“ Whatever an inferior power can do, that a superior power can do, not in the same way, but in a more excellent way; for example, the intellect knows sensible things in a more excellent way than sense knows them. ”
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1274). copy citation
| Author | Thomas Aquinas |
|---|---|
| Source | Summa Theologica |
| Topic | power intellect |
| Date | 1274 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17611/pg17611-images.html |
Context
“especially as the movement of the sensitive appetite, which is accompanied with a certain bodily change, is subject to the command of reason. An angel, however, has not the same connection with natural bodies; and hence the argument does not hold.
Reply Obj. 2: Whatever an inferior power can do, that a superior power can do, not in the same way, but in a more excellent way; for example, the intellect knows sensible things in a more excellent way than sense knows them. So an angel can change corporeal matter in a more excellent way than can corporeal agents, that is by moving the corporeal agents themselves, as being the superior cause.
Reply Obj. 3: There is nothing to prevent some natural effect taking place by angelic power, for which the power of corporeal agents would not suffice.”
source
