THE HUMAN PERSON ~ Dignity Beyond Compare by Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, Nashville, TN

The Human Person ~ Dignity Beyond Compare

Fifth Edition

Sister Terese Auer, O.P.

Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation Nashville, Tennessee

Nihil obstat: Reverend John Rock, S.J.

Diocese of Nashville

July 22, 2008

Brother Ignatius Perkins, O.P., Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N. Diocese of Nashville

July 23, 2012

Imprimatur: Most Reverend David R. Choby, S.T.B.,J.C.L. Bishop, Diocese of Nashville July 22, 2008; July 23, 2012

Published by St. Cecilia Congregation 801 Dominican Drive, Nashville, TN, 37228 615-256-5486 615-726-1333 (fax) www.nashvilledominican.org

Front cover: Michelangelo’s David, Accademia Gallery, Florence, Italy

Back cover: Fresh from Heaven by Kathryn Andrews Fincher (Used with the permission of the artist)

Cover designed by Sister Mary Justin Haltom, O.P.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-578-89341-9

Chapter

Chapter II FOUNDATIONAL

PHILOSOPHICALPRINCIPLES

Introduction

With St. Thomas Aquinas as our guide, let us begin our study of the human person by getting acquainted with some foundational philosophical principles. Working hard to understand these principles is worth our effort, for they are foundational to a correct understanding of all reality. Understanding them will enable us to discover basic truths about the human person, especially about the relationship of his soul to his body.

Vocabulary

potency substanceprinciple actuality accidentintrinsic

POTENCYAND ACTUALITY

St. Thomas agreed with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) in the way he viewed the things of our world. Aristotle had taught that the change we see happening in the world around us can be explained if we appeal to a distinction between act and potency. It is important for us to understand what these terms mean.

To say that something is in “potency” or has “potential” means that it does not yet exist, but it could. It has “the power” or potency to be. To say that something is “in act” or has “actuality,” on the other hand, is to say that it is real, that it truly exists. For example, to say that the dough is potentially pizza means that the pizza is not yet there, but the dough has the capacity to become pizza. To say that pizza coming out of the oven piping hot exists “in actuality” is to say that it really is there.

You might be thinking, “Then why speak about ‘potency’at all if potency does not imply real existence?” “Potency” is telling you something real about a thing; it is telling you about the thing’s possibilities. Dough has the potency for becoming pizza; a block of wood does not have that potentiality. Wood cannot become pizza! This shows us that although we might be able to conceive in our imagination of

NOTES

Potency - the capacity or ability of a thing to be actualized; the opposite of actuality.

Actuality - having real existence; the opposite of the merely possible.

NOTES

Nature - the essence of a thing which it has from its beginning; what a thing is.

wood becoming pizza, the potentiality that Aristotle and Aquinas have in mind is one which is rooted in a thing’s nature as it actually exists. In other words, there is nothing in the nature of wood that indicates that it has any potentiality for becoming pizza, while there is something in the nature of dough that indicates this potentiality.

Change - a movement from potency to act.

PREVIEW

So, how do these terms “act” and “potency” help to explain the change we see in the world around us? Well, something is able to change only if it has potency for the change. Once the change occurs, we say that the potency the thing had has now been actualized. Change, then, involves a movement from potency to act. In change, potency is replaced by actuality. As I sit here at my desk, I am in potency to standing. When I stand up, I actualize my potency to stand. The change from dough to pizza occurs when the potency of the dough is actualized and pizza actually exists.

POTENCYACTCHANGE

The actual substance of dough has the potency to become pizza.

When the dough’s potency to become pizza is actualized, pizza comes into existence.

While these terms potency and act are essential for helping us understand change, they are not enough. We need something more; we need something external to the change in order to bring it about. For example, dough does not become pizza on its own; it requires an external agent (a person) to actualize the dough’s potentiality. If it could actualize itself, then why didn’t it do so long before now?

Aquinas explains, then, that potency must be raised to act by something that is in act. “Whatever is moved is moved by another.”1 Now you might argue against this by pointing out that a dog can move itself to act, for example, when it barks. But what is really happening here is that one part of the dog is being changed or moved by another part. In the case of a dog barking, the vocal cords of the dog are in poten1 St. Thomas Aquinas, In Phys. VI.2.891.

cy to vibrating rapidly and thus making sound when air from the lungs is forced between them. Air is moved out of the lungs and through the vocal cords due to the coordinated action of the diaphragm, abdominal muscles, chest muscles, and rib cage. This coordinated action occurs due to motor neurons firing, and these are actualized by other neurons, and so on.

Did you notice that actuality always comes before potentiality? This is because potentiality cannot exist on its own but must always be in combination with actuality. Thus, the potential for pizza is present only if there is actual dough. The potential for the dog barking exists only if there is an actual dog with vocal chords.

Thus, it is not possible for potentiality to exist on its own, without something actual. But it is possible for something to be purely actual, with no potentiality whatsoever. We’ll talk about this later in the chapter when we talk about the First Cause of objective reality.

FORM AND MATTER

From what we have said so far, we see that both Aristotle and Aquinas think that in everything which is moved, there must be a composition of act and potency. These two philosophers also hold that every physical thing is made up of two principles: form and matter. Now do not let that word “principle” trip you up. It is simply a term philosophers use to mean “basic source.” So, for example, chocolate and sugar are two principles of brownies; focused study is usually a principle of good grades.

Thomas and Aristotle are saying that all physical things are the result of a union of two principles: form and matter. 2 The form of a thing is what makes it to be the kind of thing that it is. It is what gives a thing its basic identity, revealing to us its innermost being. For example, “tableness” is the form of this table before me, and “doggie-ness is the form of my dog Snarles. Now, it is true that we do not usually think of “doggie-ness” or “table-ness,” so it may sound strange, but the idea of what makes this furniture a table and not a chair or a door -- its flat, elevated, sturdy surface -- is not at all new.

PREVIEW

What makes a dog a dog rather than a cat is what we mean by “doggie-ness.” Neither “table-ness” nor “doggie-ness” exists in reality by themselves; only individual tables and individual dogs exist. More is needed, therefore, than form alone to explain physical things.

2 This Aristotelian doctrine is known as hylemorphism (also spelled hylomorphism) after the Greek words hyle (matter) and morphe (form).

Principle - from the Latin principium, "beginning;" the source or origin of something; that from which a thing comes into being.

Form - the essence of a thing, the determining principle of a physical thing that makes it to be the kind of thing that it is.

NOTES

Matter - the receptive principle of a physical thing; that out of which a physical being is made.

The other principle involved in physical things must be something which limits form, “tying it down” so to speak to one particular thing. It will be what makes the thing to be individual instead of general, to have a certain size, color and shape. This second principle in physical things is called matter. Philosophers define “matter” as that out of which a thing comes to be. The matter of the table would be the wood or steel out of which it is made, and the matter of Snarles would be the various cells of his body.

Form, then, is the more general term. It accounts for our being able to know what a thing is. Once we grasp the form of a thing, we know whether there is a table or a dog in front of us. But forms do not just float around by themselves. Outside of our minds, out in the real world, forms exist only united with matter. For example, in reality “doggie-ness” is united with the physical matter of a particular dog.

“Since the form is not for the matter, but rather the matter for the form, we must gather from the form the reason why the matter is such as it is; and not conversely.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, 76, 5

In fact, St. Thomas says that the form is not for the matter; rather, the matter is for the form. 3 So if we want to know why a certain matter is the way that it is, we must look to its form for the reason. For example, the reason why the matter of desks is always smooth is because a desk’s form requires that it have a writing surface. And the reason why the matter of a window is always transparent is because a window is the kind of thing through which one sees.

Matter, as a principle of a physical thing, is in potency to a form which makes it actual or real. The two principles form and matter are in relation to each other, then, as act is to potency. Another way to express this is to say that form actualizes matter

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, 76, 5.

Take the example of a brass candlestick. Brass is used to make the candlestick because brass has the potency to hold a candle and not be melted when the candle burns low. We could not make a candlestick out of ice cream, because ice cream does not have the right potency. The form of a thing actualizes one (or more) of the potencies of the matter. In the case of the candlestick, the form candlestick-ness actualizes the brass’s potency to hold a candle. Adifferent form would actualize the potency of the brass to be a statue or a paper weight.

Applying these terms to physical beings, St. Thomas says that the form of a thing is the thing’s first act. When the form unites with matter, it makes the thing really exist. Any other activity a thing might do once it exists, he calls its second act. For example, the form of a rose is its first act because it makes the rose exist. The fact that the rose takes in nourishment from the soil or grows is called its second act. We will see in Chapter Seven why these terms are important, especially as we talk about the human person.

One more point about form and matter: they are both intrinsic principles of physical things. That word “intrinsic” means “from within.” These principles are from within a thing. Matter is the “stuff” out of which the thing is made, and form is the arrangement of that stuff. Be careful not to confuse the form with merely the external shape of a thing. The external shape “announces” the form to us. It is bound up with the form, but the form is not simply the outside shape of a thing. Rather, form is part and parcel of what a thing is.

For example, the external shape of a table announces the form “table-ness,” but “tableness” is more than the external shape. If something had the external shape of a table but was merely a cardboard cutout of a table, we would not call it a table. We would call it a model of a table or an attempt at a table. The form “table-ness” influences every aspect of the thing we call a table. It makes the table to be very sturdy and able to hold weight. In a wooden table, the form “tableness” and the matter (wood) are intimately united in making up the table.

Now, those who know science might be wondering, “What about the atoms and molecules that make up the wood which makes up the table?” Atoms and molecules -- matter in its very simplest way of existing -- do not change the point philosophers are making regarding matter and form. For matter to exist at all, it must be united with a form. Thus, an atom is an atom because it has the form of atom-ness, and an atom of hydrogen is actually hydrogen, but potentially dihydrogen monoxide, otherwise known as water (a molecule).

Intrinsic - from the Latin intrinsecus, "inward;" in and of itself, or essentially. It is the opposite of extrinsic, meaning external or unessential.

NOTES

Substance - that which is able to exist in and for itself and not in another.

Substantial form - that which makes a thing exist on its own, as a substance.

SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENTS

In speaking of form, Aristotle and St. Thomas distinguish between two kinds, based on the two fundamentally different ways a thing can exist. If the thing is able to exist in and for itself and not in another, in a relatively independent way, it is a substance. The form of a substance is called its substantial form. Examples of substances would be such things as a human person, a tree, a block of gold. Akey trait of a substance is its unity; it is one thing. Strictly speaking, then, a machine like a car would be a collection of substances (nuts, bolts, wires, etc.) and not a substance itself.

Accident - that which is able to exist only in another; it requires a substance in which to inhere.

Accidental form - that which makes a substance exist in a particular manner.

Before going on, let us stop to check our understanding. PREVIEW

In addition to substance which is able to exist on its own, there is also a kind of being which can exist only in another. Abeing such as this is called an accident. The form of an accident is called an accidental form. Examples of accidents would be such things as the speed of a racing horse, the shape of a maple leaf, or the cheerfulness of a human being. Speed, shape, and cheerfulness cannot exist on their own. They can only be present in substances, such as horses, leaves, or human beings.

Aphysical thing can have only one substantial form because the substantial form makes the thing to be the kind of thing that it is. If it had more than one substantial form, the thing would be more than one thing. Usually physical beings have numerous accidental forms, accounting for qualities such as size, shape, or color. For example, the substance “this lemon” has only one substantial form: lemon-ness. However, in addition to the substantial form (lemon-ness) and the matter (that out of which this lemon comes to be), the lemon may have numerous accidental forms accounting for the fact that it is a rather big, tart lemon which is discolored by age.

Substantial form: Lemon-ness

Accidental forms:

Yellow-ness

Rough-ness

Tart-ness

Large-ness

Notice that both the substantial and accidental forms are nonmaterial. They are united with matter, but they are not matter itself.

THE HUMAN PERSON ~ Dignity Beyond Compare

PREVIEW