II. Replies to the preliminary arguments
QUESTIONS ON ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS IX, Q.
through an act of predestining.12 Everyone agrees with this. Therefore, this determination does not take away the power for opposites.
II. Replies to the preliminary arguments
Replies to the preliminary arguments.
In reply to the first argument [n. 1] it is evident that a power, insofar as it is called will, is not a power for bringing about contraries at the same time, but rather a power that can determine itself to either of them. The intellect is not like this.
One might object, "Can I be not-sitting now, given that I am in fact sitting?" I reply:
A proposition to the effect that this is possible, understood in the composed sense as affirming that the two opposites are possible together, is false; for such a proposition states that there is a power for opposites to be true at the same time. As for the divided sense, some would say13 that when there is sitting, the sitting exists necessarily, in keeping with the statement in De interpretatione I [c. 9, 19a23–4] that "Everything that is, when it is, [necessarily is]," and that nothing [that is not in fact true] is possible in that very moment, but only in some prior instant in which it was possible for [what in fact comes about] not to come about at the time in question.
They evidently cannot sustain the claim that the will is now a power for the opposite of what is in the will. At this point it would be tedious to explain the absurdity of this position—that necessity and contingency are not proper conditions of beings when they exist, but only necessity is, and contingency never is, given that when something does not exist, it does not exist either necessarily or contingently—as well as how the authoritative passage from De interpretatione does not support their view, which rests on the fallacy of confusing the composed and the divided sense and the fallacy of inferring something unqualifiedly true from something true in a certain respect.
Alternatively, one could say that when the will has a certain volition, it has that volition contingently, and that volition is contingently from the will at that time: for if it is not from the will contingently at that time, it is never from the will contingently, since it is not from the will at any other time. And just as that volition is in the will contingently, so too the will is at that time a power for the opposite of that volition, understanding "at that time" in the divided sense. That is, I do not mean that the will can will the opposite simultaneously with willing what it in fact wills, but rather that—again, understanding this in the divided sense—in the very instant in which it wills one thing it has the power to will the opposite rather than willing what it in fact wills, not necessarily, but contingently.
12 Cf. Lectura I d. 40 q. un. nn. 4–10; Ordinatio I d. 40 q. un. nn. 4–10.
13 Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II a. 49 a. 6 in corp.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RATIONAL AND NON-RATIONAL POWERS
66 To the second argument [n. 3], if this argument is meant to apply to the will, I say that the will can act without any determination prior to its act; thus, the first determination—first both in time and in nature—is in the will's performing of its own act. And so if "it cannot issue in any act at all unless it is first determined" is applied to the will, it is false.
67 If, on the other hand, the argument is meant to apply to the intellect as cognizing opposites, then it's true that the intellect cannot act with respect to something external unless it is determined by something else, since of itself the intellect has to do with external things in the mode of nature; it lacks the power to determine itself to one or the other of a pair of opposites. Therefore, it will do either both or nothing.
And if one should conclude from this that the intellect is not a full-blown rational power, I will grant that conclusion in keeping with my prior discussion. Indeed, if, per impossibile, the intellect existed by itself, without the will but together with the inferior powers, nothing would ever come about otherwise than determinately, in the mode of nature, and there would be no power sufficient for bringing about either of two opposites.
68 In reply to the third argument [n. 5], some say that a power can have an act concerning opposites that are within the scope of its first object, which in the case of an act of willing they identify as the good, either genuine or apparent, but not an act concerning the opposite of its first object, which they identify as the bad qua bad. Similarly, with respect to acts they say that the will can have opposite acts, willing and willing-against, concerning anything in which something of the character of the first object of each act—namely some aspect of good [in the case of willing] and some aspect of bad [in the case of willing-against]—is found. There is no aspect of bad found in the ultimate end, and they14 evidently hold that the will is not a rational power with respect to the ultimate end. Similarly, they evidently hold that the will can be immobilized by a habit with respect to certain things other than the ultimate end. I will not here pursue a discussion of these matters,15 or of whether the will is determined to will the end and to will-against what is bad qua bad.
69 The reply to the fourth argument [n. 5], the one about the sun, is clear above in my response to the first objection against Aristotle [n. 43].
70 To the fifth argument [n. 7] it can be said, in keeping with what I say at the beginning of the first article [nn. 10–19], that cold never does anything toward the being of heat; it does, however, do something such that, once it has been done, something else can
14 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, ST I q. 82 a. 1 in corp.; Giles of Rome, Quodl. III q. 15; Godfrey of Fontaines,
Quodl. VI q. 1 in corp, q. 6 in corp., q. 7 in corp., VIII q. 16; Henry of Ghent, Quodl. XII q. 26 in corp.
(though see also Quodl. XIII q. 5 in corp.).
15 Cf. Ordinatio I d. 1 pars 2 q. 2 nn. 82–158; Reportatio IV d. 49 qq. 8–9.
QUESTIONS ON ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS IX, Q.
cause greater heat: for example, it constricts something so that its interior heat will not be diffused, and thus the concentrated heat causes greater heat.
As for the throwing of a ball, although there is indeed a certain contrariety between the rebounding motion and the direct motion—as much contrariety as is required between the wheres that terminate local motion—there is no formal contrariety, since one who moves something violently toward some where moves it toward every where that can be attained through that motion. If it can attain every such where through its direct motion, that is how it will be moved; if not, it will rebound, and the rebounding motion will continue until a motion proportionate to the violence of the mover has been completed.
This and any other contingency in reflected and refracted rays—and in other contexts—does not introduce in any non-rational power the sort of indifference characteristic of a rational power.
As for the last argument,16 all passive powers, without exception, are of themselves powers for contradiction. Granted, if a necessarily existing form necessarily depended on matter, the composite would be incorruptible, and the matter would necessarily be actualized by that form; but that would not be in virtue of any necessity on the part of the matter, but rather on the part of the form. Active powers, by contrast, are powers for contradiction in the way that Aristotle explains with the words "being and not being."17 If one understands "being and not being" to indicate a passive power that is brought close or not brought close, then every active power whose action depends on a passive power can be a power for contradiction, not of itself but in virtue of something else. If one understands it to indicate an impediment, then every natural, corruptible active power can be impeded, even by another natural active cause. But no natural power has of itself the power to elicit opposite actions concerning one and the same object or has of itself the power to act and not act; that is the way in which a rational power is a power for contrariety or contradiction. Therefore, that proposition18 does not undermine the distinction as Aristotle intended to draw it.
16 Actually the next-to-last argument [n. 6].
17 That is, active powers are powers for being and not being. The edition cites Metaphysics IX.5,
1050b10–11: "What therefore is possible to be can (contingit) be and not be."
18 Namely, "every power is a power for contradiction."