[This article is part of a series of posts comprising a critique of Lutheran Christology, and the doctrine of ubiquity in particular]
[I provide full citations for each quote to make citations elsewhere easier for myself and other readers]
Aristotle on Place
In book 4 of his Physics, Aristotle expounds his theory of place and how bodies are circumscribed and contained in their respective locations.
I have tried to condense and boil down Aristotle’s view of place and location to a number of key citations from this section of his writings:
“When, therefore, another body occupies this same place, the place is thought to be different from all the bodies that come to be in it and replace one another.” (Aristotle, Physics, 4.1, 208b5)
“When what surrounds, then, is not separate from the thing, but is in continuity with it, the thing is said to be in what surrounds it, not in the sense of in place, but as a part in a whole.” (Aristotle, Physics, 4.4, 211a29-30)
“If then a body has another body outside it and containing it, it is in place, and if not, not.” (Aristotle, Physics, 4.5, 212a)
“Some things are per se in place, namely every body which is movable either by way of locomotion or by way of increase is per se somewhere, but the heaven, as has been said,' is not anywhere as a whole, nor in any [ro] place, if at least, as we must suppose, no body contains it.” (Aristotle, Physics, 4.5, 212b)
“So, when you have a homogeneous substance which is continuous, the parts are potentially in place: when the parts are separated, but in contact, like a heap, they are actually in place.” (Aristotle, Physics, 4.5, 212b)
In metaphysics we distinguish intrinsic and extrinsic extension. Intrinsic extension is the order of the parts to other parts in a whole, and the order of all of the parts to the whole. Extrinsic extension should be defined as the position of the parts outside each other in a place.
Aristotle notes that some philosophers try to conflate the place of a body with the extension of that body:
“The extension between the extremities is thought to be something, because what is contained and separate may often be changed while the container remains the same (as water may be poured from a vessel)—the assumption being that the extension is something over and above the body displaced.” (Aristotle, Physics, 4.6, 211b14)
Aquinas’ commentary on this passage explains exactly what the objection is: “It seems that place is some middle space between the boundaries of the containing body, as though there were something there besides the body moved from one place to another. For if nothing were there besides the contained body, it would follow either that place is not distinct from the thing in place or that what exists within the confines of the container’s boundaries cannot be place” (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Book 4, ch. 6, n. 460)
Aristotle rejects the idea that extension and space are the proper definition of place. If there were some independent extension, then there would be an infinite number of places in the same spot. Once again, Aquinas shows how this faulty definition of place (reducing to the extension between the limits of a surface, such as a vessel containing water) will ultimately leads to this:
“If the dimensions of the space that is between the boundaries of the containing body are place, it follows that place can be transported. For it is clear that, when a body is transported, such as a jug, the space within the jug is transported, since that space can never be except where the jug is. Now, whatever is transported to another place is penetrated (according to those who hold the doctrine of space as place) by the dimensions of the space into which it is transported. Therefore, it follows that other dimensions enter the dimensions of the jug’s space; consequently, there would be another place of place, and many places would be existing together.” (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Book IV, ch. 6, n. 462)
Contrary to the Lutherans, Aristotle viewed circumscription and external extension as essential and defining characteristics of a body:
“Body is what has extension in all directions” (Aristotle, Physics. 3.5, 204b20)
“Determined by surface is the definition of body.” (Aristotle, Physics, 3.5, 204b5)
“Now a continuum is that which is divisible into parts always capable of subdivision, and a body is that which is every way divisible. A magnitude if divisible one way is a line, if two ways a surface, and if three a body. Beyond these there is no other magnitude, because the three dimensions are all that there are, and that which is divisible in three directions is divisible in all.” (Aristotle, De Caelo, 1.1, 268a6-10)
In his paper on Aristotle’s view of bodies, Christian Pfeiffer agrees with this same conclusion (Christian Pfeiffer, “Aristotle on Being in the Same Place,” in ΣΩΜΑ: Körperkonzepte und körperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie und Literatur, ed. Thomas Buchheim, David Meißner and Nora Constanze Wachsmann [Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2016], 365-368) that three-dimensional extension is the Aristotelian definition of body.
I also agree with Pfeffer’s conclusion that Aristotle’s principle of non-coincidence (i.e., two bodies cannot be in the same place) is prior to his view of place as the immobile surface limit containing bodies. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence in support for Pfeffer’s conclusion is that Aristotle uses the principle of non-coincidence to reject other theories of place, rather than using his theory of place to explain why two bodies cannot occupy the same place. For example, Aristotle says that place cannot be a body because then there would be two bodies in the same place (Physics, 4.1, 209a6-7)
Thomist Metaphysics on Quantity, Extension, Place, and Position
John of St. Thomas has an excellent discussion under four questions concerning the metaphysics of place. He first defines extrinsic place as “that body or surface which is circumscribed around and contains the thing located.” (John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus [Laurentius Arnaud, 1678], pg. 469)
Motion occurs in place as in a term, namely the term “to which.” This is one of the reasons why we say that place is immobile, unlike a vessel, which can move with the body it contains. Place is immobile, because if it did move, it would move to another place. There would then be a place of a place (infinite regress).
Aristotle famously gave the analogy of a ship anchored in a flowing river. Even though the surface around the ship may be changing, we ought not say that its place is changing. Poinsot explains why: “Therefore, the ultimate surface, which corresponds to the located thing, contains and encompasses it as subordinate to the first locator and the surrounding, which is the sky. Thus, even though different surrounding surfaces may succeed the located thing, because they succeed in the same subordination to the first locator, namely the sky, it is said to remain the same place not according to the nature of the surface absolutely but as of the locator, from its subordination to the first locator, just as fire is said to remain the same even though one material is gradually consumed and another succeeds it because it always succeeds under the same order to the form.” (John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus [Laurentius Arnaud, 1678], pg. 471)
John Poinsot on “Where” (Ubi) - “Similarly, it cannot be understood that something is moved to a place unless it is changed in itself and subjected or applied to that place; this subjection and application at least implies a new relation to the place to which it is newly subjected, which did not exist in the body when it was not applied to such a place. However, a new relation requires a new proximate foundation, and this is the body itself considered in itself, for it is indifferent whether it is in this place or absent from it. Therefore, something is superadded to the body, and this we call "where," by which a body is affected by the mode of application and subjection to the externally circumscribing place, which is the place. Thus, from these two principles, namely from motion and the relation of conjunction or application to the place, we infer that "where" is given.” (John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus [Laurentius Arnaud, 1678], pg. 472)
What does Thomism say about the different types of presence? What definitions do they provide? It should be remembered that another important context in which medieval and early modern theologians and scholastic divines discuss metaphysical concepts such as place and location is angelology, in particular how angels (being immaterial separate substances) are said to be “in” this or that particular place and have the relation of ubi (where). To this area we turn to glean further insight into the Thomist metaphysics of location, place, and external extension.
Aquinas taught that angels are located in places through their operation and “touch of power”. (Commentary on the Sentences, I, d. 37, q. 3, a. 1; Summa Contra Gentiles, II.56; Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 52, Art. 1).
While bodies are located in place through the contact of their dimensional quantity, angels are in a place by an application of their power/operation. This way of thinking about angelic location was challenged by figures such as Henry of Ghent (who pled that he ultimately did not know to make sense of angels being present through their operations) and Duns Scotus, who argued that Aquinas’ teaching was prohibited by the Condemnations of 1277 in Paris. This research is based on the following paper: (Daniel D. Novotný & Tomáš Machula, “Ways of Angelic Location: 16th-Century Dominican Summistae on Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 52, art. 1,” in Summistae: The Commentary Tradition on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae from the 15th to the 17th Centuries, ed. Lidia Lanza & Marco Toste [Leuven University Press, 2021], 283-315).
Cajetan addressed this issue by teaching that angels have a contact of power to a place, which is a relation of presence. He further gives four different foundations for the foundation of such a presence (none of which appear to solve the problem):
1) First Absolute Act - This refers to the substantial form of a thing or its non-relative accidental form. For angels, this would be quality. This cannot be a foundation for its operative presence (the phrase I will use from now on to describe angelic location) since the first absolute act and quality of angels are immaterial and separated from place.
2) First Relative Act - The relative accidental form of a thing. This cannot be the foundation for angelic presence since a change in a relation flows from a change in something else, and it is difficult to see how this would apply to an angel. Since angels were created by God before the existence of the world, they did not simply begin to be place because the world exists. There must be something else which causes them to be located in this rather than that particular place.
3) Second Immanent Act - The actual exercise of a power of thing that remains within the agent (examples would be volition and cognition). Angels cannot have this since they don’t exist in places simply by thinking about them
4) Second Transient Act - The actual exercise of a power of thing terminates outside the agent. These types of acts presuppose circumscriptive change through local motion, which does not apply to angels since they are immaterial separated substances.
Cajetan distinguishes a few different types of presence (Commentaria in Summam Theologicam Angelici Doctoris Sancti Thomae Aquinatis (Joseph Van In: H. Prosper, 1892), I:423):
Circumscriptive Presence: the dimensions of the quantitative parts of the placed thing are commensurate and equal to the dimensive quantity of the place which contains that thing.
Definitive Presence: the placed thing is definitely present here and not there. This type of presence is subdivided by Cajetan:
1) Substantial Presence: the placed thing is formally present (not in virtue of accidents).
2) Causal Presence - the placed thing is causally related to the place.
3) Ordering Presence- a proportion between an agent and a patient (action-passion relation).
4) Approximating Presence - A relation of immediate proximity of an agent to a paint preceding the action in the order of nature.
5) Operational Presence - immediate relation of agent and patient
Cajetan gives the analogy of a sailor and his ship to illustrate these types of causal presence:
“These three modes of [causal] presence can be made clear with the example of a sailor and a ship. The sailor is first present to the ship by the presence of the order that exists between his own power and the ship, insofar as it is directible by him. Then it is present by virtue of the presence of approximation, because by nature he is understood to be there first, before he operates. Third, the sailor is present by actual operation, whether this relation of presence, which concurs with the operation, is the same as that of moving to the moved, whether it is distinguished from that, as it was said.” (quoted by Novotny & Machula, pg. 292)
Cajetan says that some of these types of presence are problematic, namely substantial [definitive] presence and approximating [definitive] presence. Cajetan rejects this particular concept of substantial presence since while (he claims) it is possible for a substance to be in a place without a quantity, there is no foundation for this:
“And on the affirmative side of substantial presence, the reasoning is strongest because such presence is not impossible: since it does not imply a contradiction for a substance to be present in a place in such a way. Therefore, it must be considered in this difficult question. The antecedent is explained not only as a possibility but as a fact, thus: a particular substance, for example, this earth, located in this place, for example, in this vessel, if its quantity were separated from it by intellect, nevertheless, it would still be in this vessel in such a way that it is not elsewhere, which constitutes having a relation of substantial presence to this place. Thus, substantial presence is given, by which an indivisible substance is present in a place, excluding any relation of active to passive, or vice versa. On the negative side, however, this position is not intelligible. For every relation, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, requires some foundation, but such a relation of substantial presence has no foundation; therefore, it is fictitious to posit it.” (Cardinal Cajetan, Commentaria in Summam Theologicam Angelici Doctoris Sancti Thomae Aquinatis (Joseph Van In: H. Prosper, 1892), I:424)
This above comment from Cajetan is quite interesting given how he defends transubstantiation and a bodily multi-location of Christ without a dual circumscription.
Cajetan’s main problem with the notion of an approximating presence is that it usually just reduces down to either circumscriptive, casual, or ordering presence.
Back to the subject of angelic presence, Cajetan considers three different aspects of the Thomist view:
1) The reason for being in a place: Angels are located by their quantity of power. For the ordering presence of an angel in a place, the angelic substance cancels any distance from the given place, the intellect of the angel prepares the operation, the power is ready for the operation, and its will is determined to carry out the operation.
2) The thing that exists in a place: Angels are present in places as substances, but not by virtue of that substance.
3) The modes of closeness/distance: Angels are close/distant not per se, but per accidens through the body in which they are.
Finally, Cajetan distinguishes complete and incomplete presence to solve the problem of angels who are not operating. His solution may be formulated as follows: “The ordering presence of an angel, whereby it is incompletely in a place, is prevenient to the operational presence, whereby it is completely present.” (Daniel D. Novotný & Tomáš Machula, “Ways of Angelic Location: 16th-Century Dominican Summistae on Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 52, art. 1,” in Summistae: The Commentary Tradition on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae from the 15th to the 17th Centuries, ed. Lidia Lanza & Marco Toste [Leuven University Press, 2021], pg. 299)
Duns Scotus on Quantity, Extension, and Place
A body’s extension is very much related to the space which it occupies. However, Scotus says we should not confuse or conflate the extension of the space occupied by the body with the extension of the body itself. The latter pertains to quantity, while the former pertains to place.
For Scotus, extension entails the relation and order of parts in a whole, such that each individual part exists outside the other parts. He says that “It is not easy to understand how something could be a quantum with dimensions unless we can designate, in the whole, an order of this part to that part according to quantity or position between the two……Part outside part…..is required for the position which is a difference of quantity, if ‘outside’ refers just to the parts of the body. (Ordinatio, 4.10.1, n. 14, 17).
Like Aristotle, Scotus accepts that a quantum is only potentially (not actually) infinitely divisible (Richard Cross, The Physics of Duns Scotus [Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1998], pg. 117).
For Scotus, for a body to be “in a place”, it must fulfill the following relational properties (Ordinatio, 2.2.2):
1) being wholly enclosed by a body - The enclosing surface is two-dimensional. It surrounds the body rather than penetrating through it, and that ‘place’ is immobile: “Place is immovable per se and per accidens locally – however it is corruptible when the subject is moved locally, because then that idea of place does not remain in it; and yet it is not corruptible in itself and by equivalence, because necessarily there succeeds to that body, in which was that idea of place, another body, in which is another idea of place numerically from the preceding one, yet the same as the preceding one according to equivalence in comparison to local motion.” (Ordinatio, 2.2.2)
2) being enclosed by a body - A place is really distinct from the body it locates. If a body surrounds another body, then the sides of the surrounding body will be separate from each other.
3) being enclosed by a body of actual size - A body necessarily requires a place equal to itself.
4) being enclosed by a commensurable body - “for a body to be commensurable with its place is for its parts to correspond to the parts of the surface of the body b2 surrounding b1.” (Richard Cross, The Physics of Duns Scotus, pg. 196)
In Scotus’ metaphysics, “for a body b1 to have position is for its parts to correspond to the parts of the surface of the body b2 surrounding [body] b1.” (Richard Cross, The Physics of Duns Scotus [Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1998], pg. 194).
Scotus develops his concepts of ubiety and position as follows: “[The relation] which ubiety is primarily is of a whole [circumscribed item] to the whole of the circumscribing item; but position, which is said [to be] another genus, add [to ubiety] a relation of the parts to the parts.” (Ordinatio, 4.10.1, as quoted in Cross, 197)
Scotus teaches that a body can have ubiety without position.
“The dimensions of what is localized are prior to the dimensions of its locale [place].” (Duns Scotus, Reportatio IV-A, Dist. 10, Q.3, n. 66)
Scotus believed that it is possible through divine power for a body to be in two places at once - “it is not necessary that something located in place be commensurate with the dimensions of place according as [the place] is one and many, so that according to the multitude of the dimensions of place there follows a multitude of the dimensions of the placed thing; just as neither does a multitude in what is prior follow on a multitude in what is posterior, especially as to an extrinsic respect and foundation.” (Ordinatio, lib. 4, dist. 10, q. 2, n. 144)
In Ordinatio 4.10.2, Scotus argued that quantitative position is essential to a quantified body, but that categorial position (an order of parts to a place by way of commensuration) is not essential to quantified bodies, since categorial position is an external real relation of presence. Scotus teaches that “God could make an organic body (whose parts have quantitative position in relation to the whole and to one another) exist outside the Aristotelian universe and so apart from any containing surfaces.”
To defend this metaphysical position, Scotus poses a simple proposition to argue from: “if a nature is contingently related to each form of another genus taken absolutely, then it is contingently related to the whole genus” (Ordinatio, lib. 4, dist. 10, q. 1, n. 64). Bodies are contingently related to their particular location (such as me being contingently located in the United States), and therefore are contingent.
Richard Cross rightly rejects Scotus’ position here (The Physics of Duns Scotus, pg. 199). Scotus’ idea could infer that a person being contingently 5 and half feet tall means that it is contingent (and therefore possible) for them not to have any height at all, which is absurd.
For Scotus, “Christ’s body is present in the Eucharist in the [second] way: the whole bears a presence relation to the whole place, but its parts do not bear presence relations to the parts of the place. Accordingly, Christ’s Body coexists with the place and with the bread accidents in the place, but is not coextensive with the place or with the bread accidents in the place. It is thus really present but lacks situational or categorical presence.” (Marilyn Adams, Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist: Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham [Oxford University Press, 2010], pg. 119)
In response to the argument that a body in two places would be simultaneously under two opposing substantial forms at once (the same piece of wood is burned in one place and not burned in another), Scotus says that a body’s substance and its absolute accidents (quantity and quality) are naturally prior to their external placement relations. Therefore, the substance, quantity, and quality of a body aren’t rendered numerically distinct or divided because of differing place relations. In the case of a wood in two places being both burnt and not burnt, Scotus would say that one of the forms would likely overpower the other, or both would combine as partial causes to produce a greater effect. This, of course, is based on the presupposition that “the relation between the agent, its action, and the body that exists in two places is of the same sort as [the relation that would exist between them] if the body existed in only one place.” (Reportatio IV-A, Dist. 10, Q.3, n. 89). For example, if a body were hungry in one place, it would be hungry in the other place as well, since hunger is an absolute form that exists in a body prior to its relation of ubi.
What about the human soul united to Christ’s body? If it is in multiple places at once, then wouldn’t Christ’s soul also be existing in different places simultaneously along with His human body? Scotus replies that the soul of Christ is in heaven and animates the substance of His body in any place in which it exists. In short, the properties which are in Christ’s body primarily (in heaven) are in other places concomitantly.
Objection: If a body could be in multiple places at once, then the contrary relates of distance and proximity would exist in the same subject at once with respect to some third thing. For example, if the body of Christ exists in multiple locations, it could be both near to my hand (in the Eucharist) and distant from it (in heaven).
Scotus’ Response: “It is not incongruous for contrary relations to exist in one and the same thing incidentally or on different grounds. To the case at hand: some body can be at a distance [from another body] by virtue of one of its ‘wheres’, because this ‘where’ in it is a foundation of its distance from some other body; however, by virtue of the other of its ‘wheres’ it can be in proximity to some other body, because that other ‘where’ in it is a foundation of the relation of proximity to that [other body]; therefore, I concede, it is simultaneously at a distance and in proximity—nor is this incongruous, nor includes a contradiction, [being] in respect to different things.” (Duns Scotus, Reportatio IV-A, Dist. 10, Q. 3, n. 114)
“Scotus’s distanciation from Aristotelian teaching is equally manifest with respect to the thesis of the immobility of place, a thesis which clashed starkly with Aristotle’s theory of the contiguity of the place with the contained body (place being defined as ‘the innermost motionless boundary of the container’)......The question thus becomes how to safeguard the immobility of the place when, as a container, it becomes mobile? In his response, Scotus shows awareness of other solutions to this problem advanced by previous authors…..Scotus finds the Thomist solution unconvincing and in its place propounds a thesis on the immobility of place which distances itself markedly from the Aristotelian position. For Scotus it is evident that, if a subject changes, its accidents change too. As the accident of a containing movable body, place cannot remain under any circumstance numerically the same – i.e. permanent and motionless. Likewise, it is of no avail to attempt to fix it by attaching it to an absolute and motionless place, for, insofar as it is merely a part of such a place and the accident of a movable subject, it will always remain movable. Its immobility must therefore be guaranteed by means other than the relation to another, supposedly motionless, place. That alternative means consists in conceiving the immobility of a place ‘in opposition to local movement’ and its incorruptibility ‘according to a relation of equivalence to local movement’. What does this mean? Put more simply, place is motionless by itself and by accident when considered at a specific instant. Thus, if a containing body moves, it is that body and not the place that is movable, because at the very instant when the containing body moves, its place, as an accident, also moves and is no longer the same. It is then the case not of the same movable place, but of another place which is – instantly – motionless. Furthermore, that same place is ‘incorruptible by equivalence’, for even if the place is destroyed by the movement of its subject, the place’s foundation remains the same throughout the succession of places by virtue of a relation of equivalence to local movement.” (Tiziana Suárez-Nani, “Angels, Space and Place: The Location of Separate Substances according to John Duns Scotus,” in Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Significance, ed. Isabel Iribarren & Martin Lenz [Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008], pgs. 100-101)
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