Sacred Congregation of Studies

After our most Holy Father Pius X ordered in the Motu Proprio Doctoris Angelici, on June 29, 1914, that in all schools of philosophy the principles and main teachings of Thomas Aquinas be held, some teachers from various institutions proposed some theses for this Sacred Congregation to examine, which theses they had been accustomed to teach and defend as being those of the Holy Teacher [St.Thomas], especially in metaphysics.

This Sacred Congregation, having duly examined the aforementioned theses and having presented them to the Holy Father, by the mandate of His Holiness, declares that they clearly contain the principles and more important thoughts of the holy Doctor [St. Thomas].

They are as follows:

Potency and act divide being in such a way that whatever is, is either a pure act, or else coalesces necessarily from potency and act as from its first and intrinsic principles.

An act, as perfection, is limited only by a potency, which is a capacity for a perfection. Hence in any order in which an act is pure, in that same order that act exists as unique and unlimited; where an act is finite and multiple, that act has entered into a true composition with a potency

On this account, the one God, unique and most simple, subsists in the absolute reason of His existence. All other things that participate in His existence, have a nature which restricts their being, and they consist of essence and existence as of really distinct principles.

[The noun/participle] "Being", which takes its name from [the verb] "to be", is not spoken in the same univocal sense of God and of creatures, but neither is it spoken equivocally, but analogically, by an analogy of attribution or proportionality.

Furthermore, in every creature there is a real composition of the subsisting subject with forms that are added secondarily, that is, with accidents: these accidents, however, cannot be understand unless "to-be" is really received in an essence disinct from the accidents.

Apart from absolute accidents, there is also the relative accident, in other words "in relation to something". Although "in relation to someting" does not on its own account signify anything inherent to another thing, yet it often has a cause in things, and therefore it has real entity [the fact of existence, being-ness] distinct from its subject.

The spiritual creature is completely simple in its essence, but a two-fold composition remains within it: the composition of essence with existence and that of substance with accidents.

The corporeal creature, with respect to its essence, is composed of potency and act; in the order of essence, this potency and act are designated by the names matter and form.

Neither of their parts has existence on its own account, nor is either part produced or corrupted, nor is it regarded as a category unless as being related or led back to a substantial principle.

Although extension into integral parts is a consequence of a corporeal nature, it is not the same thing for a body to be a substance and for it to be of a certain quantity. By definition, a substance is indivisible, not in the same way as a point, but as something which is outside the order of dimension. Quantity, which gives extension to substance, in reality differs from substance, and is an accident in the full meaning of the term.

The principle of individuation, that is, of numeric distinction, is matter designated by quantity. Numeric distinction, the distinction of one individual from another in the same specific nature, cannot be found among pure spirits.

The fact that a body is circumscriptively in a place [that a body is in its surroundings] and that a body can be in only one place, no matter what force is applied to it, is the effect of the body's quantity.

Bodies are divided into two types: some are living, others don't have life. In living bodies, in order that the part that causes movement and the part that is moved may be distinct, the substantial form, which is designated by the term "soul", requires an organic disposition, in other words, heterogeneous parts.

Souls belonging to the [merely] vegetable or sensory order cannot subsist per se, nor can they be produced per se, but are merely as the principle by which the living thing is and lives, and since such souls depend in their entirety upon matter, when the composite thing is corrupted, then such souls are incidentally corrupted as well.

On the other hand, the human soul persists per se. The human soul is created by God when it can be poured into a subject that is sufficiently disposed, and its nature is incorruptible and immortal.

The same rational soul is united to the body in such a way as to be the unique substantial form of the body, and through the soul man has the properties of being a man and an animal and a living thing and a body and a substance and a being. The soul therefore gives man every essential degree of perfection. Furthermore, the soul communicates to the body the act of being whereby the soul itself exists.

From the human soul there issues forth in a natural sequence faculties belonging both the organic and inorganic order. The former faculties, to which pertain the senses, have as their subject the composite being, while the latter have the soul alone as their subject. Thus the intellect is a faculty that is intrinsically independent of any organ.

Intellectuality is a necessary consequence of immateriality, such that the degree of intellectuality is proportional to the degree of distance from matter. Being itself (any being) is the adequate object of intellection; but in the present state of union [of body/soul] the proper object of the human intellect is found in quiddities abstracted from their material conditions.

We receive knowledge from sensible things. Since a sensible thing is not intelligible in act apart from the intellect as it understands in the formal sense, we must admit that there is in the soul of an active power that abstracts intelligible species from phantasms.

By these species we directly know universals; we attain to singulars by sense, and then we know them by the intellect by turning our attention to phantasms; but we rise to a knowledge of spiritual beings by way of analogy.

The will follows the intellect. The will does not precede the intellect. The will necessarily desires that which is presented to it as a good that in every way can satisfy desire, but among the many goods that are proposed to it as desirable by a judgement that is subject to change, the will freely chooses. Thus, a choice follows the last practical judgement, and the will makes that judgement into the last one.

We cannot perceive God's existence by immediate intuition, nor can we demonstrate His existence a priori, but we demonstrate His existence a posteriori, that is, by the things which have been made, with a line of argument that leads from effects to cause; namely, from things which are moved to the principle of their motion and the first immobile mover; from the progression of the things of the world from causes that are subordinate to one another, to the first uncaused cause; from corruptible things which are equally disposed to existence and to non-existence, to the absolutely necessary being; from tings which according to diminished perfections of existing, living, understanding, exist, live and understand in greater and lesser degrees, to that which is intelligent to the highest degree, most alive, most fully being; finally, from the order of the universe to the separated intellect that has ordered and arranged things, and which directs them to an end.

The Divine Essence, by the fact that it is identified with the exercized actuality of its own being, in other terms, by the fact that it is itself subsistent Being, is set forth for us well expressed in its own metaphysical meaning. Thereby also it shows us the reason for its infinity in perfection.

God is set apart from all finite thing by the very purity of His being. The first inference from this is that the world could not have proceded from God except by way of creatin. Next, that te creative power, by which a being insofar as it is a being is achieved, cannot be shared with any created nature, not even by a miracle. Finally, no created agent can influence the existence of any effeect, unless it is by a motion that has been received from the first cause.