Incarnate Knowing: Theology and the Corporeality of Thinking in Thomas Aquinas’s De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas

Abstract

497 The Thomist 77 (2013): 497-529 INCARNATE KNOWING: THEOLOGY AND THE CORPOREALITY OF THINKING IN THOMAS AQUINAS’S DE UNITATE INTELLECTUS CONTRA AVERROISTAS ROBERT J. DOBIE LaSalle University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I T IS NOT OFTEN that Thomas Aquinas allows passion to break through the calm dispassion of his words. Yet the tone of his little treatise, De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, or On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists, shows surprising flashes of impatience and even anger at his philosophical opponents. This is not to say that Thomas loses selfcommand ; he marshals his arguments with the same precision as ever. Nevertheless, the reader gets a distinct feeling that something in the doctrine of the “Averroists” has touched a nerve. What is it precisely that has “touched” this “nerve”? I. DEFINING THE PROBLEM The immediate cause for Thomas’s concern is a particular doctrine of the intellect associated with the great Muslim philosopher and jurist Ibn Rushd (hereafter, “Averroës”), and his followers writing in Latin in the Christian West in the thirteenth century. As Thomas puts it, He [Averroës] tries to assert that the intellect that Aristotle calls the possible intellect, but that he himself calls by the unsuitable name ‘material’, is a ROBERT J. DOBIE 498 1 De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, proem., n. 1. English translation taken from On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists, trans. Beatrice H. Zedler (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1968). Latin text: Thomas d’Aquin contre Averroës: L’Unité de l’intellect contre les Averroistes, Latin text edited with a facing French translation by Alain de Libera (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), 47. 2 De unitate intellectus, proem., n.2 3 Ibid. substance separate in its being from the body and not united to it in some way as its form, and furthermore that this possible intellect is one for all men.1 Now, this is clearly destructive of religion as understood by any informed Christian: It is not now our intention to show that the above-mentioned position is erroneous in this, that it is opposed to the Christian Faith. For this can easily enough become evident to everyone. For if we deny to men a diversity of the intellect, which alone among the parts of the soul seems to be incorruptible and immortal, it follows that after death nothing of the souls of men would remain except that single substance of the intellect; and so the recompense of rewards and punishments and also their diversity would be destroyed.2 It should be clear that such a doctrine is in conflict with the core tenets of the Christian faith as it had always been understood. If there is no individual intellect, then there is no personal responsibility before God, making rewards and punishments in the hereafter meaningless. But, as Thomas notes, this is not his main concern. At the outset of his little treatise he remarks, “we intend to show that the above-mentioned position [of the Averroists] is no less against the principles of philosophy than against the teachings of the Faith.”3 That is, the position of the Averroists is not only theologically untenable, but also philosophically untenable. If Averroës and his Latin followers are right, every act of understanding on the part of the human being would constitute a miracle, since, on their account, human knowing is the work, ultimately, of an extrinsic and, indeed, supernatural principle. The writings of certain Latin Averroists, like Siger de Brabant, seemed to argue for a bifurcation between natural and supernatural knowledge: philosophy deals with rationes naturales and, as such, cannot grasp what exists in the world due to INCARNATE KNOWING 499 4 Zdzislaw Kuksewicz, “Das ‘Naturale’ und das ‘Supernaturale’ in der averroistischen Philosophie,” in Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter, ed. Albert Zimmerman and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Medievalia 21/1 (1991): 372. 5 Ibid., 374. 6 For a survey of Thomas’s treatment of the subject over his career, see Edward P. Mahoney, “Aquinas’s Critique of Averroës’ Doctrine of the Unity of the Intellect,” in Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy, ed. David M. Gallagher (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 83-106...