The Argument from Motion and the Argument for Angels: A Reply to John F. X. Knasas

The Thomist 62 (1998): 269-90 THE ARGUMENT FROM MOTION AND THE ARGUMENT FOR ANGELS: A REPLY TO JOHN F. X. KNASAS THEODOREJ.KONDOLEON King ofPrussia, Pennsylvania INARECENT ARTICLE that appeared in The Thomist John F. X. Knasas reargues certain positions which he had already set forth in his book The Preface to Metaphysics and which he believes can be textually established as part of Saint Thomas's philosophical teaching.1 He does this apparently in light of some briefly stated objections I had raised in a discussion-review article appearing in an earlier volume of the same journal.2 While his opening paragraph would have me basically disagreeing with Fr. Joseph Owens, I think it only fair to say that, inasmuch it was his book (despite its degree of indebtedness on certain points to Fr. Owens) that I reviewed, it was his views with which my review was directly and primarily concerned. Among the positions to which I took exception and which he returns to defend in this article are the following: 1) Aquinas did not allow to natural philosophy the privilege of concluding, by way of an argument from motion, to the existence ofseparate (immaterial) substance or being. (In his book Knasas argues this position against the "natural philosophy" Thomists who maintain that one way to reach immaterial being is by establishing its existence through an argument from motion.)3 As the weight of texts preponderantly shows, it belongs 1John F. X. Knasas, "Thomistic Existentialism and the ProofsExMotu at Contra Gentiles I, C. 13," The Thomist 59 (1995): 591-615; idem, The Preface toMetaplrysics: A Contribution to the Neo-Thomist Debate on the Start ofMetaplrysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1990). 2 Theodore J. Kondoleon, "The Start of Metaphysics," The Thomist 58 (1994): 121-30. 3 Knasas, Preface, chap. 2. 269 270 THEODORE J. KONDOLEON to metaphysics alone to treat of God and the angels.4 This restriction is particularly to be applied to the question of their existence (an sit). (In my review I had noted that the argument from motion for God's existence appearing in Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 13 seems, for the most part, to be a physical one--one drawn almost entirely from Aristotle's natural philosophy-and its conclusion to be an Unmoved Mover which Saint Thomas calls God.)5 2) Motion is a being (ens) having its own nature, namely, that of an accident. Moreover, as an accident it has its own act of existence distinct from that of the substance in which it (supposedly ) inheres.6 (My review had pointed out that, since motion is something non-actual, it cannot be said to participate existence and that, for Saint Thomas, only what is actual or complete can have actual being.)7 3) St. Thomas's argument from motion can be interpreted "existentially" as an argument from the esse of motion whose proper cause is necessarily the Self-Existing Being, God.8 (I had labeled this approach "eccentric" since it seemed to me so out of line with the ordinary way in which Aquinas's prima via has been understood, that is, as an argument simply from motion.) 4) Finally, according to St. Thomas, angels can be "metaphysically " reached by an a posteriori argument from motion to their existence as secondary causes of the movement of the heavenly spheres. Moreover, since angels cause these movements, which, in turn, cause substantial change, they are also remote causes of the esse of generable things.9 'Ibid., 34-41. Cf. also Knasas, "Thomistic Existentialism," 594-601. 5 Kondoleon, "The Start of Metaphysics," 128. 6 Knasas, Preface, 157-58; cf. also Knasas, "Thomistic Existentialism," 604-5. 7 Kondoleon, "The Start of Metaphysics," 127. 8 Knasas, Preface, 157-58; cf. also Knasas, "Thomistic Existentialism," 608-12. In the latter article Knasas focuses upon ScG I, c. 13 for his "existential" interpretation of Aquinas's argument from motion, possibly in response to my claim that the argument there seems to be largely one drawn from Aristotle's physical philosophy. 9 Knasas, Preface, 111-13; cf. also Knasas, "Thomistic Existentialism," 607. A REPLY TO JOHN F. X. KNASAS 271 (In my review I had asserted that, in St...