Divine illumination
| Latin | illustratio divina; lumen intellectuale |
|---|---|
| Locus in Aquinas | Summa theologiae I, q. 84, a. 5; q. 79, a. 4 |
| Branch | Philosophical anthropology |
| Controlling authority | Catechism 39–43 and 153–155; Dei Filius; Thomistic synthesis of Augustine |
| Doctrinal standing | Faith's interior help and the natural light of reason are doctrine; the precise critique of Augustinian illuminationism is school theology |
| School | Thomism |
Divine illumination is, in Thomism, the soul's participated intellectual light from God, not a vision of the eternal types in this life as the object known.[1]
Light as principle, not a mirror of the ideas
Augustine had said that we see unchangeable truth in a light above our minds. Aquinas refuses to discard that language. In Summa theologiae I, question 84, article 5, he distinguishes two ways of knowing something in another. One is as in an object seen, as images in a mirror. In that way the blessed know all in the eternal types because they see God. The pilgrim intellect does not.[1][2]
The other way is as in a principle of knowledge, as we see by the sun what we do not stare at the sun to see. The intellectual light in us is a participated likeness of the uncreated light in which the types are contained. Psalm 4 is read accordingly: the light of the Lord's countenance is signed upon us. Illumination is therefore real. It is not a bypass of the senses, nor a vision of the divine ideas as objects in this life.[3]
Senses remain, and species are taken from things
The same question, articles 4 and 6, refuses to derive ordinary intelligible species from separate forms or from an Avicennian active intelligence that would make the body superfluous. If a man born blind cannot know colors, the soul does not come stocked with innate pictures of all sensibles. Intellectual knowledge is caused from sensible things as from a material cause, while the agent intellect is the higher cause that makes phantasms actually intelligible.[1]
Question 79, article 4, identifies the separate intellect of the faith with God the Creator, from whom the soul derives its light, not with a created cosmic mind. Illumination thus names both the natural intellectual light given with the spiritual soul and the further lights of faith and of glory. They are analogates, not three identical lamps. Catechism 153–155 treats the interior help of the Holy Spirit in the act of faith as distinct from public signs of credibility.[4]
Faith, reason, and the blessed
Dei Filius teaches that God can be known from creatures by natural reason, and that faith is a supernatural gift not owed to that reason. The two illuminations must not be collapsed. Natural light attains being, first principles, and God as cause. The light of faith attains God revealing. The light of glory, treated in question 12, raises the created intellect to see the essence. None of these is a private oracle replacing the Church's public doctrine.[5]
Aquinas therefore amends Platonism rather than baptizing it whole. Forms do not subsist outside God and outside things. The eternal types are the ideas in the divine mind. To know in them, for wayfarers, is to know by a participated light while taking species from creatures. Augustine's own later practice of seeking numbers of animals from the history of times and places is cited to show that he did not think the types were inspected as a catalogue.
What binds and what remains disputed
Catholic doctrine holds that God is the source of the mind's light, that grace interiorly assists faith, that no one sees the divine essence by natural power in this life, and that the blessed see God. The exact parsing of Augustine, the insistence that ordinary science needs phantasms, and the location of the agent intellect in each soul are Thomistic synthesis. Franciscan illumination theories that keep a stronger role for direct divine shining in every true judgment remain intramural Catholic theology when they do not deny the senses or the natural knowability of first principles.[3]
Fides et Ratio warns both against a rationalism that needs no gift and against a fideism that treats reason as darkness. Divine illumination, in the Thomistic sense, is the Catholic middle: every true act of understanding is from God as first cause, and still the creature really understands through its own power and through the world God made. That is why prayer for light and labor in study are not rivals.[6]
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Back to citation occurrence 1.2 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 84 — Primary account of intellectual knowledge of bodies, the turn to phantasms, and the interpretation of Augustine on knowing in the eternal types.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 39–43 — Authoritative teaching that purified creaturely language truly attains to God while remaining analogical and forever surpassed by the divine essence.
- Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 12 — Primary treatment of how God is known by us, including the beatific vision, the limits of natural knowledge, and the denial of quidditative vision of God in this life.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 79 — Primary treatment of the intellectual powers, including the possible intellect, the agent intellect as a power in the soul, speculative and practical intellect, and synderesis.
- Back to citation First Vatican Council, Dei Filius — Dogmatic constitution on God the Creator, the natural knowability of God, the distinction and harmony of natural and supernatural orders, and the gratuity of revelation.
- Back to citation John Paul II, Fides et Ratio — Encyclical on the harmony of faith and reason, the enduring value of Aquinas, metaphysical realism, and legitimate philosophical plurality within Catholic faith.