Whether Corporeal Matter Obeys the Mere Will of an Angel?
Objection 1: It would seem that corporeal matter obeys the mere will
of an angel. For the power of an angel excels the power of the soul.
But corporeal matter obeys a conception of the soul; for the body of
man is changed by a conception of the soul as regards heat and cold,
and sometimes even as regards health and sickness. Therefore much
more is corporeal matter changed by a conception of an angel.
Obj. 2: Further, whatever can be done by an inferior power, can be
done by a superior power. Now the power of an angel is superior to
corporeal power. But a body by its power is able to transform
corporeal matter; as appears when fire begets fire. Therefore much
more efficaciously can an angel by his power transform corporeal
matter.
Obj. 3: Further, all corporeal nature is under angelic
administration, as appears above (A. 1), and thus it appears that
bodies are as instruments to the angels, for an instrument is
essentially a mover moved. Now in effects there is something that is
due to the power of their principal agents, and which cannot be due
to the power of the instrument; and this it is that takes the
principal place in the effect. For example, digestion is due to the
force of natural heat, which is the instrument of the nutritive soul:
but that living flesh is thus generated is due to the power of the
soul. Again the cutting of the wood is from the saw; but that it
assumes the length the form of a bed is from the design of the
[joiner's] art. Therefore the substantial form which takes the
principal place in the corporeal effects, is due to the angelic
power. Therefore matter obeys the angels in receiving its form.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says "It is not to be thought, that this
visible matter obeys these rebel angels; for it obeys God alone."
_I answer that,_ The Platonists [*Phaedo. xlix: Tim. (Did.) vol. ii,
p. 218] asserted that the forms which are in matter are caused by
immaterial forms, because they said that the material forms are
participations of immaterial forms. Avicenna followed them in this
opinion to some extent, for he said that all forms which are in
matter proceed from the concept of the _intellect;_ and that
corporeal agents only dispose [matter] for the forms. They seem to
have been deceived on this point, through supposing a form to be
something made _per se,_ so that it would be the effect of a formal
principle. But, as the Philosopher proves (Metaph. vii, Did. vi, 8),
what is made, properly speaking, is the _composite:_ for this
properly speaking, is, as it were, what subsists. Whereas the form is
called a being, not as that which is, but as that by which something
is; and consequently neither is a form, properly speaking, made; for
that is made which is; since to be is nothing but the way to
existence.
Now it is manifest that what is made is like to the maker, forasmuch
as every agent makes its like. So whatever makes natural things, has
a likeness to the composite; either because it is composite itself,
as when fire begets fire, or because the whole "composite" as to both
matter and form is within its power; and this belongs to God alone.
Therefore every informing of matter is either immediately from God,
or form some corporeal agent; but not immediately from an angel.
Reply Obj. 1: Our soul is united to the body as the form; and so it
is not surprising for the body to be formally changed by the soul's
concept; especially as the movement of the sensitive appetite, which
is accompanied with a certain bodily change, is subject to the
command of reason. An angel, however, has not the same connection
with natural bodies; and hence the argument does not hold.
Reply Obj. 2: Whatever an inferior power can do, that a superior
power can do, not in the same way, but in a more excellent way; for
example, the intellect knows sensible things in a more excellent way
than sense knows them. So an angel can change corporeal matter in a
more excellent way than can corporeal agents, that is by moving the
corporeal agents themselves, as being the superior cause.
Reply Obj. 3: There is nothing to prevent some natural effect taking
place by angelic power, for which the power of corporeal agents would
not suffice. This, however, is not to obey an angel's will (as
neither does matter obey the mere will of a cook, when by regulating
the fire according to the prescription of his art he produces a dish
that the fire could not have produced by itself); since to reduce
matter to the act of the substantial form does not exceed the power
of a corporeal agent; for it is natural for like to make like.
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