HoG: Intellectual Production of the Word (Scott)

“My god Spock! Is this the apex of human intellectual production?” “No Captain, look within, do you smell that?”

I apologize for the delay in posting. I have been busy with, among other things, my own work.

In the previous post, I enumerated 40 lines of premises and conclusions that generally summarizes Henry’s philosophical psychology of the Trinity. There are one or two things that ought to be clarified.

I have posted some responses to Dale’s post in the Comments section of his post.

I would like to elaborate on two issues in this post.

1. Why must the divine intellect be perfectly actual? (pace Dale’s 2nd objection)
2. Why must the divine intellect have two powers, an operative power and a productive power?

In regards to 1, Henry generally follows Anselm’s perfect being theology program. In this program, when we attribute some property to God we should follow the rule: ‘whatever it is simply better to have than not have we should attribute to God’. This property that it is simply better to have than not to have in medieval speak is called a ‘pure perfection’. A pure perfection is some property that it is simply better to have than not to have it. A pure perfection is some property x that is not considered as a pure perfection with regard to some species-nature. It is not a question of whether ‘it is better for my fish Nigel to be a Ninja or not’, but whether it is simply better to be a Ninja or not. A comparison to some species is not at issue here. For example, if it is better to be wise than not be wise, we should say that God is wise. If it is better to be loving than not to be loving, we should say that God is loving. If it is better to be stupid than not stupid, we should attribute ‘being stupid’ to God. But, our intuitions lead us to think that being wise and being just are simply better to have than not to have; yet being stupid is something we wouldn’t attribute to God because it is actually better to not be stupid, than to be stupid.

But if we say being wise is some property of God, we need to recognize that the property being wise presupposes an ability to understand. Henry thinks that the property ‘being wise’ is based on the property ‘having an intellect’. If you don’t have an intellect, then you can’t be wise. Thus it seems, it is better to have an intellect than not to have an intellect. So, following Anselm’s rule we say that God has the property ‘having an intellect’. Henry of course follows the scholastic line about divine simplicity. According to this we don’t say that God ‘has’ anything, rather we say that God ‘is’ whatever it is better to be than not to be. The property ‘to have x’ is not as good as the property ‘to be x’. For, having some property x means that you can lose this property and still exist, in other words, the property of ‘having x’ is something you can gain or lose.. But according to this doctrine of divine simplicity God cannot gain or lose any property, so God just is His properties. Thus, God, or more technically, the divine essence (DE) is an intellect.

Is it better that an intellect actually be wise or potentially be wise? Henry clearly says that DE is actually wise, because potentiality is some sort of imperfection. The value here is that being actual, being pure actuality is better to be than to lack pure actuality.

Dale asks, ‘why must we say the divine intellect be an exercised power rather than an unexercised power?’ To Henry’s ears this is to ask, ‘why must we say that the divine essence has the property of being actually wise rather than being potentially wise?’ So, on Henry’s view, the property ‘being an intellect with actual perfect knowledge is a pure perfection’.

A follow-up point: DE constitutes divine persons. It is divine persons who perform actions, not DE. Henry follows the Aristotelian dictum (though currently in interpretative debate from people like Alan de Libera) that only supposites (things/agents) perform actions, causal principles don’t by themselves perform actions. The classic example is this: does heat heat things? Or does a hot thing heat other things? Henry clearly goes with the latter option. DE is an infinite vat of powers; but powers by themselves don’t act. Rather, a DE-constituted-person performs actions. Thus, a divine person is actually wise because a divine person is constituted by DE which includes the property ‘being intellective’ (i.e. ‘having’ an intellect). So, if we want to say that a divine person has the property ‘being wise’ we must say that the divine intellect is exercised. If not, then we are saying the divine intellect is not exercised, is in potentiality, and that a divine person constituted by DE is not actually wise. But this is repugnant to Christian faith; Q.E.D. it is false.

To the second question: Henry argues that the human intellect has two basic kinds of powers. The first power is to be able to receive some data from the external world. Simultaneously with receiving this data humans perform an intellectual operation. This initial intellectual operation is unique in that the intellect just receives some data and hasn’t done anything with the intellectual data. The intellect just receives it and say, ‘gosh, what is that?’ Directly after this moment there are two options. We can forget about this and do something else, or we can try to figure out what we just intellectually cognized for the first time. The very act of figuring out what we intellectually cognized for the first time is a reflexive act. We think about what we just thought about and we try to figure it out; we ask questions about it: is that a living being? ‘No.’ Is that a thing that moves itself? ‘Perhaps.’ Did some agent make this thing and order it in such a way that it moves?’ ‘I think so. The other day somebody mentioned to me that this guy Bill Gates made it.’ ‘Oh, that could be a computer.’ Etc.

Henry says that this series of questioning is basically one kind of intellectual act. It is a reflexive act. We go back and forth over what we first intellectually cognized. We ask questions about it and try to get satisfying answers. This process of Q & A scholastics called discursive reasoning. And at the end of this process is the golden definition, and following St. Augustine, Henry calls this golden definition a mental ‘Word’.

God of course is not silly like humans and does not need to go through this intellectual process to arrive at this golden definition. In fact, according to Henry, God the Father’s first intellectual act is similar to our initial act of intellectually cognizing something for the first time, except that when the Father does it, his knowledge is entirely and in every way conceptually perfect. The Father doesn’t need to reflect on his knowledge in order to get a clearer intellectual grasp of what He knows or to gain self-consciousness. Moreover, it seems that Henry posits that ‘having/being perfect knowledge is a pure perfection’. Thus, all divine persons should have this pure perfection.

Nevertheless, Henry thinks that generally speaking intellects have the power to initially think of something for the very first time (by an operation) and in turn reflect on it (a production). In the human case, we produce propositions, syllogisms, essays, arguments, etc. in order to get clearer knowledge. But in the divine case, the reflective act is not for the sake of getting clearer knowledge or gaining perfect knowledge (pure perfection), but rather simply because an intellect, any intellect has these two features, and so the Father reflects on what he already perfectly knows and produces a Word. The divine Word is not clearer knowledge than the Father’s knowledge prior to this production, rather, the divine Word is a perfect copy of what the Father’s knows.

Still, we may ask, if the Father has perfect knowledge prior to the production of the Word, why produce the Word? But, if we say the Father needs to produce the Word in order to gain knowledge, we would attribute imperfect knowledge of the Father (i.e. we would deny the pure perfection ‘being perfect knowledge’ of the Father). So Henry avoids this route. Rather, Henry bases his claim on the basic property of intellects in general. In general, intellects receive data and simultaneously perform a basic intellectual operation and may then reflect on this act. Thus, for any intellect if it is perfect as a kind-nature, then the agent with an intellect performs an operation and a production. In the human case, reflection (a perfection of an intellect qua intellect) is the for the purpose of clearer knowledge (pure perfection). In the divine case, there intellectual reflexive production because the divine intellect has the ‘fecundity’ to perform such an action; it is a perfection of an intellect -not a pure perfection- that an intellect has performed a reflexive productive act that terminates in a product; in God this product is a perfect copy of perfect knowledge, the divine Word.

Perhaps this last response is unsatisfying. However, it works well with Trinitarian theology. It is a serious problem if we say that a personal property is a pure perfection. A personal property is a property that only one divine persons ‘has’. This property distinguishes a divine person from other divine persons. If we consider being a Word as a personal property, then if being a divine Word is a pure perfection, then the Father lacks this perfection and thus the Father is imperfect. But if being a divine Word is just a perfection with regard to the divine intellect (rather than a consideration of some property without regard to species or what is better or worse for a ‘kind of power’), then we can say the Word is the perfection or completion of the intellect precisely because it is better for an intellect to be actualized with regard to its operative power and (reflexive)-productive power than not.