The Canon of Medicine (1522) - Page 9

We have summarized the necessary compendium in brief; however, we shall not dispute at all the manner in which Avicenna wished the intelligences to be produced, since this has been abundantly fulfilled by many theologians. They confess with one mouth that Creation is the work of God alone, and they all agree that Avicenna's position is vain and must be considered impossible. Nevertheless, they differ in their refutation, and one proceeds by this path, another by that, as may be seen in the commentaries of Scotus, Thomas, and Ockham on the Sentences a standard theological text by Peter Lombard.

And because Avicenna thought that the whole soul and every part and potency of it were created by the intelligence referring to the active intellect in his cosmology from the beginning, it would follow that he must think the same pertains to the will, just as he felt regarding the intellect. Furthermore, it is established by reason and experience that the will is mistress of its own acts and is free to produce them when it wishes, or not. Therefore, a voluntary act could not depend, at least not proximately, on that superior intelligence, just as the intellect cannot. If, however, the soul can naturally have no knowledge from that intelligence without the senses and phantasm sensory images retained in the mind, how much less could it draw out mysteries and join itself intimately to it, as Avicenna and Algazel surmised? Even here, he does not go so far astray, because we too admit that separate minds can see new species in the senses and the phantasm. But this is not considered natural or ordinary human knowledge; rather, it is a supernatural or special kind of notice. In no way, however, could it be properly and exactly called prophetic revelation, which requires intelligible species infused by the light of divinity itself.

But I do not know by what agreement this opinion of Avicenna can rightly stand, unless it slips away from another of his older positions; for he thought that from one, only one can proceed. How, then, if he decreed that every act of understanding depends on one intelligence, how, I ask, can prophecy—which is varied in many ways, especially that which is asserted regarding future contingent events for which no certain or decreed cause is seen in the nature of things—be able to proceed from that intelligence?

Whether revelation can be naturally had from the intelligence itself, against Avicenna. The second error of Avicenna.

A large ornamental woodcut initial Q depicts intricate foliate and scrollwork designs. That revelation cannot be naturally had from the intelligence itself, we shall show in many ways. Those who follow Aristotle hold it as most certain that all our knowledge emerges from sense. Likewise, it is impossible that anyone should understand unless they contemplate phantasms. If, however, knowledge were born from the separate intelligence itself, it would not arise from sense and phantasm, since it would be emitting that intelligible species which is without sense and phantasm. Perhaps someone might say that in this, Avicenna has departed from Aristotle, whose philosophy he has challenged in many places, and on which he has intentionally held different views in most. But we shall urge again the reason of Thomas, who asserts that it is in vain for the soul to be joined to the body if it understands from elsewhere and through corporeal aids. For it is not bound to it for its own sake, since it is not a form for the sake of matter, but the reverse; nor for the sake of operation. Furthermore, it is in vain for it to be joined if it does not have knowledge from sensible things.

Since it would be better for the soul, if separated and joined, to draw in that pure intellection. But Scotus insists in the second part of his English work, in the first question of the eleventh distinction, that one ought to infer the reason of Thomas more strongly, affirming: If it were also joined in vain when it was blessed, then that would follow. Furthermore, according to some, it does not befit the soul to understand insofar as it is joined to the body, but rather insofar as it is above it. But these objections do not suffice, since in blessedness, manifold knowledge belongs to it through the light of glory and through reserved, infused species. When joined to a mortal body, however, there is no way given to understand other things (that is, what is natural). When it does understand, this office is said to be above the body because the intellect is not at all bound to the corporeal organ, although it uses it to supply phantasms. Therefore, the reason of the first proposition is one thing, and that of the second is another, because the same thing is not contained in both; for this reason, one does not connect and depend upon the other. Being above the body does not mean, as Thomas pleases, that it is entirely separated from the body, but that it is not bound and immersed in it. For that reason, the soul can receive those sensible species brought by the imagination, rendered intelligible and universal by the light of the agent intellect. Therefore, the reason of Thomas stands against Avicenna, supported by great roots.

Moreover, Scotus brings other refutations against Avicenna, and those primarily, that all our knowledge takes its origin from sense, as was established by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics and in the Physics and in the First Philosophy Metaphysics. But the followers of Avicenna would say their author is not held by that. He adds that which is of greater efficacy, which they judge must in no way be resisted (as they say): that the soul in its essential potency is always [ready] but never in its accidental potency for understanding future things, even though a certain ability might arise by which it would more easily turn itself toward understanding. Indeed, we shall also assert this against Avicenna: that no memory could be placed in the intellectual part if it were not in our power to always understand that which we have previously understood. For everyone experiences from forms already conceived that they revolve upon them by reasoning and leap into other things and discourse without any such fictitious and vain turning.

Also, one can experience from another part that the turning toward higher things cannot erupt into an act of knowledge unless one has contemplated some species, either sensible in the imagination or intelligible in the memory. Furthermore, reasoning is in vain in man, and discourse is in vain, if the soul finds a simple understanding of things from a turning toward the higher. For it would draw whatever it needed from that by a simple act; for since the agent and the patient agree in just proportion, as they say, it understands without discourse, just as the connection of this understanding would depend on a direct link, just as if knowledge of colors could slip into those blind from birth by nature.

In what order creatures were produced, against Avicenna. The third error of Avicenna.

An ornamental initial A features stylized architectural elements and scrolling vines. Avicenna asserts that the second intelligence proceeds from the first alone, but that the second, when it turns itself to the first to understand it, produces the third, and then, by understanding itself, it creates the soul of the first sphere. Which, indeed, regarding the reason of creation...