Perfection of Being and Human Person

The Perfection of Being and Human Person and therefore of the [human] person is essentially dyadic, culminating in communion.

“Person, Being, and St. Thomas”

This objective article of Fr. Clarke is to have a “creative completion” or “creative retrieval” of St. Thomas’ own thought. For Clarke, “the notions of being and person are in fact intertwined, since personal being is the highest mode of being, the most perfect expression of what it means to be.”¹ These two are inseparable. Since they are intertwined, when one is speaking of one, he cannot but also discuss the other. It is because person is the highest mode of being. As St. Thomas puts it, “Person is that which is most perfect in all of nature.” However, in the perspective of psychology, or ethics, or legal philosophy, or the phenomenology of the interpersonal relations, person is treated as special mode of being. “Yet the person is not something added on to being as a special delimitation; it is simply what being is when allowed to be at its fullest, freed from the constrictions of sub-intelligent matter. So the notions of being and person can throw much light on the other when brought together on the level of the being itself.”²

I. BEING AS DYNAMIC ACT

1. Being as active and self-communicative

“[The] notion of real being, i.e., actually existing being, as intrinsically active and self- communicating”³ is one of the central themes of St. Thomas. His readers cannot easily see it, because he does not write it directly. In analyzing the very words of Aquinas; however, one may realize that it is in his works “From the very fact that something exists in act, it is active.”⁴ “Active power follows upon being in act, for anything acts in consequence of being in act.”⁵ “The only way that beings can connect up with each other to form a unified system is through action. To be and to be active, though conceptually distinct, are inseparable. “Communication,” as Aquinas says, “follows upon the very intelligibility of actuality.” The full meaning of “to be” is not just “to be present,” but to be actively present. Existence is power-full, energy-filled presence.”⁶

2. Being as relational

“Substance is the primary mode, in that all else, including relations, depend on it as their ground. But since “every substance exists for the sake of its operations,” as St. Thomas has just told us, being as substance, as existing in itself, naturally flows over into being as relational, as turned towards others by its self- communicating action. To be fully is to be substance-in relation.”⁷ “All being is, by its very nature as being, dyadic, with an “introverted” or in-itself dimension, as substance, and an “extraverted,” or towards-others dimension, as related through.”⁸

3. Being as receptivity, Community, Communion

“Receptivity is the complementary pole of self-communication. Without receptivity no communication can become actual and complete in itself. It must therefore be a primordial dimension of reality as a whole, even though it follows upon the substantial and self- communication aspects of being in the ontological (not necessarily temporal) order of dependence and intelligibility.”⁹

“…the fact that real being, as intrinsically self- communication and relational through action, tends naturally towards modes of being-together that we can justifiably call the mode of community. To be, it turns out, means to-be-together. Being and community is inseparable.”¹⁰

“…since all finite goods are good only by participation in the Infinite Good, every finite being tends, as far as its nature allows, towards imitating, becoming likeness of, the Divine Goodness. In personal beings, endowed with intelligence and will, this universal dynamism towards the Good turns into an innate implicit longing for personal union with the Infinite Good, “the natural desire for the Beatific Vision,” as Aquinas said.”¹¹

II. Application to the Person

1. The Meaning of Person

“A person is an “actual existent [i.e. with its own act of existence], distinct from all others, possessing an intellectual nature, so that it can be the self-conscious, responsible source of its own actions.””¹²

2. Structure of Human Nature

“A human person is a personal being possessing its intellectual nature as joined in a natural unity with material body.”¹³

“An individual human nature is a natural unity of body and intellectual soul, each complementary to the other.”¹⁴

“The human will, as the soul’s faculty of action flowing from its intellectual nature, is also a spiritual faculty like the intellect.”¹⁵

“The human intellect, as capacity for being (capax entis) is naturally ordered, as to its adequate object, to the whole being as intelligible.”¹⁶

“Thus the human being, because of its dual nature as embodied spirit, spirit wedded to matter, becomes indeed a “microcosm,” as the ancient put it: i.e., a synthesis of the whole universe. By his body he sinks his roots deep into material cosmos which provides the initial input for his thought and action and the theater (in his life) for his journey towards self-realization.”¹⁷

“This human journey must be a social one, together with, in community with, other human beings.”¹⁸

3. The person as Self-possesing

“Self-possesion finds expression in two main ways: (1) in the order of knowledge, through self- consciousness or self-awareness; (2) in order of action through self-determination or freedom of the will.”¹⁹

The Relation of Body and Soul

“Whether the Intellectual Principle is united to the Body as its Form?²⁰

We must assert that the intellect which is the principle of intellectual operation is the form of the human body. For that whereby primarily anything acts is a form of the thing to which the act is to be attributed: for instance, that whereby a body is primarily healed is health, and that whereby the soul knows primarily is knowledge; hence health is a form of the body, and knowledge is a form of the soul. The reason is because nothing acts except so far as it is in act; wherefore a thing acts by that whereby it is in act. Now it is clear that the first thing by which the body lives is the soul. And as life appears through various operations in different degrees of living things, that whereby we primarily perform each of all these vital actions is the soul. For the soul is the primary principle of our nourishment, sensation, and local movement; and likewise of our understanding. Therefore, this principle by which we primarily understand, whether it be called the intellect or the intellectual soul, is the form of the body. This is the demonstration used by Aristotle (De Anima ii, 2).

But if anyone says that the intellectual soul is not the form of the body he must first explain how it is that this action of understanding is the action of this particular man; for each one is conscious that it is himself who understands. Now an action may be attributed to anyone in three ways, as is clear from the Philosopher (Phys. v, 1); for a thing is said to move or act, either by virtue of its whole self, for instance, as a physician heals; or by virtue of a part, as a man sees by his eye; or through an accidental quality, as when we say that something that is white builds, because it is accidental to the builder to be white. So when we say that Socrates or Pl ato understands, it is clear that this is not attributed to him accidentally; since it is ascribed to him as man, which is predicated of him essentially. We must therefore say either that Socrates understands by virtue of his whole self, as Plato maintained, holding that man is an intellectual soul; or that intelligence is a part of Socrates. The first cannot stand, as was shown above (Question 75, Article 4), for this reason, that it is one and the same man who is conscious both that he understands, and that he senses. But one cannot sense without a body: therefore the body must be some part of man. It follows therefore that the intellect by which Socrates understands is a part of Socrates, so that in some way it is united to the body of Socrates.

The Commentator held that this union is through the intelligible species, as having a double subject, in the possible intellect, and in the phantasms which are in the corporeal organs. Thus through the intelligible species the possible intellect is linked to the body of this or that particular man. But this link or union does not sufficiently explain the fact, that the act of the intellect is the act of Socrates. This can be clearly seen from comparison with the sensitive faculty, from which Aristotle proceeds to consider things relating to the intellect. For the relation of phantasms to the intellect is like the relation of colors to the sense of sight, as he says De Anima iii, 5,7. Therefore, as the species of colors are in the sight, so are the species of phantasms in the possible intellect.Now it is clear that because the colors, the images of which are in the sight, are on a wall, the action of seeing is not attributed to the wall: for we do not say that the wall sees, but rather that it is seen. Therefore, from the fact that the species of phantasms are in the possible intellect, it does not follow that Socrates, in whom are the phantasms, understands, but that he or his phantasms are understood.

Some, however, tried to maintain that the intellect is united to the body as its motor; and hence that the intellect and body form one thing so that the act of the intellect could be attributed to the whole. This is, however, absurd for many reasons.

First, because the intellect does not move the body except through the appetite, the movement of which presupposes the operation of the intellect. The reason therefore why Socrates understands is not because he is moved by his intellect, but rather, contrariwise, he is moved by his intellect because he understands.

Secondly, because since Socrates is an individual in a nature of one essence composed of matter and form, if the intellect be not the form, it follows that it must be outside the essence, and then the intellect is the whole Socrates as a motor to the thing moved. Whereas the act of intellect remains in the agent, and does not pass into something else, as does the action of heating. Therefore the action of understanding cannot be attributed to Socrates for the reason that he is moved by his intellect.

Thirdly, because the action of a motor is never attributed to the thing moved, except as to an instrument; as the action of a carpenter to a saw. Therefore if understanding is attributed to Socrates, as the action of what moves him, it follows that it is attributed to him as to an instrument. This is contrary to the teaching of the Philosopher, who holds that understanding is not possible through a corporeal instrument (De Anima iii, 4).

Fourthly, because, although the action of a part be attributed to the whole, as the action of the eye is attributed to a man; yet

it is never attributed to another part, except perhaps indirectly; for we do not say that the hand sees because the eye sees. Therefore if the intellect and Socrates are united in the above manner, the action of the intellect cannot be attributed to Socrates. If, however, Socrates be a whole composed of a union of the intellect with whatever else belongs to Socrates, and still the intellect be united to those other things only as a motor, it follows that Socrates is not one absolutely, and consequently neither a being absolutely, for a thing is a being according as it is one.

There remains, therefore, no other explanation than that given by Aristotle–namely, that this particular man understands, because the intellectual principle is his form. Thus from the very operation of the intellect it is made clear that the intellectual principle is united to the body as its form.

The same can be clearly shown from the nature of the human species. For the nature of each thing is shown by its operation. Now the proper operation of man as man is to understand; because he thereby surpasses all other animals. Whence Aristotle concludes (Ethic. x, 7) that the ultimate happiness of man must consist in this operation as properly belonging to him. Man must therefore derive his species from that which is the principle of this operation. But the species of anything is derived from its form. It follows therefore that the intellectual principle is the proper form of man.

But we must observe that the nobler a form is, the more it rises above corporeal matter, the less it is merged in matter, and the more it excels matter by its power and its operation; hence we find

that the form of a mixed body has another operation not caused by its elemental qualities. And the higher we advance in the nobility of forms, the more we find that the power of the form excels the elementary matter; as the vegetative soul excels the form of the metal, and the sensitive soul excels the vegetative soul. Now the human soul is the highest and noblest of forms. Wherefore it excels corporeal matter in its power by the fact that it has an operation and a power in which corporeal matter has no share whatever. This power is called the intellect.

It is well to remark that if anyone holds that the soul is composed of matter and form, it would follow that in no way could the soul be the form of the body. For since the form is an act, and matter is only in potentiality, that which is composed of matter and form cannot be the form of another by virtue of itself as a whole. But if it is a form by virtue of some part of itself, then that part which is the form we call the soul, and that of which it is the form we call the “primary animate,” as was said above (Question 75, Article 5).”

“Whether there are to be distinguished five genera of powers in the soul?²¹

There are five genera of powers of the soul, as above numbered. Of these, three are called souls, and four are called modes of living. The reason of this diversity lies in the various souls being distinguished accordingly as the operation of the soul transcends the operation of the corporeal nature in various ways; for the whole corporeal nature is subject to the soul, and is related to it as its matter and instrument. There exists, therefore, an operation of the soul which so far exceeds the corporeal nature that it is not even performed by any corporeal organ; and such is the operation of the “rational soul.” Below this, there is another operation of the soul, which is indeed performed through a corporeal organ, but not through a corporeal quality, and this is the operation of the “sensitive soul“; for though hot and cold, wet and dry, and other such corporeal qualities are required for the work of the senses, yet they are not required in such a way that the operation of the senses takes place by virtue of such qualities; but only for the proper disposition of the organ. The lowest of the operations of the soul is that which is performed by a corporeal organ, and by virtue of a corporeal quality. Yet this transcends the operation of the corporeal nature; because the movements of bodies are caused by an extrinsic principle, while these operations are from an intrinsic principle; for this is common to all the operations of the soul; since every animate thing, in some way, moves itself. Such is the operation of the “vegetative soul“; for digestion, and what follows, is caused instrumentally by the action of heat, as the Philosopher says (De Anima ii, 4).

Now the powers of the soul are distinguished generically by their objects. For the higher a power is, the more universal is the object to which it extends, as we have said above (77, 3, ad 4). But the object of the soul’s operation may be considered in a triple order. For in the soul there is a power the object of which is only the body that is united to that soul; the powers of this genus are called “vegetative” for the vegetative power acts only on the body to which the soul is united. There is another genus in the powers of the soul, which genus regards a more universal object– namely, every sensible body, not only the body to which the soul is united. And there is yet another genus in the powers of the soul, which genus regards a still more universal object–namely, not only the sensible body, but all being in universal. Wherefore it is evident that the latter two genera of the soul’s powers have an operation in regard not merely to that which is united to them, but also to something extrinsic. Now, since whatever operates must in some way be united to the object about which it operates, it follows of necessity that this something extrinsic, which is the object of the soul’s operation, must be related to the soul in a twofold manner.

First, inasmuch as this something extrinsic has a natural aptitude to be united to the soul, and to be by its likeness in the soul. In this way there are two kinds of powers –namely, the “sensitive” in regard to the less common object–the sensible body; and the “intellectual,” in regard to the most common object–universal being.

Secondly, forasmuch as the soul itself has an inclination and tendency to the something extrinsic. And in this way there are again two kinds of powers in the soul: one–the “appetitive”– in respect of which the soul is referred to something extrinsic as to an end, which is first in the intention; the other–the “locomotive” power–in respect of which the soul is referred to something extrinsic as to the term of its operation and movement; for every animal is moved for the purpose of realizing its desires and intentions.

The modes of living are distinguished according to the degrees of living things. There are some living things in which there exists only vegetative power, as the plants. There are others in which with the vegetative there exists also the sensitive, but not the locomotive power; such as immovable animals, as shellfish. There are others which besides this have locomotive powers, as perfect animals, which require many things for their life, and consequently movement to seek necessaries of life from a distance. And there are some living things which with these have intellectual power-

-namely, men. But the appetitive power does not constitute a degree of living things; because wherever there is sense there is also appetite (De Anima ii, 3).”

FOOTNOTES

¹William Norris Clarke, “Person and Being, and St. Thomas,” Communio, Vol. 19, (Winter, 1992): 601 – 678. in Appendix 5 of William Norris Clarke, Central Problems of Metaphysics. The work is cited more than once hence it is abbreviated as PBST.

²PBST, 205.

³Ibid., 207.

⁴Thomas Aquinas, On Truth of the Catholic Faith: Summa Contra Gentiles Book 1, trans by Anton C. Pegis, (New York: Double Day & Company Inc., 1955), q. 43. The work is cited more than once hence it is abbreviated as SCG.

⁵SCG, q. 7.

⁶PBST, 11.

⁷PBST, 11.

⁸Ibid., 12.

⁹Ibid., 15.

¹⁰Ibid., 17.

¹¹PBST, 17.

¹²Ibid., 20-21.

¹³Ibid., 23.

¹⁴Ibid., 24.

¹⁵Ibid.

¹⁶PBST, 25.

¹⁷Ibid., 26.

¹⁸Ibid.

¹⁹Ibid., 27.

²⁰ST I, q. 76, a.1.

²¹ST I, q. 78, a. 1.

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