160. The Separated Soul's Knowledge and Understanding

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Problem: How Can the Separated Soul Understand? #

• In embodied life, the soul understands necessarily by turning toward images derived from bodily senses
• At death, these sensory organs are corrupted along with the body
• If understanding depends on images, how can the separated soul understand anything?
• This raises the question: does the soul’s nature change at death, or only its mode of being?

The Soul’s Nature and Mode of Being #

• Key principle: “The way of doing of each thing follows the way of being of each thing” (modus operandi sequitur modum essendi)
• The soul’s nature remains the same whether united to the body or separated
• However, the soul’s mode of being fundamentally changes
• Being united to the body is natural to the soul (it is the form of a natural body), but this union is not eternal
• Being separated from the body is outside the definition of the soul’s nature, but not contrary to it

The Platonic Error #

• Platonists held that the body imprisons the soul and impedes its natural operations
• They believed the separated soul would understand better than the embodied soul
• Thomas’s refutation: This contradicts the principle that matter exists for the sake of form, not vice versa
• If the soul understood worse when united to the body, the union would benefit only the body (the lower principle), not the soul (the higher principle)—which is unreasonable
• The soul is naturally united to the body for the soul’s own good and perfection

Why the Soul is Joined to the Body: Multiplication of Thoughts #

• Lower intellectual creatures require more and more thoughts to understand less and less perfectly compared to higher creatures
• God understands all things in one simple act; angels understand through fewer, more universal forms
• Humans, at the lowest rung of intellectual creatures, require many particular thoughts through sensible things
• The multiplication of thoughts through bodily sensation enables the human soul to achieve perfect and particular knowledge, rather than only confused and general knowledge
• This is why the soul needs to be united to the body: to acquire particular knowledge of things through sensible experience

The Transition at Death #

• When the soul is separated, it no longer naturally turns toward images
• Instead, it naturally turns toward things that are actually understandable (things understandable in act), as opposed to material things (understandable only in potency, requiring the agent intellect to actualize them)
• This transition is not because the soul’s nature changes, but because its mode of being changes
• Just as light in its natural place (air) behaves one way and light outside its natural place (underwater) behaves another way, while remaining light

Key Arguments #

Against the Soul’s Separated Understanding (Objections) #

1. All interior operations corrupt with the body: Since understanding depends on imagination and sensation, and these are corrupted by death, understanding itself is corrupted

2. The problem of forms: The separated soul cannot understand through:

   • Innate forms (the soul begins as a blank slate)
   • Abstracted forms (it has no organs of sense and imagination to abstract from)
   • Conserved forms (a child who dies young would have insufficient forms)
   • Divinely infused forms (this would be supernatural knowledge, not natural knowledge)

In Favor of the Soul’s Understanding #

1. Aristotle’s argument from separation: If the soul can be separated from the body, it must have some operation proper to itself. The highest operation is understanding. Therefore, the soul understands when separated.

2. The nature of understanding as immaterial: Understanding itself is not a bodily operation. Therefore, the soul’s existence is not wholly dependent on the body.

Thomas’s Resolution #

• The apparent contradiction arises because we fail to distinguish between the soul’s nature and its mode of being
• If the soul’s turning toward images were essential to its nature (as Platonists implicitly assumed), then separation would naturally cause it to cease understanding
• But this turning toward images is not essential to the soul’s nature; it is a consequence of the soul being joined to the body
• Therefore, when the soul is separated, it naturally reverts to understanding immaterial things directly, not through images
• The impediment is removed; the soul operates according to its own nature

Important Definitions #

Modus operandi (way of doing): The manner in which something operates; determined by its mode of being

Modus essendi (way of being): The manner of existence; in the soul’s case, either united to or separated from the body

Actualiter intelligibilia (things actually understandable): Immaterial realities that are understandable in themselves without needing to be abstracted from images; includes angels and separated substances

Intelligibilia in potentia (things understandable in potency): Material things that must be abstracted by the agent intellect from sensible images to become actually understandable

Imago Trinitatis (image of the Trinity): The soul’s natural structure as a reflection of the Trinity, though imperfect compared to the Son as the perfect image of the Father

Examples & Illustrations #

The Simplicity-Power Proportion #

• Berquist uses Euclid’s Proposition 5 (Book II): of all rectangles with the same perimeter, the square contains the most area
• A 5×5 square (perimeter 20) has area 25; a 4×6 rectangle (perimeter 20) has area 24; a 3×7 rectangle has area 21
• The simpler figure (the square) is more powerful
• Application: As you ascend from humans toward God, things become simpler but more powerful. God’s one thought contains infinitely more than human thoughts multiplied infinitely

Teaching and Understanding #

• Weaker students require more examples and more particular explanations than superior students
• A superior mind grasps a principle from one or two examples; an inferior mind needs many
• Even with more explanations, the weaker student doesn’t understand as well as the stronger one
• This mirrors the hierarchy: the lower down you are from God, the more multiplicity of thoughts you need

Modern Physics #

• Max Planck observed that the more universal a theory in physics is, the simpler its form
• One universal equation (e.g., F = ma) can deduce infinitely many particular cases

Literature and Art #

• Shakespeare: “Brevity is the soul of wit” (wit = wisdom in older usage)
• Tragedy vs. Epic (Aristotle’s Poetics): Tragedy accomplishes with fewer words and means what epic does with much more
• Mozart vs. Haydn: Mozart achieves greater effect with greater simplicity and fewer notes; every note has significance
• Heraclitus: “Nature loves to hide” — profound truths expressed in very few words contain infinite meaning

Notable Quotes #

“The way of doing of each thing follows the way of being of each thing.” — Aquinas, cited by Berquist, expressing the fundamental principle that operation depends on existence

“Matter is for the sake of form and not the reverse.” — Aristotle/Aquinas, cited to show why the soul’s union to the body must benefit the soul

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” — Shakespeare, used to illustrate how the simplest expression contains the most meaning

Questions Addressed #

Article 1: Can the Separated Soul Understand Anything? #

Apparent contradiction:

• The soul’s understanding in this life depends entirely on turning toward images
• Death destroys the organs that produce images
• Yet the soul survives death
• Therefore, either the soul cannot understand after death, or our understanding of how it understands in life is incomplete

Resolution:

• The soul’s nature does not change; only its mode of being changes
• Turning toward images is not essential to the soul’s nature; it is a consequence of embodiment
• When the mode of being changes (from embodied to separated), the natural mode of understanding changes correspondingly
• The separated soul naturally turns toward things that are actually understandable (immaterial substances)
• Just as light’s behavior changes when moved from air to water while remaining light, so the soul’s mode of understanding changes while remaining understanding

Why Is the Soul United to the Body if It Understands Better When Separated? #

The apparent problem:

• Understanding immaterial things directly (as the separated soul does) is more noble than understanding through images
• Why would God institute the soul with a lower, more imperfect mode of understanding as its natural state?

Resolution:

• It is true that understanding immaterial things directly is more noble in itself
• However, for the human soul specifically, this mode of understanding would be very confused and imperfect
• Why? Because the human soul is at the lowest rung of intellectual creatures
• The lower an intellectual creature is from God, the more thoughts it requires, and the less perfectly it understands with the same forms
• If the human soul naturally understood like the angels (through few, highly universal forms), it would have only confused, general knowledge
• For the human soul to achieve perfect and particular knowledge, it must multiply its thoughts through sensible things
• Therefore, the soul’s union with the body is for the soul’s own good: to enable it to acquire perfect (though particular) knowledge
• The multiplication of particular thoughts through sensation is natural to the human soul precisely because of its low position in the hierarchy of intellectual creatures

Structural Observations #

• The lecture transitions from Question 88 (on embodied souls’ knowledge of immaterial things) to Question 89 (on separated souls’ knowledge)
• Question 89 contains eight articles (or seven, depending on counting); only the first is fully addressed in this lecture
• The remaining articles will address: knowledge of angels, knowledge of natural things, knowledge of singulars, retention of acquired knowledge, use of intellectual habits, how local distance affects separated knowledge, and whether separated souls know earthly events
• The discussion of why the soul is united to the body sets up the framework for understanding what changes when the soul is separated