Has Brungardt Escaped the Eternity of the World?: Further Thoughts
/By John F.X. Knasas, Professor emeritus
Center for Thomistic Studies
University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX.
In a previous Thomistica posting I contended that Aquinas reformulates Aristotle’s third argument for the eternity of motion. The third argument is the argument from the eternity of time. In this third argument the now of time is characterized as middle such that there is always a now before and a now after. The argument includes the unfortunate comparison of the now of time to the point of a line. The comparison invites the easy rebuttal that the end points of a line are not middles and so perhaps not all nows are middles. The third argument can, then, proceed only by begging the question about all nows being middles.
Aquinas reformulates the third argument so that the circularity criticism no longer applies and only a metaphysical criticism applies. Hence, without a metaphysics in place the third argument still appears as conclusive. Aquinas's reformulation appears in paragraph 984 of the Physics commentary. There Aquinas argues that the now of time is a middle by arguing that a beginning and an end involve a before and an after, both of which are not without time. For instance, what does it mean to say time begins? It means that there was a point before which time was not. But “before” bespeaks time. So if one is to avoid contradicting oneself, one must say that time is without beginning. Likewise, if one claims the time ends, then there must be a point after which time is not. But “after” bespeaks time, etc.
Brungardt misunderstood me when I claimed that the reformulation consisted in treating the now first as a middle (983) and then as a beginning and end (984). Brungardt notes that as a beginning and end the now is a middle. So there is nothing new here; we are still with the argument of para. 983. What I meant, however, is that Aquinas shifts Aristotle’s intention to what it means to call the now either a beginning or an end. Paragraph 984 is Aquinas's analysis of that. But I would insist that there has been a change in the reasoning, even though in the Physics commentary Aquinas describes it as a “confirming“ of Aristotle’s intention. In the De Potentia Dei III, 17, ad 20m, the Summa Contra Gentiles II, 36, Quod autem, and the Summa Theologiae I, 46, 1, ad 2m. the reasoning of 984 is presented as a separate argument from the reasoning of 983. Hence, it appears that the circularity, or begging the question, criticism will not work with the reasoning of 984. A simply logical critique will no longer suffice.
Brungardt says, however, that the reformulated reasoning of the third argument begs the question just as the third argument did. He points out that Aquinas says that Aristotle “supposes” that there is no before and after without time to prove that the now is always a middle: “It is precisely because Aristotle takes the before and after as a supposition to purportedly derive the necessary ‘middle’ character of the now that, as Aquinas states in the exposition, that the argument begs the question.” At this point in the text, however, Aquinas does not say that the argument is still circular and so begs the question in that way. As I read the argument of para. 984, I cannot see any circularity. The new reasoning has avoided circularity. What catches Brungardt’s eye is Aquinas saying that Aristotle “supposes” the “principle” that there is no before and after without time.. Why would Aquinas speak that way if not because of some alternative that would render the supposing arbitrary and so make the argument of 984 question begging in another way. What is the alternative that Aquinas has in mind that would render the supposing arbitrary?
In paragraph 990, Aquinas admits that this attempt of Aristotle to “confirm” the argument of , paragraph 983 comes to naught. The principle that the before and after are not without time implies only an imaginary time. Here there is no longer the analogy of the now with the point of a line. Instead Aquinas offers the analogy of the before of the now to the beyond of cosmic magnitude. Just as the beyond of the finite universe is not a real beyond but an imaginary one only, so too the before of time is not real but imaginary only.
It should be noted at In XII Meta., lect. 5, n. 2498, Aquinas reprises the Physics argument from time. Aquinas makes the reprise in the same terms that I have described above. The argument is in terms of what a beginning and end means. Aquinas's criticism is that the before of the beginning of time is imaginary. Importantly, there is no mention of the original circularity criticism. Just earlier at 2497, Aquinas admits that Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of motion are not demonstrations “unless perhaps they are arguments against the position of the ancient natural philosophers regarding the beginning of motion, in as much as he aims to destroy these positions.” Does not Aquinas's remark mean that the arguments work on the level of natural philosophy? Also, since begging the question by circularity destroys an argument, then there is no begging of the question by circularity in these arguments on the level of natural philosophy.
In the Physics commentary, para. 987, Aquinas admits the same. Aquinas says that Aristotle’s arguments “. . . prove that motion did not begin through the way of nature (per viam naturae).” Does that not admit that on the plane of natural philosophy, the arguments do work? Should that not also suggest that without another plane to appeal to, the natural philosopher will assert the heterodox opinion that the world has always existed? The answers to these questions seems to me to be a clear yes.
For the claim about the imaginary character of the beyond of the finite universe, Aquinas offers natural philosophy arguments in S.T. I, 7, 3. Hence, there must be arguments for the imaginary character of the before of time. Their metaphysical or physical character will be decisive for answering the question: Can a Thomistic natural philosopher escape the eternity of the world?.
How does Aquinas know that a first now would be preceded only by an imaginary now? Aquinas goes on to say: “But before time there does exist a duration, namely the eternity of God . . .”(990) So, as I pointed out earlier in my first posting, the question comes down to which philosopher proves the eternity of God. And since Aquinas regularly proves the eternity of God from the immutability of God, then I said that the question further resolves to the question of who proves the immutability of God.
At that point I cite texts from the Physics commentary, paras. 242–-5, in which Aquinas claims that natural science does not consider an absolutely unmoved mover but only a celestial sphere. Brungardt jumps on an ambiguity in the word “consider” to suggest that “natural philosophy can terminate its consideration with a first unmoved mover but does not continue on to consider such a mover in a positive scientific mode.” In other words, the natural philosopher proves the existence of an unmoved mover but does not go on to treat what it is. The natural philosopher leaves the treatment of the quiddity of the unmoved mover to the metaphysician.
As overwrought as this move is in Thomistic discussion, a look at the context of this remark shows that this distinction is not in play. In paragraph 241 Aquinas says that because natural philosophy deals with the “why” of generation and corruption, then it deals with the four causes. Among these causes is the mover. The mover accounts for the generated thing by accounting for the form in the matter. What I want to note is that the consideration of the mover is the coming to an existing cause. There is no other considerer giving the existence of the mover and then the natural philosopher considering what has been given by another. No, the “considering” of the mover is the natural philosopher coming to it as a condition for generation. Hence, when Aquinas says in 245 that natural philosophy does not consider every mover, he means that the natural philosopher does not come to the existence of some mover; the unmoved mover escapes the knowledge of the natural philosopher. So, given the context, I do not think that one can blame a reader for understanding the text as assigning an an sit knowledge of the unmoved mover to metaphysics. Finally, Brungardt asserts that 245 is not apropos the division of the sciences for it is taken from the division of things. The remark seems odd to me since Brungardt himself began his reply to me by pointing out that Aquinas says that if there is no immaterial being, then natural philosophy is first philosophy.
To back up his interpretation of paragraph 245, Brungardt offers an earlier text in which he believes that the an sit/quid sit distinction is operative. At paragraph 175 Aquinas says that rational souls are forms “indeed,in some way separated but which have existence in matter.” These souls are the last things considered by natural philosophy. But how (quomodo) the rational soul is separated and what it is (quod sit) according to its separable essence pertains to metaphysics. In other words, if metaphysics is considering the quid sit of the rational soul, natural philosophy must be considering the an sit, that is, whether the rational soul exists. Hence, natural philosophy can reach something immaterial and serve as a gateway to metaphysics as Brungardt said at the beginning of his reply to me.
Which philosopher studies the rational soul is complex in Aquinas. Sometimes Aquinas assigns the study to metaphysics and sometimes to the physicist. Here I cannot go into all the nooks and crannies of the texts. A reader will find my treatment in “Aquinas on the Cognitive Soul: Metaphysics, Physics, or Both?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 72 (Autumn, 1998): 501–-28. So, sticking just to paragraph 175, what can one say about Brungardt’s interpretation? Does natural philosophy prove the immateriality of the soul because metaphysics shows how (quomodo) it is immaterial? I do not think so. In the text Aquinas says that the soul is separate from matter because of the intellectual power. How is that power studied? It is well-known that Aquinas studies the intellectual power on the basis of its act, or operation. (For example, see S.T. I, 75, 2.) The operation of the intellect, as well as that of the will, is only an improper sense of motion. That is why Aquinas can say at Physics commentary, (986). that God intellects but is still immutable. As an improper sense of motion, intellection should fall outside the subject of natural philosophy, ens mobile, and so not be considered by the natural philosopher. Aquinas says just such a thing in his commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate V, 2, ad 7m. This improper sense of motion “is not the concern of the natural philosopher (ad naturalem), but rather of the metaphysician (divinum).”
What does this mean for understanding paragraph 175? In short, it means that when Aquinas says that metaphysics considers how (quomodo) the rational soul is separate from matter, Aquinas means the metaphysician’s consideration of intellection that shows that (an sit) the intellectual power is separate from matter. In other words, natural philosophy is left to consider the rational soul simply as a part of the generable thing, as Aquinas does admits in other lines of paragraph 175.
Many other texts on which science reaches God and/or separate substance exist. I have made a collection of them in chapter 7 of my Thomistic Existentialism and Cosmological Reasoning. I will leave the reader to go there, and I will not further discuss the issue here. Nevertheless, before concluding I want to address Brungardt’s opening text from In VI Meta. lect. 1, n. 1170. His interpretation is that unless we prove something immaterial in natural philosophy, then natural philosophy will become the first philosophy. We will lose a metaphysics distinct from natural philosophy. I do not think that the text says this. By itself the text does not say that natural philosophy proves God’s existence or even gets to the immaterial substance. All the text claims is that if there is no substance higher than natural, then natural philosophy becomes first philosophy.
What, then, could the text be saying, if not what Brungardt and others have claimed? I have claimed that S.T. I, 44, 2c is important to answer that question. There the approach to a more universal cause at each of the three stages of philosophy is correlated with the philosopher discovering a more profound aspect of sensible things. So at the first stage the aspect is an accident of sensible substances. At the second stage it is the more profound substantial form of the sensible substance. The discovery of substantial form leads to a more universal cause than at stage one, though the more universal cause is still material in Aristotle’s case. Finally, at stage three the most profound aspect of sensible things is reached. This aspect is esse, and esse leads to the most universal cause. Hence, Brungardt’s text would be saying that without a non-natural kind of substance, sensible reality would lack an aspect that would ground a scientific consideration other than physics. The science of physics would be the only science of the sensible.
As I mentioned in my first essay, there are other Thomists who do not maintain that we need to begin metaphysics by demonstrating something immaterial in natural philosophy. They craft other descriptions about the entry into Thomistic metaphysics. I believe that is a step in the right direction.
In conclusion, Brungardt speaks of the “centuries-old dispute about the nexus between natural philosophy and metaphysics,” I continue to maintain that Aquinas's discussion of Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of motion provide valuable insight into that nexus.