A Translation of the Quaestio Disputata De Spiritualibus Creaturis of St Thomas Aquinas, with Accompanying Notes
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A TRANSLATION OF THE QUAESTIO DISPUTATA DE SPIRITUALIBUS CREATURIS OF ST THOMAS AQUINAS, WITH ACCOMPANYING NOTES Submitted by Colin Robert Goodwin, Ph.L. (Univ.of St Thomas, Rome), M.Ed. (Univ. of Melbourne) A thesis submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Philosophy School of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Sciences Australian Catholic University Research Services Locked Bag 4115, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065 Australia 24th June 2002 Statement of Sources This thesis contains no material published elsewhere by me or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for, or been awarded, another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknow- ledgment in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. No research procedures involved in preparing the thesis required the approval of an Ethics or Safety Committee. Signed: ................................... Colin Goodwin Dated: ......................... ABSTRACT 1. Scope of the work This research project involves two components. The first is a translation from Latin into English of St Thomas Aquinas’s Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis. This is an important, though largely neglected, work of St Thomas dating from 1267- 68, dealing with a range of issues relating to the two categories of created spirits reco- gnised by Thomas, viz. angels and human souls. The perspective of the Angelic Doctor is principally, though not exclusively, that of philosophy rather than of theology. What is found in the disputed question is the development of a number of arguments, and the consequent taking up of a number of positions, that are the immediate source of what St Thomas has to say about angels and the human soul in the first part (prima pars) of his Summa Theologiae - a part which was completed by 1268. What he has to say about the Averroistic view that there is only one receptive intellect, and only one agent intellect, for all human beings (see Articles 9 and 10 of the disputed question) prepared the way for his crucially important polemical treatise of 1270, the De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas. The project provides a complete translation of the Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis which extends across eleven ‘articles’ addressing selected questions concern- ing angels and/or human souls, viz. matter/form composition, modes of union with (or se- paration from) matter, specific differences between angels, receptive intellect and agent intellect in human beings, and the distinction between the soul and its powers. Pages vi- vii of the Introduction to the project discuss the way in which the translation of the text of St Thomas has been approached. To cite one sentence: “An attempt has been made at all times to use a style of translation that is pleasantly readable, non-jarring, and non- pedantic” - but one that is subject to total fidelity to expressing the philosophical mean- ing of St Thomas. The second component of the project is eleven sets of notes (one hundred and seven pages in all), each set of which belongs to one or other of the eleven articles making up the text of St Thomas as translated. There is a degree of cross-referencing between some of the notes belonging to particular articles. The notes are of varying length and are con- cerned to facilitate an understanding of what the Angelic Doctor has to say in his Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis. Most of the notes fall into one or other of the following categories: biographical (provid- ing information about a number of persons whose names appear in Thomas’s text), his- torical (giving information about institutions and events connected with the time, or life, of St Thomas), exegetical (explaining why a particular English translation of Thomas’s Latin has been used, or illustrating a point in the text by citations from other works of the Saint, or on occasion taking issue with some feature of the critical Latin text of Leo Kee- ler, S.J., on which the translation has been based), and ‘philosophical extension’ notes (seeking to amplify what St Thomas has been arguing in the disputed question on created spirits by considering related issues in other works of his, or by further exploration of a concept or notion used in the text but not dwelt on by Thomas). 2 Aim of the work The aim of the project has been to make available an accurate, and attractive, English translation from thirteenth century Latin of an important work of Thomas Aquinas, and to support this activity with accompanying sets of notes. The achievement of appropriate scholarly standards has been a pervasive intention in all that has been undertaken. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction pp.i-viii Article 1 Is created spiritual substance composed of matter and form? 1-32 Article 2 Is a spiritual substance able to be united to a body? 33-56 Article 3 Is the spiritual substance that is the human soul united to a body through an intermediary? 57-81 Article 4 Is the whole soul in each single part of the body? 82-98 Article 5 Is there any spiritual substance that is not united to a body? 99-120 Article 6 Is a spiritual substance united to each heavenly body? 121-143 Article 7 Is any spiritual substance united to a body made of air? 144-150 Article 8 Are all the angels specifically different from one another? 151-178 Article 9 Is the receptive intellect one in all human beings? 179-210 Article 10 Is there one agent intellect for all human beings? 211-233 Article 11 Are the soul’s powers identical with the soul’s substance? 234-264 Bibliography i-vii INTRODUCTION Ad officium boni translatoris pertinet ut... serviat sen- tentiam, mutet autem modum loquendi secundum pro- prietatem linguae in quam transfert. Apparet enim quod si ea quae litteraliter in latino dicuntur vulgariter exponantur, indecens erit expositio si semper verbum ex verbo sumatur; multo igitur magis quando ea quae in una lingua dicuntur transferuntur in aliam ita quod verbum sumatur ex verbo, non est mirum si aliqua du- bietas relinquatur. (It belongs to the task of a good translator to retain the meaning while changing the manner of expression to ac- cord with the character of the language into which he or she is translating. Indeed, it’s plain that, if what’s written in Latin is put into the vernacular word for word, an inap- propriate version is the result. So, when what’s expressed in one language is translated word for word into another, it’s hardly to be wondered if there remains some uncer- tainty about meaning.) (St Thomas Aquinas, Contra Errores Graecorum, pars prima, prologus) 1. Nature of this work 1.1 The text of St Thomas: Structure and Content The primary component of this work is a translation from Latin into English of the Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis (Disputed question on created spirits) of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). The Latin text of this writing of St Thomas contains eleven questions or ‘articles’ which, with one exception, address specific issues relating to one or other of the two acknowledged classes of created spirits, viz. angels (‘separated substances’) and human souls. Articles 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11, deal with issues relating to the human soul. Articles 5, 6, 7. and 8 raise questions concerning the angels. Article 1 engages with the question of matter/form composition which bears on both classes of created spirits. Throughout his Disputed question on created spirits St Thomas is working principally as a philosopher, though as one who is sensitive to teachings that come from what he accepts as a source - Christian belief - independent of the findings of human reason. For St Thomas, moreover, Christian belief gives access to truths - including some truths that altogether surpass the unaided capacity of the human reason (e.g. those relating to the mystery of the Trinity) - that will never be in final and irreconcilable conflict with the valid findings of human reason. That is to say, by and large the concerns and arguments of the Disputed question on created spirits are those of the kind of systematic rational inquiry that is philosophy, but which are being engaged in by someone who accepts as true the doctrines of Christian revelation communicated to people by the Church. So we find, for example, when St Thomas is opposing (in article 9) the position of Averroes who argues for the unicity of the receptive intellect in human beings, that he notes “This position is contrary to the faith: it does away with the rewards and punishments of a future life.” Yet he immediately affirms that “What has to be shown through the true principles of philosophy (per vera principia philosophiae) is that this position is impossible on its own terms.” And this is precisely what he goes on to do by deploying three philosophical arguments against the position of Averroes. The content, then, of Thomas’s Disputed question on created spirits is unashamedly philosophical. Were he to have been pressed on this point, and told that he ought to have been more concerned in such a work with theological issues oriented to Christian belief (and practice), his reply would surely have been along the lines of his “Dicendum quod studium philosophiae secundum se est licitum et laudabile propter veritatem quam philosophi perceperunt (It has to be said that the study of philosophy is in itself legitimate and deserving of praise because of the truth that philosophers have discerned).” (Summa Theologiae, 2a-2ae, question 167, article 1, ad 3).