"It is because the contemporary alternatives seem so one-sided and are not more evidently solutions to the problems which Thomas faced, and partly solved, that we return to him and to the tradition of theology and philosophy in which his Summa Theologiae appears: theology as the science of the first principle and this as the total knowledge of reality in its unity." -- Wayne J. Hankey, God in Himself (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.159.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Q55 A2: Whether the angels understand by species drawn from things?
No. In the higher spiritual substances--that is, the angels--the power of understanding is naturally complete by intelligible species because they have such species connatural to them, so as to understand all things which they can know naturally.