Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Analogie, Gott; Sein (esse) - Intellekt; Platon - Aristoteles (noesis noeseos); Wissen - Identität (Textstellen bei Thomas v. A.); intelligibile in act est intellectus in actu; Thomas: Unterschied im Intellekt (Gott, Engel, Mensch)

Kurzinhalt: Aristotle ... drew the analogy from the act of understanding itself, and accordingly from our intellect that is moved by a phantasm he concluded to the existence of a separate intellect that cannot be moved by anything.

Textausschnitt: 631c From its implications we may clearly see how profound is this analogy of intellect. First of all, it is an analogy that accords with the thought of Aristotle. Plato went from universal concepts to subsistent universals, or Ideas; hence, the Platonists placed the Intelligences in a second order, lest the Ideas be eternally unknown (see De substantiis separatis, c. 4). Aristotle, on the other hand, drew the analogy from the act of understanding itself, and accordingly from our intellect that is moved by a phantasm he concluded to the existence of a separate intellect that cannot be moved by anything. And since in us the intellect in act is the intelligible in act, 'in non-material beings,' he said, 'understanding and the understood are identical'. Therefore, he declared the act of understanding of a separate substance to be noesis noeseos, a phrase which, in my opinion, was more accurately translated by medieval philosophers as 'understanding understanding' than as 'thinking about thinking,' as some moderns have rendered it. (Fs) (notabene)

631d Second, we reject the Platonic principle that knowledge necessarily and by its very nature supposes duality, and accept the Aristotelian principle that knowledge is rooted in identity. This principle is of such paramount importance in our present study that we must now quote St Thomas's explicit teaching on this point. (Fs) (notabene)

633a Summa theologiae, 1, q.14, a. 2 c: '... the sensible in act is the sense in act, and the intelligible in act is the intellect in act ... And it is only because of the fact that both are in potency that a sense or intellect is really different from a sensible or an intelligible object. Since, therefore, God has no potency but is pure act, it necessarily follows that in God intellect and what is understood are one and the same in every way.' See the definition of 'object' in appendix 2, §1, above. (Fs)

633b Hence for St Thomas God's essence and existence and intellect and the species by which God understands and the divine act of understanding are absolutely one and the same (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 14, a. 4). Indeed, he does not find the formality of truth in God to lie in a conformity between the divine intellect and the divine existence, for conformity supposes duality, but rather in the absence of any dissimilarity whatsoever (ibid. q. 16, a. 5, ad 2m). Finally, it follows from this identity between the understander and the intelligible that since the Word of God is the intelligible act of existence of God, the Word of God is God (ibid. q. 27, a. 2; q. 34, a. 2, ad 4m; Summa contra Gentiles, 4, c. 11, ¶[11, §3471). (Fs)

633c This theorem destroys the very roots of the opinions of its adversaries: (1) J.-P. Sartre, who uses a distinction between en-soi and pour-soi to declare 'God-simple-and-conscious-of-himself to be a contradiction; (2) Günther, who supposes the distinctions between subject, object, and the act of knowing to be necessary (see László Orbán, Theologia Guntheriana et Concilium Vaticanum. Analecta Gregoriana, vol. 28 [Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1942J 98-110.); (3) Rosmini, who deduces from a knowing God the Father a second subsistent as known (see Francesco Bruno, 'Le dimostrazioni trinitarie di Antonio Rosmini,' Divas Thomas [Piacenza] 55 [1952] 183-85); (4) Scotus, who if you concede to him that an object is at least conceptually prior to the act of the knower, proves his formal distinction a parte rei (In I Sent., d. 2, q. 7; d. 8, q. 4; Rep. Par., In I Sent., d. 45, q. 2; see B. Jansen, 'Beiträge zur geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Distinctio formalis,' Zeitschrift zur katholische Theologie 53 (1929) 317- 44, 517-44; see also §25, below). (Fs) (notabene)