CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
CONTEMPLATING GOD
IN HIS VESTIGES IN
THE SENSE WORLD
Concerning the mirror of things perceived through sensation, we can see God not only through them as through his vestiges, but also in them ' as he is in them by his essence, power and presence.
This type of consideration is higher than the previous one; therefore it holds second place as the second level of contemplation by which we are led to contemplate God in all creatures which enter our minds through our bodily senses.
It should be noted that this world, which is called the macrocosm, enters our soul, which is called the smaller world, through the doors of the five senses as we perceive, enjoy and judge sensible things. This is clear from the following: In the world, some things generate, some are generated and some govern the former and the latter. Those that generate are simple bodies, such as heavenly bodies and the four elements. Whatever is generated and produced by the operation of natural power is generated and produced from these elements by the power of the light which unites contrary elements in composite things. Generated things are composite bodies made from the elements, such as minerals, plants, animals and the human
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body. Those which rule over these groups are spiritual substances, either completely united to matter, as the souls of brute animals; or united to but separable from matter, as rational spirits; or completely separated from matter, as heavenly spirits, which the philosophers call intelligences and we, angels. According to the philosophers, these latter move the heavenly bodies. Because of this, the governance of the universe is attributed to them, by their receiving from the First Cause, God, an influx of power which, in turn, they distribute in their task of governing, which has to do with the natural consistency of things. According to the theologians, the ruling of the universe is attributed to the angels in relation to the work of restoration, under the dominion of the most high God. Hence they are called ministering spirits, sentfor the sake ofthose who inherit salvation (Heb.
1:14).
So man, who is called the smaller world, has five senses like five doors through which knowledge of all things which are in the sense world enters his soul. For through sight enter the sublime and luminous heavenly bodies and other colored objects; through touch, solid and terrestrial bodies; through the three intermediate senses, intermediate objects; through taste, liquid; through hearing, sounds; and through smell, vapors which have something of humid nature, something of air, and something fiery or hot, as is evidenced in the smoke from incense.
Through these doors, then, enter both simple bodies and composite bodies made of mixtures of these. We perceive with our senses not only these particular sense objects, which are light, sound, odor, taste and the four primary qualities which touch apprehends; but also the common sense objects, which are number, size, shape, rest and motion.
"Everything that is moved is moved by something else"; 1 and certain things move and come to rest by themselves, such as animals. When through these five senses we perceive the motion of bodies, we are led to 1.
Aristotle, Physic .
, VII, t.
1, c.l (241b 24).
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the knowledge of spiritual movers, as from effect to cause.
4. The entire sense world, therefore, in its three classes of objects, enters the human soul through apprehension. The exterior sense objects are the first which enter into the soul through the gates of the five senses. They enter,
I say, not through their substance, but through their likenesses, which are first produced in the medium; and from the medium they enter into the organ and from the exterior organ into the interior organ and from this into the apprehensive faculty. And thus the production of the image in the medium and from the medium in the organ and the turning of the apprehensive faculty upon it bring about the apprehension of all objects that the soul grasps from outside.
. From this apprehension, if it is of a suitable object, there follows pleasure. The senses take delight in an object perceived through an abstracted likeness either because of its beauty, as in sight, or because of its sweetness, as in smell and hearing, or because of its wholesomeness, as in taste or touch, if we speak by way of appropriation. Now, all enjoyment is based on proportion. But the species has the notion of form, power or operation according to whether it is viewed in relation to the principle from which it flows; or to the medium through which it passes; or to the term on which it acts. Therefore proportion can be viewed in the likeness, insofar as it involves species or form, and then it is called beauty since "beauty is nothing other than harmonious symmetry" or "a certain arrangement of parts with pleasing color." 2 Or proportion can be viewed as involving potency or power, and then it is called agreeableness since the acting power does not disproportionally exceed the recipient; for the senses are pained by extremes and delighted in the mean. Or proportion can be viewed as productive and impressive; it is proportioned when the agent by its impression fills a need of the recipient, that is, strengthening and nourishing the recipient, which is most apparent in taste and touch. And thus through 2.
Augustine, De musica , VI, c.13, no.
38; De civitate Dei , XXII, c.
19, no.
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pleasure, exterior agreeable objects enter into the soul by their likenesses according to a threefold form of delight.
After this apprehension and pleasure comes judgment, by which we determine not only whether something is white or black, because this pertains to a particular sense, not only whether it is wholesome or harmful, because this pertains to an interior sense, but we judge also and give a reason why it is pleasurable. In this judgment we inquire into the*reason of the pleasure which is experienced in the senses from the object.
Now this occurs when we ask the reason why a thing is beautiful or pleasant or wholesome, and we find that the reason lies in the proportion of harmony. The basis of harmony is the same in large and small objects; neither is it increased by size nor does it change or pass away as things pass away, nor is it altered by motion.
It abstracts, therefore, from place, time and motion, and consequently is unchangeable, unlimited, endless and is completely spiritual. Judgment, therefore, is an action which causes the sensible species, received in a sensible way through the senses, to enter the intellective faculty by a process of purification and abstraction. And thus the whole world can enter into the human soul through the doors of the senses by the three operations mentioned above.
All these are vestiges in which we can see our God. For the species which is apprehended is a likeness generated in a medium and then impressed on the organ itself. Through this impression, it leads to its source, namely the object to be known.
This clearly suggests that the Eternal Light generates from itself a coequal Likeness or Splendor, which is consubstantial and coeternal.
It further suggests that he who is the image of the invisible God (Col .
: 1 5 ) and the brightness ofhisglory and the image of his substance (Heb.
1:3), who is everywhere through his initial generation, as the object generates its likeness in the entire medium, is united by the grace of union to an individual of rational nature, as the species is united to the bodily organ.
Through this union he leads us back to the Father as to the
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fountain-source and object.
If, therefore, all things that can be known generate a likeness of themselves, they manifestly proclaim that in them as in mirrors we can see the eternal generation of the Word, the Image and Son, eternally emanating from God the Father.
In this way the species which delights as beautiful, pleasant and wholesome suggests that there is primordial beauty, pleasure and wholesomeness in that first Species, in which there is supreme proportion and equality with the generating Source, in which there is power flowing not from images of the imagination but from the truth of apprehension, in which there is an impression which preserves and satisfies and dispels all need in the one who apprehends. If, therefore, "pleasure is the union of the harmonious with the harmonious," 3 and if the Likeness of God alone contains in the highest degree the notion of beauty, delight and wholesomeness and if it is united in truth and intimacy and in a fulness that fulfills every capacity, it is obvious that in God alone there is primordial and true delight and that in all of our delights we are led to seek this delight.
In a more excellent and immediate way, judgment leads us to see eternal truths more surely. Judgment takes place through our reason abstracting from place, time and mutability, and thus from dimension, succession and change, through reason which is unchangeable, unlimited and endless. But nothing is absolutely unchangeable, unlimited and endless unless it is eternal. Everything that is eternal is either God or in God.
If, therefore, everything which we judge with certainty we judge by such a reason, then it is clear that he himself is the reason of all things and the infallible rule and light of truth, in which all things shine forth infallibly, indelibly, indubitably, irrefutably, indisputably, unchangeably, boundlessly, endlessly, indivisibly and intellectually. Therefore those laws by which we judge with certainty about all sensible things that come under our 3.
William of Auxerre, Summa aurea , II, tr.
20, c.l.
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consideration— since they are infallible and cannot be doubted by the intellect of the one who apprehends them, since they are as if ever present and cannot be erased from the memory of the one who recalls them, since they cannot be refuted or judged by the intellect of the one who judges because, as Augustine says,
"no one passes judgment on them, but by them" 4— these laws must be unchangeable and incorruptible since they are necessary; boundless since they are without limits; and endless since they are eternal— and for this reason they must be indivisible since they are intellectual and incorporeal, not made, but uncreated, existing eternally in the Eternal Art, by which, through which and according to which all beautiful things are formed. 5
Therefore we cannot judge with certainty except in view of the Eternal Art which is the form that not only produces all things but also conserves and distinguishes all things, as the being which sustains the form in all things and the rule which directs all things. Through it our mind judges all things that enter it through the senses.
10. We can extend this reflection by considering the seven different kinds of numbers by which, as by seven steps, we ascend to God. 6 Augustine shows this in his book On True 7 where he indicates the Religion and in the sixth book On Music , differences of numbers which ascend step by step from sensible things to the Maker of all so that God may be seen in all things.
For he says that there are numbers in bodies, especially in sounds and voices, and these he calls sounding numbers
There are numbers which we abstract from the above and receive in our senses; these he calls encountered numbers. There are numbers which proceed from the soul into the body, as seen in gestures and dance; these he calls expressive numbers. There are numbers in 4.
Augustine, De libero arbitrio , II, c.12, no.
34; De vera religione , XXXI, 58.
Cf. note 6 to Chapter One, p. 61.
Although the Latin term numerus could be translated here in a general way by "harmony," we have chosen to retain the literal meaning "number" for technical reasons. As Bonaventure states, he is following Augustine, whose notion of number includes not only natural numbers, but also ratios, harmonies, proportions and rhythms.
Augustine, De vera religione , XL, 74-76; De musica , VI, passim.
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the pleasures of the senses from turning attention to the species received; these he calls sensual numbers. There are numbers retained in the memory, and these he calls remembered numbers.
There are also numbers by which we judge all the others, and these he callsjudicial numbers. As has been said, these are necessarily above the mind since they are infallible and beyond judgment. From these there are impressed on our minds artistic numbers , which, however, Augustine does not enumerate among these classes because they are connected with the judicial numbers. From these latter flow the expressive numbers, from which are created the numerous forms of artifacts. Thus an orderly descent is made from the highest numbers, through the intermediate, to the lowest. To these highest numbers we ascend step by step from the sounding numbers, by means of the encountered, the sensual and the remembered numbers.
Since, therefore, all things are beautiful and in some way pleasurable, and since beauty and pleasure do not exist without proportion, and since proportion exists primarily in numbers, all things must necessarily involve numbers. Thus "number is the foremost exemplar in the mind of the Creator," 8 and in things, the foremost vestige leading to Wisdom. Since this is most evident to all and very close to God, it leads us most closely to God by means of these seven divisions; and it makes him known in all bodily and sensible things when we apprehend the numerical, delight in numerical proportions and judge irrefutably according to the laws of numerical proportion.
1 1. From the first two stages in which we are led to behold God in vestiges, like the two wings covering the Seraph's feet, 9 we can gather that all the creatures of the sense world lead the mind 8.
Boethius, De institutione arithmetica , I, 2.
Cf. Isa. 6:2.
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of the contemplative and wise man to the eternal God.
For these creatures are shadows, echoes and pictures of that first, most powerful, most wise and most perfect
Principle, of that eternal Source, Light and Fulness, of that efficient, exemplary and ordering Art.
They are vestiges, representations, spectacles proposed to us and signs divinely given so that we can see God.
These creatures, I say, are exemplars or rather exemplifications presented to souls still untrained and immersed in sensible things so that through sensible things which they see they will be carried over to intelligible things which they do not see as through signs to what is signified.
12. The creatures of the sense world signify
the invisible attributes of God , partly because God is the origin, exemplar and end of every creature, and every effect is the sign of its cause, the exemplification of its exemplar and the path to the end, to which it leads:
10. Rom.
1:20.
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partly by their own proper representation, partly from prophetic prefiguration, partly from angelic operation, partly from additional institution.
For every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal Wisdom, but especially one which in the book of Scripture has been elevated through the spirit of prophecy to prefigure spiritual things; and more especially, those creatures in whose likeness God wished to appear through the ministry of angels; and most especially, a creature which God willed to institute as a symbol and which has the character not only of a sign in the general sense but also of a sacrament.
13. From all this, one can gather that from the creation of the world the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen , being understood through the things that are made. 11
And so those who do not wish to heed these things, and to know, bless and love God in all of them are without excuse ;n for they are unwilling to be transported out of darkness into the marvelous light of God.
11. Rom.
1:20.
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But thanks be to Godthrough our Lord Jesus Christ , who has transported us out of darkness into his marvelous light 12 when through these lights exteriorly given we are disposed to reenter the mirror of our mind in which divine realities shine forth.
12.
1 Cor.
15:57; 1 Pet. 2:9.