Chapter 8 — Refutation of Avicebron’s arguments

On this basis, it is easy to answer arguments advanced to the contrary.

For the first argument seemed to infer that there could not be diversity among spiritual substances if they were not composed of matter and form. (Cf. above, Cap. V.) This argument was deficient in both parts of its reasoning. For it is not necessary that those things which are only matter be without diversity, just as it is likewise not necessary of those substances which are forms only.

For we have said (Cf. above, Cap. VI.) that since matter according to its nature is a being in potency, there must be diverse matters according to the diversity of potency. Nor do we mean anything else by the substance of matter than that very potency which is in the genus of substance. For the genus of substance, like other genera, is divided by potency and act, and hence nothing prevents certain substances, which are only potential, to be diverse according as they are ordered to diverse genera of acts; in which sense the matter of the heavenly bodies is distinguished from the matter of the elements. For the matter of the heavenly bodies is in potency to perfect act (that is, to a form which completes the whole potentiality of matter), so that there no longer remains any potentiality to other forms. But the matter of the elements is in potency to incomplete forms, which cannot exhaust the whole potency of matter. But above these matters, there is spiritual matter (that is, a spiritual substance), which receives a form according to its totality, while the lower matters receive their form in a particular way.

In the same way, the inference based on the forms is also deficient. (Cf. above, Cap. V.) For it is clear that if things composed of matter and form differ according to their forms, the forms themselves are diverse through themselves. But if it be said that the forms of diverse things are not diverse except because of the diversity of matter, just as diverse colors are caused by one illumination of the sun in the air according to the diversity of the difference of density and rarity in it, it is necessary that prior to the diversity of the colors, there be understood in the air a diversity of clearness and density. So, likewise, it is necessary that in matter, prior to one form, another form be understood, just as in the case of bodies, prior to color, a surface is understood. Therefore, among forms there is found a diversity according to a certain order of perfection and imperfection. For that form which is nearer to matter is more imperfect and as in potency with reference to a later form. Thus, although they are only forms, nothing prevents us from positing a multiplicity among spiritual substances, on the basis that one is more imperfect than the other, provided we do so in such wise that the more imperfect is in potency in relation to the more perfect and so on upward to the first form, which is act only, namely, God: so that in this way lower spiritual substances can be called ‘matters’ according as they are in potency and ‘forms’ according as they are in act.

Therefore, it is a clearly inconsequential objection that he brings forth against this view. He concludes that if a spiritual substance differs according to perfection and imperfection, it must be the subject of perfection and imperfection; and therefore since ‘subject’ belongs to the nature of matter, a spiritual substance must possess matter. In this argument, he is deceived in two ways. He is deceived, first, because he thinks that perfection and imperfection are certain supervening forms or accidents that a subject needs—which is clearly false. For there is a certain perfection which a thing has according to its species and substance, which is not compared to that thing as an accident to a subject or a form to matter, but designates the proper species itself of the thing. For just as one number is greater than another according to its own species, which is why unequal numbers differ in species, so, among material forms and forms separated from matter, one is more perfect than another according to the character of its own nature: namely, insofar as the proper character of its species consists in a given grade of perfection.

Second, because to be a subject not only follows upon the matter which is a part of substance but in general belongs to all potency. For everything that is related to another as potency to act is naturally subject to it, and in this way, likewise, a spiritual substance, although it does not have matter as a part of itself, nevertheless can be subject to intelligible forms insofar as it is in potency in some respect.

From this, the solution of the second argument is likewise clear. (Cf. above, Cap. V.) For when we say that a certain substance is corporeal or spiritual, we do not compare spirituality or corporeity to a substance as forms to matter or accidents to a subject, but as differences to a genus, in such a way that a spiritual substance is spiritual not because of something added to substance, but according to its proper substance, just as a corporeal substance is corporeal not because of something added to substance but according to its own substance. For the form through which the species receives the predication of the difference is not a form other than the one through which it receives the predication of genus, as we have said before. (Cf. above, Cap. VI.) Hence, it is not necessary that something should underlie the spirituality of substance as matter or subject.

The third argument has no validity. (Cf. above, Cap. V.) For, since being is not predicated of all things univocally, the same mode of being is not required in all things that are said to be; rather, some share in being more perfectly, and some less perfectly. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, III, 1 (1003a 20–1003b 18); X, 3 (1060b 30–1061a 10).) For accidents are called beings not because they have being in themselves but because their being lies in the fact that they are in a substance. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, VI, 1 (1028a 18); XI, 1 (1069a 21).) Again, there is not the same mode of being in all substances. For those substances which share in being most perfectly do not have in themselves something which is a being only in potency. That is why they are called immaterial substances.

Below these are those substances which, although they contain within themselves a matter which according to its essence is a being in potency, yet they have a potentiality that is entirely completed through form so that there remains in them no potentiality to another form. They are therefore also incorruptible. Such is the case of the heavenly bodies, which are necessarily composed of matter and form. In fact, they must exist in act, otherwise they could not underlie any motion or be subject to sense, nor could they be the principle of any action. No one of them is form only, because if they were forms without matter, they would be substances that are actually intelligible and having understanding through themselves. This is impossible, since ‘to understand’ cannot be an act of a body, as is proved in the De Anima. (Aristotle, De Anima, III, 4 (429b 5); St. Thomas, In De Anima, III, lect. 7, ed. Pirotta, no. 699 (AACTA, 410).) It remains, therefore, that they are composed of matter and form. But just as ‘that’ particular body underlies this particular magnitude and determinate figure so that it is not in potency to another magnitude or figure; so, the matter of the heavenly bodies is so subject to ‘this’ form that it is not in potency to another form.

Below these substances, there is a third grade of substances: namely, that of corruptible bodies, which in themselves have a matter that is a being only in potency. Yet the whole potentiality of such a matter is not realized through the one form to which it is subject, so that there does not remain in it a potency to other forms. And according to this diversity of matter, this potentiality in bodies is found the more finely and the more grossly according as the heavenly bodies are finer and more formal than the bodies of the elements. And since form is proportioned to matter, it follows that the heavenly bodies likewise have a nobler and more perfect form, inasmuch as it realizes the full potentiality of matter.

Therefore, among the higher substances to which the potency of matter is completely foreign, there is found a difference of greater or lesser refinement according to the difference in the perfection of the form; but there is in them no composition of matter and form.

The fourth argument has no validity. (Cf. above, Cap. V.) For, given that spiritual substances have no matter, it does not follow that they are not distinguished from God. For if we take away the potentiality of matter, there remains in them a certain potentiality insofar as they are not being itself but they share in being. (St. Thomas, ST, I, 50, 1–2 (BW I, 480–485); Expositio super librum Boethii deTrinitate, q. 5, a. 4 ad 4 ed. B. Decker, 197–199 (The Division and Methods of the Sciences, trans. A. Maurer, 44–45).) For there can be only one being which is being itself; just as some form, if it should be considered by itself, can be only one. That is why the things which are diverse in number are one in species, because the nature of the species considered in itself is one. Just as, therefore, it is one according to the consideration of it while it is being considered, so it would be one in being if it existed through itself. The same argument applies to the genus in relation to species, until we reach being itself which is most common. There is therefore only one being subsisting through itself. (Cf. St. Thomas, ST, I, 3, 4; 7, 1 ad 3 (BW I, 30–31, 57, 58).) Hence it is impossible that there should be something other than it which is being alone. Now everything that is, has being. Therefore, in every being other than the first, there is present both being itself as the act, and the substance having being as a potency receptive of the act of being. (Cf. St. Thomas, SCG, 11, 52 (OTCF IT, 152).)

Now, someone could say that that which participates in something lacks that thing of itself, just as a surface which has the nature to participate in color is not color and not colored, considered in itself. In the same way, accordingly, that which participates in being must itself be non-being. That which is a being in potency and participative of being, but is not of itself being, is matter, as was said above. (Cf. above, Cap. VI.) Thus, therefore, since every being that is after the first being, which is being itself, is a being by participation, it has matter.

But it must be observed that the beings which share in being from the first being do not share in it according to a universal mode of being, as it is found in the first principle, but they participate in it in a particular way according to a certain determinate mode of being, which belongs to this given genus or this given species. Now, each thing is adapted to one determinate mode of being according to the mode of its substance. But the mode of every substance composed of matter and form is according to the form through which it belongs to a determinate species. Thus, a thing composed of matter and form is made through its form to receive a share in being itself from God according to a mode proper to it. A twofold order, therefore, is found in a substance composed of matter and form. One is the order of the matter to form, and the other is the order of the composite thing itself to the participated being. (St. Thomas, De Ente et Essentia, IV, V, ed. Roland-Gosselin, 29–42 (OBE, IV, V, pp. 41–54); cf. E. Gilson, Being And Some Philosophers, 173 ff.) For the being of a thing is neither its form nor its matter but something coming to the thing through the form. (St. Thomas, In Metaphysics, VII, lect. 7, ed. Cathala, no. 1419.)

Consequently, in things composed of matter and form, the matter considered in itself, according to the mode of its essence, has being in potency, and this it has as a result of a certain participation in the first being; (I.e., from the first being.) but, considered in itself, it lacks the form through which it participates actually in being according to the mode proper to it. (St. Thomas, In Metaphysics, VII, lect. 2, ed. Cathala, no. 1292.) Now a composite being, considered in its essence, already has a form, but it participates in its own being through its own form. Therefore, because matter receives an actual determinate being through a form and not conversely, there is nothing to prevent the existence of a form which receives the being in itself, not in some subject. For a cause does not depend on the effect, but rather conversely. In this way, therefore, a form subsisting through itself participates in being in itself just as a material form participates in its subject.

If, therefore, when I say ‘non-being,’ the effect is to remove only the being in act, the form, considered in itself, is non-being but sharing in being. But if ‘non-being’ removes not only the being in act but also the act or the form through which something shares in being, then matter is non-being in this sense, whereas a subsistent form is not non-being but an act, which is a form that can participate in the ultimate act, which is being. It is clear, therefore, in what the potency which is found in spiritual substances differs from the potency found in matter. For the potency of a spiritual substance is measured only according to its order to being, whereas the potency of matter is measured according to its order both to a form and to being. If someone were to say that both potencies are matter, it is clear that he is using the word ‘matter’ equivocally.

The solution of the fifth argument (Cf. above, Cap. V.) is already apparent from what we have said. (Cf. above, Cap. VIII.) For since a spiritual substance participates in being not according to the infinity of its community, as is the case in the first principle, but according to the mode proper to its essence, it is clear that its being is not infinite but finite. Nevertheless, since the form itself is not participated in matter, it is not limited in this respect by the mode through which forms found in matter are limited.

Thus, therefore, we see a certain gradation of infinity in things. For a material substance is finite in a twofold manner: namely, on the part of the form which is received in matter, and on the part of being itself, in which it shares according to its own mode, as being finite from below and from above. A spiritual substance, however, is finite from above inasmuch as it receives being from the first principle according to its proper mode; it is infinite from below, insofar as it is not received in a subject. But the first principle, God, is infinite in every way.