THE HUMAN NATURE ACCORDING TO ST.

THOMAS AQUINAS
Rev. Fr. Anthony P. Irineo, OAR

A lot of things happen in a day. If one is sensitive and conscious to the details that unfold
in every moment of his life, he would be amazed at some surprises of events. Even those
expected ones that usually occur as part of daily routine would not be wholly the same as it
previously happened. It is because, a whole day’s living, for a normal person, would account to
varied personal decisions and operations whether caused directly by the person himself or by
others to him, or by his interaction with nature,1 and by other intervening factors.
Some people believe that events in life are products of cause and effect. 2 Say, upon
waking up one day, you feel dizzy or not okay, then instinct would dictate that you would look
for an immediate cure and part of it is that you would naturally think of the cause of such
condition. You would surely recall the things that you have done in the previous day, let’s say,
what you have eaten, or taken in that may have caused such illness. That would also be the same
thing that would be asked of you by a doctor or by anyone.
Other people do not mind or are not even aware of that cause and effect principle but they
consider the belief that time to time occurrences may depend on fate. “Time just passes by,”
“people come and go,” and “changes happen naturally as they are,” are examples of such
expressions. For them, realities wrapped in various forms and sizes are bound to happen as they
are supposed to be. We are not in control of everything, they say. All that one is left to do is to
just let things be.
With all these and other real considerations, man may ask himself: Would it mean that
man has no freedom anymore, that he would only let events happen as they are, and there is no
need for him to actively participate in order to determine his future? Is man already determined
by his past, or by his fate? Borrowing the words of Michael Polanyi, he asked, “Does the nature
of man as a material system, as a machine, as a center of appetites, and as part of a society
subject to coercion by predominant interests, permit him to make any truly independent
choices?”3
Even Jose Garcia y Gasset claims that “man, in a word, has no nature; what he has is […]
history.”4 If man has no nature other than what he has himself done, then it does not necessarily
mean that he has no more capacity to alter his destiny.
Yes, man is more than what the possibility of cause and effect, of fate, and other factors
could offer. So, who is man, what is the nature of man, or the human nature? Man, indeed, is a
mystery.

1
Michael Polanyi expresses it as “the human person […] has come into being by
evolution from an inanimate universe.” cf. TheStudy of Man, (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1958),
43.
2
It has a foundation from Aristotle’s four causes, potentiality and actuality topics in
Physics and Metaphysics and followed by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages and also by
Machiavelli, Bacon, Hume, and others. (cf. www.wikipedia.com. on Causality).
3
Michael Polanyi, The Study of Man, 63.
4
This was noted during the lecture of Rev. Fr. Venusto Suarez on Philosophical
Anthropology last May 7, 2013. Cf. Jose Garcia y Gasset, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/gasset.
 St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/6-1274), a Dominican friar, born in Roccasecca, near Naples,
Italy, influenced by Aristotle, Augustine, pseudo-Dionysius, and later by his mentor, Albert the
Great, who, at his early academic pursuit referred to him as “the dumb ox,” 5 wrote outstanding
treatises and elucidations on theology, philosophy, ethics, and almost all fields of discipline.
Considered as the greatest, magnificent, highly regarded and most characteristic of his works is
the Summa Theologiae (1265-1274), though he was not able to complete it during his lifetime.
In Summa Theologiae, particularly in Part Ia, questions 75-102 deal with the human
nature.6 Related to this theme are particularities such as the human soul’s nature that
consequently presents the contrast between the body and the soul, the principle of life, embodied
(incarnate) spirit, substance, substantial unity, actuality, and operations of the spirit.
What does it mean when St. Thomas says that he will focus on human nature? He means
“to discuss the essential features of human beings, the things that make us human, or […] what it
is to be a human being.”7 Though natura has a complex range of meanings, it refers to the
essence or defining character of human beings. “In general, it is the essence of any thing, what its
definition signifies, that it is called its nature.”8
St. Thomas starts the Treatise on Man with a profound discussion on the nature of the
soul and then proceeds by applying this understanding of soul to man. 9 Why is this so? It is
because his working premise is that the human soul’s nature is a philosophical problem.10

a. The human soul’s nature

Is the soul a body? This query of St. Thomas had a basis on the persisting idea of dualism
espoused by Descartes at that time and also with Plato’s account of the soul. For Plato, “a
human being is not something composed of soul and body; rather, a human being is a soul using
a body, so that the soul is understood to be in the body somewhat as a sailor is in a ship.” 11 St.
Thomas rejected this position. He said:

This position is shown to be impossible. For an animal and a human being are natural,
sense-perceptible things. But this would not be the case if a body and its parts did not
belong to the essence of a human being and of an animal. Instead, on Plato’s view, the
whole essence of both the human being and an animal would be the soul, although the
soul is not anything sense-perceptible or material. And for this reason, it is impossible
that [something that is] a human being and an animal be a soul using a body.12

In question 75, Ic, St. Thomas deals with the nature of human’s soul:
5
Eleonore Stump, Aquinas, (New York: Routledge, 2003), 3.
6
Ibid, 9. For Robert Pasnau, the questions on human nature in the Treatise are contained
in QQ 75-89 or only fifteen questions (cf. Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 3)
and also referred to by Ma. Liza Ruth A. Ocampo, The Dignity of the Thinking Person, 20.
7
Ramon Lucas, Man, Incarnate Spirit (Italy: Circle Press, 2005), 7.
8
Summa Theologiae, 29.I ad 4. Cf. Ibid., 8.
9
Ma. Liza Ruth A. Ocampo, The Dignity of the Thinking Person (Manila: UST Publishing
House, 2006), 21.
10
Ibid.
11
Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, un. 2. Cf. Stump, Aquinas, 193.
12
Summa contra gentiles, II, 57. Cf. Ibid.
 … no body can be the first principle of life. For (i) it is clear that to be a principle of life,
or to be living, does not hold of a body as the result of its being a body; otherwise (ii)
every body would be living, or a principle of life. Therefore (iii) it holds of some body
that it is living, or else is a principle of life, through its being such a body. But (iv) as for
the fact that it is actually such, it has this form a principle that is called its actuality.
Therefore (v) the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the actuality
of a body.13

Moreover, question 75, a.1 tackles the problem of proving that the nature of soul is
spiritual (immaterial) understood in a broad sense. In the case of the human soul, being spiritual
translates to “something” subsistent:

Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or intellect has an operation
per se apart from the body. Now only that which subsists can have an operation per se.
For nothing can operate but what is actual: wherefore a thing operates according as it is;
for which reason we do not say that heat imparts heat, but that what is hot gives heat. We
must conclude, therefore, that the human soul, which is called the intellect or the mind, is
something incorporeal and subsistent.14

b. The principle of life

In question 75, Ic, St. Thomas used the term ‘first principle of life.’ What did he mean
about this notion? Robert Pasnau clarifies that, “in speaking of a principle all that Aquinas is
looking for is the cause of life, or the internal source from which life springs.” 15 But regarding
the notion of ‘first principle,’ this is what Pasnau explains:

… we will see various ways in which soul can be viewed as the first source, cause, or
principle of life. It is first in terms of being that which is primarily responsible for the
existence of a living being, and it is also first in terms of what it contributes to the
purpose of a living being. Here we are looking for that which is primarily responsible for
life, and Aquinas tells us that “life is displayed above all by two functions: cognition and
movement.” So to speak of soul as the first principle of life is to say that it is primarily
responsible for cognition and movement.16

However, there is an important point to be considered about this notion. Pasnau mentions
that:

Cf. Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (New York: Cambridge
13

University Press, 2002), 35.

14

ST I, q. 75, a.2, res. Cf. Ma. Liza Ruth A. Ocampo, The Dignity of the Thinking Person,
22-23.
15
Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 28.
16
Ibid., 29.
 Aquinas acknowledges […] when he allows that a body can be a principle of life […] He
grants that it makes sense to speak of bodily parts as principles of life. […] The eye is a
principle of vision; elsewhere he says that the heart is the principle of movement in
animals. […] But what Aquinas insists on is that nothing bodily can be the first principle
of life.17

c. Embodied (incarnate) spirit

In our encounter of the living body of a man, we do not actually see the body itself but a
man who is alive, that is, with body and the soul, or the spirit, psyche or the total person himself.
This is how it is elucidated by Ramon Lucas:

The expression “human body,” therefore, already contains the composition of matter and
spiritual form. We cannot speak of the “human body” considering it as only a body
because, insofar as it is a human body, it is by definition always informed by a spiritual
soul. […] Nor can we speak of body and soul in a kind of opposition, as if they were two
specifically distinct substances. We must speak of the only man who exists: “anima et
corpus non sunt distinct sicut res diversorum generoum vel specierum. […] Una enim et
eadem forma est per essentiam, per quam homo est ens actu, et per quam est corpus, […]
et per quam est homo.” Strictly speaking, therefore, it is incorrect to say that the human
body is for the soul because the expression “human body” already contains the notion of
a spiritual soul.18

For Ocampo, “the presence of spirit is the reason for the metaphysical grounding to any
claims to dignity in definitions like “incarnate spirit” and to a certain degree “person” is
defended.19

d. Substance

St. Thomas started in his Treatise that “human beings are composed of a spiritual and
corporeal substance.”20 This is somewhat “hard to imagine, at first glance, a clearer statement of
the dualist doctrine: the human mind is one thing, the human body another, each its own
independent substance,” says Pasnau. Referring to 75.2 where Aquinas argues that the human
soul subsists on its own, Pasnau continues:

Here he (St. Thomas) links being subsistent with being a substance, quoting from
Augustine approvingly (“it is the nature of mind both to be a substance and not to be a
corporeal”) and explaining that to be a substance in this context means to be subsistent
(sc). So there can be no doubt that Aquinas regards the soul as a substance.21

17
Ibid., 36-37.
18
Ramon Lucas, Man, Incarnate Spirit (Italy: Circle Press, 2005), 232.
19
Ma. Liza Ruth A. Ocampo, The Dignity of the Thinking Person, 15.
20
Summa Theologiae, q. 75 prologue.
21
Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 45.
 To understand further what Aquinas meant by saying that the soul subsists, Pasnau
writes, “to say that a thing subsists is to say virtually nothing at all, because the word ‘subsist’
has no settled meaning or even connotation in English, even as a technical philosophical term.” 22
In Aquinas’s writings, he treats the notion of subsistence as prior, and uses it to analyze the
notion of substance. In Summa Theologiae 29.2c, he claims that “things subsist that have
existence not in others, but in themselves.” In Quaestiones disputatae de potential 9.Ic, he
writes, “a thing subsists when it does not need some outside foundation in which it is sustained,
but is sustained in its own self.”23

e. Substantial unity

This topic on the substantial unity is St. Thomas Aquinas’s “most extensive, longest and
mature defense on man’s special unity.”24 The question 76, a.1 of the Summa Theologiae is his
cornerstone argument of human nature. As stated by Ocampo:

Aquinas syllogism on man’s unity asserts that it is by virtue of soul as form that he
enjoys substantial unity. He asserts that the form of man is rational. He identifies the
nature of man by virtue of the unity that he enjoys.25

Aquinas argues for man’s substantial unity by referring to the basic formulation of
“genus and species” that form the definition which in turn signifies the whatness of the
being in question. In his view, the formal principles of the definition, which is the
difference, account for substantial unity. He extends this treatment to the integration of
“formal principles” in the analysis of life; he leads us to the consideration that one has to
be aware of grades and levels of reality in order to grasp the nature of things. And in the
context of such hierarchy, man is presented with a special kind of unity in the class of
natural substances. It is in man that the phenomenon of “substantial unity” is properly
seen.26

f. Actuality

To have a clear comprehension of this concept, it would be helpful to have a background

about the metaphysical world according to St. Thomas. Eleonore Stump states:

The metaphysical world is ordered in such a way that at the top of the metaphysical
hierarchy there are forms – the angels […] – which exist independently and are not
configurational constituents of anything else. Near the bottom of the hierarchy are forms
that configure matter but do not exist independently of matter as configured things in
their own right. […] And in the middle are human souls, the amphibians of this
metaphysical world, occupying a niche in both the material and the spiritual realm. Like

22
Ibid.
23
Ibid., 48.
24
Ma. Liza Ruth A. Ocampo, The Dignity of the Thinking Person, 25.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid., 26.
 an angel, the human soul is itself a configured subsistent form; but like the forms of other
material things, the human soul has the ability to configure matter. 27

Moreover, Stump continues:

The human soul, then, is a configured configure. On the one hand, like an angel, it is
able to exist and function on its own, apart from matter. On the other hand, the human
soul is not, as Plato thought, a spiritual substance moving a body which is also a
substance in its own right; rather, the human soul is the substantial form constituting the
material substance that a human being is, and it configures matter, as material forms do.
So, for Aquinas, the human soul is the noblest and highest of the forms that configure
matter, but it is the lowest in the rank of intellectual subsistent forms, because it is mixed
with matter, as the intellectual subsistent forms that are angels are not. Aquinas sums up
his position this way: “the [human] soul has subsistent being, insofar as its being does not
depend on the body but is rather elevated above corporeal matter. Nevertheless, the body
receives a share in its being, in such a way that there is one being of soul and body, and
this is the being of a human” (QDSC un 2 ad 3). He goes on to say, “no part has the
perfection of its nature when it is separated from [its] whole. And so since the soul is a
part of human nature, it does not have the perfection of its nature except in union with the
body […] And so, although the soul can exist and intellectively cognize when it is
separated from the body, nonetheless it does not have the perfection of its nature when it
is separated from the body” (QDSC un 2 ad 5).28

Regarding the further description of this form that St. Thomas was referring to, Stump
states:

The substantial form that configures a human being allows for still further sets of
operations, namely, intellective and volitional processes. Because the human soul has
this distinctive set of capacities, Aquinas tends to call it ‘the intellective soul,’ or ‘the
rational soul’ to distinguish it from the nutritive soul of plants and the sensitive (i.e.
capable of perception) soul of animals generally. The intellective soul is thus that
configuration of matter on the basis of which something exists as this living human body.
There is not a configuration of matter that makes the body a human body and then
another configuration that is the intellective soul. As Aquinas says: “There is no other
substantial form in human beings apart from the intellective soul” (ST Ia.76.4)29

Hence, Aquinas claims, “in virtue of this one form, a human being exists as an actual
being, as a material object, as a living being, as an animal, and as a human being with cognitive
capacities.”30 For this reason, Aquinas “tends also to call the soul the act of the body; the soul
configures matter in such a way that the matter is actually a living human body.”31

27
Eleonore Stump, Aquinas, 200.
28
Ibid., 200-201.
29
Ibid., 201-202.
30
Summa Theologiae Ia.76.6 ad 1. cf. Ibid., 202.
31
Summa Theologiae Ia.75.1. cf. Ibid.
 g. Operations of the spirit

Going back to St. Thomas’s Summa Theologiae I, question 76, a.1 res, it says:

The same can be clearly shown from the nature of the human species. For the nature of
each thing is shown by its operations. Now the proper operation of man as man is to
understand; because he thereby surpasses all other animals. […] Man must therefore
derive his species from that which is the principle of this operation. But the species of
anything is derived from its form. It follows therefore that the intellectual principle is the
proper form of man.32

From the above statement, it is clear that “man’s proper activity is understanding but it is
one among the several activities that he is capable of performing.” 33 This intellectual faculty
allows man to know (to understand) the truth. According to Aquinas, the terms intellect and
reason have the same object: the truth. However, there is a need to distinguish intellect and
reason in order to grasp fully the kinds of powers or faculties of the soul.34

In question 79, a.8, St. Thomas provides the distinction:

I answer that, Reason and intellect in man cannot be distinct powers. We shall
understand this clearly if we consider their respective actions. For to understand is
simply to apprehend intelligible truth: and to reason is to advance from one thing
understood to another, so as to know an intelligible truth. And therefore angels who,
according to their nature, possess perfect knowledge of intelligible truth, have no need to
advance from one thing to another; but apprehend the truth simply and without mental
discussion, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. Vii). But man arrives at the knowledge of the
intelligible truth by advancing from one thing to another; and therefore he is called
rational. Reasoning, therefore, is compared to understanding, as movement is to rest, or
acquisition to possession; of which one belongs to the perfect, the other to the
imperfect.35

Man’s mode of understanding presupposes reason, intellect and mind. The question
regarding this matter is actually based on the general theory of intellectual powers of Aristotle
which he discussed in De anima. For Aquinas, man’s perfection lies in the apprehension of truth
which he attains through the act of understanding:

Understanding indicates simple and absolute knowledge. And one is said to understand
(intelligere) because in some sense he reads (legit) the truth within (intus) the very
essence of the thing. Reason, on the other hand, denotes the transition from one thing to
another by which the human soul reaches or arrives at knowledge of something else.36

32
Cf. Ma. Liza Ruth A. Ocampo, The Dignity of the Thinking Person, 32.
33
Summa Theologiae I, q. 77. cf. Ibid. 83-84.
34
Ibid. 86.
35
Ibid.
36
De Veritate q. 15, a.1 res., cf. Ibid., 87.
 Regarding understanding, particularly the discursive kind, Stump clarifies:

Discursive understanding is the hallmark of the rational soul. Reasoning is compared to

understanding as movement is to rest, or as acquisition is to possession. Aquinas
describes the via of man’s discovery of the truth in terms of movement and rest;
imperfection towards perfection; from potency to act. But the striking point that Aquinas
upholds throughout his reflection on the intellectus-ratio framework of human knowledge
is the human being’s real capacity to reach the truth. The discursive character of
rationality is not viewed as an obstacle but the particular way in which man’s soul as the
responsible principle of man’s “dual” powers for intellectus o ratio in the discovery of
the truth in time and history.37

Aside from those mentioned above, Aquinas also acknowledges these operations:

A proper sense makes judgments about its proper sensible, discerning it from others that
fall under the same sense – discerning white from black or green, for example. But
neither sight nor taste can discern white from sweet, because that which discerns between
two things must recognize both. Consequently, this discerning judgment must pertain to
the common sense, to which all memory apprehension are conveyed, as to their common
terminus.38

Moreover, there is another separate operation of the soul. About this operation, Pasnau
states:

Aquinas does not have a theory of consciousness. But neither does he make the false
assumption that there is some one place where consciousness happens. Indeed, one of the
consistent motifs of Aquinas’s work is his effort to account for the mind’s operations
without postulating this command center. The soul’s different capacities play different
roles, and what we take to be unified functions, such as consciousness, are actually
distributed over several capacities, working in tandem. The common sense is not the
magic place where consciousness happens, because consciousness happens all over the
mind.39

Lastly, of the human soul’s various capacities or operations, only two – intellect and will
– distinguish us as human. Pasnau presents this idea of Aquinas:

Most generally, a appetite is nothing other than a certain inclination toward something on
the part of what has the appetite (Summa Theologiae Ia2ae 8.Ic). Accordingly, the
function of an appetitive power just is to produce such appetites or inclinations: ‘the
operation of an appetitive power is completed when the agent is inclined toward its
object’ (Summa Theologiae 8I.Ic). In our case these inclinations come in the form of
desires, and indeed the Latin appetitus can often be plausibly translated as desire. So the
37
Ibid., 88.
38
Summa Theologiae 78.4 ad 2. cf. Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature,
192.
39
Ibid., 198.
 will operates, producing desires, and these desires in turn lead to action on the part of our
mind or body. ‘The act of will is a certain inclination toward something. […] An
inclination is a disposition of the mover in virtue of which the agent produces movement’
(Quaestiones disputatae de veritatae 22.I2c). Aquinas often insists that it is the whole
human being which moves, thinks, perceives, and so forth.40

h. Conclusion

Though man is a mystery but there many manifestations, ways, and realities in which
man is open and in fact, he directly participates in and involves with them, in order to really
understand his being as a human person. Man is substantially united, body and soul, and through
this reality, he must open himself to many ‘surprises’ that may come and go in every moment of
his life. He has the capacity to go beyond from his present condition but there remains his nature
that has history, and endowed with faculty and operations in order to actualize himself and with
the community. As spiritual, man is also open to realities beyond the ambit of time and space
through which he may realize that there is this divine Being whom he calls God who
continuously helps, nourishes, and completes his essence and meaning as a human being until the
time that he could arrive and share the promised reward of the Supreme Good Himself.

40
Ibid., 200-201.