11.4 Created Intellects That Are Not United to Bodies (SCG 2,91–101)
11.4 Created Intellects That Are Not United to Bodies (SCG 2,91–101)
SCG 2,91–101 is clearly concerned with angels, though in these chapters Aquinas tends to use the expression “separate substances” (substantiae separatae) and expressions similar to that.50 As I have shown, Aquinas takes human souls to be immaterial; but he also thinks that they exist as informing human bodies and as being deprived of certain ways of working if these bodies perish so that they no longer inform them. Might there, however, be created intellects that are not composites of form and matter, intellects that are purely immaterial while not informing bodies? Aquinas believed angels to be intellects of this kind, and in SCG 2,91 he argues philosophically that they exist and that there are a lot of them. He then proceeds to say what he thinks they have to be (or cannot be) and how they function (SCG 2,93–101).
You might find it surprising that Aquinas attempts to argue philosophically for the existence of angels since Christian belief in angels is commonly grounded in biblical texts that refer to them and since you might expect Aquinas only to view them as things the existence of which has been revealed by God.51 As I have shown, though, Aquinas thinks that a number of biblical texts can be defended without invoking the notion of faith, without appealing only to what he calls “the articles of faith.” And in SCG 2,91–92 he argues that this is so when it comes to belief in angels.
Here are just three of the arguments he presents in SCG 2,91:
1. Intellect is naturally something that exists apart from bodies. Intellect in people exists as conjoined to what is bodily not because it is essentially (per se) intellect but because it happens accidentally (per accidens) to be conjoined to what is bodily. This means that intellect as such is not inevitably united to a body so as to form a composite thing. So there are intellectual substances that are not united to a body.52
2. Intellect is something that is of itself subsistent; yet what subsists of itself is not essentially united to something else even if it is the case that the human intellect is united to the human body. So some intellectual substances are not united to a body.53
3. God creates so as to impart being to things. If created intellect only exists as soul informing matter in human beings, then there would be a huge gap in being between people and God since there could be intellect that resembles God by being wholly immaterial. So it is reasonable to think that God has filled that gap. “All possible natures are found in the order of things; otherwise, the universe would be imperfect. … Therefore, below the first substance, God, who is not in a genus (as was shown in Book 1 of this work), and above the soul, which is united to a body, there are some substances subsisting without bodies.”54
So in SCG 2,91–92 Aquinas takes himself to have given reasonable grounds for believing in the existence of angels. Yet what does he take angels to be? His views on this question, as provided in SCG 2,93–101, can, I think, be quickly summarized as follows (note that they mostly amount to conclusions as to what angels cannot be if they are totally immaterial and not the substantial forms of a body, as Aquinas takes the human soul to be).
1. Each angel constitutes a distinct species since angels, considered as subsisting things, cannot be individuated as instances of some material kind. “Subsisting quiddities are subsisting species. Therefore, several separate substances cannot exist unless they be several species. Moreover, things specifically the same but numerically different possess matter. For the difference that results from the form introduces specific diversity; from the matter, numerical diversity. But separate substances have no matter whatever, either as part of themselves or as that to which they are united as form. It is therefore impossible that there be several such substances of one species” (SCG 2,93).55
2. Angels do not belong to the same species as the human soul since, for example, each angel is a species on its own and since angels are not human souls united to bodies as form to matter (SCG 2,94).
3. Although each angel constitutes a species, angels can be grouped together as separate substances differing in rank from each other (SCG 2,95).
4. Angels, being wholly immaterial, do not gain knowledge based on sensory experience and do not have agent and possible intellects; nor do angels exist as knowing intellects existing in time (if time is what things are “in” insofar as they undergo material changes) (SCG 2,96).56
5. The intellect of an angel is always actually understanding; since the being of an angel is not measured by time, it is not sometimes potentially understanding and sometimes actually understanding. Understanding in angels “is not intermittent, but continuous” (SCG 2,97).
6. Angels understand what is actually intelligible and distinct from matter, not what is potentially intelligible. So angels, who are actually intelligible and wholly immaterial, understand each other and God (SCG 2,98).
7. Angels can understand what is intelligible in material things since they are things the nature of which leads them to understand what is intelligible (SCG 2,99).
8. Angels know material things in their individuality since their knowledge extends to what is real in what can be understood and since material things, as individual things, are real. We understand things in terms of genus and species but have to rely on bodily contact to individuate things. Angels differ from us in this respect and have understanding of material individuals without having bodily contact with them. “The likeness existing in the separate substance’s intellect as a certain single and immaterial thing is of more universal power [sc. than it is in us as we receive the forms of things immaterially and thereby come to understand] and, consequently, is able to lead to the knowledge of both the specific and individuating principles, so that through this likeness, residing in its intellect, the separate substance can be cognizant, not only of the generic and specific natures, but of the individual nature as well” (SCG 2,100).57
9. Only God knows all things at once (tota simul) in knowing himself (see SCG 1,55). So angels do not know things as God does (SCG 2,101).