“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Gen. 2:7
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Subsections
When Soul is Joined to Body in the Womb
Body-Soul Relationship
Free Choice
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Order of Contents
Proof
Articles 12+
Books 6+
Quotes 2
Intellect & Will 6+
Sense & Affections 6+
Practical Reason
Soul’s Immortality 6+
Animal Sentience vs. Human Intellect 1
Immaterial Thought Extinguished with Body? 2
Latin 4
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Proof You are in Part an Immaterial & Eternal Soul
Order of Contents
Proof
Quote
Book
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Proof:
1. Thought and intellectual activity cannot be explained or accounted for by material things.
2. For material to produce or exercise immaterial thought is to violate the principles that “A cause cannot give more than it has,” and “Actions follow something’s nature.”
3. Hence you are, in part, an immaterial soul.
4. Immaterial things, unlike material things, have no natural tendency to decay.
5. Hence, your soul will not go out of existence when your body dies.
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Credit:
This proof is an adaptation of principles and arguments in Thomas Aquinas, Summa, pt. 1, q. 75, art. 2, 3, 6, and Edward Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God (Ignatius Press, 2017), ch. 6. This proof, though, stands from nature itself.
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Quote
1700’s
Daniel Wyttenbach
Theological Theses, containing the Chief Heads of the Christian Doctrine, Deduced from Axioms… (1747; NY: Samuel Brown, 1766), pp. 9-10
20. …Likewise the spirituality and immortality of the soul may be clearly evinced from the operations of the same: For what? Can even the most subtle matter represent to itself objects and distinguish the difference of these (objects) from itself? Can matter judge, suspend judgment, can it connect reasonings and ideas to and among one another?”
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Book
2000’s
Feser, Edward – Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature Ref (Editiones Scholastica, 2024) 525 pp.
Feser (b. 1968) is a professor of philosophy and an analytical Thomist.
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Articles
1200’s
Aquinas, Thomas – Contra Gentiles, bk. 2, Creation
46. That the perfection of the universe required the existence of some intellectual creatures
47. That intellectual substances are endowed with will
48. That intellectual substances have freedom of choice in acting
49. That the intellectual substance is not a body
50. That intellectual substances are immaterial
51. That the intellectual substance is not a material form
52. That in created intellectual substances, being and what is differ
53. That in created intellectual substances there is act and potentiality
54. That the composition of substance and being is not the same as the composition of matter and form
55. That intellectual substances are incorruptible
56. In what way an intellectual substance can be united to the body
57. The position of Plato concerning the union of the intellectual soul with the body
58. That in man there are not three souls, nutritive, sensitive, and intellective
59. That man’s possible intellect is not a separate substance
60. That man derives his specific nature, not from the passive, but from the possible, intellect
61. That this theory is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle
62. Against Alexander’s opinion concerning the possible intellect
63. That the soul is not a temperament, as Galen maintained
64. That the soul is not a harmony
65. That the soul is not a body
66. Against those who maintain that intellect and sense we the same
67. Against those who hold that the possible intellect is the imagination
68. How an intellectual substance can be the form of the body
69. Solution of the arguments advanced above in order to show that an intellectual substance cannot be united to the body as its form
70. That according to the words of Aristotle the intellect must be said to be united to the body as its form
71. That the soul is united to the body without intermediation
72. That the whole soul is in the whole body and in each of its parts
73. That there is not one possible intellect in all men
74. Concerning the theory of Avicenna, who said that intelligible forms are not preserved in the possible intellect
75. Solution of the seemingly demonstrative arguments for the unity of the possible intellect
76. That the agent intellect is not a separate substance, but part of the soul
77. That it is not impossible for the possible and agent intellect to exist together in the one substance of the soul
78. That Aristotle held not that the agent intellect is a separate substance, but that it is a part of the soul
79. That the human soul does not perish when the body is corrupted
80. Arguments to prove that the corruption of the body entails that of the soul [and their solution]
81. Continued
82. That the souls of brute animals are not immortal
83. That the human soul begins to exist when the body does
84. Solution of the preceding arguments
85. That the soul is not made of God’s substance
86. That the human soul is not transmitted with the semen
87. That the human soul is brought into being through the creative action of God
88. Arguments designed to prove that the human soul is formed from the semen
89. Solution of the preceding arguments
90. That an intellectual substance is united only to a human body as its form
91. That there are some intellectual substances which are not united to bodies [i.e. angels]
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94. That the separate substance [angels] and the soul are not of the same species
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1500’s
Bullinger, Henry – 10th Sermon, ‘Of the Reasonable Soul of Man; and of his most certain salvation after the death of his body’ in The Decades ed. Thomas Harding (1549; Cambridge: Parker Society, 1850), vol. 3, 4th Decade, pp. 365-408
Calvin, John – 15. ‘State in which man was created. The faculties of the Soul—The Image of God—Free Will—Original Righteousness’ in Institutes of the Christian Religion tr. Henry Beveridge (1559; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), vol. 1, bk. 1, pp. 214-30
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – ‘Of the Soul’ in 13. ‘Of the Creation of All Things’ in The Common Places… (d. 1562; London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 1, pp. 121-23
Musculus, Wolfgang – ‘Of the Soul’ in Common Places of the Christian Religion (1560; London, 1563), folio 12.b
Zabarella, Giacomo – bk. 1, Regarding the Faculties of the Soul tr. by AI by OmegaPoint99 in Commentaries in Three Books on the Soul (Venice, 1605)
Zabarella (1533-1589) was an Italian, Romanist and Aristotelian professor of logic and physics at Padua. Baxter argues against Zabarella in his work below.
Beza, Theodore, Anthony Faius & Students – 15. ‘Of the Faculties of the Soul of Man’ in Propositions & Principles of Divinity Propounded & Disputed in the University of Geneva by Certain Students of Divinity there, under Mr. Theodore Beza & Mr. Anthony Faius… (Edinburgh: Waldegrave, 1591), pp. 33-35
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1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 20, ‘On the Soul & the Resurrection of the Flesh’ in Examination of Arminianism tr. by AI by Monergism (1639-1642; Utrecht, 1668; 2024), pp. 690-97
1. Whether souls are immortal? We affirm against the doubting Remonstrants and Socinians.
2. Whether the same number of bodies are to resurrect as are dissolved into dust? We affirm against the Remonstrants and Socinians.
It is asked whether the hellish tortures of the damned are eternal, or whether at last in the end it will be that the impious at length will be wholly destroyed and will be reduced to nothing? The Remonstrants waver. We deny the latter.
Leigh, Edward – 14. ‘The Sanctification of the Whole Soul & Body’ in A System or Body of Divinity… (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7, pp. 540-42
Baxter, Richard
sect. 2, ‘Of man’s soul as the glass in which we must see God’ in Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675), p. 3
Disputation, ‘Whether the faculties or natural powers of the soul (namely, the active vital, the intellective and the volitive) are the very essential form of the soul itself? Affirmative.’ 16 pp. tr. by AI by Onku in A Method of Christian Theology (London: White, 1681)
Baxter argues against Zabarella above.
Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1
5th Topic, 14. ‘Is the soul immortal in virtue of its intrinsic construction? We affirm.’ 482
9th Topic, 11. ‘Whether original sin has corrupted the very essence of the soul. Also whether it is a mere privation or a certain positive quality too.’ 636
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1700’s
à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ch. 10, ‘Concerning Man, Particularly the Soul’ in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vols. 1 ed. Joel Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout Buy (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 307-31
a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.
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Books
1500’s
ed. Goclenius, Rudolph – Psychology, i.e. Commentaries & Dispuations on the Perfection & Soul of Man, and on the First Principles of its Rise, from some Theologians & Philosophers of our Age tr. by AI by Onku (Marburg: Paul Egenolph, 1595) 145 pp. Latin
Goclenius (1547–1628) was a German reformed scholastic philosopher who taught at Marburg. He is sometimes credited with coining the term psychology in 1590, though the term had been used by Pier Nicola Castellani and Gerhard Synellius 65 years earlier.
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Dedicatory Epistle 2
1. Hermann Vultejus – On the Philosophical Perfection of Man 4
2. Francis Junius – Whether the Human Soul is Propagated from Parents 19
3-4. Johannes J. Grynaeus – Whether the soul of a man may be from passing over, or is created by God 32
5. Caspar Peucer – On the Essence, Nature & Origin of the Human Soul: a Commentary 73
6. Aegidius Hunnius (Lutheran) – Whether even now are infused to men their souls through inspiration: an Explanation 85
7. Peter Monau – Whether rational souls, like bodies, are propagated through the passing over of semen, or whether rather they are created by God daily, being infused into bodies being begotten 86
8. Rudolph Hospinian – The soul is whole in the whole, and whole in any part of it 124
9. Timothy Bright – Observations on Traducianism 130
10. Johannes Ludovicus Havenreuter – Whether the mind is innate to us from God, or not? It is denied. 138
11. Rudolph Goclenius – On the Origin of the Mind 142
12. Nicolaus Taurellus – “If the seed were animate…” 144
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1600’s
Du Mornay, Philip – The True Knowledge of a Man’s own Self (London: Leake, 1602) 215 pp. ToC
Reynolds, Edward – A Treatise of the Passions & Faculties of the Soul of Man, with the Several Dignities & Corruptions thereunto Belonging (London: R.H., 1640) 552 pp. ToC
Reynolds was a Westminster divine.
Baxter, Richard – Of the Immortality of Man’s Soul, & the Nature of it & Other Spirits. Two Discourses… (London, 1682) 182 pp. ToC
Morton, Charles – The Spirit of Man, or Some Meditations (by way of Essay) on the Sense of that Scripture, 1 Thess. 1:23 (Boston, 1692) 100 pp. ToC This book was commended by Increase Mather, Samuel Willard, Cotton Mather et al.
Morton (1627–1698) was a British nonconformist minister and founder of an early dissenting academy, later in life associated in New England with Harvard College. Morton was raised with strong puritan influences in England and attended Oxford. He was arrested and excommunicated for promoting progressive education (he was the teacher of Daniel Defoe), forcing his immigration to relative safety in Massachusetts Bay Colony (1685-1686).
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1800’s
Bavinck, Herman – Foundations of Psychology trans. Born, Kloosterman & Bolt 2nd ed. (1897; 1921) 245 pp.
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2000’s
Feser, Edward – Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature Ref (Editiones Scholastica, 2024) 525 pp.
Feser (b. 1968) is a professor of philosophy and an analytical Thomist.
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Quote
1600’s
Richard Baxter
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 38, ‘Neglect not any truth of God, much less renounce it or deny it: for lying and contempt of sacred truth is always sinful: But yet do not take it for your duty to publish all which you judge to be truth, nor a sin to silence many lesser truths, when the Church’s peace and welfare does require it’, pp. 208-9
“It is not truth but goodness which is the ultimate object of the soul. And God who is infinite goodness itself, has revealed his truths to the world to do men good and not to hurt them.”
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Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675), sect. 3, ‘The several inadequate conceptions which in order make up our knowledge of God’, p. 3
“21. By the knowledge of our own acts we know our powers and the nature of our own souls (though imperfectly). And by the knowledge of our souls, we know the nature of other intellectual spirits. And by the knowledge of ourselves and them, and the Scripture expressions of his attributes, we know so much of God as we can here know. And accordingly must speak of Him, or be silent. For we have no higher notions than such as are thus analogical, expressing that which is in God in an inconceivable eminency and transcendency, by words which first signify that which is formally in the soul (as is said).”
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On the Intellect & Will
Order of
Articles 7
Quotes 4
Latin 2
Intellect 3
. What it is 1
What the Will is 1
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Articles
1500’s
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – ‘Of Man’s Election, or Making of Choice’ in 2. ‘Of Free-Will’ in The Common Places… (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 2, p. 293-97
Viret, Pierre – A Christian Instruction… (London: Veale, 1573), A Familiar Exposition of the Principal Points of the Catechism, and of the Christian Doctrine, made in Form of Dialogue, 12th Dialogue
How that the True Knowledge of God comprehends both the understanding and the will
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1600’s
Leigh, Edward – A System or Body of Divinity… (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7
15. Of the Sanctification of the Will 542
16. Of the Sanctification of the Conscience 544
17. Sanctification of the Memory 546
Voet, Gisbert – pp. 6-19 of Appendix to the Disputations on Creation, 2nd Part (1643) in Select Theological Disputations (1648), vol. 1
This discusses functional relationship between the intellect and the will.
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1800’s
Alexander, Archibald – 17. ‘On the Will’ in God, Creation & Human Rebellion: Lecture Notes of Archibald Alexander from the Hand of Charles Hodge (1818; RBO, 2023), pp. 193-214
Bavinck, Herman – Foundations of Psychology trans. Born, Kloosterman & Bolt 2nd ed. (1897; 1921)
ch. 7, ‘The Faculty of Knowing’
ch. 8, ‘The Faculty of Desiring’
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2000’s
Feser, Edward – ‘Intellect & Will’ in ch. 4, ‘Psychology’ in Aquinas: a Beginner´s Guide (OneWorld, 2010), pp. 122-29
Feser is an analytical Thomist.
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Quotes
1600’s
Paul Voet
First Philosophy Reformed tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johann Waesberg, 1657), ch. 2, sect. 2
“For what else is abstraction, than a work of the mind, segregating or abstracting one from another of those things which were congregated and concrete?”
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Richard Baxter
Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653), ‘A Brief Explication of some Passages in the Profession’, p. 26
“Concerning the Profession of Consent, note: 1. It was necessary that we repeat the same things which were before expressed in the Profession of Assent, because it is (mostly) the same things which the understanding receives as true (together with the truth of enunciations concerning them) and which the will receives as Good.”
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Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675), sect. 4, ‘Of God’s relations to the creature…’
“39. It is a dreadful thing to be over-bold, rash and presumptuous, in speaking and asserting anything without clear proof, of God’s knowledge and will, especially to reduce them to all the modes and methods of a man, even as to the order of his acts: seeing we are forced to confess that even intellection and volition are spoken of God with exceeding great impropriety, and man’s acts, which are the prius significatum [the primary meaning], are further below God’s than a worm is below a man. Therefore were it not that the presumption of the schools and polemical writers has made that necessary as defensive, which else would not be so, I should scarce dare to say this little following.”
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Petrus van Mastricht
Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 3, bk. 4, ch. 4, ‘The Penalty & State of Sin’, section 10, p. 526
“Therefore choice, arbitrium (an excessively proud term, in Greek αὐτεξούσιον), naturally considered, is the faculty of intellect and will by which we do what we want, by preceding counsel and judgment, such that we are not determined by any other created cause.
It pertains to the intellect and will in such a way that the intellect judges and shows what should be done, but the will commands what is shown and judged, and thus at root it has reference to the intellect, but formally it has reference to the will. This certainly implies some indifference, in a divided sense, as they say, by which, with the consideration of the divine decree and predetermination set aside, man is indifferent at least by nature to acting or not acting; yet he is not indifferent in a composite sense, with regard to the divine decree and its predetermining providence, but is already determined virtually to one or the other; much less does choice consist in indifference itself. For in this way neither God, nor angel, nor any man, regenerate or unregenerate, would possess free choice, and consequently free choice would be a non-entity. For God is determined to good…
And so arbitrium, choice, is more correctly said to consist in the power of acting from counsel and προαίρεσις, free choosing, or what is the same thing, in rational complacency.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 3 Abbr.
On the Intellect, or the Human Mind
Of the [Human] Will
50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Whole Decalogue’ in Select Theological Disputations (Amsterdam: Jansson, 1667), vol. 4
‘On the Intellect’ 764
‘On the Will’ 764
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On the Intellect
Quote
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Theought (n.p., 1946), ch. 4, ‘Intelligible Being & First Principles’, p. 26
“…intelligence, which alone knows purpose as purpose, that is, knows purpose as the raison d’etre of the means to reach that purpose.”
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On Aquinas
Article
Schmidt, Robert – The Domain of Logic according to S. Thomas Aquinas (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), ‘Conclusion’
‘Rationate being’ 305-6
‘Intention’ 306-8
“Cognition, according to St. Thomas, is a form of tendency by which the knower, without ceasing to be himself, becomes something else. A cognitive faculty is a capacity to take on the form of another being. The form received into the intellect is called the intelligible species. By it the knower is given the formal or intelligible determinations of the thing known. Thus informed, the knower actively expresses or acts out the part of the thing known, so that the accidental act of the knower becomes one (in intention) with the act of the thing known…
This intention, expressed by the knower and expressing the thing known, has a twofold relation: it is a form or quality perfecting the knower and a relation of likeness to the thing known. Viewed in this latter relation, according to what it expresses, it is essentially the relation of truth, the conformity of intellect to thing.”
‘Relation’ 308-10
‘Intention of Universality’ 310-11
‘Intention of Attribution’ 311-14
‘Intention of Consequence’ 314-15
‘Salient Features of the Logic of St. Thomas’ 317-19
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On Scotus
Book
Cross, Richard – Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition Pre (Oxford University Press, 2014) 205 pp. ToC
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On What the Intellect is
Quote
Edward Feser
Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholasticae, 2024), ch. 3, ‘The Intellect’, p. 64
“The intellect is that power by which we are able to entertain concepts, to affirm the truth or falsity of propositions, and to assess the cogency of arguments…
Traditionally, the act of entertaining a concept is known as simple apprehension; the act of affirming or denying the truth of a proposition is known as judgment; and the act of inferring a proposition from other propositions is known as reasoning. Simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning are the intellect’s basic operations. Being rational or capable of thought is essentially a matter of having the capacity for these operations of the intellect.”
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On What the Will is
Quotes
Edward Feser
Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholasticae, 2024), pt. 1
ch. 1, p. 14
“Now, as medieval thinkers like Thomas Aquinas argued, anything with an intellect must also possess a will. For a substance with an intellect acts by virtue of being inclined toward what its intellect takes to be good, and the will just is (on this analysis) an inclination of that sort.”
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ch. 4, ‘The Will’
p. 111
“The short answer is that the will is the power or capacity of a rational substance to pursue what the intellect judges to be good. (Not necessarily morally good, but at least good in the broad sense of being suitable or desirable in some way.)
It is also traditionally known as the ‘rational appetite.’ It is an appetite insofar as it involves an inclination or tendency toward some object or end. It is a rational appetite insofar as the object is pursued as something conceptualized in a certain way, and thus as something about which we might reason and come to know true propositions.
This distinguishes the will from the appetites that non-human animals possess, which involve inclinations toward non-conceptualized objects of sensory perception; and from the sorts of inclinations or tendencies that a plant or an inanimate substance might exhibit, which are not even conscious, let alone conceptualized…
A human being, by contrast, can not only perceive and desrie water, but can know that it is water and desire it precisely as something conceptualized… To be able to do that sort of thing is just what it is to have a will. This is, in any even, the account fo the will famously associated with Aquinas…”
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pp. 117-18
“…note that while the behavior of non-human animals is not deterministic, neither is it random or arbitrary. It is perfectly intelligible given their causal powers together with the powers of the things they interact with. Yet non-human animals do not have wills, much less free will…
Aquinas’s answer is that the will is a power of the kind of thing whose activity arises from within it in a certain way–specifically, by way of having knowledge of the kind of which a rational substance alone is capable (Summa theologiae I-II.6.1-2). To act voluntarily is to know what you are doing in the way that human beings do.”
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pp. 137-38
“…in the case of a rational substance, an end toward which it is directed can be known intellectually, and that the will or rational appetite just is that power by virtue of which such a subtance can aim at an end qua grasped by the intellect.ª
ª We can, of course, also aim at ends that are not grasped by the intellect. For example, any human being aims at the end of circulating blood through his body, just by virtue of having a heart and blood vessels, and does so even if he is completely unaware of the existence of this circulatory system. It is precisely because we can iam at such ends without the intellect being cognizent of them that their pursuit is not the subject of the will.
A will that was not of its nature directed toward what the intellect takes to be good would be like an acorn that was not of its nature directed toward becoming an oak. The latter just wouldn’t really be an acorn, and the former just wouldn’t really be a will.¹
¹ For further discussion and defense of the thesis that the will always aims at what the intellect takes to be good, see Edward Feser, ‘Being, the Good, and the Guise of the Good,’ in Daniel D. Novotny and Lukas Novak, eds., Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 2012).
…A tree that did not aim at getting its branches toward the sun would not be a freer tree, but just a defective tree. And a will that did not aim at the good would not be a freer will, but just a defective will.”
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On the Will
Quotes
1600’s
Richard Baxter
Catholic Theology, Plain, Pure, Peaceable... (London: White, 1675)
Preface, n.p.
“Morality and holiness is principally seated in the will.”
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sect. 10, ‘Of Natural & Moral Power as Foreseen’
pp. 36-37
“201. There is in the very essence of the natural power or faculty, besides the vis vel virtus agendi, a certain natural inclination to some things, which is inseparable from it, from which the schoolmen say even of the will that it is quaedam natura, et pondus animae. So the soul is inclined or propense (and not only able) to activity as such, to intellection as such, to volition as such; and objectively to truth as such, and to natural good and felicity as such. And there is an inclination of the soul, which is not essential and inseparable, but is much under the power of the will, and may be got and lost.
202. This adventitious disposition is found in the soul in various degrees:
1. When it is in such a degree only, as that immediately and properly without any other power added, the will may be said to be able to act thus or thus, then it is called a moral power:
[2.] But when it is in such a degree as that we are disposed to act promptly and easily, it is called a habit.”
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p. 37
“209… We have no power… to will things not apprehended to be good…
210. The three conjunct powers of the soul [vital-active, intellective and volitive] suppose each other, though they are not formally the same: We have no power to will objects not understood, nor to understand, will or execute without vital-activity; nor to understand most things without the will’s determination ad exercitium [to the exercise].”
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On Sense, the Affections, Power of Locomotion & Habit
Order of
Articles
Quote
Historical
Latin
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Articles
1500’s
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – The Common Places… (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 2, ‘The Sixth Precept’
‘Of Affects, or Affections in General, out of the Commentaries upon Aristotle’s Ethics’ 405
‘Of Some of the Affects Severally’ 411
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1600’s
Leigh, Edward – A System or Body of Divinity… (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7
18. Sanctification of the Affections 546
19. Of the Particular Affections 549
20. I. Of the Simple Affections 551-55
…
25. II. Of Fear & Some Mixed Affections 571
…
ch. 27. Of the Sensitive Appetite 579-80
Baxter, Richard – ch. 7, ‘Directions for the Government of the Passions’ in A Christian Directory (London, 1673), pt. 3, pp. 327-60
Pastor Michael Ives: “the most helpful, practical, and thorough treatment on the subject of the Christian and his emotions I have ever read.”
Turretin, Francis – 4. ‘What is the will and the free will of angels? Do affections belong to them?’ in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 7th Topic, pp. 546-47
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1800’s
Bavinck, Herman – ch. 8, ‘The Faculty of Desiring’ in Foundations of Psychology trans. Born, Kloosterman & Bolt 2nd ed. (1897; 1921)
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1900’s
Warfield, B.B. – On the Emotional Life of our Lord
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Quote
1600’s
William Pemble
Vindiciæ gratiæ. = A Plea for Grace, More especially the Grace of Faith… (London: 1627), pp. 125-26
“For affections or passions in man, they are of two sorts:
1. Sensual belonging to the sensitive appetite and directed by the fantasy: these are common to brute beasts with us, and arise from one like temper and constitution in both. The object of these is all natural good or evil.
2. Rational, appertaining to the reasonable appetite or will, and guided by the understanding. These are proper to man, and they have their original from the substance of the reasonable soul, in which they always remain, not only when it is in the body, but even when tis severed from it. For fear, hope, love, hatred, joy, grief, etc. are in the damned and blessed spirits as well as living men. The object of these properly human passions is all moral and spiritual good or evil. I need not among so many learned, artists stand curiously upon the distinction of these two sorts of passions in man: the identity of names in both sorts has caused some confusion, but in reason the diversity of their nature is evident. Wherefore I go on to see what is meant by excitation or stirring up of the affections: whereby we can understand nothing else but their right and orderly motions about their proper objects. As in the particulars, sensual passions are then duly excited when they are moved about any natural good or evil, according to the instinct of nature in brute beasts and according to the same instinct of nature in man, but guided and moderated by right reason. Reasonable affections are then duly stirred up when their motions about all spiritual and moral good or evil are conformable to the quality of the object affected and to the rules of a rightly informed understanding.”
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Historical
In the Post-Reformation
Jo, Hyeong Rae – Sensing the Divine: John Owen’s Anthroposensitive Theology & Affective Spirituality PhD diss. (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2023)
“John Owen (1616–83), a prominent English Reformed theologian, emphasized the importance of affections in Christian life… Affections, as opposed to turbulent emotions, are regarded as a more delicate inclination and disposition of the soul… Owen’s theology is built in a theocentric way, with a particular emphasis on the experiential and pastoral aspects. This research investigates how Owen used the concept of affections to construct his anthroposensitive theology.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 3 Abbr.
On Appetite in General
On Sensation
50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Whole Decalogue’ in Select Theological Disputations (Amsterdam: Jansson, 1667), vol. 4
‘On Sense, or the Sensitive Power’ 765
‘On the Appetite, or the Affections’ 765
‘On Locomotion’ 766
‘On Habit’ 766
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On the Practical Reason
Quotes
Order of
Maresius & Mastricht
Feser & Aquinas
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1600’s
On Samuel Maresius & Peter van Mastricht
Stephen Hampton, 1. ‘Free Choice’, pp. 229-30 in ‘Sin, Grace & Free Choice in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology’ in Lehner, Muller & Roeber, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600-1800 (Oxford, 2016)
“…one key prerequisite for human action [according to Samuel Maresius] is the ‘ultimate judgment of practical reason’–the discernment, by the intellect, of what course of action seems best in all the circumstances. If free choice involved the potential to reject this judgment, then human beings would not be rational agents (Maresius 1646-48, 2:4).
For this reason, Maresius underlines that free choice cannot be identified solely with the will. Choosing a course of action involves making an intellectual judgment about what should be done, which the will then follows as a matter of intrinsic necessity (Maresius 1646-48, 2:12). That is why Maresius calls intellectual judgment the ‘prime mover’ of the human microcosm, ‘by which the will is determined to willing’ (Maresius 1646-48, 2:12). It follows from this that free choice is incompatible with coercion; because if one is forced to act contrary to one’s intellectual judgment, then one’s choice is not free as Maresius understands it. Free choice requires… the freedom to act as one thinks best.
…
In Maresius’s conception of free choice, the will is invariably determined by the last judgment of practical reason; that, indeed, is what makes it a rational faculty. But this view was not universal amongst the Reformed. In his Theoretico-Practica Theologia, Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706) notes Maresius’s position, but disagrees with it.
If Maresius were right, he argues, grace would only need to illuminate the human intellect for conversion to happen. However, scripture makes clear that conversion requires not only a new mind but also a new heart (Ez 36:26), and that saving grace directly affects the will (Phil. 2:13). Van Mastricht suggests, therefore, that the will only follows the judgment of practical reason when the judgment is congruous with its habitual disposition. As a result, a sinful will may not automatically follow what the intellect judges to be the best course of action… (Van Mastricht 1699, 383-84).”
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2000’s
Edward Feser
Neo-Scholastic Essays (South End, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), p. 403
“When we add to these considerations Aquinas’s fundamental principle of natural law—that practical reason has as it natural end the pursuit of what is good and the avoidance of what frustrates the realization of the good…”
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On the Immortality of the Soul
Order of Contents
Articles 8
Books 2
Historical 2
Latin 3
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Articles
1500’s
Calvin, John – ‘On the State of Souls After Death’ in The Two Last Articles in A Short Instruction for to Arm All Good Christian People against the Pestiferous Errors of the Common Sect of Anabaptists (London: Daye, 1549), no page numbers
Some Anabaptists held the soul ceases to exist after death (until it comes back into being at the Resurrection) or that it continues to exist, but sleeps till the Resurrection. Calvin refutes both views.
Ursinus, Zachary – 9. Whether the soul be immortal in The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (d. 1583; Oxford, 1587), Of the Resurrection of the Flesh
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1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 20, section 1, ‘Whether souls are immortal? We affirm against the doubting Remonstrants and Socinians.’ in Rutherford’s Examination of Arminianism: the Tables of Contents with Excerpts from Every Chapter tr. Charles Johnson & Travis Fentiman (1638-1642; 1668; RBO, 2019), pp. 135-36
Du Mornay, Philip – ‘On the Immortality of the Soul’ in The True Knowledge of a Man’s own Self (London: Leake, 1602), pp. 193-215
Baxter, Richard
The Invaluable Price of an Immortal Soul, showing the Vanity of most People in taking care for the body, but neglect their duty as to the preservation of their never-dying souls… (London, 1681) 23 pp.
The Nature & Immortality of the Soul Proved in Answer to one who professed Perplexing Doubtfulness (London, 1682) 72 pp. no ToC
Turretin, Francis – 14. ‘Is the soul immortal in virtue of its intrinsic construction? We affirm.’ in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 5th Topic, p. 482-88
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1700’s
à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ‘The Immortality of the Soul After Death’ in ch. 100, ‘Concerning Death & the State of the Soul After Death’ in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 4 ed. Joel Beeke, tr. Bartel Elshout Buy (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 317-22
a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.
Turretin, Jean-Alphonse – 12. “Immortality of the Soul & a Future State according to Nature’s Light” in Dissertations on Natural Theology tr. William Crawford Ref (Belfast: Magee, 1777), pp. 368-411
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Books
1600’s
Du Mornay, Philip – The Soul’s own Evidence for its Own Immortality (London: M.S., 1646) 64 pp. ToC being two chapters out of his The Trueness of Christian Religion
Bates, William – Considerations of the Existence of God & of the Immortality of the Soul, with the Recompences of the Future State… (London, 1676) 292 pp. ToC
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Historical
Feser, Edward – ‘Immateriality & Immortality’ in ch. 4, ‘Psychology’ in Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide (OneWorld, 2010), pp. 129-38 See especially pp. 135-38.
On Aquinas’s view that the soul is immortal by nature, which was the typical Romanist view. That it was not immortal by nauture, but by God’s ordination, was a common protestant view.
Goudriaan, Aza – in Reformed Orthodoxy & Philosophy, 1625-1750
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Latin
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Of the Immortality of the Soul in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 6 Abbr.
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1700’s
Roy, Albert – The 4th Theological Exercise, which is on the Immortality of the Human Soul (Bern, 1713)
Roy (1663-1733) was a reformed professor of Hebrew, Catechesis and Theology at Lausanne.
Hartmann, Johann Adolph – A Philosophical Disputation in which is Demonstrated that the Human Soul is Not Able to be Destroyed (Marburg, 1739) 28 pp.
Hartmann (1680-1744) was a reformed professor of philosophy, history and rhetoric at Kassel and Marburg. He was a Romanist previous to 1715.
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On the Similarity & Difference between Animal Sentience & Human Sentience & Intellect
Articles
2000’s
Feser, Edward – Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholasticae, 2024)
pt. 1, ‘What is Mind?’
ch. 3 ‘The Intellect’
‘Intellect versus sentience’, pp. 64-68
“The intellect is that power by which we are able to entertain concepts, to affirm the truth or falsity of propositions, and to assess the cogency of arguments…
A further distinction traditionally drawn in Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy is that between the external senses and the internal senses, both of which are typically possessed by sentient organisms. The external senses are the familiar ones: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch…
The internal senses are the synthetic sense, instinct, the imagination, and sensory imagery. Some of the jargon may be unfamiliar, but the capacities it refers to are not. The synthetic sense is what unifies the deliverances of the five external senses into a coherent conscious experience… Instinct is also known as the ‘estimative power,’… the capacity of an organism to apprehend something sensed as either beneficial or harmful, and to be inclined, accordingly, either to pursue it or to avoid it…
The imagination, in the sense we are concerned with, is the capacity to form images… understood as copies of what we experience in sensation… Sensory memory retains what is known via instinct or the estimative power, just as imagination retains what is sensed… It is not terribly controversial that sentient organisms possess something like the capacities just described…
…a dog can see a triangle, but it does not conceptualize it as a closed plane figure with three straight sides… For that reason, it does not entertain propositions about triangles or human beings, much less reason from one proposition to other propositions. But a dog can do things like instinctively estimate the piece of food a particular human being is holding out to it as desirable, and thus be inclined to approach it. It can have images of sights, odors, tastes and the like that it has experienced in the past triggered in its consciousness. It can by virtue of such experience come to associate a certain human being with food, and thereby be moved in future to seek that human being out.
Of course, human beings… do conceptualize the deliverances of these senses.”
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‘Thought & Language’, pp. 99-102
“If by ‘thinking’ we mean the capacity for what Bermudez calls direct belief modification, goal-desires, simple seeing, dispositions to form beliefs about things of a general type, and so forth, then non-linguistic animals are capable of thinking. But all of this falls within the range of capacities made possible by what Aristotelians traditionally call the ‘internal senses’.
It doesn’t follow that non-linguistic animals are capable of what Bermudez calls second-order cognition, higher-order desires, the attribution to others of propositional attitudes, reflective belief modification, a grasp of compound, modal, tensed and general propositions, situation-desires and epistemic seeing, and so forth… If that is the sort of thing we mean by ‘thinking,’ then there is good reason to conclude that non-linguistic animals are not capable of thinking…
Karl Popper drew a distinction between four main functions of language. The first is the expressive function, which involves the outward expression of an inward state… The second is the signaling function, which adds to the expressive function the generation of a reaction in others. Popper compares it to the dange signals an animal might send out in order to alert other animals… The third is the descriptive function, which involves the expression of a proposition, something that can be either true or false… The fourth is the argumentative function, which involves the expression of an inference from one or more propositions to another in a manner that can be said to be either valid or invalid…
While the most primitive animals may be incapable of behavior that performs even the first two of these functions, there are also obviously animals that can perform them, and in that sense they can be said to have language. But… [this] does not entail being capable of the descriptive and argumentative functions… Whether animals lacking that particular sort of language, can be said to think in the sense of entertaining concepts, propositions, and logical inferences… the answer must be in the negative.”
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ch. 4, ‘The Will’. ‘What is the Will?’, pp. 119-20
“The plant’s roots sinking into the ground is a movement that does arise from within the plant in a sense, since it results from the plant’s natural self-perfective powers qua plant. However, though the power and inclination are in the plant, the end toward which the power is inclined is in no sense present within the plant, nor even represented within it…
Now, in a non-human animal, the ends toward which its powers are inclined are represented within it. For an animal can perceive a thing toward which it is naturally inclined, such as the food it eats… the food is in the animal qua perceived…
…an animal has a kind of knowledge of the end it is pursuing. However, we still wouldn’t say that an animal knows what it is doing, and thus wouldn’t hold it morally responsible for what it does… For while the animal knows the end it pursues, it doesn’t know that it knows it. It doesn’t know the end as an end, for it does not have the concept of an end, nor indeed any concepts at all. Hence it also lacks the concept of being a means to an end… This lack of concepts entails a certain inflexibility in the animal’s behavior. Like a plant, an animal cannot do otherwise than whatever it in fact does… Because of this… Aquinas says that a non-human animal acts voluntarily only in an imperfect sense…
Now, a rational substance is a substance with an intellect, and to have an intellect is precisely to have the capactiy to conceptualize what one knows. A human being qua rational animal not only knows the food that he tries to eat, but knows it as food of a certain kind (an apple, say) and as something that would be good for him to eat given his need for nutrition. He also knows that biting into it straightaway would be one possible means of eating it, and that this has certain advantages and disadvantages compared to other means…
What all of this makes possible, as Aquinas emphasizes, is deliberation. Since a rational being posesses universal concepts, he can identify particular ends and means as instances of general kinds. He can make comparisons between these different possible ends and different possible means to the ends. He can arrive at judgments about which ends and means are best, and also make judgments about those judgments themselves. Hence, when he decides to eat the apple, he knows what he is doing in a way that… a non-human animal does not know what it is doing.”
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pt. 2, ch. 6, ‘Animality’
‘Sentient versus vegetative life’, p. 232
“The correct judgment, I would argue, is that the conscious awareness characteristic of animal life is irreducible to the properties possessed either by inorganic substances or purely vegetative living substances, but that it is nevertheless an entirely physical or corporeal phenomenon.”
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‘Animal Intelligence’, pp. 245-56
“…whether any non-human animals are intelligent. Certainly some of them are, in a loose sense of ‘intelligent’. For some of them solve problems, produce crude tools, and so forth… So, the question of whether any non-human animals are intelligent in the strict sense ultimately boils down to the question of whether any of them exhibits linguistic behavior that is plausibly interpreted as conveying abstract concepts, propositions and logical inferences.
The answer is that none of them does… as Noam Chomsky observes, there are five crucial differences between human language and what such apes are capable of. Two of them are biological. In human beings, Chomsky observes, language is associated with specific language centers in the brain that have no apparent parallel in apes…
…In human beings, Chomsky points out, language is used in a way that is largely independent of immediate stimuli, the satisfaction of needs, or instrumental purposes… Our use is also governed by rules determining the structure of utterances, in a recursive way that allows for a potentially infinite number of sentences. The alleged cases of language use by apes exhibits none of these key features. Furthermore, human children come to learn language by mere exposure to it, without the need for explicit training…
…Wishful thinking, dubious inferences, problematic methodology, and conceptual imprecision are rife in the work of researchers who claim to have taught ASL [American Sign Language] or some other linguistic system to apes… Nor is there behavior clearly exhibiting anything more than mere conditioning to carry out an action so as to secure some reward (as opposed to genuine understanding of a name), or simple associations of the kind a dog exhibits when it carries its leash over to its owner so as to go out for a walk. Nor is there any serious evidence that apes follow grammatical rules when emitting sequences of symbols (as opposed, say, to rote repetition of paired terms)… Nor do apes emit the alleged linguistic behavior they exhibit in a spontaneous way, as opposed to under prompting. Nor do they take turns in conversation, but sign simultaneously with their partner and in a manner that is not clearly visible to him. Nor once they gain whatever favility with words human trainers are able to impart to them, do they pass it on to other chimpanzees. Nor, unlike human beings, are they able to introduce new words by use of existing words.
Arguments for linguistic competence in apes seem to get off the ground only because such obvious differences are ignored, while relatively trivial analogies between human and ape performance are overemphasized… As Chomsky says, to think this shows that such apes are exhibiting the early stages of genuine linguistic development is like supposing that a human child flapping his arms ‘is exhibiting’exhibiting incipient flight motions.””
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pt. 3, ‘What is a human being?’, ch. 9, ‘Neither computers nor brains’, ‘Arguments from neuroscience’, p. 440
“As I have emphasized, the Aristotelian position acknowledges that sensory experience, mental imagery, emotion, and other mental attributes we share with non-human animals are entirely corporeal or bodily. It also holds that the intellect depends on the senses, and thus the body and brain, for informational input.
It also holds that the intellect depends on the senses, and thus the body and brain, for informational input. Moreover, the Aristotelian allows that even when concepts have been abstracted from mental imagery, the intellect still, in the normal course of things, makes use of imagery when entertaining even the most abstract ideas and lines of reasoning. That too depends on brain activity.
And it cannot be emphasized too strongly that these are not concessions the Aristotelian has been forced to make in light of modern neuroscientific findings. On the contrary, these are things that Aristotelians have been saying for centuries. Hence there is nothing in what modern neuroscience has discovered about the mind that need be remotely troubling to the Aristotelian. Indeed it is precisely the sort of thing Aristotelian philosophy of mind would lead us to expect.”
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Is Immaterial Thought & Intellectual Activity Extinguished with the Death of the Body? No
Order of
Intro
Quote 1
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Intro
As it is quite difficult to account for thought and intellectual activity on materialist principles alone, many persons, both historically and currently, have sought to carve out a view that, as thought requires immaterial activity, immaterial processes must be produced by and accompany the physical brain, yet they are so dependent on the brain that when the body dies, so the immaterial activity is extinguished.
This view, or at least one variety of it, is known today as Property Dualism, that the physical, material brain has two kinds of properties that arise from it and are exercised by it, both material and immaterial.
Besides the quote below, note that Thomas Aquinas refuted this view in Summa, pt. 1, q. 75, art. 2, 3, 6.
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Quote
2000’s
Edward Feser
Five Proofs of the Existence of God (Ignatius Press, 2017), ch. 6
“Aquinas and other Scholastic philosophers often employ the principle agere sequitur esse (Latin for “action follows being”). The basic idea is that what a thing does necessarily reflects what it is. Eyes and ears function differently because they are structured differently. Plants take in nutrients, grow, and reproduce while stones do none of these things, because the former are living things and the latter are inanimate…
The PPC [Principle of Proportionate Causality] tells us, again, that whatever is in the thing that changes or comes to exist must in some way have been in the total set of factors that brought about this change or existent. In this sense, the effect cannot go beyond the cause.
A formal cause is the nature of a thing, that which makes it the kind of thing it is… The principle agere sequitur esse basically says that these attributes and activities cannot go beyond that nature, any more than an effect can go beyond its efficient cause. Hence, a stone cannot exhibit attributes and activities like nutrition, growth, and reproduction, because these go beyond the nature of a stone. Anything that could do these things wouldn’t be a stone in the first place.
The principle agere sequitur esse, like the PPC, follows from the PSR [Principle of Sufficient Reason, that everything has a sufficient reason for it]. If an effect could go beyond its total efficient cause, then the part of the effect that went beyond it would have no explanation and be unintelligible. Similarly, if a thing’s activities could go beyond its nature—if, for example, a stone could take in nutrients or use language—then this activity would lack an explanation and be unintelligible…
…even a materialist could agree that if intellectual activity were immaterial, then the thing which carries out that activity would itself have to be immaterial. And indeed, the naturalist philosopher John Searle takes precisely that view in criticizing a theory known as property dualism.
Property dualism holds that mental properties are immaterial but that they are nevertheless properties of a material thing —namely, the brain. The theory is essentially an attempt to acknowledge the problems with materialist theories of the mind without having to accept the dualist view that the mind is an immaterial thing.
Searle’s criticism is that the theory is unstable. If the property dualist maintains that a mental property is something ‘over and above’ the brain, then the trouble in Searle’s view is that such a property cannot be a property of the brain, but must be ‘a separate thing, object, or non-property type of entity’.
On the other hand, if a mental property really is a property of the brain, then it cannot be something ‘over and above’ the brain. Other critics of property dualism have complained that it is mysterious how an entirely material thing like the brain could give rise to immaterial properties.”
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Latin
1500’s
Löw, Georg
Philosophical Theses on the Soul & its Functions in an Animated Body, so far as in it the Principle & Cause of Life Exist (Basil, 1596)
Theses on the Human Soul (Basil: 1600)
Low (1565-1610)
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1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 20, ‘On the Soul & the Bodily Resurrection’ in The Examination of Arminianism ed. Matthew Nethenus (1639-1643; Utrecht, 1668), pp. 753-61
Kyper, Albert – Anthropology: the Nature of the Contents of the Human Body & the Soul, & the Powers Respecting the Circular Motion of the Blood Explained, to which is added a Response of the Same Author to the Pseudo-Apology of V.F. Plempius (1660) 665 pp. ToC
Kyper (1614-1655) was a professor of medicine at Leiden.
Voet, Gisbert – Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 3 Abbr.
Of the Spirit
On the Powers or Faculties of the Soul
de Vries (1648-1705) was a reformed, Voetian, professor of philosophy and theology at Utrecht.
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