Thomistic Note: The Multiplication of Distinctions
The formal aspect of the object of faith can be taken in two ways: first, on the part of the thing believed, and thus there is one formal aspect of all matters of faith, viz. the First Truth: and from this point of view there is no distinction of articles. Secondly, the formal aspect of matters of faith, can be considered from our point of view; and thus the formal aspect of a matter of faith is that it is something unseen; and from this point of view there are various distinct articles of faith. (STh II-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 2)
Thomas Aquinas and his Thomist interpreters are frequently admonished for the multiplicity of distinctions found in their writings. Specifically, the classical Thomists are not uncommonly faulted for what seems like an unnecessary multiplication of distinctions. Aquinas invokes distinctions, yes. Philosophers and theologians, generally, do not think that distinctions are objectively evil. We can countenance distinctions—in moderation. And this is why many of those who read the Thomists are often overwhelmed by the number of additional distinctions that Thomists make—distinctions beyond those found in the text of Aquinas. Frequently, we can be tempted to conclude: the Thomists multiplied distinctions needlessly (and, perhaps, even heedlessly).
The presupposition that underlies this critique is that the Thomists make things unnecessarily complicated. Aquinas contemplated with a simplicity and a sublimity that only invoked absolutely necessary distinctions. The Thomists, by contrast, almost appear to delight in distinctions for the sake of distinctions—at least, this is the common critique leveled against Aquinas’s interpreters.
I propose that this critique of the Thomists arises from a misunderstanding of their project.
The Thomists turn to the writings of Aquinas for wisdom, yes. Nonetheless, Aquinas is not the ultimate end of their contemplation. His writings are not the primary object of the Thomists’ contemplation. The Thomists look to Aquinas because he saw reality clearly—not because of Aquinas himself. In other words, the Thomists look to the writings of Aquinas in order to be able to see—to contemplate—what Aquinas himself saw: reality. Thus, Aquinas is an aid to the contemplative efforts of the Thomists. He is not their end. Like Aquinas, the Thomists want to see reality—and, above all, the supreme principle of reality: God. Thomists are primarily interested in reality—both natural and supernatural. And because of this primary interest, they are secondarily interested in Aquinas himself.
Thomists do not so much want to look at Aquinas as they want to look with Aquinas to the way things are.
Consequently, the Thomists do not regard the invocation of distinctions (even those absent from Aquinas’s own litterae) as a corruption of their philosophical and theological contemplation. Quite the contrary. Making distinctions is an essential part of discursive cognition in this life. Distinctions are signs of creaturely imperfection, yes. But distinctions are not an insult to the known object—whether that object be something complex and contingent (i.e., created being) or something per se simple and sublime (i.e., God).
The multiplication of distinctions is a necessary part of rationality and discursion. Additional distinctions—marshaling greater speculative precision—are directly proportional to a greater understanding of reality. The better a contingent intellect understands something, the greater the number of distinctions that the intellect makes about what it understands.
Distinctions are an intrinsic part of discursive knowledge of God—even in his absolute simplicity. A plurality of objects (in the classic scholastic sense of “object,” not the modern sense)—in the cognitive act of finite rationality in relation to the infinite being—proceeds from the potentiality of the contingent intellect. Nonetheless, the introduction of this plurality (again, of the objective kind—e.g., the distinction between God’s justice and his mercy) does not come from the human intellect itself or alone. These distinctions do not preexist, as such, in the contingent intellect before an act of theological cognition. The plurality of distinctions about God in the contingent intellect arises along with a greater conformity of the contingent intellect to the truth about God. Thus, objective-virtual distinctions are not essentially foreign to the divine essence and existence. Rather, only their materiality and their conceptual discreteness are per se foreign to the infinite being.
Inversely, God’s formal infinity and essential-existential simplicity are per se foreign to the contingent mind (and proper, of course, to the pure actuality of infinite being). Neither formality nor essentiality are foreign to the contingent mind, however. Hence, the particularity that emerges in the dynamic of finite knowledge of the infinite being arises from the dynamic of finite knowledge itself (rather than unilaterally from the finite). In other words, the plurality of distinctions comes along with the con-forming correspondence of the contingent mind to the infinite object. Plurality is not imposed on the infinite being itself.
The plurality present even in the truthful correspondence of the contingent intellect to the infinite being is indicative of the fact of correspondence. The presence of accurate distinctions signal that (greater) truth has been achieved. This point is grounded in the proper and intrinsic nature of the contingent knower. Because the contingent knower is really composed of potency and act (and of essence and existence), a plurality of objects enters into the act of knowing—knowing contingently—simple, divine being.
Because the form of the divine being is infinite, the formal object proportioned to finite cognition comprises discrete and individual topics that participate in, reflect, and modally mediate the truth about the infinite being in its infinite existential formality. Any addition (by way of precision) of other particularities into a consideration of infinite being remains possible to a relatively infinite degree. This is the case because there is an infinite difference between the finite and the infinite—existentially and cognitively. This plurality of objects attempts, however, to arrive at as complete a knowledge of the infinite as is possible. The formality of contingent cognitive correspondence to the infinite form of the infinite being always brings with it the material potency that the formal content cognitively actualizes.
In other words, the contingent mind can only know simple and infinite being by making distinctions. Indeed, the contingent mind approaches greater conformity with divine being through the addition of other objects of a virtually-distinct kind. The human mind, thus, can only approximate the formality of divine simplicity through a relatively infinite number of additional objects (e.g., specific doctrinal conclusions concerning the Deity, distinctions of reason among various attributes, et al.).
There is no intrinsic actus purus within contingent knowledge, by definition. Potentiality always remains in human cognition (as the material principle for the formal correspondence of contingent intellect to infinite reality). Therefore, along with the further cognitive actualization that true knowledge represents, cognitive subject-materiality in which the formality exists likewise increases co-terminally. And if further formal actualization remains infinitely possible (in this relative sense), material plurality likewise remains infinitely possible.
Formality in contingent beings always presupposes and requires the presence of potentiality. And with regard to contingent knowledge of the infinite being, the materiality of doctrinal plurality (i.e., theological distinctions) reflects and serves progress in the intellectual journey to a deeper cognitive participation in the infinite form of esse ipsum per se subsistens.
It is in this sense and context that the plurality of objects mediates truthful content with actus purus. The infinite formality of the infinite being is mediated modally to the contingent intellect through a diversity of doctrinal objects. Sometimes, these objects are concerned with the same material object, metaphysically speaking—i.e., topics, subjects, and questions germane to the infinite being in himself, affirming various objects of one and the same reality (e.g., God is formally-eminently One, Good, Esse, Just, Provident, Triune, etc.). Sometimes, the objects are concerned with other material objects which, however, have an essential connection with the infinite being in himself. Thus, when we know truths about the Redemptive Incarnation, the Church, the Mother of God, etc., we know “materially” multiple objects, although all understood under the same reason: the First Truth Supernaturally Revealing. Such diversity of doctrinal objects does not diminish true (albeit, limited) knowledge of the infinite being. This is simply the only way that a contingent intellect can know infinite being.
Bottom line: a contingent intellect is “complex”—it has “parts” (e.g., potency and act). Thus, its knowledge is always conditioned by complexity and distinction. This dynamic remains even when the contingent intellect contemplates First Truth Speaking. The contingent intellect can only understand as it is—through the complexity of parts. Distinctions.
Finally, the contingent intellect does not necessarily render its distinction-laden knowledge of God an idol that distracts from God. Why? The contingent intellect can recognize its own contingency. The human mind knows “how it works”—that it understands things in parts, steps, and according to priority and posteriority. Thus, human cognition can realize this important fact when it understands the simple God through distinctions: distinctions concerning God are characteristic of its own, contingent, mode of knowing. Otherwise put, the contingent intellect is not confused about the origin of its discursive complexity. The contingent intellect recognizes that distinctions are one of the inescapable conditions of its knowledge—even when it knows actus purus.
The human intellect does not conclude that such distinctions originate from God himself. The multiplication of distinctions concerning the simple God arise solely from the potency-nature of human cognition. Moreover, the human intellect recognizes that distinctions are the only way that it can know anything in this life—including God.
In conclusion, do the Thomists multiply distinctions beyond those found in the writings of Thomas Aquinas? Yes. And this is not a bad thing. Accurate distinctions signal that deeper, truthful understanding of an object has been attained by the human mind.
And this deeper understanding is what Thomas Aquinas and the Thomists both sought.
