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In its consideration of the nature of man theology treats
only of I man's soul, and of his body only with regard
to the relationship of the body to the soul. Therefore
St. Thomas considers the human soul in its essence, in
its union with the body, and then he considers the
faculties of the soul. In this treatise he considers acts
of the intellective faculty, leaving the acts and habits
of the appetitive faculty to moral theology. Finally
St. Thomas considers the first production of man and the
state of the first man.
Today many of the questions of the first part of this
treatise are dealt with in rational psychology, and
therefore we select only the more important questions that
pertain to dogmatic theology and present them in two
sections.
I. The human soul. 1. The spirituality and
immortality of the human soul (q. 75). 2. The
union of the soul with the body (q. 76). 3. The
faculties of the soul (q. 77-83). 4. The manner
in which the soul knows itself (q. 87). 5. The
separated soul (q. 89).
II. The first production of man (q. 90-102).
1. The origin of man. 2. The elevation of man to the
supernatural state. 3. The fall of man.
The theological character of this treatise. St. Thomas
does not here follow the ascending order of the
philosophical treatise "De anima". The
philosopher ascends progressively from sensible things to
the spiritual and the divine, from vegetative life to
sensitive life and then to the intellective life, whose
acts reveal the spirituality and immortality of the soul.
Theology, on the other hand, having God in His
intimate life as its proper object, first considers man as
God's creature. Therefore, after the treatise on
God, on creation in general, on the angels, theology
treats of the human soul. This begins with the soul's
spirituality and immortality, proceeding then to the
soul's union with the body, the soul's faculties and
acts, the separated soul, the production of the first
man, and the state of the first man.
Besides this, in these questions St. Thomas follows
the doctrinal method, which is a departure from the
methods of the Averroistic philosophers and the
Augustinian theologians, who preceded him.
Averroes held that the human intellect was the lowest of
the intellects, but that it was an immaterial form,
eternal, separate from individuals, and numerically
one.[1267] In his view this human intelligence was
at the same time the intellectus agens and the intellectus
possibilis, and human reason was impersonal but it
illumined individual souls. Hence Averroes denied the
personal immortality of individual souls and their
liberty. This doctrine was taught in the thirteenth
century by the Latin Averroists, Siger of Brabant and
Boethius of Dacia, against whom St. Thomas wrote his
treatise, "De unitate intellectus" contra
averroistas.
On the other hand, the Augustinian theologians who
preceded St. Thomas, among them Alexander of Hales
and St. Bonaventure, admitted a plurality of
substantial forms in man and held that there was spiritual
matter in the human soul. They insisted on this
conclusion because the intellective soul is independent of
the body and because they were unable to explain the
natural unity of the human composite.
In opposition to these mutually opposing theories, St.
Thomas sought to prove that the rational soul is purely
spiritual, without any matter, that it is therefore
incorruptible, but that it is nevertheless the one and
only form of the human body, intrinsically independent of
matter in its intellective and voluntary operations, and
therefore after its separation from the body it is
individuated in its being by its natural relation to one
body rather than to another.
Scotus and Suarez, however, sought to retain certain
propositions taught by the older, pre-Thomistic
Scholasticism.
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