Philosophy the Handmaid of Theology · §17

Whether generation is placed in the production of the form or in the conjunction of form with matter

Article V. Whether generation is placed in the production of the form or in the conjunction of form with matter.

1. To make our view clear I will first show that the generator's action — speaking of generation in general — is placed in the conjunction of matter and form; then I will say something more particular about the action that unites soul and body. Generation of a composite is not production of matter. Matter properly so called is ingenerable and incorruptible: only the creator can make it. If a creature produced prime matter from no pre-existing matter, it would create it; no creature creates, for creation needs infinite power. When air comes from fire, air generates air by turning fire into air; it does not produce new matter, but introduces a new form into matter already there.

2. Substantial generation is not production of matter, as shown; nor is it production of form. That is clear for those who hold souls are created by God, and no less clear against traducians. First: human nature is consisting of soul and body. By the action that unites soul to body — whether the soul is from God or from the father — a human becomes a composite of soul and body. So by that action the human receives human being and is produced: to produce a human is to bring it about that a being consisting of soul and body exists. Second: a physical composite is never produced anew — by generation or any other change — unless matter and form are newly joined into one per se. Yet a physical composite can be produced anew even when its form is not newly produced. So making a physical composite is joining matter and form rather than producing the form. Proof from the resurrection: then humans will be newly produced and newly receive human being by a true substantial production, though extraordinary; yet their soul is not newly produced — it has existed since creation — but only newly united with matter. So production of a physical composite is uniting form with matter, not producing form. If anyone denies that the resurrection is a true substantial production: to produce a corporeal substance is to give it being; God then truly gives the dead — who while dead lacked the being of a natural substance, not consisting of united matter and form — the full being of a natural body by making them consist of body and soul. So by that action God truly produces natural bodies. The action differs from ordinary generation, yet it is a true substantial production: to produce a substance is to confer being on what did not have substantial being before. Further: God can create an infant's soul some time before generation and then, in generation itself, join that soul to the body. So there can be true substantial generation without producing the form.

3. On the second point: those of our opinion on the soul's origin say that in brutes the seminal virtue has a double operation — educing the form from matter's potency, and uniting that form with the composite — operations diverse only in reason, because one and the same action educes the form and substantially unites it with matter. In humans, they say, the seminal virtue has only one principal action: uniting the form — the soul — with corporeal matter (lesser actions of preparing the body for the soul also proceed from it). So in producing a human there are two actions from two agents: creation of the soul, and uniting it with matter. Creation is God's alone. Uniting soul and body is not the human's alone — God cooperates — but the human's and God's together. And generation is placed in that uniting, not in another action: as shown, producing a composite is neither producing matter nor producing form, but uniting form with matter. In the same instant God creates the soul in the body, the generating human by seminal virtue substantially joins the God-created soul to the body. God's action terminates in the soul's being simply; the father's terminates not in that simple being but in the soul's being in the body — the union of soul and body.

4. To the objection that a human is human through the soul, so if the father does not give a soul he does not give human being: they reply that a human is human neither through soul alone nor through body alone, but through the whole nature or human essence. By uniting soul and body through seminal virtue the father gives the child to consist of soul and body, and so gives the nature and essence through which he is human. A thing is such a thing through the whole essence, not through one part — for essence is that through which a being is a being. The common saying that each thing is such through its form means: through the form as the principal part of the essence, not as an adequate reason (the adequate reason is having such an essence). Comparing the parts of a physical essence, a thing is such through form rather than matter; comparing either part with the whole essence, it is such through the essence rather than through either matter or form alone.

5. A serious difficulty remains. If God infuses the soul, as all of this opinion say, the conjunction of soul and body seems God's rather than the generator's — for what is infusion into corporeal matter but conjunction with matter? Some answer that God is said to infuse the soul not because he alone couples them, but because he does it through seminal virtue used as an instrument — not a necessary instrument (he can connect them of himself) but an ordinary one, as in every animal generation. Others more probably say God is said to infuse the soul not by substantially but by locally joining soul and body: he creates the soul in the body and by creating it in that place makes it locally present. In that same instant the seminal virtue connects the parts by a substantial bond. Local presence of the soul is far different from substantial union with matter: an angel clothed in an assumed body is locally present to that body, yet not substantially joined to it as form to its matter.

Latin

ART. V. Utrum generatio posita sit in productione formae, an vero in conjunctione formae cum materia. 1. Ut nostrae sententiae veritas appareat, primo ostendam actionem generantis (loquendo in genere, de omni generatione) esse positam in conjunctione materiae & formae: secundo, nonnihil specialius dicam de illa actione, qua anima corpori unitur. Quod ad prius attinet, generatio compositi non est productio materiae; idque quia materia proprie dicta est ingenerabilis, & incorruptibilis; h.e. a nullo potest fieri, nisi a creatore: si enim creatura aliqua produceret materiam primam, produceret eam ex nulla materia praeexistente; atque adeo crearet eam; nulla autem creatura creat, cum creatio requirat infinitam virtutem. Deinde cum ex igne fit aer, aer generat alium aerem, mutando ignem in aerem, non autem per illam generationem producit materiam novi aeris, sed in materiam praeexistentem introducit formam novi aeris. 2. Generatio substantialis, non est productio materiae, ut jam ostensum est; at neque est productio formae, quod quidem certum est, & evidens apud eos, qui dicunt animas a DEO creari: at non minus evidenter etiam probari potest contra eos, qui dicunt animam esse ex traduce. Primo enim natura hominis est in eo posita, quod constet ex anima & corpore: at per actionem qua anima unitur corpori, sive anima sit a DEO sive a patre, homo fit compositum constans ex anima & corpore: Ergo per illam actionem, homo accipit naturam, vel esse hominis; & proinde per illam actionem producitur: quid enim est aliud, producere hominem, quam efficere ut existat homo, seu Ens constans ex anima & corpore? Secundo, nunquam potest compositum Physicum de novo produci, sive per generationem, sive per aliam mutationem, nisi ejus materia & forma de novo conjungantur, & coeant in unum per se, ut evidens est: potest tamen compositum Physicum de novo produci, & revera fieri, quamvis ejus forma non producatur de novo: Ergo efficere compositum Physicum, potius est materiam & formam conjungere, quam formam producere: probatur assumptio; primo, ex resurrectione mortuorum in die judicii: tum enim homines de novo producentur, & de novo accipient esse hominis, per veram productionem substantialem, licet non ordinariam, sed plane extraordinariam; at tum eorum anima non potest dici de novo produci, quia existabat semper postquam creata est; sed tantum de novo uniri cum materia: Ergo productio compositi Physici non est productio formae, sed potius unitio formae cum materia. Si quis tam impudens sit, ut neget in resurrectione mortuorum fieri veram productionem substantialem, contra eum utar hoc argumento; Producere substantiam corpoream, est tribuere esse substantiae corporeae: at tum DEUS hominibus mortuis, qui quamdiu mortui erant non habebant verum esse substantiae naturalis, quia non constabant ex materia & forma unitis, vere & proprie dabit integrum & plenum esse corporis naturalis, efficiendo ut vere constent ex corpore & anima: Ergo DEUS per illam actionem vere producit corpora naturalia. Non negari quidem potest, illam actionem esse actionem longe diversam a generatione substantiali, & modo generandi ordinario; certum tamen est eam actionem esse veram productionem substantialem; quod probamus ex definitione productionis substantialis; quid enim aliud est producere substantiam, quam conferre esse illi substantiae, quae ante illam actionem, non habebat esse substantiale. Secundo probatur assumptio sic; DEUS potest creare animam infantis per aliquod tempus ante ejus generationem, & postea, in ipsa generatione, illam animam cum corpore ejus conjungere: Ergo potest esse vera generatio substantialis absque productione formae. 3. Quod ad posterius attinet: Theologi & Philosophi, qui sunt in nostra sententia de origine animae, afferunt virtutem seminalem in belluis duplicem habere operationem; scilicet eductionem formae ex potentia materiae, & unitionem ejusdem formae cum composito; quas quidem actiones dicunt non realiter sed ratione sola diversas esse: idque quia per unam & eandem actionem educitur forma ex potentia materiae, & unitur substantialiter cum materia. Contra, afferunt virtutem seminalem, quae in semine hominis existit, habere unam tantum actionem; scilicet unitionem formae, i.e. animae cum materia corporea; unam (inquam) actionem principalem, nam certum est, ab ea virtute proficisci varias actiones minus principales, scil. praeparationes materiae corporeae ad recipiendam animam: quare dicunt in productione hominis esse duas actiones proficiscentes a diversis agentibus; scilicet creationem animae, & unitionem ejusdem cum materia: creationem animae aiunt esse operationem solius DEI, quod evidens est; unitionem vero animae cum corpore, volunt esse actionem, non quidem solius hominis; DEUS enim cooperatur cum homine in actione illa; sed hominis & DEI simul: & addunt, in hac unitione, & non in alia actione, positam esse generationem hominis: quod ex eo patet, quia supra ostensum est, producere compositum, neque esse producere materiam, neque producere formam, sed formam cum materia unire, & copulare; ex nostra ergo sententia, eodem instanti, quo DEUS creat animam in corpore, homo generans per virtutem seminalem animam a DEO creatam cum corpore, substantialiter unit, & connectit; adeo ut actio DEI terminetur ad animae esse simpliciter; actio vero patris terminetur, non quidem ad animae esse simpliciter, sed ad ejus esse in corpore, seu ad unionem animae cum corpore. 4. Ad illud argumentum, homo est homo per animam; si ergo pater non tribuit filio animam, non tribuit ei esse hominem. Respondent, hominem esse hominem, neque per animam seorsim acceptam, neque per corpus, sed per integram naturam, sive per essentiam humanam; & aiunt patrem uniendo animam cum corpore, per virtutem seminalem tribuere filio το συνεστάναι ex anima & corpore; & proinde ei tribuere naturam & essentiam per quam est homo; patet autem unamquamque rem, esse talem rem non per alteram essentiae partem, sed per totam essentiam, quia essentia est id, per quod Ens est Ens; atque adeo talis essentia est id, per quod res est talis res: illud autem quod dici solet, unamquamque rem esse talem rem per formam suam, ita concipiendum est ut intelligamus unamquamque rem esse talem rem per formam, non quidem tanquam adaequatam rationem (ratio enim adaequata cur res sit talis res, est quia habet talem essentiam) sed tanquam principalem partem essentiae; si enim inter se conferamus partes essentiae Physicae, res quaelibet est talis res per formam, potius quam per materiam; interim si conferamus aut formam, aut materiam cum integra essentia, res quaelibet est talis res potius per essentiam, quam aut per materiam, aut formam. 5. Verum, hic oritur magna difficultas; si enim DEUS infundit animam, (ut omnes Theologi loquuntur, qui sunt in hac sententia) conjunctio animae cum corpore potius tribuenda erit DEO, quam homini generanti; quid enim aliud est animae infusio in materiam corpoream, quam conjunctio animae cum materia? Respondent nonnulli DEUM dici infundere animam, non quod per se solum copulet animam cum corpore; sed quod per virtutem seminalem illud praestet, cujus ministerio utitur tanquam instrumento, non quidem necessario (ipse enim potest per se connectere animam & corpus.) sed ordinario, quia scilicet ejus usus est ordinarius in omni animalium generatione. Alii probabilius respondent, Deum dici infundere animam in corpus, non quod substantialiter, sed quod localiter conjungat animam & corpus: id est, quod creat animam in corpore, & per ejus creationem in tali ubi, efficiat eam localiter praesentem corpori: dicunt enim, eodem instanti quo DEUS creat animam localiter praesentem corpori, eodem (inquam) instanti virtutem seminalem eas partes connectere, vinculo substantiali: docent autem localem praesentiam animae, esse quid longe diversum ab ejus unione substantiali cum materia; quia Angelus assumpto corpore vestitus, est localiter praesens illi corpori, non vero substantialiter ei conjunctus, ut forma materiae suae.

About this text

Robert Baron — Philosophia theologiae ancillans from the 1658 Oxford Latin. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII On Being and Essence; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV On the origin of the soul and the propagation of sin. Later Exercitationes / remainder of 213 pp remain.

English follows locked 1658 Oxford Latin. Prima Art. I-XII from IA PDF leaves ~15-53. Secunda Art. I-XV from PDF leaves 56-107 / printed pp.54-105 (tess+pdftotext+DjVu). No modern English copied. Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

Wing B887. IA bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_philosophia-theologi-an_baron-robert_1658. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV (De origine animae & propagatione peccati). Not whole Philosophia (213 pp). Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.

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This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.