Saturday, July 25, 2009

Q110 A2: Whether corporeal matter obeys the mere will of an angel?

No. Every informing of matter is either immediately from God, or from some corporeal agent, but not immediately from an angel, because whatever makes natural things, has a likeness to the composite; either because it is composite itself, as when fire begets fire, or because the whole "composite" as to both matter and form is within its power, and this belongs to God alone.

Omnis informatio materiae vel est a Deo immediate, vel ab aliquo agente corporali, non autem immediate ab Angelo, quia id quod facit res naturales, habet similitudinem cum composito, vel quia est compositum, sicut ignis generat ignem, vel quia totum compositum, et quantum ad materiam et quantum ad formam, est in virtute ipsius, quod est proprium Dei.

As the Philosopher proves (Metaph. vii, Did. vi, 8), what is made, properly speaking, is the "composite": for this properly speaking, is, as it were, what subsists. Whereas the form is called a being, not as that which is, but as that by which something is; and consequently neither is a form, properly speaking, made; for that is made which is; since to be is nothing but the way to existence.

Sicut philosophus probat in VII Metaphys., hoc quod proprie fit, est compositum, hoc enim proprie est quasi subsistens. Forma autem non dicitur ens quasi ipsa sit, sed sicut quo aliquid est, et sic per consequens nec forma proprie fit; eius enim est fieri, cuius est esse, cum fieri nihil aliud sit quam via in esse. Manifestum est autem quod factum est simile facienti, quia omne agens agit sibi simile.

Our soul is united to the body as the form; and so it is not surprising for the body to be formally changed by the soul's concept; especially as the movement of the sensitive appetite, which is accompanied with a certain bodily change, is subject to the command of reason.

Anima nostra unitur corpori ut forma; et sic non est mirum, si formaliter transmutatur ex conceptione ipsius; praesertim cum motus sensitivi appetitus, qui fit cum quadam transmutatione corporali, subdatur imperio rationis.