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Question
Dear Father Angelo, I would like you to clarify a concept of Christian anthropology.
According to the Aristotelian-Thomistic view, the intellect and the will are faculties of the soul.
In fact I read somewhere that thought has no organs, but imagination, memories and creativity are closely linked to the intellect.
In these times we are increasingly bombarded by scientific and psychological stances which deny this reality, precisely because they start from a completely wrong anthropological concept.
However, from a rational point of view, it cannot be denied that thinking is closely related to the brain organ.
I am thinking, for example, of the many cases of memory loss after suffering a concussion, or the case of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, with the related significant loss of intellectual capacity.
How do you reconcile the perspective of Christian anthropology with the more strictly scientific one, according to which everything comes from the brain?
Thanks
Luca
Answer
Dear Luca,
1. the intellect and the will are two faculties of the soul.
They are spiritual faculties (or powers).
We are sure of this and we recognize it from our way of thinking and loving.
We are in fact capable of transcending matter, we shape and model it as we want, which animals do not do in any way.
We are also capable of elaborating spiritual concepts, such as the notion of God and spiritual beings.
Our love too is not only sensitive, but also spiritual. You can see it very well when in reference to some realities we do not feel any attraction, yet we carry out our duty deliberately, responsibly, with dedication and a spirit of sacrifice.
2. However, affirming that the intellect and the will are two faculties of the soul does not mean that they can act independently of the senses.
As long as we are in the present life, rational activity – even the highest and most spiritual possible – is impossible without constant correlation with the senses of imagination, memory and common sense.
It is the senses that provide our intelligence with the material on which to elaborate thoughts, conceptions, projects.
3. Since the internal senses all reside in the brain, they are commonly referred to with just one word: the brain.
This means that our intelligence in its processing remains as rambling, paralyzed or blocked if the brain no longer presents the data as it should.
4. The link between intelligence and the senses is so close that precisely for this reason, in the present state of life, we cannot see God with our intelligence alone.
In fact, everything that intelligence learns, it learns from the senses and processes it accompanied by the senses.
St. Thomas writes: “Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things” (Summa Theologiae, I, 12, 12).
5. St. Thomas explains more widely: “In the present state of life in which the soul is united to a passible body, it is impossible for our intellect to understand anything actually, except by turning to the phantasms.” (t/n phantasm = likeness)
First of all because the intellect, being a power that does not make use of a corporeal organ, would in no way be hindered in its act through the lesion of a corporeal organ, if for its act there were not required the act of some power that does make use of a corporeal organ. Now sense, imagination and the other powers belonging to the sensitive part, make use of a corporeal organ.
Wherefore it is clear that for the intellect to understand actually, not only when it acquires fresh knowledge, but also when it applies knowledge already acquired, there is need for the act of the imagination and of the other powers.
For when the act of the imagination is hindered by a lesion of the corporeal organ, for instance in a case of frenzy; or when the act of the memory is hindered, as in the case of lethargy, we see that a man is hindered from actually understanding things of which he had a previous knowledge.
Secondly, anyone can experience this of himself, that when he tries to understand something, he forms certain phantasms to serve him by way of examples, in which as it were he examines what he is desirous of understanding. For this reason it is that when we wish to help someone to understand something, we lay examples before him, from which he forms phantasms for the purpose of understanding.
Now the reason of this is that the power of knowledge is proportioned to the thing known.
Wherefore the proper object of the angelic intellect, which is entirely separate from a body, is an intelligible substance separate from a body. Whereas the proper object of the human intellect, which is united to a body, is a quiddity or nature existing in corporeal matter; and through such natures of visible things it rises to a certain knowledge of things invisible.
Now it belongs to such a nature to exist in an individual, and this cannot be apart from corporeal matter: for instance, it belongs to the nature of a stone to be in an individual stone, and to the nature of a horse to be in an individual horse, and so forth.
Wherefore the nature of a stone or any material thing cannot be known completely and truly, except in as much as it is known as existing in the individual.
Now we apprehend the individual through the senses and the imagination. And, therefore, for the intellect to understand actually its proper object, it must of necessity turn to the phantasms in order to perceive the universal nature existing in the individual” (Summa Theologiae, I, 84, 7).
6. As you can see, the perspective of Christian anthropology reconciles very well with the more strictly scientific one for which it is believed that everything starts from the brain.
I wish you well, I remind you to the Lord and I bless you.
Father Angelo
Translated by Chiara P.