136. Natural Habits and Their Causes

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Habits in Angels vs. Humans #

• Angelic Understanding: Angels understand themselves through their own substance and know other things according to the mode of their own substance. When an angel’s soul is separated from matter (or in the angel’s case, being immaterial), it becomes actually understandable to itself.
• Human Understanding: In this life, humans know the soul through its powers, powers through their acts, and acts through their objects—a discursive process from objects to acts to powers to soul.
• Divine Wisdom: Because no angel arrives at the perfection of God, angels need habits (hope and charity especially) to attain God through understanding and will, just as humans do.

The Problem of Natural Habits #

• First Objection: If habits were by nature, their use would not be subject to the will, yet habits are defined as “that by which someone uses when he wants to.” Therefore, habits cannot be natural.
• Second Objection: Nature does not make through two what it can do through one. If powers are by nature, habits would be redundant if also natural.
• Third Objection: Nature does not fail in necessary things; if habits were natural, nature would provide all necessary habits, but clearly it does not.
• Counter-Evidence from Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics VI identifies the understanding of beginnings (axioms)—what Thomas calls intellectus or nous in Greek—as a natural habit.

Two Senses of “Natural” #

• According to the nature of the species: What belongs to all humans by virtue of being human (e.g., capacity for laughter, ability to understand that a whole is greater than a part).
• According to the nature of the individual: Natural dispositions particular to an individual person based on their bodily makeup or complexion (e.g., being naturally sickly, naturally irascible, or naturally disposed to chastity).

Partial vs. Complete Naturality #

• Entirely from Nature: Sometimes health comes entirely from within—the body overcomes disease without exterior medicine.
• Partly from Nature, Partly from Exterior Principle: Sometimes health requires medicine or other exterior help. Similarly, knowledge sometimes comes through a man’s own intelligence; other times a person needs the exterior help of a master’s words.
• Application to Habits: A natural disposition can be either wholly from nature or partly from nature and partly from an exterior principle.

Natural Habits in Cognitive Powers #

• According to the species: Understanding of principles (the nous or intellectus) is natural. Man naturally understands that a whole is greater than a part.
• According to the individual: Some men are disposed by their bodily organs to understand well better than others. The operation of understanding requires sense powers; thus bodily disposition matters.
• Example: A classmate with extraordinary memory could memorize a three-to-four-page poem after reading it once and excelled in mathematics, demonstrating natural aptitude based on bodily disposition.

Natural Habits in Appetitive Powers #

• On the side of the soul: Not natural according to the substance of habit itself, but only as regards certain principles—the “seeds of virtue” (seminalia virtutum). The will is naturally inclined to seek happiness, but this pertains to the nature of the power itself, not to virtue as a habit.
• On the side of the body: Some are disposed by their bodily complexion toward chastity, mildness, irascibility, or other inclinations based on individual constitution.

The Role of Hope in Pursuing Knowledge #

• The Problem: Wisdom is wonderful, but one might despair of achieving it due to the difficulties involved and the proneness of the mind to make mistakes.
• The Solution: Without hope of overcoming difficulties, one will not persevere in philosophy or any difficult pursuit.
• Analogy: Like a man pursuing a woman—love alone is insufficient; he must have hope that she will eventually return his affection, or despair will lead him to abandon the pursuit.
• Another Analogy: A candidate for office might love being a senator, but without hope of winning, he will merely go through the motions without running a good campaign.

Distinction Between Nature and Reason/Will #

• Important Clarification: Reason and will themselves pertain to the nature of man, so we must be careful when distinguishing nature from reason and will.
• Natural Knowledge and Will: Some things reason knows naturally (e.g., axioms), and some things the will naturally wills (e.g., happiness rather than misery).
• Against Absolute Freedom (Sartre): Thomas rejects the notion that the will wills nothing naturally. One cannot choose misery over happiness in the strict sense, though people may choose certain miserable conditions.

The Unity of Nature and Reason #

• The Tyranny of Relativism: Following Benedetto XVI’s phrase, the denial that we can know anything naturally leads to the idea that all opinions are equal, undermining serious intellectual discourse.
• Ping-Pong Balls: Whitaker Chambers criticized his fellow Columbia students for treating ideas like ping-pong balls—tossing them back and forth without taking them seriously.

Key Arguments #

Against Natural Habits (Objections Presented) #

1. Voluntary Use: If something is by nature, its use is not subject to the will; but habits are defined by their voluntary use; therefore habits are not by nature.
2. Economy of Nature: Nature accomplishes through one what it can through one; powers are natural; if habits were also natural, they would be redundant.
3. Nature’s Completeness: Nature does not fail in necessary things; if habits were necessary and natural, all men would naturally possess all necessary habits—which is false.

Thomas’s Resolution #

1. Two Senses of Natural: Some habits are natural according to the nature of the species (understanding of principles); others according to the nature of the individual (natural aptitudes). Some are entirely from nature; others partly from nature and partly from exterior principle.
2. Potency in Diverse Ways: Even what naturally pertains to a power may not pertain to it in all ways. In angels, it does not naturally belong to the understanding power that it knows all things by itself, since that would require being the act of all things (which belongs to God alone).
3. Nature’s Differentiation: Nature does not equally cause all diversities of habits; some habits can be caused by nature, others cannot. Therefore, not all habits follow the same pattern.

Important Definitions #

Habit (habitus) #

A quality that disposes a power to its proper operation, that by which someone uses a power when he wishes.

Understanding of Principles (intellectus, nous) #

The natural knowledge by which man immediately grasps axioms such as “the whole is greater than the part,” requiring no discursive reasoning. In Latin called intellectus; in Greek, nous.

Seeds of Virtue (seminalia virtutum) #

Natural principles or inclinations in the appetitive powers that serve as the beginnings of virtue, not yet perfected habits.

Phantasms (phantasmata) #

Imagery or mental images derived from sensory experience, from which the intellect abstracts intelligible forms.

Examples & Illustrations #

The Classmate with Exceptional Memory #

A high school classmate could read a three-to-four-page poem once and recite it perfectly from memory. He excelled in mathematics and received course credit without attending classes because professors recognized his exceptional understanding. This exemplifies natural aptitude based on favorable bodily disposition, permitting rapid learning.

Natural Inclinations in Children #

Berquist’s grandchildren display different personalities and natural inclinations from birth. Mothers especially, particularly those with multiple children, can discern a child’s natural temperament even in the womb by the movement and activity of the fetus.

Savant Twins and Prime Numbers #

Dr. Jonathan Sacks described twin brothers in a mental institute who communicated by reciting prime numbers to each other and found joy in discovering successively larger primes. When given a table of prime numbers, they engaged joyfully; when the numbers exceeded the table’s scope, their joy was lost. This illustrates how specialized natural abilities can constitute a person’s entire world of meaning.

Hardwick School’s Specialized Education #

A school for troubled children specializing in cultivating their particular talents—whether artistic, musical, or other—demonstrates how exterior principles can develop natural aptitudes, even when a child’s overall life remains troubled.

Questions Addressed #

Primary Question: Are Some Habits Natural? #

Resolution: Yes, according to both senses of natural (species and individual). Some habits arise entirely from nature; others partly from nature and partly from exterior principles. Understanding of principles is natural to humans by species; individual aptitudes are natural by individual nature; but practical moral virtues typically require exterior development through habituation.

Secondary Questions Arising #

1. How does hope relate to the pursuit of wisdom? Without hope of overcoming the difficulties of philosophical inquiry, one despairs and abandons the pursuit. Hope bridges the gap between loving wisdom and actually pursuing it.
2. What is the relationship between nature and reason/will? Reason and will themselves are natural to humans; some things are known and willed naturally. We must not create an absolute dichotomy between nature and reason.
3. Why does nature not provide all necessary habits? Because nature acts according to its mode. Some habits exceed what nature alone can produce; they require exterior principles or (in the theological context) divine infusion.