Whether the Angels Understand by Species Drawn from Things?
Objection 1: It would seem that the angels understand by species drawn
from things. For everything understood is apprehended by some likeness
within him who understands it. But the likeness of the thing existing
in another is there either by way of an exemplar, so that the likeness
is the cause of the thing; or else by way of an image, so that it is
caused by such thing. All knowledge, then, of the person understanding
must either be the cause of the object understood, or else caused by
it. Now the angel's knowledge is not the cause of existing things;
that belongs to the Divine knowledge alone. Therefore it is necessary
for the species, by which the angelic mind understands, to be derived
from things.
Obj. 2: Further, the angelic light is stronger than the light of the
active intellect of the soul. But the light of the active intellect
abstracts intelligible species from phantasms. Therefore the light of
the angelic mind can also abstract species from sensible things. So
there is nothing to hinder us from saying that the angel understands
through species drawn from things.
Obj. 3: Further, the species in the intellect are indifferent to
what is present or distant, except in so far as they are taken from
sensible objects. Therefore, if the angel does not understand by
species drawn from things, his knowledge would be indifferent as to
things present and distant; and so he would be moved locally to no
purpose.
_On the contrary,_ Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii) that the "angels do
not gather their Divine knowledge from things divisible or sensible."
_I answer that,_ The species whereby the angels understand are not
drawn from things, but are connatural to them. For we must observe that
there is a similarity between the distinction and order of spiritual
substances and the distinction and order of corporeal substances. The
highest bodies have in their nature a potentiality which is fully
perfected by the form; whereas in the lower bodies the potentiality of
matter is not entirely perfected by the form, but receives from some
agent, now one form, now another. In like fashion also the lower
intellectual substances --that is to say, human souls--have a power
of understanding which is not naturally complete, but is successively
completed in them by their drawing intelligible species from things.
But in the higher spiritual substances--that is, the angels--the
power of understanding is naturally complete by intelligible species,
in so far as they have such species connatural to them, so as to
understand all things which they can know naturally.
The same is evident from the manner of existence of such substances.
The lower spiritual substances--that is, souls--have a nature akin to
a body, in so far as they are the forms of bodies: and consequently
from their very mode of existence it behooves them to seek their
intelligible perfection from bodies, and through bodies; otherwise
they would be united with bodies to no purpose. On the other hand,
the higher substances--that is, the angels--are utterly free from
bodies, and subsist immaterially and in their own intelligible
nature; consequently they attain their intelligible perfection
through an intelligible outpouring, whereby they received from God
the species of things known, together with their intellectual nature.
Hence Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 8): "The other things which
are lower than the angels are so created that they first receive
existence in the knowledge of the rational creature, and then in
their own nature."
Reply Obj. 1: There are images of creatures in the angel's mind, not,
indeed derived from creatures, but from God, Who is the cause of
creatures, and in Whom the likenesses of creatures first exist. Hence
Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 8) that, "As the type, according to
which the creature is fashioned, is in the Word of God before the
creature which is fashioned, so the knowledge of the same type exists
first in the intellectual creature, and is afterwards the very
fashioning of the creature."
Reply Obj. 2: To go from one extreme to the other it is necessary to
pass through the middle. Now the nature of a form in the imagination,
which form is without matter but not without material conditions,
stands midway between the nature of a form which is in matter, and
the nature of a form which is in the intellect by abstraction from
matter and from material conditions. Consequently, however powerful
the angelic mind might be, it could not reduce material forms to an
intelligible condition, except it were first to reduce them to the
nature of imagined forms; which is impossible, since the angel has no
imagination, as was said above (Q. 54, A. 5). Even granted that he
could abstract intelligible species from material things, yet he
would not do so; because he would not need them, for he has
connatural intelligible species.
Reply Obj. 3: The angel's knowledge is quite indifferent as to what
is near or distant. Nevertheless his local movement is not
purposeless on that account: for he is not moved to a place for the
purpose of acquiring knowledge, but for the purpose of operation.
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