Subordinated Ethics. Caitlin Smith Gilson
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object.”
56. Moral arguments which advocate “it’s my body, my right” in, for example, abortion, envision a fallacious sense of self-sufficiency that exists neither in practice nor in the act of knowledge itself. It is simply nowhere to be found, and the very heart of intentionality attests to this moral truth. Human beings realize themselves only in ontological dependency.
57. Cf. DV XVI, 1, ad. 9: “Synderesis does not denote higher or lower reason, but something that refers commonly to both. For in the very habit of the universal principles of law there are contained certain things which pertain to the eternal norms of conduct, such as, that God must be obeyed, and there are some that pertain to lower norms, such as, that we must live according to reason.”
58. SCG II, 80–81.
59. ST I, 79, 12, resp.: “Synderesis is not a power but a habit; though some held that it is a power higher than reason; while others [Cf. Alexander of Hales, Sum. Theol. II, 73] said that it is reason itself, not as reason, but as a nature. In order to make this clear we must observe that, as we have said above (Article 8), man’s act of reasoning, since it is a kind of movement, proceeds from the understanding of certain things—namely, those which are naturally known without any investigation on the part of reason, as from an immovable principle—and ends also at the understanding, inasmuch as by means of those principles naturally known, we judge of those things which we have discovered by reasoning. Now it is clear that, as the speculative reason argues about speculative things, so that practical reason argues about practical things. Therefore, we must have, bestowed on us by nature, not only speculative principles, but also practical principles. Now the first speculative principles bestowed on us by nature do not belong to a special power, but to a special habit, which is called ‘the understanding of principles,’ as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. vi, 6). Wherefore the first practical principles, bestowed on us by nature, do not belong to a special power, but to a special natural habit, which we call synderesis. Whence synderesis is said to incite to good, and to murmur at evil, inasmuch as through first principles we proceed to discover, and judge of what we have discovered. It is therefore clear that synderesis is not a power, but a natural habit.”
60. ST I, 79, 13, ad. 3.
61. Cf. SCG II, 68: “Dionysius says: Divine wisdom has joined the ends of the higher to the beginnings of the lower. Thus in the genus of bodies we find the human body, composed of elements equally tempered, attaining to the lowest member of the class above it, that is, to the human soul, which holds the lowest rank in the class of subsistent intelligences. Hence the human soul is said to be on the horizon and boundary line [Confinium/aeviternity] between things corporeal and incorporeal, inasmuch as it is an incorporeal substance and at the same time the form of a body.” SCG III, 61: The human person, by virtue of his intellectual soul stands on the borderline, the horizon or confinium between eternity and time. St. Thomas stresses this point throughout his works emphasizing that the soul is shown to hold the last place among intellectual things. See SCG II, 80–81; SCG II, 80; DV X, 8 resp. See also Pseudo-Aristotle, Book of Causes §22: “Indeed, the being that is after eternity and beyond time is Soul, because it is on the horizon of eternity from below and beyond time.”; §84: “And indeed, Intelligence encompasses the things it produces, both Nature and the horizon of Nature, namely, the Soul, for it is above Nature.” See also É. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy, 235–37.
62. Cf. Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 192: “The philosopher knows that bodies have absolute dimensions, that there are in the world absolute motions, an absolute time, simultaneities which are absolute for events divided as far as may be in space: absolute signifies here entirely determined in itself, independently of any observer: the knowledge of what these are, the discernments of these absolute dimensions, movements, simultaneities (at a distance), time, by the aid of our means of observation and measurement, the philosopher renounces, voluntarily conceding that it is not possible. It is sufficient for him that they can be discerned by pure minds, which know without observing from a given point of space and time. The physicist makes a like renunciation, and with good reason. But for him, who does not philosophize and who is concerned with what he can measure and to the extent that he can measure it, the existence of these absolutes does not count and in their place he knows and handles only relative entities reconstructed by means of measurable determinations: entia rationis cum fundametito in re.”
63. See the objectors in ST I, 76, 5.
64. Cf. Pegis, Thomistic Notion of Man, 14: “Like other thinkers of their age, William of Saint-Thierry and Godfrey of Saint-Victor . . . had great difficulty in understanding how a simple and immaterial soul was present to the body and yet not in a spatial way. But this problem, which is at least as old as Plotinus and St. Augustine, not to mention Nemesius, is witness to the metaphysical innocence of the twelfth century.”
65. ST I, 10, 6, ad. 2.
66. Cf. ST I, 10, 6, resp: “A twofold opinion exists on this subject. Some say there is only one aeviternity; others that there are many aeviternities. Which of these is true, may be considered from the cause why time is one; for we can rise from corporeal things to the knowledge of spiritual things. Now some say that there is only one time for temporal things, forasmuch as one number exists for all things numbered; as time is a number, according to the Philosopher (Phys. iv). This, however, is not a sufficient reason; because time is not a number abstracted from the thing numbered, but existing in the thing numbered; otherwise it would not be continuous; for ten ells of cloth are continuous not by reason of the number, but by reason of the thing numbered. Now number as it exists in the thing numbered, is not the same for all; but it is different for different things. Hence, others assert that the unity of eternity as the principle of all duration is the cause of the unity of time. Thus, all durations are one in that view, in the light of their principle, but are many in the light of the diversity of things receiving duration from the influx of the first principle. On the other hand, others assign primary matter as the cause why time is one; as it is the first subject of movement, the measure of which is time. Neither of these reasons, however, is sufficient; forasmuch as things which are one in principle, or in subject, especially if distant, are not one absolutely, but accidentally. Therefore the true reason why time is one, is to be found in the oneness of the first movement by which, since it is most simple, all other movements are measured. Therefore time is referred to that movement, not only as a measure is to the thing measured, but also as accident is to subject; and thus receives unity from it. Whereas to other movements it is compared only as the measure is to the thing measured. Hence it is not multiplied by their multitude, because by one separate measure many things can be measured. This being established, we must observe that a twofold opinion existed concerning spiritual substances. Some said that all proceeded from God in a certain equality, as Origen said (Peri Archon. i); or at least many of them, as some others thought. Others said that all spiritual substances proceeded from God in a certain degree and order; and Dionysius (Coel. Hier. x) seems to have thought so, when he said that among spiritual substances there are the first, the middle and the last; even in one order of angels. Now according to the first opinion, it must be said that there are many aeviternities as there are many aeviternal things of first degree. But according to the second opinion, it would be necessary to say that there is one aeviternity only; because since each thing is measured by the most simple element of its genus, it must be that the existence of all aeviternal things should be measured by the existence of the first aeviternal thing, which is all the more simple the nearer it is to the first. Wherefore because the second opinion