Les corps célestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin

Description

the astronomy version of Laso's Filosofía de los Matemáticas en S. Thomás

I first discovered it in Steven Baldner's "Thomas Aquinas on Celestial Matter" (The Thomist 68 (2004): 431-67)

written by a member of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists)

St. Thomas and Aristotle seem to side with Mach, not Newton, regarding what would happen if the heavens ceased moving:

• PDF p. 141: "9. De pot. , 5, 8, c. Utrum cessante motu cæli, remaneat actio et passio in elementis. "
• PDF p. 144: "9. De caelo , II, l. 4, n. 342. …cessante motu caeli, omnis motus inferiorum corporum cessaret[…], quia virtutes inferiorum corporum sunt sicut materiales et instrumentales respectu cælestium virtutum, ita quod non movent nisi motæ. "

cf. Assis's Relational Mechanics EU2019 Dynamic Earth lecture, esp. 14:25ff., where he cites Mach's Science of Mechanics (slides 10ff.):

• “The principles of mechanics can be so conceived, that even for relative rotations centrifugal forces arise.”
• “Try to fix Newton’s bucket and rotate the heaven of fixed stars, and then prove the absence of centrifugal forces.”

Sacramental causality (vertu fluente) discussed on PDF pp. 182-5 (Excursus dans le domaine de la théologie des sacrements.)

PDF pp. 207-8 fn.2 are on the fascinating, though perhaps misquotation from Ptolemy Centiloquium 8., which St. Thomas cites passim regarding how human freewill can go against the influence of the stars: "sapiens homo dominatur astris " (cf. Gen. 1:26, which doesn't explicitly mention, but probably doesn't exclude, that man also has dominion over the stars).

Two orders to always keep in mind when studying Gen 1.

First of all, remembering the correspondence of the hexameronic days among themselves:

1st↔4th, 2nd↔5th, 3rd↔6th

The “stars” (הַכּוֹכָבִים) as “signs” (אֹתֹת) occur in Day Fourth, which correlates with Day First. NB: Structurally-speaking, Day First stands for the whole circular/6-based Hexameron, and, as such, is technically the “Unique Day” (יוֹם אֶחָד).

In Day First (first order), pure intellectual (angelic) light is created (verse 3): יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי-אוֹר (“Fiat lux. Et facta est lux.”). Adam has no dominion over this light but is, as it were, served by it, while also being instructed by it (the angels ministering to human nature to instruct it and guide it toward the beatific vision).

In Day Fourth (second order), the sign -stars belong to the “luminaries [literally the “lights,” same word as found in Day First, אוֹר in verse 3, but pluralized in verse 14, אֹרֹת) in the firmament of the heaven,” and take upon the form of astrophysical structures. As such, therefore, these physical stars (= lit. astro -physical) are visibilibus simulacris. Their ability to signify is established in relationship to the calendar, and therefore to the liturgy Adam is constitutively to render to God as a bridge between the visible and the invisible (Adam being literally established as pontem - > pontifex in the created order).

However, the signified stars, i.e. the “lights/luminaries set in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the Earth” (verse 17) are the angels—whose purely spiritual substances are created in verse 3.

The fact that sign -stars stand for signified -angels is confirmed by Scripture itself, in the book of Revelation (1:20):

“[…] septem stellae, angeli sunt…”

Notice that these stars are mentioned in the sacred text in verse 16, in relation to the “greater” and “lesser” luminaries “governing over” (משל) diurnal (“diei”) and nocturnal (“nocti”) knowledge in creation.

Finally, it is also significant to note that Adam’s dominion /רדד (commanded by the Blessed Trinity in verse 26, using the imperative mood: יִרְדּוּ) is akin to an intellectual descent(ירידה -> going down = לרדת), aimed toward understanding the essences of things as they were made. As it happens, the Hebrew language literally provides the connection between “subduing” and “going down into” (לרוד), which is quite consistent with the characteristic posture of the intellectus agens mastering over (רד) all that befalls him to comprehend by “descending into” (לרד) its quiddity.

“Qui fecit... lunam et stellas in potestatem noctis, quoniam in aeternum misericordia ejus.”(Ps 135:7-9)