“a man’s heart is right when he will what God wills” —“The Angelic Doctor” Thomas Aquinas, who walked out of life on this day at a mere 49 years of age in the year 1274 anno domini “it [sacred science] does not depend upon other sciences as upon the higher, but makes use of them as of the lesser, and as handmaidens" (
“For men were first led to study philosophy, as indeed they are today, by wonder. Now, he who is perplexed and wonders believes himself to be ignorant ... they took to philosophy to escape ignorance ...”
—student to Plato, teacher of Alexander, the peerless Aristotle, who walked out of life on this day, 322 BC. The quote is from,Metaphysics 982b, tr. A.E. Taylor.
“There is a mover which, not being moved, moves, being eternal and reality and actuality. The desirable and the intelligible move without being moved. The primaries of these are the same ... It moves as loved.” (Met. Λ.7, 1072a26–27, b3–4)
Aristotle is perhaps the most influential philosopher of all time. Dante referred to him as “Il maestro di color che sanno,” and Aquinas, with him he shares the day of his death and whom some suspect to be his reincarnated soul, called him merely “Ille philosophus,” which is, by interpretation, “the Philosopher.”
“Thought thinks itself by participation in the intelligible; for it becomes intelligible in touching and thinking, so that intellect and the intelligible are the same; for intellect is what is receptive of the intelligible, that is, of reality [τοῦ νοητοῦ καὶ τῆς οὐσίας], and it is in act in possessing” (Metaphysics Λ.7, 1072b20-23)
“For God is not a ruler in the sense of issuing commands, but is the end (telos) as a means to which wisdom gives commands; since clearly God is in need of nothing. Therefore whatever mode of choosing and of acquiring things good by nature—whether goods of body or wealth or friends or the other goods—will best promote the contemplation (theoria) of God (theos), that is the best mode, and that standard is the finest; and any mode of choice and acquisition that either through deficiency or excess hinders us from serving and from contemplating God (ton theon theorein kai therapeuein)—that is a bad one. This is how it is for the soul, and this is the best standard—to consider the irrational part of the soul, as such, as little as possible.
Let this, then, be our statement of what is the standard of nobility and what is the aim of things absolutely good.”
—Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 8.1249b
“But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy.”
The last quote is from the Nichomachean Ethics, reputedly composed as notes for his son, as is the quote below:
“Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honor; they differ, however, from one another — and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who proclaim some great thing that is above their comprehension… (Nichomachean Ethics I.4, 1095a16–26)
““If it is true that in the sphere of action there is some end which we wish for its own sake, and for the sake of which we wish every thing else, and if we do not desire everything for the sake of something else (for, if that is so, the process will go on ad infinitum, and our desire will be idle and futile), clearly this end will be good and the supreme good. Does it not follow then that the knowledge of this good is of great importance for the conduct of life? Like archers who have a mark at which to aim, shall we not have a better chance of attaining what we want? If this is so, we must endeavor to comprehend, at least in outline, what this good is, and what science or faculty makes it its object.” (Nicomachean Ethics)
“Why does the road seem longer when we don’t know how far we are walking than when we do, even if everything else is the same?”
“The soul is in a manner all things. For, existing things are either sensibles or understandables and knowledge is in a potency the knowables." (De Anima 431b21-24)
“...it is obvious that there are many things of this kind, and to prove what is obvious by what is not is the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not.”
“…the one sort is intellect [nous] by becoming all things, the other sort by forming all things, in the way an active condition [hexis] like light too makes the colors that are in potency be at work as colors [to phōs poiei ta dunamei onta chrōmata energeiai chrōmata].”
“...we are inclined to think of the stars as mere bodies . . . completely soulless...whereas one ought to think of them as acting and living.” (De Caelo)
“...with the straight (εὐθει) we recognize both itself and the crooked (καμπύλον).”
“in earth water is present, and in water pneuma is present, and in all pneuma soul-heat is present, so that in a way all things are full of psyche” (Generation and Corruption)
“On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And its life is such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy but for a short time. For it is ever in this state, (which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And therefore waking, perception, and think- ing are most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so because of their reference to these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And mind thinks itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that mind and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. substance, is mind. And mind is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the latter rather than the form is the divine element which mind seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the activity of mind is life, and God is that activity; and God's essential actuality is life most good and eternal We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God, for this is God.” (Metaphysics)
“Reversal [peripeteia] is change to the opposite of what happened before” (Poetics)
“A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time but on his living and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act according to the lógos, knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit.” (Nicomachean Ethics)
“It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks (dianoeisthai). It is better to say that it is the human who does this with the soul.” (De Anima)
“People with hard flesh are poorly endowed with thought (dianoia).” (De Anima II-9, 421a23-26.)
“For episteme is by its nature reflective: one cannot understand the world unless one understands the place of understanding within it.”
Thanks for this Max. I've been digging deeply into both Aquinas and scholasticism in the context of Paradise in the Divine Comedy, GK Chesterton and GA 74. Furthermore, Tomberg has also been on my mind because of his conversion to Catholicism.
You have now provided me with a reason to look more deeply into his Meditations on the Tarot, because of some key sentences you mentioned:
The believing thinker thus became a seeing mystic. And
this transformation did not take place in spite of his work of
scholastic thought, but rather thanks to it—as its fruit and its
crowning glory.
This is the anthroposophical path, which Tomberg delineates in other books so clearly in his anthroposophical days.
And God said unto Moses, “I Am That I Am. The discussions are he lol ping me understand how I can reconcile my Catholic understanding with cosmology which I was thinking as seperate things, when God is in all things
I have had occasion to talk to someone who is very interested in your work here on Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and Dante, and I have given my thoughts on it to you. So, I apologize for creating a kind of deeply embedded conversation which has the tendency to defer the original matter. Sorry for that.
But, the matter also has encouraged me to bring before our sight the so-called, "Great War" between C.S, Lewis and Owen Barfield. You are a Barfieldian, if I may so express it, and this reminds me of the book by Lionel Adey, a dedicated scholar of Lewis, wherein he describes this short war concerning Rudolf Steiner between Lewis and Barfield after Steiner died in 1925. You likely know of the book, which was written in 1978. Lewis could not be swayed, although he admired Barfield as the greatest mind he ever knew. I think that Barfield implanted an Imaginative faculty into Lewis when he spoke about Steiner, and this created the works that Lewis is most remembered for in his Christian career. They were both born the same year, 1898. A wonderful collaboration; the Inklings of England's Oxford movement.
“For men were first led to study philosophy, as indeed they are today, by wonder. Now, he who is perplexed and wonders believes himself to be ignorant ... they took to philosophy to escape ignorance ...”
—student to Plato, teacher of Alexander, the peerless Aristotle, who walked out of life on this day, 322 BC. The quote is from,Metaphysics 982b, tr. A.E. Taylor.
“There is a mover which, not being moved, moves, being eternal and reality and actuality. The desirable and the intelligible move without being moved. The primaries of these are the same ... It moves as loved.” (Met. Λ.7, 1072a26–27, b3–4)
Aristotle is perhaps the most influential philosopher of all time. Dante referred to him as “Il maestro di color che sanno,” and Aquinas, with him he shares the day of his death and whom some suspect to be his reincarnated soul, called him merely “Ille philosophus,” which is, by interpretation, “the Philosopher.”
“Thought thinks itself by participation in the intelligible; for it becomes intelligible in touching and thinking, so that intellect and the intelligible are the same; for intellect is what is receptive of the intelligible, that is, of reality [τοῦ νοητοῦ καὶ τῆς οὐσίας], and it is in act in possessing” (Metaphysics Λ.7, 1072b20-23)
“For God is not a ruler in the sense of issuing commands, but is the end (telos) as a means to which wisdom gives commands; since clearly God is in need of nothing. Therefore whatever mode of choosing and of acquiring things good by nature—whether goods of body or wealth or friends or the other goods—will best promote the contemplation (theoria) of God (theos), that is the best mode, and that standard is the finest; and any mode of choice and acquisition that either through deficiency or excess hinders us from serving and from contemplating God (ton theon theorein kai therapeuein)—that is a bad one. This is how it is for the soul, and this is the best standard—to consider the irrational part of the soul, as such, as little as possible.
Let this, then, be our statement of what is the standard of nobility and what is the aim of things absolutely good.”
—Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 8.1249b
“But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy.”
The last quote is from the Nichomachean Ethics, reputedly composed as notes for his son, as is the quote below:
“Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honor; they differ, however, from one another — and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who proclaim some great thing that is above their comprehension… (Nichomachean Ethics I.4, 1095a16–26)
““If it is true that in the sphere of action there is some end which we wish for its own sake, and for the sake of which we wish every thing else, and if we do not desire everything for the sake of something else (for, if that is so, the process will go on ad infinitum, and our desire will be idle and futile), clearly this end will be good and the supreme good. Does it not follow then that the knowledge of this good is of great importance for the conduct of life? Like archers who have a mark at which to aim, shall we not have a better chance of attaining what we want? If this is so, we must endeavor to comprehend, at least in outline, what this good is, and what science or faculty makes it its object.” (Nicomachean Ethics)
“Why does the road seem longer when we don’t know how far we are walking than when we do, even if everything else is the same?”
Διὰ τί πλείων δοκεῖ ἡ ὁδὸς εἶναι, ὅταν μὴ εἰδότες βαδίζωμεν πόση τις, ἢ ὅταν εἰδότες, ἐὰν τἆλλα ὁμοίως | ἔχοντες τύχωμεν;
“The soul is in a manner all things. For, existing things are either sensibles or understandables and knowledge is in a potency the knowables." (De Anima 431b21-24)
ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πως ἐστι πάντα· ἢ γὰρ αἰσθητὰ τὰ ὄντα ἢ νοητά, ἔστι δ' ἡ ἐπιστήμη μὲν τὰ ἐπιστητά πως,
“...it is obvious that there are many things of this kind, and to prove what is obvious by what is not is the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not.”
“…the one sort is intellect [nous] by becoming all things, the other sort by forming all things, in the way an active condition [hexis] like light too makes the colors that are in potency be at work as colors [to phōs poiei ta dunamei onta chrōmata energeiai chrōmata].”
“...we are inclined to think of the stars as mere bodies . . . completely soulless...whereas one ought to think of them as acting and living.” (De Caelo)
“...with the straight (εὐθει) we recognize both itself and the crooked (καμπύλον).”
“in earth water is present, and in water pneuma is present, and in all pneuma soul-heat is present, so that in a way all things are full of psyche” (Generation and Corruption)
“On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And its life is such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy but for a short time. For it is ever in this state, (which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And therefore waking, perception, and think- ing are most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so because of their reference to these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And mind thinks itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that mind and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. substance, is mind. And mind is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the latter rather than the form is the divine element which mind seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the activity of mind is life, and God is that activity; and God's essential actuality is life most good and eternal We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God, for this is God.” (Metaphysics)
“Reversal [peripeteia] is change to the opposite of what happened before” (Poetics)
“A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time but on his living and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act according to the lógos, knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit.” (Nicomachean Ethics)
“It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks (dianoeisthai). It is better to say that it is the human who does this with the soul.” (De Anima)
“People with hard flesh are poorly endowed with thought (dianoia).” (De Anima II-9, 421a23-26.)
“For episteme is by its nature reflective: one cannot understand the world unless one understands the place of understanding within it.”
—Jonathan Lear on Aristotle
Thanks for this Max. I've been digging deeply into both Aquinas and scholasticism in the context of Paradise in the Divine Comedy, GK Chesterton and GA 74. Furthermore, Tomberg has also been on my mind because of his conversion to Catholicism.
You have now provided me with a reason to look more deeply into his Meditations on the Tarot, because of some key sentences you mentioned:
The believing thinker thus became a seeing mystic. And
this transformation did not take place in spite of his work of
scholastic thought, but rather thanks to it—as its fruit and its
crowning glory.
This is the anthroposophical path, which Tomberg delineates in other books so clearly in his anthroposophical days.
Many thanks!
And God said unto Moses, “I Am That I Am. The discussions are he lol ping me understand how I can reconcile my Catholic understanding with cosmology which I was thinking as seperate things, when God is in all things
Hi Max,
I have had occasion to talk to someone who is very interested in your work here on Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and Dante, and I have given my thoughts on it to you. So, I apologize for creating a kind of deeply embedded conversation which has the tendency to defer the original matter. Sorry for that.
But, the matter also has encouraged me to bring before our sight the so-called, "Great War" between C.S, Lewis and Owen Barfield. You are a Barfieldian, if I may so express it, and this reminds me of the book by Lionel Adey, a dedicated scholar of Lewis, wherein he describes this short war concerning Rudolf Steiner between Lewis and Barfield after Steiner died in 1925. You likely know of the book, which was written in 1978. Lewis could not be swayed, although he admired Barfield as the greatest mind he ever knew. I think that Barfield implanted an Imaginative faculty into Lewis when he spoke about Steiner, and this created the works that Lewis is most remembered for in his Christian career. They were both born the same year, 1898. A wonderful collaboration; the Inklings of England's Oxford movement.