53. Rational Ability, Natural Ability, and the Role of Desire

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

• Natural vs. Rational Ability: Natural abilities (without reason) are determined to one effect—fire only heats, never cools. Rational abilities (with reason) can produce contraries: a doctor can heal or harm, a teacher can teach or deceive.
• The Problem of Contraries: Since rational ability can produce opposite effects, but cannot produce both simultaneously, something must determine which act will occur.
• Desire as Determinant: What determines which contrary act a rational being performs is desire (ὄρεξις) or choice (προαίρεσις/προαίρεσις)—ultimately, the will.
• Application to God and Creation: God’s intellect is capable of knowing contraries, but God does not create by natural necessity. Creation proceeds from divine choice/will.
• Early Greek Philosophy: Both Anaxagoras (mind as mover) and Empedocles (love and hate as movers) capture part of the truth. Mind explains the ordering and separation of things better than blind forces, but mind alone cannot explain why one contrary act rather than another proceeds—hence the necessity of love/hate (desire) as well.

Key Arguments #

Natural Abilities Are Determined to One Effect #

• When the agent with natural ability meets the patient in the right circumstances, the act necessarily follows
• Example: Place paper before fire → the paper burns. Fire cannot simultaneously burn and not burn.
• Natural abilities are “something one, productive of one.”

Rational Abilities Produce Contraries #

• A single ability with reason enables opposite acts: teaching and deceiving, healing and harming, delivering and aborting
• These are genuinely possible for the rational agent
• But they cannot occur simultaneously: “it’s impossible that you do contraries at the same time”

Something Else Must Determine the Act #

• Rational ability alone does not determine which contrary will be actualized
• Therefore: “Necessarily, therefore, there is something other which determines.”
• This something is desire or choice
• “For whichever two things is chiefly desired, it will make when it is present and is able, and near the undergoing.”

Application to First Movers #

• Anaxagoras saw that mind (νοῦς) is responsible for order in nature, reasoning by analogy from artificial to natural things
• Empedocles located causation in love (φιλία) and hate (νεῖκος)
• In light of the above analysis: Mind explains how things are ordered and separated, but not why one contrary rather than another proceeds from the first mover
• Therefore, both thinkers capture part of the truth: mind determines the act, but desire/choice determines which of the mind’s contraries will be actualized

God Creates by Choice, Not Natural Necessity #

• Unlike creatures who are determined by nature, God acts by choice
• God is not forced against his will; rather, creation proceeds from divine love
• But this love is not a cause in the ordinary sense—it is the expression of God’s nature: God naturally understands and loves himself
• In the Trinity: The Father does not naturally have the ability to not produce the Son. This is not an arbitrary choice but necessary generation. Yet the Fathers insist it was not done against the will.
• Creation of the world: Here God does have the ability to create or not create. This is a matter of divine choice. As Chesterton says: the world is not “the best of all possible worlds” by necessity, but “the best of all impossible worlds”—it exists not by natural necessity but by God’s free choice.

Important Definitions #

• Natural Ability (δύναμις ἄλογος): An ability without reason, determined to produce one effect. When agent and patient meet under proper conditions, the act necessarily follows.
• Rational Ability (δύναμις μετὰ λόγου): An ability with reason, capable of producing opposite effects. Requires further determination by desire/choice to actualize one contrary rather than another.
• Desire (ὄρεξις): The appetitive faculty that determines which of the contraries a rational agent will actualize. Includes both love (φιλία) and hate (νεῖκος).
• Choice (προαίρεσις): Deliberated desire; the will’s determination of which contrary act to perform.
• Act (ἐνέργεια): The actualization of an ability. For rational agents, the act is not determined by the ability alone but by desire.

Examples & Illustrations #

The Doctor #

• A doctor has medical knowledge (ability with reason) to both heal and harm a patient
• The medical art enables both contraries
• The doctor cannot simultaneously cure and make sick
• What determines whether the doctor heals or harms: the doctor’s love or hate for the patient, his choice
• Example: If the doctor aborts a baby, he hates the baby. If he delivers the baby, he loves the baby.

The Teacher #

• A teacher with knowledge of logic can teach students truly or deceive them with sophistic arguments
• Example given: Aristotle appears to contradict himself on whether universals or particulars come first in knowledge. A sophist might exploit this apparent contradiction to confuse students.
• What determines which the teacher does: his love or hate for the students, his choice
• Berquist confesses he deliberately sets this trap to show how equivocation (mixing senses of a word) leads to deception

The Mixologist #

• Empedocles claims love brings things together in different ratios to produce flesh, blood, bone
• But it is mind (λόγος) that combines whiskey and vermouth in the ratio of 2:1 to make a Manhattan
• This shows mind is better than love at determining the definite ratio in which things are combined
• A bartender must love Manhattans to combine them in the right ratio

Natural Teeth vs. Artificial Teeth #

• If natural teeth were replaced with artificial teeth, a dentist would arrange them in the same order nature does: biting teeth in front, chewing teeth in back
• The similarity of order between artificial and natural things suggests a like cause (mind/intellect)

Alcoholic Beverages Classification #

• Begin with singular experiences: individual glasses of whiskey, beer, wine
• When classifying these singular things to see universals, what comes first?
• The distinction between beer and wine (more universal difference) comes before the distinction between Budweiser and Miller, or Cabernet and Pinot Noir (less universal differences)
• Why? Because the difference between beer and wine is greater and thus easier to perceive

Trees on Campus #

• Begin with singular perceptions: individual trees, bushes, grass
• Among universals, what comes first to perception?
• The distinction between needle-leaf trees and broad-leaf trees comes before distinctions between types of needle-leaf trees
• Botany students could not mix up a needle tree with a broad-leaf tree, but confuse different types of conifers

Red Wine Stain on White Tablecloth #

• To remove the stain, boil water and pour it on the cloth
• The stain comes out
• Was it hate (of the stain) that figured out how to separate the red from the white?
• No—it was mind that discovered the method of separation
• Similarly, mind (not hate) separates quantity and shape from material things in geometry

Notable Quotes #

“What determines, then, that I do one rather than the other? Well, it’s going to be will. It’s going to be desire, right?”

“For whichever two things is chiefly desired, it will make when it is present and is able, and near the undergoing.”

“The doctor would be curing you and making you sick at the same time. Or delivering the baby and aborting the baby at the same time, right? But this is impossible that you do contraries at the same time.”

“Necessarily, therefore, there is something other which determines… It’s the mind that figured out how to separate these things.”

“Maybe each of these great thinkers sees a part of the truth, right? Anaxagoras is right about mind. Empedocles is right about love and hate. But neither one has the whole truth.”

“God doesn’t produce us by natural necessity… God produces by kind of choice… It’s not necessary by itself. God doesn’t create by a natural necessity.”

“The world is not ’the best of all possible worlds’ by necessity… it’s the best of all impossible worlds—because it’s not necessary by itself.”

Questions Addressed #

How does natural ability differ from rational ability in determining action? #

• Natural ability: When agent meets patient under proper conditions, the act necessarily follows
• Rational ability: The ability alone does not determine which of the contraries will be actualized; something further is required

What determines which contrary act a rational agent will perform? #

• Answer: Desire or choice (will). The agent must choose/desire one contrary over the other
• This applies to human agents (teacher choosing to teach rather than deceive) and to God (choosing to create rather than not)

Are Anaxagoras and Empedocles both right about what moves all things? #

• Answer: Each captures part of the truth
• Anaxagoras is right that mind explains the order and determination of natural things
• Empedocles is right that love and hate (desire) are involved in causation
• But mind alone cannot explain why one contrary rather than another proceeds—hence both mind and desire are needed
• Mind shows how things are made; desire shows why one contrary is chosen over another

Does God create by natural necessity or by choice? #

• Answer: By choice, not natural necessity
• God’s intellect is capable of knowing contraries, but this does not mean creation necessarily follows
• Creation proceeds from divine will/choice
• In the Trinity, the generation of the Son is natural necessity (the Father cannot not generate the Son)
• In creation, God has the ability to create or not create—hence creation is a matter of choice

How should we understand the Church’s concern about natural necessity (Vatican I)? #

• The Church rejects the view (held by some Neoplatonists and by Spinoza) that the universe proceeds from God by natural necessity, as equality of angles proceeds from the triangle’s nature
• This would make creation necessary and remove God’s freedom
• Proper theology: God creates freely, by choice, not by natural compulsion

Connections and Implications #

To Metaphysics #

• The distinction between natural and rational ability grounds a fundamental difference in how causation works
• Natural causation is determined; rational causation requires an act of will

To Theology #

• God possesses rational ability in the highest sense: infinite knowledge of all contraries
• Divine creation cannot be explained by intellect alone; it requires understanding God’s will/love
• The Trinity (necessary generation) and creation (free choice) represent two different modalities of God’s causation

To Ethics #

• Moral agents possess rational ability and are therefore responsible for their choices
• Virtue consists not merely in knowledge but in the habituation of desire toward the good
• A virtuous person is one whose desire is rightly ordered toward good acts