PART THREE

APPLICATION OF THE CRITERION
TO DEMONSTRATE THE TRUTH
OF NON-PURE, OR MATERIATED KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER 5

The certainty of entia which are not perceived
but deduced from entia which are perceived

1209. Just as there are two kinds of entia that we perceive (the human soul and the body),(137) so there are two kinds of suprasensible entia, angels(138) and God, which our mind arrives at by reasoning.

1210. Two things must be explained about our knowledge of these entia: the conception or idea we have of them, and our judgment on their subsistence.

1211. The conception (whatever it may be) arises from our abstraction and synthesis of the ideas of the things we have perceived, and from the idea of being in all its universality.
The notion of human intelligence is the nearest to these conceptions. If we strip human intelligence from the body and conceive an intelligence that is not ordered to inform any body, we have some concept of the angels.
If we strip human intelligence of all its limitations, we can obtain some kind of notion of God.

1212. It is not my intention to discuss the arguments used to establish the existence of angelic intelligences.
The existence of God is deduced in many ways, but the most common is that which establishes a cause of the universe. I have given the justification for the principle of cause, showing that it forms a perfect equation with the principle of knowledge and with the form of reason (cf. vol. 2, 558-573). I need only justify its particular application to divine existence.

The perception of the natures which compose the universe has been justified in the preceding chapters.

These natures are not being, but have being. Thus they receive being, because all that is not being (but nevertheless has being) must receive it from whoever is being.

Therefore, whoever is being must give being to the natures which compose the universe and are perceived by us.
But that which is being and gives being to creatures is cause, that is, God.
In this argument, analysis of perception provides us with these two facts: 1. natures exist, that is, have being; 2. natures are not themselves being.
If we apply the idea of being, we conclude as follows.
Being is added to natures and therefore natures begin to be, because 'to be added to' or 'to begin'(139) is the same thing.
But for natures to begin to be, or to have being added to them is an action (a change). But according to the principle of cause (ibid.), a first action (change) requires an immovable ens that has produced the action.
The principle of cause, therefore, is aptly applied to deduce the existence of God. The existence of God, arrived at in this way, is a perfect equation (cf. 1169) with the principle of cause; it is one of those particular cases for all of which the principle of cause has already given a universal conclusion which is valid relative not only to the mind but also to the subsistent thing.

(137) We perceive OURSELVES, and from this perception we abstract the idea of the human soul by separating our judgment on the subsistence of a thing from the real apprehension of the thing (as I have often described in vol. 2). In the same way we perceive our body and all bodies acting directly on ours. From these perceptions we obtain by abstraction the concept both of organic and animal body, and inorganic body.

(138) Angels provided a great deal of material for ancient philosophies. It is not my intention to discuss whether we can demonstrate their subsistence rigorously by pure reason. It is sufficient that we form some idea of them, even though we may have no certain proof of their subsistence.

(139) I would not like the true meaning of 'begins' to be misunderstood. 'To begin' does not mean that the nature did not exist in the preceding moment. 'To begin' refers to the instant in which the thing begins, not to the previous instant. Thus, if a nature lasts continuously for centuries, we can say that it begins at every moment because at every moment it needs to receive the energy which makes it subsist, that is, the activity of being.