Of the three great tasks of the master of theology – legere, disputare, praedicare (to lecture, to dispute and to preach)– perhaps the most distinctive of the medieval university was the disputation. There were two kinds of question that formed the basis of these public events: the quodlibetal question – literally, ‘what-you-will’ – in which the master did not set the scene as to what would be discussed. Here ingenuity and self-assertion, and the other vices of the intellectual, soon made themselves known, and triumph rather than truth was sometimes the goal. In less than a century, the quodlibetal questions came to involve only graduate students, as we might say, and the masters stayed away. The disputed question was a meatier occasion. The master posted a thesis he intended to defend and on the appointed day the whole university – or at least the relevant faculty – gathered, ready to test the mettle of the master. A first go at responding to difficulties posed to the thesis was the task of the assistant – this was part of his apprenticeship – but the magisterial response came, appropriately, from the master. He was obliged, within a set period of time after the public event, to present to the university stationer his final shaping of the question in written form so that others could obtain copies.
Although the written product is far from being a transcript of the public disputation, its literary form bears the impress of its origin. A question, a proposed answer and then difficulties to that answer. The master must not only respond to those objections but develop arguments on behalf of his own position. This was the genre Thomas adapted to his Summa theologiae. The so-called Disputed Question on Truth of Thomas thathas come down to us is a collection of some twenty-nine such disputations. What they certainly have in common is the time and place of their production: Paris, during the three years of Thomas’s first stint as a regent master, 1256–9. It is possible to see clusters and groupings among them, but each one stands by itself. What follows is the first and titular disputation of the collection.
QUESTION ONE: ON TRUTH
The question comprises six articles: (1) what is truth? (2) whether truth is found chiefly in intellect or in things; (3) whether truth is in the intellect only when it composes or divides; (4) whether there is only one truth whereby all things are true; (5) whether there is any truth apart from the first truth which is eternal; (6) whether created truth is immutable.
Article 1: What is truth?
It seems that the true is in every way the same as being.
1. Augustine in Soliloquies says that ‘the true is that which is’. But that which is, is nothing else but being. Therefore ‘true’ signifies in every way the same thing as ‘being’.
2. It has been said that they are the same according to supposits, but differ in notion [ratio]. In retort, the notion of anything is what is signified by its definition; but that which Augustine assigns as the definition of the true, having rejected other definitions, is that which is. Therefore since that which is fits both the true and being, it seems that they are the same in notion.
3. Moreover, things which differ in notion are such that one of them can be understood without the other; that is why Boethius, On the Hebdomads, says that God can be understood to be if the mind separates from him for the nonce his goodness. Being, however, can in no way be understood if true be separated from it because by the true is understood that which is. Therefore the true and being do not differ in notion.
4. Moreover, if the true is not the same as being it must be a disposition of it; but this it cannot be, for it is not a disposition that completely destroys, as if it followed that ‘It is true, therefore it is not being,’ as it does follow that ‘He is a dead man, therefore he is not a man.’ Similarly, it is not a diminishing disposition, otherwise it would not follow that ‘It is true, therefore it is,’ any more than it follows that ‘He has white teeth therefore he is white.’ Similarly it is not a contracting or specifying disposition because then it would not be converted with being. Therefore the true and being are in every way the same.
5. Moreover, things which have the same disposition are the same; but there is the same disposition for true and being; therefore they are the same. For it is said in Metaphysics 2.1 [993b30] that ‘As each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth.’ Therefore true and being are in every way the same.
6. Moreover, whatever are not the same must differ in some way; but the true and being in no way differ, because they do not differ in essence since every being is true through its essence, nor do they differ by any other differences because then they would have to belong to a common genus. Therefore they are in every way the same.
7. Again, if they are not in every way the same, true must add something to being; but it doesn’t since it is found in even more things than being is. This is evident from Metaphysics 4.16 [1011b25] where the Philosopher says that we define the true thus: ‘to say of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not.’ Thus true includes being and non-being. Therefore the true does not add anything to being and appears to be in every way the same as being.
ON THE CONTRARY:
[1] ‘The useless repetition of the same thing is frivolous’; accordingly, if the true were the same as being, it would be frivolous to speak of true being, and it isn’t. Therefore they are not the same.
[2] Again, being and good convert; but true does not convert with good, for something is true that is not good, such as that someone fornicates; therefore, since true and good do not convert, they are not the same.
[3] Moreover, according to Boethius in On the Hebdomads,‘to be and that which is are diverse’ in every creature; but the true signifies the being [esse] of the thing, therefore in created things to be true is different from what is [quod est[. But that which is is the same as being; therefore the true is different from being in creatures.
[4] Moreover, things related as prior and posterior must be diverse; but true and being are so related because as is said in the Book of Causes, ‘The first of created things is being [esse[,’ and the commentator on that same work says that all other things signify some form of coming to being and thus are posterior to being; therefore true and being are diverse.
[5] Moreover, things said commonly of cause and effect are in the cause more than in the effect and a fortiori more in God than in creatures. But these four things, being, one, true and good are appropriated to God: being pertains to essence, one to the person of the Father, true to the person of the Son and good to the person of the Holy Spirit. But the divine persons are distinguished not only in notion but really, hence they are not predicated of one another. A fortiori then these four ought to be more than notionally different in creatures.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that just as in demonstrable matters a reduction must be made to principles the intellect knows per se, so too in investigating what anything is, otherwise there would be an infinite regress and all science and knowledge of things would perish. That which the intellect first conceives as most known and in which all other concepts are resolved is being, as Avicenna says at the beginning of his Metaphysics. Hence all other conceptions of the intellect are formed by adding to being. But nothing can be added to being as if it were extraneous to it in the way that difference is added to a genus or accident to subject, because every nature is essentially being, and thus the Philosopher proves in Metaphysics 3.8 [998b22] that being cannot be a genus. But things are said to add to being insofar as they express a mode of being that the term being does not express, and this happens in two ways. In one way such that what is expressed is a special mode of being, for there are different grades of being insofar as different modes of being are grasped. The different genera of being are based on these modes. Substance does not add some difference to being which would designate some nature superadded to being; rather a certain special mode of being is expressed by the term substance, namely, per se being, and so it is with the other genera.
In another way, such that what is expressed is a general mode following on every being, mode can be taken in two ways: first, insofar as it follows on any being as such, second, insofar as it follows on one being in its relation to another. The first mode is subdivided into two, because it expresses something of being either affirmatively or negatively. But the only thing that can be absolutely affirmed of every being is its essence according to which it is said to be. That, according to Avicenna at the beginning of his Metaphysics, is the meaning of the term thing which differs from being insofar as the term being is taken from the act of existing [essendi] whereas the term thing expresses the quiddity or essence of the being. The negation that is absolutely consequent on every being is indivision, and this the term one expresses: one is nothing other than undivided being.
If however the mode of being is taken in the second sense, namely, insofar as one thing is ordered to another, this can be understood in two ways. First, according to the division of one thing from another; and the term ‘something’ [aliquid] expresses this, for something means, as it were, ‘another what’ [aliud quid]; hence just as a being is called one insofar as it is undivided in itself so it is called something insofar as it is divided from others. Second, according to one being’s harmony together with another, and this can only be if there is something whose nature it is to be in harmony with every being – and that is the soul, which ‘in a certain way is all things’, as is said in On the Soul 3. In soul there is the appetitive power and the cognitive power: the harmony of being with appetite is expressed by the term ‘good’, which is why at the beginning of the Ethics it is said that ‘the good is that which all seek’. The term ‘true’ expresses the harmony of being with intellect.
All knowledge is perfected by the assimilation of the knower to the thing known, such that assimilation is said to be the cause of knowledge, as sight insofar as it is disposed by the species of colour knows colour. For the first comparison of being to intellect is insofar as being is in accord with intellect, which accord is called the adequation of intellect and being, and in this the perfect notion of the true consists. What the true adds to being, accordingly, is the conformity or adequation of thing and intellect, on which conformity, as has been said, knowledge of the thing follows. Thus, a thing’s being is presupposed by the notion of truth but knowledge is a certain effect of truth. On this basis, truth or true can be defined in three ways.
In one way according to that which precedes the notion of truth and is that in which the true is grounded; thus Augustine defines it in Soliloquies, ‘The true is that which is,’ and Avicenna in his Metaphysics, ‘The truth of any thing is a property of its existence which is established in it,’ and some define it thus, ‘The true is the indivision of existence and what is.’
In another way truth is defined according to that in which the notion of true is formally perfected, and thus Isaac says, ‘Truth is the adequation of thing and intellect,’ and Anselm in On Truth writes, ‘Truth is rectitude perceptible to mind alone’ – by this rectitude is meant a certain adequation – and the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 4.16 [1011b25] that we define the true as ‘to say that what is is and that what is not is not.’
In a third way truth is defined according to an effect consequent on it, as Hilary says: ‘The true is declarative and manifestive’; and Augustine writes in On True Religion: ‘Truth is that whereby what a thing is is shown’; and in the same book: ‘Truth is that according to which we judge of interior things.’
Ad 1. It should be said that Augustine defines truth insofar as it has a foundation in reality and not insofar as the notion of true is completed in the adequation of thing and intellect. Or it could be said that when is not taken to signify ‘is’ is not taken to signify the act of existing but is a sign of the composing intellect, that is, it signifies the affirmation of a proposition. Thus to say that the true is that which is is understood as saying of something that it is. Then the definition of Augustine comes to the same thing as that of the Philosopher cited above.
Ad 2. The solution of this is evident from the foregoing.
Ad 3. It should be said that for something to be understood without another can be taken in two ways. In one way, when something is understood without something else, and thus things which differ in notion [ratione] are such that one can be understood without the other. That something is understood without another can be understood in a second way as understanding that the other does not exist, and in this way being cannot be understood without the true, because being cannot be understood without being in accord with or adequate to intellect. It is not necessary, however, that whoever understands the notion of being understands the notion of true, any more than it is necessary that whoever understands being understands the agent intellect, although without agent intellect nothing can be understood.
Ad 4. It should be said that the true is a disposition of being, not as adding some nature or as expressing some special mode of being, but something that is found generally in every being yet is not expressed by the term being. Hence it need not be a destroying or diminishing or partially contracting disposition.
Ad 5. It should be said that disposition is not taken there as it is in the genus of quality, but insofar as it implies a certain order. For since things that cause other things to exist are beings in a higher sense, and that which is the cause of truth is maximally true, the Philosopher concludes that a thing’s rank in being is the same as its rank in truth, such that where we find the highest being there we also find the true in the highest sense. This is not so because being and true are the same in notion, but because something has being to that degree that it is fashioned to be adequate to intellect, and thus the notion of true follows the notion of being.
Ad 6. It should be said that true and being differ in notion because there is something in the notion of true that is not in the notion of being, not because something is in the notion of being that is not in the notion of true. Hence they do not differ by essence nor are they distinguished from one another by opposed differences.
Ad 7. It should be said that the true is not in more than being; for being in a certain sense is said of non-being insofar as non-being is grasped by the intellect, hence in Metaphysics 4.1 [1003b5] the Philosopher says that negation and the privation of being are called being in one sense of the term, and Avicenna too at the beginning of his Metaphysics says that an enunciation can only be formulated of being because that of which a proposition is formulated must be apprehended by intellect. From which it is clear that whatever is true is in some way being.
Ad [1]. To the first contrary argument that was advanced it should be said that it is not frivolous to say, ‘true being’, because something is expressed by the term true that is not expressed by the term being, but not because they really differ.
Ad [2]. It should be said that although for this man to fornicate is evil, anything insofar as it has being is fashioned to be conformed to intellect and the notion of true follows on that. Thus it is evident that the true neither exceeds nor is exceeded by being.
Ad [3]. It should be replied that when it is said that ‘to be and what is are diverse’, the act of existing is distinguished from that to which the act belongs; the term being is taken from the act of existing, not from that to which the act belongs, and therefore the argument does not follow.
Ad [4]. It should be said that the true is posterior to being insofar as the notion of the true differs from the notion of being in the way stated above.
Ad [5]. It should be said that that argument is deficient in three things: first, because although the divine persons are distinguished really, what is appropriated to the persons does not differ really but only in notion; second, because although the persons are really distinguished from one another, they are not really distinguished from the essence, hence neither is true, which is appropriated to the person of the Son, really different from being, which is taken from the essence; third, because although being, one, true and good are more unified in God rather than in created things, none the less it does not follow from the fact that they are distinguished in God that they should also be distinguished really in created things. This happens when things which given their notions are not one in reality, such as wisdom and power, although they are really one in God, are really distinct in creatures. But being, one, true and good, given their notions, are such that they are one thing, hence wherever they are found, they are really one, although there is a more perfect unified thing when they are united in God than when they are united in creatures.
Article 2: Is truth primarily in intellect rather than in things?
It seems not.
1. For the true, as has been said, is converted with being; but being is chiefly found in things rather than in the soul; and so it must be with the true.
2. Moreover, the thing is in the soul not through its essence but through its likeness [species[, as the Philosopher says in On the Soul 3.13. Therefore if truth were found chiefly in the soul, it would not be the essence of the thing but its likeness or species, and the true would be a likeness of being existing outside the mind. But the species of the thing existing in the soul is not predicated of the thing which is outside the soul, nor is it convertible with it, for to be converted is to be predicated of one another; thus the true would not convert with being, which is false.
3. Moreover, whatever is in something is appropriate to that in which it is; therefore if truth were principally in the soul, the judgement of truth would be according to the appraisal of the soul, and we would be back in the error of the ancient philosophers who said that whatever one thought in his mind is true, so two contradictories are true simultaneously, which is absurd.
4. Moreover, if truth is chiefly in intellect, something pertaining to intellect would have to be put into the definition of truth. But in the Soliloquies, Augustine rejects such a definition as, ‘The true is that which is as it seems,’ because then what is not seen would not be true, which is clearly false of stones hidden in the bowels of the earth. Similarly he reproves and rejects this suggestion, ‘The true is whatever is as it appears to a knower, if he can and wishes to know it,’ because then there would only be truth when a knower could and wished to know it. Other definitions in which something of intellect is put are open to the same criticism. Therefore truth is not chiefly in intellect.
ON THE CONTRARY:
[1] The Philosopher in Metaphysics 4.4: says ‘The true and the false are not in things but in the mind.’
[2] Moreover, ‘truth is the adequation of thing and intellect,’ but this adequation can only be in the intellect; therefore, truth too is only in the intellect.
SOLUTION:
It should be said that in things which are said of many according to prior and posterior, it is not necessary that what is first called by the common name be the cause of the others; rather it is that in which the notion of the common predicate is found complete. For example, healthy is first predicated of the animal in which the perfect notion of health is first found, even though medicine is called healthy insofar as it is a cause of health. Therefore, since the true is said of many according to prior and posterior, it must be said first of that in which the complete notion of truth is first found. The complement of any motion or operation is in its term. But the movement of the cognitive power is terminated in the soul – for the known is in the knower in the mode of the knower – whereas appetitive movement terminates in things. Hence it is that the Philosopher in On the Soul 3.15 [433a14] speaks of a kind of circle in the acts of the soul, insofar as the thing which is outside the soul moves the intellect and the thing understood moves appetite which aims to reach the thing from which the motion began. Because good, as was said, indicates the order of being to appetite, the true indicates its order to intellect. Hence the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 6.4 [1027b26] that good and evil are in things, but the true and false are in the mind. The thing is called true only insofar as it is adequated to intellect. So the true is primarily in intellect and secondarily in things.
It should be noted that things relate to practical intellect differently than they do to the speculative, for the practical intellect causes things, and thus is the measure of the things that come about because of it, but speculative intellect, because it receives from things, is in some way moved by those things, and thus they measure it. From this it is clear that natural things, from which our intellect derives knowledge, measure our intellect, as is said in Metaphysics 10.2 [1053a31], but they are measured by the divine intellect in which all things exist, just as all artifacts are in the intellect of the artist. Thus, the divine intellect measures but is not measured, the natural thing is measured and measures, but our intellect is measured by and does not measure natural things, but only artificial things. The natural thing, placed between two intellects, is called true because of adequation to both. It is called true according to its adequation to the divine intellect insofar as it fulfils that to which it is ordered by the divine intellect, as is clear from Anselm in On Truth and from Augustine in On True Religion and from Avicenna in the definition mentioned, namely: ‘The truth of anything is the property of its existence which is established in it.’ The thing is called true according to its adequation to human intellect insofar as it is fashioned to give a true account of itself, just as, as on the other hand, those things are called false which ‘are so made as to seem what they are not or as they are not’, as is said in Metaphysics 5.29 [1029b21]. The truth is in things in the first sense before the second, because its comparison to the divine intellect is prior to its comparison to the human intellect. Hence, even if the human intellect did not exist, things could still be called true in relation to the divine intellect. But if both intellects were absent and, impossible hypothesis, the things remained, no notion of truth would remain.
Ad 1. The response to the first, then, is that, as is clear from what has been explained, the true is said first of the true intellect and secondarily of the thing adequated to it, and in both senses it is converted with being, but diversely, because insofar as it is said of things it converts with being for every being is adequated to the divine intellect – through predication and can adequate itself to the human intellect, and conversely. If, however, it is understood as it is said of intellect, then it converts with the being outside the mind, not through predication but by way of consequence, because some being must answer to every true understanding, and conversely.
Ad 2. The solution of the second is clear from this.
Ad 3. It should be said that that which is in something follows on it only when it is caused by its principles. Hence light, which is caused in air by something extrinsic, namely the sun, follows the motion of the sun rather than air. Similarly truth, which is caused in the mind by things, does not follow the appraisal of the soul but the existence of things, ‘since insofar as the thing is or is not, speech is true or false’, and similarly in intellect.
Ad 4. It should be said that Augustine is speaking of the vision of the human intellect, on which the truth of the thing does not depend: there are many things which our intellect does not know. But there is nothing that the divine intellect does not actually know and that the human intellect does not know potentially, since the agent intellect is called ‘that whose role is to make everything’, and the possible intellect ‘that in which all things come to be’. Hence it being actually seen by the divine intellect can be placed in the definition of the true thing, but not by human intellect, save in potency, as is clear from the foregoing.
Article 3: Is truth only in the intellect composing and dividing?
It seems not.
1. For the true is signified according to some comparison of being and intellect, but the first comparison of intellect to things is insofar as it forms the quiddities of things in conceiving their definitions; therefore it is in this operation of intellect that the true is first and chiefly found.
2. Moreover, ‘the true is the adequation of things and intellect’; but just as the intellect composing and dividing can be adequate to things, so too the intellect understanding the quiddities of things; therefore truth is not only in the intellect composing and dividing.
ON THE CONTRARY:
[1] There is what is said in Metaphysics 6.4 [1027b23]: ‘The true and false are not in things but in the mind; while with regard to simple things and essences falsity and truth do not exist even in thought.’
[2] Moreover, in On the Soul 3.6 [430a26]: ‘The thinking of indivisibles is found in those cases where falsehood is impossible.’
RESPONSE:
It should be said that just as the true is first in intellect and secondarily in things, so too it is first found in the act of intellect composing and dividing rather than in the act of intellect forming the quiddities of things.
The notion of the true consists in the adequation of thing and intellect. it is distinct things that are equal: – A thing is not adequated with itself hence the notion of truth is first found in intellect when it first begins to have something proper to itself that the thing outside the soul does not have, yet something corresponding to it between which an adequation can be expected.
The intellect forming the quiddity of things has only the likeness of the thing existing outside the soul, as sense does when it receives the sensible species. But when it begins to judge the thing apprehended, then that judgement of intellect is something proper to it not found outside in things, and when it is adequated to that which is outside in the thing, it is called a true judgement.
The intellect judges the thing apprehended when it says that it is or is not, which is the intellect composing and dividing. Hence the Philosopher also says in Metaphysics 6.4 [1024b17] that ‘composition and division are in the intellect and not in things’. And thence it is that truth is first found in composition and division of intellect. Secondarily, however, and later the true is said to be in the intellect forming definitions; thus a definition is called true or false, by reason of a true or false composition, as when the definition is wrongly attributed to something; for example if the definition of circle were attributed to triangle, or even when the together, fit parts of a definition form an oxymoron and cannot possibly for example if something were called insensible animal. The implied composition, that something could be an animal and lack senses, is false. The definition is only called true or false with reference to composition, much as a thing is called true with reference to the intellect.
From what has been said it is evident that ‘true’ is first said of the composition and division of the intellect; second, of the definitions of things, insofar as some composition is implied by them; third, of things insofar as they are adequated to the divine intellect, or such that they can be adequated to the human intellect; fourth, of man insofar as he can choose what he says, the true or the false, or who creates a true or false impression of himself or of others by what he says or does.
The spoken is said to be true in the same way as the thoughts that it expresses.
Ad 1. It should be said that, although the formation of the quiddity is the first operation of the intellect, the intellect does not have anything of its own that it might adequate to the thing because of it; so there is not truth there in the proper sense.
The response to the rest is clear.
Article 4: Is there a single truth whereby all things are true?
It seems not.
1. For Anselm says in On Truth that just as time is to temporal things so is truth to true things; but there is a single time for all temporal things; therefore truth must be so related to true things that there is only one truth.
2. But it will be said that truth is said in two ways: first, such that it is the same as the entity of the thing, as Augustine defines it in Soliloquies, ‘The true is that which is,’ and on this basis there must be as many truths as there are essences of things; second, insofar as it expresses itself in intellect, as Hilary defines it, ‘The true is declarative of being,’ and in this sense, since something can be manifested to intellect only through the power of the first divine truth, all truths are in a certain way one insofar as they activate the intellect, just as all colours are one in the way in which they activate sight, namely by reason of one light. However, time is numerically one for all temporal things; if then truth is to true things as time is to temporal things, it would be necessary for there to be numerically one truth for all true things, and it would not suffice that all truths are alike in the way they move us or with respect to one exemplar.
3. Moreover, Anselm in On Truth argues in this way: if there are several truths for several true things, truths would have to vary according to the varieties of true things; but truths do not vary according to the variations of true things, because, if true or correct things were destroyed, the truth and rectitude according to which they are true or correct would remain; therefore there is only one truth. He proves the minor by this that, when the sign is destroyed, the correctness of signification still would remain, because it is correct when it signifies that which the sign signifies; for the same reason, if any true or right thing were destroyed, its correctness or truth would remain.
4. Moreover, in created things there is nothing which is its truth, as the truth of man is not man nor the truth of flesh flesh; but every created thing is true and since no created thing is truth, therefore any truth is uncreated and thus there is only one truth.
5. Moreover, the only thing greater than the human mind is God, according to Augustine; but truth, as Augustine proves in Soliloquies, is greater than the human mind. It could not be said to be less, for then it would be for the human mind to decide concerning truth, which is false – it does not judge it but according to it, as a judge does not judge the law but in accordance with it, as is said in On True Religion. Similarly, the human mind cannot be said to be equal to it, because the soul judges all things in accordance with truth; it does not judge all things in accordance with itself. Therefore, only God is truth and there is only one truth.
6. Moreover, Augustine proves in the Eighty-three Questions that truth is not perceived by bodily sense in this way: only the mutable is perceived by the senses; but truth is immutable; therefore it is not perceived by the senses. It could similarly be argued that every created thing is mutable, but truth is not mutable, therefore it is not a creature. So it is something uncreated and there is only one truth.
7. Moreover, in the same place Augustine argues for the same conclusion in this way: ‘Everything sensible has something similar to the false that cannot be distinguished from it, for, to make a long story short, everything we perceive with the body, even when it is not present to the senses, is perceived by us through images as if still present, as in dreams or anger.’ But truth does not have something similar to the false; therefore truth is not perceived by the senses. Similarly, it could be argued, every created thing has something similar to the false insofar as it has some defect; therefore no created thing is truth, and thus there is only one truth.
ON THE CONTRARY:
[1] Augustine in On True Religion says, ‘As similarity is the form of similar things, so truth is the form of true things’; but of many similar things there are many likenesses; therefore, there are many truths of the many true things.
[2] Moreover, just as every created truth derives from uncreated truth as from its exemplar and has its truth from it, so every intelligible light derives from the first uncreated light as from its exemplar and takes its power of manifesting from it; we say, however, that there are many intelligible lights, as is clear in Dionysius; therefore it seems that in a similar way it must be conceded that there are simply many truths.
[3] Moreover, although colours have the ability to activate sight from the power of light, it is none the less said without qualification that there are many different colours, nor can they be said to be one save in a manner of speaking; therefore, although all created truths express themselves to the intellect by the power of the first truth, it does not follow from this that there is but one truth – save in a manner of speaking.
[4] Moreover, just as created truth can only manifest itself to intellect by the power of uncreated truth, so no power of the creature can do anything except in virtue of uncreated power; but we would in no way say that there is only one power of all the things having power. Neither should we say, therefore, that in some way there is one truth of all true things.
[5] Moreover, God relates to things as a threefold cause – namely efficient, exemplar and final – such that by appropriation the entity of things is referred to God as efficient cause, their truth to God as exemplar cause, their goodness to God as final cause, although each of these can be properly effects of any mode of causality. But we do not thereby say that there is one goodness for all good things or one entity for all beings; therefore neither should we say that there is one truth for all true things.
[6] Moreover, although there is one uncreated truth in which all created truths are exemplified, they are not exemplified in the same way. Although it relates to all in the same way, all do not relate to it in the same way, as is said in the Book of Causes. Necessary and contingent things differently exemplify in truth itself. But a different way of imitating the divine exemplar brings about a diversity in created things. Therefore absolutely speaking there are many created truths.
[7] Moreover, ‘Truth is the adequation of thing and intellect.’ But there cannot be the same adequation in specifically different things; therefore, since true things are specifically different, there cannot be one truth of all true things.
[8] Moreover, Augustine, in On the Trinity 12.15, says, ‘It must be believed that the nature of the human mind is so connected to intelligible things that it is in a light of the same kind as itself that it knows whatever it knows.’ But the light in which the soul knows all things is truth; therefore truth is of the same kind as the soul itself, so the truth must be a created thing: hence in diverse creatures there are diverse truths.
RESPONSE:
It should be said, and it is evident from what has been explained, that truth is found properly in the human and divine intellects, as health is found in the animal; but truth is found in other things in relation to intellect, as health is said of other things insofar as they are causative or conservative of the health of the animal. Truth is found first and properly in the divine intellect, secondarily and properly in the human intellect, secondarily and improperly in things, because only in relation to one of the other two truths. The truth of the divine intellect is only one, from which many truths are derived by the human intellect, ‘as from a man’s face there are many likenesses in a mirror’, as the Gloss says on Psalm II.2. ‘Truths are diminished by the sons of men.’ The truths which are in things are as many as the entities of things.
The truth said of things in comparison to the human intellect is in a certain way accidental to them because, on the supposition that the human intellect never was or ever could be, things in their essences would still remain. Truth said of things in relation to the divine intellect is inseparable from them since they can subsist only when the divine intellect produces them in existence. In things, therefore, truth said in relation to divine intellect is prior to that said in relation to the human intellect, since things relate to the divine intellect as to a cause, but to the human intellect as to an effect insofar as the intellect takes knowledge from things. Therefore a thing is said to be true chiefly with reference to the truth of the divine intellect rather than to the truth of the human intellect. So if truth is taken properly as that by which all things are principally said to be true, then all things are true by one truth, namely, the truth of the divine intellect, as Anselm says of truth in On Truth. If, however, truth is taken properly as that by which things are secondarily said to be true, then there are many truths in many true things, and there are even many truths of one true thing existing in several minds. However, if truth is taken improperly, as when all things are said to be true, then there are as many truths as there are true things, but there is only one truth of each true thing. When they are called true either from the truth that is in the divine intellect or the truth in the human intellect, this is similar to the way in which food is named healthy from the health that is in the animal, not from an inherent form. But when the thing is called true from the truth that is in it, which is nothing other than entity as adequate to intellect or as adequating intellect, then it is denominated from an inherent form, as food is called healthy from its own quality.
Ad 1. It should be said that time is to temporal things as a measure to the measured; hence it is clear that Anselm speaks of that truth which is the measure of all true things, and this is only numerically one, as time is one, which is the conclusion of the second argument. However the truth which is in the human intellect or in things themselves is not compared to things as an extrinsic and common measure to the measured, but either as the measured to the measure, as it is of the truth of the human intellect, and thus it must vary according to the variety of things; or as an intrinsic measure, as it is of the truth which is in the things themselves, and these measures too ought to be multiplied according to the plurality of the measured, as there are diverse dimensions of diverse bodies.
Ad 2. We concede the second.
Ad 3. It should be said that the truth which remains when things are destroyed is the truth of the divine intellect, and this is absolutely one in number. The truth which is in things or in the soul, however, varies according to the variety of things.
Ad 4. It should be responded that when it is said that ‘nothing is its own truth’, things which have complete being in nature are understood, just as when it is said that ‘nothing is its own existence’. Yet the existence of the thing is created, and in the same way the truth of the thing is something created.
Ad 5. It should be said that truth according to which the soul judges of all things is the first truth; for just as from the truth of the divine intellect innate species of things flow into the angelic intellect thanks to which it knows all things, so from the truth of the divine intellect as from an exemplar the truth of first principles by which we judge all things comes into our intellect. And since we cannot judge by it except insofar as it is a similitude of first truth, we are said to judge all things according to the first truth.
Ad 6. It should be said that that immutable truth is the first truth, and this is neither perceived by the senses nor something created.
Ad 7. It should be said that this created truth does not have anything like the false, although every creature has something similar to the false insofar as it is deficient; but the truth is not taken from that part of the created thing which is deficient, but it is insofar as it recedes from defect that it is conformed to first truth.
Ad [1] To the first of the arguments adduced to the contrary it should be said that similarity is properly found in both similar things; truth however, since it is a certain agreement of intellect and thing, is not properly found in both, but only in intellect. Hence, since there is one intellect, namely the divine, in conformity with which all things are and are said to be true, all true things must be true with reference to one truth, although in several like things there are diverse likenesses.
Ad [2] It should be said that although the intelligible light is exemplified by the divine light, light is said properly of created intelligible lights; truth, however, is not properly said of things modelled by the divine intellect and that is why we do not speak of one light as we speak of one truth.
Ad [3] The same should be said about colours, because they too are properly called visible, although they are only seen because of light.
Ad [4] and [5] The same response should be made to the fourth concerning power, and the fifth concerning entity.
Ad [6] It should be said that, although they are defective examples of divine truth, this does not prevent things from being true by one truth, not many, properly speaking, because that which is imperfectly received in modelled things is not properly called truth as is the truth of the exemplar.
Ad [7] It should be said that although things which are diverse in species are not adequate to the divine intellect by one adequation on the part of the things themselves, the divine intellect, to which all things are adequate, is one, and on its part there is one adequation with respect to all things, although all things are not adequate to it in the same way. Therefore, in the manner mentioned, there is one truth of all things.
Ad [8] It should be said that Augustine speaks of the truth which the divine mind models in our mind in the way in which a likeness of the face is caused in a mirror, and truths of this kind effected in our mind by the first truth are many, as has been said. Or it might be said that the first truth is in a way of the genus of mind, taking genus in a broad sense, insofar as all intelligible or incorporeal things are said to be of one kind, in the way employed by Acts 17.28: ‘For we are also his offspring.’
Article 5: Is any truth other than first truth eternal?
It seems not.
1. For Anselm, speaking of the truth of statements in the Monologion, says ‘Whether or not truth is thought to have a beginning or end, truth cannot be confined by any beginning or end’; but every truth is understood either to have a beginning or end or not to have a beginning or end; therefore no truth is confined by beginning or end, but this is to be eternal. Therefore, every truth is eternal.
2. Moreover, whatever continues in being when its being is destroyed is eternal, because whether it is held to be or not to be it follows that itis, and at any time it must be said of anything that it either is or is not. But on the destruction of truth the being of truth follows, for if truth does not exist it is not true that truth does not exist, and nothing can be true save by the truth. Therefore the truth is eternal.
3. Moreover, if the truth of statements is not eternal, a time must be assigned when it is not; but then this statement would be true, ‘There is no truth of statements.’ Therefore the truth of statements must be given, which is contrary to what is claimed. Therefore it cannot be claimed that the truth of statements is not eternal.
4. Moreover, the Philosopher proves that matter is eternal in Physics 1. 15 – though this is false – because it remains after its corruption and is prior to its generation from the fact that if it corrupts it corrupts into something and if it is generated it is generated from something. But that from which something is generated and into which it corrupts is matter. Similarly, if truth could either corrupt or be generated, it would follow that it was prior to its generation and after its corruption, because if it is generated it is changed from not being to being and if it is corrupted it is changed from being to not being, but when it is not it is true that there is no truth, which of course cannot be if truth does not exist. Therefore truth is eternal.
5. Moreover, whatever cannot be thought not to be is eternal, because whatever can not be can be thought not to be. But even the truth of statements cannot be thought not to be, because the only way intellect can think anything is as true. Therefore the truth of statements is eternal.
6. Moreover, that which is to be always was future and that which is past will always be past. But this proposition about the future is true because something will be and the proposition about the past is true because something is past. Therefore, the truth of the proposition about the future always was and the truth of the proposition about the past will always be so. Therefore, not only the first truth is eternal, but many others as well.
7. Moreover, Augustine says in On Free Will that ‘nothing is more eternal than the definition of circle or that two and three are five’; but the truth of these is created. Therefore, some truth other than the first truth is eternal.
8. Moreover, the truth of a statement does not require that someone actually utter it; it suffices that there be that about which a statement can be made; but before the word was there was something to speak of, even apart from God; therefore, before the world came to be there was the truth of statements. But what existed prior to the world is eternal; therefore the truth of statements is eternal. The middle is proved thus: the world was made from nothing, that is, after nothing; therefore before the world was its not being was; but a true statement is made not only of what is but also of what is not: just as the statement that something is is true, so is the statement that something is not, as is clear from On Interpretation 9. Therefore before the world was there was that about which a true statement could be made.
9. Moreover, whatever is known is true while it is known; but God knew all enunciable things from all eternity; therefore the truth of statements is from all eternity, and thus many truths are eternal.
10. But it will be objected that from this it does not follow that they are true in themselves but only in the divine mind. On the contrary, something is said to be true as it is known and all things are known by God from all eternity not only insofar as they are in his mind but also insofar as they are existing in their proper natures: Ecclesiasticus 23.29: ‘For all things were known to the Lord God before they were created, so also after they were perfected he beholdeth all things.’ And thus he does not know things differently after they have been made than as he knew them from all eternity. Therefore, from all eternity there were many truths, not only in the divine intellect, but in themselves.
11. Moreover, something is said to be absolutely insofar as it is complete; but the notion of truth is completed in intellect; if then from all eternity there were several true things in the divine intellect, it must be conceded absolutely that there are many eternal truths.
12. Moreover, Wisdom 1.15 says, ‘For justice is perpetual and immortal.’ But truth is a part of justice, as Cicero says in the Rhetoric 2.53; therefore it is perpetual and immortal.
13. Moreover, universals are perpetual and incorruptible; but the true especially is universal since it is convertible with being; therefore truth is perpetual and incorruptible.
14. But it will be said that it is not as such but only in a manner of speaking that the universal does not corrupt. On the contrary, something should be denominated from what belongs to it as such rather than from what is accidental to it; if then truth as such is perpetual and incorruptible it can only corrupt or be generated accidentally, and it must be conceded that truth speaking universally is eternal.
15. Moreover, God was prior to the world from all eternity; therefore the relation of priority was eternally in God; but if one of relatives is given, the other must also be; therefore the posteriority of the world to God is from all eternity. Therefore, from all eternity there was something other than God to which truth in some way pertains, and thus the same conclusion as before.
16. But it will be objected that the relation of priority and posteriority is not something in things but only in the mind. On the contrary, as Boethius says at the end of the Consolation of Philosophy[5. pr 6]. God is naturally prior to the world even if the world always were; therefore the relation of priority is a relation in things and not simply in the mind.
17. Moreover, the truth of signification is correctness of signification; but from all eternity it was correct that something is signified; therefore the truth of signification was from eternity.
18. Moreover, it was eternally true that the Father generated the Son and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from them both. But these are several truths; therefore there are several truths from all eternity.
19. But it will be objected that these are true because of one truth. So it does not follow that there are many truths from all eternity. On the contrary, for the Father to be is not the same thing as generating the Son, and for the Son to be is not the same thing as the breathing forth of the Holy Spirit; but from the fact that the Father is the Father, this is true, ‘The Father generates the Son,’ or ‘The Father is the Father,’ and from the fact that the Son is the Son it is true that ‘The Son is generated by the Father.’ Therefore, propositions of this sort are not true by one truth.
20. Moreover, although man and capable of laughter are convertible, the truth of the following propositions is not the same: ‘Man is man,’ and ‘Man is capable of laughter,’ for the reason that it is not the same property that is predicated by the terms ‘man’ and ‘capable of laughter’; similarly the name Father and the name Son do not signify the same property. Therefore there is not the same truth in the two propositions.
21. But it will be said that these propositions are not from all eternity. On the contrary, whenever there is an intellect that could enunciate an enunciation is possible; but from all eternity there was the divine intellect understanding the Father to be the Father and the Son to be the Son and therefore enunciating them, since according to Anselm, in the highest spirit to understand and to speak are the same; therefore the foregoing enunciations are from all eternity.
ON THE CONTRARY:
[1] Nothing created is eternal, but every truth other than the first is created. Therefore only the first truth is eternal.
[2] Moreover, being and true convert, but only one being is eternal. Therefore only one truth is eternal.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that as was replied earlier truth implies an adequation and commensuration, and thus something is called true as it is called commensurated. A body is measured both by an intrinsic measure, such as line, surface or depth, and an extrinsic measure, as the placed is measured by place and motion by time and cloth by the yard. So also something can be called true in two ways: in one way from inherent truth and in another way by extrinsic truth as all things are denominated true from the first truth. Because truth which is in the mind is measured by the things themselves, it follows that not only the truth of the thing but also the truth of intellect or statements which signify what is understood is denominated from the first truth. For this adequation or commensuration of intellect and thing it is not required that both of the terms be actual, for our intellect can now be adequate to things which will be but are not now, otherwise this would not be true, ‘The Antichrist will be born.’ Hence this is denominated true from the truth which is intellect alone, even when the thing itself is not. Similarly too the divine intellect can be adequate from eternity with things which were not from eternity but come to be in time, and thus it is that temporal things can be denominated true from eternal truth. If therefore we take the truth of created true things inherent in them, which we find both in things and in the created intellect, neither the truth of the things nor of statements is eternal, since the things themselves or the understandings whereby these truths inhere are not from eternity. If however we take the truth of created true things as they are all denominated true by the extrinsic measure which is the first truth, then the truth of them all, both of things and of statements and of understandings, is eternal. It is the eternity of truth of this kind that Augustine pursues in the Soliloquies and Anselm in the Monologion. And so in On Truth, Anselm says, ‘You can understand how in my Monologion I proved the highest truth not to have a beginning or end through the truth of speech.’
The first truth which relates to all can only be one. For in our intellect truth is diversified only in two ways: first, because of the diversity of the things thought, about which intellect has diverse thoughts, on which follow diverse truths in the mind; second, from diverse ways of understanding: Socrates’s running is one thing, but mind, which by combining or separating understands time as well, as is said in On the Soul 3.11, differently understands Socrates’s running as present, past or future, and according to these forms diverse conceptions in which diverse truths are found. Neither of these modes of diversity can be found in divine knowledge: he does not have diverse thoughts of diverse things but knows them all in a single knowing, because he knows them all in one, namely, in his essence –‘not dispersing his thought in each’, as Dionysius says in On the Divine Names 7. Similarly his knowledge does not involve any time, since it is measured by eternity which abstracts from all time while containing all time. It follows then that there are not many truths from all eternity.
Ad 1. It should be said that, as Anselm interprets himself in On Truth, the truth of enunciations is not enclosed by a beginning and end, ‘not because speech was without a beginning, but because it could not be thought that speech might be and its truth be absent’, and the statement in question was that whereby something about the future is truly signified. From which it is apparent that he did not wish to construe the inherent truth of the created thing or speech to be without beginning and end, but rather the first truth by which as an extrinsic measure the enunciation is called true.
Ad 2. It should be said that we find two things outside the mind, namely, the thing itself and the negations and privations of the thing, which do not relate to intellect in the same way. The thing itself because of the form it has from the divine intellect is adequate as artefact to art, and in virtue of this same form is fashioned to be adequate to our intellect insofar as it causes knowledge of itself by means of its similitude received in the soul. But the non-being considered outside the mind does not have something whereby it might be equated to the divine intellect or knowledge of it be caused in our intellect; insofar as it is equated to any intellect this is not due to non-being but to intellect itself which receives in itself the notion of non-being. The thing which is something positive outside the mind has in itself something whereby it can be called true, but non-being does not so that whatever truth is attributed to it is due to intellect. Therefore when it is said that ‘it is true that truth is not’, since the truth there signified is of non-being, it has being only in intellect; hence on the destruction of the truth which is in the thing there follows only the truth which is in intellect, and it is clear that one cannot conclude from this that the truth which is in intellect is eternal. It must indeed be in an eternal intellect, and this is the first truth; hence from the argument is shown that only the first truth is eternal.
Ad 3 and 4. This provides the solution to both the third and fourth objections.
Ad 5. It should be said that it cannot be thought that there is absolutely no truth, although it is thinkable that there is no created truth, just as it is thinkable that no creature exists: for the intellect can think of itself as not being and not understanding, though it never thinks without being or thinking. For it is not necessary that what intellect understands it understands itself to understand, because it does not always reflect upon itself. So it is not inappropriate if it thinks that the created truth without which it cannot think is not.
Ad 6. It should be said that the future as future does not exist, and similarly the past as such; hence it is the same with the truth of future and past as with the truth of non-being, from which only the eternity of the first truth can be concluded, as was said above.
Ad 7. It should be said that the saying of Augustine should be understood as meaning that those things are eternal insofar as they are in the divine mind, or eternal is to be taken as perpetual.
Ad 8. It should be said that although a true statement can be of either being or non-being, it is not the case that being and non-being relate to truth in the same way, as is evident from the foregoing, from which the solution to the objection is also clear.
Ad 9. It should be said that God knows many enunciables from all eternity but he knows them all in one knowing; hence from all eternity there is only the one truth through which divine knowledge of many things in future time was true.
Ad 10. It should be said, as is evident from the foregoing, that the intellect is not only adequate with those things which are actual but even with things that are not, especially the divine intellect for which nothing is past or future. Hence, although things were not from all eternity in their proper natures, the divine intellect was adequate to things future in time in their proper nature, and therefore it has true knowledge of things from all eternity even in their proper nature, although the truths of things were not from all eternity.
Ad 11. It should be said that, although the notion of truth is completed in intellect, the notion of the thing is not completed in intellect. Hence, although it is conceded absolutely that the truth of all things was from all eternity because they were in the divine intellect, it cannot be conceded simply that true things were from all eternity because they were in the divine intellect.
Ad 12. It should be said that that is understood of divine justice, or, if it is understood of human justice, then it is called perpetual in the way natural things are called perpetual, as we say that fire always moves upward because of the inclination of nature, unless it is impeded. And because virtue, as Cicero says, is ‘a habit in the manner of nature and consonant with reason’, insofar as from the nature of virtue there is an unfailing inclination to its act although it is sometimes impeded. Therefore, at the beginning of the Digest of Canon Law too, it is said that ‘justice is the constant and perpetual will always to give each his due’. However, the truth of which we are speaking is not a part of justice, but the truth that is in those making judgement.
Ad 13. It should be said that the statement that the universal is perpetual and incorruptible is explained by Avicenna in two ways: in one way insofar as it is called perpetual and incorruptible by reason of particulars, which never begin or end according to those holding the eternity of the world – for according to philosophers the purpose of generation is to achieve perpetuity in the species which cannot be achieved in the individual. In another way insofar as perpetual means what is not corrupted as such but only incidentally because of the corruption of the individual.
Ad 14. It should be said that something is attributed to a subject in two ways: in one way positively, as being borne upward is attributed to fire, and a thing is denominated per se from such a thing rather than from some accident: for we say that it belongs to fire to be borne upward and to be of the number of things which are borne upward rather than to things which are borne downward, although sometimes accidentally fire is borne downward, as in fired iron. Sometimes something is attributed to a thing per se by way of remotion, namely insofar as there are removed from it things which are such as to bring about the opposite disposition. Hence if something belongs to something accidentally, that contrary disposition is stated simply, as unity is attributed per se to prime matter not by the union of a form but by removal of diversifying forms, hence, when distinguishing forms come to matter, it is rather said to be absolutely many matters rather than one. And so it is in the proposal: for the universal is not called incorruptible as if it had some form of incorruption but because material conditions, which are the cause of corruption in individuals, do not belong to it as such. Hence the universal existing in particular things is said simply to corrupt in this or in that.
Ad 15. It should be said that, although the other genera as such posit something in the real order – quantity just as quantity expresses something – only relation is such that it does not posit something in the real order, because it does not express something but to-something. That is why there are some relations which posit nothing in reality but are only in the mind, and this comes about in four ways, as can be inferred from remarks of the Philosopher and Avicenna. First, when a thing is referred to itself, as when it is said, ‘a thing is the same as itself’, for if this relation posited something in the real order, added to that which is said to be the same, there would be an infinite regress in relations, because the relation by which a thing would be called the same would be the same as itself and so on to infinity.
Second, when the relation itself refers to something. For it cannot be said that paternity refers to its own subject by some other mediating relation, because that mediating relation would require another mediating relation, and so to infinity. Hence the relation between paternity and its subject is not a real relation but of reason alone.
Third, when one of related terms depends on the other but not vice versa, as knowledge depends on the knowable, but not the reverse; hence the relation of knowledge to the known is a real relation, but not that of the known to knower, which is of reason alone.
Fourth, when being is compared to non-being, as when we say that we are prior to those who will come after us; otherwise the same thing would have an infinity of relations, if generations should extend indefinitely into the future.
From the last too it appears that the relation of priority posits nothing in reality, but is in the intellect alone; both because God does not depend upon creatures, and because such a priority implies a comparison of being to non-being. Thus it would not follow from this that there is some other eternal truth, apart from the divine intellect, which alone is eternal, and is First Truth.
Ad 16. It should be said that, although God is naturally prior to all creatures, it does not follow that this relation is one of nature. But because that which is said to be prior and that which is posterior are understood by a consideration of nature, as the knowable is said to be naturally prior to knowledge, although the relation of the knowable to knowledge is not a real one.
Ad 17. It should be said that the remark, ‘If signification did not exist it is correct that something is signified’ is true in the order of things existing in the divine intellect, just as, the chest not existing, it is right that the chest has a hinge, according to the ordering of art in the artisan. So this is no basis for claiming that there is an eternal truth other than First Truth.
Ad 18. It should be said that the notion of truth is founded on being. Although three persons or properties are posited in the divine, it cannot be held that there is more than one existence there, because existence is said only of God essentially, and all of these statements – for the Father to be or to generate, for the Son to be and to be generated – insofar as they refer to the thing, there is but one truth which is the First and eternal Truth.
Ad 19. It should be said that, although the Father is Father by one thing and the Son Son by another, namely paternity and filiation, yet that whereby the Father is and that whereby the Son is is the same, because both exist by the divine essence which is one. The notion of truth is not founded on the notion of paternity and of filiation as such, but on the notion of being; but paternity and filiation are one essence, and thus there is the same truth of both.
Ad 20. It should be said that the property signified by ‘man’ and by the word ‘risible’ are not essentially one, nor do they have one existence, as is the case with paternity and filiation, so there is no parallel.
Ad 21. It should be said that the divine intellect knows things no matter how diverse in a unique cognition, even those which have different truths. So much the more it knows with a single knowledge what is understood of the persons. Hence even of all these there is only one truth.
Article 6: Is created truth immutable?
It seems that it is.
1. Anselm in On Truth says, I‘see that by this argument it is proved that truth remains immobile’; the argument referred to concerned the truth of signification as is clear from its premisses; therefore the truth of statements is immutable, and for the same reason the truth of the things they signify.
2. Moreover, if the truth of a statement is changed, it would especially change when the thing changed; but the truth of a proposition survives the changing of the thing; therefore the truth of the enunciation is immutable. Proof of the middle: according to Anselm truth is a certain correctness insofar as something fulfils that which it means in the divine mind. But the proposition, ‘Socrates sits,’ is taken in the divine mind as it signifies Socrates’s sitting, which it means even if Socrates is not sitting. Therefore, even if Socrates is not sitting, truth remains in it, and the truth of the quoted proposition is not changed even if the thing is changed.
3. Moreover, if truth changes this can only be because the things in which truth is have changed, just as forms are said to change only insofar as their subjects change; but truth is not changed when true things change, because true things having been destroyed, truth remains, as Augustine and Anselm prove. Therefore truth is entirely immutable.
4. Moreover, the truth of the thing is the cause of the truth of the proposition, ‘Because the thing is or is not, speech is true or false,’ but the truth of the thing is immutable; and so then is the truth of the proposition. Proof of the middle: Anselm in On Truthproves that the truth of the enunciation remains immobile insofar as it fulfils what is in the divine mind; similarly any thing fulfils what is in the divine mind in order that it might have it. Therefore the truth of any thing is immutable.
5. Moreover, that which always remains after every change is completed never changes; for in alteration of colours we do not say that the surface is changed, because it remains whatever change of colour occurs; but truth remains in the thing whatever change of the thing occurs; therefore truth is immutable.
6. Moreover, where there is the same cause there is the same effect; but the same thing is the cause of the truth of these three propositions: Socrates will sit, sat and sits, namely, Socrates’s sitting; therefore their truth is the same. But if one of the three is true, it is necessary that one of the other two is always true: for if it is sometimes true that Socrates sits, it always was and always will be true that Socrates sat or Socrates will sit; therefore the one truth of the three propositions is always the same, and so it is immutable. And so by the same reasoning is any other truth.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Causes being changed, effects are changed, but the things which are the cause of the truth of the proposition change. Therefore the truth of propositions changes.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that something is said to change in two ways: in one way because it is the subject of change, as we say that the body is mutable, and in this sense no form is mutable, which is why it is said that ‘the form remains in its invariable essence’. Hence, since truth is signified in the manner of a form, the present question is not whether truth is mutable in this way. In another way something is said to be changed because it itself comes to be changed, as we say that whiteness is changed because the body is altered because of it. It is in this sense that we ask whether truth is mutable.
For purposes of clarification it should be noted that that in terms of which there is a change is sometimes said to be changed and sometimes not: for when it is inherent in that which is moved with reference to it, then it itself is said to be changed, as whiteness or quantity are said to be changed when something is changed with respect to them, because they themselves succeed one another in the subject because of this change; however, when that with reference to which there is change is extrinsic, it is not moved by the change, but remains immobile, as place is not said to be moved when something changes place. Hence it is said in Physics 4.4 that ‘place is the immobile term of the container’, because local motion is not a succession of places in one placed thing but rather of many things placed in one place. But there is a twofold change of inherent forms which are said to change: general forms are said to change otherwise than do special forms. For the special form does not remain the same either in being or in understanding after the change, as whiteness does not remain after the alteration takes place; but the general form after the change remains the same in notion though not in being: after the change from white to black, colour remains according to the common notion of colour, though not the same species of colour.
It was said above that a thing is denominated true from the first truth as from an extrinsic measure, but from inherent truth as from an intrinsic measure. Hence created things vary in their participation in the first truth, although the first truth according to which they are called true in no way changes. This is what Augustine says in On Free Will 2.12: ‘Our minds see sometimes less sometimes more of truth itself, but it remains in itself neither increasing nor decreasing.’ If however we take the truth inherent in things, then truth is said to change insofar as some things are changed according to truth.
Hence, as was said earlier, truth is found in creatures in two ways, in the things themselves and in the intellect. For the truth of action is contained under the truth of the thing and the truth of the enunciation under the truth of intellect which it signifies. The thing is said to be true in comparison to the divine and to the human intellect. If therefore the truth of the thing is understood according to its order to the divine intellect, then indeed the truth of the mutable thing changes, not into falsity, but into another truth, for truth is the most general form since the true and being are convertible. Hence, just as the thing remains being after no matter what change, although it has existence through different forms, so the true always remains but by another truth, because, whatever form or privation it acquires through change, through it it is conformed to the divine intellect which knows it whatever its disposition is. If the truth of the thing is taken with respect to human intellect or conversely, then sometimes there is a change from truth to falsity, sometimes a change from one truth to another.
Since ‘truth is the adequation of thing and intellect’, and if from equals equals be taken equals remain, although not the same equality, it is necessary that, when intellect and thing are changed in the same way, truth remains but a different one, for example if Socrates is seated it is understood that Socrates sits and after he is no longer seated he is understood not to sit. But if something be taken from one of equals but not from the other, or unequal portions be taken from both, inequality necessarily results, which is to falsity as equality is to truth. So it is that, given a true understanding, the thing is changed but not the understanding, or conversely either both are changed but not in the same way, falsity results, and thus there will be a change from truth to falsity. For example, if Socrates being white he is understood to be white, the understanding is true; if, however, later he is understood to be black, although Socrates remains white, or conversely Socrates becomes black and is still understood to be white, or having changed to pallor is understood to be red, there will be falsity in the intellect. Thus it is clear how truth changes and how truth does not change.
Ad 1. It should be said Anselm speaks there of first truth insofar as all things are said to be true by it as by an extrinsic measure.
Ad 2. It should be said that, because intellect reflects on itself and understands itself as it does other things, as is said in On the Soul 3.9, what pertains to intellect, insofar as it pertains to the definition of truth, can be understood in two ways: in one way, insofar as they are certain things, and thus truth is said of them in the same way it is of other things, such namely that, just as a thing is called true because it fulfils what is in the divine mind by retaining its nature, so the enunciation is called true by retaining its nature which is dispensed to it in the divine mind, nor can it be taken from it so long as the enunciation remains; in another way insofar as it is compared to the things understood, and thus the enunciation is called true when it is adequate to the thing, and such truth changes, as has been said.
Ad 3. It should be said that the truth which remains when true things are destroyed is the first truth, which also does not change when things are changed.
Ad 4. It should be said that while the thing remains there can be no change of it according to its essentials, just as it is essential to the enunciation that it signifies that which it was instituted to signify: hence it does not follow that the truth of the thing is in no way mutable, but that it is immutable with respect to the essentials of the thing, the thing remaining – with respect to which, however, change happens through the corruption of the thing. But with respect to accidentals change can happen even though the thing remains; and thus with respect to accidentals there can be a change in the truth of the thing.
Ad 5. It should be said that any change having occurred, truth remains but not the same one, as is evident from the foregoing.
Ad 6. It should be said that the identity of truth depends not only on the identity of the thing but on the identity of understanding, just as the identity of the effect depends on the identity of the agent and patient; however, although it is the same thing that is signified by the three propositions, there is not the same understanding of them because in the composition of the understanding time enters. Hence according to the variation of time there are diverse understandings.