CHAPTER XV-That God is Eternal THE beginning of anything and its ceasing to be is brought about by motion or change. But it has been shown that God is altogether unchangeable: He is therefore eternal, without beginning or end.* 2. Those things alone are measured by time which are in motion, inas- much as time is an enumeration of motion.f But God is altogether without motion, and therefore is not measured by time. Therefore in Him it is im- possible to fix any before or after: He has no being after not being, nor can He have any not being after being, nor can any succession be found in His being, because all this is unintelligible without time. He is therefore without be- ginning and without end, having all His being at once, wherein consists the essence of eternity.
3. If at some time God was not, and afterwards was, He was brought forth by some cause from not being to being. But not by Himself, because what is not cannot do anything. But if by another, that other is prior to Him. But it has been shown that God is the First Cause; therefore He did not begin to be: hence neither will He cease to be; because what always has been has the force of being always.
4. We see in the world some things which are possible to be and not to be. But everything that is possible to be has a cause: for seeing that of itself it is open to two alternatives, being and not being; if being is to be assigned to it, that must be from some cause. But we cannot proceed to infinity in a series of causes: therefore we must posit something that necessarily is. Now everything necessary either has the cause of its necessity from elsewhere,! or not from elsewhere, but is of itself necessary. But we cannot proceed to in- finity in the enumeration of things necessary that have the cause of their necessity from elsewhere: therefore we must come to some first thing neces- sary, that is of itself necessary; and that is God. Therefore God is eternal, since everything that is of itself necessary is eternal.
Hence the Psalmist: But thou, O Lord, abidest for eter: thou art the self -same, and thy years shall not fail (Ps. ci, 13-28).
CHAPTER XVl-That in God there is no Passive Potentiality § EVERYTHING that has in its substance an admixture of potentiality, to the extent that it has potentiality is liable not to be: because what can be, can also not be. But God in Himself cannot not be, seeing that He is everlasting; therefore there is in God no potentiality.
existence of something else, which may or may not be.
* But all our experience of life involves change. Our experience lends itself more readily to the con- ception of eternal death than of eternal life. To our eye, the motionless and changeless is the dead, the effete and exhausted, or the inanimate. Yet we dare to predicate eternity of a lifting God! The difficulty is met in the next chapter, where it is argued that God is pure a&uality, an activity and life so full as to be above change.
t "An enumeration of motion in respect of be- fore and after," says Aristotle, Thysics, iv, 1 1 ult. The unit in this enumeration is one revolution of the earth on its axis.
t In which case it is what Aristotle calls * not ab- solutely necessary, but following necessarily' upon the § Totentia passiva, the Aristotelian 'potentiality' in its opposition to ' acV Taken actively, the word po- tentia is to be rendered 'power,' not 'potentiality.' As God possesses the power to create whatever can be made at all, there is in Him the promise and po- tency of all possible being. In Him all things that are or ever can be exist * eminently and virtually.' He is all that they are, but in a better and more excellent way, — in some such way as a seal is in regard of all the impressions that ever can be taken of it, or as a king in regard of a viceroy or lord-lieutenant: so much so that actual creation makes no addition to God, or to the sum total of Being absolutely speaking. — Cf. Isa. xl.
14 14 2. Although in order of time that which is sometimes in potentiality, sometimes in actuality, is in potentiality before it is in actuality, yet, abso- lutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality,* because potentiality does not bring itself into actuality, but is brought into actuality by something which is already in aftuality. f Everything therefore that is any way in po- tentiality has something else prior to it. But God is the First Being and the First Cause, and therefore has not in Himself any admixture of potentiality.
4. Everything afts inasmuch as it is in aftuality. J Whatever then is not all actuality, does not aft by its whole self, but by something of itself. But what does not aft by its whole self, is not a prime agent; for it afts by participa- tion in something else, not by its own essence. The prime agent then, which is God, has no admixture of potentiality, but is pure aftuality.
6. We see that there is that in the world which passes from potentiality to aftuality. But it does not educe itself from potentiality to aftuality, be- cause what is in potentiality is not as yet, and therefore cannot aft. There- fore there must be some other prior thing, whereby this thing may be brought out from potentiality to aftuality. And again, if this further thing is going out from potentiality to aftuality, there must be posited before it yet some other thing, whereby it may be reduced to aftuality. But this pro- cess cannot go on for ever: therefore we must come to something that is only in aftuality, and nowise in potentiality; and that we call God.§ CHAPTER XVIII-7^/ in God there is no Composition IN every compound there must be aftuality and potentiality. For a plu- rality of things cannot become one thing, unless there be aftuality and potentiality. For things that are not one absolutely, are not aftually united except by being in a manner tied up together or driven together: in which case the parts thus got together are in potentiality in respect of union; for they combine aftually, after having been potentially combinable. But in God there is no potentiality: therefore there is not in Him any composition. || 3. Every compound is potentially soluble in respeft of its being com- pound, although in some cases there may be some other faft that stands in the way of dissolution. But what is soluble is in potentiality not to be, which cannot be said of God, seeing that He is of Himself a necessary Being.
CHAPTER XX-TAat God is Incorporeal EVERY corporeal thing, being extended, is compound and has parts. But God is not compound: therefore He is not anything corporeal. 5. According to the order of objefts is the order and distinction of powers: therefore above all sensible objefts there is some intelligible objeft, * 'Actuality is prior to potentiality.* The whole § This last is in substance the whole argument metaphysical proof of the existence of God may be of Chap. XIII. St Thomas is thinking of such an in- said to be summed up in these words. stance in the first place as the birth of a child, or the t A metaphysical and therefore more general state- growth of a crop of wheat. Intellectual agents have ment of the physical law of inertia. some limited power of educing themselves from pot 'Every agent acts inasmuch as it is in actuality,' tentiality to actuality, e.g., from armed peace to war: is a favourite axiom of the schoolmen, to which there but their case is not under consideration here, is a reciprocal: * Everything that is acted upon is II Read: "Non enim plura possunt fieri unum, acted upon inasmuch as it is in potentiality': which nisi aliquid ibi sit actus et aliquid potentia. Quae is also put thus, 'Everything received is received ac- enim non sunt unum simpliciter, actu non unicording to the mode of the recipient.' 'To be in untur, nisi quasi colligata vel sicut congregate: in actuality,' is something akin to the modern conception quibus etiam ipsae partes congregatse sunt sicut in of 'energy.' Every agent then acts according to its potentia respectu unionis." proximately available energy. A man does only what he is 'up to doing.'
15 existing in the nature of things. But every corporeal thing existing in nature is sensible: therefore there is determinable above all corporeal things some- thing nobler than they. If therefore God is corporeal, He is not the first and greatest Being.* With this demonstrated truth divine authority also agrees. For it is said: God is a spirit (John iv, 24): To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, only God (1 Tim. i, 17): The invisible things of God are understood and discerned by the things that are made (Rom. i, 29). For the things that are discerned, not by sight but by understanding, are incorporeal.
Hereby is destroyed the error of the first natural philosophers, who posited none but material causes. The Gentiles also are refuted, who set up the ele- ments of the world, and the powers therein existing, for gods; also the follies of the Anthropomorphite heretics, who figured God under bodily lineaments; also of the Manicheans, who thought God was an infinite sub- stance of light diffused through infinite space. The occasion of all these errors was that, in thinking of divine things, men came under the influence of the imagination, which can be cognisant only of bodily likeness. And therefore we must transcend imagination in the study of things incorporeal.
CHAPTER XXl-That God is His own Essence f ' IN everything that is not its own essence, quiddity, or nature, there must be some composition. For since in everything its own essence is contained, — if in anything there were contained nothing but its essence, the whole of that thing would be its essence, and so itself would be its own essence. If then anything is not its own essence, there must be something in that thing besides its essence, and so there must be in it composition. Hence also the essence in compound things is spoken of as a part, as humanity in man. But it has been shown that in God there is no composition. God there- fore is His own essence.
2. That alone is reckoned to be beyond the essence of a thing, which does not enter into its definition: for the definition declares what the thing essen- tially is. But the accidents of a thing are the only points about it which fall not within the definition: therefore the accidents are the only points about a thing besides its essence. But in God there are no accidents, as will be shown (Chap. XXIII): therefore there is nothing in Him besides His essence.
3. The forms that are not predicable of subsistent things, whether in the universal or in the singular, are forms that do not of themselves subsist singly, individualised in themselves. It is not said that Socrates or man or animal is whiteness; because whiteness is not anything subsisting singly in itself, but is individualised by the substance in which it exists. Also the essences or quiddities of genera or species are individualised according to the definite matter of this or that individual, although the generic or specific quiddity includes form and matter in general: hence it is not said that Socrates or man is humanity. But the Divine Essence is something existing singly by itself, and individualised in itself, as will be shown (Chap. XLII). The Di- vine Essence therefore is predicated of God in such a way that it can be said: 4 God is His own essence/ \ * I have not translated the rest of this long chap- t That is to say, whatever God is, He essentially ter, founded as most of it is upon Aristotelian physics, is, which cannot be said of man: for there are many One leading characteristic of bodies, inertia, may be things in and about every man over and above what confidently fixed upon as not predicable of the Su- is essential to his being man.
preme Being. t Humanity is not man, but Deity is God. In 16 CHAPTER XXll-That in God Existence and Essence is the same * IT has been shown above (Chap. XV, n. 4) that there is an Existence which of itself necessarily is; and that is God. If this existence, which necessarily is, is contained in some essence not identical with it, then either it is dissonant and at variance with that essence, as subsistent exis- tence is at variance with the essence of whiteness; or it is consonant with and akin to that essence, as existence in something other than itself is consonant with whiteness. In the former case, the existence which of itself necessarily is will not attach to that essence, any more than subsistent existence will attach to whiteness. In the latter case, either such existence must depend on the essence, or both existence and essence depend on another cause, or the essence must depend on the existence. The former two suppositions are against the idea of a being which of itself necessarily is; because, if it de- pends on another thing, it no longer is necessarily. From the third supposi- tion it follows that that essence is accidental and adventitious to the thing which of itself necessarily is; because all that follows upon the being of a thing is accidental to it; and thus the supposed essence will not be the essence at all. God therefore has no essence that is not His existence.
2. Everything is by its own existence. Whatever then is not its own existence does not of itself necessarily exist. But God does of Himself ne- cessarily exist: therefore God is His own existence.
4. 'Existence' denotes a certain actuality: for a thing is not said to 4 be* for what it is potentially, but for what it is adtually. But everything to which there attaches an actuality, existing as something different from it, stands to the same as potentiality to actuality. If then the divine essence is something else than its own existence, it follows that essence and existence in God stand to one another as potentiality and actuality. But it has been shown that in God there is nothing of potentiality (Chap. XVI), but that He is pure actuality. Therefore God's essence is not anything else but His existence. f 5. Everything that cannot be except by the concurrence of several things is compound. But nothing in which essence is one thing, and existence every man, besides his humanity, or specific nature, or even wholly out of the ken of human knowledge, there are his individual characteristics (accidentia Mi- — and still really and truly be, as "permanent possi- •piduantia). God is not made up of a specific nature bilitics of sensation" or of cognition. This phrase of with individual characteristics. J. S. Mill is felicitous, if we remember, as he did * That is to say, it is the same thing for God to not, that a "permanent possibility" is something be at all and to be exactly what He is. 'Godhead* raised above nothingness. Here then we have the and 'this God' are identical. No one possibly could confutation of idealism, of Berkeley and Kant and be God save Him alone who actually is God. In God all their tribe. Phenomena, or appearances, cannot the ideal order and the actual order coincide, the be aclual to man except as objects of sensation or order of thought (essence) and the order of being other human cognition: but they may very well be (existence). and are potential, observable though unobserved, out t This distinction of actuality and potentiality is of all human mind. Potentiality however cannot be the saving of philosophy. Even physical science in our mere potentiality: it must rest on something actual, day has found ' potential ' a convenient term. The The actuality on which potential phenomena, apdistinction is heedlessly abolished by those who put pearances or accidents rest, is the substance in which activity for being, and seem to think that the human they inhere.
mind itself would perish the moment it ceased to The horns then of idealism are broken. SubjeS act, as though there could be no reality that was not is not percipere; objetl is not percipi. If any one claims actualised. But perfect actuality can be nothing less the liberty of using such a terminology, he must at than God: so that if actuality alone exists without least be brought to an admission that there is much potentiality, God alone exists. Nature by the institu- of Mind which is not subjetl in his sense, and much tion of sleep teaches us to distinguish the potential of Matter that is not objeel. Mind and Matter are from the actual. If mind may be dormant and yet like sea and land, two vast potentialities. They meet not cease to be, so may the objects of mind be dor- on the coast-line: but the coast-line of percipere and mant — unobserved by human sense, unpictured in percipi is far from being the whole reality, human imagination, unrecalled in human memory, 17 another, can be except by the concurrence of several things, to wit, essence and existence. Therefore everything in which essence is one thing, and existence another, is compound. But God is not compound, as has been shown (Chap. XVIII). Therefore the very existence of God is His essence.
This sublime truth was taught by the Lord to Moses (Exod. iii, 13, 14): If they say to mey What is bis name? what shall I say to them? Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is hath sent me to you: showing this to be His proper name, He who is. But every name is given to show the nature or essence of some thing. Hence it remains that the very existence or being of God is His essence or nature.
CHAPTER XXIII-7/W in God there is no Accident EVERYTHING that is in a thing accidentally has a cause for its being therein, seeing that it is beside the essence of the thing wherein it is. If then there is anything in God accidentally, this must be by some cause. Either therefore the cause of the accident is the Divinity itself, or something else. If something else, that something must a6t upon the divine substance: for nothing induces any form, whether substantial or accidental, in any recipient, except by adting in some way upon it, because a&ing is nothing else than making something a&ually be, which is by a form. Thus God will be afted upon and moved by some agent, which is against the conclusions of Chapter XIII. But if the divine substance itself is the cause of the accident supposed to be in it, then, — inasmuch as it cannot possibly be the cause of it in so far as it is the recipient of it, because at that rate the same thing in the same respedl would aftualise itself, — then this acci- dent, supposed to be in God, needs must be received by Him in one respeft and caused by Him in another, even as things corporeal receive their proper accidents by the virtue of their matter, and cause them by their form. Thus then God will be compound, the contrary of which has been above proved.* 4. In whatever thing anything is accidentally, that thing is in some way changeable in its nature: for accident as such may be and may not be in the thing in which it is. If then God has anything attaching to Him acciden- tally, it follows that He is changeable, the contrary of which has above been proved (Chap. XIII, XV).
5. A thing into which an accident enters, is not all and everything that is contained in itself: because accident is not of the essence of the subject. But God is whatever He has in Himself. Therefore in God there is no acci- dent.— The premises are proved thus. Everything is found more excellently in cause than in effect. f But God is cause of all: therefore whatever is in Him is found there in the most excellent way possible. But what most per- feftly attaches to a thing is the very thing itself. This unity of identity is more perfedt than the substantial union of one element with another, e.g., of form with matter; and that union again is more perfect than the union that comes of one thing being accidentally in another. It remains therefore that God is whatever He has.
# A body, according to St Thomas, is made up t Shakespeare's genius was a better thing than of a potential subject, called * matter,' connaturally Shakespeare's Othello. Ordinarily, the cause is not extended in space; and further of an actuating prin- permanently exhausted by the effort of causation: ciple of energy, called 'substantial form,' which is so more remains behind than has been put into the united to the potential subject, or ' matter,' that the effect. A man is more proud of what he can do than latter thereby becomes an individual body within a of what he has done. There would be small satisfac- definite species, deriving its power of action from the tion in viewing a work of your mind, or of your 'substantial form,' or principle of energy. hands, if you felt that your hand had lost its cunning, and your mind was now effete.
18 Hence Augustine (*De Trinitate> v, c. 4, n. 5): " There is nothing accidental in God, because there is nothing changeable or perishable, " The showing forth of this truth is the confutation of sundry Saracen jurists, who suppose certain "ideas" superadded to the Divine Essence.* CHAP. XXIV- That the Existence of God cannot be charaEkrised by the addition of any Substantial Differentia f IT is impossible for anything adtually to be, unless all things exist whereby its substantial being is characterised. An animal cannot adtually be with- out being either a rational or an irrational animal. Hence the Platonists, in positing Ideas, did not posit self-existent Ideas of genera^ seeing that genera are characterised and brought to specific being by addition of essential diffe- rentias; but they posited self-existent Ideas of species alone, seeing that for the (further) characterising of species (in the individuals belonging to it) there is no need of essential differentias.J If then the existence of God is characterised and receives an essential characteristic by the addition of some- thing else, that existence will not of itself actually be except by having that other thing superadded to it. But the existence of God is His own very substance, as has been shown. It would follow that the substance of God could not actually be except by something supervening upon it; and thence the further conclusion would ensue that the substance of God is not of itself necessarily existent, the contrary of which has been shown above (Chap.
2. Everything that needs something superadded to enable it to be, is in potentiality in respeCt of that addition. Now the divine substance is not in any way in potentiality, as has been shown (Chap. XVI), but God's own substance is God's own being. Therefore His existence cannot be charac- terised by any superadded substantial characteristic.
CHAPTER XXV-That God is not in any Genus EVERYTHING that is in any genus has something in it whereby the nature of the genus is characterised and reduced to species: for there is nothing in the genus that is not in some species of it. But this is impossible in God, as has been shown in the previous chapter.
2. If God is in any genus, He is either in the genus of accident or the genus of substance. He is not in the genus of accident, for an accident can- not be the first being and the first cause. Again, He cannot be in the genus of substance: for the substance that is a genus is not mere existence: § other- wise every substance would be its own existence, since the idea of the genus is maintained in all that is contained under the genus: at that rate no sub- * Intentions. For mtentiof meaning idea, see B. I, scale, but no ideal animal. The former is specific in Qhap. LIII. The reference is to archetypal ideas of reference to Socrates, the latter would be generic. The creation, something akin to the Platonic Ideas, the type stops at the species. This piece of Platonism is "multitude of things intelligible," discussed in Chap, not formulated in the writings of Plato. L-LV of this book. The * Saracen jurists' (Sarace- $ There is always an ambiguity in this term of ncrum in jure loquentium) are apparently Avicenna 'mere existence,' ipsum esse, avro to ttvai. Either it and his school, against whom these chapters are means ens abstractissimum, the thinnest and shallowest directed. of concepts, denoting the barest removal from not This and the next chapter go to show that the thingness: or it is ens plenissimum, being that includes logical arrangement is inapplicable to God, by which (virtually at least) all other being, as the Platonic genus and differentia together constitute the species or avro to koXov virtually includes all beauty. In this definition, as animal and rational make up man. latter sense the term is predicable of God alone. In X There is an ideal or typical man in the Platonic God 'mere existence' means pure actuality.
19 stance would be caused by another, which is impossible (Chapp. XIII, XV). But God is mere existence: therefore He is not in any genus.
3. Whatever is in a genus differs in point of existence from other things that are in the same genus: otherwise genus would not be predicated of several things. But all things that are in the same genus must agree in the quiddity, or essence, of the genus: because of them all genus is predicated so as to answer the question what {quid) each thing is.* Therefore the exis- tence of each thing that exists in a genus is something over and above the quiddity of the genus. But that is impossible in God.f 4. Everything is placed in a genus by reason of its quiddity. But the quiddity of God is His own mere (full) existence. J Now a thing is not ranked in a genus on the score of mere (bare) existence: otherwise 'being/ in the sense of mere (bare) existence, would be a genus. But that 'being* cannot be a genus is proved in this way. If 'being' were a genus, some differentia would have to be found to reduce it to species. But no differentia participates in its genus: I mean, genus is never comprehended in the idea of the differentia: because at that rate genus would be put twice over in the definition of the species.§ Differentia then must be something over and above what is understood in the idea of genus. Now nothing can be over and above what is understood by the idea of 'being'; since 'being' enters into the conceivability of all things whereof it is predicated, and thus can be limited by no differentia. || Hence it is also apparent that God cannot be defined, because every de- finition is by genus and differentias. It is apparent also that there can be no demonstration of God except through some effect of His production: because the principle of demonstration is a definition of the thing defined.^ CHAPTER XXVI- That God is not the formal or abstraB being of all things THINGS are not distinguished from one another in so far as they all have being, because in this they all agree. If therefore things do differ from one another, either 'being' itself must be specified by certain added differentias, so that different things have a different specific being; or * Quod quid est, to ri rjv tlvai, where quod is a — actually existent being. 'Being in this latter sense of clumsy equivalent for to. what aftually exists cannot be a genus, because the t God is mere and sheer existence, not existence whole apparatus of genus, species and differentia bemodelled upon some quiddity (Chap. XXII). In this longs to the business of definition; and definition study it should be borne in mind that 'essence' re- does not lay down actual existence (esse), but ideal presents the ideal order: 'existence' the actual. God being (essentia). It is no part of the definition of a is the unity of essence and existence, of the ideal and triangle to state that any such things as triangles do the actual; the point at which the potential finally actually exist. Therefore we read in this chapter vanishes into the actual. In every existent being, (n. 3): "The existence of each thing that exists in under God, there is an admixture of potentiality, a genus is something over and above the quiddity of This is to be kept steadily in view in bringing St the genus." In other words, 'existence' lies outside Thomas to bear upon Kant and Hegel. every possible generic notion. Nor again can being X If God and the creatures were included in one in the sense of what is in thought be a genus, because genus, the genus could not be the 'full existence' such conceptual being penetrates and pervades the (esse plenissimum) of God, for that is not predicable whole ideal order, to which genus, species and diffeof the creature. We should have to fall back upon rentia belong: it is the fundamental notion of the the other meaning of ipsum esse, namely, 'bare exis- order, and appears everywhere, and therefore cannot tence,' and upon that St Thomas argues. be screened off as a genus. — See {Metaphysics in the § As if we took 'living' for a differentia attach- Stonyhurst Series of "Manuals of Catholic Philosoable to the genus 'animal,' and so formed a species phy," pp. 35-38.
'living animal.' f God cannot be 'demonstrated' in the Aristote- 'Being means anything and everything that in lian sense, as truths are demonstrated in the exact any way //, and can at all be said to be removed sciences, notably mathematics. You can demonstrate from the merest nothing. There is being in thought, — in this sense nothing but what you thoroughly comconceptual, or ideal being; and there is being of thing, prehend.
20 OF GOD AS HE IS IN HIMSELF things must differ in this that 'being* itself attaches to specifically different natures. The first alternative is impossible, because no addition can be made to 'being/ in the way that differentia is added to genus, as^has been said (Chap. XXV, n. 4). It remains therefore that things differ in that they have different natures, to which 'being* accrues differently. But the divine being is not something accessory to any nature, but is the very nature or essence of God (Chap. XXII). If therefore the divine being were the formal and ab- stract being of all things, all things would have to be absolutely one.* 4. What is common to many is not anything over and above the many except in thought alone. For example, 'animal' is not anything over and above Socrates and Plato and other animals, except in the mind that appre- hends the form of 'animal' despoiled of all individualising and specifying marks: for what is really animal is man: otherwise it would follow that in Plato there were several animals, to wit, animal in general, and man in general, and Plato himself. Much less then is bare being in general anything over and above all existing things, except in the mind alone. If then God be being in general, God will be nothing more than a logical entity, something that exists in the mind alone.
This error is set aside by the teaching of Holy Scripture, which con- fesses God lofty and high (Isa. vi, 1), and that He is abote all (Rom. ix, 5). For if He is the being of all, then He is something of all, not above all. The supporters of this error are also cast out by the same sentence which casts out idolaters, who gave the incommunicable name of God to stocks and stones (Wisd. xiv, 8, 21). For if God were the being of all, it would not be more truly said, 'A stone is a being,' than 'A stone is God.'