The Immobility of the Angelic Will

 There was a dispute among various scholastics about whether the angelic will was 'immobile' -- that is, whether angelic choices could be undone. St. Thomas says yes, a number of others, like Scotus and Suarez, say no. I think St. Thomas is right, for a number of reasons both philosophical and theological; I think the 'no' side over-assimilates angels to human beings when in reality, despite the things we as rational beings have in common with them, angels would have to be very alien to us.

What is this immobility like? Whenever we get beyond a very general framework, there is always a speculative element in thinking about angels, but I think of the immobility of the angelic will as being like tree rings. Angels, being intellectual creatures, have free will; but every angelic choice is a choice of what to be. Angels don't undergo constant change the way we do; the change they do have is intellectual and volitional -- their only changes are learning and choosing.  The scholastics expressed this by saying that we are temporal, but angels are aeviternal. Every change for an angel is a new age or era or epoch, an aevum. But all of this means that all angelic change is cumulative. Like a new ring in a growing tree, every angelic choice is, when added, just part of what the angel is, the angel's adding of a new aevum to its being. Wheels within wheels: every choice is a newly selected circle added to the circles that have already been selected -- a new way it is, added to the ways it already is. When an angel chooses, it chooses what it always will be. Every choice becomes part of every choice after; every choice is a choice of what kinds of choices the angel will ever make.

We have stories of angels sinning; we have none, of any value, of angels repenting their sins. When an angel falls, it has chosen to be fallen, and because it is a purely immortal being, its being fallen is contained in every other choice it will ever make.

This is not our own experience, but it is perhaps just imaginable that human beings could also have been this way. The story of the Garden gives us a sort of picture of how it could have happened. God puts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and allows them full rein, except that they cannot eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the center of the Garden, because if they do, they will die. The words are put very strongly; we could translate it as "Dying, you shall die" or "You shall die dyingly" or "You shall really die" or "You shall die to the utmost" or "You will absolutely die".

Then, we are told, Adam and Eve did eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Lord God said, "Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." (Note the 'us'.) But lest man should put out his hand and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever, God drove man out of the Garden. 

A punishment, to be sure. But also salvation. Fallen angels do not repent their sins; their choices are as immortal as they are. But we are mortal, and we are always dying, and our choices can die in our dying. That does not mean it is easy. But if we ate of the Tree of Life and became like the angels not just in knowledge but also in life, our sins would inevitaby be part of us forever, like tree rings.

It is a point that St. Thomas very, very occasionally notes, getting it ultimately from St. John Damascene: our salvation consists in God using our mortality against our sinfulness. We can repent because who we are in our choices can die and be buried. We can be saved, and raised to glory, because we can die with Christ and be raised to walk in newness of life. At least, we can until we either reach our utmost death or receive everlasting life, until we have the immobility of will that comes with spiritual death or with the completion of rebirth into undying glory. Then we will be like the angels.

I Got Your Letter, and the Birds

 Dear March—Come in— 
by Emily Dickinson

 Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

 I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

 Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

 That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

The Honest Pleasure of Developing Knowledge for Oneself

 It seems as if Infinite Wisdom delighted in adopting with human beings the process known as the Socratic Method, by which the most difficult truths are easily elicited from the lips of illiterate persons and of children; the secret simply consisting of a few interrogatives skilfully arranged in a certain order. In this way, I believe, does God act towards His creatures. He ordains that things which are marvellous, and wholly at variance with their modes of thinking, should happen before the eyes of men, that being struck with wonder at the novelty, they may feel prompted to direct their attention to investigating the hidden causes of things. He does not wish to say everything Himself, because, being good, He does not wish His beloved creature, man, to remain idle and inert, or to be deprived of the noble gratification and merit which he can gain by instructing himself in many things. To this end, He has endowed man with the faculty of knowing, that he may enjoy the honest pleasure of developing knowledge for himself, of being in part his own teacher.

[Bl. Antonio Rosmini, Theodicy, Volume 1, p. 7.]

Links of Note

 * Gregory B. Sadler, What Precisely Is Anselm's Single Argument in the Proslogion?

* Virginia Weaver, you are the celestial love song, at "Overlong Memories"

* Fr. Christopher Poore, Who was Raïssa Maritain? The Spiritual Mother Behind Vatican II, at "Drawn from the Chalice"

* Michael Pakaluk has a brief but nice discussion of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching (scroll down).

* Raphael, Truth and Selfhood in Augustine's Thought, at "A Just Logos"

* Rhishi Pethe, How packaged salads took over America, at "Software is Feeding the World"

* Manuel Dahlquist, Temporal Propositiones and the Logic of Possibility in John Buridan (PDF)

* Danielle Coon, Sigrid Undset on the compulsion of conversion, at "Strange Veritas"

* The Austen Family Music Books -- an online collection of eighteen music books owned by the Austen family.

* Barnes, The Adjacent Case, on what it is like to be a bat and similar questions

* Edward Feser, Xenophanes and natural theology

* James Chastek, Agents are instruments of ends, at "Just Thomism"

* Dr. Andrew Higgins, Exploring Invented Languages: The Invented Tongue of Angels in In Tenga Bithnúa, at "Elvish Musings"

* Juan Garcia Torres, Leibniz on the PSR as a Regulative Principle of Rational Inquiry (PDF)

* Brad Skow, Iambic Pentameter as Chicken Sexing, at "Mostly Aesthetics"

* Jacob Allee, Till We Have Faces, at "Study the Great Books"

* Robert Keim, Gerard Manley Hopkins: Priest, Professor, Poet, at "Poetic Knowledge"

Habitude XXVII

 To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that moral virtue is not distinguished from intellectual virtue. For Augustine says, in the book De Civ. Dei, that virtue is the craft of rightly living. But craft is intellectual virtue. Therefore moral virtue does not differ from intellectual virtue.

Further, most put knowledge in the definition of moral virtues, just as some define that perseverance is knowledge or habitude of those things that must be held or not held, and holiness is knowledge making us faithful and serving in things just before God. But knowledge is intellectual virtue. Thus moral virtue ought not to be distinguished from intellectual.

Further, Augustine says, in Soliloq. I, that virtue is right and complete reason. But this pertains to intellectual virtue, as is clear in Ethic. VI. Therefore moral virtue is not distinct from intellectual.

Further, nothing is distinguished from that which is put in its definition. But intellectual virtue is put in the definition of moral virtue, for the Philosopher says, in Ethic. II, that virtue is choosing habit existing in the mean determined by reason as the wise would determine it. Now this sort of right reason determining the mean of moral virtue pertains to intellectual virtue, as is said in Ethic. VI. Therefore moral is not distinguished from intellectual virtue.

But contrariwise is what is said in Ethic. I, that virtue is determined according to this difference, for we call some of these intellectual but others moral.

I reply that it must be said that the first principle of all human work is reason, and whatever other principles of human works are found, in some way obey reason; but in diverse ways. For some obey reason wholly under its authority [ad nutum], without any contradiction, like bodily members, if it is consistent with their nature, for immediately at the command [imperium] of reason, hand or foot is moved to work. Whence the Philosopher says, in Polit. I, that soul rules body with despotic principality, that is, as lord over slave who has no right to contradict. Thefore some have assumed that all active principles that are in a human being have themselves to reason in this way. Were this true, it would suffice that reason be complete in order to act well. Thus, since virtue is habitude by which we are completed for acting well, it would follow that it is in reason alone, and thus there would be no virtue save the intellectual. And this was the opinion of Socrates, who said that all virtues were prudences, as is said in Ethic. VI. Thus he held that the human being in whom knowledge existed was not able to sin, but whoever sinned, sinned from ignorance. 

But this proceeds from a false supposition. For the striving [appetitiva] part obeys reason not wholly under its authority [ad nutum], but with some contradiction; thus the Philosopher says, in Polit. I, that reason commands the striving with civil principality, to wit, that by which one presides over the free, who have the right to contradict in something. Thus Augustine says, on the Psalms, that sometimes understanding precedes and a slow or no affect follows, inasmuch as sometimes this is done inasmuch as passions or habitudes of the striving part act so that the use of reason is impeded. And according to this, it is somewhat true what Socrates said, that knowledge being present, one does not sin; however, only if this is extended to use of reason in particular choice [in particulari eligibili]. 

So, therefore, in order for a human being to act well, it is required that reason not only be well disposed through habitude of intellectual virtue, but also that the striving impulse be well disposed through habitude of moral virtue. Therefore, just as striving is distinguished from reason, so moral virtue is distinguished from intellectual. Hence, just as striving is the principle of human act according as it participates reason in some way, so moral habitude has the notion of human virtue, inasmuch as it conforms to reason.

To the first therefore it must be said that Augustine commonly uses 'craft' for any right reason. And so under craft is included prudence, which is right reason of enactibles, as craft is right reason of makeables. And according to this, what he says, that virtue is craft of rightly living, is essentially appropriate to prudence, but by participation to other virtues, according as they are directed by prudence.

To the second it must be said that such definitions, by whomsoever they are found to be given, proceeded from the Socratic opinion, and are to be explained in the way that was previously said with respect to craft.

And likewise this must be said to the third.

To the fourth it must be said that right reason, which is according to prudence, is put in the definition of moral virtue, not as part of its essence, but as something participated in all moral virtues, inasmuch as prudence directs all moral virtues.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.2, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.]

Quick Note

 As some have heard on the news, there was a mass shooting here in downtown Austin in the early morning, in which three people died and a number of others are injured. It took place at a popular bar on West Sixth Street. The FBI says there are indicators of terrorism, and it does seem to have been politically motivated in a very general sense. The shooter (who is one of the three who died) currently appears from the news to have been a Senegalese man who lives in the area, acting on his own in response to the current American bombing of Iran. Beyond that there's not much known at the present.

Love of Truth and Virtue

 Whenever philosophers have determined to separate systematic knowledge from moral virtue and pretended that knowledge should stand on its own feet as self-sufficient, the result has been disastrous. Knowledge, like a human body from which the blood is removed and replaced by, say, the blood of a goat, has languished and perished at the reckless hands of those who subjected it to such treatment. It is in fact easier to create a living, intelligent being by chemically tossing together physical components than to create philosophy without love of truth and virtue. 

 [Antonio Rosmini, Introduction to Philosophy, Volume I: About the Author's Studies, Cleary & Watson, trs., Rosmini House (Durham 2004) 153.]