9. On the Teacher. Disputed Question on Truth, 11 (1256–9)
9. On the Teacher.
Disputed Question on Truth, 11
(1256–9)
The dominant figure throughout the Middle Ages was Augustine of Hippo. If anyone was an auctor it was he, and his auctoritas in matters of Christian doctrine was unquestioned. He did not of course have the authority of Sacred Scripture and deferential criticism of the great doctor of the Church was not inappropriate. Thomas Aquinas himself took exception to a number of Augustinian tenets, something we would of course expect when we think of Augustine as the champion of Plato and Thomas as a convinced Aristotelian. Plato and Aristotle are in disagreement, therefore their followers must be in disagreement. This is a very superficial way to compare Thomas and Augustine.
What continues to astonish students of Thomas is the way in which histhought transcends in a principled way seemingly irreconcilable positions. Disagreement presupposes agreement. Thomas was not one to be content with a plurality of views based on a variety of starting points. While conscious of, indeed insistent on, the clash in the middle distance, he sought to go beyond it in a way that sought a common ground. This isnowhere more evident than in the conflict between theories of knowledge. Historians of medieval philosophy have found it possible to range thinkers under the competing banners of Abstraction and Illumination, the former Aristotelian, the latter Platonic/Augustinian. St Augustine’s position is conveniently set forth in his On the Teacher, a dialogue between him and his natural son Adeodatus, conducted when Augustine was in retreat at Cassiciacum preparing at last for baptism. It is one of the most engaging works of the great saint.
The eleventh of the twenty-nine questions making up Thomas Aquinas’s Disputed Question on Truth bears the same title as Augustine’s dialogue. It is an important and self-contained work, but Thomas’s principal interlocutor is Augustine. You will notice how deftly Thomas arrives at a reconciliation of the Augustinian and Aristotelian accounts.
Article 1: Can a man teach and be called a master or God alone?
It seems that only God can teach and be called a teacher.
1. Matthew 23.8 says, ‘You have but one master,’ and earlier, ‘Do not be called Rabbi,’ on which the Gloss comments, ‘Lest you attribute to men divine honour or usurp what is God’s.’ Therefore, to be a master and to teach seem to belong to God alone.
2. Moreover, if a man teaches it is only through signs, because if he seems also to teach something through the things themselves, as for example by walking when asked what walking is, this does not suffice for teaching, unless some sign be added, as Augustine proves in On the Teacher 1.3. The reason is that there are many aspects of a single thing and it is unclear which is relevant when it is pointed at, whether its substance or some accident of it. But we cannot come to knowledge of things through signs, because knowledge of things is more powerful than knowledge of signs, since knowledge of signs is ordered to knowledge of things as to its end, and the effect cannot be more potent than its cause. Thus no one can pass on knowledge of things to another and thus he cannot teach him.
3. Moreover, if signs of certain things be proposed by one man to another, either the one to whom they are proposed knows the things of which they are the signs or he doesn’t. If he knows them, he is not taught concerning the things. If he does not know them but is ignorant of the things, the meanings of the signs cannot be known by him. For if someone does not know the thing that is a stone, he cannot know what is meant by the word ‘stone’. Not knowing the meaning of the signs, he cannot learn anything through the signs. Therefore if all a man does in teaching is to propose signs, it seems that one man cannot be taught by another man.
4. Moreover, teaching is nothing other than causing knowledge in another in some way. But the subject of knowledge is intellect, and the sensible signs by which alone a man seems to teach do not reach to the intellective part but remain in the sensitive part. Therefore, a man cannot be taught by a man.
5. Moreover, if science is caused in one man by another, either the knowledge was in the learner or it was not. If it was not in him and is caused in the man by another, the latter created knowledge in the former, which is impossible. If it was in him, either it was in him in complete actuality, and thus is not caused, because what is does not come to be, or it was in him as a kind of rational seed [ratio seminalis], but rational seeds cannot be brought to actuality by any created power, but are inserted in nature by God alone, as Augustine says in the literal commentary on Genesis. It remains then that one man cannot be taught by another.
6. Moreover, science is a kind of accident, but an accident cannot pass from its subject. Therefore, since teaching seems to be the transfer of the master’s knowledge to the student, one man cannot be taught by another.
7. Moreover, on the remark in Romans 10.17, ‘Faith comes from hearing,’ the Gloss says, ‘Although God teaches within, an outward herald proclaims. But science is caused in the interior of the mind and not outside in the senses.’ Therefore, a man is taught by God alone, not by another man.
8. Moreover, Augustine says in On the Teacher, ‘God alone has a chair in the heavens and on it he teaches truth; a man is so related to that chair as the farmer to the tree, which he does not make but cultivates.’ Therefore, no man can be called a teacher of science, but rather disposes for science.
9. Moreover, if man were a true teacher, he would have to teach truth. But whoever teaches truth, illumines the mind, since truth is the light of the mind. Therefore, a man would illumine the mind if he taught. But this is false, since it is God who illumines every man coming into this world (John 1.9). Therefore, one man cannot truly teach another.
10. Moreover, if one man teaches another, he would have to bring someone who knows potentially to the state of actually knowing, so that his knowledge is brought from potency to act. But what is brought from potency to act is necessarily changed. Therefore, science or wisdom will be changed, which is in conflict with Augustine in Eighty-three Questions, where he says that when wisdom comes to man, it is the man who changes, not wisdom.
11. Moreover, science seems to be nothing else than the inscription of things in the soul, since science is said to be the assimilation of the knower to the known. But a man cannot inscribe in another’s soul the likenesses of things, for then he would work within him, but that belongs to God alone. Therefore, one man cannot teach another.
12. Moreover, Boethius says in the Consolation of Philosophy 5.5 that through teaching the mind of man is summoned to know, but one who summons the intellect to know does not cause it to know, any more than he who summons another to bodily seeing causes him to see. Therefore, one man does not cause another to know, and thus is not properly said to teach him.
13. Moreover, certainty of knowledge is required for science, otherwise it is not science, but opinion or belief, as Augustine says in On the Teacher. But one man cannot cause certainty in another through the sensible signs that he proposes, for what is in the senses is always oblique to what is in intellect, whereas certainty rather comes about through something direct. Therefore, one man cannot teach another.
14. Moreover, an intelligible light and species are required for science, but neither can be caused in a man by another man, because then a man would have to create something, since such simple forms seem to be produced only through creation. Therefore, a man cannot cause science in another, and thus cannot teach.
15. Moreover, only God can form the mind of man, as Augustine says in On Free Will 1.17. But science is a kind of form of mind. Therefore God alone causes science in the soul.
16. Moreover, ignorance like guilt is in the mind, but only God purges the mind of guilt. Isaiah 43.25: ‘I am, I am he that blots out thy iniquities for my own sake: and I will not remember thy sins.’ Therefore, God alone purges the mind of ignorance, and thus he alone teaches.
17. Moreover, since science is certain knowledge, one receives science from another through whose speech he is made certain. But one is not made certain because he hears a man speaking, otherwise whatever is said to him by a man would hold as certain for him. He is only made certain by hearing the truth speak within, which he consults concerning what he hears a man say in order that he might become certain. Therefore, a man does not teach, but truth speaks within and that is God.
18. Moreover, no one learns, through the speech of another, things which he would have been able to respond if asked before the speech. But the pupil, before the master speaks to him, would if asked respond concerning the things the master proposes. For he is only taught by the master when he knows that things are as the master proposes. Therefore, one man is not taught by another’s speaking.
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. There is what is said in 2 Timothy 1.11: ‘. of which I have been. appointed a preacher… and a teacher of the Gentiles.’ Therefore a man can be, and be called, a teacher.
2. Moreover, see 2 Timothy 3.14: ‘But do thou continue in the things thou hast learned, and that have been entrusted to thee,’ and the Gloss on this passage: ‘From me, as from a true teacher.’ Thus, concluding as before.
3. Moreover, Matthew 23.8 and 9 both say that your master is one and your father is one. But the fact that God is the father of all does not prevent a man too from truly being called a father. So this too excludes the claim that a man cannot truly be called a master.
4. Moreover, on Romans 10.15, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach,’ the Gloss says, ‘These are the feet that illumine the Church,’ speaking of the apostles. Since to illumine is the act of the teacher, it seems that teaching pertains to men.
5. Moreover, it is said in Meteorology 4 that anything is perfect when it can generate something like itself. But science is perfect knowledge. Therefore, a man who has science, can teach another.
6. Moreover, Augustine, in Against the Manicheans 2.4, says that earth, which before sin was watered by a spring, after sin needed rain descending from the clouds. So the human mind, which is signified by earth, was made fruitful by the spring of truth, but after sin needed the teaching of others, like rain descending from the clouds. Therefore, at least after sin, a man can be taught by another man.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that there is the same diversity of opinion in three matters, namely, in bringing forms into existence, in the acquisition of virtue and in the acquisition of knowledge.
For some said that all sensible forms are from an external agent which is a substance or a separate form which they called the giver of forms or agent intellect, and that all lesser natural agents only prepare matter for the reception of form. So too Avicenna says in his Metaphysics the cause of the worthy habit is not our action but action rather adapts to it and prevents the contrary, such that habit comes from a substance perfecting the souls of men, which is the agent intelligence or a substance similar to it.
Likewise they hold that science is effected in us only by a separate agent. Hence Avicenna said in On Natural Things 6, 4.2 that intelligible forms flow into our mind from the agent intelligence.
Others thought the opposite, namely that whatever is inserted in things has its cause not in an external agent but is only brought to light by the external action. For some held that all natural forms are actually latent in matter and that the natural agent does nothing other than to bring them from a hidden to a manifest condition.
Similarly some held that all the habits of virtue are implanted in us by nature and that actions make these habits emerge from obscurity just as rubbing removes rust from steel and reveals its brightness.
So too some said that knowledge of all things is created along with the soul and that through teaching and the external aids of teaching nothing else happens than that the soul is led to the remembrance or consideration of what it previously knew. Hence they say that learning is nothing but remembering.
But these opinions are without foundation. For the first opinion excludes proximate causes by attributing to first causes alone all effects coming about in inferior things, which derogates from the order of the universe, which consists of the order and connection of causes. The first cause out of the eminence of his goodness not only makes things to be but also to be causes.
The second opinion comes to the same absurdity. Since the removal of an impediment is only to cause accidentally, as is said in Physics 8, if inferior agents did nothing but make the hidden manifest by removing impediments whereby forms and the habits of virtue and the sciences were obscured, it would follow that all inferior agents are only agents accidentally.
Therefore, following the teaching of Aristotle, the middle way between these two extremes is to be held in all these matters. For natural forms do indeed pre-exist in matter, but not actually, as these said, but only potentially, from which they are brought into act by the proximate external agent, not only the first cause, as the other opinion would have it.
Similarly, according to this teaching in Ethics 6, the habits of the virtues before their perfection pre-exist in us in certain natural inclinations which are, as it were, the beginnings of virtue, but afterwards by the doing of works they are brought to their fitting completion.
And we ought to say the same about the acquisition of sciences: certain seeds of the sciences pre-exist in us, namely, the first conceptions of the intellect which are known right away by the light of the agent intellect through species abstracted from sensible things, whether these be complex, like axioms, or incomplex, like the notions of being and one and the like, which the intellect apprehends straightaway. Everything that follows is included in these universal principles as in certain seminal reasons. Therefore when the mind is led from this universal knowledge to the actual knowing of particulars, which it previously knew in the universal and as it were potentially, then someone is said to acquire science.
But it should be noted that in natural things something is said to pre-exist potentially in two ways. In one way, in complete active potency, namely, when an intrinsic principle is sufficient to bring about a perfect act, as is evident in healing, for from the natural power which is in him the sick person is brought to health.
In another way, in passive potency, namely, when the intrinsic principle does not suffice for bringing to actuality, as is clear when fire is made from air, for this could not come to be through any power existing in the air.
Therefore when something pre-exists in complete active potency, the extrinsic agent only acts by aiding the intrinsic agent and supplying it with the things by which it comes forth to actuality, as the physician in healing is the minister of nature which principally acts by aiding nature and providing medicine which nature uses as instruments in healing.
But when something pre-exists only in passive potency, then it is the extrinsic agent that principally leads from potency to act, as fire makes of air, which is potentially fire, actual fire.
Therefore, science pre-exists in the learner in active and not purely passive potency, otherwise a man could not acquire science on his own.
Therefore, just as there are two ways to be cured, one by the operation of nature alone, the other by nature as aided by medicine, so too there are two ways of acquiring science, one, when natural reason by itself comes to knowledge of the unknown, and this way is called discovery, another when someone outside aids natural reason, and this way is called learning.
In things that come about both by nature and by art, art acts in the same way and through the same means as nature. For just as nature restores health to one suffering a chill by heating, so too the physician, which is why art is said to imitate nature. It happens similarly in the acquisition of science, because the teacher leads another in the same way to knowledge of the unknown as one by discovery brings himself to knowledge of the unknown.
But the process of coming to knowledge of the unknown by discovery is to apply the common self-evident principles to determinate matters and then to proceed to particular conclusions, and from those to others. So one man is said to teach another following this same discourse of reason which natural reason executes, showing signs to another so that the natural reason of the pupil, through what is proposed, as through certain instruments, comes to knowledge of the unknown.
Therefore, just as the physician is said to cause health in the infirm by acting with nature, so too a man is said to cause science in another by the activity of his natural reason, and this is to teach. Hence one man is said to teach another and to be his master. And thus the Philosopher says in Posterior Analytics 1 that demonstration is a syllogism that causes one to know.
If however someone proposed to another what is not included in self-evident principles or is not shown to be included, he will not cause knowledge, but perhaps opinion or belief, though these two are also in a way caused by innate principles. From these self-evident principles, one considers that those things which necessarily follow are to be held as certain and what is contrary to them to be repudiated, whereas to others he can give or withhold assent.
The light of reason by which principles of this kind are known is placed in us by God, bringing about in us a kind of likeness of uncreated truth. Hence, since all human teaching is only efficacious because of the power of this light, it follows that it is God alone who teaches within and principally, just as nature principally and within heals. Nevertheless, man can be properly said both to heal and to teach in the way explained.
Ad 1. It should be said that because the Lord commanded his disciples not to be called masters, lest this be taken to be absolutely forbidden, the Gloss explains how this prohibition should be understood. We are forbidden to call a man master in this sense that we attribute to him the principal role in teaching, which belongs to God, as if placing our hope in the wisdom of men rather than in what we hear from a man, consulting the divine truth, which speaks in us through the impress of his likeness, thanks to which we can judge all things.
Ad 2. It should be said that knowledge of things is not effected in us by knowledge of signs, but through knowledge of other more certain things, namely principles, which are proposed to us through signs and are applied to what previously was absolutely unknown, although known by us in a certain respect, as has been said. For the knowledge of principles, not knowledge of signs, causes in us knowledge of conclusions.
Ad 3. It should be said that the things of which we are taught by means of signs we indeed know in one respect but do not know in another. If we are taught what a man is we must know something of him beforehand, such as the notion of animal or of substance or at least of being itself, which cannot be unknown to us, and likewise if we are taught some conclusion, we must previously know what the predicate and subject are as also the previously known principles through which the conclusion is taught. For all learning comes from previously existing knowledge, as is said at the beginning of the Posterior Analytics, so the argument does not work.
Ad 4. It should be said that from sensible signs, which are received in the sense power, the intellect receives intelligible intentions, which it uses for bringing about science in itself. Signs are not the proximate cause of science, but reason, moving discursively from principles to conclusions, as has been said.
Ad 5. It should be said science previously existed in the one taught, not in complete act, but as it were in seminal reasons, according to universal concepts, knowledge of which is naturally put in us, which are like seeds of all the knowledge that follows. However, although through a created power the seminal reasons are not actualized as if they were infused by some created power, none the less what is in them originally and virtually can be brought to actuality by the act of a created power.
Ad 6. It should be said that the teacher does not transfer knowledge into the learner, as if numerically the same knowledge which was in the master comes to be in the pupil, but because through teaching there comes to be in the pupil knowledge similar to that which is in the master, brought forth from potency to act, as has been said.
Ad 7. It should be said that just as the physician, although he acts externally – nature alone acting internally – is said to cause health, so a man is said to teach truth although he states it externally, God teaching within.
Ad 8. It should be said that Augustine in On the Teacher does not mean to deny that a man teaches from without when he proves that God alone teaches, because God alone teaches within.
Ad 9. It should be said that man can truly be called a true teacher and a teacher of the truth and enlightener of the mind, not as if he were infusing light to reason, but as it were aiding the light of reason to the perfection of science through what he externally proposes. It is in this sense that it is said in Ephesians 3.8–9, ‘To me the least of all the saints – is given this grace… to enlighten all men.’
Ad 10. It should be said that wisdom is twofold, created and uncreated, and both are said to be infused in man and by this infusion a man is changed for the better. But uncreated wisdom is in no way mutable, though created wisdom is mutable accidentally, not as such. For it can be considered in two ways. In one way, with respect to the eternal things with which it is concerned, and thus it is wholly immutable; in another way, according to the existence it has in the subject, and thus it is changed accidentally, when the subject is changed from having it potentially to having it actually. For the intelligible forms, in which wisdom consists, are both likenesses of things and forms perfecting the intellect.
Ad 11. It should be said that intelligible forms are inscribed in the learner and through them the knowledge acquired through teaching is constituted, immediately by the agent intellect, but mediately by him who teaches. For the teacher proposes signs of intelligible things from which the agent intellect receives intelligible intentions and inscribes them in the possible intellect. Hence the teacher’s words being heard or seen in writing, are related to causing science in the intellect just as things outside the soul are, because the agent intellect receives intelligible intentions from both, although the words of the teacher are more closely related to causing science than sensible things existing outside the soul, insofar as they are signs of intelligible intentions.
Ad 12. It should be said that intellect and bodily sight are not wholly alike, for bodily sight is not a collating power, such that from some of its objects it goes on to others, but all its objects are visible to it as soon as it turns to them. One having sight is related to intuiting all visible things as one who has a habit is to considering the things he knows habitually, and thus the one seeing does not need to be incited by anything else in order to see, except insofar as his sight is directed by another to the visible, as by pointing or the like. The intellectual power, since it is collative, goes from some things to others, and thus is not related equally to all intelligible things to be considered. Some it sees straightaway because they are self-evident and in them are implicitly contained other things which it cannot understand save through the office of reason by explicating. In order to know such things, before it has the habit, it is not only in accidental potency but also in essential potency, for it needs a mover which actualizes it by way of teaching, as is said in Physics 8. He who already knows things habitually does not need this. Therefore the teacher stirs the intellect to knowing what he teaches, as an essential mover bringing actuality from potency. But the one showing something to bodily sight, stirs it like an accidental mover, as one having the habit of science can be stirred to consider something.
Ad 13. It should be said that all the certainty of science derives from the certainty of the principles, for conclusions are known with certainty when they are resolved into the principles. Something is known with certainty in the light of reason divinely inserted within, whereby God speaks in us; but not by the man teaching without, save insofar as he in teaching us resolves conclusions into principles. We would not receive the certainty of science if there was not in us the certainty of the principles into which the conclusions are resolved.
Ad 14. It should be said that the man teaching externally does not infuse the intelligible light, but is in some way the cause of the intelligible species, insofar as he proposes to us certain signs of intelligible intentions, which our intellect receives from the signs and stores in itself.
Ad 15. It should be replied that when it is said that only God can form the mind, this should be understood of its ultimate form, without which it would be regarded as unformed, however many other forms it has. But this is the form by which it is turned to the word and inheres in it, by which alone the rational nature is called formed, as is clear from Augustine in the literal commentary on Genesis.
Ad 16. It should be said that fault is in the affection, in which God alone can make an impression, as will be clear in the following article; but ignorance is in the intellect, on which a created power too can make an impression, as the agent intellect impresses intelligible species on the possible intellect, by the mediation of which, from sensible things and from the teaching of men, science is caused in our soul, as has been said.
Ad 17. It should be said that as has been remarked, the certainty of science is in God alone, who instils in us the light of reason, through which we know the principles from which the certainty of science derives; yet science is caused in us in some way by man as well, as has been said.
Ad 18. It should be said that the learner interrogated before the teacher speaks would respond about the principles through which he will be taught, but not about the conclusions which someone would teach him: hence he does not learn principles from the master, but only conclusions.
Article 2: Can someone be called his own teacher?
It seems not.
1. Because an action ought to be attributed to the principal cause rather than to the instrumental; but what functions as the principal cause of the science caused in us is the agent intellect. But the man who teaches outside is an instrumental cause proposing to the agent intellect instruments by which it can attain to science. Therefore, the agent intellect is more of a teacher than the man outside. If because of exterior speech, the one speaking is said to be the master of him who hears, so much the more so should the one who hears be called his own teacher, because of the light of the agent intellect.
2. Someone learns only insofar as he arrives at certainty of knowledge; but certainty of knowledge comes about in us through principles naturally known in the light of the agent intellect. Therefore, it belongs chiefly to the agent intellect to teach, with the same conclusion as above.
3. Moreover, teaching belongs more properly to God than to man; hence Matthew 23.8: ‘You have but one teacher.’ But God teaches us insofar as he gives us the light of reason by which we can judge all things. Therefore, the act of teaching ought chiefly to be attributed to that light,
with the same conclusion as before.
4. Moreover, to know something by way of discovery is more perfect than to learn from another, as is evident in Ethics 1.4. Therefore, if the term ‘teacher’ is taken from that mode of acquiring science whereby one learns from another, so that one is the teacher of the other, in a much fuller sense the term ‘teacher’ should be taken from the mode of receiving science by way of discovery, so that someone can be called his own teacher.
5. Moreover, just as someone is led to virtue by another or by himself, so one is led to knowledge both by discovering on his own and by learning from another. Those who come to the works of virtue without an external instructor or legislator are said to be a law unto themselves; Romans 2.14: ‘Since gentiles who have not the law naturally do what is of the law, they are a law unto themselves.’ Therefore, one who acquires knowledge by himself ought to be called his own teacher.
6. Moreover, the teacher is the cause of knowledge as the physician is of health, as has been said. But the physician heals himself. Therefore, one is able to teach himself.
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. The Philosopher says in Physics 8 that it is impossible that the one teaching learns, because the teacher must have knowledge where the learner does not. Therefore, no one can teach himself or be called his own teacher.
2. Moreover, master, like lord, implies a relation of being placed above. But relations of this kind cannot obtain between a thing and itself. No one is his own father, or lord. Therefore, no one can be called his own teacher.
It should be said that without any doubt one can, through the light of natural reason placed within him and without any external aid, come to knowledge of many unknown things, as is evident in all who acquired science by way of discovery. And thus in a certain way one can be the cause of his own knowing, but he cannot properly be called his own teacher or be said to teach himself.
For we find two kinds of agent principles in natural things, as the Philosopher makes clear in Metaphysics 8.
There is a kind of agent that has within itself everything that it causes in the effect, whether in the same manner, as with univocal agents, or in a more eminent way, as in equivocal agents. But there are some agents in which there exists only partially within them what they bring, as motion causes heat, and heat causes medicine, in which heat is found either actually or virtually, but heat is not the whole of health but a part of it. In the primary agents there is action in the fullest sense, but not in agents of the secondary sort, because a thing acts insofar as it is actual. Hence, since it is not actually or more than partially what is brought about in the effect, it is not a perfect agent.
But teaching implies the perfect act of knowing in the teacher or master; hence it is required that he who teaches or is a master should have the science he causes in another, explicitly and perfectly, as it is acquired in the learning through teaching.
When someone acquires knowledge by himself through an intrinsic principle, what is the agent cause of science does not possess the science to be acquired, save in part, namely with respect to the seminal reasons of science, which are common principles. Therefore, from such causality the name teacher or doctor cannot be derived, properly speaking.
Ad 1. It should be said of the agent intellect that, though in a certain respect it is a more principal cause than the man teaching outside, science does not completely exist beforehand in it, as in the teacher. Hence the argument does not work.
Ad 2. The answer is similar to the first.
Ad 3. It should be said that God explicitly knows all things that man is taught by him, so the notion of teacher can fittingly be attributed to him; not so the agent intellect, for the reason given.
Ad 4. It should be said that the manner of acquiring science through discovery is more perfect on the part of the one receiving science, insofar as he is shown to be more equipped to know, yet on the part of the one causing science teaching is more perfect. The one teaching, who explicitly knows the whole science, can lead us to science more expeditiously than anyone can be brought to it on his own because he foreknows the principles of the science in some generality.
Ad 5. It should be said that law functions in practical matters as principle does in speculative matters, but not as the master; hence it doesn’t follow from the fact that one can be a law unto himself that he can be his own teacher.
Ad 6. It should be said that the physician heals insofar as he has health, not actually, but in the knowledge of art; but the master teaches insofar as he actually has science. Hence he who actually has health, in the sense that he has knowledge of it by art, can cause health in himself. But it is not possible that someone actually have the science and yet not have it and thus be able to be taught by himself.
Article 3: Can man be taught by an angel?
It seems that he cannot.
1. Because, if an angel taught it would be either inwardly or outwardly, but not inwardly because this is proper to God alone, as Augustine says, nor outwardly, as it seems, because to teach outwardly is to teach by means of sensible signs, as Augustine says in On the Teacher. Angels do not teach us with such signs, except perhaps apparent sensibles. Therefore, the angels do not teach us except perhaps as appearing to the senses, which is outside the common course and, as it were, a miracle.
2. If it be said that the angels teach us in a certain way outwardly, insofar as they make an impression on our imagination, on the contrary: species impressed on the imagination do not suffice for actual imagining, unless an intention be present, as is evident in Augustine, On the Trinity. But the angel cannot induce an intention in us, since intention is an act of will, on which God alone can act. Therefore, not even by acting on the imagination can the angel teach us since, by the medium of imagination, we cannot be taught unless we actually imagine something.
3. Moreover, if we were taught by the angels without a sensible apparition, this could only be if they illumined the intellect, which they cannot do, it seems, because they neither give the natural light, which God alone does, as created along with mind, or even the light of grace, which God aloneinfuses. There fore angels cannot teach us without a visible apparition.
4. Moreover, whenever one is taught by another, it is necessary that the learner see the concept of the teacher, in order that there might be a process of the mind of the pupil towards knowledge, just as there is a process from knowledge in the mind of the teacher. But a man cannot see the concept of an angel, for he neither sees them in themselves, any more than he could those of another man, indeed far less, as more distant, nor in sensible signs except perhaps when they appear sensibly, of which it is not a question here. Therefore angels cannot otherwise teach us.
5. Moreover, it is the prerogative of him who illumines every man coming into this world to teach, as is evident from the Gloss on Matthew 23.8: ‘You have but one master, Christ.’ But this does not belong to the angel, but to uncreated light alone, as is clear from John 1.9.
6. Moreover, whoever teaches another leads him to the truth, and thus causes truth to be in his soul. But only God has causality over the truth, because truth is an intelligible light and a simple form, it does not come into existence successively, and thus can only be produced by creation. Therefore, since the angels are not creators, as Damascene says, it seems that they cannot teach.
7. Moreover, an unfailing illumination can only come from an unfailing light because, when the light is taken away, the subject is no longer illumined. But teaching requires some unfailing light, in that science is of the necessary which always is. Therefore, teaching can only proceed from an unfailing light. But angelic light is not of this kind, since their light would fail if it were not divinely preserved. Therefore, the angel cannot teach.
8. Moreover, it is said in John 1.38 that when two of John’s disciples following Jesus were asked by him, ‘What do you seek?’, they responded, ‘Rabbi’– which interpreted means Master – ‘where dwellest thou?’ The Gloss here says that by this word they show their faith, and another gloss says, ‘He asked, not out of ignorance, but that they might merit in replying, and being asked what, suggesting a thing, they answered not to a thing, but to a person. It follows from all this that in their reply they confessed him to be a person and that by this confession, they showed their faith, and in this merited.’ But the merit of faith consists in this that we confess Christ to be a divine person. Therefore, to be a teacher pertains only to the divine person.
9. Moreover, whoever teaches must manifest the truth. But truth, since it is an intelligible light, is more known to us than the angel is. Therefore, we are not taught by the angel, since the more known is not made manifest by the less.
10. Moreover, Augustine says in On the Trinity that our mind, without the interposition of any creature, is immediately formed by God. But the angel is a creature. Therefore he is not interposed between God and the human mind to inform it, as superior to mind but inferior to God. Thus a man cannot be taught by an angel.
11. Moreover, as our will can reach even to God, so our intellect can attain to the contemplation of his essence. But God himself immediately forms our will by the infusion of grace, no angel mediating. Therefore, he forms our intellect by teaching, without a mediator.
12. Moreover, all teaching is through some species; therefore if an angel taught man he would have to cause some species in him through which he knows. But this cannot be, save either by creating the species, which in no way belongs to an angel to do, as Damascene says, or by illumining the species which are in phantasms so that intelligible species might result in the human possible intellect. And this seems to lead to the error of those philosophers who held that the agent intellect, whose role it is to illumine the phantasms, is a separate substance. Thus the angel cannot teach.
13. Moreover, there is a greater distance between the intellect of the angel and man’s intellect than between man’s intellect and his imagination. But the imagination cannot receive what is in the intellect, since imagina tion can grasp only particular forms, which intellect does not contain. Therefore, much less is the human intellect capable of what is in the angelic mind. Thus man cannot be taught by an angel.
14. Moreover, the light by which something is illumined must be proportionate to what is illumined, as bodily light to colours. But the angelic light, since it is purely spiritual, is not proportioned to phantasms which are in a way corporeal, as contained in a bodily organ. Therefore, angels cannot teach us by illumining our phantasms, as was said.
15. Moreover, whatever is known is known either through its essence or by a likeness. But the knowledge by which things are known in their essence by the human mind cannot be caused by the angels, because then the powers and the other things contained within the soul could be acted upon by the angels when such things are known in their essence. Similarly, the knowledge whereby things are known through their likenesses cannot be caused by them, since the things to be known are closer to the likeness which is in the knower than the angel is. Therefore, the angel cannot in any way be cause of man’s knowledge, which is to teach.
16. Moreover, though the farmer from without incites nature to natural effects, he is not called a creator, as is clear from Augustine in the literal commentary on Genesis. Therefore, by parity of reasoning, neither can angels be called teachers and masters, although they exceed the intellect of man in knowing.
17. Moreover, since the angel is superior to man, if he teaches his teaching must excel human teaching. But this cannot be, for a man can teach about those things which have definite causes in nature. Other things, like future contingents, cannot be taught by angels since they are unknown by them by their natural knowledge, since only God has knowledge of such future events. Therefore angels cannot teach men.
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. Dionysius says in On the Celestial Hierarchy 4, I‘ see that the divine mystery of Christ’s humanity was first taught to the angels and then through the grace of knowledge descends to us.’
2. Moreover, what the inferior can do, the superior can do and more nobly, as is made evident by Dionysius in the Celestial Hierarchy; but the human order is inferior to the order of angels. Since therefore man can teach a man, much more so can an angel.
3. Moreover, the order of divine wisdom is found more perfectly in spiritual creatures than in corporeal; but it pertains to the order of inferior bodies that inferior bodies reach their perfection because of the activity of superior bodies. Therefore, inferior spirits, that is, the human, achieve the perfection of science by the causality of superior spirits, that is, the angels.
4. Moreover, whatever is in potency can be led to act by that which is actual, and what is less actual by that which is more perfectly actual. But the angelic intellect is more actual than the human intellect. Therefore, the human intellect can be led to the act of knowledge by the angelic intellect. Thus the angel can teach a man.
5. Moreover, Augustine says in On the Good of Perseverance that some receive the teaching of salvation immediately from God, some from an angel, some from men. Therefore the angel and man, and not God alone, teach.
6. Moreover, to light the house means both sending light, that is, the sun, and opening the shutters which obstruct the light. But although God alone infuses the light of truth into the mind, none the less the angel or man can remove an impediment to perceiving the light. Therefore not only God but angel and man too can teach.
It should be said that an angel can act on man in two ways.
In one way, according to our manner, as when he appears sensibly to man, either by assuming a body or in some other way, and instructs him with sensible speech. We are not now asking about angelic teaching in this manner, for in this way an angel teaches no differently than a man.
In another way the angel acts on us in his own manner, that is, invisibly, and the thrust of our question is to ask how a man can be taught by an angel in this way.
It should be known, therefore, that, since the angel is between man and God, according to the order of nature a middle mode of teaching belongs to him, inferior to God’s, but superior to man’s. But how this is so cannot be perceived without looking at how God and man teach.
To clarify this it should be known that the difference between intellect and bodily sight is this, that all its objects are equally available for knowledge by sensible sight, for sense is not a collating power, as if it must proceed from one of its objects to another. But all intelligibles are not equally close for knowing to the intellect, but some can be seen immediately whereas some are only seen through others already seen.
A man therefore receives knowledge of things unknown from two things, the intellectual light and the first self-evident conceptions which are to this light, which is the agent intellect, as instruments are to the artisan.
With respect to both, God is the cause of man’s knowledge in the most excellent manner, because he both seals the soul itself with intellectual light and impresses on it knowledge of first principles which are as it were the seeds of the sciences, just as he impresses on natural things the seminal reasons for producing all their effects.
But man, because in the natural order he is the equal of other men in the species of intellectual light, can in no way be the cause of science existing in another man by causing or augmenting in him the light. But given that knowledge of the unknown is caused by self-evident principles, he can in a certain way be the cause that knowing exist in another, not as if he conferred on him knowledge of the principles, but by bringing into actuality what is implicitly and in a certain manner potentially contained in the principles through certain sensible signs shown to exterior sense, as was said above.
But the angel, because he naturally has an intellectual light more perfect than man’s, in both ways can be cause of a man’s knowing, in a manner inferior to God’s, though superior to man’s.
With regard to the light, although he cannot infuse intellectual light as God does, he can however strengthen the infused light for more perfect seeing. For whatever is imperfect in any genus, when it is linked to what is more perfect in that genus, has its power strengthened, something we see in bodies as well, for the located body is strengthened by the locating body, which relates to it as act to potency, as is said in Physics 4. With regard to the principles, the angel can also teach man, not indeed by conferring on him knowledge of these principles, as God does, nor by the deduction of conclusions from the principles by proposing sensible signs, as a man does, but by fashioning certain forms in the imagination which can be formed by the movement of the bodily organ, as is evident with the sleeping or mentally defective, who according to the diversity of vapours rising to the head have different phantasms. In this way, by mingling it with another species, it can come about that what the angels know is shown as conjoined with such images, as Augustine says in the Literal Commentary on Genesis 12.
Ad 1. It should be said that teaching invisibly, the angel teaches indeed inwardly by comparison with man’s teaching, who proposes teaching to the exterior senses, but by comparison with the teaching of God, who acts within the mind, infusing light, the teaching of the angel is reputed outward.
Ad 2. It should be said that although the intention of the will cannot be forced, the intention of the sensitive part can be, as when someone is pierced he must be aware of the wound, and so it is with all other sensitive powers which use a bodily organ. And such an intention suffices for imagination.
Ad 3. It should be said that the angel infuses neither the light of grace nor the light of nature, but he strengthens the light of nature which is divinely infused, as has been said.
Ad 4. It should be said that just as there is a univocal agent in natural things that causes a form in the same manner that it has it, and an equivocal agent, which has it in a way other than he causes it, so too it is with teaching, because a man teaches a man as a univocal agent, and in this way passes on to another the knowledge as he himself has it, namely by deducing from causes to the caused. It is necessary therefore that the concepts of the teacher be made plain to the pupil through signs. But the angel teaches like an equivocal agent: for he knows in an intellectual manner what is manifested to man by way of reasoning. Hence man is not so taught by an angel that the concepts of the angel are made plain to him, but because knowledge is caused in man, according to his mode, of the things the angel knows in a far different mode.
Ad 5. It should be said that the Lord is speaking of that mode of teaching which belongs to God alone, as is clear from the Gloss on that text, and we do not ascribe this mode of teaching to the angel.
Ad 6. It should be said that he who teaches causes not truth, but knowledge of the truth, in the learner. The propositions which are taught are true before they are known because truth does not depend on our knowledge, but on the existence of things.
Ad 7. It should be said that although the science that we acquire through teaching is of indefectible things, none the less knowledge itself can fail. Hence it is not necessary that the illumination of doctrine be from an unfailing light, or if it is from an unfailing light as from a first principle, this does not wholly exclude a defectible created light, which can function as a mediating principle.
Ad 8. It should be said that among Christ’s disciples it is known that some progressed to faith, such that first they venerated him as a wise man and teacher, and afterwards attended to him as to God teaching, hence the Gloss, a little later, says, ‘Because Nathaniel knew that Christ though absent knew what he had done in that place, which is a sign of divinity, he confessed that he was not only a teacher, but the son of God.’
Ad 9. It should be said that the angel does not make the unknown truth manifest by this that he shows his own substance, but by proposing another truth that is more known, or by strengthening the light of intellect, so the argument does not work.
Ad 10. It should be said that Augustine’s intention is not to deny that the angelic mind is of a more excellent nature than the human mind, but the angel is not midway between God and the human mind in such a way that the human mind in conjunction with the angel is formed in its ultimate form, as some held, so that the ultimate happiness of man consists in this that our intellect is conjoined to the intelligence, whose happiness in turn consists in this that he is conjoined to God.
Ad 11. It should be said that some of our powers are forced by subject and object, as the sensitive powers which are excited by the movement of their organ, and by the strength of the object. But the intellect is not forced on the part of the subject, since it does not use a bodily organ, though it is forced by the object, because by the efficaciousness of a demonstration one is forced to consent to the conclusion. But the will is forced neither as to subject nor by the object, but by its own incitement moves to this or that; hence only God who acts within can influence the will. But both man and angel can, in a certain way, act on intellect, by representing objects by which the intellect is forced.
Ad 12. It should be said that the angel neither creates the species in our mind nor immediately illumines phantasms, but by a continuation of his light with the light of our intellect, our intellect can more efficaciously illumine phantasms. However, if it also immediately illumines phantasms, from this it does not follow that the position of those philosophers is true, for although the intellect of the agent might illumine the phantasms, it can be said that this is not from him alone.
Ad 13. It should be said that imagination can receive what is in the human intellect though in another mode, and similarly the human intellect can grasp what is in the angelic intellect, in its own way. However, although the intellect of man has more in common with imagination as to subject, insofar as they are powers of the same soul, none the less it is more like the angelic intellect in kind, because both are immaterial powers.
Ad 14. It should be said that there is nothing to prevent the spiritual from being proportionate in this that it affects the corporeal, since nothing prevents the inferior from being acted on by the superior.
Ad 15. It should be said that the angel is not cause of the knowledge whereby a man knows things in their essence, but of that whereby it knows through likenesses. Not that the angel is closer to things than their likenesses, but because he causes likenesses of things in the mind, either by moving the imagination or by strengthening the light of intellect.
Ad 16. It should be said that to create signifies primary causality, which is found in God alone, but to make signifies causality in a common sense, and similarly to teach with reference to knowledge. Therefore only God is called creator, but God and angel and man can be called maker and teacher.
Ad 17. It should be said that even with respect to things that have determinate natural causes an angel can teach more than a man, since he knows more, and what he teaches he also teaches in a more noble manner. Hence the argument does not follow.
Article 4: Is teaching an act of the active or contemplative life?
It seems that it is an act of the contemplative.
1. The active life fails when the body does, as Gregory teaches in commenting on Ezekiel. But to teach does not fail with the body, because the angels too, who lack body, teach, as has been said. Therefore it seems that teaching pertains to the contemplative life.
2. Moreover, as Gregory also says, the active life is first engaged in so that afterwards we might come to the contemplative. But teaching follows and does not precede contemplation. Therefore, to teach does not pertain to the active life.
3. Moreover, as Gregory says in the same place, since the active life is occupied with work it sees less, but it is necessary that one who teaches sees more than one who simply contemplates. Therefore teaching pertains rather to the contemplative than to the active.
4. Moreover, a thing is perfect in itself and passes on a like perfection to others for the same reason, just as through the same heat fire is hot and heats. But for one to be perfect in himself in the consideration of divine things pertains to the contemplative life. Therefore teaching too, which is the transmission of the same perfection to another, pertains to the contemplative life.
5. Moreover, the active life turns on temporal things, but teaching turns rather on the eternal, teaching about that which is more excellent and perfect. Therefore, teaching does not pertain to the active life, but to the contemplative.
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. In the same homily, Gregory says, ‘The active life is to give bread to the hungry and to teach the word of wisdom to those who do not know it.’
2. Moreover, the works of mercy pertain to the active life, and teaching is numbered among spiritual alms. Therefore teaching is of the active life.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that the contemplative and active lives are distinguished from one another by end and by matter.
Temporal things, on which human acts bear, are the matter of the active life, whereas the matter of the contemplative is the notions of knowable things on which the contemplator dwells. This diversity of matter comes from the diversity of ends, just as in everything else the matter is determined according to the requirements of the end.
For the end of the contemplative life, as we now speak of it, is the seeing of truth; I mean uncreated truth to the degree possible for the one contemplating. Which in this life is imperfectly seen, but in the future life will be seen perfectly. Hence Gregory also says that the contemplative life begins here, that it might be perfected in the heavenly fatherland.
But the end of the active life is action, which is aimed at for its usefulness to neighbours.
We find a twofold matter in the act of teaching, a sign of which is that there is a double object conjoined to the act of teaching. One matter of it is the thing itself that is taught, another the one to whom the science is passed on. By reason of the first matter, the act of teaching pertains to the contemplative life, but by reason of the second to the active.
From the point of view of its end, teaching is seen to pertain to the active life alone, because its ultimate matter, in which it achieves the intended end, is the matter of the active life. Hence it pertains rather to the active than to the contemplative life, although it also in a certain way pertains to the contemplative, as is clear from what has been said.
Ad 1. It should be said that the active life in this respect fails with the body it is engaged in with labour and with which it supplies the infirmities of neighbours, in keeping with what Gregory says, that the active life is laborious, because it involves sweaty work, neither of which will obtain in the future life. Nevertheless, there is hierarchical action in the celestial spirits, as Dionysius says, and that action is of a higher mode than the active life of which we are treating. Hence the teaching there will also be far different from this teaching.
Ad 2. It should be said that Gregory in the same place writes that the well-ordered living is to move on to the contemplative from the active; but often the soul usefully applies to the active what is drawn from the contemplative, such that when the mind is kindled by the contemplative the active is more perfectly lived. It should be noted, however, that the active precedes the contemplative with respect to those acts in which it in no way is like the contemplative, but with respect to those acts which take their matter from the contemplative the active life must follow the contemplative.
Ad 3. It should be said that the vision of the teacher is the beginning of teaching, but the teaching itself consists rather in the transmission of knowledge of the things seen than in the vision of them. Hence the vision of the teacher pertains to the contemplative rather than to the active.
Ad 4. It should be said that that argument proves that the contemplative life is the principle of teaching; just as heat is not the heating but the principle of heating, so the contemplative life is found to be the principle of the active insofar as it directs it, just as conversely the active life disposes for the contemplative.
Ad 5. The solution is obvious from what has been said, because with respect to the first matter, teaching belongs to the contemplative, as has been said.