thus, to say that X is received by Y necessarily implies that X is limited by Y.

    If this is correct, then if the intelligible form of God cannot be received by a finite intellect, then God cannot be known, because a necessary condition of knowledge is the reception of an intelligible form within the intellect. And this holds true irrespective of whether you endorse a containment or non-containment account of knowledge.

    Perhaps you also want to reject the idea that an intellect receives an intelligible form at all? So, we have to add “received” to the list of “within” and “in” as words that really mean nothing at all when Aquinas uses them, again and again.

    So, here’s the argument:

    (1) X is known by Y iff the intelligible form of X is received by the intellect of Y
    (2) The intelligible form of God is God himself (because God’s essence is his existence)
    (3) God himself cannot be received by anything (by ST 1a.7.1)
    (4) Thus, God himself cannot be received by an intellect (by (3))
    (5) If God himself cannot be received by an intellect, then the intelligible form of God cannot be received by an intellect (by (2), (4))
    (6) Thus, the intelligible form of God cannot be received by an intellect (by (4), (5))
    (7) Therefore, God cannot be known by a finite being with an intellect (by (1), (6)).

    Notice there is no mention of containment at all. Only the basic principle of (1), which I surely hope you endorse, because it is the foundational principle of Thomism epistemology.

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  38. The bottom line is that reception is necessary for knowledge, and no reception equals no knowledge.

    True enough.

    We also know that “the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite” (ST 1a.7.1). That means that God cannot be received by anything, presumably because all reception implies limitation, and no limitation is possible in an infinite being. You even endorse this position when you wrote that the impossibility of reception is because “he is not limited in the laundry list of ways that I usually rattle off.” Thus, to say that X is received by Y necessarily implies that X is limited by Y.

    You have taken Aquinas out of context, here. He is responding to an objection that reads:

    "Further, what is here in such a way as not to be elsewhere, is finite according to place. Therefore that which is a thing in such a way as not to be another thing, is finite according to substance. But God is this, and not another; for He is not a stone or wood. Therefore God is not infinite in substance."

    This objection, in essence, relates to the idea that God is a being among beings. He's in a dialectic with stones and wood: a mutual negation. And God is in this dialectic, the objection goes, because he is a determinate thing, just as a substance like wood is determinate. Every determinate thing, by virtue of being determined to one state or another and being in a dialectic with other determinate things, is in that sense finite. Aquinas responds:

    "The fact that the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite, shows Him to be distinguished from all other beings, and all others to be apart from Him. Even so, were there such a thing as a self-subsisting whiteness, the very fact that it did not exist in anything else, would make it distinct from every other whiteness existing in a subject."

    This is to say that God is not contained in the various categories that define specific entities. He is not on the Porphyrian tree; he is not under the ten categories; he is not a form received by matter; he is not an existence received by essence; and so on. He is not in a dialectic with stones or wood because he is so utterly different as to be incomparable: this "shows Him to be distinguished from all other beings, and all others to be apart from Him." In other words, that God is "not received in any other" is merely Aquinas's way of saying that God is not limited by anything. But, as I have demonstrated, a form's reception by the intellect is not a limitation.

    Further, recall that the known is not assimilated to the knower, but vice versa. As Aquinas says: "In these cases the form is taken into the recipient ‘without matter’, the recipient being assimilated to the agent in respect of form and not in respect of matter." So the passive intellect is assimilated to God, and not God to the passive intellect: unlike with prime matter, the act is not limited in its reception by potency. Recall Wippel: "It also indicates that Thomas continues to maintain that act as such, and hence that form as such, is not self-limiting. If a form is present in a given material entity in a limited to restricted fashion, this can only be because it is received by a distinct limiting principles, i.e., prime matter." But the passive intellect contains no such limitations:

    "The sort of potency then that we must seek in spiritual substances is one that is proportionate to the reception of an intelligible form. Now the potency of prime matter is not of this sort, for prime matter receives form by contracting it to the individual being. But an intelligible form is in the intellect without any such contraction; for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it."

    Hence, God is in no way limited by or assimilated to the intellect; rather, the intellect is assimilated to and expanded by God.

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  39. This is irrelevant. I already provided proof that "possession" means nothing more than conformity between the intellect and the object. Recall: "'Possession,' in fact, may be a weak word here. The 'possession' consists in being those things cognitionally". Who wrote this? Thomist scholar Joseph Owens. Arguing over the accuracy of Aquinas's use of the word "within" will not save the containment theory.

    But what does “being those things cognitionally” mean? It means nothing but that the intellect and the known object share the same form, except that the form in the intellect is in a cognitive state and the form in the known object is in a natural state. That’s all. Honestly, what else does it mean? And that meaning is perfectly consistent with the containment theory. Seriously, everything ultimately reduces to the sharing of the same form within the intellect and the known object.

    False dichotomy, because there is no inside of the intellect. Owens again: "The Aristotelian conception of awareness means that what the mind is cognitionally, is first and foremost and directly the external sensible object. Only concomitantly and in virtue of being the external thing cognitionally, can the mind, as far as cognition is concerned, be itself." The difference is between union and non-union with the passive intellect.

    First, my analysis was based upon your key analogy. A key is partially inside and partially outside of the key ring. If the form is like the key and the intellect is like the key ring, then the form must be partially inside and partially outside the intellect. If you reject this analysis, then what is left of your key ring analogy? Nothing. The whole point was how something can be part of something else without being inside of it. However, the key is both inside and outside, and thus the analogy presupposes an inside-outside dichotomy.

    Second, all Owens means is that the mind shares the same form as the “external sensible object”. Furthermore, what makes the mind what it is is that it can contain forms within itself and not become what those forms are about. Feser would agree with me on this one.

    Third, you still haven’t specified or explicated what you mean by “union” in this setting. My interpretation of “union” is just that the mind is in union with a known object when the mind shares the same form as the known object, and their union is via a knowledge relationship, which is only made possible by the mutual containment of the same form. In your account, what is united to what and what is the nature of the unified relationship?

    The passive intellect possesses a form in the sense that prime matter possesses a form, except without the limitations of prime matter, per Aquinas.

    That is a bad analogy, because there is no such thing as prime matter existing before the form actualizes it into a particular thing. However, there is a passive intellect before receiving abstracted intelligible forms. And regardless, the limitations that Aquinas spoke about was the contraction of a universal into a particular. That’s all. He was not speaking generally about all contractions and limitations.

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  40. The form is "within" the passive intellect in the sense that a form is "within" matter, which is to say that it is taken on by matter as act to potency. Likewise for "in".

    It is all about immanence. The form is immanent within a particular being just as it is immanent within an intellect. Try to make sense of immanence without containment.

    The passive intellect becomes, unifies with and is assimilated to the form in the sense that it passively receives a form and becomes that form cognitionally.

    Which ultimately just means that it contains the same form as the known object, but in a cognitive state rather than a natural state. That is all “unifies with” and “assimilated” means. A mind is unified to an object when it contains the form of the object in a cognitive state. A mind is assimilated to a known object when it contains the form of the object in a cognitive state. And you still haven’t clarified what you mean by “becomes”. Do you mean becomes identical or becomes similar?

    "However, as questions arise which now ask if a knower knows that he or she is cognitionally joined to something which is other than him or herself and which is truly known (something which exists independently of whether or not it is being known by him or her as a knower), a species of reflection is initiated which begins to reveal that the principle of identity cannot be employed as a sufficiently satisfactory explanation for the kind of knowing which occurs in human cognition. By itself, the principle of identity cannot explain why, in human knowing, a form of self-transcendence exists (a form of self-transcendence which unites human knowers as subjects to objects which are other than subjects but which, through knowing, are participated in by human subjects)."

    And what does this all ultimately come down to? A knower must share the same form as the known object, but in a cognitive state rather than in a natural state, and once this happens, then you can loosely talk about “joined” and “participated” types of relationships. Again, Stump was absolutely explicit that this is what all this talk comes down to.

    "The Aristotelian conception of awareness means that what the mind is cognitionally, is first and foremost and directly the external sensible object. Only concomitantly and in virtue of being the external thing cognitionally, can the mind, as far as cognition is concerned, be itself."

    If what Owens means is that the mind is identical to the external sensible object, then he is absolutely wrong. The external sensible object is material and the mind is immaterial, and thus they cannot possibly be identical. He can only mean that the mind is similar to the external sensible object, and that means partial identity (via the sharing of the same form) and partial difference (via the different modes of being of the respective forms). To say that the mind is “the external thing cognitionally” just means that the mind contains the intelligible form of the external thing, which necessarily means that the form exists in a cognitive rather than a natural state.

    "Here, of course, he is simply reechoing the Aristotelian theme that a cognitive being becomes in some way that which it knows when it cognizes it, and hence that by reason of its intellect the soul can in some way become all things, i.e., all intelligible objects."

    We’ve already discussed this quote, I believe, and I’ve quoted Stump about what Wippel could possibly mean. Again, it ultimately comes down to the fact that the only sense in which the intellect can become “in some way” the known object is that the intellect becomes like the known object in the sense that they both share the same form albeit in a cognitive state in the form and in a natural state in the latter. That’s all.

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  41. "As the active intellect actuates the passive, it bears to it a relation similar to that of form to matter in physical bodies. The active intellect "illuminates" the object of sense, rendering it intelligible somewhat as light renders colours visible. It is pure energy without any potentiality, and its activity is continuous. It is separate, immortal, and eternal. The passive intellect, on the other hand, receives the forms abstracted by the active intellect and ideally becomes the object."

    And what does “ideally becomes the object”? It could either mean that the passive intellect ideally becomes identical to the object or that the passive intellect ideally becomes similar to the object. Which of these is more plausible? It cannot be the former, because the passive intellect does not have all the same properties and attributes as the object, and thus they cannot be identical, and thus the passive intellect cannot become identical to the object. It must the latter, which means that you have to explain what is partially identical and what is partially different between the passive intellect and the object. You have already agreed that what must be identical is the same form possessed by both the passive intellect and the object, and what must be different is the different modes of being of those same forms. This is what it all comes down to.

    "Rather, in cognition we become the thing, in such a way that we do not cease being what we are. This way of becoming another is called the intentional order. In knowledge we become the intentionally the object known, and thus acquire a new perfection for ourselves, the same perfection of the things we know. And since, for Aquinas "form" is the principle of perfection, knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know and thereby becoming one with them."

    Again, you know what this ultimately comes down to:

    (1) The intellect becomes the object = the intellect and the object share the same form, but in different modes of being, i.e. cognitive versus natural

    (2) The intellect is assimilated to the object = the intellect and the object share the same form, but in different modes of being, i.e. cognitive versus natural

    (3) The intellect becomes one with the object = the intellect and the object share the same form, but in different modes of being, i.e. cognitive versus natural

    (4) The intellect conforms to the object = the intellect and the object share the same form, but in different modes of being, i.e. cognitive versus natural

    They are all just poetic ways of describing the same underlying core process, i.e. the intellect and the object share the same form, but in different modes of being, i.e. cognitive versus natural.

    Seems like quite a few Thomists offer quotes completely impossible to reconcile with your system.

    Nope. They are all consistent with my system. No-one comes against containment at all, and actually no-one even mentions containment. All they do is speak poetically about a pretty straightforward process of sharing the same form, but in different states.

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  42. As Owens says, the precondition for self-reflection is conformity with external objects. Hence, it is impossible for there to be an "inside" to the intellect, except metaphorically: the passive intellect is something that is wholly indefinite until it receives and thereby becomes a form. Union and non-union are the options: not "inside" and "outside", which imply the post-Cartesian gap between the subjective and objective.

    There must be an inside to the intellect, because forms are necessarily immanent within something, and that means that they are inside and contained within something. And that does not mean that they are like a ball in a box, but rather that they are delimited by boundaries, which is what immanent means. And you must agree that intellects are delimited by boundaries, because my intellect is distinct from your intellect, unless you want to endorse Ibn Rushd’s system of the universal intellect? And thus if my intellect is distinct from your intellect, then there must be a boundary that divides mine from yours, and thus must divide my knowledge from yours, and thus my intelligible forms from yours. To deny delimiting boundaries is to deny distinct entities.

    Conformity.

    What does “conformity” mean to you? To me, X conforms to Y if X and Y share the same form. In other words, X con-forms to Y if X is in-formed by the same form as Y. Again, nothing inconsistent with a containment theory in which forms exist within boundaries. Again, if you deny that there are boundaries dividing forms in one intellect from forms in another intellect, then you have to embrace Ibn Rushd’s theory of the universal intellect, which Aquinas adamanently rejected.

    You're grasping at straws, and I think you know it. It's about time you admit that you were wrong--and there's no shame in that. I was largely wrong about Aquinas's theory of knowledge when we started as well, and I have made numerous mistakes throughout this debate. However, we have arrived at a conclusion that must be accepted.

    I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong. However, I am not wrong here. There is a simple theory here, and all talk of “assimilation”, “becoming”, “union”, “conformity”, all are ultimately reduced to that simple theory. And that theory is that for the intellect to know about an object is for the intellect to contain the same form as the object but in a cognitive state rather than a natural state. Simple and elegant. Everything else is just flowery and poetic decorations of this fundamental idea, which was nicely expressed by Stump and is perfectly consistent with every quote that you have provided. Provide a quote that explicitly and definitively says that it is impossible for a form to be contained within an intellect, if you disagree.

    But an intelligible form is in the intellect without any such contraction; for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it." The intellect understands the form qua that form, without limiting it or contracting it at all.

    Like I said, the “contraction” that Aquinas is talking about in that passage is the contraction from a universal to a particular being. Furthermore, the bottom line is that any reception involves delimitation. When a form is received into matter, the form and matter are both delimited by boundaries. The matter is delimited as matter having that particular form rather than some other form, and the form is delimited as being in one particular being rather than in another particular being. That is one reason why reception is delimiting, and that is why God cannot be received into anything, as Aquinas explicitly says.

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  43. This is to say that God is not contained in the various categories that define specific entities. He is not on the Porphyrian tree; he is not under the ten categories; he is not a form received by matter; he is not an existence received by essence; and so on. He is not in a dialectic with stones or wood because he is so utterly different as to be incomparable: this "shows Him to be distinguished from all other beings, and all others to be apart from Him." In other words, that God is "not received in any other" is merely Aquinas's way of saying that God is not limited by anything. But, as I have demonstrated, a form's reception by the intellect is not a limitation.

    Actually, no.

    Aquinas’ discussion focuses upon form being received by matter. He argues that when form is received by matter, both form and matter are made finite. Matter is made finite by form, because the form restricts the matter to matter possessing that specific form and not any other. Form is made finite by matter, because that form is restricted – or “contracted” – to a particular being when united to matter. He then writes that matter is perfected by form, probably because act is more perfect than potency, and thus matter’s perfection is associated with restriction, and thus with finitude. He also writes that form is made imperfect by matter, because form’s nature is to be universal, and matter restricts and contracts the universal into a particular being, which means that form’s perfection is associated with immateriality and infinitude.

    He concludes the discussion by talking about how God is self-subsistent being, which necessarily means that his essence is his existence, and his form is necessarily pure actuality, which means that it cannot be received into any kind of potency whatsoever. And since his being is ultimately formal and immaterial, it is necessarily perfect and infinite, because the perfection of forms is associated with their degree of immateriality and infinity.

    So, the bottom line is that God, being pure actuality and subsistent being itself, cannot be received into any created being as actuality into potency, or like form into matter. And that is why Aquinas speaks so generally about this, i.e. “not received in any other” and “not a being received in anything”. To be received into something is to be received into something potential, which necessarily implies some kind of restriction or delimitation, as per his discussion of the reception of form into matter, and since this is impossible for any infinite being, it is impossible for an infinite being to be received into anything, and that must include the intellect.

    Furthermore, as I have written above, to be received into a form necessarily implies restriction, because to be in intellect X and not in intellect Y means that there is a boundary or restriction between X and Y in which a form in present on one side of the boundary and is not present on the other side of the boundary. To reject this is to embrace Ibn Rushd’s theory of universal intellect, which Aquinas rejected.

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  44. Further, recall that the known is not assimilated to the knower, but vice versa. As Aquinas says: "In these cases the form is taken into the recipient ‘without matter’, the recipient being assimilated to the agent in respect of form and not in respect of matter."

    Again, this just means that they share the same form, albeit in different modes of being. That is all “assimilation” is in this context. Stump clearly and explicitly admitted as much in the quote I cited above.

    So the passive intellect is assimilated to God, and not God to the passive intellect: unlike with prime matter, the act is not limited in its reception by potency.

    Of course it is limited, but in a different way. It is not limited in the sense that a universal has become a particular being, but is limited in the sense of being in this intellect and not in that intellect. How can you make sense of that phenomenon without invoking a boundary between intellects? And if there is a boundary between intellects, then there must be an inside of one intellect that is distinct from the inside of another intellect.

    "The sort of potency then that we must seek in spiritual substances is one that is proportionate to the reception of an intelligible form. Now the potency of prime matter is not of this sort, for prime matter receives form by contracting it to the individual being. But an intelligible form is in the intellect without any such contraction; for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it."

    All this means is that the reception of a form into an immaterial intellect does not result in that form becoming a particular being, but rather that the form retains its universal character. That’s all. It does not mean that the form is infinite and unlimited in every way, or that the intellect is infinite and unlimited in every way.

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  45. And just one question:

    Do you deny that if X is received into Y, then X is limited by Y in some way?

    Can you think of any examples that refute this principle? As far as I can tell, whether it is act received into potency, form received into matter, existence received into essence, or any other kind of reception, there is always some kind of delimitation that occurs.

    The case in which we disagree is the reception of forms into an intellect. You say that the form remains infinite even if received into an intellect, but this is certainly false. The basic reason why matter limited form was that matter particularizes form into a specific being. That same reason applies to the intellect, because when a form is received into an intellect, it is present in a particular intellect albeit in a universal fashion, but it is still in this intellect and not that intellect. And if that basic reason was valid when form is received in matter, then it should also be valid when form is received in an intellect, because there is a kind of particularizing going on, but of a different kind.

    Furthermore, you seem to think that the intellect is infinite and thus without any limitations or boundaries. However, the problem is that Aquinas would reject that claim, because part of the reason why our intellect in its natural state cannot know God’s essence is that it is a created and finite entity, and no created and finite entity can know God’s essence, being infinite, amongst other reasons. And its finite nature is why it needs the light of glory and grace to transform it into an intellect capable of receiving the essence of God to have knowledge of God’s essence at all. According to you, grace is redundant, because the intellect is already infinite and unlimited!

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  46. And one last thing:

    There is a reason why there is a distinction between esse subsistens and esse commune. Esse subsistens cannot be received into anything, but esse commune is the only kind of esse that can be received into essence to create a particular ens. And since we both agree that esse subsistens is notidentical to esse commune, then it follows that esse subsistens cannot possibly be received into anything.

    And if that is true, then my objections to the beatific vision stand, irrespective of issues related to containment, which I still consider the only appropriate interpretation, because any scenario of immanence, such as the presence of a form within a particular material being or the presence of a form within a particular intellect, presupposes containment within boundaries for its very intelligibility. But we can put that issue aside, and just by focusing upon the Thomist principle that if X is received into Y, then X is necessarily limited by Y, then you must see that God cannot possibly be received into an intellect.

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  47. Here’s another quote from Aquinas:

    “the acts received which proceed from the First Infinite Act, and are participations thereof, are diverse, so that there cannot be one potentiality which receives all acts, as there is one act, from which all participated acts are derived; for then the receptive potentiality would equal the active potentiality of the First Act.” (ST 1a.75.5)

    Here, Aquinas argues that it is impossible for there to be a single potentiality that can receive the First Infinite Act, because “then the receptive potentiality would equal the active potentiality of the First Act”, which presumably is impossible. Because there is nothing that is equal to the First Act, it follows that there is nothing that can receive the entirety of the First Act. Rather, it must be distributed amongst diverse receptive potentialities as esse commune. Nothing can receive esse subsistens.

    And look at ST 1a.4.1 where he is discussing whether God is perfect, and describes the third objection as:

    “Further, as shown above (Question [3], Article [4]), God's essence is existence. But existence seems most imperfect, since it is most universal and receptive of all modification. Therefore God is imperfect.”

    He replies to the third objection with:

    “Existence is the most perfect of all things, for it is compared to all things as that by which they are made actual; for nothing has actuality except so far as it exists. Hence existence is that which actuates all things, even their forms. Therefore it is not compared to other things as the receiver is to the received; but rather as the received to the receiver. When therefore I speak of the existence of man, or horse, or anything else, existence is considered a formal principle, and as something received; and not as that which exists.”

    Take the following proposition:

    (1) X is received by Y

    The objection says that if existence is “receptive of all modification”, then existence must be the receiver, and thus be Y in (1). To receive something implies imperfection, because it implies potency rather than act. This is because to receive something necessitates the presence of an absence in that there was something missing, existing as a potency, until it is actualized. However, this is impossible for existence itself, because existence itself is pure actuality, utterly devoid of potency. Hence, existence itself itself cannot be the receiver, i.e. it cannot be Y in (1) at all.

    Instead, existence itself is “the received to the receiver”, which means that God must be X in (1) rather than Y in (1). That seems to contradict my position in this discussion that God cannot be received into anything. However, I think that Aquinas is equivocating here between esse subsistens and esse commune. It is not possible for esse subsistens to be received by anything, because to be received by something is to have the received be limited or restricted in some way by the receiver, which is impossible for esse subsistens, because it is infinite and thus without any limits or restrictions. The only way this makes sense is if esse commune is received into the particular essence as the receiver to create an individual ens. Thus, when Aquinas writes that “existence is that which actuates all things”, he is talking about esse subsistens causing esse commune to be received by essences to become particular ens.

    The bottom line is that only esse commune can be received by essences whereas esse subsistens cannot be received by anything. And to know God would be for esse subsistens to be received by an intellect, which is clearly impossible.

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  48. dguller, you're still grasping at straws. I have provided innumerable quotes from every run of Thomism, including material from someone who is even more important, renowned and influential than any of the people you cited (no offense to them): Bernard Lonergan. He was an expert on Aquinas's theory of knowledge, in particular, so I kind of doubt that he got it wrong.

    But what does “being those things cognitionally” mean? It means nothing but that the intellect and the known object share the same form, except that the form in the intellect is in a cognitive state and the form in the known object is in a natural state. That’s all. Honestly, what else does it mean? And that meaning is perfectly consistent with the containment theory. Seriously, everything ultimately reduces to the sharing of the same form within the intellect and the known object.

    The possible intellect becomes the form it takes on. That just is knowledge. How many more quotes am I going to need to supply? You have not scraped together one source that says the intellect contains and limits things, while I have offered numerous sources that say the opposite.

    First, my analysis was based upon your key analogy. A key is partially inside and partially outside of the key ring. If the form is like the key and the intellect is like the key ring, then the form must be partially inside and partially outside the intellect. If you reject this analysis, then what is left of your key ring analogy? Nothing.

    Union and attachment between the ring and the key.

    Furthermore, what makes the mind what it is is that it can contain forms within itself and not become what those forms are about.

    Actually, what makes the mind what it is, is that it can become forms without itself being annihilated by them. That's essentially what Prof. Feser said in the quote you brought up: "The A-T claim isn't that intellects are among the things that have more than one form at a time and can have a form without being the kind of thing the form is a form of[. ...] No, to have an intellect just is to have forms in that way." To have a form is to be informed by that form: to take on that form: to become that form. Hence, Prof. Feser is saying the same thing I am.

    In your account, what is united to what and what is the nature of the unified relationship?

    Form to matter. There's a reason the possible intellect was sometimes called the "material intellect".

    However, there is a passive intellect before receiving abstracted intelligible forms. And regardless, the limitations that Aquinas spoke about was the contraction of a universal into a particular. That’s all. He was not speaking generally about all contractions and limitations.

    Of course he was talking about all contractions and limitations. That's why he says "for thus the intellect understands each intelligible as its form is in it." The intellect understands the form qua the form, outside of any limitation or determination. That's why intellectual knowledge is considered the highest knowledge: it escapes limitations and hints at the infinite. Find me a quote where he says that the possible intellect places limitations on forms.

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  49. It is all about immanence. The form is immanent within a particular being just as it is immanent within an intellect. Try to make sense of immanence without containment.

    Aquinas says that forms aren't limited in the intellect like they are by prime matter, so your analogy here is not useful.

    Which ultimately just means that it contains the same form as the known object, but in a cognitive state rather than a natural state. That is all “unifies with” and “assimilated” means. A mind is unified to an object when it contains the form of the object in a cognitive state. A mind is assimilated to a known object when it contains the form of the object in a cognitive state. And you still haven’t clarified what you mean by “becomes”. Do you mean becomes identical or becomes similar?

    The possible intellect takes on the same form as the extra-mental thing, and thereby becomes that form. Hence, it's identical. The difference is one of modality.

    And what does this all ultimately come down to? A knower must share the same form as the known object, but in a cognitive state rather than in a natural state, and once this happens, then you can loosely talk about “joined” and “participated” types of relationships. Again, Stump was absolutely explicit that this is what all this talk comes down to.

    Stump wasn't explicit at all, and, in all honesty, Lonergan beats Stump in terms of relevance on this subject. I have provided material from Lonergan that unequivocally says that the intellect is joined to and becomes the known. Further, your Stump quote merely repeats my position. Watch:

    "Aquinas thinks cognition is a kind of assimilation because he thinks that there is a similitude of the thing cognized in the cognizer. As we have seen, a similitude is a matter of sharing forms, and forms can be shared in a variety of ways. The cognizer is the thing cognized only in the sense that they share a form in one of these ways"

    There is no such thing as a form that is not attached to anything. And, if a form attaches to something, then that thing becomes that form. Lonergan, Owens and countless others do not back away from this idea. And you, as with the problem of esse, have misread Stump again. To share a form is to become that form in one way or another. There are two ways to become a form: naturally and cognitionally. To become it naturally is to have your entire identity determined by that form; to become is cognitionally is for the possible intellect to become the form, perfecting and expanding your intellect. There is no containment or limitation, and you still have not provided any material to support such a view.

    "The intellect is all things in the sense that it can receive the forms of all things in a suitably encoded mode"

    In other words, it can become an object cognitionally, which means that the intellect expands and so forth.

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  50. To say that the mind is “the external thing cognitionally” just means that the mind contains the intelligible form of the external thing, which necessarily means that the form exists in a cognitive rather than a natural state.

    Which means that the possible intellect literally becomes the form in question. I have Lonergan on my side, here.

    Again, it ultimately comes down to the fact that the only sense in which the intellect can become “in some way” the known object is that the intellect becomes like the known object in the sense that they both share the same form albeit in a cognitive state in the form and in a natural state in the latter. That’s all.

    To share a form in a cognitive state is for the possible intellect to become that form.

    And what does “ideally becomes the object”? It could either mean that the passive intellect ideally becomes identical to the object or that the passive intellect ideally becomes similar to the object.

    It means neither. It means that the possible intellect takes on the exact same form as the mind-independent object.

    They are all just poetic ways of describing the same underlying core process, i.e. the intellect and the object share the same form, but in different modes of being, i.e. cognitive versus natural.

    No, they are not just poetic ways of describing it. New Advent, Lonergan and Aquinas Online are not being poetic: they are being very literal. The intellect becomes the thing known. That's how knowledge works.

    They are all consistent with my system. No-one comes against containment at all, and actually no-one even mentions containment. All they do is speak poetically about a pretty straightforward process of sharing the same form, but in different states.

    No one mentions containment because there is no such thing as containment in Aquinas's system. It's your own misreading of Stump, and, as you say, you have not found a single quote endorsing it. Further, to share a form is to embody that form. There are no unembodied forms: otherwise, Platonism is true.

    There must be an inside to the intellect, because forms are necessarily immanent within something, and that means that they are inside and contained within something.

    For a form to be immanent is for it to be embodied. But, as has been said, cognitional embodiment does not have the limitations of matter.

    And you must agree that intellects are delimited by boundaries, because my intellect is distinct from your intellect, unless you want to endorse Ibn Rushd’s system of the universal intellect?

    There's a reason that Averroes came up with that theory. Kenny addresses the issue here: http://tinyurl.com/9uajh8o. That which makes my thoughts mine is difficult to place under this system. Kenny dismisses Aquinas's theory, in that link, but seemingly on ignorant grounds. It seems that Lonergan (whom he cites) addressed similar problems in far greater detail, and that he reached solutions without much trouble. Kenny is a very intelligent man, but he is also far too stuck in the mindset of contemporary philosophy.

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  51. And thus if my intellect is distinct from your intellect, then there must be a boundary that divides mine from yours, and thus must divide my knowledge from yours, and thus my intelligible forms from yours. To deny delimiting boundaries is to deny distinct entities.

    Per Kenny, it is largely the connection between sensible species, intelligible species and phantasms that make my thoughts "mine". Aquinas covers similar matters here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1085.htm#article7.

    But, yes; Aquinas is far closer to Averroes than he is to Descartes.

    In other words, X con-forms to Y if X is in-formed by the same form as Y.

    I agree. But this means that the intellect literally changes, stretches and becomes that form. It does not contain it.

    And that theory is that for the intellect to know about an object is for the intellect to contain the same form as the object but in a cognitive state rather than a natural state. Simple and elegant.

    First, it implies the existence of unembodied forms, which means that Platonism is true. Second, it is impossible to square with Lonergan and others, who very clearly say that the intellect becomes form. Third, it does not fit with Aquinas's theory of the Beatific Vision, which would be stunningly incompetent.

    Furthermore, the bottom line is that any reception involves delimitation. When a form is received into matter, the form and matter are both delimited by boundaries. The matter is delimited as matter having that particular form rather than some other form, and the form is delimited as being in one particular being rather than in another particular being. That is one reason why reception is delimiting, and that is why God cannot be received into anything, as Aquinas explicitly says.

    And you have failed to explain how the intellect limits anything. Your only example is form to matter, but Aquinas rejects that the intellect limits form in this way. Further, I have already explained what Aquinas meant by saying that God was not received in another, and it is not what you think it means.

    his form is necessarily pure actuality, which means that it cannot be received into any kind of potency whatsoever.

    He never said that, nor would it make any sense for him to say that. Stop reading into Aquinas.

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  52. To be received into something is to be received into something potential, which necessarily implies some kind of restriction or delimitation, as per his discussion of the reception of form into matter, and since this is impossible for any infinite being, it is impossible for an infinite being to be received into anything, and that must include the intellect.

    So your argument is that Aquinas endorsed a stupid, incompetent position that blatantly contradicted his own system, even though an obvious alternative without such problems existed? Are you kidding me?

    Further, Aquinas explicitly says that the intellect does not limit the forms it receives. I have provided quotes to this effect. Find me a quote that says that the intellect's potency does limit something.

    Furthermore, as I have written above, to be received into a form necessarily implies restriction, because to be in intellect X and not in intellect Y means that there is a boundary or restriction between X and Y in which a form in present on one side of the boundary and is not present on the other side of the boundary.

    After some reading, this is actually a really good objection. Your previous complaints have hinged on your fallacious idea that the intellect does not become the known, but rather holds it in a kind of limiting stasis. This, though, is much more powerful: if possible intellects are really different, then how is it the case that intelligible species--including that of the divine essence--that they become are not really different? Averroes made a similar argument, but Aquinas's response does not seem to settle the problem with the divine essence. I'm going to have to look into this. I think it would be for the best if we focused on this point--your other lines of attack are based on your own misunderstandings and misreadings.

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  53. There is a reason why there is a distinction between esse subsistens and esse commune. Esse subsistens cannot be received into anything, but esse commune is the only kind of esse that can be received into essence to create a particular ens. And since we both agree that esse subsistens is notidentical to esse commune, then it follows that esse subsistens cannot possibly be received into anything.

    The entire purpose of deification is that the human soul becomes a partaker in esse subsistens as well, rather than merely esse commune. Aquinas never shied away from this doctrine, so your reading pretty much has to be mistaken here.

    Here, Aquinas argues that it is impossible for there to be a single potentiality that can receive the First Infinite Act, because “then the receptive potentiality would equal the active potentiality of the First Act”, which presumably is impossible. Because there is nothing that is equal to the First Act, it follows that there is nothing that can receive the entirety of the First Act.

    Aquinas addresses the overflow during the Beatific Vision here: http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer8.htm#2. Beware the word "virtual", though, because it's being used to refer to a completely different process than we previously discussed. I suspect poor translation from the Latin.

    That seems to contradict my position in this discussion that God cannot be received into anything.

    There's a very good reason for that.

    However, I think that Aquinas is equivocating here between esse subsistens and esse commune. It is not possible for esse subsistens to be received by anything, because to be received by something is to have the received be limited or restricted in some way by the receiver, which is impossible for esse subsistens, because it is infinite and thus without any limits or restrictions.

    Esse is restricted by essence, form by matter; but God does not join with the intellect in this way. He joins through the possible intellect, which does not have limitations: it is capable of receiving something as it is. The only question, again, is how God can remain one and yet be the intelligible form of different intellects. This is the key problem you've raised, and I'm not entirely sure how to work it out yet.

    The bottom line is that only esse commune can be received by essences whereas esse subsistens cannot be received by anything.

    You still haven't found a single source that confirms this view.

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  54. Let me see if I can lay this out simply. I am paraphrasing a large body of material I have been reading in the past few days.

    First, knowledge is the union of the possible intellect with an intelligible species. The possible intellect stands as matter to the species's form, or potency to its act. The possible intellect is completely indeterminate in itself--it has no form at all--, but it is united to the soul as a power; and so it is individuated. After the agent intellect takes an intelligible species from a phantasm, it unifies with the possible intellect.

    Second, because an intelligible species is within a particular possible intellect, it also must be particular. This is not to say that it is limited by the intellect: an intelligible form can only exist as particularized, whether materially or cognitionally. But, unlike prime matter, the possible intellect does not place limitations; rather, it understands things in themselves by becoming them. Further, despite having a particularized medium, the intellect's object is not particular, because the medium points to universal and mind-independent things. Hence, the unity of a particular possible intellect (1) with a particular intelligible species (2) leads to knowledge of a universal object (3).

    Third, the intellect in its normal state is incapable of receiving the divine essence. Unlike the intellects of angels, the human intellect is far too weak and lowly by default. Its "obediential potency"--which can expand infinitely--must be actualized by God, deifying the person in question, before any union is possible. Obediential potency appears to be the capacity for miracles: God's ability to transcend the natural order. Aquinas also connects it to prophecies, and I've seen it connected to the eucharist. Through obediential potency, God elevates the soul nearer to his level, so that its possible intellect can take on the divine essence. There is a tight connection between deification, visions of God's essence and the grace afforded by obediential potency--each seems to be separate, but having one means having the other two.

    Fourth, during the Beatific Vision, God enters the possible intellect in the way that an intelligible species would. This is to say that the possible intellect becomes God. However, this is, again, not a limitation. God is already particular, and the intellect has no restrictions: it knows things as they are. Intelligible species are particular by nature--the intellect does not limit them to particularity. God is also particular by nature. The key difference is that, unlike an intelligible form, God is not "limited" to this or that intellect because he exists outside of the mind as well as within it. As a result, the intellect can join with him without him being limited to the intellect.

    Again, Aquinas explicitly says that the intellect does not limit anything. You have yet to find a single source to back up your claim that knowledge means limitation.

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  55. My posting will be limited for the next few days. I have a presentation on Friday that’s going to demand my attention.

    I’m happy to focus upon the argument of mine that you have found so interesting. I look forward to your responses.

    But before we move on, I just wanted to offer one last attempt to show that Aquinas rejects the idea that esse subsistens can be possessed by a finite intellect. G-L writes:

    “An act, a perfection, which in its own order is of itself unlimited (for example, existence or wisdom or love) cannot in fact be limited except by something else not of its own order, something which is related to that perfection and gives the reason for that limitation. Now, nothing else can be assigned as limiting that act, that perfection, except the real potency, the capacity for receiving that act, that perfection. Therefore that act, as perfection of itself unlimited, cannot be limited except by the potency which receives that act.”

    G-L argues that act is limited by potency. If the intellect has a potency for the act of the acquisition of an intelligible form, then the act of the acquisition of an intelligible form by the intellect necessarily results in the limitation of the intelligible form by the potency of the intellect. It would have to follow that when an intellect receives a form that this is akin to a potency receiving an act, and thus what is received as act is necessarily limited by the potency. If the intelligible form that is received by the intellect is God himself, then God himself must be limited by the potency of the intellect during the acquisition. This is impossible due to the infinitude of God, and thus it is impossible for God to be received by an intellect. Thus, it is impossible to know God at all.

    Is this a more acceptable formulation of my argument?

    I mean, I agree that the intellect is infinite in that it can receive an infinite number of intelligible forms, but it certainly limits the intelligible forms that it receives by virtue of particularizing them into this particular intellect versus that particular intellect. And if that can be generalized into an argument based upon act and potency, then G-L’s quote becomes particularly salient.

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  56. Good news! My presentation is actually next Friday, and so I can continue this discussion.

    I’ll respond to your last post, but first wanted your comments on the following ideas that I’ve been pondering about our discussion. Let me know what you think.

    I think that you will agree that Aquinas implicitly endorses the idea that if X particularizes Y in some way, then X limits Y in some way. That is why he says that form limits matter (i.e. by particularizing matter as possessing that particular form and not any other), and that matter limits form (i.e. by particularizing that form as being present within that particular chunk of matter). That is also why he says that essence limits esse (i.e. by particularizing esse as being united to this particular essence and not any other). Without that key assumption, his arguments about these issues are completely invalid.

    So, if you accept the principle that if X particularizes Y in some way, then X limits Y in some way, then if the intellect particularizes the intelligible forms within it (i.e. as being present in this particular intellect rather than that particular intellect), then it necessarily follows that the intellect must limit the intelligible forms within it.

    Furthermore, that is why Aquinas tries to argue that despite the fact that God is unlimited, he is still particular in a way by being the only being that is absolutely unlimited, and thus stands in a category all by himself as a unique member, to put the matter loosely. He has to make this move at all, because of the principle that I have highlighted above, i.e. the connection between particularization and limitation, and he certainly wants to endorse God’s particularity as utterly unique and transcendent while also endorsing his infinite and lack of any limitation. This just speaks to the central place of the principle to Thomism.

    So, irrespective of whether Aquinas or any other Thomist explicitly endorses my interpretation, I think that it is the only interpretation that is logically implicated by other fundamental aspects of his system. And if my interpretation is correct, then it is logically and metaphysically impossible for God himself to be received by the intellect, because that would necessarily particularize his intelligible form, and thus delimit it, which is impossible by virtue of his infinitude. To say that God miraculously transforms the intellect to be able to receive God himself into itself in some way would be akin to saying that God miraculous transforms a three-sided triangle into a four-sided triangle. It is logically impossible, and God cannot do the logically impossible, which is another Thomist principle.

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  57. G-L argues that act is limited by potency. If the intellect has a potency for the act of the acquisition of an intelligible form, then the act of the acquisition of an intelligible form by the intellect necessarily results in the limitation of the intelligible form by the potency of the intellect. It would have to follow that when an intellect receives a form that this is akin to a potency receiving an act, and thus what is received as act is necessarily limited by the potency.

    However, G-L is not talking about the intellect, which is clearly a special case. Unlike all other types of becoming, this one is cognitional. Aquinas specifically rejects the idea that the possible intellect limits forms in the way that matter does. While he does not bring up the essence-existence distinction, I don't think that he would agree that intelligible species are limited according to the intellect as esse is limited by essence. He states that the possible intellect knows forms as they are. In fact, anything less would not be real knowledge, but would instead entail radical subjectivism.

    I mean, I agree that the intellect is infinite in that it can receive an infinite number of intelligible forms, but it certainly limits the intelligible forms that it receives by virtue of particularizing them into this particular intellect versus that particular intellect.

    The question is whether or not particularization in itself is limitation. From what I can tell, all intelligible species and embodied forms generally are "numerically distinct". This appears to be a technical distinction that implies that things can be different without changing species. Hence, every intelligible species is numerically distinct from all others, but they are not really different things. Avicenna:

    "This form, although a universal in relation to individuals, is an individual in relation to the particular soul in which it is imprinted, being one of the forms of the mind. And, because individual souls are numerically many, it is possible for this universal form to be numerically many from the aspect that it is individual."

    Basically, a form is numerically distinct no matter where it is. As Aquinas says, even if Plato's universal ideas or Averroes's all-encompassing possible intellect existed, they would remain numerically distinct, individual things. There is no such thing as a non-individual form. Hence, the intellect does not limit anything, but takes on forms in the only way that they can exist at all: individually.

    Obviously, certain exceptions must be made in the case of essences virtually within the divine essence, because these are not really but only virtually distinct.

    So, if you accept the principle that if X particularizes Y in some way, then X limits Y in some way, then if the intellect particularizes the intelligible forms within it (i.e. as being present in this particular intellect rather than that particular intellect), then it necessarily follows that the intellect must limit the intelligible forms within it.

    If there is no such thing as a non-individual form, then particularization in this case cannot be seen as limitation. If this is true, then the only way that a form could be limited is by being made less than it is. However, the intellect does not know forms as less than they are, but only as they are: numerically particular. Hence, it does not seem viable to say that the intellect limits forms.

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  58. However, G-L is not talking about the intellect, which is clearly a special case. Unlike all other types of becoming, this one is cognitional.

    But the bottom line is that there is no principled reason to make the intellect to be a special case. It would be an utterly ad hoc move without the kind of logical and metaphysical necessity that is supposed to be characteristic of Thomism.

    Aquinas specifically rejects the idea that the possible intellect limits forms in the way that matter does.

    Just because the possible intellect does not limit forms in the same way as matter does not mean that it does not limit forms in any other way. There are a number of different kinds of limitation in Thomism: form limits matter, matter limits form, essence limits existence, potency limits act, and so on.

    Furthermore, the possible intellect clearly does limit the form by uniting it to a particular intellect, and thus it necessarily follows that there is a kind of limitation imposed upon the form in question, irrespective of whether that limitation is in the same way as matter limits form. After all, limitation implies a boundary of some kind, and there is a boundary between intellects such that what is in one intellect is not necessarily in another intellect.

    I suppose that you could just say that even though there is a limitation imposed upon the received form by the receiving intellect, it is not the right kind of limitation. In other words, you could say exactly what was said regarding the virtual multiplicity within the divine simplicity. Yes, there is composition, but it is the wrong kind of composition, and thus divine simplicity is preserved even in the face of a kind of composition. As you know, I don’t find this even remotely compelling, and it seems arbitrarily imposed in order to preserve the system.

    But even that move wouldn’t work here, because God is absolutely infinite in the sense that there is no sense in which he can be said to have any boundaries or limits. Everything else that is infinite is only relatively infinite in the sense that a relatively infinite X is infinite in some ways but finite in other ways. For example, a line can be infinite in length, but finite in width. The intellect must be a relatively infinite entity, because only God is absolutely infinite, and this makes sense, because the intellect is infinite in the sense that it can receive an infinite number of possible forms, but the intellect is finite in that each intellect is limited in its existence by God, is particularly attached to a specific person and no other, receives some forms and not others, and so on.

    If this is correct, then for God to be received by an intellect would mean that the absolutely infinite would have to be received by the relatively infinite. But this is impossible, because the absolutely infinite cannot be bounded or limited in any way, and yet if it was received by a relatively infinite intellect, then it would be bounded or limited in some ways, i.e. it would be present in this intellect, but not that intellect, it would be attached to this person and not that person, and so on. Since it is impossible for the absolutely infinite to be received by the relatively infinite, it follows that it is impossible for God to be received into the intellect of a finite being.

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  59. He states that the possible intellect knows forms as they are. In fact, anything less would not be real knowledge, but would instead entail radical subjectivism.

    One can still endorse that the possible intellect knows things “as they are”, i.e. as universals, but as limited by a particular intellect. I mean, the form of “dogness” is still a universal even while present in a particular dog. It is just a universal within a material being whereas a cognitive form is a universal within an immaterial intellect. They are both still universals, but embodied in different ways.

    The question is whether or not particularization in itself is limitation. From what I can tell, all intelligible species and embodied forms generally are "numerically distinct". This appears to be a technical distinction that implies that things can be different without changing species. Hence, every intelligible species is numerically distinct from all others, but they are not really different things.

    I have no idea what this means. How can X be distinct from Y but X is not different from Y? What is the basis for the distinction then?

    Basically, a form is numerically distinct no matter where it is. As Aquinas says, even if Plato's universal ideas or Averroes's all-encompassing possible intellect existed, they would remain numerically distinct, individual things. There is no such thing as a non-individual form. Hence, the intellect does not limit anything, but takes on forms in the only way that they can exist at all: individually.

    First, without the general principle that particularization implies limitation, then how can Aquinas argue that form limits matter, matter limits form, potency limits act, and essence limits existence? All of these limitations presuppose particularization as the reason for limitation.

    Second, each form can be infinite and finite, but in different ways. On the one hand, each form is infinite in that it can be embodied in an infinite number of possible beings. On the other hand, each form is finite in that each form is “numerically distinct” from other forms, i.e. form F is form F and not form G or form H or form I, and thus cannot be an infinite number of other forms. So, it depends upon what the precise sense of “limit” one is utilizing here.

    Third, even to say that a form is unlimited is not strictly speaking true. After all, the intelligible form of a particular angel is not infinite in the sense of being potentially the form of an infinite number of particular beings. Instead, each angel has an intelligible form that only applies to that particular and specific angel, and not to any other. So, even the general principle that a form is unlimited is not universal.

    Obviously, certain exceptions must be made in the case of essences virtually within the divine essence, because these are not really but only virtually distinct.

    Apparently, exceptions can be made to any rule.

    If there is no such thing as a non-individual form, then particularization in this case cannot be seen as limitation. If this is true, then the only way that a form could be limited is by being made less than it is. However, the intellect does not know forms as less than they are, but only as they are: numerically particular. Hence, it does not seem viable to say that the intellect limits forms.

    First, I agree that each form necessarily exists as immanent within a particular being, whether material or immaterial.

    Second, I do not understand what you mean by saying that a form becomes “less than it is”? “Less” in what sense?

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  60. But the bottom line is that there is no principled reason to make the intellect to be a special case. It would be an utterly ad hoc move without the kind of logical and metaphysical necessity that is supposed to be characteristic of Thomism.

    Why would it be ad hoc, when cognitional, intentional existence is utterly different than all other kinds of existence? Merely stating your opinion is not an argument. You have not found me a single quote that explicitly states that the intellect limits forms. Not one. Not even a hint of one. Nor have you provided a solid reason to believe that the intellect limits forms, given Aquinas's own comments and the massive difference between intentional and natural existence. As a result, I have no reason to think that Aquinas thought of cognitional existence as a limitation. Whether or not he was correct remains to be seen.

    Just because the possible intellect does not limit forms in the same way as matter does not mean that it does not limit forms in any other way. There are a number of different kinds of limitation in Thomism: form limits matter, matter limits form, essence limits existence, potency limits act, and so on.

    Matter limits form by making it other than it is in itself--likewise for essence and existence. Essence makes existence other than it is on its own; form makes matter other than it is on its own. But the intellect does not do this to intelligible species: it knows them as they are. While form determines and is determined by matter, and essence determines and is determined by existence, the intellect is determined by but does not determine intelligible species.

    Restriction, for Aquinas, is primarily when something is made other than it is in itself. This is why God is unlimited: he is in himself everything that he is--ipsum actus essendi subsistens. He is above every category that might restrict him. Restriction is not determinacy--as Hart says, God is "infinitely determinate"--, nor is it particularity, which is required by the law of identity. Everything is something--even God. As Oderberg says, there is no such thing as an "amorphous lump":

    "[...] the 'amorphous lump' theory of reality, according to which there are objects (better, one big object) that do not have an identity as something or other, which do not fall under some sortal or into some kind."

    So, even God is not an amorphous lump, an indeterminate entity. He is completely determinate, but that determinacy is of a kind so pure that it is incomprehensible to a created intellect. If Aquinas thought that particularity was a limitation, then God would be limited.

    Now, pretty much all created things fall under the ten categories, the Porphyrian tree, the essence-existence distinction and so forth. It is through these that they are made to be "this" and not "that". Hence, every form or species is this form or species because it falls under the Porphyrian tree; and even individual instantiations of forms are this instantiation because they fall under the ten categories (quantitative or numerical difference, in particular). Now, it is incoherent to say that a form is "limited" to this intellect, in the relevant sense, unless the intellect is limiting the form to itself, making it other than it is on its own. But, if it is in the nature of every form to be this instantiation rather than that instantiation, then it is not the intellect but the form itself that is causing the limitation.

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  61. However, it must be the case that this limitation is within the form itself. If a form is literally identical in wolf X and wolf Y, for instance, then we have a contradiction: the same thing existing in the same way in two different places at once. As a result, it cannot be true that forms are not numerically distinct. Aquinas makes a similar point about the intellect: "But in the case of two men who understand the same thing at the same time, their act of understanding would have to be numerically one and the same; which is clearly impossible."

    Hence, it is of the nature of a form itself to be numerically distinct in this or that way. As Aquinas says, even Plato's Ideas would be numerically distinct instantiations. The intellect does not limit a form to itself: the form is this or that instantiation by nature, and it could not possibly be otherwise.

    Furthermore, the possible intellect clearly does limit the form by uniting it to a particular intellect, and thus it necessarily follows that there is a kind of limitation imposed upon the form in question, irrespective of whether that limitation is in the same way as matter limits form. After all, limitation implies a boundary of some kind, and there is a boundary between intellects such that what is in one intellect is not necessarily in another intellect.

    A form is limited to this intellect rather than that one because no form can be completely identical in two places at once. This applies even to Plato's universals.

    These laws cannot coherently be applied to God himself, because being completely identical in two places at once is a distinction brought on by the ten categories, which God is above. I see no reason why God cannot be present in this intellect and that one, because the intellect knows things as they are, and God is not under numerical restrictions. It is not a contradiction to say that God is fully both here and there, because the categories necessary to make that a contradiction do not apply in this case. Only if the intellect really limited things to its own mode would your call of a "two Gods" contradiction work--but it doesn't. The intellect is expanded by the known, but the known is not contracted by the intellect, as Aquinas himself says.

    But this is impossible, because the absolutely infinite cannot be bounded or limited in any way, and yet if it was received by a relatively infinite intellect, then it would be bounded or limited in some ways, i.e. it would be present in this intellect, but not that intellect, it would be attached to this person and not that person, and so on.

    It is not a limitation that God appears to this rather than that intellect, because A) the intellect does not limit anything and B) God chooses the intellects in which he will be present. All intellects are numerically distinct, but God is not numerically distinct; and so God can appear to various different intellects without himself being differentiated, because the intellect knows things as they are.

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  62. One can still endorse that the possible intellect knows things “as they are”, i.e. as universals, but as limited by a particular intellect. I mean, the form of “dogness” is still a universal even while present in a particular dog. It is just a universal within a material being whereas a cognitive form is a universal within an immaterial intellect. They are both still universals, but embodied in different ways.

    Yes. But there is no such thing as a non-individual universal. To be a universal just is to be numerically distinct, even in the case of Plato's Ideas.

    How can X be distinct from Y but X is not different from Y? What is the basis for the distinction then?

    An accident. Category 2: quantity--or numerical difference.

    First, without the general principle that particularization implies limitation, then how can Aquinas argue that form limits matter, matter limits form, potency limits act, and essence limits existence? All of these limitations presuppose particularization as the reason for limitation.

    The limitation is that they make something other than it is in itself. God has no such limitations, and so is supreme. Angels are second, in that they are above more limitations than are humans.

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  63. Rank:

    Matter limits form by making it other than it is in itself

    And it does so by particularizing it. If matter did not particularize form, then form would never become other than it is in itself. It is in the particularization that limited things become other than they are in themselves. No particularization, no limitation, no “making it other than it is in itself”.

    --likewise for essence and existence. Essence makes existence other than it is on its own

    I don’t know if you are talking about esse subsistens or esse commune. You cannot be talking about the former, because that would mean that God has been delimited by essence, which is impossible. You cannot be talking about the latter, because esse commune just is the kind of esse that is united to essence to form an ens, and thus it is exactly what it is supposed to be when conjoined to essence without any restriction whatsoever. Therefore, you cannot say that esse commune has been limited, because its nature is to be the esse of particular beings.

    form makes matter other than it is on its own.

    But matter is not anything on its own at all. It has no properties, because it has no form.

    But the intellect does not do this to intelligible species: it knows them as they are.

    I’m not too sure what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that the fundamental and primary mode of being of forms is cognitive? That when a form exists in a natural mode of being that it exists in a derivative and secondary fashion that is a distortion of its true nature? And if you are, then are you basing this upon the fact that all forms are derived from the exemplars within the divine intellect, which necessarily exist in a cognitive state rather than a natural state?

    The problem is that in the divine intellect, they only exist as virtual forms that are neither actual nor potential! However, in the human intellect, they exist as actual, potential and virtual. That means that whenever the human intellect receives an intelligible species that is either actual or potential, and I’m sure that you will agree that this occurs, then the human intellect has changed the form into something that it is not.

    According to you, that would count as a kind of restriction and thus limitation, which necessarily means that the intellect does restrict and limit the intelligible species, except when they exist in a virtual fashion. But remember that they only exist in a virtual fashion if they already exist in an actual fashion, because virtuality presupposes actuality. Therefore, the only way for forms to exist as they are in the human intellect is if they exist in a way that they are not, which means that they are limited and restricted, according to your criteria.

    Restriction, for Aquinas, is primarily when something is made other than it is in itself.

    First, even if that were true, it wouldn’t help your account.

    Second, that is a real distortion of the meaning of “limit” and “restrict”. When I put a fence up to limit your movement, have I thereby made you something other than what you are in itself? No, I have just stopped you from moving beyond a certain point by establishing a boundary. That is what a limit is supposed to be. Perhaps you want to say that a restriction for Aquinas is whenever something is prevented from becoming what it is supposed to be? But that only happens when there is something else blocking that process from occurring. In other words, your account is completely backwards. The prevention occurs because there is a limit or restriction. If there were not limit or restriction, then there would be no prevention of becoming at all.

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  64. This is why God is unlimited: he is in himself everything that he is--ipsum actus essendi subsistens. He is above every category that might restrict him. Restriction is not determinacy--as Hart says, God is "infinitely determinate"--, nor is it particularity, which is required by the law of identity. Everything is something--even God.

    God is unlimited, because in order to be limited, you must be limited by something else. Since God is the source of all existence, there is nothing that exists that can limit him, because everything flows from him and derives its power from him. Furthermore, since no effect can have more power than its cause, none of God’s creation can have the power to restrict him in any way. Thus, he is unlimited.

    If Aquinas thought that particularity was a limitation, then God would be limited.

    I know. But I don’t see any way around it for him. To prevent something from being what it is, a boundary or limitation must be there to cause the prevention. If there was no such limit or boundary, then what exactly is restricting something from being what it is in itself?

    Now, it is incoherent to say that a form is "limited" to this intellect, in the relevant sense, unless the intellect is limiting the form to itself, making it other than it is on its own. But, if it is in the nature of every form to be this instantiation rather than that instantiation, then it is not the intellect but the form itself that is causing the limitation.

    First, I’ve offered my reasons why I think that your account of restriction is incorrect, and that would include your sense of “limited”.

    Second, if it is the nature of every form to be particular, then every universal is a particular, which is absurd.

    Third, one could also say that since it is the nature of forms to be immanent in things, then when a form is immanent in a material entity, then it is not restricted at all, and is actually behaving according to its nature! And if that is true, then Aquinas’ entire account of limitation falls apart.

    Hence, it is of the nature of a form itself to be numerically distinct in this or that way. As Aquinas says, even Plato's Ideas would be numerically distinct instantiations. The intellect does not limit a form to itself: the form is this or that instantiation by nature, and it could not possibly be otherwise.

    First, again, if that is true, then you cannot say that matter limits form, because it is the nature of forms to be instantiated in an immanent fashion within particular entities. And if that is true, then Aquinas is wrong when he says that form limits matter and matter limits form. If their nature is to be limited, then you cannot say that matter prevents form from being what it is in itself.

    Second, if you are correct, then the form F in particular entity X and particular entity Y cannot be identical in X and Y, but it must be similar between X and Y. It is clear that F cannot be different in X and Y. Now, if F is similar between X and Y, then that means that there is a partial identity and partial difference, i.e. F is partly the same and partly different in X and Y. What is the partial identity here? What is the partial difference? I have contended, and I thought Aquinas agreed, that the partial identity is F itself, i.e. F is identical in X and Y, but what is partially different is how F exists in X and Y, i.e. F exists in particular entity X versus F exists in particular entity Y. In other words, F’s mode of existence is different in X and Y, and it is this mode of existence that is the reason for the numerical distinction. What this means is that F must be identical in X and Y if X and Y are the same species, but F-in-X is different than F-in-Y, because “-in-X” is one mode of existence and “-in-Y” is a different mode of existence.

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  65. If that is correct, then the entire account is a total muddle. When a person P abstracts F from X, that person is thinking about F and not F-in-X, and certainly not F-in-intellect-of-P. Just because F can only exist in an immanent fashion within a particular entity does not mean that an intellect that is thinking about F is not actually thinking about F. If you are correct, then to think about F is impossible, because there is no such thing as the same F in the intellect of P and in X. They must be different, because even similarity presupposes identity at some point. And if they are different, then P can never know X at all, because there is no connection between P and X without the shared F.

    A form is limited to this intellect rather than that one because no form can be completely identical in two places at once. This applies even to Plato's universals.

    That is a problem, because the entire Thomist account of knowledge presupposes that F is the same F whether in a material entity or in an immaterial intellect. That is what makes knowledge possible. F-in-intellect is either identical to, similar to, or different from F-in-X. You say that it cannot identical at all, which also means that it cannot be similar, and that only leaves difference, which destroys knowledge. There must be identity at some level, and if such identity is impossible, then the entire account must be rejected as useless and contradictory.

    I see no reason why God cannot be present in this intellect and that one, because the intellect knows things as they are, and God is not under numerical restrictions. It is not a contradiction to say that God is fully both here and there, because the categories necessary to make that a contradiction do not apply in this case. Only if the intellect really limited things to its own mode would your call of a "two Gods" contradiction work--but it doesn't. The intellect is expanded by the known, but the known is not contracted by the intellect, as Aquinas himself says.

    First, if the categories do not apply, then you cannot even say that God is here or there, because that is position and time. In fact, you cannot say that God is particular or one, because oneness is quantity. You cannot say that God is greater or superior to anything, because that is relation. You cannot say that God is an efficient cause, because that is doing. You cannot even say that God is a substance. Thus, if you are correct, then you cannot, in fact, say that “God is fully both here and there”, because that implies position, time, and quantity, all of which are categories, which “do not apply in this case”. And if that is true, then you simply cannot make any sense of the beatific vision or God, for that matter.

    Second, if you want to say that we can talk about God in such a way, then the contradiction remains. If forms must be numerically distinct by necessity, then the form of God must also be numerically distinct, and if that is true, then if God is in intellect X and in intellect Y, then there are two Gods, which is impossible. I don’t see how you can coherently say that God is fully in X and fully in Y, and not conclude that there are two Gods. I see your solution as the only way out, but it also means that you cannot even say that God is fully in X and fully in Y at all, and so to save your account, you end up destroying it.

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  66. All intellects are numerically distinct, but God is not numerically distinct; and so God can appear to various different intellects without himself being differentiated, because the intellect knows things as they are.

    But that’ the problem. Intellects are numerically distinct. Forms are numerically distinct. There is no contradiction for a numerically distinct form to be received by a numerically distinct intellect. Numerical distinction is preserved. However, when you start talking about a numerically indistinct form, such as the divine essence, being received by a numerically distinct intellect, then you have a contradiction, because if X is received by a numerically distinct intellect, then X has become numerically distinct, i.e. by virtue of being received by this intellect in particular.

    Furthermore, if the intellect knows things as they are, then the intellect should have comprehensive knowledge of God, in addition to quidditative knowledge of God, during the beatific vision. Since the intellect cannot have comprehensive knowledge of God, the intellect cannot know God as he is in himself, and thus the intellect does not know things as they are. What that means is that either the intellect does know things as they are, or the intellect does not know things as they are. If the former, then the intellect cannot know God, because the intellect cannot know God as he is in himself. If the latter, then the intellect cannot know God, because the intellect cannot know things as they are. Either way, this account prohibits knowledge of God in the beatific vision.

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  67. Therefore, you cannot say that esse commune has been limited, because its nature is to be the esse of particular beings.

    You just said that esse is limited to essence. It's a widely-held fact.

    But matter is not anything on its own at all. It has no properties, because it has no form.

    And form can't be anything completely on its own: it has to be united to something. The question is whether this union restricts the form.

    I’m not too sure what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that the fundamental and primary mode of being of forms is cognitive? That when a form exists in a natural mode of being that it exists in a derivative and secondary fashion that is a distortion of its true nature?

    No. The intellect takes the form out of the matter and knows it on its own. This is not the same as the essence of the thing in question, which is what it grasped as the object after the form is taken on.

    According to you, that would count as a kind of restriction and thus limitation, which necessarily means that the intellect does restrict and limit the intelligible species, except when they exist in a virtual fashion.

    The divine intellect knows essences--not intelligible species, which are forms.

    In other words, your account is completely backwards. The prevention occurs because there is a limit or restriction. If there were not limit or restriction, then there would be no prevention of becoming at all.

    But the limits and restrictions just are the preventions. To be limited is to be less than pure. To be prevented from being pure is to be limited. An intelligible species is a pure form. This does not mean that an intelligible species is superior to a complete substance, nor that it is comparable to the divine ideas. My only point is that it is a pure intelligible species that is not limited by strictures other than the ten categories and the Porphyrian tree.

    There is, of course, a second kind of limitation, which you are focusing on. Because all things are "not-God", their purity is limited in comparison to God's. The more of these limitations--corruptibility, for instance--, the further the distance from God. This goes without saying, but it's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about the event of one thing being constrained by another, as with essence-existence, form-matter, act-potency. All of creation is less pure than God, because it falls under the various categories of existence; but some things are limited in respect to God and not in respect to themselves. Angels are immaterial, and so are not limited by matter; they are incorruptible, and so they are not limited by mortality; their natures are fully actual, and so they cannot become more perfect; and so on. Likewise, a pure intelligible species, despite being a fairly lowly, parasitic type of existence compared to God, is in itself still immaterial, incorruptible and not limited by potency. Hence, it is limited in respect to God but not in respect to itself.

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  68. I know. But I don’t see any way around it for him. To prevent something from being what it is, a boundary or limitation must be there to cause the prevention. If there was no such limit or boundary, then what exactly is restricting something from being what it is in itself?

    I've clarified above. Aquinas himself, I believe, sometimes made the distinction between something being limited in respect to itself and being limited in respect to God. Your idea of "boundaries" is largely modern, and probably Kantian, in origin. In particular, post-modernists idealize indeterminacy as being superior to determinacy, because it is "unbounded". That isn't the ancient perspective. God is unlimited because he is not limited in himself--he is all that he is--, nor is he limited in respect to God: he is above all of the separations between creation and God. He is still a particular, determinate entity, though. He has (is) an essence: the law of identity applies to him. Your view, influenced by Kantian post-modernism, is that this makes him limited. But it's untenable, and Hart shreds it in his book.

    Second, if it is the nature of every form to be particular, then every universal is a particular, which is absurd.

    And yet it was the view of Aquinas, Avicenna and others.

    Third, one could also say that since it is the nature of forms to be immanent in things, then when a form is immanent in a material entity, then it is not restricted at all, and is actually behaving according to its nature! And if that is true, then Aquinas’ entire account of limitation falls apart.

    A form is immanent in matter by being restricted by matter, and so it is limited in respect to itself. This is not the case with the intellect.

    Second, if you are correct, then the form F in particular entity X and particular entity Y cannot be identical in X and Y, but it must be similar between X and Y.

    It is specifically identical and numerically distinct. I have no interest in debating this particular subject with you, though. Let's try to stick to the main argument.

    That is a problem, because the entire Thomist account of knowledge presupposes that F is the same F whether in a material entity or in an immaterial intellect.

    It is specifically the same and numerically different.

    First, if the categories do not apply, then you cannot even say that God is here or there, because that is position and time. In fact, you cannot say that God is particular or one, because oneness is quantity. You cannot say that God is greater or superior to anything, because that is relation. You cannot say that God is an efficient cause, because that is doing. You cannot even say that God is a substance.

    You seem to have finally grasped Aquinas's apophaticism. All of this is true. God is not a substance, nor can be be said to be "one" rather than "many", nor can he be said to be located in one place rather than another, nor can he be said to be "greater" than creation, nor can he be said to be connected to creation via efficient causation. Recall that Aquinas states that God's connection to creation is merely a beginning of existence along with a relation of the creature to the creator. God is not related to us: he is completely impassible. He is not even the "greater" in a "lesser-greater" equation. When we say that God is "greater than creation", this is an analogy; same thing goes when we say that he is "one" rather than "many". None of it is literally true.

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  69. Thus, if you are correct, then you cannot, in fact, say that “God is fully both here and there”, because that implies position, time, and quantity, all of which are categories, which “do not apply in this case”.

    It is because they don't apply that God can be fully both here and there. "Fully", "here" and "there" have no meaning to God: he transcends those limitations.

    And if that is true, then you simply cannot make any sense of the beatific vision or God, for that matter.

    Why?

    Second, if you want to say that we can talk about God in such a way, then the contradiction remains. If forms must be numerically distinct by necessity, then the form of God must also be numerically distinct

    Created forms are numerically distinct by necessity.

    However, when you start talking about a numerically indistinct form, such as the divine essence, being received by a numerically distinct intellect, then you have a contradiction, because if X is received by a numerically distinct intellect, then X has become numerically distinct, i.e. by virtue of being received by this intellect in particular.

    That's a non sequitur. It only works if the intellect places restrictions on the thing in question, which has been disproven.

    Furthermore, if the intellect knows things as they are, then the intellect should have comprehensive knowledge of God, in addition to quidditative knowledge of God, during the beatific vision. Since the intellect cannot have comprehensive knowledge of God, the intellect cannot know God as he is in himself, and thus the intellect does not know things as they are.

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer8.htm#2

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  70. Rank:

    Okay, last response until my presentation is done!

    You just said that esse is limited to essence. It's a widely-held fact.

    I am saying that your account of limitation is incorrect, because it would imply that esse is not limited by essence. After all, the nature of esse commune is to be united to essence to form an ens. It is no violation or interruption of what it is in itself to unite to an essence, and thus it would not be a limitation. However, as you rightly pointed out, that would contradict outright the well-known principle that essence limits esse, and thus your account must be wrong.

    No. The intellect takes the form out of the matter and knows it on its own. This is not the same as the essence of the thing in question, which is what it grasped as the object after the form is taken on.

    I still don’t understand. What does it mean for the form to be known “on its own” and “as it is”? Say there is a form F. It either exists in matter as F-in-matter or in an intellect as F-in-intellect. Are you saying that the F in F-in-matter is a different F than the F in F-in-intellect? It is the exact same F in both matter and in intellect, albeit in a different mode of being. So, are you saying that F-in-intellect is more a pure F than F-in-matter? Why? It must be the exact same F.

    The divine intellect knows essences--not intelligible species, which are forms.

    Aquinas says that “by ideas are understood the forms of things, existing apart from the things themselves” and that “there must exist in the divine mind a form to the likeness of which the world was made. And in this the notion of an idea consists” (ST 1a.15.1).

    But the limits and restrictions just are the preventions.

    I can agree with that. X is limited by Y = X is restricted by Y = X is prevented by Y. They all ultimately mean the same thing.

    To be limited is to be less than pure.

    But that isn’t necessarily true. If a rapist is limited from raping a woman, then would you say that he is now less pure than if he had succeeding in raping the woman? Ultimately, a limit must prevent some potential from being actualized. So, the rapist was intending to rape a woman, and he was prevented from actualizing that end, which means that he was limited.

    To apply this to the intellect, a form F could be present in any chunk of matter and could be present in any intellect. The fact that F is present in this chunk of matter (or intellect) and not that chunk of matter (or intellect) means that it is limited, because its potency to be elsewhere was not actualized. That seems to work better, and fit a wider range of types of limitation than your purity idea.

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  71. To be prevented from being pure is to be limited.

    This is a different claim from your claim above. Above you said that if X is limited, then X is impure, and now you are saying that if X is impure, then X is limited. Perhaps you need to define “pure” versus “impure”?

    An intelligible species is a pure form.

    Why?

    My only point is that it is a pure intelligible species that is not limited by strictures other than the ten categories and the Porphyrian tree.

    Are you saying that there are pure and impure intelligible species, and that only intelligible species that are limited by the ten categories and the Porphyrian tree are pure, and those that are limited by something else are impure? That seems to be what you are saying, but I’m not too sure if that makes sense. If I’ve read you correctly, then it comes down to:

    (1) X is a pure intelligible species iff X is limited by the ten categories and the Porphyrian tree.

    But (1) wouldn’t help your case, because remember that immaterial intellects are on the Porphyrian tree, and thus an intelligible species would remain pure even if it was limited by an immaterial intellect.

    But maybe I’m misunderstanding you here. Could you clarify?

    I am talking about the event of one thing being constrained by another, as with essence-existence, form-matter, act-potency. All of creation is less pure than God, because it falls under the various categories of existence; but some things are limited in respect to God and not in respect to themselves. Angels are immaterial, and so are not limited by matter; they are incorruptible, and so they are not limited by mortality; their natures are fully actual, and so they cannot become more perfect; and so on. Likewise, a pure intelligible species, despite being a fairly lowly, parasitic type of existence compared to God, is in itself still immaterial, incorruptible and not limited by potency. Hence, it is limited in respect to God but not in respect to itself.

    I don’t think that this will work. Aquinas endorses the general principle that if an actual A is received into a potency P, then A is limited by P.

    W. Norris Clarke writes that Aquinas “expanded the original Aristotelian meaning of act-potency as an explanation of change alone by redefining potency as any principle that receives and limits an actual perfection to some finite mode, whether this is a structure of change or not. His fundamental theorem of the relationship of potency to act now becomes: ‘Act is not limited save by reception into some distinct limiting principle.’ Thus pure act of itself is by nature unlimited, as happens in the pure act of esse in God” (The One and the Many, p. 157).

    Wippel writes that “act as such is not self-limiting” and “if one finds limited instances of act, especially of the actus essendi, this can only be because in every such case the act principle (esse) is received and limited by a really distinct potency principle” (Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, p. 128).

    If that is correct, then the intelligible form received by the passive intellect must be limited by the passive intellect, because the intelligible form is act and the passive intellect is potency, and when act is received into potency, the potency necessarily limits the act. That principle applies to form and matter, substance and accidents, and existence and essence. It is a general principle that is deeply rooted in Aquinas’ system.

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  72. I know that you believe that the intellect is a special exemption to this principle, and that Aquinas explicitly denies that intelligible forms are limited by the passive intellect in any way. You never actually cited Aquinas to this effect, and so I don’t know if you are correct. I’ve been looking for such a quote, but to no avail. Certainly, I would agree that Aquinas says that immateriality does not limit forms in the same way as materiality, but it does not follow that immateriality does not limit forms at all.

    I think that it does, because all examples of potency limiting act involve something that is possibly present in a multitude of entities being restricted into being present in a single entity. That is what happens when esse is restricted by esse and when form is restricted by matter. Certainly, that is what happens when a form F is received into a particular intellect, which means that what can be present in a multitude of intellects is limited to be present to a particular intellect. So, why would this line of argumentation work for all other instances of act being limited by potency, but all of a sudden be inapplicable?

    Also, rejecting this principle’s generality seems to fly in the face of the overall tenor of his system. Everything that exists is either pure actuality or an admixture of actuality and potency. Only pure actuality is unlimited, because actuality is not self-limiting, and thus it necessarily follows that anything that is an admixture of actuality and potency is necessarily limited, and that the actuality is limited by potency, because actuality is not self-limiting and can only be limited by something else, i.e. potency.

    Aquinas writes that “a being that is unlimited in every way is infinite. No act is found to be limited except by a potency that is receptive of the act; thus we observe that forms are limited in accordance with the potency of matter. Hence, if the first mover is an act without any admixture of potency, as not being the form of any body or a force inhering in a body, it must be infinite.” (CT 18). Notice in that quote that he endorses the general principle that I mentioned above.

    Perhaps if you could cite the exact quotation from Aquinas in which he explicitly says that the passive intellect cannot limit the received intelligible forms, then that would be helpful here.

    Aquinas himself, I believe, sometimes made the distinction between something being limited in respect to itself and being limited in respect to God.

    But what does “limited” mean here? And how can you possibly understand a limit without any involvement of boundaries or restrictions or preventions?

    A form is immanent in matter by being restricted by matter, and so it is limited in respect to itself. This is not the case with the intellect.

    I don’t see how this addresses my argument. If a form is limited by matter, then how does that count as it being “limited in respect to itself”? The form is limited by matter, and not by itself. Or maybe you mean something else?

    It is specifically identical and numerically distinct. I have no interest in debating this particular subject with you, though. Let's try to stick to the main argument.

    First, this just amounts to similarity, though. Remember that X is similar to Y iff X is partly identical to Y and X is partly different from Y. In this case, the partial identity would be the “specifically identical” and the partial difference would be “numerically distinct”. Saying that F-in-X is similar to F-in-Y just means that F is identical, but –in-X and –in-Y are different. Actually, I think that we are basically saying the same thing here.

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  73. Second, you haven’t answered my counter-argument at all.

    Remember, you claimed that it is the nature or essence of all forms to be numerically distinct, which means (a) each form is distinct from one another (i.e. form F is distinct from form G, for example), and (b) each form is immanent within a particular entity, whether material or immaterial (i.e. F-in-X is distinct from F-in-Y, for example). What followed from (a) and (b) was that my claim that the intellect limits the form F by particularizing it to be within this particular intellect as opposed to that particular intellect did not count as limiting F at all. That was because to limit F necessarily implies preventing F from acting according to its nature, and if its nature is to be numerically distinct, then particularizing it into a kind of numerical distinction could not count as violating its nature, and thus could not count as a limitation at all.

    The problem with this argument is that it also implies that matter cannot limit form. After all, if it is the nature of form to be numerically distinct, both in and of itself (i.e. (a)) and when received by something in potency (i.e. (b)), then when form is received by matter it necessarily follows that it is still acting according to its nature, and thus matter cannot be said to limit form. This is clearly incorrect, because Aquinas endorses in numerous locations the doctrine that matter limits form as an example of his general principle that potency limits act when act is received by potency. So, if your argument is correct, then a core Thomist doctrine goes out the window. That leads me to believe that your argument is incorrect, and if it is incorrect, then the immaterial intellect does limit its received intelligible forms, which means that it would also have to limit the received intelligible form of God, which would delimit the unlimited, which is impossible. So, if your argument is incorrect, then a core Thomist doctrine goes out the window.

    It is because they don't apply that God can be fully both here and there. "Fully", "here" and "there" have no meaning to God: he transcends those limitations.

    How can you say that God can be “fully both here and there” when those very words “have no meaning to God”? That would be like saying that a triangle is fully happy and angry. Those words have “no meaning” when it comes to triangles.

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer8.htm#2

    I’ve read that section, and it does not help the problem. You claimed that the intellect knows things “as they are”. To know God as he is would require comprehensive knowledge, which is impossible. As Aquinas writes in that section:

    “the perfection of the intelligibility of the divine essence lies beyond the grasp of angelic and all created intellects in so far as they have the power of knowing, because the truth by which the divine essence is knowable surpasses the light by which any created intellect knows. Consequently, it is impossible for any created intellect to comprehend the divine essence, not because it does not know some part of the essence, but because it cannot attain the perfect manner of knowing it.”

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  74. How can you say that an intellect knows God’s essence as it is if that intellect “cannot attain the perfect manner of knowing it”? The divine essence “surpasses the light by which any created intellect knows”, and thus cannot be known comprehensively, because “the thing known exceeds its grasp”. I would think that to know X as it is requires knowing X comprehensively, i.e. “in so far as what is known lies perfectly under its cognition”. Otherwise, how can you say that you know X as it is in itself, if there is something about X that “surpasses” and “exceeds” the capacity of the intellect to know? In that case, you cannot be said to know X as it is in itself, but rather in an incomplete fashion.

    Also, that is the section with the following remarkable statement: "His entire mode will be seen, but not entirely." I still can't make any sense of that.

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  75. Before I respond in detail, I'm going to bring up one thing. It is clear from what we've read that the intelligible species is singular in a single intellect. This is because, if it were not singular, then a contradiction would follow: the same thing existing in the same way in two different places. But this is a contradiction because of the ten categories.

    I think there are two ways to understand the possible intellect's relationship to intelligible species. The first is my way: that forms just are individual, and so they can't be said to be limited by an intellect. The second is that they are made singular because they are received by the possible intellect. The question is whether or not it matters which way one takes it in the case of God, who is not limited by the ten categories to this or that location. He would not be susceptible to the contradictions created by one form existing in two intellects. If that's true, then the argument is over automatically. What's your take?

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  76. I think there are two ways to understand the possible intellect's relationship to intelligible species. The first is my way: that forms just are individual, and so they can't be said to be limited by an intellect. The second is that they are made singular because they are received by the possible intellect.

    But you have to acknowledge that if you are correct, then matter cannot limit form and essence cannot limit esse, because both are limited by becoming particularized and individualized, which would be pretty significant doctrines to abandon for Aquinas.

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  77. The question is whether or not it matters which way one takes it in the case of God, who is not limited by the ten categories to this or that location. He would not be susceptible to the contradictions created by one form existing in two intellects. If that's true, then the argument is over automatically. What's your take?

    That’s a great question.

    I think that if the categories cannot apply to God, then we cannot say that God is received into anything at all, including an intellect, because that implies act being received by potency, and that process only makes sense within the ten categories, especially action (#9) and affection (#10). If these categories cannot be applied to God, then we cannot coherently say of God that he is received into a passive intellect, and since that process is essential to knowledge -- i.e. an intelligible form in act is received into a passive intellect in potency -- it follows that a necessary condition of knowledge is not met, and thus we cannot have knowledge of God.

    Again, it ultimately comes down to how strictly you want to apply the principles of Thomism. Two clear principles are:

    (1) If a human X has knowledge of Y, then X’s passive intellect must receive the intelligible form of Y
    (2) An actual X is received into a potential Y iff an actual X is limited by a potential Y

    It necessarily follows from (1) and (2) that

    (3) If a human X has knowledge of Y, then X’s passive intellect limits the form of Y

    I really don’t see how you can reject (1) or (2), because they both play such key roles within the Thomist system, and if you cannot reject them, then (3) necessarily follows. And if (3) is correct, then we cannot possibly know God, because God is necessarily unlimited and for him to be known would mean that he himself -- because his essence is his existence -- would be received by a passive intellect, which necessarily means that God would be limited by a passive intellect (by (3)), which is impossible.

    Furthermore, I think that rejecting the possibility that categories such as action (= act) and affection (= potency) are applicable to God implies that we cannot infer that God is pure actuality, because “pure actuality” presupposes the conceptual coherence of act and potency, which are necessarily related to the categories of action and affection. And without pure actuality, you lose the proofs of God’s perfection, eternity, immutability and infinitude. And rejecting (2) would eliminate an important proof of God’s infinitude, because if the only limits to act are potency, then a being with pure actuality and no potency would be unlimited, and thus infinite. So, if your position were correct, then we really could not know anything about God at all, which is a huge price to pay.

    The bottom line is that if Thomism lays down certain principles and doctrines and claims that they have a clear meaning, then it something violates those principles and doctrines, then it should be dismissed. So, if the Thomist account of knowledge states that a necessary condition for knowledge is the reception of an actual intelligible form into a potential passive intellect, and that necessarily implies that the intelligible form is limited by the passive intellect, then if an intelligible form could not be limited by the passive intellect, then that form could not be known at all. Otherwise, you might as well say that it is possible for a triangle to have four sides, but only under certain “special” circumstances. I’m sure that you will agree that such a position is ludicrous, because “triangle” has a clear meaning and definition. Well, I would say that (1) and (2) are also clear and determinate, and if your position means that neither (1) nor (2) is operative, then your position should be rejected just as much as a four-sided triangle. It is just a contradiction in terms.

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  78. This avenue seems more promising than the semantic wrangling from before. Although I'd still contradict many of your assertions in your last batch of posts, I think we should focus on this part for the sake of ending the argument. We both have lives to live. In any case, let's get going.

    You say that God could not enter the mind without action and affection. However, Aquinas makes very clear that God has no accidents--and everything in the ten categories aside from #1 is an accident. (Aquinas further declares that God is not a substance, but this is irrelevant to the current point.) Action is therefore not applicable to God in any case, whether or not we are considering the Beatific Vision. It is for this same reason that Aquinas denies the existence of a two-way relation (#4) between God and creatures when describing creation ex nihilo. God's actions are not explicable to us from God's point of view: none of our categories apply to him, but only to us. Hence, creation has a relation to God, but not vice versa; and it must be said that creation is affected by God, but that God's "actions" on creation are totally apophatic, understood through their effects alone. Hence, God's "actions" are analogous. They are partly the same as ten categories actions, because they produce effects; and partly different, because they in themselves are unknowable and inexplicable.

    This is the separation between primary and secondary causality at work behind all of Aquinas's theology. It would therefore be incoherent to accuse the Beatific Vision of being impossible on the grounds that it is outside of the ten categories, unless you simultaneously reject the entirety of Thomism.

    As a result, we must say that the possible intellect is affected, but that strictly there is no action doing to affecting. There is something analogous to an action involved, in that it produces an effect; but we cannot say more than that in terms of the ten categories. Now, your strongest objection to the Beatific Vision is that anything known by the particular possible intellect must itself be particular. Aquinas, arguing with the Averroists, admitted as much: if numerically identical intelligible species were in two places at once, then a contradiction would obtain. If God enters the possible intellect, then, it seems that he must also be particular, because otherwise there's a contradiction. But this leads us to the even more unacceptable contradictions that God is not one, and that he can be particularized (changed) by a human intellect. However, this is not a contradiction unless it possible to give God a limited location, or a numerical limit, or some other item from the ten categories. But, as we know, God (like esse) is not under the ten categories. Hence, it can't be said that God being in two intellects at once entails any kind of contradiction.

    Recall that the only "limit" involved in the possible intellect is the particularization of intelligible species that the intellect joins with--becomes--intentionally. And this is only a necessity because a contradiction occurs otherwise. Hence, if God did not create a contradiction by being intentionally joined to two intellects, it would not be necessary to say that he was particularized. But this is possible, because God can affect things without being limited by the ten categories. And, because his action just is his being, it follows that he is present wherever he affects something. Hence, if God affects the possible intellect, he is present in it without being limited to it.

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  79. Hence, creation has a relation to God, but not vice versa; and it must be said that creation is affected by God, but that God's "actions" on creation are totally apophatic, understood through their effects alone. Hence, God's "actions" are analogous. They are partly the same as ten categories actions, because they produce effects; and partly different, because they in themselves are unknowable and inexplicable.

    For God’s actions to be similar to a created entity’s actions, then there must be something that God’s actions and a created entity’s actions share in common, which we can call C. What could C be? You say that C is that “they produce effects”. Is this to be understood univocally between God and a created entity? It is a given that God and a created entity “produce effects” in different ways, but can you say that “produces effects” means the same thing when you predicate it of God as when you predicate it of a created entity? I don’t think Aquinas would agree with that, and the problem is that without C, you cannot say that God “produces effects” at all, whether analogously or univocally. And that just leaves equivocation, which is not saying anything at all. You may as well say God “X Y”.

    This is the separation between primary and secondary causality at work behind all of Aquinas's theology. It would therefore be incoherent to accuse the Beatific Vision of being impossible on the grounds that it is outside of the ten categories, unless you simultaneously reject the entirety of Thomism.

    First, the question is whether primary causality A1 and secondary causality A2 are identical, similar, or different. If you say that A1 is identical to A2, then they have everything in common, and thus there is no distinction between A1 and A2 at all. There is only A, which ultimately comes down to univocality. If you say that A1 is different from A2, then they nothing in common, and thus either A1 or A2 – but not both – is a kind of causality and the other is completely detached from any content whatsoever involving causality, which ultimately comes down to equivocation. If you say that A1 is similar to A2, then they must have something in common C. In other words, you could meaningfully say:

    (1) A1 is C
    (2) A2 is C

    The question then becomes whether C in (1) and (2) is identical, similar or different. If C is identical, then you have univocal meaning at the heart of analogy, which Aquinas would reject. If C is different, then you have equivocation. If C is similar, then there must be something in common C* between A1 and A2. That means that you can meaningfully say:

    (3) A1 is C*
    (4) A2 is C*

    The question then becomes whether C* in (3) and (4) is identical, similar or different. And what happens is that either you have a univocal core meaning between A1 and A2, or an infinite regress, both of which Aquinas would reject as impossible. So, saying that there is an analogy between A1 and A2 leads to pretty big problems.

    Second, if you assume that there is a commonality C between A1 and A2, then another question is whether C operates within the categories, outside the categories, or both inside and outside the categories.

    If C operates within the categories, then C is univocal after all, because C’s meaning would be within our conceptual boundaries. If C operates outside the categories, then we literally have no idea what C can be, because our thought is bound by the categories. In fact, we cannot even say “operates” and “outside”, because the meaning of these terms is bound by the categories. As you said, it would be “unknowable and inexplicable”. If C operates inside and outside the categories, then you have a logical contradiction, because nothing can be bound by the categories and not be bound by the categories.

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  80. Now, your strongest objection to the Beatific Vision is that anything known by the particular possible intellect must itself be particular. Aquinas, arguing with the Averroists, admitted as much: if numerically identical intelligible species were in two places at once, then a contradiction would obtain. If God enters the possible intellect, then, it seems that he must also be particular, because otherwise there's a contradiction. But this leads us to the even more unacceptable contradictions that God is not one, and that he can be particularized (changed) by a human intellect. However, this is not a contradiction unless it possible to give God a limited location, or a numerical limit, or some other item from the ten categories. But, as we know, God (like esse) is not under the ten categories. Hence, it can't be said that God being in two intellects at once entails any kind of contradiction.

    And the problem is that if God is not under the ten categories, then we cannot say that he is here or there at all, including “here in this intellect” and “there in that intellect”, because the meaning of “here” and “there” is bounded by the categories. It would be like saying that emotions can only apply to living things, and then claim that a triangle is angry. Either a set of predicates can apply to God or they cannot apply to God. You cannot have it both ways. If our understanding is necessarily delimited by the categories, then the concepts within our understanding are equally delimited by the categories. We cannot use those very same concepts to describe anything outside the categories. In fact, we cannot even say that something is outside the categories, because “outside” involves the categories! You may as well talk about the being outside of God. You just can’t do it coherently, unless you are playing a shell game.

    So, the proposition “God is fully here and fully there” is contradictory, because the subject is beyond the categories and the predicates are within the categories. It is even worse than a category error, and it is just as much of a contradiction as the proposition “a triangle is angry”. In that case, the subject is not a living thing and the predicate can only be applied to living things. The only thing that could save this account is saying that what is outside the categories has something in common C with the categories, and the problem is how you can possibly talk about this C without using the categories at all. I don’t think you can without secretly smuggling them in implicitly. It would be like covertly pretending that a triangle is a kind of living thing in order for it to be able to be angry, which is just crazy. It makes far more sense to just admit that triangles cannot feel angry at all. Similarly, if want to be honest about God’s unknowability and inexplicability, then you cannot use the categories at all when describing him, and if that is true, then you cannot predicate being anywhere of him, including within the intellect. And if that is true, then the proposition, “God is fully here and fully there”, is either contradictory or meaningless.

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  81. Recall that the only "limit" involved in the possible intellect is the particularization of intelligible species that the intellect joins with--becomes--intentionally. And this is only a necessity because a contradiction occurs otherwise. Hence, if God did not create a contradiction by being intentionally joined to two intellects, it would not be necessary to say that he was particularized. But this is possible, because God can affect things without being limited by the ten categories. And, because his action just is his being, it follows that he is present wherever he affects something. Hence, if God affects the possible intellect, he is present in it without being limited to it.

    The question is whether it is necessary for knowledge for the form of the known object to be received by the passive intellect. If it is necessary, then the underlying dynamics is that act is received by potency, and Aquinas has already made it clear that whenever act is received by potency, act is limited by potency. I mean, that is a fundamental principle that he does not seem to reject in any other circumstances, largely because it is absolutely crucial to virtually all of his deductions regarding divine attributes. To reject it would mean losing arguments for God’s pure actuality, infinitude, immutability and eternity, among others. Certainly, you have not provided any quotes from Aquinas or Thomists that says that he does not view that principle as absolutely universal. Now, if that principle is universal and binding under any and all circumstances in which act is received by potency, then it necessarily is applicable to when an actual intelligible form is received by the passive and potential intellect. It necessarily follows that the intelligible form is limited by the passive intellect, as a logical deduction. And if that is true, then the intelligible form of God, which is actually God himself, would have to be limited by the passive intellect after being received by it, which is contradictory and impossible.

    Your solution is to basically say that the terms involved in describing a necessary process for knowledge do not actually apply to God at all, and since a contradiction requires the same meaning in the contradicted terms, then if this does not occur, then you cannot have a contradiction at all. For example, to say that I am both here and there seems like a contradiction, but the contradiction is resolved when I say that I am here in body but there in mind, which means that “here” and “there” have different meanings that prevent the contradiction from occurring. Similarly, to say that God is fully here and fully there seems like a contradiction, but because “fully here” and “fully there” mean something other than what they mean when applied to creation, there is no contradiction.

    The question is whether there is still any meaning left that we can understand at all in “fully here” and “fully there” if you absolutely deny any categorical content to them whatsoever. And note that any trace or hint of a category within “fully here” and “fully there” revives the contradiction. If you want to say that the terms continue to have analogous meaning, which is actually your only choice at this point, then you have to agree that there is a common core C between the terms when applied to God and when applied to creation. If there is no such C, then there is no partial identity, and then there is no similarity, and then there is no analogy.

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  82. The question then becomes whether the C of “fully here” and “fully there” when applied to God and to creation is enough for a contradiction to still occur. The onus is then upon you to come up with some core definition or concept of “fully here” and “fully there” that (1) is present both when applied to God and when applied to creation and (2) is empty of any trace or hint of a category at all and (3) does not lead to a logical contradiction. If you cannot, then have to either admit that the terms become meaningless when applied to God or that there is a contradiction after all.

    What that ultimately means is that you have to come up with an understanding of “fully” that does not ultimately involve either “all” or “entirety” or “nothing left over elsewhere”, and an understanding of “here” and “there” that does not involve a distinction between “here” and “there”. That is because when you combine (1) a distinction between X and Y, and (2) Z being entirely in X and Z being entirely in Y, then you get a logical contradiction. If it were possible for the entirety of Z to be fully in a distinct X and fully in a distinct Y, then it would follow that all of Z would be in X and all of Z would be in Y. However, this is impossible, because if all of Z is in X, then there is nothing left to be in Y, and vice versa. Thus, you get a contradiction between (1*) Z cannot be in Y and Z is in Y, and (2*) Z cannot be in X and Z is in X. Therefore, it is logically contradictory to say that all of Z is in X and all of Z is in Y, if X and Y are distinct.

    So, the only logical options are that (a) all of Z is in X and not in Y or (b) all of Z is in Y and not in X or (c) part of Z is in X and part of Z is in Y. None of these options are possible when it comes to knowledge God according to Aquinas’ theory of knowledge. (a) is impossible, because then only X could know God and no-one else. (b) is impossible, because then only Y could know God, and no-one else. (c) is impossible, because God has no parts due to his simplicity. And since none of these options is viable for Thomism, a solution must be found to the dilemma I posed above, and the onus is upon you or any other defender of Thomism to come up with some meaning of (1**) “all of Z” and (2**) “distinction between X and Y” such that combining (1**) and (2**) such that all of Z is both fully in X and fully in Y does not lead to a contradiction.

    I’m all ears.

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  83. Actually, I now think that Josh was largely right, and that my arguments against analogy don’t work, and so I’ve reexamined them. My current thinking is a little convoluted, and it might be hard to follow. Let me know what you think.

    I have a particular set of symbols. We have to distinguish between the term (which I will designate in “quotes”), the sense (which I will designate in italics)) and the referent (which I will designate in bold). For example, the term, “a dog” has the sense a dog, which refers to a dog.

    Take the following sentences:

    (1) X is P
    (2) Y is P

    Assuming that the predicates in (1) and (2) have the same term “P”, they can be expanded out as follows:

    (3) X is (“P”, P1, P1)
    (4) Y is (“P”, P2, P2)

    What that means is that (1) involves the term “P”, the sense P1 and the referent P1, and (2) involves the term “P”, the sense P2, and the referent P2.

    Using the above symbols, we have Aquinas holding the following definitions to be true about P between (1) and (2):

    (5) P is univocal iff (a) P1 = P2, and (b) P1 = P2
    (6) P is equivocal iff (a) P1 =/ P2, and (b) P1 =/ P2
    (7) P is analogous iff (a) P1 =/ P2, and (b) P1 = P2

    Using this framework, if you look at the following statements:

    (8) God is good
    (9) John is good

    Then you can say that (8) and (9) are analogous, because they can be expanded as:

    (10) God is (“good”, good1, good)
    (11) John is (“good”, good2, good)

    So, the sense of “good” in (8), i.e. good1 is different from the sense of “good” in (9), i.e. good2, but “good” in (8) has the same referent as “good” in (9). Therefore, there is an analogical relationship between (8) and (9).

    The problem is that P1 cannot be different from P2, because if it was different, then P1 would have nothing in common with P2. But P1 does have something in common with P2, namely that they both share the same referent (i.e. P1 = P2). So, P1 must be similar to P2 rather than different (and we can ignore the identity relationship, because then you would have univocity). So, if P1 is similar to P2, then P1 must be partially the same as P2 and partially different from P2. What is partially the same and what is partially different. As already mentioned, one thing that P1 and P2 have in common is the same referent (i.e. P1 = P2).

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  84. So, what is partially different? Could it be that P1 and P2 have different senses? That is confusing for a few reasons.

    First, that would presume that senses can have senses rather than just referents, which I’m not too sure even makes sense. However, even if we assume that this idea makes sense, perhaps we can say the following:

    (12) The sense of P1 is P1*
    (13) The sense of P2 is P2*

    In that case, you could say that P1* is different from P2*, which means that P1* has nothing in common with P2*. But that just isn’t true, because both P1* and P2* share the same referent P. So, even assuming that it makes sense to have senses of senses does not help. However, I think that it does not, in fact, make sense to have senses of senses.

    Second, we have already stated that P1 cannot be different from P2. So, what to do? The only way that I can make sense of this is to admit sub-senses, i.e. the idea that P1 is actually composed of P1a and P1b, and P2 is actually composed of P2a and P2b, for example. In that case, we can say that P1a is identical to P2a and P1b is different from P2b, which would satisfy the similarity relationship, in addition to the identical referents P1 and P2.

    The problem here is that what grounds the analogy in (1) and (2) is now the following:

    (14) X is (“P”, {P1a,P1b}, P1)
    (15) Y is (“P”, {P2a,P2b}, P2)

    Remember that P1a is identical to P2a, which we can just call P**, and P1 is identical to P2, which we can just call P, which means that you have:

    (16) X is (“P”, {P**,P1b}, P)
    (17) Y is (“P”, {P**,P2b}, P)

    If you’re with me so far, then here’s the crucial part for my argument. I think that it is necessarily true that the same sense must have the same referent. However, it is not true that the same referent must have the same sense, i.e. the same referent can have different senses. After all, that is what makes analogy possible at all. So, let’s just focus upon P** in (16) and (17) as follows:

    (18) X is (“P**”, P**, P**)
    (19) Y is (“P**”, P**, P**)

    I’ve changed things a little. “P**” is the term for P** and P** is the referent for P**. If you look at (18) and (19) you see that you have a univocal relationship (i.e. (5)). After all, you have the same term “P**”, the same sense P**, and the same referent P**. And what that means is that in any analysis of analogical relationships, you must have univocality at some level.

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  85. For God’s actions to be similar to a created entity’s actions, then there must be something that God’s actions and a created entity’s actions share in common, which we can call C. What could C be? You say that C is that “they produce effects”. Is this to be understood univocally between God and a created entity? It is a given that God and a created entity “produce effects” in different ways, but can you say that “produces effects” means the same thing when you predicate it of God as when you predicate it of a created entity? I don’t think Aquinas would agree with that, and the problem is that without C, you cannot say that God “produces effects” at all, whether analogously or univocally. And that just leaves equivocation, which is not saying anything at all. You may as well say God “X Y”.

    Not sure what your point is, here. Aquinas states that we know God a posteriori through his effects. This is what it means to say that God is the efficient cause of creation: we know that something causes creation in such-and-such a way, and this something is what we call God. But God's brand of efficient causality is far from understandable. Again, Aquinas denies that we can have positive knowledge of God aside from the distant analogies drawn from causality and so forth.

    Second, if you assume that there is a commonality C between A1 and A2, then another question is whether C operates within the categories, outside the categories, or both inside and outside the categories.

    I honestly did not understand a word you wrote between this and the last paragraph I responded to. Is this a criticism of analogy in general? Are you attacking my specific claims? It's too abstract for me to grasp.

    If C operates within the categories, then C is univocal after all, because C’s meaning would be within our conceptual boundaries. If C operates outside the categories, then we literally have no idea what C can be, because our thought is bound by the categories.

    Our thought is not bound by the categories. You're looking at this the wrong way--like Kant's Aristotle. No, the categories are the ways in which non-Godly being can manifest itself. That's what they represent. This is why they're often called the ten categories of being. When God causes something, the effect (aside from created esse) falls under the ten categories. Every being aside from God is part of the ten categories. And God is not part of the ten categories because, as ipsum esse subsistens, he just is esse--and esse does not fall under the ten categories. Rather, esse is always already present in unique ways in each category. "Substance" is "esse-in-a-substance"; "relation" is "esse-in-a-relation"; and so on. Like esse, then, God is necessarily prior to any category.

    So what I'm saying is that God is outside of any category, but that his actions always fall under the categories. Everything created (aside from esse) is under the categories. This is why Aquinas calls grace "created", which has led to huge problems with Eastern Orthodox theologians who believe that this means participation in some created thing rather than in God himself. But that isn't how it works. As I've read recently, Aquinas explicitly states that "created grace" is only created from one angle, in that it begins to exist in a creature; but, from God's angle, it is uncreated. This is to say that the effect falls under the categories, but that the cause does not. He applies this rule absolutely everywhere.

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  86. And the problem is that if God is not under the ten categories, then we cannot say that he is here or there at all, including “here in this intellect” and “there in that intellect”, because the meaning of “here” and “there” is bounded by the categories. It would be like saying that emotions can only apply to living things, and then claim that a triangle is angry. Either a set of predicates can apply to God or they cannot apply to God. You cannot have it both ways.

    It isn't a contradiction to say that God affects two minds at once in the same way and at the same time. And it is clear that God does indeed affect creation despite not "acting" on it, just as creation is related to God even though God is not related to it.

    If our understanding is necessarily delimited by the categories, then the concepts within our understanding are equally delimited by the categories. We cannot use those very same concepts to describe anything outside the categories. In fact, we cannot even say that something is outside the categories, because “outside” involves the categories!

    You're trying to take this into Kant/Derrida territory, but it doesn't work that way. Aquinas acknowledges that there is no such thing as non-apophatic, non-analogous knowledge of God in this life. And our apophatic, analogous knowledge is not limited by categories--these are not mental categories, remember--but is necessitated by our interaction with created things. All created things are diverse, good in one way or another and so on. But created things are the only things that we can know in this life. Hence, our knowledge will be limited but not delimited: we are not trapped, unlike Kant.

    The only thing that could save this account is saying that what is outside the categories has something in common C with the categories, and the problem is how you can possibly talk about this C without using the categories at all.

    God's actions appear through the categories. In a sense, his actions are the categories. God is an apophatic void known through his actions alone. We call him purely actual because he must necessarily possess the capability of changing all other things, given his actions; and we call him Being Itself because there must necessarily be no distinction between his essence and existence, given creation; and we call him the First Cause because all effects must necessarily derive from him. But these are merely divine names: they're analogies. In more extreme terms--similar to the ones used by mystics like Dionysius and particularly Eckhart--, God is not Actus Purus, nor is he Being Itself, nor is he the First Cause. This is not to say that the terms are purely equivocal, because it clearly must be the case that God in himself is something like all of these things; otherwise, he could not produce the effects that he does.

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  87. And if that is true, then the intelligible form of God, which is actually God himself, would have to be limited by the passive intellect after being received by it, which is contradictory and impossible.

    God affects the intellect. The intellect intentionally joins with God. The only sense that there is a "limitation" here is that the affection on the intellect is "limited" to a single intellect, because it is, in a sense, created. But it is only created from our perspective; from God's, it is uncreated. It is a direct connection to God that is not made through a created medium, but is rather created ("begins to exist") directly within the person.

    The question is whether there is still any meaning left that we can understand at all in “fully here” and “fully there” if you absolutely deny any categorical content to them whatsoever. And note that any trace or hint of a category within “fully here” and “fully there” revives the contradiction.

    Again, it is not a contradiction to say that God affects two minds at the same time and in the same way, because the two minds are necessarily different in themselves. Hence, there will be a numerical difference in the affection. But this does not limit God, because all of God's effects (save created esse, of course) fall under the ten categories.

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  88. And what that means is that in any analysis of analogical relationships, you must have univocality at some level.

    I got lost in your analysis, unfortunately. Like the earlier part, it was too abstract for me to follow. I guess there's a reason that I have not participated very often in the debates about the definition of analogy.

    In any case, I hope that my response above clears up most of the issues. Now that this combox has hit page 2, I'd kind of like to wrap it up.

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  89. Reading Davies on analogy. He quotes Pseudo-Denys as saying:

    "What has actually to be said about the Cause of everything is this. Since it is the Cause of all beings, we should posit and ascribe to it all the affirmations we make in regard to beings, and, more appropriately, we should negate all these affirmations. Now we should not conclude that the negations are simply the opposites of the affirmations, but rather that the cause of all is considerably prior to this, beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion."

    Davies explains:

    "For Denys, 'God is good' is not false. But it is inadequate--in something like the way 'Mozart is musical' is inadequate, or is an understatement, though not false."

    He further quotes Aquinas:

    "because we come to knowledge of God from other things, the reality in the names said of God and other things belongs by priority in God according to his mode of being, but the meaning of the name belongs to God by posteriority. And so he is said to be named from his effects."

    Davies explains:

    "We call God good and the like having first learned to call creatures good and the like. In this sense God's goodness and the like is secondary to what is found in creatures. But it is also prior, since what is found in creatures derives from God, whose way of being what we say he is makes creatures who are like him nothing more than imitators of something lying beyond them."

    As I said, strictly speaking, even affirmations like "First Cause" must themselves be negated, per Dionysius. Eckhart--a Thomist--went even further. But none of this is to say that analogy is equivocal; it is rather to say that the doctrine of analogy is itself apophatic.

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  90. So what I'm saying is that God is outside of any category, but that his actions always fall under the categories. Everything created (aside from esse) is under the categories … This is to say that the effect falls under the categories, but that the cause does not. He applies this rule absolutely everywhere.

    But the problem remains. Even our concept of “causality” is derived from the knowledge based upon the categorical framework of creation, and thus “cause” is itself part of the apparatus of the categories. So, you continue to help yourself to concepts that derive their very coherence from the categories to understand that which exists beyond the categories, and at the time same throw them away as useless. It is like a bird flying through the air. The bird requires air resistance to fly at all, and thus would simply be unable to fly – or live – in a vacuum. By removing the air resistance that is essential to flight, flight becomes impossible. Similarly, remove the concepts bound by our categorical understanding of the world of compound entities, and you have nothing left to understand the metaphysically simply being that exists beyond that world, except by negation and apophatic means. You cannot even say that God “causes” Y, because our knowledge of X causes Y is rooted in the categories of the created universe, and thus would be inappropriate when applied to God. That means that you cannot even use apophatic means, because a true apophatism would negate even the understanding based upon negated affirmations, leading one to a true darkness and ignorance. You would have to embrace Neoplatonism in which the One is beyond being and beyond intelligibility in order to be truly consistent. The only thing that saves you is the doctrine of analogy. I think that I have offered a solid argument that undermines it, and this is a problem, because if I am right, then we cannot ever know anything about God or talk about God coherently.

    It isn't a contradiction to say that God affects two minds at once in the same way and at the same time. And it is clear that God does indeed affect creation despite not "acting" on it, just as creation is related to God even though God is not related to it.

    First, the contradiction isn’t God affected two minds at once in the same way and at the same time. The contradiction is between:

    (1) God is fully and entirely present in distinct place X
    (2) God is fully and entirely present in distinct place Y

    (1) contradicts (2), because if God is fully and totally present in a distinct place X, then there is nothing left of God to be present anywhere else, because that is just what it means for something to be fully and totally present in a distinct place. Yet he is also fully and entirely present in Y, which is impossible.

    Your counter-argument is that “fully” and “totally” do not mean the same thing when applied to God as when applied to creation, and thus there is no contradiction. Unfortunately, there is no knowledge either, because knowledge depends upon the form of the known being fully and entirely received by the passive intellect. It is not the case the only part of the form is received by the intellect, but rather that the entirety of the form is received by the passive intellect. So, if “fully and totally” cannot be applied to God in any coherent fashion, then they are equivocal terms, and that destroys our ability to say that we have knowledge of God. If they are analogically applied, then what is the commonality between their meaning with respect to God and their meaning with respect to creation?

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  91. Second, how can X affect Y without X acting upon Y? Only act can be a cause, and thus affecting and acting are ultimately rooted in the same fundamental truth, which means that if X causes Y to change, then X necessarily acts upon Y, by actualizing a potency, for example. They ultimately are just different ways of talking about the same process. To say that X does one process, but does not do the other process, is contradictory.

    God's actions appear through the categories. In a sense, his actions are the categories. God is an apophatic void known through his actions alone. We call him purely actual because he must necessarily possess the capability of changing all other things, given his actions; and we call him Being Itself because there must necessarily be no distinction between his essence and existence, given creation; and we call him the First Cause because all effects must necessarily derive from him. But these are merely divine names: they're analogies. In more extreme terms--similar to the ones used by mystics like Dionysius and particularly Eckhart--, God is not Actus Purus, nor is he Being Itself, nor is he the First Cause. This is not to say that the terms are purely equivocal, because it clearly must be the case that God in himself is something like all of these things; otherwise, he could not produce the effects that he does.

    As you probably know, I have a problem with the doctrine of analogy, and so I don’t think referring to it will help you here. I believe that analogy presupposes univocity for its very possibility, and thus any kind of knowledge that cannot ever utilize univocal terms cannot ever utilize analogy, either.

    And that even makes sense within Thomism. After all, if X causes Y to change, then X gives C to Y, and therefore, X and Y share C (albeit in different ways of being, i.e. C-in-X differs from C-in-Y). However, when we think about C itself, irrespective of its different ways of being, C must be understood univocally between X and Y. It is like how a form F is in a material being (i.e. F-in-material) and in an immaterial being (i.e. F-in-immaterial), and yet we can think about F alone, irrespective of its mode of being, even though it can only be in one of the two modes of being. And if we can think about F (or C) alone, then F (or C) must have a univocal meaning when predicated of either matter (or X) or immaterial entities (or Y). If not, then the whole thing falls apart. And the problem is that Aquinas argues that univocality is impossible when it comes to talk about God.

    God affects the intellect. The intellect intentionally joins with God.

    The intellect becomes God himself. That is the problem here. It is not that God himself is over there, the intellect is over here, and God is affecting the intellect from a distance. It is rather that the intellect has taken on the form of God, which means that the intellect has taken on God himself, which means that the intellect has become God himself. That is what is really supposed to be going on here. Just wanted to make it clear.

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  92. The only sense that there is a "limitation" here is that the affection on the intellect is "limited" to a single intellect, because it is, in a sense, created. But it is only created from our perspective; from God's, it is uncreated. It is a direct connection to God that is not made through a created medium, but is rather created ("begins to exist") directly within the person.

    The limitation has always been from X is possibly present in multiple places to X is actually present in a single place. Whenever that happens X has been limited in some way. It is like how while playing the lottery, many tickets could possibly win, and then a single ticket actually wins, which limits and restricts the number of (possibly) winning tickets to one (actual) winning ticket. It is a fact that God is currently only possibly present in all intellects, because he is not actually present in any of them. That is supposed to be saved for the beatific vision.

    However, once the beatific vision occurs, God will go from possibly being present in all intellects to actually being present in some intellects. By definition, whenever that specific process occurs, there is necessarily limitation. Furthermore, it is the very kind of limitation that Aquinas argues an unlimited and infinite being cannot possibly have, because his arguments for infinitude make use of the specific principle that uses this very concept of limitation. So, it is clear both that this principle of potency limiting act if act is received by potency applies to God, because it is used in arguments about God. And if this principle is applicable to God, then when this principle is applied to knowledge of God, it follows that knowledge of God becomes impossible.

    So, what this all comes down to is that if the principle is applicable to God during argumentation about his infinitude, then it follows that the principle is applicable to God, period. And if this principle is applicable to God, then when it is applied to our ability to know God, then it necessarily follows that we cannot know God at all, even during the beatific vision.

    Again, it is not a contradiction to say that God affects two minds at the same time and in the same way, because the two minds are necessarily different in themselves. Hence, there will be a numerical difference in the affection. But this does not limit God, because all of God's effects (save created esse, of course) fall under the ten categories.

    But this is not about one of God’s effects. His effects are distinct from himself. His essence is not distinct from himself. If his essence, and thus his very existence, must be received by an intellect, then this is no longer an effect of God, because it is not distinct from God, but rather is the very core of his identity and existence. Remember, God himself is fully present in a particular blessed intellect, which means that the intellect has become God himself. This is not some effect of God where he remains at a distance, untouched and unaffected by what his effect is causing. This is God himself being received by a created intellect in order for that intellect to become God himself.

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  93. This is not to say that the terms are purely equivocal, because it clearly must be the case that God in himself is something like all of these things; otherwise, he could not produce the effects that he does.

    But that is the problem. It would have to go something like this. God has X and gives X to Y, which actualizes the potential in Y to X. So, X is given by God and Y receives X from God. If we just focus upon the given and received X, then why can’t we talk about it univocally? It has the same name “X”, and has the same referent X, and I don’t see why it would have a different sense, which means it has the same sense X. That is the very definition of univocality. I have no problem with analogical God-talk, but it must ultimately reduce to univocality, which Aquinas has argued is impossible. So, you have a necessary impossibility, i.e. it is necessary that talk about God ultimately reduce to univocality and it is impossible that talk about God ultimately reduce to univocality.

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  94. Oh, and just to let you know, I'm taking the family on vacation for the next few weeks, and so won't be able to reply to your comments until I return.

    Take care.

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  95. But the problem remains. Even our concept of “causality” is derived from the knowledge based upon the categorical framework of creation, and thus “cause” is itself part of the apparatus of the categories.

    The principle of causality is not part of the categories. If it was, then esse being breathed into essence would be completely incomprehensible, because that distinction is above the categories. We can coherently and univocally say that esse joins with essence and creates a being. This is causality. We do not need action and affection for esse to be coherent, and so it's clear that the principle of causality is not reliant on the ten categories.

    Similarly, remove the concepts bound by our categorical understanding of the world of compound entities, and you have nothing left to understand the metaphysically simply being that exists beyond that world, except by negation and apophatic means. You cannot even say that God “causes” Y, because our knowledge of X causes Y is rooted in the categories of the created universe, and thus would be inappropriate when applied to God.

    The principle of causality rules all effects, regardless of the ten categories. And most of what you say is true. When we say that God is a "primary cause" rather than a "secondary cause", this means something totally apophatic. The chain of causes leads us, in a sense, to a "non-cause", because primary causality is so incomprehensibly different than secondary causality. To paraphrase Derrida, you might even say that the origin of all things is a non-origin. As Denys says, all positive labels must be applied and then negated, because they are never good enough.

    This is why it's more appropriate, when talking about God "causing" this or that, to say that something is caused by God, but that God did not cause it to happen. We know that creation is caused, and we apply all possible positive labels to the "Cause" behind it, only to negate them because they do not go far enough. This maintains the apophatic interval between creation and God. Aquinas applies this principle throughout his work.

    You would have to embrace Neoplatonism in which the One is beyond being and beyond intelligibility in order to be truly consistent.

    Not necessarily. Neoplatonism is extremely close to the tradition we're discussing, but it isn't quite the same thing. I mean, it's true that Jean-Luc Marion argues in God Without Being that "ipsum esse subsistens" is itself an apophatic label that must be negated, which means that God would be beyond being itself. But this doesn't mean the same thing in Christian tradition as it did in Neoplatonism. To say that God does not have being is not a negation in the sense of a dialectic, as Levinas says when he declares God "wholly otherwise than being". It is, instead, an analogical, Dionysian negation: it is to say that "being" is not good enough.

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  96. The only thing that saves you is the doctrine of analogy. I think that I have offered a solid argument that undermines it, and this is a problem, because if I am right, then we cannot ever know anything about God or talk about God coherently.

    Not going to get into this one. I don't see the problems with analogy that you do, nor am I well-read enough on the subject to defend it in detail.

    Unfortunately, there is no knowledge either, because knowledge depends upon the form of the known being fully and entirely received by the passive intellect.

    That's false. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer8.htm#2

    Aquinas himself says that one can have knowledge of an essence without fully comprehending it.

    Second, how can X affect Y without X acting upon Y?

    Primary versus secondary causation.

    To say that X does one process, but does not do the other process, is contradictory.

    It isn't any more contradictory than creation ex nihilo. You're going to have to give a more substantial argument than a mere assertion if you want to say that Aquinas's entire theology rests on a contradiction.

    As you probably know, I have a problem with the doctrine of analogy, and so I don’t think referring to it will help you here.

    It definitely helps me. It shows that the Beatific Vision is ultimately not a contradiction in itself, as long as the doctrine of analogy holds. This means that we've concluded our debate about the Beatific Vision, and that, once again, the topic has changed to analogy.

    The intellect becomes God himself. That is the problem here. It is not that God himself is over there, the intellect is over here, and God is affecting the intellect from a distance. It is rather that the intellect has taken on the form of God, which means that the intellect has taken on God himself, which means that the intellect has become God himself.

    In metaphysical terms, this cashes out as God affecting the intellect to create a direct connection between it and himself. There is no contradiction.

    However, once the beatific vision occurs, God will go from possibly being present in all intellects to actually being present in some intellects. By definition, whenever that specific process occurs, there is necessarily limitation.

    You've equivocated, here. There is no such thing as God "possibly being present" anywhere, because this would require that God is opposed to possibility as act to potency. That's something that Aquinas would reject. Nothing is opposed to God. Hence, before God is present in an intellect, there is no potential for God being present in the intellect. And this goes along with what Aquinas himself says, which is that the possible intellect and God are completely unrelated in dialectical terms. God's affection of the intellect is direct and, from his perspective, uncreated: it is not an actualization of anything, but rather simply begins.

    His effects are distinct from himself.

    Not entirely true. God's power is his being, and so he is his action. Everything that God does is God. Hence, if God causes something directly, it follows that God is there. It's true, of course, that there are secondary causes created by God through which his power is generally mediated. That is not the case when God affects the intellect.

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  97. His essence is not distinct from himself. If his essence, and thus his very existence, must be received by an intellect, then this is no longer an effect of God, because it is not distinct from God, but rather is the very core of his identity and existence. Remember, God himself is fully present in a particular blessed intellect, which means that the intellect has become God himself. This is not some effect of God where he remains at a distance, untouched and unaffected by what his effect is causing.

    There is no medium separating God's affection of the intellect. As Aquinas says, "As, however, He is by nature supremely being, so He is in Himself supremely intelligible. But that He be for a time not understood by us is owing to our defect: wherefore that He be seen by us after being unseen is owing to a change not in Him but in us." God affects the intellect, and the intellect becomes God intentionally (not naturally), but these changes only occur from our side. From God's side, no change occurs.

    So, you have a necessary impossibility, i.e. it is necessary that talk about God ultimately reduce to univocality and it is impossible that talk about God ultimately reduce to univocality.

    I am 99.99% sure that you're wrong, but I don't know the technical mistakes you've made, nor do I have the necessary texts on hand to study them. I'm just going to assume that there's an error in there somewhere and leave it to Josh and the others to find it.

    Oh, and just to let you know, I'm taking the family on vacation for the next few weeks, and so won't be able to reply to your comments until I return.

    Take care.


    Sounds good. I think we've pretty much finished up here, in any case. Analogy is the root of the confusion, and I have nothing to offer you in terms of an answer.

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  98. Back from vacation!

    The principle of causality is not part of the categories. If it was, then esse being breathed into essence would be completely incomprehensible, because that distinction is above the categories. We can coherently and univocally say that esse joins with essence and creates a being. This is causality. We do not need action and affection for esse to be coherent, and so it's clear that the principle of causality is not reliant on the ten categories.

    So, would you say that the principles of act and potency are operative both outside the categories and within the categories? In other words, esse being conjoined to essence would be an example of act and potency operating outside the categories, and fire burning wood would be an example of act and potency operating within the categories. So, the difference between act and potency and action and affection are that the former are the genera and the latter are the species, so to speak?

    The principle of causality rules all effects, regardless of the ten categories. And most of what you say is true. When we say that God is a "primary cause" rather than a "secondary cause", this means something totally apophatic. The chain of causes leads us, in a sense, to a "non-cause", because primary causality is so incomprehensibly different than secondary causality. To paraphrase Derrida, you might even say that the origin of all things is a non-origin. As Denys says, all positive labels must be applied and then negated, because they are never good enough.

    But if the chain of causes leads to a non-cause, then how can a non-cause cause anything? You have to provide some positive or cataphatic content to the notion of God “causing” something. If it is purely negative or apophatic, then it is utterly empty of content, including that of being a “cause” at all. I would be like talking about a triangle without sides. No sides, no triangle. No cause, no God.

    This is why it's more appropriate, when talking about God "causing" this or that, to say that something is caused by God, but that God did not cause it to happen.

    But that is just incoherent. How can you say that Y is the effect of X, but not say that X is the cause of Y? They are just different ways of saying the same thing! Again, it would be like saying that a triangle has three sides, but a triangle has no sides. Incoherent.

    That's false. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer8.htm#2

    How does that text refute my claim? I have been arguing that it is a necessary condition for knowledge that a passive intellect receive an active form. Aquinas agrees with me that the blessed human intellect fully receives the divine essence, and thus achieves a quidditative knowledge of God, but ultimately lacks comprehension of the divine essence, because the intellect “cannot attain the perfect manner of knowing it.” Comprehension is irrelevant, because my problem is with quidditative knowledge of the divine essence. Your text does not address my concerns at all, which are a step before comprehensive knowledge. In other words, in order to have comprehensive knowledge, one must first have quidditative knowledge, and if quidditative knowledge is impossible, then comprehensive knowledge is also impossible.

    It definitely helps me. It shows that the Beatific Vision is ultimately not a contradiction in itself, as long as the doctrine of analogy holds. This means that we've concluded our debate about the Beatific Vision, and that, once again, the topic has changed to analogy.

    Then let’s talk about analogy. :)

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  99. In metaphysical terms, this cashes out as God affecting the intellect to create a direct connection between it and himself. There is no contradiction.

    First, that is not what it means, unless you have equivocated and twisted the meanings of all the terms involved. It makes absolutely no sense to say that X becomes Y when X has a “direct connection” with Y while X and Y remain utterly separate and distinct. Find any example in which this formulation works.

    Second, you still haven’t addressed the fundamental contradiction between Aquinas saying that the intellect can receive the full and entire divine essence, which means that the intellect can receive God himself in his entirety, and yet the God himself remains infinitely distinct and separate from the intellect. Either God is fully received by the intellect, or God is not fully received by the intellect. If the former, then there cannot be any residual leftovers to God that are not received by the intellect, which is what “fully” and “entirely” mean, and that means that God can only be known by a single intellect, which contradicts Aquinas. If the latter, then there is no knowledge of God at all, because a necessary condition of knowledge is not met.

    You've equivocated, here. There is no such thing as God "possibly being present" anywhere, because this would require that God is opposed to possibility as act to potency. That's something that Aquinas would reject. Nothing is opposed to God. Hence, before God is present in an intellect, there is no potential for God being present in the intellect. And this goes along with what Aquinas himself says, which is that the possible intellect and God are completely unrelated in dialectical terms. God's affection of the intellect is direct and, from his perspective, uncreated: it is not an actualization of anything, but rather simply begins.

    But that’s an even bigger problem, because it contradicts Aquinas’ entire metaphysical system. If there is no potency in the intellect to receive God’s essence, then the intellect cannot possibly receive God’s essence at all. If you want to say that X is possible, but that X is not a potentiality, then you have just contradicted yourself. The bottom line is that you go from an intellect absent a received divine essence to an intellect with a received divine essence, and that necessarily marks a transition from potency to act, because it is a change, and all change is marked by that transition from potency to act. If you want to reject that account of change, then you have compromised a huge chunk of Aquinas’ system, including the First Way, which depends upon that very principle. If you want to admit the possibility of change without the transition from potency to act, then you have completely undermined the First Way!

    Not entirely true. God's power is his being, and so he is his action. Everything that God does is God. Hence, if God causes something directly, it follows that God is there. It's true, of course, that there are secondary causes created by God through which his power is generally mediated. That is not the case when God affects the intellect.

    Again, this seems contradictory to me. If I am something that God does, and everything that God does is God, then I am God, which is absurd. You cannot say that there is an infinite distance between God and his creation, and yet say that God is his creation. X is identical to Y, except that X is infinitely different from Y. Does that make any sense? Or maybe when you say that all of God’s actions is God, you mean something else by the “is” other than the “is” of identity?

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  100. There is no medium separating God's affection of the intellect. As Aquinas says, "As, however, He is by nature supremely being, so He is in Himself supremely intelligible. But that He be for a time not understood by us is owing to our defect: wherefore that He be seen by us after being unseen is owing to a change not in Him but in us." God affects the intellect, and the intellect becomes God intentionally (not naturally), but these changes only occur from our side. From God's side, no change occurs.

    First, all change involves a transition from potency to act, and thus if our knowledge of God changes, then it necessarily changed from potency to act, which contradicts your claim above.

    Second, the issue is precisely how God himself can be fully and entirely received by a created intellect, and yet still be available to be received by other created intellects. After all, “fully” and “entirely” have specific meanings, particularly the utter lack of residue or leftovers. To say that God is fully and entirely received by an intellect, means that there cannot be any residue or leftover to God that is available to other intellects. So, either God’s is fully and entirely received by an intellect, which would imply that God could not be known by any other intellect, or God is partly received by an intellect, which is incoherent, because God’s essence has no parts, or God is not received at all by an intellect, which makes knowledge of God impossible.

    Third, the problem with saying that the intellect becomes God intentionally and not naturally is that this distinction is only possible for intelligible forms that are involved in composite entities, whether by form-matter or esse-essence. Remember that when an intellect receives an intelligible species it does so either by abstracting away the particularity of its matter and leaving only the form, or by abstracting away its existential character and leaving only the essence. After all, if the essence was conjoined with esse, then it would literally be an ens within the intellect, which is absurd. So, you are trying to use a process that cannot possibly work with a metaphysically simple being at all, because its essence is its esse, and thus wherever its essence is, its esse also occurs, meaning that it is not an abstracted intelligible species at all, but rather an actually existing being.

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  101. dguller et al. - You guys could probably assemble all the comments from this combox into a book. I pasted in into Word and there are at least 500 pages (which is probably more like 300 with better formatting, but still enough for a decent-length book).

    It might also be a bit easier to follow, since by the third page when only dguller and rank sophist are left, the topic seems to have moved completely onto the beatific vision.

    It seems that the main points are debating dguller's objections that Aquinas's notion of simplicity, with its reliance on virtual composition, means that God is not absolutely, but only relatively simple; that having virtual properties is equal to have potentiality, which cannot exist in God; and the idea that "virtual distinction is not a real distinction, and actually is essentially unreal until it is made explicit by an intellect" but this is a problem because God's intellect apprehends those things so they are already explicit, which leads, he claims, to composition in God.

    If the discussion could be arranged in a way that was a little easier to follow, I think it would be a valuable contribution to philosophy of religion.

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