On the Soul, and its Faculties (powers)

In this exposition we will treat on one aspect of man’s being and its main operations. In

Genesis we read of the first man coming into life, who is distinct from all other creatures. He was

made by God out of dirt; “then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed

into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”1 And so man receives his life

from God. He was created in the image of God, Who gave him dominion over the earth. He was

a being endowed with knowledge to rule everything inferior to himself. We’ll begin by taking a

glance into the human soul; from there we will explore in depth two of the powers or potencies

that pertain to the soul alone: one being the intellect/understanding, the other being the will or

intellectual appetite. We refer to the potencies of the soul as ‘potencies/powers’ because they are

not an immediate source of man’s activity; they are not his essence, since “…in God alone is His

intellect His essence: while in other intellectual creatures, the intellect is power.”2

The soul is the first principle of life in living things; therefore, we call living things

‘animate'. Saint Thomas Aquinas, quoting Aristotle, says that “the soul is the actuation of a

physical organic body with power to live.”3 “The intellectual soul is sometimes called intellect,

as from its chief power: and thus we read (De Anima I 4), that the ‘intellect is a substance.’ And

in this sense also Augustine says that the mind is a spirit and essence (De Trin. Ix, 2; xiv, 16).4

1
Genesis 2:7
2
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Benziger Bros. edition, 1947, http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/, Ia, Q. 79,
Art. 1.
3
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 76, Art. 5
4
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 79, Art. 1. ad. 1
“Now the chief manifestations of life are the two activities of knowledge and movement.”5 From

the animate bodies we can make three divisions of the soul: the Vegetative (as seen in plants),

the Sensitive (as seen in animals, both irrational and rational), and the Intellectual/Rational

specific in human beings. “The human soul is a non bodily substance endowed with intellect and

will…. [it] can exist and operate per se if it be severed from the body.”6 “For only what actually

exists acts, and its manner of acting follows its manner of being…Consequently the human soul,

which is called an intellect or mind, is something incorporeal and subsisting.”7 Also, Aquinas

considers that in the soul there is no materiality. He gives two arguments: firstly, that “it belongs

to the notion of a soul to be the form of a body. Now, either it is a form by virtue of itself, in its

entirety, or by virtue of some part of itself….Secondly, we may proceed from the specific notion

of the human soul inasmuch as it is intellectual….It follows, therefore, that the intellectual soul,

and every intellectual substance which has knowledge of forms absolutely, is exempt from

composition of matter and form.”8 “Through its immateriality [the soul] has the power of

intelligence. Wherefore it follows not that the intellect is the substance of the soul, but that it is

its virtue and power.”9 The human soul is held to be incorruptible because “the substantial and

subsistent form cannot decay, break up, or cease to exist. For it has no material elements or parts

to fall away; it has no intrinsic dependence on matter for existence and operation.”10 Man

because of his intellectual soul “…can acquire universal and perfect goodness, because he can

acquire beatitude. Yet he is in the last degree, according to his nature, of those to whom beatitude

is possible; therefore the human soul requires many and various operations and powers. [Another

reason for the many powers is because] it is on the confines of spiritual and corporeal creatures;
5
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 75 Art. 1
6
A Tour of the Summa, Paul J Glenn, Ia, Q. 75 2
7
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 75 Art. 2
8
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 75 Art. 5
9
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 79 Art. 1 ad. 4
10
Glenn, Ia, Q. 75 Art. 6
and therefore the powers of both meet together in the soul.”11 And St. Thomas quoting Aristotle

says that these powers may be distinguished because of their acts and objects: “the idea of act or

activity is prior to the idea of potentiality and the idea of what an act bears on – its object – is

prior again.”12 We can think of the sun, which produces light, heat, etc…; we can call these

actions ‘powers’ of the Sun. Likewise, the soul’s actions are called powers. Aquinas makes a

distinction between these powers when he says,

For every act is either of an active power or of a passive power. Now, the object is
to the act of a passive power, as the principle and moving cause: for color is the
principle of vision, inasmuch as it moves the sight. On the other hand, to the act
of an active power the object is a term and end; as the object of the power of
growth is perfect quantity, which is the end of growth.13
In Ia Q. 77 a4 Aquinas mentions that there is an order to the powers – we rank vegetative as

being lower than sensitive, which in turn is lower than intellectual. He says, “Since the soul is

one, and the powers are many; and since a number of things that proceed from one must proceed

in a certain order; there must be some order among the powers of the soul.”14 In the fifth article,

Aquinas distinguishes the powers of the soul from the powers of the whole composite (body and

soul) when he says that “some operations of the soul are performed without a corporeal organ, as

understanding and will. Hence the powers of these operations are in the soul as their subject.”15

Later Aquinas also makes mention of these two powers that pertain to the soul alone, distinct

from those that belong to the composite when he says, “…the composite is actual by the soul.

Whence it is clear that all the powers of the soul, whether their subject be the soul alone, or the

composite, flow from the essence of the soul, as from their principle; because it has already been

11
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 77 Art. 2
12
De Anima II, 4.415 a16-23
13
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 77 Art. 3
14
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 77 Art. 4
15
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 77 Art. 5
said that the accident is caused by the subject according as it is actual, and is received into it

according as it is in potentiality.”16

The only thing that distinguishes man from plants and animals is his spiritual activity

(whose most elevated faculty is the intellect, or thought). Thus, the happiness of man will be

rooted in the spiritual activities of man.17 Now man’s intellect is what moves him to act with

honesty id quod intellectum trahit vel capit.

The intellect is considered as man’s most perfect potency for two reasons. First, it is by

reason of its excellence over what is inferior: the understanding exercises a certain principality

and dominion over the other faculties of man (principality with respect to the sensitive appetite

which is ruled in a quasi-political manner since it can resist reason, and dominion with respect to

the bodily members which are ordained to obey the command of reason without contradiction).

Second, it is by reason of its affinity to what is superior: namely, to the divine things. These

things are, in effect, the object of understanding on one hand, as only the understanding can have

knowledge of essentially good things which are the divine things, and on the other hand, by a

certain conaturality with respect to the divine itself. The intellect is not divine, of course; rather,

it is the thing that is most divine in us, as it is the only operation whose operation is completed

without a corporeal organ. 18

Considering its nobility, the intellect is the operation of what is best in man. Since

operari sequitur esse, so from the greater being comes the greater work. As Aquinas says, “In

the contemplation of truth, man unites himself to those superior beings, achieving a certain

similitude with them, because the contemplation of truth is, with the scope of human operations,

16
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 77 Art. 6
17
Fuentes Ethics, pg. 43
18
Fuentes Ethics, pg. 45
the only activity found also in God and in the separate substances.”19 Also, the intellect has the

greatest object among all knowable realities because it is closest to the divine. The intellect in its

operation only makes use of the body in a minimal way; therefore, this operation causes very

little fatigue in comparison with other operations.20 “The intellect may be considered in two

ways: as apprehensive of universal being and truth, and as a thing and a particular power having

a determinate act.”21 The intellect is a passive faculty, sicut tabula rasa in qua nihil est scriptum

(like a clean tablet on which nothing is written), since “…at first we are only in potentiality to

understand, and afterwards we are made to understand actually.”22 “The human soul is called

intellectual by reason of a participation in intellectual power; a sign of which is that it is not

wholly intellectual but only in part. (Man’s participation in God makes him more perfect than

any other corporeal creature because)…in the soul is some power derived from a higher intellect

(God, as we read in)…Ps. 4:7, ‘The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us.’”23

The will is an interior faculty of the soul, an intrinsic principle that enables the subject to

want and to need. As St. Thomas puts it, “The word "necessity" is employed in many ways. For

that which must be is necessary….the will must of necessity adhere to the last end, which is

happiness: since the end is in practical matters what the principle is in speculative matters....”24

The will, with even more reason than the intellect, it is the subject of habits, because it can order

itself to work in a diverse manner and toward diverse things. Its object is in the good in all its

amplitude; it is universal and infinite, under which all goods can be found (spiritual, material,

individual, social, those particular to the will, and any other potency that can be commanded by

19
SCG, III, 37
20
Fuentes, Ethics, pg. 45-46
21
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 82 Art. 4 ad. 1
22
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 75 Art. 2
23
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 75 Art. 4
24
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 82 Art. 1
the will).25 “The will from the very nature of the power inclined to the good of the reason. But

because this good is varied in many ways, the will needs to be inclined, by means of a habit, to

some fixed good of the reason, in order that action may follow more promptly.”26 Now

concerning sin and virtue, the will can be directed to opposite things:

The will does not desire of necessity whatsoever it desires….For there are certain
individual goods which have not a necessary connection with happiness, because
without them a man can be happy: and to such the will does not adhere of
necessity. But there are some things which have a necessary connection with
happiness, by means of which things man adheres to God, in Whom alone true
happiness consists. Nevertheless, until through the certitude of the Divine Vision
the necessity of such connection be shown, the will does not adhere to God of
necessity, nor to those things which are of God. But the will of the man who sees
God in His essence of necessity adheres to God, just as now we desire of
necessity to be happy. It is therefore clear that the will does not desire of necessity
whatever it desires.27
Suttor notes that the “human will is appetite informed by human understanding. Man has a head

full of intellectual necessities, and many of these bind the will.”28 St. Thomas clarifies that “the

will may be considered in two ways: according to the common nature of its object—that is to

say, as appetitive of universal good—and as a determinate power of the soul having a

determinate act.”29 Another aspect of the will concerning a possible division of appetitive powers

says that “the will regards good according to the common notion of good, and therefore in the

will, which is the intellectual appetite, there is no differentiation of appetitive powers, so that

there be in the intellectual appetite an irascible power distinct from a concupiscible power:”30

In other words, we can say that the will is moved by “that which appears good.”31 The will

operates ex intentione, not ex necesitate.

25
Fuentes Ethics, pg. 78-79
26
Aquinas Sum, I-II Q. 50, Art. 5 ad 3.
27
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 82 Art. 2
28
Timothy Suttor, Summa Theologiae, Volume 11 (Ia. 75-83), Man, pg. 221, Note a
29
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 82 Art. 4 ad. 1
30
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 82 Art. 5
31
Fuentes Ethics, pg. 26
 To conclude, liberty is found in the merging of the intellect which judges and the will

which wants, loves, and desires. In this way liberty is derived from the reason and from the will,

and is a combination of both in its act. For Aristotle, the excellence of the will and that of the

intellect cannot be separated. This conception notably contrasts with the idea which

predominates in the modern world.32 Now concerning the superiority of one to the other, St.

Thomas says:

If therefore the intellect and will be considered with regard to themselves, then the
intellect is the higher power….For the object of the intellect is more simple and
more absolute than the object of the will...But relatively and by comparison with
something else, we find that the will is sometimes higher than the intellect, from
the fact that the object of the will occurs in something higher than that in which
occurs the object of the intellect….Wherefore the love of God is better than the
knowledge of God; but, on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is
better than the love thereof. Absolutely, however, the intellect is nobler than the
will.33
There is a double dependence in the two faculties, “for the understanding knows that the will

wills and the will wills the understanding to understand.”34

32
Fuentes Ethics, pg. 88
33
Aquinas Sum, Ia, Q. 82 Art. 3
34
Fuentes Ethics, pg. 26