Summa contra gentiles Sancti Thomae Aquinatis - Glosses from Jazzland

2011-05-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Chapter 54: HOW THE DIVINE ESSENCE, BEING ONE AND SIMPLE, IS THE PROPER LIKENESS OF ALL INTELLIGIBLE OBJECTS [QUALITER DIVINA ESSENTIA UNA EXISTENS ET SIMPLEX SIT PROPRIA SIMILITUDO OMNIUM INTELLIGIBILIUM]

[1] But, again, it can seem to someone difficult or impossible that one and the same simple being, the divine essence for example, is the proper model or likeness of diverse things. For, since among diverse things there is a distinction by reason of their proper forms, whatever is like something according to its proper form must turn out to be unlike something else. To be sure, according as diverse things have something in common, nothing prevents them from having one likeness, as do man and a donkey so far as they are animals. But from this it will follow that God does not have a proper knowledge of things, but a common one; for the operation that knowledge is follows the mode in which the likeness of the known is in the knower. … the likeness of the known in the knower is as the form by which the operation takes place. Therefore, if God has a proper knowledge of many things, He must be the proper model of singulars. How this may be we must investigate.

The annotated edition explains: "As the likeness, so the knowledge. For a knowledge at once particular and all-embracing, there must be in the mind a likeness of all and each of the things known. But God has such a particular knowledge of all and each of His creatures…. There must then be in God a mental likeness of each and every such creature. But whatever is in God is God's own essence, which is one and simple. How then can the one, simple essence of God be a particular likeness of each of the whole multitude of actual and possible creatures? That is the question."

[2] As the Philosopher says in Metaphysics VIII [3], the forms of things and the definitions that signify them are like numbers. Among numbers, the addition or subtraction of unity changes the species of a number, as appears in the numbers two and three. It is the same among definitions: the addition or subtraction of one difference changes the species. For sensible substance, with the difference rational taken away and added, differs in species.

[3] Now, with reference to things that contain a multitude, the intellect and nature are differently disposed. For what is required for the being of something the nature of that thing does not permit to be removed. … But what is joined in reality the intellect can at times receive separately, when one of the elements is not included in the notion of the other. Thus, in the number three the intellect can consider the number two only, and in the rational animal it can consider that which is sensible only. Hence, that which contains several elements the intellect can take as the proper notion of the several elements by apprehending one of them without the others. It can, for example, take the number ten as the proper notion of nine by subtracting unity…. So, too, it can take in man the proper exemplar of irrational animal as such, and of each of its species, except that they would add some positive differences. On this account a certain philosopher, Clement by name, said that the nobler beings in reality are the exemplars of the less noble [cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, De div. nom. V, 9].

[4] But the divine essence comprehends within itself the nobilities of all beings, not indeed compositely, but, as we have shown above, according to the mode of perfection [Sounds rather Scotistic.]. Now, every form, … considered as positing something, is a certain perfection; it includes imperfection only to the extent that it falls short of true being. The intellect of God, therefore, can comprehend in His essence that which is proper to each thing by understanding wherein the divine essence is being imitated and wherein each thing falls short of its perfection. Thus, by understanding His essence as imitable in the mode of life and not of knowledge, God has the proper form of a plant; and if He knows His essence as imitable in the mode of knowledge and not of intellect, God has the proper form of animal, and so forth. Thus, it is clear that, being absolutely perfect, the divine essence can be taken as the proper exemplar of singulars. Through it, therefore, God can have a proper knowledge of all things.

[5] …we must observe in the divine intellect a certain distinction and plurality of understood exemplars, according as that which is in the divine intellect is the proper exemplar of diverse things … [and] as God understands the proper relation of resemblance that each creature has to Him, it remains that the exemplars of things in the divine intellect are many or distinct only according as God knows that things can be made to resemble Him by many and diverse modes. …

Chapter 55: THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS ALL THINGS TOGETHER [QUOD DEUS OMNIA SIMUL INTELLIGIT]

… [2] Our intellect cannot understand in act many things together. The reason is that, since “the intellect in act is its object in act,” if the intellect did understand many things together, it would follow that the intellect would be at one and the same time many things according to one genus—which is impossible. I say “according to one genus” because nothing prevents the same subject from being informed by diverse forms of diverse genera, just as the same body is figured and colored. Now, the intelligible species, by which the intellect is formed so as to be the objects that are understood in act, all belong to one genus; for they have one manner of being in the order of intelligible being…. … when certain things that are many are considered as in any way united, they are understood together. For the intellect understands a continuous whole all at once, not part after part. So, too, it understands a proposition all at once, not first the subject and then the predicate, since it knows all the parts according to one species of the whole [This points to one of many problems I have with perdurantism: if there is no subsistent entity to endure through a defense of perdurantism, no one could ever believe, much less defend, perdurantism as a unified doctrine/proposition. Since, however, the propositional unity of perdurantism abides even for and "in" a perdurantist, perdurantism is ipso facto false. Cf. Jaki, Means and Message, performative contradictions, etc.].

[3] …whenever several things are known through one species, they can be known together. But all that God knows He knows through one species, which is His essence. Therefore, God can understand all things together.

[4] Again, a knowing power does not know anything in act unless the intention be present. … But things that must fall under one intention must be understood together; for he who is considering a comparison between two things directs his intention to both and sees both together.

[5] Now, all the things that are in the divine knowledge must fall under one intention. For God intends to see His essence perfectly, which is to see it according to its whole power, under which are contained all things. Therefore God, by seeing His essence, sees all things together.

[6] Furthermore, the intellect of one considering successively many things cannot have only one operation. … But the divine intellect has only one operation, namely, the divine essence…. Therefore, God considers all that He knows, not successively, but together.

[7] Moreover, succession cannot be understood without time nor time without motion, since time is “the number of motion according to before and after.” But there can be no motion in God…. There is, therefore, no succession in the divine consideration. Thus, all that He knows God considers together [i.e. in an essential, perfect whole].

[8] Then, too, God’s understanding is His being, as is clear from what we have said. But there is no before and after in the divine being; everything is together….

[9] Every intellect, furthermore, that understands one thing after the other is at one time potentially understanding and at another time actually understanding. … But the divine intellect is never potentially, but always actually, understanding. Therefore, it does not understand things successively but rather understands them together.

[10] Sacred Scripture bears witness to this truth. For it is written: “With God there is no change nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17).

Chapter 56: THAT GOD’S KNOWLEDGE IS NOT HABITUAL [QUOD CAPITULUM DEI NON EST HABITUALIS]

… [2] Where there is habitual knowledge, not all things are known together; some are known actually, and some habitually. But, as we have proved, God has actual understanding of all things together. There is, therefore, no habitual knowledge in Him.

I understand "habit" here to mean an abiding, potential power for some operation(s).

[3] Furthermore, he who has a habit and is not using it is in a manner in potency, … [but] we have shown that the divine intellect is in no way in potency. …

[4] Moreover, … an intellect that knows habitually is lacking its operation, but its essence cannot be lacking to it. In God, however, as we have proved, His essence is His operation. …

[5] Again, an intellect that knows only habitually is not at its highest perfection. That is why happiness, which is something best, is posited in terms of act, not in terms of habit. If, therefore, God is habitually knowing through His substance, considered in His substance He will not be universally perfect. We have shown the contrary of this conclusion.

[6] It has also been shown that God understands through His essence, but not through any intelligible species added to His essence. Now, every habitual intellect understands through some species. For either a habit confers on the intellect a certain ability to receive the intelligible species by which it becomes understanding in act, or else it is the ordered aggregate of the species themselves existing in the intellect, not according to a complete act, but in a way intermediate between potency and act. … [7] Then, again, a habit is a certain quality. But no quality or accident can be added to God….

[8] But because the disposition by which one is only habitually considering or willing or doing is likened to the disposition of one sleeping, hence it is that, in order to remove any habitual disposition from God, David says: “Behold He neither slumbers nor sleeps, who keeps Israel” (Ps. 120:4). Hence, also, what is said in Sirach (23:28): “The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun”; for the sun is always shining.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 51–53

2011-05-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

Chapters 51-52: ARGUMENTS INQUIRING HOW A MULTITUDE OF INTELLECTUAL OBJECTS IS IN THE DIVINE INTELLECT [RATIONES AD INQUIRENDUM QUALITER MULTITUDO INTELLECTORUM SIT IN INTELLECTU DIVINO]

[Too much Latin here of prime value not to inscribe.]

[1] [Although God knows other things beside Himself [quod Deus cognoscit alia a se, cf. I, 49–50],] the multitude of intellectual objects [multitudo intellectorum in intellectum divinum], however, [do not] introduce a composition into the divine intellect…. [2] Now, this multitude cannot be taken to mean that many intellectual objects have a distinct being in God. For either these objects would be the same as the divine essence, and thus a certain multitude would be posited in the essence of God…; or they would be added to the divine essence, and thus there would be some accident in God….

[3] Nor, again, can such intelligible forms be posited as existing in themselves. This is what Plato, avoiding the above difficulties, seems to have posited by introducing the Ideas. For the forms of natural things cannot exist without matter, since neither are they understood without matter.

[Roughly, tell me everything you can about a "horse" without adverting to its material nature. An eternal, hoofless, headless, organless, spatially undispersed thing is still somehow a "horse"? Right….]

[4] And, even if this position were held, it would not enable us to posit that God has understanding of a multitude. For, since the aforementioned forms are outside God’s essence, if God could not understand the multitude of things without them, … it would follow that His perfection in understanding depended on something else, and consequently so would His perfection in being, since His being is His understanding. …

[A thing is perfect––a thing perfectly "be's"––only insofar as it attains the end to which it tends. But since non-intellectual entities cannot tend to their ends without the guidance of a (superior) intellect (cf. I, 49–50 and the glosses and links therein), and since finite intellects can only attain their ends by a discursive ascent through diverse beings and syllogisms, only a perfect Being perfectly knows and, crucially, only a perfect Knower perfectly exists.]

[5] Furthermore, since whatever is outside His essence must be caused by Him, … if the aforementioned forms are to be found outside God, they must be caused by Him. … Therefore, so that these intelligibles may have existence, it is required according to the order of nature that God first understand them. Hence, God does not have knowledge of multitude by the fact that many intelligibles are found outside Him.

[6] Furthermore, the intelligible in act is the intellect in act [The demolition of critical idealism.], just as the sensible in act is the sense in act. According as the intelligible is distinguished from the intellect, both are in potency, as likewise appears in the case of the sense. … If, then, the intelligible objects of God are outside His intellect, it will follow that His intellect is in potency, as are also its intelligible objects. Thus, some cause reducing them to act would be needed, which is impossible, since there is nothing prior to God.

[7] Then, too, the understood must be in him who understands. Therefore, to posit the forms of things as existing in themselves … must be in the divine intellect itself. [8] [Chapter 52] …the multitude of the aforementioned intelligibles cannot reside in any intellect other than the divine intellect—for example, that of a soul or an angel or intelligence. If this were true, the divine intellect would depend on a lower intellect for some operation. …

[9] Then, too, … the divine understanding, by which God is a cause, is a prerequisite for the being of the aforementioned intelligibles in some lower intellect. … [11] Furthermore, just as each thing has its own being, so it has its own operation. … each thing is through its own essence, not through the essence of another. Therefore, by the fact that there are many intelligible objects in some secondary intellect it could not come about that the first intellect knows a multitude.

[Hmmm?]

Chapter 53: THE SOLUTION OF THE ABOVE DIFFICULTY [SOLUTION PRAEMISSAE DUBITATIONES]

[1] We can solve the above difficulty with ease [Praemissa autem dubitatio faciliter solvi potest] if we examine diligently [si diligenter inspiciatur] how the things that are understood by the intellect exist within the intellect [qualiter res intellectae in intellectu existant].

[2] So far as it is possible, let us proceed from our intellect to the knowledge that the divine intellect has [Et ut ab intellectu nostro ad divini intellectus cognitionem, prout est possibile, procedamus]. Let us consider the fact that an external thing understood by us does not exist in our intellect according to its own nature; rather, it is necessary that its species be in our intellect, and through this species the intellect comes to be in act [oportet quod species eius sit in intellectu nostro, per quam fit intellectus in actu]. Once in act through this species [in actu per huiusmodi speciem] as through its own form, the intellect knows the thing itself. … Understanding remains in the one understanding, but it is related to the thing understood because the abovementioned species, which is a principle of intellectual operation as a form [quae est principium intellectualis operationis ut forma], is the likeness of the thing understood.

[As if Kant were the first to wed first primary metaphysics to the order of knowledge! His mistake was to leave the marriage for a masturbatory celebration of the latter per se.]

[3] …the intellect, having been informed by the species of the thing […intellectus, per speciem rei formatus], by an act of understanding [intelligendo] forms within itself a certain intention of the thing understood [quandam intentionem rei intellectae], that is to say, its notion [quae est ratio ipsius], which the definition signifies [quam significat definitio]. This is a necessary point [Et hoc quidem necessarium est], because the intellect understands a present and an absent thing indifferently [intellectus intelligit indifferenter rem absentem et praesentem; cue the ontology of fiction and a chaste Meinongism!]. In this the imagination agrees with the intellect [in quo cum intellectu imaginatio convenit]. But the intellect … understands a thing as separated from material conditions [sed intellectus … intelligit rem ut separatam a conditionibus materialibus], without which a thing does not exist in reality. But this could not take place unless the intellect formed the abovementioned intention for itself.

[Hmmm…]

[4] Now, since this understood intention is, as it were, a terminus of intelligible operation [Haec autem intentio intellecta, cum sit quasi terminus intelligibilis operationis], it is distinct from the intelligible species that actualizes the intellect [est aliud a specie intelligibili quae facit intellectum in actu]…. For, by the fact that the intelligible species … is the form of the intellect and the principle of understanding, [it] is the likeness of the external thing…, since such as a thing is, such are its works [Per hoc enim quod species intelligibilis quae est forma intellectus et intelligendi principium…: quia quale est unumquodque, talia operatur]. And because the understood intention is like some thing, it follows that the intellect, by forming such an intention) knows that thing.

[As the intellect partakes of the intelligible by a likeness of being, so the existent takes part of He Who Is by a related, analogous likeness likeness of being.]

[5] Now, the divine intellect understands by no species other than the divine essence…. Nevertheless, the divine essence is the likeness of all things. … [T]he conception of the divine intellect as understanding itself, which is its Word, is the likeness not only of God Himself understood, but also of all those things of which the divine essence is the likeness [Intellectus autem divinus nulla alia specie intelligit quam essentia sua…. Sed tamen essentia sua est similitudo omnium rerum. … conceptio intellectus divini, prout seipsum intelligit, quae est verbum ipsius, non solum sit similitudo ipsius Dei intellecti, sed etiam omnium quorum est divina essentia similitudo] [NB: A strong suggestion of the eternal decree of the Incarnation!]. In this way, therefore, through one intelligible species, which is the divine essence, and through one understood intention, which is the divine Word, God can understand many things.

[So much for Islam. A theology which posits a pure monad as the epitome of being, has no way to account for the diversity of being as we ourselves diversely manifest it, much less the love of Allah for things outside himself.]

SCG, Book I, Chapter 49–50

2011-05-05T00:03:00.001-07:00

It has been some time since my last posting, so I want to make a quick note of context for the following. In the previous chapters, Thomas has discussed the existence, essence, comprehensibility, and essential self-knowledge of God. He now turns to God's knowledge of and relation to all other "things", basically, the foundation of the doctrine of Creation.

Chapter 49: THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS THINGS OTHER THAN HIMSELF [QUOD DEUS COGNOSCIT ALIA A SE]

[1] From the fact that God understands Himself primarily and essentially we must posit that He knows in Himself things other than Himself.

This is a remarkable inference to make, since the thesis of the previous chapter was "that God primarily and essentially knows only Himself"! Let us follow the Doctor's dialectic….

[2] An effect is adequately known when its cause is known. So “we are said to know each thing when we know the cause.” But God Himself is through His essence the cause of being for other things. Since He has a most full knowledge of His essence, we must posit that God also knows other things [as their cause].

[3] Moreover, the likeness of every effect somehow preexists in its cause; for every agent produces its like. But whatever is in something is in it according to the mode of that in which it is. If, then, God is the cause of certain things, since according to His nature He is intellectual, the likeness of what He causes will exist in Him in an intelligible way. …

If the objects of God's power were unintelligible––such as a square triangle or a past event that had never happened or, yes, a rock so large that God could not move it––, not just to Him, but essentially intelligible, then they would not be objects of His power. Unreal objects can not be effected, much less generated. Since, however, God knows the likeness of existential power which everything has with His own essential being––i.e. God can "see Himself qua being in all things qua intelligible"––, then God knows those things in the knowledge of His existent power of existence.

[4] Again, whoever knows perfectly a given thing knows whatever can be truly said of it and whatever befits it according to its nature. But it befits God according to His nature to be the cause of other things. Since, then, God knows Himself perfectly, He knows Himself to be a cause. This cannot be unless He somehow knows what He causes. …

This ties in with the point above.

[5] If we put together these two conclusions, it appears that God knows Himself as primarily and essentially known, whereas He knows other things as seen in His essence.

[6] This truth is expressly taught by Dionysius…: “In seeing them, God does not insert Himself in singulars, but He knows them as contained within a single cause” [De div. nom. VII, 2]. And later on: “the divine wisdom, knowing itself, knows other things.”

[7] To this judgment, too, the authority of Sacred Scripture bears witness. For it is said of God in the Psalms (101:20): “He looked forth from His high sanctuary”; as though to say that God sees other things from His own height.

While flying from Cebu to Camiguin in the Phlippines a few years ago, I was pondering special relativity and how, the higher one gets, the relatively slower things move. From an infinite distance, therefore, one would see all things in perfect stasis. The key is not to think of God's vision as "really good eyesight", but rather as a form of "ontic intuition" in every nook and cranny of existent reality, which sees, as it were, its own being immediately in those nooks and crannies. This intuition, this non-focal vision, is infinite precisely because it suffuses the extent of being. It is infinite in scope not because it is far from all things and takes them all in, but because it is so close to all things and thus takes them all in as single power of being. Consider what St Athanasius writes in De Decretis (HT to Siris, my emphasis):

For God creates, and to create is also ascribed to men; and God has being, and men are said to be, having received from God this gift also. Yet does God create as men do? or is His being as man’s being? Perish the thought; we understand the terms in one sense of God, and in another of men. … [M]en, being incapable of self-existence, are enclosed in place, and consist in the Word of God; but God is self-existent, enclosing all things, and enclosed by none; within all according to His own goodness and power, yet without all in His proper nature.

Chapter 50: THAT GOD HAS A PROPER KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THINGS [QUOD DEUS HABET PROPRIAM COGNITIONEM DE OMNIBUS REBUS]

[1] …it remains for us to show that God knows all other things as they are distinct from one another and from Himself. This is to know things according to their proper natures.

[2] In order to show this point, let us suppose that God is the cause of every being…. Now, when the cause is known, the effect is known. … By knowing Himself, God knows whatever proceeds from Him immediately. When this is known, God once more knows what proceeds from it immediately; and so on for all intermediate causes down to the last effect. Therefore, God knows whatever is found in reality. But this is to have a proper and complete knowledge of a thing, namely, to know all that there is in that thing…. Therefore, God has a proper knowledge of things, in so far as they are distinct from one another.

[3] Furthermore, whatever acts through an intellect knows what it does according to the proper nature of its work; for the knowledge of the maker determines the form for the thing made. Now, God causes things through His intellect, since His being is His understanding and each thing acts in so far as it is in act. …

As the annotated edition remarks: "Since the Creator is an understanding, He understands whatever He gives being to; and giving being to each thing in particular, He understands each in particular."

[4] Moreover, the distinction of things cannot be from chance, because it has a fixed order. … It cannot be from the intention of a cause acting through a necessity of nature, for nature is determined to one course of action, and thus the intention of no thing acting through the necessity of nature can terminate in many effects in so far as these are distinct. It remains, then, that distinction in things comes from the intention of a knowing cause. … Now, the universal distinction of things cannot be from the intention of some secondary cause, because all such causes belong to the world of distinct effects. It belongs to the first cause, that is through itself distinguished from all other things, to aim at the distinction of all things. God, therefore, knows things as distinct.

The annotated edition explains: "This merely means that physical causes act without any definite intention on their part of any particular results to follow from their action. Electrical tension in the air tends to discharge itself in the form of lightning, but not to kill this particular man under the tree, although it does kill. The volcanic nisus prompts to an eruption, but not to the destruction of such and such a city that is built over the volcano."

I recently discussed the order of natural beings and causal finality in this post at FCA, and this section is an interesting textual sidelight. Insofar as art is aimed a diversity of ends, achievable by a range of means, it differs from nature per se, which is necessarily inclined to its own proper end. Thomas' point is that, given a "necessarily monocausal" entity, it will result in a single state of affairs. But the world is not characterized by a single state of affairs, but by formal distinctions, and therefore nature is not self-organized, but subject in its unified diversity to an intelligent guide, God. Thomas will discuss these points at length in II, 39–45, but you'll just have to wait a while till I get to it!

[5] Again, whatever God knows He knows most perfectly. For, as was shown above, there is all perfection in God as in the absolutely perfect being. … Since, then, by knowing His own essence God knows things in a universal way, He must also have a proper knowledge of things.

[6] Then, too, whoever knows a certain nature knows the essential accidents of that nature. The essential accidents of being as being are one and many, as is proved in Metaphysics IV [3]. If, then, by knowing His essence, God knows the nature of being in a universal way, it follows that He knows multitude. But multitude cannot be understood without distinction. Therefore, God knows things as they are distinct from one another.

Cf. I, 50, 9, below.

[7] Whoever, furthermore, perfectly knows a universal nature knows the mode in which that nature can be possessed. In the same way, he who knows whiteness knows that which receives it more and less. … If, then, by knowing Himself, God knows the universal nature of being, and this not imperfectly, … God must know all grades of beings. …

[8] Furthermore, he who knows something perfectly knows all that is in it. But God knows Himself perfectly. Therefore, He knows all that is in Him according to His active power. But all things, in their proper forms, are in Him according to His active power, since God is the principle of every being. Therefore, God has a proper knowledge of all things.

[9] Again, he who knows a certain nature knows whether that nature is communicable. He who did not know that the nature of animal is communicable to many would not know it perfectly. Now, the divine nature is communicable by likeness. God, therefore, knows in how many modes there can be something like His essence. But the diversities of forms arise from the fact that things imitate the divine essence diversely; and so the Philosopher has called a natural form “something divine.” Therefore, God has a knowledge of things in terms of their proper forms.

Cf. I, 50, 6 and I, 49, 3 with gloss, above. To know the fullness of being is to know every possible mode and instance of being. As God perfectly knows Himself qua Pure Being, He knows all things by virtue of their diversely properly likeness to Him qua co-be-ings.

The annotated edition has a note worthy of much consideration:

This is an important principle, often laid down as follows: -- God knows His own nature in all the various modes in which that nature can be copied outside Himself In knowing this, He knows the ideal order, every detail and all inter-relations of details in any possible universe. This is called the knowledge of simple understanding, inasmuch as it is the knowledge of all creatable creatures and their ongoings, antecedent to and apart from the creation and actual existence of any: this knowledge however dwells only in the ideal order of possibilities, and may therefore be called general and universal, though not abstract, inasmuch as it deals with types of individual things, but not with particular existences in rerum natura as actually existing, but only as potentialities. God further knows things outside Himself as they actually and individually exist, inasmuch as all things are of His causation and creation, and exist and act under His will and power. He knows them by insight of Himself, not as He is a mere nature, but as He is a nature willing to create on these particular lines. This knowledge of the universe as the universe actually is for all time, is called the knowledge of vision. For these two knowledges sec Chap. LXVI. The knowledge of simple understanding is not abstract, inasmuch as God knows, not only types of species, but types of different individuals possible in each species; and all these several types He knows, not by so many several ideas, but in the one act by which He knows Himself.

[10] Moreover, men and other knowing beings know things as distinct from one another in their multitude. If, then, God does not know things in their distinction, it follows that He is the most foolish being of all, as He must have been for those who held that God did not know strife, a thing known to all––an opinion that the Philosopher considers to be untenable in De anima I [5]and Metaphysics III [4].

Or the more recent "arguments" by atheists that God cannot be omniscient since, lacking hands, He cannot have the know-how to do a handstand, or, lacking hands, cannot know what it feels like to strangle someone, or, being Truth, cannot know the feeling of lying, and so on. Sigh.

[11] We likewise receive this teaching from the canonic Scriptures. For it is said in Genesis (1:31): “And God saw all things that He had made, and they were very good.” And in Hebrews (4:13): “Neither is there any creature invisible in His sight: but all things are naked and open to His eyes.”

Notice the link in Gen 1:31 between having been made––being––and being good. As truth is the known proper order of all things, the integrated goodness of "all things" in God's knowledge once more signals the convertibility of being, goodness, and truth.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 45–48

2011-04-17T21:22:00.001-07:00

[Formatting note: Instead of bolding and providing Latin for key phrases/points, I have decided to trim the contents down to the key points and put in bold phrases I want to study in Latin for myself.]

Chapter 45: THAT GOD’S ACT OF UNDERSTANDING IS HIS ESSENCE [QUOD INTELLIGERE DEI EST SUA ESSENTIA]

[1] From the fact that God is intelligent it follows that His act of understanding is His essence.

[2] To understand is the act of one understanding, residing in him, not proceeding to something outside as heating proceeds to the heated thing. For, by being understood, the intelligible suffers nothing; rather, the one understanding is perfected. Now, whatever is in God is the divine essence. God’s act of understanding, therefore, is His essence, it is the divine being, God Himself. …

[3] Furthermore, the act of understanding is to the intellect as being [esse] is to essence [essentia]. But, as we have proved, God’s being is His essence. Therefore, God’s understanding is His intellect. …

actus cognoscendi : intellectus :: esse : essentia –– No finite essence contains within itself the reason for its being: essentia is not identical with esse. No finite intellect contains within itself the reason for its own act of comprehension; all finite intellects depend on the "input" of their intelligible objects, whereas God's perfect intelligence is thus informed by the plenitude of His own infinitude.

[4] … [N]o perfection belongs to Him by participation but rather by essence. If, therefore, His consideration is not His essence, something will be nobler and more perfect than His essence. Thus, God will not be at the summit of perfection and goodness and hence will not be first.

[5] Moreover, to understand is the act of the one understanding. If, therefore, God in understanding is not His understanding, God must be related to it as potency to act. Thus, there will be potency and act in God, which is impossible, as we proved above.

[6] Then, too, every substance exists for the sake of its operation. If, then, the operation of God is other than the divine substance, the end of God will be something other than God. Thus, God will not be His goodness, since the good of each thing is its end.

Social unity is based on shared love, that is, a shared devotion to a common end. If we, then, love God for Himself, we are united with Him in love, since His own act of being is to know and love Himself as Himself. Moreover, since God knows each of us and all things in Himself, we quite literally find ourselves in Him––as we find all things in knowing and loving Him. God's love extends to all things in so far as they partake of His being which is His goodness which is the end of His knowledge. Hence "faith" is as mystifying and stultifying, ineffable and inedible to a rationalist: faith in God is faith in the willed unity of all things, which is not a tenet amenable to "rational proof."

[7] If, however, God’s understanding is His being, His understanding must be simple, eternal and unchangeable, existing only in act, and including all the perfections that have been proved of the divine being. Hence, God is not potentially understanding, nor does He begin to understand something anew, nor still does He have any change or composition in understanding.

Chapter 46: THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS THROUGH NOTHING OTHER THAN THROUGH HIS ESSENCE [QUOD DEUS PER NIHIL ALIUD INTELLIGIT QUAM PER SUAM ESSENTIAM]

… [2] The intelligible species is the formal principle of intellectual operation, just as the form of any agent is the principle of its own operation. Now, as we have shown, the divine intellectual operation is God’s essence. If, then, the divine intellect understood by an intelligible species other than the divine essence, something other would be added to the divine essence as principle and cause. …

The rational discourse of an intellect flows from its being actualized (or, in-formed) by an intelligible species; in the same way, the operations of a being flow from its being actualized by its proper form. The fewer steps an intellect needs to grasp the ramifications and interconnections of an intelligible, the simpler its act of intellection is, which itself is a sign of that thing's greater metaphysical simplicity (or, immanent power). Likewise, the fewer operations a being must perform to achieve an end, the simpler it is in itself. Insofar as God is utterly simple, He need perform only one operation by one act of understanding directed to one end: His own essence.

[3] Furthermore, the intellect becomes understanding in act through an intelligible species, just as the sense becomes sensing in act through a sensible species. The intelligible species is to the intellect, therefore, as act to potency. If, then, the divine intellect understood through some intelligible species other than itself, it would be in potency with respect to something. …

… [5] Again, the intelligible species is the likeness of something understood. If, then, there is in the divine intellect an intelligible species other than the divine essence, it will be the likeness of something understood. … It cannot be the likeness of the divine essence, because then the divine essence would not be intelligible through itself, but that species would make it intelligible. … Nor by another, for there would then be an agent prior to God. It is, therefore, impossible that there be in God an intelligible species other than His essence. …

Chapter 47: THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS HIMSELF PERFECTLY [QUOD DEUS INTELLIGIT PERFECTE SEIPSUM]

… [2] … [T]he perfection of intellectual operation depends on two things. One is that the intelligible species be perfectly conformed to the thing understood. The second is that it be perfectly joined to the intellect, which is realized more fully according as the intellect has greater power in understanding. Now, the divine essence, which is the intelligible species by which the divine intellect understands, is absolutely identical with God and it is also absolutely identical with His intellect. Therefore, God understands Himself most perfectly.

[3] Furthermore, a material thing is made intelligible by being separated from matter and the conditions of matter. Therefore, that which is through its nature separate from all matter and material conditions is intelligible in its nature. … Therefore, since He is absolutely immaterial, and most one with Himself, He understands Himself perfectly.

… [5] Moreover, what is in something in an intelligible way is understood by it. The divine essence is in God in an intelligible way, for the natural being of God and His intelligible being are one and the same, since His being is His understanding. …

[6] … The operation of the intellect will be more perfect as the intelligible object is more perfect. But the most perfect intelligible object is the divine essence, since it is the most perfect and the first truth. The operation of the divine intellect is likewise the most noble, since, as we have shown, it is the divine being. Therefore, God understands Himself. …

Chapter 48: THAT PRIMARILY AND ESSENTIALLY GOD KNOWS ONLY HIMSELF [QUOD DEUS PRIMO ET PER SE SOLUM SEIPSUM COGNOSCIT]

… [2] That thing alone is primarily and essentially known by the intellect by whose species the intellect understands; for an operation is proportioned to the form that is the principle of the operation. But, as we have proved, that by which God understands is nothing other than His essence. Therefore, the primary and essential object of His intellect is nothing other than Himself.

[3] … [If God] understands something other than Himself as the primary and essential object of His understanding, His intellect must change from a consideration of Himself to the consideration of this something else. This something else is less noble than God. The divine intellect is thus changed for the worse, which is impossible.

[4] Moreover, the operations of the intellect are distinguished according to their objects. If, then, God understands Himself and something other than Himself as the principal object, He will have several intellectual operations. Therefore, either His essence will be divided into several parts, or He will have an intellectual operation that is not His substance. Both of these positions have been proved to be impossible. …

[5] Again, in so far as the intellect is different from its object, it is in potency to it. If, then, something other than Himself is God's primary and essential object, it will follow that He is in potency to something else. …

[6] The thing understood, likewise, is the perfection of the one understanding. For the intellect is perfect according as it understands in act, and this obtains through the fact that the intellect is one with what is understood. If, then, something other than Himself is primarily understood by God, something else will be His perfection, and more noble than He. This is impossible.

[7] Furthermore, the knowledge of the one understanding is comprised of many things understood. If, then, God knows many things as the principal and essential objects of His knowledge, it will follow that the knowledge of God is composed of many things. Thus, either the divine essence will be composite, or knowledge will be an accident in God. From what we have said, it is clear that both of these suppositions are impossible. …

SCG, Book I, Chapter 44

2011-04-14T22:42:00.000-07:00

Chapter 44: THAT GOD IS INTELLIGENT [QUOD DEUS EST INTELLIGENS]

… [2] … among movers and things moved we cannot proceed to infinity, but must reduce all movable things, as is demonstrable, to one first self-moving being. The self-moving being moves itself only by appetite and knowledge…. The moving part in the first self-moving being must he appetitive and apprehending.

Now, in a motion that takes place through appetite and apprehension, he who has the appetite and the apprehension is a moved mover, while the appetible and apprehended is the unmoved mover. … [God] must be related to the mover that is a part of the self-moving being as the appetible is to the one who has the appetite. Not, however, as something appetible by sensible appetite, since sensible appetite is not of that which is good absolutely but of this particular good, since the apprehension of the sense is likewise particular; whereas that which is good and appetible absolutely is prior to that which is good and appetible here and now.

The first mover, then, must be appetible as an object of intellect, and thus the mover that desires it must be intelligent. All the more, therefore, will the first appetible be intelligent, since the one desiring it is intelligent in act by being joined to it as an intelligible. Therefore, making the supposition that the first mover moves himself, as the philosophers intended, we must say that God is intelligent.

[3] … since every mover moves through a form at which it aims in moving, the form through which the first mover moves must be a universal form and a universal good. But a form does not have a universal mode except in the intellect [cf. para. 8 below]. Consequently, the first mover, God, must be intelligent.

[4] … all movers in the world are to the first mover, God, as instruments are related to a principal agent. Since, then, there are in the world many movers endowed with intelligence, it is impossible that the first mover move without an intellect. Therefore, God must be intelligent.

This is also akin to the argument discussed by Prof. Feser in this post, which I cited in chapter 43 as well. The transcendental conditions of being require that, for intellect to emerge in nature, intellect must somehow ground or antecede nature, which a quasi-Darwinian point well made by Fr. Oakes (cf. this post infra). This is also similar to Schopenhauer's fundamental point about "Wille in Natur", i.e., that the reason all levels of being and all interactions show an interconnected striving (and strife!), is due to the fact that "absoluter Wille" is the ontic basis of reality. Schopenhauer's thought, then, is a kind of Thomism without light.

[5] Again, a thing is intelligent because it is without matter. A sign of this is the fact that forms are made understood in act by abstraction from matter. And hence the intellect deals with universals and not singulars, for matter is the principle of individuation. … But we have shown that God is absolutely immaterial. God is, therefore, intelligent.

[6] Then, too, as was shown above, no perfection found in any genus of things is lacking to God. … But among the perfections; of things the greatest is that something be intelligent, for thereby it is in a manner all things, having within itself the perfections of all things. …

As the annotated edition notes: "The vastness of the stellar universe is in a manner the reach and amplitude of my mind, when I come to form some slight idea of it." Or as Cdl. Newman put it (The Idea of a University, part 2, article 8):

"There is but one thought greater than that of the universe, and that is the thought of its Maker. … He, though One, is a sort of world of worlds in Himself, giving birth in our minds to an indefinite number of distinct truths, each ineffably more mysterious than any thing that is found in this universe of space and time. Any one of His attributes, considered by itself, is the object of an inexhaustible science…. We are able to apprehend and receive each divine attribute in its elementary form, but still we are not able to accept them in their infinity, either in themselves or in union with each other. Yet we do not deny the first because it cannot be perfectly reconciled with the second, nor the second because it is in apparent contrariety with the first and the third. The case is the same in its degree with His creation material and moral. It is the highest wisdom to accept truth of whatever kind, wherever it is clearly ascertained to be such, though there be difficulty in adjusting it with other known truth."

[7] Again, that which tends determinately to some end either has set itself that end or the end has been set for it by another. Otherwise, it would tend no more to this end than to that. Now, natural things tend to determinate ends. They do not fulfill their natural needs by chance, since they would not do so always or for the most part, but rarely, which is the domain of chance. Since, then, things do not set for themselves an end, because they have no notion of what an end is, the end must be set for them by another, who is the author of nature. … But God could not set an end for nature unless He had understanding. …

As the annotated edition notes, "This is the Argument from Design, so valuable to the theologian in dealing with evolution. See Chap. XIII."

[8] Furthermore, everything imperfect derives from something perfect; for the perfect is naturally prior to the imperfect, as is act to potency. But the forms found in particular things are imperfect because they are there in a particular way and not according to the community of their natures. They must therefore be derived from some forms that are perfect and not particular. But such forms cannot exist unless by being understood, since no form is [act-ually] found in its universality except in the intellect [cf. para. 3 above]. Consequently, these forms must be intelligent, if they be subsistent; for only thus do they have operation. God, then, Who is the first subsistent act, from whom all other things are derived, must be intelligent.

The annotated edition remarks:

"Evolutionism says just the opposite. Is not the whole notion of development a process from the imperfect to the perfect? But the eternal question abides -- What begot the first germ, containing in itself the promise and potency of the vast development which we see? St Thomas asserts a priority of nature of the perfect to the imperfect, not a priority of time. God, though prior in duration, is not prior in time to the creature, as He is not in time at all: there is no time antecedent to creation. In the series of created causes, the imperfect is doubtless prior in time to the perfect. The first verses of Genesis assure us of that, as well as all sound study of evolution."

… [10] The truth of this faith was so strong among men that they named God from the act of understanding. For theos [θεος], which among the Greeks signifies God, comes from theaste [θεασθαι], which means to consider or to see.

The annotated has a lengthy note about Thomas' mention of perfect forms in this chapter, of which I shall only cite the following: "All that is absolutely necessary is the existence of a Supreme Being, who virtually contains in Himself all perfections which are represented in our minds by various abstract forms; a Being who is the Actuality of all ideal perfection (Chap. XXVIII)."

SCG, Book I, Chapter 43

2011-04-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

Chapter 43: THAT GOD IS INFINITE [QUOD DEUS INFINITUS EST]

[1] ...infinity cannot be attributed to God on the ground of multitude. For we have shown that there is only one God and that no composition of parts or accidents is found in Him. Nor, again, according to continuous quantity can God be called infinite, since we have shown that He is incorporeal. ...

[2] We speak of spiritual magnitude with reference to two points: namely, power and the goodness or completeness of one’s own nature. ... from the fact that something is in act it is active, and hence the mode of the magnitude of its power is according to the mode in which it is completed in its act. Thus, it remains that spiritual beings are called great according to the mode of their completion. ...

[3] We must therefore show that God is infinite according to the mode of this sort of magnitude. The infinite here will not be taken in the sense of privation, as in the case of dimensive or numerical quantity. For this quantity is of a nature to have a limit, so that such things are called infinites according as there is removed from them the limits they have by nature.... But in God the infinite is understood only in a negative way, because there is no terminus or limit to His perfection: He is supremely perfect. It is thus that the infinite ought to be attributed to God.

[4] For everything that according to its nature is finite is determined to the nature of some genus. God, however, is not in any genus; His perfection, as was shown above, rather contains the perfections of all the genera. God is, therefore, infinite.

[5) Again, every act inhering in another is terminated by that in which it inheres, since what is in another is in it according to the mode of the receiver. Hence, an act that exists in nothing is terminated by nothing. Thus, if whiteness were self-existing, the perfection of whiteness in it would not be terminated so as not to have whatever can be had of the perfection of whiteness. But God is act in no way existing in another, for neither is He a form in matter, as we have proved, nor does His being inhere in some form or nature, since He is His own being, as was proved above. It remains, then, that God is infinite.

[6] Furthermore, in reality we find something that is potency alone, namely, prime matter, something that is act alone, namely, God, as was shown above, and something that is act and potency, namely, the rest of things. But, since potency is said relatively to act, it cannot exceed act either in a particular case or absolutely. Hence, since prime matter is infinite in its potentiality, it remains that God, Who is pure act, is infinite in His actuality.

... [8] Again, considered absolutely, being is infinite, since there are infinite [?] and infinite modes in which it can be participated. If, then, the being of some thing is finite, that being must be limited by something other that is somehow its cause. But there can be no cause of the divine being, for God is a necessary being through Himself. Therefore, His being is infinite, and so is He.

I don't understand the expression "there are infinite and infinite modes". Anyone?

[9] Then, too, what has a certain perfection is the more perfect as it participates in that perfection more fully. But there cannot be a mode of perfection, nor is one thinkable, by which a given perfection is possessed more fully than it is possessed by the being that is perfect through its essence and whose being is its goodness. In no way, therefore, is it possible to think of anything better or more perfect than God. Hence, God is infinite in goodness.

[10] Our intellect, furthermore, extends to the infinite in understanding; and a sign of this is that, given any finite quantity, our intellect can think of a greater one. But this ordination of the intellect would be in vain unless an infinite intelligible reality existed. There must, therefore, be some infinite intelligible reality, which must be the greatest of beings. This we call God. God is, therefore, infinite.

An interesting tie-in to this post by Edward Feser.

[11] Again, an effect cannot transcend its cause. But our intellect can be only from God, Who is the first cause of all things. Our intellect, therefore, cannot think of anything greater than God. If, then, it can think of something greater than every finite thing, it remains that God is not finite.

[12] There is also the argument that an infinite power cannot reside in a finite essence. For each thing acts through its form, which is either its essence or a part of the essence, whereas power is the name of a principle of action. But God does not have a finite active power. For He moves in an infinite time, which can be done only by an infinite power, as we have proved above. It remains, then, that God’s essence is infinite.

[13] This argument, however, is according to those who posit the eternity of the world. If we do not posit it, there is all the greater confirmation for the view that the power of God is infinite. For each agent is the more powerful in acting according as it reduces to act a potency more removed from act; just as a greater power is needed to heat water than air. But that which in no way exists is infinitely distant from act, nor is it in any way in potency. If, then, the world was made after previously not being at all, the power of its maker must be infinite.

[14] This argument holds in proving the infinity of the divine power even according to those who posit the eternity of the world. For they acknowledge that God is the cause of the substance of the world, though they consider this substance to be everlasting. They say that God is the cause of an everlasting world in the same way as a foot would have been the cause of an imprint if it had been pressed on sand from all eternity. If we adopt this position, according to our previous argumentation it still follows that the power of God is infinite. For, whether God produced things in time, as we hold, or from all eternity, according to them, nothing can be in reality that God did not produce; for God is the universal source of being. Thus, God produced the world without the supposition of any pre-existent matter or potency. Now, we must gather the proportion of an active power according to the proportion of a passive potency, for the greater the potency that preexists or is presupposed, by so much the greater active power will it be brought to actual fulfillment. It remains, therefore, that, since a finite power produces a given effect by presupposing the potency of matter, the power of God, which presupposes no potency, is infinite, not finite. Thus, so is His essence infinite [cf. para. 12 above].

... [17] The sayings of the most ancient philosophers are likewise a witness to this truth. They all posited an infinite first principle of things, as though compelled by truth itself.” ... But, since it was shown by the effort of later philosophers that there is no infinite body, given that there must be a first principle that is in some way infinite, we conclude that the infinite which is the first principle is neither a body nor a power in a body.

SCG I, 42

2011-04-11T18:02:00.000-07:00

Chapter 42: THAT GOD IS ONE [Quod Deus unus est]

… [2] For it is not possible that there be two highest goods, since that which is said by superabundance is found in only one being. But God, as we have shown, is the highest good. God is, therefore, one.

[3] Again, it has been shown that God is absolutely perfect, lacking no perfection. If, then, there are many gods, there must be many such perfect beings. But this is impossible. For, if none of these perfect beings lacks some perfection…, nothing will be given in which to distinguish the perfect beings from one another. It is impossible, therefore, that there be many gods.

[4] Again, that which is accomplished adequately through one supposition is better done through one than through many. But the order of things is the best it can be, since the power of the first cause does not fail the potency in things for perfection. Now, all things are sufficiently fulfilled by a reduction to one first principle. There is, therefore, no need to posit many principles.

Whiffs of "Ockham's razor" decades before Ockham.

[5] Moreover, it is impossible that there be one continuous and regular motion from many movers. For, if they move together, none of them is a perfect mover, but all together rather take the place of one perfect mover. This is not befitting in the first mover, for the perfect is prior to the imperfect. If, however, they do not move together, each of them at times moves and at times does not. It follows from this that motion is neither continuous nor regular. … But, as the philosophers have proved, the first motion is one and continuous. Therefore, its first mover must be one.

[6] Furthermore, a corporeal substance is ordered to a spiritual substance as to its good. For there is in the spiritual substance a fuller goodness to which the corporeal substance seeks to liken itself, since whatever exists desires the best so far as this is possible. … outside the spiritual substance that is the end of the first motion, there is none that is not reduced to it. But this is what we understand by the name of God. Hence, there is only one God.

[7] Among all the things that are ordered to one another, furthermore, their order to one another is for the sake of their order to something one; just as the order of the parts of an army among themselves is for the sake of the order of the whole army to its general. For that some diverse things should be united by some relationship cannot come about from their own natures as diverse things, since on this basis they would rather be distinguished from one another. Nor can this unity come from diverse ordering causes, because they could not possibly intend one order in so far as among themselves they are diverse. Thus, either the order of many to one another is accidental, or we must reduce it to some one first ordering cause that orders all other things to the end it intends. Now, we find that all the parts of this world are ordered to one another according as some things help some other things. … Nor is this something accidental, since it takes place always or for the most part. Therefore, this whole world has only one ordering cause and governor. But there is no other world beyond this one. Hence, there is only one governor for all things, whom we call God.

This is parallel to the fifth way in ST I.2.3, which is, incidentally, my favorite way:

"We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God."

[8] Then, too, if there are two beings of which both are necessary beings, they must agree in the notion of the necessity of being. Hence, they must be distinguished by something added either to one of them only, or to both. This means that one or both of them must be composite. Now, as we have shown, no composite being is through itself a necessary being. It is impossible therefore that there be many beings of which each is a necessary being. Hence, neither can there be many gods.

[9] Furthermore, given two gods that are posited as agreeing in the necessity of being, either that in which they differ is in some way required for the completion of their necessity of being, or it is not. If it is not, then it is something accidental…. …unless that something else existed, this accident would not exist; and unless this accident existed, the aforesaid distinction would not exist. Therefore, unless that something else existed, these two supposed necessary beings would not be two but one. Therefore, the proper being of each depends on the other, and thus neither of them is through itself a necessary being.

[10] If, however, that in which they are distinguished is required to complete the necessity of their being, either this will be because it is included in the nature of this necessity of being, as animate is included in the definition of animal, or this will be because their necessity of being is specified by it, as animal is completed by rational. … A difference specifying a genus does not complete the nature of the genus, but rather through it the genus comes to be in act. For the nature of animal is complete before the addition of rational. Rather, the fact is that there cannot be an animal in act that is not rational or irrational. Thus, therefore, something completes the necessity of being as to being in act, and not as to the notion of the necessity of being. This is impossible on two counts. First, because the quiddity of a necessary being is its being, as was proved above. Second, because, were it true, the necessary being would acquire being through something else, which is impossible. …

[12] What is more, if there are two gods, either the name God is predicated of both univocally, or equivocally. … But if it be used univocally, it must be predicated of both according to one notion, which means that, in notion, there must be in both one nature. … If according to one, there will not be two gods, but only one, since there cannot be one being for two things that are substantially distinguished. If each has its own being, therefore in neither being will the quiddity be its being. Yet this must be posited in God….

[13] Again, nothing that belongs to this designated thing as such can belong to another, for the singularity of some thing belongs to none other than to that singular thing. But its necessity of being belongs to the necessary being so far as it is this designated being. Therefore, it cannot belong to another, and therefore there cannot be several beings of which each is a necessary being. …

[14] The proof of the minor. If the necessary being is not this designated being as a necessary being, the designation of its being is not necessary through itself but depends on another. But so far as each thing is in act it is distinct from all other things; this is to be this designated thing [hoc aliud res designata? So much for my stab at the Latin, which in fact is: quod est esse hoc signatum.]. Therefore, the necessary being depends on another to be in act; which is against the nature of the necessary being. Therefore, the necessary being must be necessary according as it is this designated being. …

[17] Then, too, the proper being of each thing is only one. But God is His being, as we have shown. There can, therefore, be only one God.

[18] Moreover, a thing has being in the manner it possesses unity. Hence, each thing struggles as much as it can against any division of itself, lest thereby it tend to nonbeing. But the divine nature has being most powerfully. There is therefore, in it the greatest unity, and hence no plurality is in any way distinguished within it.

Cf. SCG I.41.4

[19] Furthermore, we notice in each genus that multitude proceeds from some unity. This is why in every genus there is found a prime member that is the measure of all the things found in that genus. In whatever things, therefore, we find that there is an agreement in one respect, it is necessary that this depend upon one source. But all things agree in being. There must, therefore, be only one being that is the source of all things. This is God. …

Cf. SCG I.39.7. It is also parallel to the fourth way in ST I.2.3:

"Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God."

[22] Now by this truth are refuted those Gentiles who accepted a multitude of gods. However, many of them said that there was one highest God, by whom all the others whom they named gods were according to them caused. For they attributed the name of divinity to all everlasting substances, and this especially because of their wisdom and felicity and the rulership of things. …

[23] Hence, it is mainly the Manicheans who seem opposed to this truth, in that they posit two first principles of which one is not the cause of the other.

[24] The Arians likewise attacked this truth by their errors, in confessing that the Father and the Son are not one but several gods; although the authority of Scripture forces me to believe that the Son is true God.

SCG I, 39–41

2011-04-04T01:29:00.000-07:00

Chapter 39: THAT THERE CANNOT BE EVIL IN GOD [Quod in Deo non potest esse malum]

[1] From this [viz. the substantial goodness of God, cf. SCG I, 38] it is quite evident that there cannot be evil in God.

[2] For being and goodness, and all names that are predicated essentially [omnia quae per essentiam dicuntur], have nothing extraneous mixed with them, although that which is or good can have something besides being and goodness. For nothing prevents the subject of one perfection from being the subject of another, just as that which is a body can be white and sweet. Now, each nature is enclosed within the limits of its notion [unaquaeque autem natura suae rationis termino concluditur], so that it cannot include anything extraneous within itself [nihil extraneum intra se capere possit]. But, as we have proved, God is goodness, and not simply good [Deus autem est bonitas, non solum bonus]. There cannot, therefore, be any non-goodness in Him [Non potest igitur in eo esse aliquid non bonitas]. Thus, there cannot possibly be evil in God.

[3] Moreover, what is opposed to the essence of a given thing cannot befit that thing so long as its essence remains. Thus, irrationality or insensibility cannot befit man unless he ceases to be a man [sicut homini non potest convenire irrationalitas vel insensibilitas nisi homo esse desistat]. But the divine essence is goodness itself, as we have shown. Therefore, evil, which is the opposite of good, could have no place in God—unless He ceased to be God, which is impossible [Ergo malum, quod est bono oppositum, in eo locum habere non potest nisi esse desisteret. Quod est impossibile], since He is eternal, as we have shown.

[4] Furthermore, since God is His own being, nothing can be said of Him by participation [nihil participative de ipso dici potest], as is evident from the above argument. If, then, evil is said of God, it will not be said by participation, but essentially. But evil cannot be so said of anything as to be its essence, for it would lose its being [malum de nullo dici potest ut sit essentia alicuius: ei enim esse deficeret], which is a good, as we have shown. In evil, however, there can be nothing extraneous mixed with it, as neither in goodness. Evil, therefore, cannot be said of God.

[5] Again, evil is the opposite of good. But the nature of the good consists in perfection, which means that the nature of evil consists in imperfection [i.e. inverted, regressive teleology]. Now, in God, Who is universally perfect, as we have shown above, there cannot be defect or imperfection. Therefore, evil cannot be in God.

[6] Then, too, a thing is perfect according as it is in act. A thing will therefore be imperfect according as it falls short of act [imperfectum erit secundum quod est deficiens ab actu]. Hence, evil is either a privation or includes privation. But the subject of privation is potency, which cannot be in God. Neither, therefore, can evil.

Annotated: "Denied by Buddhists, and by other Asiatic-minded and dissatisfied persons, who will have it that being is thought, or will, and that thought, will, and all conscious effort is misery."

[7] If, moreover, the good is “that which is sought by all,” it follows that every nature flees evil as such [malum unaquaeque natura refugit inquantum huiusmodi]. Now, what is in a thing contrary to the motion of its natural appetite is violent and unnatural. Evil in each thing, consequently, is violent and unnatural, so far as it is an evil for that thing; although, among composite things, evil may he natural to a thing according to something within it. But God is not composite, nor, as we have shown, can there be anything violent or unnatural in Him. Evil, therefore, cannot be in God.

[8] Scripture likewise confirms this. For it is said in the canonic Epistle of John (I, 1:5): “God is light and in Him there is no darkness”; and in Job (34:10) it is written: “Far from God be wickedness; and iniquity from the Almighty.”

Chapter 40: THAT GOD IS THE GOOD OF EVERY GOOD [Quod Deus est omnis omni bonum]

[1] From the foregoing it is also shown that God is “the good of every good.”’

[2] For the goodness of each thing is its perfection, as we have said. But, since God is absolutely perfect, in His perfection He comprehends the perfections of all things [sua perfectione omnes rerum perfectiones comprehendit], as has been shown [cf. SCG I, 31?]. His goodness, therefore, comprehends every goodness. Thus, He is the good of every good.

[3] Moreover, that which is said to be of a certain sort by participation is said to be such only so far as it has a certain likeness to that which is said to be such by essence. Thus iron is said to be on fire in so far as it participates in a certain likeness of fire [inquantum quandam similitudinem ignis participat]. But God is good through His essence, whereas all other things are good by participation, as has been shown. Nothing, then, will be called good except in so far as it has a certain likeness of the divine goodness. Hence, God is the good of every good.

[4] Since, furthermore, each thing is appetible because of the end, and since the nature of the good consists in its being appetible, each thing must be called good either because it is the end or because it is ordered to the end [boni autem ratio consistat in hoc quod est appetibile: oportet quod unumquodque dicatur bonum vel quia est finis, vel quia ordinatur ad finem]. It is the last end, then, from which all things receive the nature of good [Finis igitur ultimus est a quo omnia rationem boni accipiunt]. As will be proved later on, this is God. God is, therefore, the good of every good [Est igitur Deus omnis boni bonum].

[5] Hence it is that God, promising to Moses a vision of Himself, says: “I will show you all good” (Exod. 33:19). And in Wisdom (7:11), it is said of the divine wisdom: “All good things come to me together with her.”

Chapter 41: THAT GOD IS THE HIGHEST GOOD [Quod Deus sit summum bonum]

[1] From this conclusion we prove that God is the highest good.

[2] For the universal good stands higher than any particular good, just as “the good of the people is better than the good of an individual,” since the goodness and perfection of the whole stand higher than the goodness and perfection of the part. But the divine goodness is compared to all others as the universal good to a particular good, being, as we have shown, the good of every good [omnis boni bonum]. God is, therefore, the highest good.

[3] Furthermore, what is said essentially is said more truly than what is said by participation. But God is good essentially, while other things are good by participation, as we have shown. God is, therefore, the highest good.

[4] Again, “what is greatest in any genus is the cause of the rest in that genus,” [Quod est maximum in unoquoque genere est causa aliorum quae sunt in illo genere] for a cause ranks higher than an effect [causa enim potior est effectu]. But, as we have shown, it is from God that all things have the nature of good. God is, therefore, the highest good.

This is a key passage for understanding the fourth way in the Summa theologica I, 2, 3, which in turn must be read in conjunction with SCG I, 38: each thing's good is the motor for its act of being, its formal perfection, and, as God is the highest good and cause of all beings' be-ing, so He is the perfection of every formal category of being, though He is not properly contained within any genus (cf. SCG I, 25–27).

[5] Moreover, just as what is not mixed with black is more white, so what is not mixed with evil is more good. But God is most unmixed with evil, because evil can be in God neither in act nor in potency; and this belongs to God according to His nature, as we have shown. God is, therefore, the highest good.

[6] Hence what is written in 1 Samuel (2:2): “There is none holy as the Lord is.”

SCG, I, 37–38

2011-03-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

Chapter 37: THAT GOD IS GOOD [CAPUT TRIGINTA SEPTEM: Quod Deus est bonus]

[1] From the divine perfection, which we have shown, we can conclude to [concludi potest] the goodness of God.

[2] For that by which each thing is called good [quo unumquodque bonum dicitur] is the virtue that belongs to it [est propria virtus eius]; for “the virtue of each thing is what makes its possessor and his work good.” Now, virtue “is a certain perfection, for each thing is then called perfect when it reaches the virtue belonging to it,” as may be seen in Physics VII [3]. Hence, each thing is good from the fact that it is perfect [unumquodque bonum est quod perfectum est]. That is why each thing seeks its perfection as the good belonging to it [unumquodque suam perfectionem appetit sicut proprium bonum]. But we have shown that God is perfect. Therefore, He is good.

[3] Again, it was shown above that there is a certain first unmoved mover, namely, God. This mover moves as a completely unmoved mover, which is as something desired [sicut desideratum]. Therefore, since God is the first unmoved mover, He is the first desired [Deus igitur, cum sit primum movens immobile, est primum desideratum]. But something is desired in two ways, namely, either because it is good or because it appears to be good. The first desired is what is good, since the apparent good does not move through itself [apparens bonum non movet per seipsum] but according as it has a certain appearance of the good, whereas the good moves through itself [bonum vero movet per seipsum]. The first desired, therefore, God, is truly good.

[4] Furthermore, “the good is that which all things desire.” The Philosopher introduces this remark as a “felicitous saying” in Ethics I [1]. But all things, each according to its mode, desire to be in act [Omnia autem appetunt esse actu secundum suum modum]; this is clear from the fact that [quod patet ex hoc quod] each thing according to its nature resists corruption [unumquodque secundum naturam suam repugnat corruptioni]. To be in act, therefore, constitutes the nature of the good [Esse igitur actu boni rationem constituit]. Hence it is that evil ... follows when potency is deprived of act… [unde et per privationem actus a potentia consequitur malum…]. But, as we have shown, God is being in act without potency. Therefore, He is truly good.

[5] Moreover, the communication of being and goodness [Communicatio esse et bonitatis] arises from goodness [ex bonitate procedit]. This is evident from the very nature and definition of the good. By nature, the good of each thing is its act and perfection [Naturaliter enim bonum uniuscuiusque est actus et perfectio eius]. Now, each thing acts in so far as it is in act, and in acting it diffuses being and goodness to other things [agendo autem esse et bonitatem in alia diffundit]. Hence, it is a sign of a being’s perfection that it “can produce its like”… [Unde et signum perfectionis est alicuius quod simile possit producere]. Now, the nature of the good comes from its being something appetible [quod est appetibile]. This is the end, which also moves the agent to act [Quod est finis. Qui etiam movet agentem ad agendum]. That is why it is said that the good is diffusive of itself and of being. But this diffusion befits God because, as we have shown above, being through Himself the necessary being, God is the cause of being for other things [est supra quod aliis est causa essendi]. God is, therefore, truly good.

A key teaching on the convertibility of being and goodness. Existence is "the act of being": for something to exist is for it to impact the surrounding world of potency and other entities by dynamically preserving itself according to its proper form. A rock stays a rock and impacts the world as a rock (e.g. by breaking a window or creating a hollow in the soil or obstructing a tree's roots, etc.). That is the rock's act of being. Things, however, only "act out" their proper modes of being by acting with respect to some end. A plant acts out vegetative existence by having its be-ing oriented towards the goods of nutrition and growth. An animal acts ouf sensitive existence by be-ing with respect to the goods of sensation and motion. A human acts out rational existence by "be-ing towards" the good of truth (as well as the other modes of being just described). A thing only is by being elevated from potency due to the proleptic goodness of its proper end (i.e. its finality). Hence, a thing's act of being is convertible with, or communicable as, its dynamic attainment of its proper good (i.e. telos). Moreover, since an adequate understanding of anything must resolve to its causes, a formal grasp of something is an expression of the truth of that thing's act of existence (i.e. its be-ing towards a proper end): so truth and being and goodness are convertible. Insofar as evil acts of the will are regressions from the goods of the rational soul, yet as they also have their own inner teleology with respect to the (percieved) good of said evil, evil acts of the will only have a 'disjunctive existence' as good-seeking realities. In any case, to speak of God as the cause of being of all other entities is to speak of Him as the ultimate good which all entities seek: for the cause of being, the intelligible inter-ordering of entities, and the summit of existential appetite are thus convertible.

[6] That is why it is written in a Psalm (72:1): “How good is God to Israel, to those who are of a right heart!” And again: “The Lord is good to those who hope in Him, to the soul that seeks Him” (Lam. 3:25).

Chapter 38: THAT GOD IS GOODNESS ITSELF [CAPUT TRIGINTA OCTO: Quod Deus est ipsa bonitas]

Annotated: "That God is His own Goodness: It is possible, I fear, in any school of learning to pass examinations and take degrees, philosophical and theological, by consistent repeating of an accepted phraseology that one does not really understand. What is the meaning of the axiom that God is His own goodness, His own wisdom, His own power, and the rest? It means that goodness, wisdom, power, is inseperable from God; and that each of the divine attributes, could we but view it adequately, would be found to involve all the rest. On the other hand, any given man, as Dr Smith, is not inseparable from his own learning except hypothetically, if his learning is to be at all, inasmuch as Dr Smith's learning has and can have no existence apart from Dr Smith. Formally speaking, the Doctor gives being to his own learning, so long as it lasts. But, besides that he might die and his learning with him -- whereas God and God's goodness cannot cease to be -- he might also forget all that he knows, and still remain Dr Smith. Nor does his learning involve his other attributes, his stature, for example, or his irascibility."

[1] From this we can conclude that God is His goodness.

[2] To be in act is for each being its good. But God is not only a being in act; He is His very act of being, as we have shown [est ipsum suum esse, ut supra ostensum est]. God is, therefore, goodness itself, and not only good.

If act is good, and if God is pure act, then God is pure good.

[3] Again, as we have shown, the perfection of each thing is its goodness. But the perfection of the divine being is not affirmed on the basis of something added to it, but because the divine being, as was shown above, is perfect in itself. The goodness of God, therefore, is not something added to His substance; His substance is His goodness [sua substantia est sua bonitas].

[4] Moreover, each good thing that is not its goodness is called good by participation [participative dicitur bonum]. But that which is named by participation has something prior to it from which it receives the character of goodness. This cannot proceed to infinity, since among final causes there is no regress to infinity, since the infinite is opposed to the end [in causis finalibus non proceditur in infinitum, infinitum enim repugnat fini]. But the good has the nature of an end. We must, therefore, reach some first good, that is not by participation good through an order toward some other good, but is good through its own essence. This is God. God is, therefore, His own goodness.

Annotated: "The infinite is inconsistent with any end, while good bears the character of an end." It may be urged that end does not bear the same sense in both these propositions. In the former it means limit (peras): in the latter it means, end in view, the perfection that crowns growth and effort (telos). The answer is that the infinite is inconsistent with any end, if infinity has to be traversed before that end is reached: for infinity is untraversable."

[5] Again, that which is can participate in something, but the act of being can participate in nothing [ipsum autem esse nihil participare potest]. For that which participates is in potency, and being is an act [quod enim participat potentia est, esse autem actus est]. But God is being itself, as we have proved. He is not, therefore, by participation good; He is good essentially.

Annotated: "Whereas Dr Smith is not essential wisdom."

An elegant syllogism. For something to be is to act towards a proper good/end, but being itself cannot participate in anything, since participation requires potency (i.e. dependency on the (greater) thing being-participated-in). As God is pure act, He cannot participate in anything, and thus cannot participate in any greater goodness outside Himself. Ergo, God is wholly good in and of Himself, and goodness is wholly one with God in and of itself.

[6] Furthermore [Amplius], in a simple being, being and that which is are the same [omne simplex suum esse et id quod est unum habet]. For, if one is not the other, the simplicity is then removed. But, as we have shown, God is absolutely simple. Therefore, for God to be good is identical with God [ipsum esse bonum non est aliud quam ipse]. He is, therefore, His goodness.

Annotated: "That is, its existence and its essence are the same (Chap. XXII)."

[7] It is thereby likewise evident that no other good is its goodness. Hence it is said in Matthew (19:17): “One is good, God.”

SCG, I, 34–36

2011-03-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Chapter 34: THAT NAMES SAID OF GOD AND CREATURES ARE SAID ANALOGICALLY [Quod ea quae dicuntur de Deo et creaturis dicuntur analogice]

[1] From what we have said, therefore, it remains that the names said of God and creatures are predicated neither univocally nor equivocally but analogically [neque univoce neque aequivoce, sed analogice], that is [hoc est], according to an order or reference to something one [secundum ordinem vel respectum ad aliquid unum].

[2] This can take place in two ways. In one way, according as many things have reference to something one. Thus, with reference to one health we say that an animal is healthy as the subject of health, medicine is healthy as its cause, food as its preserver, urine as its sign.

[3] In another way, the analogy can obtain according as the order or reference of two things is not to something else but to one of them. Thus, being is said of substance and accident according as an accident has reference to a substance [accidens ad substantiam respectum habet], and not according as substance and accident are referred to a third thing [non quod substantia et accidens ad aliquid tertium referantur].

[4] Now, the names said of God and things are not said analogically according to the first mode of analogy, since we should then have to posit something prior to God, but according to the second mode.

[The annotated edition explains the problem to be solved thus: "[W]e call God 'good' as being the origin of goodness, and creatures 'good' as being effects of divine goodness. But at that rate, it appears, we ought to know the goodness of God before we know the goodness of creatures, which seems not to be the case. This objection St Thomas proceeds to clear away."]

[5] In this second mode of analogical predication the order according to the name and according to reality is sometimes found to be the same and sometimes not. For the order of the name follows the order of knowledge [Nam ordo nominis sequitur ordinem cognitionis], because it is the sign of an intelligible conception [quia est signum intelligibilis conceptionis].

When, therefore, that which is prior in reality is found likewise to be prior in knowledge, the same thing is found to be prior both according to the meaning of the name and according to the nature of the thing. Thus, substance is prior to accident both in nature, in so far as substance is the cause of accident, and in knowledge, in so far as substance is included in the definition of accident. Hence, being is said of substance by priority over accident both according to the nature of the thing and according to the meaning of the name. [Et ideo ens dicitur prius de substantia quam de accidente et secundum rei naturam et secundum nominis rationem] …

[6] Thus, therefore [Sic, igitur],
because we come to a knowledge of God from other things [quia ex rebus aliis in Dei cognitionem pervenimus],
the reality in the names said of God and other things belongs by priority in God [res nominum de Deo et rebus aliis dictorum per prius est in Deo]
according to His mode of being [secundum suum modum],
but the meaning of the name belongs to God by posteriority [sed ratio nominis per posterius. Unde et nominari dicitur a suis causatis].
And so He is said to be named from His effects [Unde et nominari dicitur a suis causatis].

[The annotated edition remarks: "This distinction between the 'thing signified' (res nominis) and the 'concept attaching to the name' (ratio nominis) is of interest to the idealist. It supposes -- as Kant also supposes, though Hegel apparently does not -- a distinction between things and our way of looking at them. "

I wonder how different the case is with our own self-consciousness. Even though we come to know ourselves through a diversity of perceptions, memories, feelings, impulses, and actions, and even though we are referred to by many names, yet we know ourselves to be one.]

Chapter 35: THAT MANY NAMES SAID OF GOD ARE NOT SYNONYMS [Quod plura nomina dicta de Deo non sunt synonyma]

[1] It is likewise shown from what has been said that, although names said of God signify the same reality, they are yet not synonyms because they do not signify the same notion [non tamen sunt synonyma: quia non significant rationem eandem].

[2] For [Nam]
just as diverse things are likened through their diverse forms to the one simple reality that God is [sicut diversae res uni simplici rei quae Deus est similantur per formas diversas],
so our intellect through its diverse conceptions is to some extent likened to God [ita intellectus noster per diversas conceptiones ei aliqualiter similatur]
in so far as it is led through the diverse perfections of creatures to know Him [inquantum per diversas perfectiones creaturarum in ipsum cognoscendum perducitur].

[This is fundamental! Thomistic paydirt! The mother lode and lodestone of analogia entis!]

Therefore, in forming many conceptions of one thing, our intellect is neither false nor futile [non est falsus neque vanus], because the simple being of God, as we have shown, is such that things can be likened to it according to the multiplicity of their forms [ei secundum formas multiplices aliqua similari possint]. But in accord with its diverse conceptions our intellect devises diverse names that it attributes to God [Secundum autem diversas conceptiones diversa nomina intellectus adinvenit quae Deo attribuit].

Hence [Et ita], since these names are not attributed to God according to the same notion, it is evident that they are not synonyms [cum non secundum eandem rationem attribuantur, constat ea non esse synonyma], even though [quamvis] they signify a reality that is absolutely one [rem omnino unam significent]. For the signification of the name is not the same, since a name signifies the conception of the intellect before it signifies the thing itself understood by the intellect [nomen per prius conceptionem intellectus quam rem intellectam significet].

Chapter 36: HOW OUR INTELLECT FORMS A PROPOSITION ABOUT GOD [Qualiter intellectus noster de Deo propositionem formet]

[1] From this it is further evident that, although God is absolutely simple, it is not futile [non in vanum] for our intellect [intellectus noster] to form enunciations [enuntiationes format] concerning God in His simplicity by means of composition and division [componendo et dividendo].

[2] For although, as we have said, our intellect arrives at the knowledge of God through diverse conceptions, it yet understands that what corresponds to all of them is absolutely one. For the intellect does not attribute its mode of understanding to the things that it understands [non enim intellectus modum quo intelligit rebus attribuit intellectis] {This is the fatal flaw of linguistic reductionism (à la Quine, Goodman, Whorf-Sapir, Wittgenstein, inter alia): to equate the (mode of) being of referents with the (mode of) being of linguistic action.}; for example, it does not attribute immateriality to a stone even though [quamvis] it knows the stone immaterially [eum immaterialiter cognoscat]. It therefore sets forth the unity of a thing by a composition of words [rei unitatem proponit per compositionem verbalem], which is a mark of identity, when it says, God is good or goodness.

[The annotated edition has it: "All our knowledge is immaterial, or in other words, universal, got by a spiritualisation of the impressions of sense: we know at once hoc aliquid et tale. To know hoc aliquid by itself would be impossible. The first knowledge is a judgement."]

The result is that [ita quod] if there is some diversity in the composition, it is referred to the intellect, whereas the unity is referred to the thing understood by the intellect [si qua diversitas in compositione est, ad intellectum referatur, unitas vero ad rem intellectam]. On the same basis [Et ex hac ratione], our intellect sometimes forms an enunciation about God with a certain mark of diversity in it [cum aliqua diversitatis nota], through the use of a preposition, as when we say, there is goodness in God.
Here, too, there is indicated a certain diversity, which belongs to the intellect [aliqua diversitas, quae competit intellectui],
and a certain unity, which must be referred to the reality [et aliqua unitas, quam oportet ad rem referre].

[The annotated edition remarks: "Kant would have said: The mind does not, or anyhow should not, mistake the forms of its own thought for properties of noumena. Hegel denied that there were any noumena, and held thought-forms to be everything that is. Forms of thought, e.g., universality, were quite recognised by the schoolmen."]

SCG, Book I, Chapter 33

2011-01-09T04:22:00.000-08:00

Chapter 33: THAT NOT ALL NAMES ARE SAID OF GOD AND CREATURES IN A PURELY EQUIVOCAL WAY
[Caput Triginta Tres: Quod non omnia nomina dicuntur de Deo et creaturis pure aequivoce]

[1] … [N]ot everything predicated of God and other things is said in a purely equivocal way, in the manner of equivocals by chance [sicut ea quae sunt a casu aequivoca].

The annotated edition has it: "The theological and devotional terms which we derive from creatures and apply to God are not as the Aristotelian homonyma, where, under sameness of name, two different senses are expressed of two entirely different thing [sic], mere namesakes and nothing more, as when we call a post alike a log stuck in the ground and a delivery of letters."

[2] For in equivocals by chance [a casu aequivoca] there is no order or reference of one to another [nullus ordo aut respectus attenditur unius ad alterum], but it is entirely accidental that one name is applied to diverse things: the application of the name to one of them does not signify that it has an order to the other. But this is not the situation with names said of God and creatures, since we note in the community of such names the order of cause and effect [in huiusmodi nominum communitate ordo causae et causati]…. It is not, therefore, in the manner of pure equivocation [secundum puram aequivocationem] that something is predicated of God and other things.

[3] Furthermore, where there is pure equivocation, there is no likeness in things themselves; there is only the unity of a name. But, as is clear from what we have said, there is a certain mode of likeness of things to God [rerum autem ad Deum est aliquis modus similitudinis; cf. SCG, I, 29]. It remains, then, that names are not said of God in a purely equivocal way.

[4] Moreover, when one name is predicated of several things in a purely equivocal way, we cannot from one of them be led to the knowledge of another; for the knowledge of things does not depend on [vocal] words, but on the meaning of names [cognitio rerum non dependet ex vocibus, sed ex nominum ratione]. Now, from what we find in other things, we do arrive at a knowledge of divine things, as is evident from what we have said [cf. SCG, I, 28]. Such names, then, are not said of God and other things in a purely equivocal way.

The annotated edition seems to translate dependet ex vocibus as "by a mere coincidence of sound".

[5] Again, equivocation in a name impedes the process of reasoning [Adhuc. Aequivocatio nominis processum argumentationis impedit]. If, then, nothing was said of God and creatures except in a purely equivocal way, no reasoning proceeding from creatures to God could take place. But, the contrary is evident from [Cuius contrarium patet ex] all those who have spoken about God.

[6] … [A] name is predicated of some being uselessly unless through that name we understand something of the being [Frustra aliquod nomen de aliquo praedicatur nisi per illud nomen aliquid de eo intelligamus]. But, if names are said of God and creatures in a purely equivocal way, we understand nothing of God through those names; for the meanings of those names are known to us solely to the extent that they are said of creatures. In vain, therefore, would it be said or proved of God that He is a being, good, or the like.

[7] Should it be replied that through such names we know only what God is not, namely, that God is called living because He does not belong to the genus of lifeless things, and so with the other names, it will at least have to be the case that living said of God and creatures agrees in the denial of the lifeless. Thus, it will not be said in a purely equivocal way.

As the annotated edition remarks, "St Thomas says what suffices for his present argument: he is not undertaking to exhaust the sense of the phrase 'living God.'" The upshot of this chapter is that we do have some positive knowledge of God by the very act of articulating the (apophatic) limits thereof.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 32

2010-12-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

Chapter 32: THAT NOTHING IS PREDICATED UNIVOCALLY OF GOD AND OTHER THINGS [CAPUT TRIGINTA DUO: Quod nihil de Deo et rebus aliis univoce praedicatur]

From the annotated edition: "This and the next three chapters suppose the doctrine of Aristotle about synonyma and homonyma to be found in the beginning of his Categories, and in the text-books. The conclusion of this chapter, if accepted, renders pantheism untenable."

[1] [Having established that ascribing many names to God does not conflict with His simplicity {cf. SCG, I, 32}, it is] evident that nothing can be predicated univocally of God and other things.

[2] An effect that does not receive a form specifically the same [formam secundum speciem similem] as that through which the agent acts cannot receive according to a univocal predication [secundum univocam praedicationem] the name arising from that form. Thus, the heat generated by the sun and the sun itself are not called univocally hot. Now, the forms of the things God has made do not measure up to a specific likeness of the divine power [formae ad speciem divinae virtutis non perveniunt]; for the things that God has made receive in a divided and particular way [cum divisim et particulariter recipiant quod] that which in Him is found in a simple and universal way [in Deo simpliciter et universaliter invenitur]. It is evident, then, that nothing can be said univocally of God and other things [Impossibile est igitur aliquid univoce de Deo et rebus aliis praedicari].

[3] If, furthermore, an effect should measure up to the species of its cause, it will not receive the univocal predication of the name unless it receives the same specific form according to the same mode of being [eundem essendi modum eandem specie formam suscipiat]. … For, as is clear from what we have said, there is nothing in God that is not the divine being itself, which is not the case with other things. Nothing, therefore, can be predicated of God and other things univocally.

This passage requires more meditation than I can afford right now.

[4] Moreover, whatever is predicated of many things univocally is either a genus, a species, a difference, an accident, or a property [Omne quod de pluribus univoce praedicatur, vel est genus, vel species, vel differentia, vel accidens aut proprium]. But, as we have shown, nothing is predicated of God as a genus or a difference [cf. SCG, I, 25]; and thus neither is anything predicated as a definition, nor likewise as a species, which is constituted of genus and difference [cf. SCG, I, 28]. Nor, as we have shown, can there be any accident in God, and therefore nothing is predicated of Him either as an accident or a property, since property belongs to the genus of accidents. It remains, then, that nothing is predicated univocally of God and other things [nihil de Deo et rebus aliis univoce praedicari].

[5] Again, what is predicated of many things univocally is simpler than both of them, at least in concept. Now, there can be nothing simpler than God either in reality or in concept [Deo autem neque secundum rem neque secundum intellectum potest esse aliquid simplicius]. Nothing, therefore, is predicated univocally of God and other things.

[6] Everything, likewise, that is predicated univocally of many things belongs through participation to each of the things of which it is predicated; for the species is said to participate in the genus and the individual in the species [nam species participare dicitur genus, et individuum speciem]. But nothing is said of God by participation, since whatever is participated is determined to the mode of that which is participated [nam omne quod participatur determinatur ad modum participati] and is thus possessed in a partial way and not according to every mode of perfection. Nothing, therefore, can be predicated univocally of God and other things.

[7] Then, too, what is predicated of some things according to priority and posteriority [secundum prius et posterius] is certainly not predicated univocally. For the prior is included in the definition of the posterior [nam prius in definitione posterioris includitur], as substance is included in the definition of accident [sicut substantia in definitione accidentis] according as an accident is a being. If, then, being were said univocally of substance and accident, substance would have to be included in the definition of being in so far as being is predicated of substance [Si igitur diceretur univoce ens de substantia et accidente, oporteret quod substantia etiam poneretur in definitione entis secundum quod de substantia praedicatur]. But this is clearly impossible [Quod patet esse impossibile].

I take this to be a major "line in the sand" for St Thomas. Based on my limited understanding, his often otherwise uncontested master, Aristotle, believed that, since substance was the bedrock of his realist metaphysics, therefore every substance included in its definition the fact of its own being. For Aristotle, in other words, a nonexistent substance was incoherent. This was, apparently, but all of piece with his pantheistic eternalism. Whatever exists, exists necessarily, though not absolutely necessarily. But in St Thomas' teaching, there is an intrinsic 'cleft' between anything's (actual) being and its substantial form (or 'essential definition'), a cleft bridged only by the Creator, in whom Being and Essence coalesce in a single act.

Now nothing is predicated of God and creatures as though they were in the same order, but, rather, according to priority and posteriority [secundum prius et posterius]. For all things are predicated of God essentially [cum de Deo omnia praedicentur essentialiter]. For God is called being as being entity itself, and He is called good as being goodness itself. But in other beings predications are made by participation [de aliis autem praedicationes fiunt per participationem], as Socrates is said to be a man, not because he is humanity itself, but because he possesses humanity. It is impossible, therefore, that anything be predicated univocally of God and other things.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 31

2010-12-13T21:10:00.000-08:00

Chapter 31: THAT THE DIVINE PERFECTION AND THE PLURALITY OF DIVINE NAMES ARE NOT OPPOSED TO THE DIVINE SIMPLICITY

[CAPUT TRIGINTA UNUM: Quod divina perfectio et pluralitas nominum divinorum divinae simplicitati non repugnant]

... [2] We have said that all the perfections found in other things are attributed to God in the same way as effects are found in their equivocal causes [sicut effectus in suis causis aequivocis inveniuntur]. These effects are in their causes virtually [in suis causis sunt virtute], as heat is in the sun. For, unless the power of the sun belonged to some extent to the genus of heat, the sun acting through this power would not generate anything like itself. …

So, too, the perfections of all things, which belong to the rest of things through diverse forms, must be attributed to God through one and the same power in Him [Deo secundum unam eius virtutem attribui]. This power is nothing other than His essence [Quae item virtus non est aliud a sua essentia], since, as we have proved [cf. SCG, I, 23], there can be no accident in God. Thus, therefore, God is called wise not only in so far as He produces wisdom, but also because, in so far as we are wise, we imitate to some extent the power by which He makes us wise [secundum quod sapientes sumus, virtutem eius, qua sapientes nos facit, aliquatenus imitamur]. On the other hand, God is not called a stone, even though He has made stones, because in the name stone there is understood a determinate mode of being according to which a stone is distinguished from God [quia in nomine lapidis intelligitur modus determinatus essendi, secundum quem lapis a Deo distinguitur]. But the stone imitates God as its cause in being and goodness, and other such characteristics, as do also the rest of creatures [Imitatur autem lapis Deum ut causam secundum esse, secundum bonitatem, et alia huiusmodi, sicut et aliae creaturae].

"…quia in nomine lapidis…" This addresses my worry in chapter 28 about how the perfection of, say, color can be in God, yet no color be in God. My response in that chapter was to say "that God possesses the excellence of color in the mode of causation and measure, rather than in any specific chromatic sense. After all, God qua ens summe perfectum infinitely transcends the finite mode of specific color. … This means whatever color can do is given to it by the power of God as first, preeminent cause…." I think that squares with Thomas' point here that "in nomine ______ intelligitur modus determinatus essendi".

[3] A similar situation obtains among the knowing and operative powers of man. For by its single power the intellect knows all the things that the sensitive part of the soul grasps through a diversity of powers [Intellectus enim unica virtute cognoscit omnia quae pars sensitiva diversis potentiis apprehendit]––and many other things as well. So, too, the higher an intellect is, the more it can know more things through one likeness [Intellectus etiam, quanto fuerit altior, tanto aliquo uno plura cognoscere potest], while a lesser intellect manages to know many things only through many likenesses [cognoscenda intellectus inferior non pertingit nisi per multa]. So, too, a ruling power extends to all those things to which diverse powers under it are ordered. In this way, therefore, through His one simple being God possesses every kind of perfection that all other things come to possess, but in a much more diminished way, through diverse principles.

"…intellectus inferior non pertingit…" The range of intellectual power can be seen in humans in the classroom. Smarter students need only one or two examples to grasp the principle, whereas those of lower intellect require numerous examples and repetitions to achieve understanding.

[4] From this we see the necessity of giving to God many names [necessitas plura nomina Deo dandi]. For, since we cannot know Him naturally except by arriving at Him from His effects [non possumus cognoscere naturaliter nisi ex effectibus deveniendo in ipsum], the names by which we signify His perfection must be diverse, just as the perfections belonging to things are found to be diverse [sicut et perfectiones in rebus inveniuntur diversae]. Were we able to understand the divine essence itself as it is and give to it the name that belongs to it, we would express it by only one name. This is promised to those who will see God through His essence: “In that day there shall be one Lord, and His name shall be one” (Zach. 14:9).

SCG, Book I, Chapter 30

2010-12-10T23:16:00.000-08:00

Chapter 30: THE NAMES THAT CAN BE PREDICATED OF GOD [Quae nomina de Deo possint praedicari]

… [2] Since it is possible to find in God every perfection of creatures, but in another and more eminent way, whatever names unqualifiedly designate a perfection without defect are predicated of God and of other things: for example, goodness, wisdom, being, and the like. But when any name expresses such perfections along with a mode that is proper to a creature, it can be said of God only according to likeness and metaphor [cum modo proprio creaturis, de Deo dici non potest nisi per similitudinem et metaphoram].

According to metaphor [Per metaphoram], what belongs to one thing is transferred to another, as when we say that a man is a stone because of the hardness of his intellect. Such names are used to designate the species of a created thing, for example, man and stone, for to each species belongs its own mode of perfection and being. The same is true of whatever names designate the properties of things, which are caused by the proper principles of their species. Hence, they can be said of God only metaphorically. But the names that express such perfections along with the mode of supereminence with which they belong to God [cum supereminentiae modo quo Deo conveniunt] are said of God alone [de solo Deo dicuntur]. Such names are the highest good, the first being, and the like.

[3] …[T]hat some of the aforementioned names signify a perfection without defect … is true with reference to that which the name was imposed to signify; for as to the mode of signification, every name is defective [absque defectu … quantum ad illud ad quod significandum nomen fuit impositum: quantum enim ad modum significandi, omne nomen cum defectu est]. For by means of a name we express things in the way in which the intellect conceives them [Nam nomine res exprimimus eo modo quo intellectu concipimus]. For our intellect, taking the origin of its knowledge from the senses, does not transcend the mode which is found in sensible things, in which the form and the subject of the form are not identical owing to the composition of form and matter [Intellectus autem noster, ex sensibus cognoscendi initium sumens, illum modum non transcendit qui in rebus sensibilibus invenitur, in quibus aliud est forma et habens formam, propter formae et materiae compositionem].

Now, a simple form is indeed found among such things, but one that is imperfect because it is not subsisting; on the other hand, though a subsisting subject of a form is found among sensible things, it is not simple but rather concreted. Whatever our intellect signifies as subsisting, therefore, it signifies in concretion [significat in concretione]; but what it signifies as simple, it signifies, not as that which is, but as that by which something is [quod vero ut simplex, significat non ut quod est, sed ut quo est].

As the annotated edition explains:

Concretionem habens. The concrete to St Thomas means the composite. Any existing created substance, as he teaches, is compounded of specific nature and individualising notes, of actuality and potentiality, of essence and existence. Thus, in creation, the abstract alone is simple, concrete being is compound. … Thus the concrete man is something that is: the abstract humanity is that whereby man is man, not something that is by itself.

As a result, with reference to the mode of signification there is in every name that we use an imperfection [in omni nomine a nobis dicto, quantum ad modum significandi, imperfectio invenitur], which does not befit God, even though the thing signified in some eminent way does befit God [res significata aliquo eminenti modo Deo conveniat]. This is clear in the name goodness and good. For goodness has signification as something not subsisting, while good has signification as something concreted. And so with reference to the mode of signification no name is fittingly applied to God; this is done only with reference to that which the name has been imposed to signify [quantum ad hoc nullum nomen Deo convenienter aptatur, sed solum quantum ad id ad quod significandum nomen imponitur]. Such names, therefore, as Dionysius teaches [De divinis nominibus I, 5, De caelesti hierarchia II, 3], can be both affirmed and denied of God. They can be affirmed because of the meaning of the name; they can be denied because of the mode of signification [affirmari quidem, propter nominis rationem; negari vero, propter significandi modum].

[4] Now, the mode of supereminence in which the abovementioned perfections are found in God can be signified by names used by us only through negation, as when we say that God is eternal or infinite, or also through a relation of God to other things, as when He is called the first cause or the highest good. For we cannot grasp what God is, but only what He is not and how other things are related to Him [Non enim de Deo capere possumus quid est, sed quid non est, et qualiter alia se habeant ad ipsum], as is clear from what we said above.

Playing chicken!

2010-12-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

In my gloss of book I, chapter 28, I discussed the old riddle of the chicken and the egg, concluding that the chicken, as the perfected form of the egg, has a metaphysical, if not a chronological, priority. Coincidentally, there was also some dispute about the topic at Dr Feser's blog, which eventually led me to the following MSNBC story: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg? British scientists claim to have solved the mystery". The key point is this:

The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken.

The protein speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential in protecting the delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.

"It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.

So, there you have it: the chicken wins and science was lucky enough to catch up with sound metaphysics.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 29

2010-12-10T21:54:00.000-08:00

Chapter 29: ON THE LIKENESS OF CREATURES TO GOD [CAPUT Veginti Novum: De similitudine creaturarum]

[1] In the light of what we have said, we are able to consider [considerari potest] how a likeness to God is and is not possible in things.

[2] Effects that fall short of their causes do not agree with them in name and nature. Yet, some likeness must be found between them, since it belongs to the nature of action that an agent produce its like, since each thing acts according as it is in act [de natura enim actionis est ut agens sibi simile agat cum unumquodque agat secundum quod actu est]. The form of an effect, therefore, is certainly found in some measure in a transcending cause, but according to another mode and another way [Unde forma effectus in causa excedente invenitur quidem aliqualiter, sed secundum alium modum et aliam rationem]. For this reason the cause is called an equivocal cause. Thus, the sun causes heat among these sublunary bodies by acting according as it is in act. Hence, the heat generated by the sun must bear some likeness to the active power of the sun, through which heat is caused in this sublunary world; and because of this heat the sun is said to be hot, even though not in one and the same way. And so the sun is said to be somewhat like those things in which it produces its effects as an efficient cause. Yet the sun is also unlike all these things in so far as such effects do not possess heat and the like in the same way as they are found in the sun [a quibus tamen rursus omnibus dissimilis est, inquantum huiusmodi effectus non eodem modo possident calorem et huiusmodi quo in sole invenitur]. So, too, God gave things all their perfections [Deus omnes perfectiones rebus tribuit] and thereby is both like and unlike all of them.

This post at The TOF Spot, concerning global warming and the Earth-Sun coupling, is a timely reminder of how the causal primacy of the sun in, say, this chapter, is not a metaphysical trifle, but also an ongoing scientific reality.

[3] Hence it is that Sacred Scripture recalls the likeness between God and creatures [sacra Scriptura aliquando similitudinem inter eum et creaturam commemorat], as when it is said in Genesis (1:26): “Let us make man to our image and likeness.” At times the likeness is denied [aliquando similitudo negatur], as in the text of Isaiah (40:18): “To whom then have you likened God, and what image will you make for Him?” or in the Psalm (82:1) [Vulgate]: “O God, who is like You?”

[4] Dionysius is in agreement with this argument when he says: “The same things are both like and unlike God. They are like according as they imitate as much as they can Him Who is not perfectly imitable [eius qui non est perfecte imitabilis], they are unlike according as effects are lesser than their causes [dissimilia autem, secundum quod causata habent minus suis causis]” [De div. nom. IX, 7].

[5] In the light of this likeness, nevertheless, it is more fitting to say that a creature is like God rather than the converse [convenientius dicitur Deo creatura similis quam e converso]. For that is called like something which possesses a quality or form of that thing. Since, then, that which is found in God perfectly is found in other things according to a certain diminished participation [id quod in Deo perfecte est, in rebus aliis per quandam deficientem participationem invenitur], the basis on which the likeness is observed belongs to God absolutely, but not to the creature [illud secundum quod similitudo attenditur, Dei quidem simpliciter]. Thus, the creature has what belongs to God and, consequently, is rightly said to be like God. But we cannot in the same way say that God has what belongs to the creature [Non autem sic potest dici Deum habere quod creaturae est]. Neither, then, can we appropriately say that God is like a creature, just as we do not say that man is like his image, although the image is rightly said to be like him.

[6] All the less proper, moreover, is the expression that God is likened to a creature. For likening expresses a motion towards likeness and thus belongs to the being that receives from another that which makes it like [assimilatio motum ad similitudinem dicit et sic competit et quod ab alio accipit unde simile sit]. But a creature receives from God that which makes it like Him. The converse, however, does not hold. God, then, is not likened to a creature; rather, the converse is true.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 28

2010-12-01T23:25:00.001-08:00

CHAPTER 28: ON THE DIVINE PERFECTION [CAPUT VIGINTI OCTO: DE PERFECTIONE DIVINA]

[1] Although the things that exist and live are more perfect than the things that merely exist, nevertheless, God, Who is not other than His being, is a universally perfect being. And I call universally perfect that to which the excellence of no genus is lacking [dico universaliter perfectum, cui non deest alicuius generis nobilitas].

[2] Every excellence in any given thing belongs to it according to its being. For man would have no excellence as a result of his wisdom unless through it he were wise. So, too, with the other excellences. Hence, the mode of a thing’s excellence is according to the mode of its being [secundum modum quo res habet esse, est suus modus in nobilitate]. For a thing is said to be more or less excellent according as its being is limited to a certain greater or lesser mode of excellence. Therefore, if there is something to which the whole power of being belongs, it can lack no excellence that is proper to some thing. But for a thing that is its own being it is proper to be according to the whole power of being [si aliquid est cui competit tota virtus essendi, ei nulla nobilitatum deesse potest quae alicui rei conveniat. Sed rei quae est suum esse, competit esse secundum totam essendi potestatem].

For example, if there were a separately existing whiteness, it could not lack any of the power of whiteness. For a given white thing lacks something of the power of whiteness through a defect in the receiver of the whiteness, which receives it according to its mode and perhaps not according to the whole power of whiteness. God, therefore, Who is His being, as we have proved above, has being according to the whole power of being itself. Hence, He cannot lack any excellence that belongs to any given thing [Deus igitur, qui est suum esse, ut supra probatum est, habet esse secundum totam virtutem ipsius esse. Non potest ergo carere aliqua nobilitate quae alicui rei conveniat].

I admit I don't know how to ascribe "color" to God. Presumably God does not lack the excellence of any genus, including that of color, but surely God is not chromatic. My hunch is that God possesses the excellence of color in the mode of causation and measure, rather than in any specific chromatic sense. After all, God qua ens summe perfectum infinitely transcends the finite mode of specific color. God preeminently possesses the excellence of the genus of color––without being subsumed under that, or any other, genus––in so far as He is the intrinsic basis (or "measure") for the genus of color. This means whatever color can do is given to it by the power of God as first, preeminent cause (cf. §7 infra). Color can not only produce effects in various entities (e.g. photovoltaic sensors, amoeba, plants, panthers, etc.) but also ground differences among entities in themselves (e.g. by differentiating "the lime-green apple" from "the maroon apple"). Causal and differentiating power are found in God in a preeminent way, first, because He energizes the existence of anything in order for it to be causally efficacious among other things, and, second, because He orders disparate things in generic and specific relations (i.e. differentiae). God is not "colored" but color is very dimly like God in so far as it reflects His causal and differentiating power.

[3] But just as every excellence and perfection is found in a thing according as that thing is, so every defect is found in it according as in some way it is not. Now, just as God bas being wholly, so non-being is wholly absent from Him. For as a thing has being, in that way is it removed from non-being. Hence, all defect is absent from God. He is, therefore, universally perfect [A Deo ergo omnis defectus absistit. Est igitur universaliter perfectus].

[4] Those things that merely exist are not imperfect because of an imperfection in absolute being [Illa vero quae tantum sunt, non sunt imperfecta propter imperfectionem ipsius esse absoluti]. For they do not possess being according to its whole power; rather, they participate in it through a certain particular and most imperfect mode.

This is why the Church rejects, say, Manicheanism. Heresies of its kind teach that anything short of God's fullness is evil, simply because it is evil qua "not-entirely-good", whereas the Church understands that things can be perfect in their own way, and are not evil simply because they are not God. Actually, as I have argued before, all anti-theistic arguments from evil boil down to the belief that God's greatest failure is creation of any kind. If God alone is wholly and perfectly good, and anything He creates necessarily pales in comparison, then, for the proponent of an argument from evil, a state of affairs in which anything less good than God exists is strange proof either that He doesn't exist or that He is unable freely to create a non-evil world. Thomas, however, teaches us that perfection is relative to a thing's actual mode of existence, not to God's absolute being per se. Or as the annotated SCG puts it, "Perfection is actuality up to standard. In a finite nature, the standard imposes limitations, according to the Aristotelian canon of the golden mean, a canon not framed for the infinite."

[5] Furthermore, everything that is imperfect must be preceded by something perfect. Thus, the seed is from the animal or the plant [Omne imperfectum ab aliquo perfecto necesse est ut praecedatur: semen enim est ab animali vel a planta]. The first being must, therefore, be most perfect. But we have shown that God is the first being. He is, therefore, most perfect. …

So the chicken did come before the egg and "orange" was named after the fruit rather than vice versa!

More seriously, however, it is perhaps an open question biologically which "thing" came first in "chickenhood." A sound metaphysic need only insists upon the fact that there must be a metaphysically prior mode of existence (essence) according to which a metaphysically subsequent entity acts. If once long ago "a chicken" did hatch from what thereby became "the first chicken egg," it is up to biologists to discover that fact. Whichever way the empirical cookie––or eggshell––crumbles, what abides is the fact that a chicken could only exist––i.e. instantiate its proper act of being––if there were an antecedent principle of perfection (i.e. a form) in the world. This I take to be one aspect of St Maximus' teaching on the abiding power of the logoi in nature, as they are energized in the Logos (cf. here1 or here2). Because God sustains the very possibility of "chickenhood" in the world, by way of His knowledge of it, a knowledge had in the Logos of His own Godhead, therefore this chickenhood at least has a metaphysical role in nature qua the prior metaphysical principle for what end up being actual chickens.

God, as St Augustine taught, has impregnated the world with "formal seeds" (rationes seminales) of being; in the course of time, these seeds may emerge into robust biological realities, thought they lay unseen for ages beforehand. This is what "evolution" means etymologically, a "rolling out" of what was rolled into the world at creation. So if by some chance an egg was laid which had mutations in it that would result in the hatching of the first chicken, it is only on account of that egg's "conforming to" a metaphysical principle of perfection that it could result in anything existentially viable in its own right. In that sense, the egg is not less perfect than the hatchling, since it also possesses––albeit in 'condensed', proleptic form––the essential capacities of the future chicken. On the other hand, the egg is really only a chicken egg if it yields what properly exists as a chicken. If it yielded a headless glob of two feet and a wing, it would not be a perfect(ed) chicken egg. Thus it is the chicken, as a dynamic existent––i.e. as a modally specific act of being––which classifies this or that egg as this or that kind of egg. Until it hatches, we do not know what "this egg" will produce––unless we already know the egg came from such and such an animal. Hence, while the egg materially constitutes the nascent chicken, the chicken formally reduces the egg's potency to exist in an actual-specific mode of being; and thus the chicken is metaphysically prior, or superior, to the egg. A chicken that produced no eggs be a perfect chicken––albeit not a perfect case of the entire species––, whereas an egg that did not yield a chicken would be so imperfect a "chicken egg" as to not qualify.

[7] Nothing, moreover, acts except as it is in act. Hence, action follows the mode of act in the agent [Nihil agit nisi secundum quod est in actu. Actio igitur consequitur modum actus in agente]. It is therefore impossible that an effect brought forth by an action be of a more excellent act than is the act of the agent. On the other hand, it is possible that the act of the effect be less perfect than the act of the efficient cause, since an action can become weakened through the effect in which it terminates. Now, in the genus of the efficient cause there is a reduction to one cause, called God [In genere autem causae efficientis fit reductio ad unam primam quae Deus dicitur], as is evident from what we have said; and from this cause, as we shall show later on, all things come. Hence, it is necessary that whatever is found in act in any thing whatever must be found in God in a more eminent way than in that thing itself [Oportet igitur quicquid actu est in quacumque re alia, inveniri in Deo multo eminentius quam sit in re illa]. But the converse is not true. God, therefore, is most perfect.

"…one cause, called God…" God as linguistic placeholder. Since God utterly surpasses what we can say about Him (cf. SCG I, 14), the best we can say about Him "by way of remotion" (ibid.) is how He corresponds to our grasp of Him by the effects of His power (cf. SCG I, 3). God is simply "that which grounds finite causation," or "that which measures all grades of being," and so on. This is why it is legitimate for Thomas in Summa theologica I, 2, 3 to end his "five ways" (as alluded to in the previous sentence) with the famous "and this everyone understands to be God," or "to which everyone gives the name of God," etc. Since "God", as a verbal entity, is not commensurate with the reality to which it refers––and thus is not a grounds for an ontological proof (cf. SCG I, 10) of His existence––, we are left with faith in His nature by Revelation and progressive adumbrations of His being by way of philosophical theology, tempered always by the experience of worship and ascesis. "God," then, is used as a cognitive pivot-point, or discursive foothold, from which we inch our way toward Him by fides quaerens intellectum. "God" is the almost comically puny yet rightly humblingly linguistic pry-bar by which we progressively gain insight into the reality of our origin and destiny in Christ, "by a certain extension of the name [God]" (cf. §10 infra).

Cf. §2 supra.

[8] In every genus, furthermore, there is something that is most perfect for that genus, acting as a measure for all other things in the genus. For each thing is shown to be more or less perfect according as it approaches more or less to the measure of its genus. Thus, white is said to be the measure among all colors, and the virtuous man among all men. Now, the measure of all beings cannot be other than God, Who is His own being [autem quod est mensura omnium entium non potest esse aliud quam Deus, qui est suum esse.]. No perfection, consequently, that is appropriate to this or that thing is lacking to Him; otherwise, He would not be the common measure of all things.

[9] This is why, when Moses asked to see the divine countenance or glory, he received this reply from the Lord: “I will show you all good,” as it is written in Exodus (33:18, 19); by which the Lord gave Moses to understand that the fullness of all goodness was in Him. Dionysius likewise says: “God does not exist in a certain way [Deus non quodam modo est existens]; He possesses, and this before all others, all being within Himself absolutely and limitlessly” [De div. nom. V, 4].

[10] We must note, however, that perfection cannot be attributed to God appropriately if we consider the signification of the name according to its origin [nominis significatio quantum ad sui originem]; for it does not seem that what is not made [factum] can be called perfect [perfectum]. But everything that comes to be is brought forth from potency to act and from non-being to being when it has been made. That is why it is rightly said to be perfect, as being completely made, at that moment when the potency is wholly reduced to act, so that it retains no non-being but has a completed being [Sed quia omne quod fit, de potentia in actum deductum est et de non esse in esse quando factum est, tunc recte perfectum esse dicitur, quasi totaliter factum, quando potentia totaliter est ad actum reducta, ut nihil de non esse retineat, sed habeat esse completum]. By a certain extension of the name [Per quandam igitur nominis extensionem], consequently, perfect is said not only of that which by way of becoming reaches a completed act, but also of that which, without any making whatever, is in complete act. It is thus that, following the words of Matthew (5:48), we say that God is perfect: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

"By a certain extension of the name [Per quandam igitur nominis extensionem]…" Cf. gloss on § 7 supra.

Purpose of this blog...

2010-10-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

I decided to un-clutter my main blog and make my ongoing study of Summa contra gentiles more accessible for web searches and those who take an interest in it. I will transplant my previous posts of SCG––approximately chapters 1–27 of Book 1, as––to this blog and then proceed glossing SCG here (and crosslink to it at my main blog, FCA).

ADDENDUM:

It was not until about the 14th or 15th chapter of book 1 that I began really glossing the content, and not till about the same point or later that I began systematically adding the original Latin to key points in the text.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 27

2010-10-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

Book 1, Chapter 27: THAT GOD IS NOT THE FORM OF ANY BODY [Quod Deus non sit forma alicuius corporis]

[1] Having shown that God is not the being of all things, we can likewise show that He is not the form of any thing.

[2] As we have shown, the divine being cannot belong to any quiddity that is not being itself. [Nam divinum esse non potest esse alicuius quidditatis quae non sit ipsum esse, ut ostensum est.] Now, only God is the divine being itself. It is impossible, therefore, for God to be the form of some other being.

[3] Furthermore, the form of a body is not the being itself, but a principle of being. But God is being itself. [Forma corporis non est ipsum esse, sed essendi principium. Deus autem est ipsum esse.] He is, therefore, not the form of a body.

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/10/reading-summa-contra-gentiles.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 26

2010-10-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

Book 1, Chapter 26: THAT GOD IS NOT THE FORMAL BEING OF ALL THINGS [Quod Deus non est esse formale omnium]

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/09/reading-summa-contra-gentiles_22.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 25

2010-10-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Chapter 25: THAT GOD IS NOT IN SOME GENUS
[CAPUT 25: QUOD DEUS NON EST IN ALIQUO GENERE]

[1] From this we infer necessarily that God is not in some genus.

[2] Every thing in a genus has something within it by which the nature of the genus is determined to its species; for nothing is in a genus that is not in some species of that genus. But, as we have shown, this determination cannot take place in God. God cannot, then, be in some genus.

[3] If, moreover, God is in a genus, either He is in the genus of accident or in that of substance. He is not in the genus of accident, since the first being and the first cause cannot be an accident. Neither can God be in the genus of substance, since the substance that is a genus is not being itself; otherwise, every substance would be its being and would thus not be caused by another—which is impossible, as is evident from what we have said. Therefore, God is not in some genus.

[4] Again, whatever is in a genus differs in being from the other things in that genus; otherwise, the genus would not be predicated of many things. But all the things that are in the same genus must agree in the quiddity of the genus, since the genus is predicated of all things in it in terms of what they are. In other words, the being of each thing found in a genus is outside the quiddity of the genus. This is impossible in God. God, therefore, is not in a genus.

[5] Then, too, each thing is placed in a genus through the nature of its quiddity, for the genus is a predicate expressing what a thing is. But the quiddity of God is His very being. Accordingly, God is not located in a genus, because then being, which signifies the act of being, would be a genus. Therefore, God is not in a genus.

[6] Now, that being cannot be a genus is proved by the Philosopher in the following way [Metaphysics III, 3]. If being were a genus we should have to find a difference through which to contract it to a species. But no difference shares in the genus in such a way that the genus is included in the notion of the difference, for thus the genus would be included twice in the definition of the species. Rather, the difference is outside what is understood in the nature of the genus. But there can be nothing that is outside that which is understood by being, if being is included in the concept of the things of which it is predicated. Thus, being cannot be contracted by any difference. Being is, therefore, not a genus. From this we conclude necessarily that God is not in a genus.

[7] From this it is likewise evident that God cannot be defined, for every definition is constituted from the genus and the differences.

[8] It is also clear that no demonstration is possible about God, except through an effect; for the principle of demonstration is the definition of that of which the demonstration is made.

[9] Now it can seem to someone that, although the name substance cannot properly apply to God because God does not substand accidents, yet the thing signified by the name is appropriate and thus God is in the genus of substance. For a substance is a being through itself. Now, this is appropriate to God, since we have proved that He is not an accident.

[10] To this contention we must reply, in accord with what we have said, that being through itself is not included in the definition of substance. For, if something is called being, it cannot be a genus, since we have already proved that being does not have the nature of a genus. Neither can what is through itself be a genus, since the expression seems to indicate nothing more than a negation. Something is said to be a being through itself because it is not in another. This is a pure negation, which likewise cannot constitute the nature of a genus; for a genus would then say, not what a thing is, but what it is not. The nature of substance, therefore, must be understood as follows. A substance is a thing to which it belongs to be not in a subject. The name thing takes its origin from the quiddity, just as the name being comes from to be. In this way, the definition of substance is understood as that which has a quiddity to which it belongs to be not in another. Now, this is not appropriate to God, for He has no quiddity save His being. In no way, then, is God in the genus of substance. Thus, He is in no genus, since we have shown that He is not in the genus of accident.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 24

2010-10-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

Book I, Chapter 24:

THAT THE DIVINE BEING CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY THE ADDITION OF SOME SUBSTANTIAL DIFFERENCE [Quod divinum esse non potest designari per additionem alicuius differentiae substantialis]

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/09/reading-summa-contra-gentiles_16.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 23

2010-10-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

ST THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT NO ACCIDENT IS FOUND IN GOD
(Quod in Deo non est accidens)
SCG, I, xxiii

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/09/reading-summa-contra-gentiles_13.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 22

2010-10-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT IN GOD BEING AND ESSENCE ARE THE SAME [Quod in Deo idem est esse et essentia] (P. I, c. xxii)

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/09/reading-summa-contra-gentiles_11.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 21

2010-10-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

SANCTI THOMAE AQUINATIS: THAT GOD IS HIS ESSENCE

[1] From what has been laid down we can infer that God is His essence, quiddity, or nature [haberi potest quod Deus est sua essentia, quidditas seu natura].

[2] There must be some composition in every being that is not its essence or quiddity [In omni enim eo quod non est sua essentia sive quidditas, oportet aliquam esse compositionem]. Since, indeed, each thing possesses its own essence, if there were nothing in a thing outside its essence all that the thing is would be its essence; which would mean that the thing is its essence. But, if some thing were not its essence, there should be something in it outside its essence. Thus, there must be composition in it. Hence it is that the essence in composite things is signified as a part, for example, humanity in man. Now, it has been shown that there is no composition in God. God is, therefore, His essence [Si igitur aliquid non esset sua essentia, oportet aliquid in eo esse praeter eius essentiam. Et sic oportet in eo esse compositionem. Unde etiam essentia in compositis significatur per modum partis, ut humanitas in homine. Ostensum est autem in Deo nullam esse compositionem. Deus igitur est sua essentia].

...

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/09/reading-summa-contra-gentiles.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 20

2010-10-10T19:50:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO (1225–1274)

SCG I, I, xx: THAT GOD IS NOT A BODY (Quod Deus non est corpus)

[1] From the preceding remarks [in SCG I, I, xix, i.e. that in God is nothing violent or unnatural] it is also shown that God is not a body.

http://veniaminov.blogspot.com/2010/08/reading-summa-contra-gentiles.html

SCG, Book I, Chapter 19

2010-10-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT IN GOD THERE IS NOTHING VIOLENT OR UNNATURAL

[1] From this [viz., "Therefore, that which is before all things, namely, God, must be free of all composition." Cf. SCG I, xviii] Aristotle concludes that in God there can be nothing violent or unnatural.

[2] Everything in which there is found something violent and outside nature has something added to itself, for what belongs to the substance of a thing can be neither violent nor outside nature. Now, nothing simple has anything added to itself, since this would render it composite. Since, then, God is simple, as we have shown, nothing in Him can be violent or outside nature.

[3] Furthermore, the necessity of coaction is a necessity from another. But in God there is no necessity from another; He is necessary through Himself and the cause of necessity for other things. Therefore, nothing in God is due to coaction.

[4] Again, wherever there is something violent, there can be something beyond what befits a thing through itself; for the violent is opposed to what is according to nature. But in God there cannot be anything beyond what befits Him according to Himself; for God, as we have shown, is of Himself the necessary being. There can, therefore, be nothing violent in God.

[5] Then, too, everything in which there can be something violent or unnatural is by nature able to be moved by another. For the violent is “that whose source is from the outside, the receiver being completely passive.” Now, as we have shown, God is absolutely immobile [Cf. SCG I, xvi?]. There can, therefore, be nothing violent or unnatural in Him.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 18

2010-10-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT THERE IS NO COMPOSITION IN GOD

… [2] In every composite there must be act and potency [Nam in omni composito oportet esse actum et potentiam]. For several things cannot become absolutely one unless among them something is act and something potency. Now, beings in act are not united except by being, so to speak, bound or joined together, which means that they are not absolutely one. Their parts, likewise, are brought together as being in potency with respect to the union, since they are united in act after being potentially unitable [ipsae partes congregatae sunt sicut potentia respectu unionis: sunt enim unitae in actu postquam fuerint in potentia unibiles]. But in God there is no potency. Therefore, there is no composition in Him.

[3] Every composite, moreover, is subsequent to its components [Item. Omne compositum posterius est suis componentibus]. The first being, therefore, which is God, has no components.

[4] Every composite, furthermore, is potentially dissoluble [Adhuc. Omne compositum est potentia dissolubile]. This arises from the nature of composition, although in some composites there is another element that resists dissolution. Now, what is dissoluble can not-be. This does not befit God, since He is through Himself the necessary being [Quod autem est dissolubile, est in potentia ad non esse. Quod Deo non competit: cum sit per se necesse-esse]. There is, therefore, no composition in God.

[5] Every composition, likewise, needs some composer. For, if there is composition, it is made up of a plurality, and a plurality cannot be fitted into a unity except by some composer. If, then, God were composite, He would have a composer. He could not compose Himself, since nothing is its own cause, because it would be prior to itself, which is impossible [Amplius. Omniscompositio indiget aliquo componente: si enim compositio est, ex pluribus est; quae autem secundum se sunt plura, in unum non convenirent nisi ab aliquocomponente unirentur. Si igitur compositus esset Deus, haberet componentem: non enim ipse seipsum componere posset, quia nihil est causa sui ipsius; esset enim prius seipso, quod est impossibile]. Now, the composer is the efficient cause of the composite. Thus, God would have an efficient cause. Thus, too, He would not be the first cause—which was proved above.

[6] Again, in every genus the simpler a being, the more noble it is: e.g., in the genus of the hot, Ere [sic; fire/ignis吧？], which has no admixture of cold. That, therefore, which is at the peak of nobility among all beings must be at the peak of simplicity [Quod igitur est in fine nobilitatis omnium entium, oportet esse in fine simplicitatis]. But the being that is at the peak of nobility among all beings we call God, since He is the first cause. For a cause is nobler than an effect. God can, therefore, have no composition.

[7] Furthermore, in every composite the good belongs, not to this or that part, but to the whole—and I say good according to the goodness that is proper to the whole and its perfection. For parts are imperfect in comparison with the whole, as the parts of man are not a man, the parts of the number six do not have the perfection of six, and similarly the parts of a line do not reach the perfection of the measure found in the whole line [nam partes sunt imperfectae respectu totius: sicut partes hominis non sunt homo, partes etiam numeri senarii non habent perfectionem senarii, et similiter partes lineae non perveniunt ad perfectionem mensurae quae in tota linea invenitur]. If, then, God is composite, His proper perfection and goodness is found in the whole, not in any part of the whole. Thus, there will not be in God purely that good which is proper to Him. God, then, is not the first and highest good.

[8] Again, prior to all multitude we must find unity [Item. Ante omnem multitudinem oportet invenire unitatem]. But there is multitude in every composite. Therefore, that which is before all things, namely, God, must be free of all composition.

SCG, Book I, Chapter 17

2010-10-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT THERE IS NO MATTER IN GOD [Quod in Deo non est materia]

[1] From this [i.e., that there is no passive potency in God, Quod in Deo non est potentia passiva] it is likewise evident that God is not matter [Deum non esse materiam].

[2] Whatever matter is, it is in potency [Quia materia id quod est, in potentia est].

[3] Matter, furthermore, is not a principle of acting [Item. Materia non est agendi principium]. That is why, according to Aristotle, the efficient cause and matter do not coincide [Physics II, 7]. But, as we have said, it belongs to God to be the first efficient cause of things. Therefore, He is not matter.

Aristotle's distinction between efficient causes and the matter upon which they act can be seen this way: since every change matter undergoes must be caused by something, the cause for its alteration cannot be in the matter itself, otherwise one and the same matter would both retain and alter its exact proportions. Hence, only if an efficient cause is distinct from matter can the matter retain its exact characteristics and yet still undergo changes. Matter is that which undergoes change, and therefore it is passive with respect to efficient causes, and indeterminate with respect to formal causes. Matter becomes determinate ("specific") by being informed and, by the same token, becomes active by means of efficient causes, which are themselves ordered toward some end.

[4] Moreover, for those who reduced all things to matter as to the first cause it follows that natural things exist by chance. Aristotle argues against these thinkers in Physics II [8]. Hence, if God, Who is the first cause, is the material cause of things, it follows that all things exist by chance.

The reason a purely material world can only give "chance" explanations for natural phenomena, is that matter [hyle] intrinsically lacks its own determining principles, otherwise efficient and formal causes would be unable to "revoke" matter's principles and produce material variability. Since matter per se lacks intrinsic formal and efficient principles, it is "open" the so to speak mutable determinateness which efficient and formal causes bring to bear upon it. As such, if everything were matter, there would be no intrinsic principles for why each thing is what it is. We could only cite "chance," or, in other words, sheer ignorance. Chance is a code word for ignorance, not a meaningful explanation.

[5] Again, matter does not become the cause of something actual except by being altered and changed [Item. Materia non fit causa alicuius in actu nisi secundum quod alteratur et mutatur]. But if, as we have proved, God is absolutely immobile, He cannot in any way be the cause of things according to the mode of matter.

[6] Now, the Catholic faith professes this truth, namely, it asserts that God has created all things, not out of His own substance, but out of nothing [qua Deum non de sua substantia, sed de nihilo asserit cuncta creasse].

[7] On this point, however, the madness of David of Dinant stands confounded. He dared to assert that God is the same as prime matter on the ground that, if He were not, He would have to differ from it by some differences, and thus they would not be simple. For in the being that differs from another by a difference, the difference itself produces a composition. David’s position was the result of ignorance. He did not know how to distinguish between difference and diversity […qua nescivit quid inter differentiam et diversitatem intersit]. The different, as is determined in Metaphysics X [3], is said relationally [ad aliquid], for every different is different by something [omne differens aliquo est differens]. Something is called diverse, however, absolutely, from the fact that it is not the same [diversum autem aliquid absolute dicitur, ex hoc quod non est idem]. Difference, therefore, must be sought among those things that agree in something, for we must point to something in them according to which they differ: for example, two species agree in genus and must therefore be distinguished by differences. But in things that agree in nothing we need not seek the whereby they differ; they are diverse by themselves [In his autem quae in nullo conveniunt, non est quaerendum quo differant, sed seipsis diversa sunt]. In the same way, opposite differences are distinguished from one another [Sic enim et oppositae differentiae ab invicem distinguuntur]. For they do not share in the genus as a part of their essence, and therefore, since they are by themselves diverse, there is no need to seek that by which they differ [et ideo non est quaerendum quibus differant, seipsis enim diversa sunt]. In this way, too, God and prime matter are distinguished: one is pure act, the other is pure potency, and they agree in nothing [Sic etiam Deus et materia prima distinguuntur, quorum unus est actus purus, aliud potentia pura, in nullo convenientiam habentes].

SCG, Book I, Chapter 16

2010-10-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT THERE IS NO PASSIVE POTENCY IN GOD

[Quod in Deo non est potentia passiva]

[1] If God is eternal, of necessity there is no potency in Him.

[2] The being whose substance has an admixture of potency is liable not to be by as much as it has potency; for that which can be, can not-be [quia quod potest esse, potest non esse]. But, God, being everlasting, in His substance cannot not-be [Deus autem secundum se non potest non esse]. In God, therefore, there is no potency to being.

[3] Though a being that is sometime in potency and sometime in act is in time in potency before being in act, absolutely speaking act is prior to potency. For potency does not raise itself to act; it must be raised to act by something that is in act. Hence, whatever is in some way in potency has something prior to it[tamen simpliciter actus est prior potentia: quia potentia non educit se in actum, sed oportet quod educatur in actum per aliquid quod sit in actu. Omne igitur quod est aliquo modo in potentia, habet aliquid prius se]. But, as is evident from what was said above, God is the first being and the first cause. Hence, He has no admixture of potency in Himself.

[4] Moreover, that which is a necessary being through itself is in no way a possible being, since that which is through itself a necessary being has no cause, whereas, as we have shown above, whatever is a possible being has a cause. But God is through Himself a necessary being. He is, therefore, in no way a possible being, and so no potency is found in His substance.

[5] …[E]ach thing acts in so far as it is in act. …[W]hat is not wholly act acts, not with the whole of itself, but with part of itself. But what does not act with the whole of itself is not the first agent, since it does not act through its essence but through participation in something. The first agent, therefore, namely, God, has no admixture of potency but is pure act [Unumquodque agit secundum quod est actu. Quod … non est totus actus, non toto se agit, sed aliquo sui. Quod autem non toto se agit, non est primum agens: agit enim alicuius participatione, non per essentiam suam. Primum igitur agens, quod Deus est, nullam habet potentiam admixtam, sed est actus purus].

[6] Further, just as each thing naturally acts in so far as it is in act, so it is naturally receptive in so far as it is in potency; for motion is the act of that which exists in potency [nam motus est actus potentia existentis]. But God is absolutely impassible and immutable … [and] has, therefore, no part of potency—that is, passive potency.

[7] Then, too, we see something in the world that emerges from potency to act.Now, it does not educe itself from potency to act, since that which is in potency, being still in potency, can therefore not act. Some prior being is therefore needed by which it may be brought forth from potency to act. This cannot go on to infinity. We must, therefore, arrive at some being that is only in act and in no wise in potency. This being we call God [Non autem educit se de potentia in actum: quia quod est potentia, nondum est; unde nec agere potest. Ergo oportet esse aliquid aliud prius, qui educatur de potentia in actum. Et iterum, si hoc est exiens de potentia in actum, oportet ante hoc aliquid aliud poni, quo reducatur in actum. Hoc autem in infinitum procedere non potest.Ergo oportet devenire ad aliquid quod est tantum actu et nullo modo in potentia. Et hoc dicimus Deum].

SCG, Book I, Chapter 15

2010-10-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

ST. THOMAS D'AQUINO: THAT GOD IS ETERNAL

[1] From what we have said it is further apparent that God is eternal.

[2] Everything that begins to be or ceases to be does so through motion or change. Since, however, we have shown that God is absolutely immutable, He is eternal, lacking all beginning or end.

[3] Again [Amplius]. Those beings alone are measured by time that are moved. For time, as is made clear in Physics IV [11], is “the number of motion.” But God, as has been proved, is absolutely without motion, and is consequently not measured by time. There is, therefore, no before and after in Him; He does not have being after non-being, nor non-being after being, nor can any succession be found in His being. For none of these characteristics can be understood without time. God, therefore, is without beginning and end, having His whole being at once. In this consists the nature of eternity […totum esse suum simul habens. In quo ratio aeternitatis consistit].

[4] What is more, if it were true that there was a time when He existed after not existing, then He must have been brought by someone from non-being to being.Not by Himself, since what does not exist cannot act [Non a seipso: quia quod non est non potest aliquid agere]. If by another, then this other is prior to God. But we have shown that God is the first cause. Hence, He did not begin to be, nor consequently will He cease to be, for that which has been everlastingly has the power to be everlastingly [quia quod semper fuit, habet virtutem semper essendi]. God is, therefore, eternal.

[5] We find in the world, furthermore, certain beings, those namely that are subject to generation and corruption, which can be and [can-]not-be. But what can be has a cause because, since it is equally related to two contraries, namely, being and non-being, it must be owing to some cause that being accrues to it. Now, as we have proved by the reasoning of Aristotle, one cannot proceed to infinity among causes [cf. SCG I, xiii]. We must therefore posit something that is a necessary being. Every necessary being, however, either has the cause of its necessity in an outside source or, if it does not, it is necessary through itself. But one cannot proceed to infinity among necessary beings the cause of whose necessity lies in an outside source. We must therefore posit a first necessary being, which is necessary through itself. This is God, since, as we have shown, He is the first cause. God, therefore, is eternal, since whatever is necessary through itself is eternal.

[6] From the everlastingness of time, likewise, Aristotle shows the everlastingness of motion [Physics VIII, 1], from which he further shows the everlastingness of the moving substance [VIII, 6]. Now, the first moving substance is God. God is therefore everlasting [Prima autem substantia movens Deus est. Est igitur sempiternus]. If we deny the everlastingness of time and motion, we are still able to prove the everlastingness of the moving substance.For, if motion had a beginning, it must have done so through some moving cause. If this moving cause began, it did so through the action of some cause. Hence, either one will proceed to infinity, or he will arrive at a moving cause that had no beginning.

[7] To this truth divine authority offers witness [Huic autem veritati divina auctoritas testimonium perhibet]. The Psalmist says: “But You, Lord, endure forever”; and he goes on to say: “But You art always the selfsame: and Your years shall not fail” (Ps. 101:13, 28).

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 14

2010-10-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 14: TO KNOW GOD WE MUST USE THE WAY OF REMOTION [CAPUT 14: Quod ad cognitionem Dei oportet uti via remotionis]

[In Scholastic theology, three methods of analogical inquiry were used in discussion of God: the via causalitatis, the via remotionis, and the via eminentiae (or, excellentiae). St. Thomas was treading the via prima (i.e., causality) in the above couple chapters of SCG, where he argued from the effects of the Creator to the existence and nature of the Creator. Since, however, His effects are woefully inadequate to convey God's nature in a fitting way, the other two viae are invoked to balance out the limited gains of the via causalitatis. God is a maker of effects, yes, but He is "remote" from the limitations of makers as we think of them, principally in the way that He creates ex nihilo, whereas lesser makers always have to rely on some medium or tool or model outside themselves. As the IVth Lateran Council stated in 1215, “between the Creator and the creature there cannot be a likeness so great that the unlikeness is not greater [semper maior dissimilitudo in tanta similitudine].” Further, the aspects which we can ascribe to God by analogy with lesser created things (by way of the viae causalitatis et remotionis), we must ascribe to God in an "eminent" or "excellent" way. God is a wise artisan, but eminently and supremely so. God is not simply a rough idea of love, but supereminently love; the Father not simply a paternal pattern, but a supereminently good father, etc.

The methodological "tension" of the viae tritae occurs and re-occurs through SCG and most Scholastic works, so you should keep an eye open for it.]

[1] We have shown that there exists a first being, whom we call God. We must, accordingly, now investigate the properties of this being.

[2] Now, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion. For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not. Furthermore, we approach nearer to a knowledge of God according as through our intellect we are able to remove more and more things from Him. For we know each thing more perfectly the more fully we see its differences from other things; for each thing has within itself its own being, distinct from all other things. …

[3] However, in the consideration of the divine substance we cannot take a what as a genus; nor can we derive the distinction of God from things by differences affirmed of God. For this reason, we must derive the distinction of God from other beings by means of negative differences.And just as among affirmative differences one contracts the other, so one negative difference is contracted by another that makes it to differ from many beings. For example, if we say that God is not an accident, we thereby distinguish Him from all accidents. Then, if we add that He is not a body, we shall further distinguish Him from certain substances. And thus, proceeding in order, by such negations God will be distinguished from all that He is not. Finally, there will then be a proper consideration of God’s substance when He will be known as distinct from all things. Yet, this knowledge will not be perfect, since it will not tell us what God is in Himself.

[4] As a principle of procedure in knowing God by way of remotion, therefore, let us adopt the proposition which, from what we have said, is now manifest, namely, that God is absolutely unmoved. The authority of Sacred Scripture also confirms this. For it is written: “I am the Lord and I change not” (Mal. 3:6); ...“with whom there is no change” (James 2:17). Again: “God is not man... that He should be changed (Num. 23:19).

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 13

2010-10-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 13: ARGUMENTS IN PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD [CAPUT 13: Rationes ad probandum Deum esse]

[1] We have now shown that the effort to demonstrate the existence of God is not a vain one. We shall therefore proceed to set forth the arguments by which both philosophers and Catholic teachers have proved that God exists.

[2] We shall first set forth the arguments by which Aristotle proceeds to prove that God exists. The aim of Aristotle is to do this in two ways, beginning with motion.

[3] Of these ways the first is as follows. Everything that is moved is moved by another. That some things are in motion—for example, the sun—is evident from sense. Therefore, it is moved by something else that moves it. This mover is itself either moved or not moved. If it is not, we have reached our conclusion—namely, that we must posit some unmoved mover. This we call God. If it is moved, it is moved by another mover. We must, consequently, either proceed to infinity, or we must arrive at some unmoved mover. Now, it is not possible to proceed to infinity. Hence, we must posit some prime unmoved mover.

[4] In this proof, there are two propositions that need to be proved, namely, [1] that everything that is moved is moved by another, and [2] that in movers and things moved one cannot proceed to infinity.

[5] The first of these propositions Aristotle proves in three ways. The first way is as follows. If something moves itself, it must have within itself the principle of its own motion; otherwise, it is clearly moved by another. Furthermore, it must be primarily moved. This means that it must be moved by reason of itself, and not by reason of a part of itself, as happens when an animal is moved by the motion of its foot. … It is also necessary that a self-moving being be divisible and have parts, since, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4], whatever is moved is divisible.

[6] … That which is held to be moved by itself is primarily moved. Hence, when one of its parts is at rest, the whole is then at rest. … But nothing that is at rest because something else is at rest is moved by itself; for that being whose rest follows upon the rest of another must have its motion follow upon the motion of another. It is thus not moved by itself. Therefore, that which was posited as being moved by itself is not moved by itself. Consequently, everything that is moved must be moved by another.

[7] … [T]he force of Aristotle’s argument lies in this: if something moves itself primarily and through itself, rather than through its parts, that it is moved cannot depend on another. But the moving of the divisible itself, like its being, depends on its parts; it cannot therefore move itself primarily and through itself. … What must rather be true is this conditional proposition: if the part were at rest, the whole would be at rest. Now, this proposition would be true even though its antecedent be impossible. In the same way, the following conditional proposition is true: if man is an ass, he is irrational.

[NB: St. Thomas is referring to the logical truth that any syllogism with a false antecedent––that is, the "If" part of an "If, then" statement––is necessarily valid, since its consequent could be either true or false. An antecedently false syllogism, in other words, always has a valid conclusion, but is not sound.]

[8] In the second way, Aristotle proves the proposition by induction [Physics VIII, 4]. Whatever is moved by accident is not moved by itself, since it is moved upon the motion of another. … Now, whatever is moved is moved through itself or by accident. If it is moved through itself, then it is moved either violently or by nature; if by nature, then either through itself, as the animal, or not through itself, as heavy and light bodies. Therefore, everything that is moved is moved by another.

[9] In the third way, Aristotle proves the proposition as follows [VIII, 5].The same thing cannot be at once in act and in potency with respect to the same thing. But everything that is moved is, as such, in potency. For motion is the act of something that is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency. That which moves, however, is as such in act, for nothing acts except according as it is in act. Therefore, with respect to the same motion, nothing is both mover and moved. Thus, nothing moves itself.

[10] It is to be noted, however, that Plato, who held that every mover is moved [Phaedrus], understood the name motion in a wider sense than did Aristotle … [who] understood motion strictly, according as it is the act of what exists in potency inasmuch as it is such. So understood, motion belongs only to divisible bodies, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4]. According to Plato, however, that which moves itself is not a body.Plato understood by motion any given operation, so that to understand and to judge are a kind of motion. Aristotle likewise touches upon this manner of speaking in the De anima [III, 7]. Plato accordingly said that the first mover moves himself because he knows himself and wills or loves himself. In a way, this is not opposed to the reasons of Aristotle. There is no difference between reaching a first being that moves himself, as understood by Plato, and reaching a first being that is absolutely unmoved, as understood by Aristotle.

[11] The second proposition, namely, that there is no procession to infinity among movers and things moved, Aristotle proves in three ways.

[12] The first is as follows [VII, 1]. If among movers and things moved we proceed to infinity, all these infinite beings must be bodies. For whatever is moved is divisible and a body … [cf. Physics VI, 4]. But every body that moves some thing moved is itself moved while moving it. Therefore, all these infinites are moved together while one of them is moved. But one of them, being finite, is moved in a finite time. Therefore, all those infinites are moved in a finite time. This, however, is impossible. …

[13] Furthermore, that it is impossible for the abovementioned infinites to be moved in a finite time Aristotle proves as follows. The mover and the thing moved must exist simultaneously. … But bodies cannot be simultaneous except through continuity or contiguity. Now, since, as has been proved, all the aforementioned movers and things moved are bodies, they must constitute by continuity or contiguity a sort of single mobile. In this way, one infinite is moved in a finite time. This is impossible, as is proved in the Physics [VII, 1].

[14] The second argument proving the same conclusion is the following. In an ordered series of movers and things moved (this is a series in which one is moved by another according to an order) [In moventibus et motis ordinatis, quorum scilicet unum per ordinem ab alio movetur], it is necessarily the fact that, when the first mover is removed or ceases to move, no other mover will move or be moved. For the first mover is the cause of motion for all the others. But, if there are movers and things moved following an order to infinity, there will be no first mover, but all would be as intermediate movers. Therefore, none of the others will be able to be moved, and thus nothing in the world will be moved.

[NB: Ordinal motion does not exactly mean 'serial' or 'step by step' motion. Rather, it refers to the idea of, let us say, distributed simultaneous efficiency. The efficient causation in an ordered causal system is distributed simultaneously throughout the elements involved at every moment of change. For example, when a boy splashes water by hitting the surface of a creek with a stick, his hand, the stick, and the disrupted water are all, so to speak, causally concurrent. There is a proper order, a determinate structure, of this event, which cannot happen without all the elements being in the right place at the right––namely, the same––time. Moreover, we must realize that the boy's hand simultaneously depends on its attachment to his body, his body on its attachment to the earth, the earth on its place in the solar system, and so on. Everything in the cosmos must occur in an exact causal, albeit not temporal, order for the water to splash as it does. This is more or less what St. Thomas means by what happens in motis ordinatis.]

[15] The third proof comes to the same conclusion, except that, by beginning with the superior, it has a reversed order. … That which moves as an instrumental cause cannot move unless there be a principal moving cause. But, if we proceed to infinity among movers and things moved, all movers will be as instrumental causes, because they will be moved movers and there will be nothing as a principal mover. Therefore, nothing will be moved.

[16] Such, then, is the proof of both propositions assumed by Aristotle in the first demonstrative way by which he proved that a first unmoved mover exists.

[17] The second way is this. If every mover is moved, this proposition is true either by itself or by accident. If by accident, then it is not necessary, since what is true by accident is not necessary. It is something possible, therefore, that no mover is moved. But if a mover is not moved, it does not move…. It is therefore possible that nothing is moved. For, if nothing moves, nothing is moved. This, however, Aristotle considers to be impossible—namely, that at any time there be no motion. Therefore, the first proposition was not possible, since from a false possible, a false impossible does not follow. Hence, this proposition, every mover is moved by another, was not true by accident. …

[19] But, if the proposition that every mover is moved is true by itself, something impossible or awkward likewise follows. For the mover must be moved either by the same kind of motion as that by which he moves, or by another. If the same, a cause of alteration must itself be altered, and further, a healing cause must itself be healed, and a teacher must himself be taught and this with respect to the same knowledge. Now, this is impossible. … So that, if the proposition were true, the same thing would be possessed and not possessed by the same being—which is impossible.

If, however, the mover is moved by another species of motion, so that (namely) the altering cause is moved according to place, and the cause moving according to place is increased, and so forth, since the genera and species of motion are finite in number, it will follow that we cannot proceed to infinity. There will thus be a first mover, which is not moved by another.

Will someone say that there will be a recurrence, so that when all the genera and species of motion have been completed the series will be repeated and return to the first motion? This would involve saying, for example, that a mover according to place would be altered, the altering cause would be increased, and the increasing cause would be moved according to place. Yet this whole view would arrive at the same conclusion as before: whatever moves according to a certain species of motion is itself moved according to the same species of motion, though mediately and not immediately.

[20] It remains, therefore, that we must posit some first mover that is not moved by any exterior moving cause.

[21] Granted this conclusion—namely, that there is a first mover that is not moved by an exterior moving cause—it yet does not follow that this mover is absolutely unmoved. That is why Aristotle goes on to say that the condition of the first mover may be twofold [VIII, 5]. The first mover can be absolutely unmoved. If so, we have the conclusion we are seeking: there is a first unmoved mover. On the other hand, the first mover can be self-moved. This may be argued, because that which is through itself is prior to what is through another. Hence, among things moved as well, it seems reasonable that the first moved is moved through itself and not by another.

[22] But, on this basis, the same conclusion again follows: … it cannot be said that, when a mover moves himself, the whole is moved by the whole. Otherwise, the same difficulties would follow as before: one person would both teach and be taught, and the same would be true among other motions. It would also follow that a being would be both in potency and in act; for a mover is, as such, in act, whereas the thing moved is in potency. Consequently, one part of the self-moved mover is solely moving, and the other part solely moved. We thus reach the same conclusion as before: there exists an unmoved mover.

[23] Nor can it be held that both parts of the self-moved mover are moved, so that one is moved by the other, or that one moves both itself and the other, or that the whole moves a part, or that a part moves the whole. All this would involve the return of the aforementioned difficulties: something would both move and be moved according to the same species of motion; something would be at once in potency and in act; and, furthermore, the whole would not be primarily moving itself, it would move through the motion of a part. The conclusion thus stands: one part of a self-moved mover must be unmoved and moving the other part.

[24] But there is another point to consider. Among self-moved beings known to us, namely, animals, although the moving part, which is to say the soul, is unmoved through itself, it is yet moved by accident. … [T]he moving part of the first self-moving being is not moved either through itself or by accident [cf. Physics VIII, 6]. For, since self-moving beings known to us, namely, animals, are corruptible, the moving part in them is moved by accident. But corruptible self-moving beings must be reduced to some first self-moving being that is everlasting. Therefore, some self-moving being must have a mover that is moved neither through itself nor by accident.

[25] It is further evident that, according to the position of Aristotle, some self-moved being must be everlasting. For if, as Aristotle supposes, motion is everlasting, the generation of self-moving beings (this means beings that are generable and corruptible) must be endless. But the cause of this endlessness cannot be one of the self-moving beings, since it does not always exist. Nor can the cause be all the self-moving beings together, both because they would be infinite and because they would not be simultaneous. There must therefore be some endlessly self-moving being, causing the endlessness of generation among these sublunary self-movers. …

[26] Again, we see that among beings that move themselves some initiate a new motion as a result of some motion. This new motion is other than the motion by which an animal moves itself, for example, digested food or altered air. By such a motion the self-moving mover is moved by accident. From this we may infer that no self-moved being is moved everlastingly whose mover is moved either by itself or by accident. But the first self-mover is everlastingly in motion; otherwise, motion could not be everlasting, since every other motion is caused by the motion of the self-moving first mover. The first self-moving being, therefore, is moved by a mover who is himself moved neither through himself nor by accident. …

[28] Now, God is not part of any self-moving mover. In his Metaphysics[XII, 7], therefore, Aristotle goes on from the mover who is a part of the self-moved mover to seek another mover—God—who is absolutely separate. For, since everything moving itself is moved through appetite, the mover who is part of the self-moving being moves because of the appetite of some appetible object. This object is higher, in the order of motion, than the mover desiring it; for the one desiring is in a manner a moved mover, whereas an appetible object is an absolutely unmoved mover. [Cum enim omne movens seipsum moveatur per appetitum, oportet quod motor qui est pars moventis seipsum, moveat propter appetitum alicuius appetibilis. Quod est eo superius in movendo: nam appetens est quodammodo movens motum; appetibile autem est movens omnino non motum.] There must, therefore, be an absolutely unmoved separate first mover. This is God.

[29] Two considerations seem to invalidate these arguments. The first consideration is that, as arguments, they presuppose the eternity of motion, which Catholics consider to be false.

[30] To this consideration the reply is as follows. The most efficacious way to prove that God exists is on the supposition that the world is eternal. Granted this supposition, that God exists is less manifest. For, if the world and motion have a first beginning, some cause must clearly be posited to account for this origin of the world and of motion. That which comes to be anew must take its origin from some innovating cause; since nothing brings itself from potency to act, or from non-being to being.

[31] The second consideration is that the demonstrations given above presuppose that the first moved being, namely, a heavenly body, is self-moved. This means that it is animated, which many do not admit.

[32] The reply to this consideration is that, if the prime mover is not held to be self-moved, then it must be moved immediately by something absolutely unmoved. Hence, even Aristotle himself proposed this conclusion as a disjunction: it is necessary either to arrive immediately at an unmoved separate first mover, or to arrive at a self-moved mover from whom, in turn, an unmoved separate first mover is reached.

[33] In Metaphysics II [Ia, 2] Aristotle also uses another argument to show that there is no infinite regress in efficient causes and that we must reach one first cause—God. This way is as follows. In all ordered efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, whether one or many, and this is the cause of the last cause. But, when you suppress a cause, you suppress its effect. Therefore, if you suppress the first cause, the intermediate cause cannot be a cause. Now, if there were an infinite regress among efficient causes, no cause would be first. Therefore, all the other causes, which are intermediate, will be suppressed. But this is manifestly false. We must, therefore, posit that there exists a first efficient cause. This is God.

[34] Another argument may also be gathered from the words of Aristotle. In Metaphysics II [Ia, 1] he shows that what is most true is also most a being. But in Metaphysics IV [4] he shows the existence of something supremely true from the observed fact that of two false things one is more false than the other, which means that one is more true than the other. This comparison is based on the nearness to that which is absolutely and supremely true. From these Aristotelian texts we may further infer that there is something that is supremely being. This we call God.

[If there is no such thing as absolute truth, there is no such thing as lying.]

[35] … Contrary and discordant things cannot, always or for the most part, be parts of one order except under someone’s government, which enables all and each to tend to a definite end. But in the world we find that things of diverse natures come together under one order, and this not rarely or by chance, but always or for the most part. There must therefore be some being by whose providence the world is governed. This we call God.

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 12

2010-10-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 12: OF THOSE WHO SAY THAT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD CANNOT BE DEMONSTRATED BUT IS HELD BY FAITH ALONE [CAPUT 12: De opinione dicentium quod Deum esse demonstrari non potest sed sola fide tenetur]

[1] There are others who hold a certain opinion, contrary to the position mentioned above, through which the efforts of those seeking to prove the existence of God would likewise be rendered futile. For they say that we cannot arrive at the existence of God through the reason; it is received by way of faith and revelation alone.

[2] What led some persons to hold this view was the weakness of the arguments which had been brought forth by others to prove that God exists.

[3] Nevertheless, the present error might erroneously find support in its behalf in the words of some philosophers who show that in God essence and being are identical, that is, that that which answers to the questionwhat is it? is identical with that which answers to the question is it? Now, following the way of the reason we cannot arrive at a knowledge of what God is. Hence, it seems likewise impossible to demonstrate by the reason that God exists.

[4] Furthermore, according to the logic of the Philosopher, as a principle to demonstrate whether a thing is we must take the signification of the name of that thing [Posterior Analytics II, 9]; and, again according to the Philosopher [Metaphysics IV, 7], the meaning signified by a name is its definition. If this be so, if we set aside a knowledge of the divine essence or quiddity [i.e., 'whatness'], no means will be available whereby to demonstrate that God exists.

[5] Again, if, as is shown in the Posterior Analytics [I, 18], the knowledge of the principles of demonstration takes its origin from sense, whatever transcends all sense and sensibles seems to be indemonstrable. That God exists appears to be a proposition of this sort and is therefore indemonstrable.

[6] The falsity of this opinion is shown to us, first, from the art of demonstration which teaches us to arrive at causes from their effects.Then, it is shown to us from the order of the sciences. For, as it is said in the Metaphysics [IV, 3], if there is no knowable substance higher than sensible substance, there will be no science higher than physics. It is shown, thirdly, from the pursuit of the philosophers, who have striven to demonstrate that God exists. Finally, it is shown to us by the truth in the words of the Apostle Paul: “For the invisible things of God... are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20).

[7] Nor, contrary to the first argument, is there any problem in the fact that in God essence and being are identical. For this is understood of the being by which God subsists in Himself. But we do not know of what sort this being is, just as we do not know the divine essence. The reference is not to the being that signifies the composition of intellect. For thus the existence of God does fall under demonstration; this happens when our mind is led from demonstrative arguments to form such a proposition of God whereby it expresses that He exists.

[8] Now, in arguments proving the existence of God, it is not necessary to assume the divine essence or quiddity as the middle term of the demonstration. This was the second view proposed above. In place of the quiddity, an effect is taken as the middle term, as in demonstrationes quia [link]. It is from such effects that the meaning of the name God is taken. For all divine names are imposed either by removing the effects of God from Him or by relating God in some way to His effects.

[9] It is thereby likewise evident that, although God transcends all sensible things and the sense itself, His effects, on which the demonstration proving His existence is based, are nevertheless sensible things. And thus, the origin of our knowledge in the sense applies also to those things that transcend the sense.

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 11

2010-10-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 11: A REFUTATION OF THE ABOVE-MENTIONED OPINION AND A SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS [CAPUT 11: Reprobatio praemissae opinionis et solutio rationum praemissarum]

[1] In part, the above opinion [viz., that God's existence is self-evident] arises from the custom by which from their earliest days people are brought up to hear and to call upon the name of God. Custom, and especially custom in a child comes to have the force of nature. As a result, what the mind is steeped in from childhood it clings to very firmly, as something known naturally and self-evidently.

[2] In part, however, the above opinion comes about because of a failure to distinguish between that which is self-evident in an absolute sense and that which is self-evident in relation to us. For assuredly that God exists is, absolutely speaking, self-evident, since what God is is His own being. Yet, because we are not able to conceive in our minds that which God is, that God exists remains unknown in relation to us. So, too, that every whole is greater than its part is, absolutely speaking, self-evident; but it would perforce be unknown to one who could not conceive the nature of a whole. ... [A]s it is said in Metaphysics II [Ia, 1], ... “our intellect is related to the most knowable things in reality as the eye of an owl is related to the sun.”’

[3] And, contrary to the point made by the first argument, it does not follow immediately that, as soon as we know the meaning of the name God, the existence of God is known. It does not follow first because it is not known to all, even including those who admit that God exists, that God is that than which a greater cannot be thought. After all, many ancients said that this world itself was God. ... [Even assuming] that everyone should understand by the name God something than which a greater cannot be thought, it will still not be necessary that there exist in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought. ... [T]hat something greater can be thought than anything given in reality or in the intellect is a difficulty only to him who admits that there is something than which a greater cannot be thought in reality. ...

[J]ust as it is evident to us that a whole is greater than a part of itself, so to those seeing the divine essence in itself it is supremely self-evident that God exists because His essence is His being. But, because we are not able to see His essence, we arrive at the knowledge of His being, not through God Himself, but through His effects.

... [M]an naturally desires God in so far as he naturally desires beatitude, which is a certain likeness of the divine goodness. On this basis, it is not necessary that God considered in Himself be naturally known to man, but only a likeness of God. It remains, therefore, that man is to reach the knowledge of God through reasoning by way of the likenesses of God found in His effects.

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 10

2010-10-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 10: THOSE WHO SAY THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS SELF-EVIDENT, AND THEREFORE CANNOT BE DEMONSTRATED [CAPUT 10: De opinione dicentium quod Deum esse demonstrari non potest cum sit per se notum]

[1] There are some persons to whom the inquiry seeking to demonstrate that God exists may perhaps appear superfluous. These are the persons [e.g., St. Anselm of Canterbury] who assert that the existence of God is self-evident, in such wise that its contrary cannot be entertained in the mind. It thus appears that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated, as may be seen from the following arguments.

[2] Those propositions are said to be self-evident that are known immediately upon the knowledge of their terms. Thus, as soon as you know the nature of a whole and the nature of a part, you know immediately that every whole is greater than its part. The proposition God exists is of this sort. For by the name God we understand that than which a greater cannot be thought [id quo nihil maius cogitari possit].This notion is formed in the intellect by one who hears and understands the name God. As a result, God must exist already at least in the intellect. But He cannot exist solely in the intellect, since that which exists both in the intellect and in reality is greater than that which exists in the intellect alone. Now, as the very definition of the name points out, nothing can be greater than God. Consequently, the proposition that God exists is self-evident, as being evident from the very meaning of the name God.

[3] Again, it is possible to think that something exists whose non-existence cannot be thought. Clearly, such a being is greater than the being whose non-existence can be thought. Consequently, if God Himself could be thought not to be, then something greater than God could be thought. This, however, is contrary to the definition of the name God. Hence, the proposition that God exists is self-evident.

[4] Furthermore, those propositions ought to be the most evident in which the same thing is predicated of itself, for example, man is man, or whose predicates are included in the definition of their subjects, for example, Man is an animal. Now, in God, as will be shown in a later chapter, it is pre-eminently the case that His being is His essence, so that to the question what is He [quid est]? and to the question is He [est]? the answer is one and the same. ...

[5] What is naturally known is known through itself, for we do not come to such propositions through an effort of inquiry. But the proposition that God exists is naturally known since, as will be shown later on, the desire of man naturally tends towards God as towards the ultimate end.The proposition that God exists is, therefore, self-evident.

[6] There is also the consideration that that through which all the rest are known ought itself to be self-evident. Now, God is of this sort. For just as the light of the sun is the principle of all visible perception, so the divine light is the principle of all intelligible knowledge; since the divine light is that in which intelligible illumination is found first and in its highest degree. That God exists, therefore, must be self-evident.

[7] These, then, and others like them are the arguments by which some think that the proposition God exists is so self-evident that its contrary cannot be entertained by the mind.

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 9

2010-10-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

THE ORDER AND MANNER OF PROCEDURE IN THE PRESENT WORK [CAPUT 9: De ordine et modo procedendi in hoc opere]

[1] ... [T]he intention of the wise man ought to be directed toward the twofold truth of divine things, and toward the destruction of the errors that are contrary to this truth. One kind of divine truth the investigation of the reason is competent to reach, whereas the other surpasses every effort of the reason. I am speaking of a “twofold truth of divine things,” not on the part of God Himself, Who is truth one and simple, but from the point of view of our knowledge, which is variously related to the knowledge of divine things.

[2] Now, to make the first kind of divine truth known, we must proceed through demonstrative arguments, by which our adversary may become convinced. However, since such arguments are not available for the second kind of divine truth, our intention should not be to convince our adversary by arguments: it should be to answer his arguments against the truth; for, as we have shown, the natural reason cannot be contrary to the truth of faith. The sole way to overcome an adversary of divine truth is from the authority of Scripture.... For that which is above the human reason we believe only because God has revealed it.Nevertheless, there are certain likely arguments that should be brought forth in order to make divine truth known ... for the training and consolation of the faithful, and not with any idea of refuting those who are adversaries. For the very inadequacy of the arguments would rather strengthen them in their error, since they would imagine that our acceptance of the truth of faith was based on such weak arguments.

[3] ... We shall first seek to make known that truth which faith professes and reason investigates. This we shall do by bringing forward both demonstrative and probable arguments, some of which were drawn from the books of the philosophers and of the saints, through which truth is strengthened and its adversary overcome [Books I-III]. Then, in order to follow a development from the more manifest to the less manifest, we shall proceed to make known that truth which surpasses reason, answering the objections of its adversaries and setting forth the truth of faith by probable arguments and by authorities, to the best of our ability [Book IV].

[4] We are aiming, then, to set out following the way of the reason and to inquire into what the human reason can investigate about God. ...

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 8

2010-10-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

HOW HUMAN REASON IS RELATED TO THE TRUTH OF FAITH [CAPUT 8: Qualiter se habeat humana ratio ad veritatem fidei]

[1] ... Sensible things, from which the human reason takes the origin of its knowledge, retain within themselves some sort of trace of a likeness to God. This is so imperfect, however, that it is absolutely inadequate to manifest the substance of God. For effects bear within themselves, in their own way, the likeness of their causes, since an agent produces its like [Habent enim effectus suarum causarum suo modo similitudinem, cum agens agat sibi simile]; yet an effect does not always reach to the full likeness of its cause [non tamen effectus ad perfectam agentis similitudinem semper pertingit.]. Now, the human reason is related to the knowledge of the truth of faith ... in such a way that it can gather certain likenesses of it, which are yet not sufficient so that the truth of faith may be comprehended as being understood demonstratively or through itself. Yet it is useful for the human reason to exercise itself in such arguments, however weak they may be, provided only that there be present no presumption to comprehend or to demonstrate. For to be able to see something of the loftiest realities, however thin and weak the sight may be, is ... a cause of the greatest joy.

[2] The testimony of Hilary agrees with this. Speaking of this same truth, he writes as follows in his De Trinitate [II, 10, ii]: “Enter these truths by believing, press forward, persevere. And though I may know that you will not arrive at an end, yet I will congratulate you in your progress. For, though he who pursues the infinite with reverence will never finally reach the end, yet he will always progress by pressing onward. But do not intrude yourself into the divine secret, do not, presuming to comprehend the sum total of intelligence, plunge yourself into the mystery of the unending nativity; rather, understand that these things are incomprehensible.”

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 7

2010-10-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 7: THE TRUTH OF REASON NOT OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIAN FAITH [CAPUT 7: Quod veritati fidei Christianae non contrariatur veritas rationis]

[1] Now, although the truth of the Christian faith which we have discussed surpasses the capacity of the reason, nevertheless that truth that the human reason is naturally endowed to know cannot be opposed to the truth of the Christian faith. For that with which the human reason is naturally endowed is clearly most true; so much so, that it is impossible for us to think of such truths as false. Nor is it permissible to believe as false that which we hold by faith, since this is confirmed in a way that is so clearly divine. Since, therefore, only the false is opposed to the true, as is clearly evident from an examination of their definitions, it is impossible that the truth of faith should be opposed to those principles that the human reason knows naturally.

[2] Furthermore, that which is introduced into the soul of the student by the teacher is contained in the knowledge of the teacher—unless his teaching is fictitious, which it is improper to say of God. Now, the knowledge of the principles that are known to us naturally has been implanted in us by God; for God is the Author of our nature. These principles, therefore, are also contained by the divine Wisdom. Hence, whatever is opposed to them is opposed to the divine Wisdom, and, therefore, cannot come from God. That which we hold by faith as divinely revealed, therefore, cannot be contrary to our natural knowledge.

[3] ... If, therefore, contrary knowledges were implanted in us by God, our intellect would be hindered from knowing truth by this very fact. Now, such an effect cannot come from God.

[4] ... Now, it is impossible that contrary opinions should exist in the same knowing subject at the same time. No opinion or belief, therefore, is implanted in man by God which is contrary to man’s natural knowledge. ...

[7] From this we evidently gather the following conclusion: whatever arguments are brought forward against the doctrines of faith are conclusions incorrectly derived from the first and self-evident principles imbedded in nature. Such conclusions do not have the force of demonstration; they are arguments that are either probable or sophistical. And so, there exists the possibility to answer them.

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 6

2010-10-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Chapter 6: THAT TO GIVE ASSENT TO THE TRUTHS OF FAITH IS NOT FOOLISHNESS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE ABOVE REASON [CAPUT 6: Quod assentire his quae sunt fidei non est levitatis quamvis supra rationem sint]

[1] Those who place their faith in this truth, however, “for which the human reason offers no experimental evidence,” do not believe foolishly, as though “following artificial fables” (2 Peter 2:16). For these “secrets of divine Wisdom” (Job 11:6) the divine Wisdom itself, which knows all things to the full, has deigned to reveal to men. It reveals its own presence, as well as the truth of its teaching and inspiration, by fitting arguments; and in order to confirm those truths that exceed natural knowledge, it gives visible manifestation to works that surpass the ability of all nature. Thus, there are the wonderful cures of illnesses, there is the raising of the dead, and the wonderful immutation in the heavenly bodies; and what is more wonderful, there is the inspiration given to human minds, so that simple and untutored persons, filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit, come to possess instantaneously the highest wisdom and the readiest eloquence. When these arguments were examined, through the efficacy of the abovementioned proof, and not the violent assault of arms or the promise of pleasure, and (what is most wonderful of all) in the midst of the tyranny of the persecutors, an innumerable throng of people, both simple and most learned, flocked to the Christian faith. In this faith there are truths preached that surpass every human intellect; the pleasures of the flesh are curbed; it is taught that the things of the world should be spurned. Now, for the minds of mortal men to assent to these things is the greatest of miracles, just as it is a manifest work of divine inspiration that, spurning visible things, men should seek only what is invisible. Now, that this has happened neither without preparation nor by chance, but as a result of the disposition of God, is clear from the fact that through many pronouncements of the ancient prophets God had foretold that He would do this. The books of these prophets are held in veneration among us Christians, since they give witness to our faith.

[2] The manner of this confirmation is touched on by St. Paul: “Which,” that is, human salvation, “having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed to us by them that hear Him: God also bearing them witness of signs, and wonders, and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 7:3-4).

[3] This wonderful conversion of the world to the Christian faith is the clearest witness of the signs given in the past; so that it is not necessary that they should be further repeated, since they appear most clearly in their effect. For it would be truly more wonderful than all signs if the world had been led by simple and humble men to believe such lofty truths, to accomplish such difficult actions, and to have such high hopes. Yet it is also a fact that, even in our own time, God does not cease to work miracles through His saints for the confirmation of the faith.

[4] On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this, The point is clear in the case of Muhammad. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be. seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 5

2010-10-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

Chapter 5: THAT THE TRUTHS THE HUMAN REASON IS NOT ABLE TO INVESTIGATE ARE FITTINGLY PROPOSED TO MEN FOR BELIEF [CAPUT 5: Quod ea quae ratione investigari non possunt convenienter fide tenenda hominibus proponuntur]

[1] Now, perhaps some will think that men should not be asked to believe what the reason is not adequate to investigate, since the divine Wisdom provides in the case of each thing according to the mode of its nature. We must therefore prove that it is necessary for man to receive from God as objects of belief even those truths that are above the human reason.

[2] No one tends with desire and zeal towards something that is not already known to him. But, as we shall examine later on in this work, men are ordained by the divine Providence towards a higher good than human fragility can experience in the present life. That is why it was necessary for the human mind to be called to something higher than the human reason here and now can reach, so that it would thus learn to desire something and with zeal tend towards something that surpasses the whole state of the present life. This belongs especially to the Christian religion, which in a unique way promises spiritual and eternal goods. And so there are many things proposed to men in it that transcend human sense. The Old Law, on the other hand, whose promises were of a temporal character, contained very few proposals that transcended the inquiry of the human reason. Following this same direction, the philosophers themselves, in order that they might lead men from the pleasure of sensible things to virtue, were concerned to show that there were in existence other goods of a higher nature than these things of sense, and that those who gave themselves to the active or contemplative virtues would find much sweeter enjoyment in the taste of these higher goods.

[3] It is also necessary that such truth be proposed to men for belief so that they may have a truer knowledge of God. For then only do we know God truly when we believe Him to be above everything that it is possible for man to think about Him; for, as we have shown, the divine substance surpasses the natural knowledge of which man is capable. Hence, by the fact that son things about God are proposed to man that surpass his reason, there is strengthened in man the view that God is something above what he can think.

[4] Another benefit that comes from the revelation to men of truths that exceed the reason is the curbing of presumption, which is the mother of error. For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything; I mean to say that, in their estimation, everything is true that seems to them so, and everything is false that does not. So that the human mind, therefore, might be freed from this presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth, it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect.

[5] A still further benefit may also be seen in what Aristotle says in the Ethics [X, 7]. There was a certain Simonides who exhorted people to put aside the knowledge of divine things and to apply their talents to human occupations. He said that “he who is a man should know human things, and he who is mortal, things that are mortal.” Against Simonides Aristotle says that “man should draw himself towards what is immortal and divine as much as he can.” And so he says in the De animalibus [I, 5] that, although what we know of the higher substances is very little, yet that little is loved and desired more than all the knowledge that we have about less noble substances. He also says in the De caelo et mundo [II, 12] that when questions about the heavenly bodies can be given even a modest and merely plausible solution, he who hears this experiences intense joy. From all these considerations it is clear that even the most imperfect knowledge about the most noble realities brings the greatest perfection to the soul. Therefore, although the human reason cannot grasp fully the truths that are above it, yet, if it somehow holds these truths at least by faith, it acquires great perfection for itself.

[6] Therefore it is written: “For many things are shown to you above the understanding of men” (Sirach 3:75). Again: “So the things that are of God no man knows but the Spirit of God. But to us God has revealed them by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:11, 10).

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 4

2010-10-03T05:56:00.000-07:00

Chapter 4: THAT THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD TO WHICH THE NATURAL REASON REACHES IS FITTINGLY PROPOSED TO MEN FOR BELIEF [CAPUT 4: Quod veritas divinorum ad quam naturalis ratio pertingit convenienter hominibus credenda proponitur]

[1] Since, therefore, there exists a twofold truth concerning the divine being, one to which the inquiry of the reason can reach, the other which surpasses the whole ability of the human reason, it is fitting that both of these truths be proposed to man divinely for belief. This point must first be shown concerning the truth that is open to the inquiry of the reason; otherwise, it might perhaps seem to someone that, since such a truth can be known by the reason, it was uselessly given to men through a supernatural inspiration as an object of belief.

[2] Yet, if this truth were left solely as a matter of inquiry for the human reason, three awkward consequences would follow.

[3] The first is that few men would possess the knowledge of God. For there are three reasons why most men are cut off from the fruit of diligent inquiry which is the discovery of truth. Some do not have the physical disposition for such work. As a result, there are many who are naturally not fitted to pursue knowledge; and so, however much they tried, they would be unable to reach the highest level of human knowledge which consists in knowing God. Others are cut off from pursuing this truth by the necessities imposed upon them by their daily lives. For some men must devote themselves to taking care of temporal matters. Such men would not be able to give so much time to the leisure of contemplative inquiry as to reach the highest peak at which human investigation can arrive, namely, the knowledge of God. Finally, there are some who are cut off by indolence. In order to know the things that the reason can investigate concerning God, a knowledge of many things must already be possessed. For almost all of philosophy is directed towards the knowledge of God, and that is why metaphysics, which deals with divine things, is the last part of philosophy to be learned. This means that we are able to arrive at the inquiry concerning the aforementioned truth only on the basis of a great deal of labor spent in study. Now, those who wish to undergo such a labor for the mere love of knowledge are few, even though God has inserted into the minds of men a natural appetite for knowledge.

[4] The second awkward effect is that those who would come to discover the abovementioned truth would barely reach it after a great deal of time. The reasons are several. There is the profundity of this truth, which the human intellect is made capable of grasping by natural inquiry only after a long training. Then, there are many things that must be presupposed, as we have said. There is also the fact that, in youth, when the soul is swayed by the various movements of the passions, it is not in a suitable state for the knowledge of such lofty truth. On the contrary, “one becomes wise and knowing in repose,” as it is said in the Physics [VII, 3]. The result is this. If the only way open to us for the knowledge of God were solely that of the reason, the human race would remain in the blackest shadows of ignorance. For then the knowledge of God, which especially renders men perfect and good, would come to be possessed only by a few, and these few would require a great deal of time in order to reach it.

[5] The third awkward effect is this. The investigation of the human reason for the most part has falsity present within it, and this is due partly to the weakness of our intellect in judgment, and partly to the admixture of images. The result is that many, remaining ignorant of the power of demonstration, would hold in doubt those things that have been most truly demonstrated. This would be particularly the case since they see that, among those who are reputed to be wise men, each one teaches his own brand of doctrine. Furthermore, with the many truths that are demonstrated, there sometimes is mingled something that is false, which is not demonstrated but rather asserted on the basis of some probable or sophistical argument, which yet has the credit of being a demonstration. That is why it was necessary that the unshakeable certitude and pure truth concerning divine things should be presented to men by way of faith.

[6] Beneficially, therefore, did the divine Mercy provide that it should instruct us to hold by faith even those truths that the human reason is able to investigate. In this way, all men would easily be able to have a share in the knowledge of God, and this without uncertainty and error.

[7] Hence it is written: “Henceforward walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened” (Eph. 4:17-18). And again: “All your children shall be taught of the Lord” (Is. 54:13).

SCG, Book 1, Chapter 3

2010-10-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3: ON THE WAY IN WHICH DIVINE TRUTH IS TO BE MADE KNOWN [CAPUT 3: Quis modus sit possibilis divinae veritatis manifestandae]

[1] The way of making truth known is not always the same, and, as the Philosopher has very well said, “it belongs to an educated man to seek such certitude in each thing as the nature of that thing allows.” The remark is also introduced by Boethius [De Trinitate II]. But, since such is the case, we must first show what way is open to us in order that we may make known the truth which is our object.

[2] There is a twofold mode of truth in what we profess about God. Some truths about God exceed all the ability of the human reason. Such is the truth that God is triune. But there are some truths which the natural reason also is able to reach. Such are that God exists, that He is one, and the like. In fact, such truths about God have been proved demonstratively by the philosophers, guided by the light of the natural reason.

[3] That there are certain truths about God that totally surpass man’s ability appears with the greatest evidence. Since, indeed, the principle of all knowledge that the reason perceives about some thing is the understanding of the very substance of that being (for according to Aristotle “what a thing is” is the principle of demonstration) [Posterior Analytics II, 3], it is necessary that the way in which we understand the substance of a thing determines the way in which we know what belongs to it. Hence, if the human intellect comprehends the substance of some thing, for example, that of a stone or of a triangle, no intelligible characteristic belonging to that thing surpasses the grasp of the human reason. But this does not happen to us in the case of God. For the human intellect is not able to reach a comprehension of the divine substance through its natural power. For, according to its manner of knowing in the present life, the intellect depends on the sense for the origin of knowledge; and so those things that do not fall under the senses cannot be grasped by the human intellect except in so far as the knowledge of them is gathered from sensible things. Now, sensible things cannot lead the human intellect to the point of seeing in them the nature of the divine substance; for sensible things are effects that fall short of the power of their cause. Yet, beginning with sensible things, our intellect is led to the point of knowing about God that He exists, and other such characteristics that must be attributed to the First Principle. There are, consequently, some intelligible truths about God that are open to the human reason; but there are others that absolutely surpass its power.

[4] We may easily see the same point from the gradation of intellects. Consider the case of two persons of whom one has a more penetrating grasp of a thing by his intellect than, does the other. He who has the superior intellect understands many things that the other cannot grasp at all. Such is the case with a very simple person who cannot at all grasp the subtle speculations of philosophy. But the intellect of an angel surpasses the human intellect much more than the intellect of the greatest philosopher surpasses the intellect of the most uncultivated simple person; for the distance between the best philosopher and a simple person is contained within the limits of the human species, which the angelic intellect surpasses. For the angel knows God on the basis of a more noble effect than does man; and this by as much as the substance of an angel, through which the angel in his natural knowledge is led to the knowledge of God, is nobler than sensible things and even than the soul itself, through which the human intellect mounts to the knowledge of God. The divine intellect surpasses the angelic intellect much more than the angelic surpasses the human. For the divine intellect is in its capacity equal to its substance, and therefore it understands fully what it is, including all its intelligible attributes. But by his natural knowledge the angel does not know what God is, since the substance itself of the angel, through which he is led to the knowledge of God, is an effect that is not equal to the power of its cause. Hence, the angel is not able, by means of his natural knowledge, to grasp all the things that God understands in Himself; nor is the human reason sufficient to grasp all the things that the angel understands through his own natural power. Just as, therefore, it would he the height of folly for a simple person to assert that what a philosopher proposes is false on the ground that he himself cannot understand it, so (and even more so) it is the acme of stupidity for a man to suspect as false what is divinely revealed through the ministry of the angels simply because it cannot be investigated by reason.

[5] The same thing, moreover, appears quite clearly from the defect that we experience every day in our knowledge of things. We do not know a great many of the properties of sensible things, and in most cases we are not able to discover fully the natures of those properties that we apprehend by the sense. Much more is it the case, therefore, that the human reason is not equal to the task of investigating all the intelligible characteristics of that most excellent substance.

[6] The remark of Aristotle likewise agrees with this conclusion. He says that “our intellect is related to the prime beings, which are most evident in their nature, as the eye of an owl is related to the sun” [Metaphysics Ia, 1]

[7] Sacred Scripture also gives testimony to this truth. We read in Job: “Do you think you can comprehend the depths of God, and find the limit of the Almighty?” (11:7). And again: “Behold, God is great, exceeding our knowledge” (Job 36:26). And St. Paul: “We know in part” (1 Cor. 13:9).

[8] We should not, therefore, immediately reject as false, following the opinion of the Manicheans and many unbelievers, everything that is said about God even though it cannot be investigated by reason.

SCG, Book 1, Chapters 1-2

2010-10-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: THE OFFICE OF THE WISE MAN [CAPUT 1: Quod sit officium sapientis]

“My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate impiety” (Prov. 8:7).

[1] The usage of the multitude, which according to the Philosopher is to be followed in giving names to things, has commonly held that they are to be called wise who order things rightly and govern them well. Hence, among other things that men have conceived about the wise man, the Philosopher includes the notion that “it belongs to the wise man to order.” Now, the rule of government and order for all things directed to an end must be taken from the end. For, since the end of each thing is its good, a thing is then best disposed when it is fittingly ordered to its end. And so we see among the arts that one functions as the governor and the ruler of another because it controls its end. Thus, the art of medicine rules and orders the art of the chemist because health, with which medicine is concerned, is the end of all the medications prepared by the art of the chemist. A similar situation obtains in the art of ship navigation in relation to shipbuilding, and in the military art with respect to the equestrian art and the equipment of war. The arts that rule other arts are called architectonic, as being the ruling arts. That is why the artisans devoted to these arts, who are called master artisans, appropriate to themselves the name of wise men. But, since these artisans are concerned, in each case, with the ends of certain particular things, they do not reach to the universal end of all things. They are therefore said to be wise with respect to this or that thing; in which sense it is said that “as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10). The name of the absolutely wise man, however, is reserved for him whose consideration is directed to the end of the universe, which is also the origin of the universe. That is why, according to the Philosopher, it belongs to the wise man to consider the highest causes.

[2] Now, the end of each thing is that which is intended by its first author or mover. But the first author and mover of the universe is an intellect, as will be later shown. The ultimate end of the universe must, therefore, be the good of an intellect. This good is truth. Truth must consequently be the ultimate end of the whole universe, and the consideration of the wise man aims principally at truth. So it is that, according to His own statement, divine Wisdom testifies that He has assumed flesh and come into the world in order to make the truth known: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth” (John 18:37). The Philosopher himself establishes that first philosophy is the science of truth, not of any truth, but of that truth which is the origin of all truth, namely, which belongs to the first principle whereby all things are. The truth belonging to such a principle is, clearly, the source of all truth; for things have the same disposition in truth as in being.

[3] It belongs to one and the same science, however, both to pursue one of two contraries and to oppose the other. Medicine, for example, seeks to effect health and to eliminate illness. Hence, just as it belongs to the wise man to meditate especially on the truth belonging to the first principle and to teach it to others, so it belongs to him to refute the opposing falsehood.

[4] Appropriately, therefore, is the twofold office of the wise man shown from the mouth of Wisdom in our opening words: to meditate and speak forth of the divine truth, which is truth in person (Wisdom touches on this in the words my mouth shall meditate truth), and to refute the opposing error (which Wisdom touches on in the words and my lips shall hate impiety). By impiety is here meant falsehood against the divine truth. This falsehood is contrary to religion, which is likewise named piety. Hence, the falsehood contrary to it is called impiety.

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Chapter 2: THE AUTHOR’S INTENTION IN THE PRESENT WORK [CAPUT 2: Quae sit in hoc opere auctoris intentio]

[1] Among all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is more perfect, more noble, more useful, and more full of joy.

It is more perfect because, in so far as a man gives himself to the pursuit of wisdom, so far does he even now have some share in true beatitude. And so a wise man has said: “Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom” (Sirach 14:22).

It is more noble because through this pursuit man especially approaches to a likeness to God Who “made all things in wisdom” (Ps. 103:24). And since likeness is the cause of love, the pursuit of wisdom especially joins man to God in friendship. That is why it is said of wisdom that “she is an infinite treasure to men! which they that use become the friends of God” (Wis. 7:14).

It is more useful because through wisdom we arrive at the kingdom of immortality. For “the desire of wisdom leads to the everlasting kingdom” (Wis. 6:21).

It is more full of joy because “her conversation has no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness” (Wis. 7:16).

[2] And so, in the name of the divine Mercy, I have the confidence to embark upon the work of a wise man, even though this may surpass my powers, and I have set myself the task of making known, as far as my limited powers will allow, the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and of setting aside the errors that are opposed to it. To use the words of Hilary: “I am aware that I owe this to God as the chief duty of my life, that my every word and sense may speak of Him” [De Trinitate I, 37].

[3] To proceed against individual errors, however, is a difficult business, and this for two reasons. In the first place, it is difficult because the sacrilegious remarks of individual men who have erred are not so well known to us so that we may use what they say as the basis of proceeding to a refutation of their errors. This is, indeed, the method that the ancient Doctors of the Church used in the refutation of the errors of the Gentiles. For they could know the positions taken by the Gentiles since they themselves had been Gentiles, or at least had lived among the Gentiles and had been instructed in their teaching. In the second place, it is difficult because some of them, such as the Mohammedans and the pagans, do not agree with us in accepting the authority of any Scripture, by which they may be convinced of their error. Thus, against the Jews we are able to argue by means of the Old Testament, while against heretics we are able to argue by means of the New Testament. But the Muslims and the pagans accept neither the one nor the other. We must, therefore, have recourse to the natural reason, to which all men are forced to give their assent. However, it is true, in divine matters the natural reason has its failings.

[4] Now, while we are investigating some given truth, we shall also show what errors are set aside by it; and we shall likewise show how the truth that we come to know by demonstration is in accord with the Christian religion.