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.e.,as an abiding center (no matter for how long) of its own characteristicactions and the ultimate subject of which attributes are predicated, butwhich itself is predicated of no other subject as an attribute or part.Thisability to exist in itself as an ultimate subject of action and attribution andnot as part of any other being is what it means to be called a substance (fromthe Latin sub-stans: that which stands under all its attributes as theirultimate subject).To stand thus in itself does not mean that the entitythus characterized is not related to others.As we shall see, the intrinsicorientation toward self-expressive action that is also characteristic of allnatures hence of all substances implies that all substances will be relatedat least to some others.But it does mean that no substance, no real being inan unqualiWed sense, can be nothing but a pure relation.A relation in thereal order must relate something, making it a related, or the relation itselfself-destructs.As the Buddhists have long insightfully argued, if all beingsare nothing but relations, such that A is nothing but a relation to B, and B isnothing but a relation to A, then neither one has own being and bothdisappear into emptiness (sunyatta) a point often naively overlooked, itseems to me, by many modern Western philosophers who cavalierly dismisssubstance for relation as the primary mode of being.(1994: 104 5)Despite Clarke s brilliant retrieval of the concept of substance for apersonalist philosophy of being, a contemporary Christian might stillbe disappointed to hear that St Thomas considers grace to be anaccidental modiWcation of the substance that is the human person. Accidental can seem to suggest both lack of necessity and ephem-erality.It s important to note, however, that in Aristotelian categoriesa modiWcation stronger than accidental would mark a change ofsubstance.In this system, if God and the human person are not tobe collapsed into each other, they must remain distinct substances.God s action cannot subsume the human subject or so fundamentallyalter it as to obliterate it, in the sense that it would no longer be thesame substance, the same subject as an enduring unity of action.Thechallenge Thomas faced was to use Aristotle in a way that indicatedthe profound relationship that grace establishes without obliteratingone or the other related subjects. 78 The Dynamic Personalism of AquinasAgain, one must caution about the picture being employed.ForThomas the substance which is the human person cannot be con-ceived apart from its accidents.It simply is its own accidents, as theirtemporal and spatial source of unity.Only God can be conceived ofas a substance that never undergoes modiWcation.Fully cognizant oftemporality, Thomas views created substances as being always subjectto modiWcation.Without it, they cannot actualize their own potency,which for Thomas means to become what they were meant to be.Thomas will speak of grace as a form that modiWes accidents bygathering them into itself.In Thomistic thought a form is the unitiveprinciple allowing the many of sensory experience to be consideredunder a single intellectual aspect, as a one.16 Every time the humanperson, through the use of the intellect, perceives a unity amidst aplurality of instances, a form has been recognized.Both accidents andsubstances are ultimately characterized by forms.A given Xower, orthe sun, or a piece of cloth may all be instances of yellow; yellow thenbecomes the form that transcends these individual instances.Thatwhich can hold together a host of such accidental forms and enduresis a substance.17Thomas will thus call the soul the form of the body because weperceive the body, the self which acts within the world, to be a self, acohesive, abiding center of activity.How diVerent this is from thecontemporary picture of the soul as that which steps away fromthe body, say at death, to reveal its own existence.For Thomas,nothing reveals the soul so much as the activity of the corporealself that acts within the world.16 See Rahner 1968: 136 42 on the human intellect s ability to abstract that formwhich is itself the material unity of the sensory.Faithful to Thomas, the form isabstracted, not mentally imposed.Lonergan traces the human imposition of formback to the Aristotelian need to bring being before the mind as conceptual content. [B]eing can be deWned by us only indirectly, and so Aristotle was unable to assign anyspeciWc act of understanding that resulted in the conceptual content of being.However, the conspicuous type of acts of understanding is the insight that graspsintelligible form emergent in sensible data; and so Aristotle assigned the ontologicalprinciple, form, as the ground of being in things and the cognitional act of graspingform as the insight from which originates the conceptual content, being (1958: 367).Cf.Burrell 1979: 16.17 See ST I q.5 a.1 ad 1; q.39 a 3 corp.: accidentia.esse habent in subjecto. InSent.lib.meta.VII.4.22 accidentia vero non habent esse nisi per hoc insunt subjecto. The Dynamic Personalism of Aquinas 79Why are we now so far removed from the dynamism in Tho-mas s original employment of the word form ? Lonergan suggestsin Insight that the picture holding us captive is an unfortunateinversion.We tend to view concepts not as the productive resultof the dynamic activity of human knowledge, but rather as guar-anteed by that which stands beyond knowledge.He insists thatpotency, form, and act must be deWned, not solely by their relationsto one another, but also by their relations to human knowing.Hewrites:(1) if a man is in the intellectual pattern of experience, and(2) if he is knowing an object within the domain of proportionate being,then his knowing will consist in experiencing, understanding, andjudging, and the known will be a compound of potency, form, andact, where potency, form, and act are related as the experienced, theunderstood, and the aYrmed, and where they possess no meaningother than what has to be presupposed if there is inquiry, what isknown inasmuch as there is understanding, and what is known inas-much as judgment results from a grasp of the virtually unconditioned.(1958: 735)So while grace in the Thomistic system, representing a modiWcationof accidents, may seem to make grace somewhat less than essential,Thomas correctly locates grace within the Aristotelian system ofsubstances and accidents [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.e.,as an abiding center (no matter for how long) of its own characteristicactions and the ultimate subject of which attributes are predicated, butwhich itself is predicated of no other subject as an attribute or part.Thisability to exist in itself as an ultimate subject of action and attribution andnot as part of any other being is what it means to be called a substance (fromthe Latin sub-stans: that which stands under all its attributes as theirultimate subject).To stand thus in itself does not mean that the entitythus characterized is not related to others.As we shall see, the intrinsicorientation toward self-expressive action that is also characteristic of allnatures hence of all substances implies that all substances will be relatedat least to some others.But it does mean that no substance, no real being inan unqualiWed sense, can be nothing but a pure relation.A relation in thereal order must relate something, making it a related, or the relation itselfself-destructs.As the Buddhists have long insightfully argued, if all beingsare nothing but relations, such that A is nothing but a relation to B, and B isnothing but a relation to A, then neither one has own being and bothdisappear into emptiness (sunyatta) a point often naively overlooked, itseems to me, by many modern Western philosophers who cavalierly dismisssubstance for relation as the primary mode of being.(1994: 104 5)Despite Clarke s brilliant retrieval of the concept of substance for apersonalist philosophy of being, a contemporary Christian might stillbe disappointed to hear that St Thomas considers grace to be anaccidental modiWcation of the substance that is the human person. Accidental can seem to suggest both lack of necessity and ephem-erality.It s important to note, however, that in Aristotelian categoriesa modiWcation stronger than accidental would mark a change ofsubstance.In this system, if God and the human person are not tobe collapsed into each other, they must remain distinct substances.God s action cannot subsume the human subject or so fundamentallyalter it as to obliterate it, in the sense that it would no longer be thesame substance, the same subject as an enduring unity of action.Thechallenge Thomas faced was to use Aristotle in a way that indicatedthe profound relationship that grace establishes without obliteratingone or the other related subjects. 78 The Dynamic Personalism of AquinasAgain, one must caution about the picture being employed.ForThomas the substance which is the human person cannot be con-ceived apart from its accidents.It simply is its own accidents, as theirtemporal and spatial source of unity.Only God can be conceived ofas a substance that never undergoes modiWcation.Fully cognizant oftemporality, Thomas views created substances as being always subjectto modiWcation.Without it, they cannot actualize their own potency,which for Thomas means to become what they were meant to be.Thomas will speak of grace as a form that modiWes accidents bygathering them into itself.In Thomistic thought a form is the unitiveprinciple allowing the many of sensory experience to be consideredunder a single intellectual aspect, as a one.16 Every time the humanperson, through the use of the intellect, perceives a unity amidst aplurality of instances, a form has been recognized.Both accidents andsubstances are ultimately characterized by forms.A given Xower, orthe sun, or a piece of cloth may all be instances of yellow; yellow thenbecomes the form that transcends these individual instances.Thatwhich can hold together a host of such accidental forms and enduresis a substance.17Thomas will thus call the soul the form of the body because weperceive the body, the self which acts within the world, to be a self, acohesive, abiding center of activity.How diVerent this is from thecontemporary picture of the soul as that which steps away fromthe body, say at death, to reveal its own existence.For Thomas,nothing reveals the soul so much as the activity of the corporealself that acts within the world.16 See Rahner 1968: 136 42 on the human intellect s ability to abstract that formwhich is itself the material unity of the sensory.Faithful to Thomas, the form isabstracted, not mentally imposed.Lonergan traces the human imposition of formback to the Aristotelian need to bring being before the mind as conceptual content. [B]eing can be deWned by us only indirectly, and so Aristotle was unable to assign anyspeciWc act of understanding that resulted in the conceptual content of being.However, the conspicuous type of acts of understanding is the insight that graspsintelligible form emergent in sensible data; and so Aristotle assigned the ontologicalprinciple, form, as the ground of being in things and the cognitional act of graspingform as the insight from which originates the conceptual content, being (1958: 367).Cf.Burrell 1979: 16.17 See ST I q.5 a.1 ad 1; q.39 a 3 corp.: accidentia.esse habent in subjecto. InSent.lib.meta.VII.4.22 accidentia vero non habent esse nisi per hoc insunt subjecto. The Dynamic Personalism of Aquinas 79Why are we now so far removed from the dynamism in Tho-mas s original employment of the word form ? Lonergan suggestsin Insight that the picture holding us captive is an unfortunateinversion.We tend to view concepts not as the productive resultof the dynamic activity of human knowledge, but rather as guar-anteed by that which stands beyond knowledge.He insists thatpotency, form, and act must be deWned, not solely by their relationsto one another, but also by their relations to human knowing.Hewrites:(1) if a man is in the intellectual pattern of experience, and(2) if he is knowing an object within the domain of proportionate being,then his knowing will consist in experiencing, understanding, andjudging, and the known will be a compound of potency, form, andact, where potency, form, and act are related as the experienced, theunderstood, and the aYrmed, and where they possess no meaningother than what has to be presupposed if there is inquiry, what isknown inasmuch as there is understanding, and what is known inas-much as judgment results from a grasp of the virtually unconditioned.(1958: 735)So while grace in the Thomistic system, representing a modiWcationof accidents, may seem to make grace somewhat less than essential,Thomas correctly locates grace within the Aristotelian system ofsubstances and accidents [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]