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GILES OF ROME
ON THE ERRORS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
GILES OF ROME
ON THE ERRORS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
HERE BEGIN THE ERRORS OF THE
PHILOSOPHERS ARISTOTLE, AVERROES,
AVICENNA, ALGAZEL, ALKINDI, AND
RABBI MOSES (MAIMONIDES), COMPILED
BY BROTHER GILES OF THE ORDER
OF ST. AUGUSTINE
And a compilation of Aristotle's errors is placed first.
CHAPTER I
As it is the case that many wrong conclusions follow from one
faulty statement, so the Philosopher has drawn
many errors from one faulty principle.
I . For he believed nothing to be disposed in some condition in
which it previously was not, except it came to be
that way through a preceding motion. He held, moreover, that
there is no novelty except where there is change, taken properly.
Because, therefore, every change taken properly
is a terminus of motion, there can be no novelty without a
preceding motion. Now from this principle he concluded
that motion never began to be; since if motion began, the motion
was new. But nothing is new except through
some preceding motion. Therefore there was motion before the
first motion, which is a contradiction.
2. Further: he erred because he posited time never to have
begun. Now time always follows on motion, if, therefore,
motion never began, neither did time. Moreover, it
seemed to him that the principle of time involved a special
difficulty, For since an instant is always the end of the
past and the beginning of the future, a first instant cannot be
given, because there was a time before every instant,
and before any assigned time there was an instant. Time,
therefore, did not begin, but is eternal.
3. Further: because of what has already been stated. he was
forced to posit a mobile to be eternal and the world to
be eternal. For as one cannot give a time without motion, and
motion without a mobile, if time and motion are
Lternal, the mobile will be eternal, and so the world would never
begin. All of this is clear from Book VIII of the
Physics.
4. Further: he was forced to posit the heavens to be ungenerated
and incorruptible, and never to have been made
but always to have been. For since among the varieties of motion
only the circular is continuous--as is clear from
Book VIII of the Physics--if any motion is eternal, the circular
will be eternal. And since circular motion is proper
to the heavens--as is shown in Book I On the Heavens and the
Earth--it then follows that the heavens are uncreated
and that they were never made. Moreover, he had a special reason
why the heavens never began: because whatever
has the power to be forever in the future, always had the power
to be in the past. And since the heavens will never
cease to be, they did not begin to be.
5. Further: since, according to him, whatever comes about comes
from pre-existent matter, he concluded that there
could not be another world. Hence, God could not make another
world, since this one is constructed from all the
matter there is. This error also is found in Book 1, On the
Heavens and the Earth.
6. He held further that generation in this sublunary world would
never end, and that it never began. For corruption
precedes and follows every generation, and generation precedes
and follows every corruption. Because of this, since a
corruption has preceded any generation, while some generation has
preceded a corruption, it is impossible for generation and corruption
to have had a beginning; nor is it possible for them to
cease to be, since a corruption follows any generation, and a
generation follows any corruption. If, therefore, either generation
or corruption were to cease, there would be a generation
after the final generation, and a corruption after the final
corruption. Moreover, that a corruption precedes and follows
generation, he proved by way of motion. For something is
not generated except because something is corrupted; and so
corruption precedes generation and also follows it, since
every generable is corruptible, and every corruptible will be
corrupted of necessity. Thus also generation precedes corruption,
because nothing is corrupted except it was previously
generated; and generation follows because the corruption of
one thing is the generation of another. However, this error--that
generation and corruption neither begin nor end--can be
found in Book 1, and more expressly in Book 11, On Generation
and Corruption.
7. Further: since generation in this sublunary world is
brought about through the sun, he was forced to maintain
that the sun--to quote him--"will never cease to generate
plants and animals." This is clear from Book 1, On Plants.
8. Further: since, according to his posited principle, there
is no novelty without a preceding motion, he erred in maintaining
that something new could not proceed immediately
from God. This is clear in Book 11 of his On Generation and
Corruption, where he says that "the same thing, remaining
the same, always makes the same."
9. Further: he was constrained to deny the resurrection of
the dead. That he held it as erroneous that the dead should
rise again, is clear from Book 1, On the Soul. Also, in Book
VIII of the Metaphysics he held that the dead cannot return
to life except through many intermediaries; and if one does
return, it does not return numerically the same, because
things which have lost substance do not return numerically
the same, as is said at the end of Book 11, On Generation and
Corruption.
Now if someone were to wish to excuse Aristotle on the
ground that he is speaking in a naturalistic sense, this would
not do: because he believed that nothing new could proceed
from God immediately, but that every novelty comes about
by way of motion and natural operation.
10. Further: since he believed that nothing new could occur
except by way of motion and through the operation of
nature, he believed--as appears in Book I of the Physics
where he argues against Anaxagoras--that an intellect which
wants to separate passions and accidents from substance is,
to quote him, "an intellect seeking the impossible." On this
account it seems to follow that God cannot make an accident
without a subject.
11. Further: since by way of motion the generation of one
thing never occurs unless there is the corruption of another;
and since one substantial form is never introduced unless another
is expelled; and since the matter of all things possessing
matter is the same; it follows that there are not more substantial
forms in one composite than there are in another. Indeed,
to one who would consistently pursue this line of reasoning, it
would appear that there is but one substantial form in every
composite; and this seems to be the Philosopher's view.
Hence, in Book VII of the Metaphysics, in the chapter "On
the Unity of Definition," he holds the parts of a definition not
to be one, as he says, "because they are in one," but rather
because they define one nature.
Now if he means here one composite nature consisting in
many forms, then his view can be maintained; but if he
means one simple nature, and that there is only one form in
such a composite, it is false.
12. Further: he posited that where there is still water, or
a sea, at some time it was there dry, and conversely; because
time does not cease but is eternal, as is clear from Book I of
Meteors. Hence, he also had to say, necessarily, that one cannot
posit a first man or a first rainfall.
13. Further: since an intelligence is unable to move something
unless it is itself actually moving; and since intelligences are posited to
be in the best state when they are moving something; he said there were as
many angels, or as many intelligences, as there are orbs. This is quite
clear from Book XII of the Metaphysics.
Divine Scripture, however, contradicts this, saying:
"thousands of thousands tended to Him, and ten-thousand times a
hundred-thousand stood before Him."
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH THE ERRORS OF ARISTOTLE
ARE RESTATED IN SUM
These, therefore, are all of his errors in sum, namely:
1. That motion did not begin.
2. That time is eternal.
3. That the world did not begin.
4. That the heavens are not created.
5. That God could not make another world.
6. That generation and corruption neither began nor will
end.
7. That the sun will always cause generation and corruption
in this sublunary world.
8. That nothing new can proceed immediately from God.
9. That the resurrection of the dead is impossible.
10. That God cannot make an accident without a subject.
11. That there is but one substantial form in any composite.
12. That one cannot posit a first man or a first rainfall.
13. That there is no way in which two bodies can be in the
same place.
14. That there are as many angels as there are
orbs--because from this it follows that there are only 55 or 57.
Now certain men wanted to excuse the Philosopher's position
on the eternity of the world. But this attempt cannot
hold up, since he insists upon the aforesaid principle so as to
demonstrate philosophical truths. Indeed, he almost never
wrote a book of philosophy where he did not employ this
principle.
Again, aside from the above-mentioned errors, some men
wanted to impute to him the view that God knows nothing
outside Himself, so that this sublunarv world is not known to
Him--citing as reason for this view the words which are found
in Book XII of the Metaphysics, in the chapter "The Opinion
of the Fathers." But that they do not understand the Philosopher,
and that this is not his intention, is clear from what is
said in the chapter "On Good Fortune," where he says that
God, known through Himself, is the past and the future.
Moreover, other errors, with which we are not concerned as
they arise from an improper understanding of Aristotle, are
attributed to him.
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH IS REFUTED THE STATEMENT
WHICH IS FUNDAMENTAL FOR ALL
THE PHILOSOPHER'S ERRORS
Now all of his errors, if one investigates subtly, follow from
this position: that nothing new comes into being except there
be a preceding motion. This is, therefore, false: because God
is the First Agent, and being a non-instrumental agent, He
will be able to produce a thing without a preceding motion.
Now an agent by nature is an instrumental agent; but because
it is of the nature of an instrument that it move the
moved, motion is of necessity presupposed in its action. The
making, therefore, in the production of a first agent can be
without such motion. Creation, therefore, is not motion, because
motion presupposes a mobile. Creation, in truth, presupposes
nothing; nor is creation properly a change, because
all change is a terminus of motion; but, as is commonly held,
it is a simple procession of things from the first agent. Therefore,
whatever is argued by way of motion against the beginning
of the world, or against that which is held by faith, is
wholly sophistical.
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