Understanding Teaching and Learning by T. Brian Mooney & Mark Nowacki

Author:T. Brian Mooney & Mark Nowacki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Education, Augustine, Aquinas, J.S. Mill, J.H. Newman, classic, texts, essays, collection, university, school, teaching, st andrews
ISBN: 9781845402952
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2011
Published: 2011-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Whether man can be taught by an angel?

The third point of inquiry is whether man can be taught by an angel, and it seems that he cannot. If an angel teaches, he must teach either interiorly or exteriorly. But he does not teach interiorly, for that belongs to God alone, as Augustine says. Nor does an angel teach exteriorly, it seems, because to teach exteriorly is to teach through some sensible signs, as Augustine says in the De Magistro. But the angels would have to appear to the senses if they were to teach us with sensible signs of this kind, but that happens only outside the ordinary course of nature and is, as it were, miraculous.

However, an angel who teaches invisibly does indeed teach interiorly in comparison to the teaching of a man who proposes his teaching to the pupil’s exterior senses. But, in comparison to the teaching of God, Who works within the soul by infusing light, the angel’s teaching is to be considered exterior.

But the angels teach us interiorly only insofar as they make an impression on the imagination. Phantasms impressed on the imagination are not sufficient for the actual function of the imagination unless we pay attention to them. But an angel cannot force us to pay attention because attention is an act of the will, on which God alone can make an impression. Therefore, not even by making an impression on the imagination can an angel teach us, since we cannot be taught via the imagination except by actually imagining something.

Further, the intellect of an angel is more removed from the intellect of a man than is a man’s intellect removed from his imagination. But the imagination cannot receive that which is in the human intellect, for the imagination can only receive particular forms, which the intellect does not contain. Therefore, the human intellect does not have a capacity for those realities which are in the angelic intellect, and, therefore, a man cannot be taught by an angel.

However, although the attention of the will cannot be forced, the attention of the sensitive part can be prevailed upon, as when someone is pricked, he must pay attention to the wound. Thus it is with all other sensitive powers which employ corporeal organs. Such [non-voluntary] attention suffices for imagination. Therefore it is possible for a man to be taught by an angel.

And, on the contrary, the human imagination can receive that which is in the human intellect, but in another fashion. Similarly, the human intellect can receive that which is in the angelic intellect, but after its own fashion. Although the human intellect is more adapted to the imagination in the same human subject (since they are both powers of one soul), yet in the same way it is more adapted to the angelic intellect because they are both immaterial. Therefore, an angel can teach us.

One might think that we cannot be taught by angels [without their appearing to the senses] except insofar as they enlighten the intellect.

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