[1] The truth of this statement clearly emerges from what was said above.
[2] For, whatever is sometimes in act and sometimes in potentiality is measured by time. But the intellect of a separate substance is above time, as we have just shown. Therefore, it is not sometimes in act of understanding and sometimes not.
[3] Moreover, there is always actually present in every living substance some vital operation with which it is endowed by its very nature, although other operations are sometimes present potentially. Thus, the process of nourishment is perpetual in animals, but not sensation. Now, as preceding considerations make clear, separate substances are living substances, and the only vital operation which they have is understanding. It follows that they are by their very nature always actually understanding.
[4] Then, too, the philosophers teach that the separate substances move the heavenly bodies by their intellect. But the movement of the heavenly bodies is always continuous. Therefore, the act of understanding exercised by separate substances is continuous and perpetual.
[5] And the same conclusion follows even if that teaching is denied, because separate substances are higher than the heavenly bodies; so that, if the proper operation of a heavenly body, namely, its movement, is continuous, for all the more reason will the proper operation of separate substances, namely, understanding, be continuous.
[6] Furthermore, whatever sometimes operates and sometimes does not operate is moved either through itself or by accident. Changes occurring in the sensible part of our nature, then, are responsible for the fact that we are sometimes understanding and sometimes not understanding, as Aristotle observes in Physics VIII [6]. But separate substances are not moved through themselves, since they are not bodies, nor are they moved by accident, because they are not united to bodies; so that in them understanding, which is their proper operation, is not intermittent, but continuous.
Next - CONTRA GENTILES - BOOK TWO: CREATION - CHAPTER 98 HOW ONE SEPARATE SUBSTANCE UNDERSTANDS ANOTHER
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Leo XIV as the Vicar of Christ, the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.