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Avicebron held that matter was common to spirits and
bodies because, as he said, there is something which they
have in common. But the thing they have in common is
nothing more than created essence as something capable of
existence and limiting being. According to St.
Thomas, it is impossible that a spiritual substance have
any kind of matter. The operation of anything is after
the manner of its substance, or operation follows being,
or the mode of operation follows the mode of being. But
intellection is an operation entirely immaterial, that
is, intrinsically independent of matter, because it is
specified of a universal object, by intelligible being,
which abstracts from all matter. Thus the intellect is
able to know the first principles of being, which are
absolutely necessary and universal, above all contingent
and particular being, and hence it can know the reasons
for the being of things. Therefore a spiritual and
intellectual substance is entirely immaterial.
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