Lecture 135

135. Habits in Angels and the Nature of Potency

Summary
Berquist concludes the examination of where habits can exist by addressing whether angels possess habits. He argues that although angels are immaterial and simple substances, they are not pure act like God and therefore possess a kind of potency (intellectual potency) that requires habits. The lecture emphasizes the critical distinction between material potency and intellectual potency, and shows how the same term ‘habit’ applies analogically—not univocally—to human and angelic substances. He also explores the axiom that per se is before per accidens, using examples from the Manichaean heresy and Platonic forms to clarify how axioms can be misapplied.

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Article 6: Do Habits Exist in Angels? #

The Objection: Several authorities claim angels cannot have habits:

  • Maximus (commenting on Dionysius) argues that intellectual virtues in angels as accidents would be unsuitable, since every accident requires a subject
  • Dionysius claims the celestial essences are perfected through themselves to conformity with God, not through accidents
  • Habit is an accident in the category of quality, but angels are simple substances without accidents

Thomas’s Response: The position is “partly true, partly false.”

The Crucial Distinction: Types of Potency #

Thomas identifies three kinds of potency:

  • Potency of Matter: The capacity of matter to receive form (what Maximus and Simplicius knew)
  • Intellectual Potency: The capacity of the possible intellect to receive intelligible forms
  • Angelic Potency: A different kind of potency in immaterial substances that are acts (but not pure act)

Because the potency in angels differs from material potency, the term “habit” is equivocal by reason (ἐξ ἀναλογίας) not univocal.

Why Angels Have Habits #

  1. Angels are not pure act: Only God is pure act (this is how we know God’s simplicity, perfection, infinity, immutability, and eternity)
  2. Angels receive existence from God: They possess potency with respect to their existence
  3. Angels need habits to perfect their understanding and will: To attain to God, their intellects and wills require dispositions
  4. Angelic habits are essential, not accidental: Because of their immateriality, angelic habits flow from their substance itself (per Simplicius: “The wisdom in an intellectual substance is substance, not habit”)

The Axiom: Per Se Before Per Accidens #

Berquist examines the famous axiom: “What is per se is before and more potent than what is per accidens.”

Two famous examples of misapplication:

  1. The Manichaean Error: If something is bad accidentally (participates in evil), something must be essentially bad (evil itself). This is false because:

    • Evil is not a nature but a lack
    • Something whose essence is lack cannot exist (existence itself is good)
    • Therefore there cannot be an essentially bad being

  2. The Platonic Error: If individuals participate in human nature, there must be “man himself through himself” (ἰδέα). This is false because:

    • The very nature of man is to be material and individual
    • A being composed of matter cannot be immaterial form
    • Aristotle (Physics VII) shows Plato is mistaken

The lesson: One must understand the nature of the thing before correctly applying the axiom. The axiom itself is sound, but ignorance leads to strange conclusions.

God as Pure Act #

Berquist emphasizes that understanding God as pure act is the middle term for demonstrating God’s key attributes:

  • Simplicity (not composed of matter/form, substance/accidents, essence/existence, etc.)
  • Perfection (no unrealized potential)
  • Infinity (no limitation from potency)
  • Immutability (no transition from potency to act)
  • Eternity (no temporal succession)
  • Unity (no composition)

This order is more naturally developed in the Summa Contra Gentiles than in the Summa Theologiae.

The Priority of Act to Potency #

From Aristotle’s Metaphysics IX:

  • In one sense, potency is before act (a thing goes from potency to act)
  • But simply and absolutely, act is before potency (what moves potency to act must itself be in act)
  • Therefore the first being must be pure act

Modern error: Some moderns invert this, making potency (or “matter”) simply before act, leading to evolutionary materialism. This is a fallacy of confusion between the “simply” and the “in a certain respect.”

Angelic Understanding and Knowledge #

How angelic and human intellects differ:

  • Human understanding is lowest in the order of understandings; it is pure potency with respect to intelligibles (like prime matter to sensibles)
  • Angelic understanding is an act (though not pure act); it contains within itself certain intelligible forms
  • Therefore, humans need habits to understand all things; angels need habits to be well-disposed in their understanding in relation to God

The analogy: Just as an angel seems almost like a man when viewed from God’s perspective, a man seems almost like God when viewed from man’s perspective. Angels occupy a middle position.

Important Definitions #

Potency (Potentia) #

Capacity in a substance, either:

  • Material potency: capacity of matter to receive substantial or accidental forms
  • Intellectual potency: capacity of the intellect to receive intelligible forms
  • Angelic potency: capacity of immaterial substances to actualize their potentiality with respect to existence

Habit (Habitus) #

In angels: a dispositional quality of the intellect and will flowing from the substance itself, not as an accident but as an essential property.

Pure Act (Actus Purus) #

A being with no potency whatsoever—proper to God alone. Defined negatively: without passive capacity, without unrealized possibility, without composition.

Per Se vs. Per Accidens #

Per se: according to what a thing is essentially; per accidens: according to accidental properties. The axiom states that what exists per se is prior to and more powerful than what exists per accidens.

Essential vs. Accidental #

In God and the angels: “essential” means flowing from the divine or angelic substance itself; “accidental” (in the Aristotelian sense) means inhering in a subject as a quality, susceptible to change.

Examples & Illustrations #

The Guardian Angel Analogy #

Berquist recounts his teacher Cassarik’s vivid image of the moment of death: A soul, initially amazed at God’s beauty, protests “This is God!” The guardian angel corrects: “No, no, no. I’m just an angel. You have a much higher way to go. I’ll take you to purgatory now, and then you’ll see God afterwards.” This illustrates:

  • The hierarchical distance between angels and God
  • The angelic function as intermediary for human souls
  • Why angels need habits: to guide and perfect their willing in accordance with God

The Axiom Misapplied #

The Manichaean error: concluding that because bad things exist accidentally, an essential Evil must exist. This misses that evil is not a nature but a privation.

Act and Potency in Motion #

Shakespeare: “Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.” Berquist uses this to show why humans are naturally drawn to motion and change rather than contemplation of eternal things. This relates to why moderns confuse evolutionary change with being itself.

Questions Addressed #

Question 50, Article 6: Do Angels Have Habits? #

Objection 1: Habits are accidents; angels are simple immaterial substances without accidents.
Response: Angels lack material potency, but possess intellectual potency. Habits in angels are essential dispositions, not accidental in the Aristotelian sense.

Objection 2 (from Maximus): Intellectual virtues as accidents in divine-like understandings would be unsuitable.
Response: The commentators confused angels with God. Angels are not pure act; they receive existence from God.

Objection 3 (from Dionysius): Celestial essences are perfected through themselves, not through accidents.
Response: Per Dionysius himself, celestial beings are described as burning with love and radiant with wisdom—dispositions of their intellect and will toward God. These are not accidents but essential perfections.

Notable Quotes #

“To be pure act is proper to God alone.” (Thomas Aquinas)

“The essences of the angels are perfected through themselves to conformity to God; they are godlike creatures to begin with.” (Thomas Aquinas, paraphrasing Dionysius)

“Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.” (Shakespeare, used by Berquist to illustrate why moderns prefer evolutionary thinking)

“If there is something bad accidentally, there must be something bad essentially.” (Manichaean axiom—rejected by Aquinas and Augustine)

“The wisdom which is in the soul is a habit; but that which is in an intellectual substance is substance. For all things which are divine and sufficient through themselves are existing in themselves, and not in another.” (Simplicius, Commentary on the Predicaments, quoted in the lecture)

Theological Significance #

The doctrine of angelic habits is crucial for understanding:

  • The activity and perfection of the celestial hierarchies (as Dionysius describes)
  • How immaterial beings relate to God and participate in His perfection
  • Why God as pure act is the necessary first principle
  • The continuous actuation of created intellects by God