4. The intellectual soul is created on the confines of eternity and time: because it is last in order of intelligences, and yet its substance is raised above corporeal matter, being independent of the same. But its action, inasmuch as it touches inferior things that are in time, is temporal. Therefore, inasmuch as it touches superior things that are above time, its action partakes of eternity. Such is especially the vision whereby it sees the divine substance. Therefore by such vision it enters into participation of eternity, and sees God in the same way as any other created intelligence.
Hence the Lord says: This is life everlasting, to know thee the only true God (John xvii, 3).
CHAPTER LXll-That they who see God will see Him for ever WHATEVER now is, and now is not, is measured by time. But the vision that makes the happiness of intellectual creatures is not in time, but in eternity (Chap. LXI). It is impossible therefore that from the moment one becomes partaker of it he should ever lose it.
2. An intelligent creature does not arrive at its last end except when its natural desire is set at rest. But as it naturally desires happiness, so it naturally desires perpetuity of happiness: for, being perpetual in its substance, whatever * This is not m contradi&ion with B. II, Chap, natural knowledge of an angel, here of what is known CI, because in that chapter there is question of the by the vision of God, which is supernatural.
thing it desires for the thing's own sake, and not for the sake of something else, it desires as a thing to be had for ever.* Happiness therefore would not be the last end, if it did not endure perpetually.
3. Everything that is loved in the having of it brings sadness, if we know that at some time we must part with it. But the beatific vision, being of all things most delightful and most desired, is of all things most loved by them who have it. They could not therefore be otherwise than saddened, if they knew that at some time they were to lose it. But if it were not meant to last for ever, they would be aware of the fact: for in seeing the divine substance, they also see other things that naturally are (Chap. LIX).f 6. It is impossible for one to wish to resign a good thing that he enjoys, except for some evil that he discerns in the enjoyment of that good, or because he reckons it a hindrance to greater good. But in the enjoyment of the beatific vision there can be no evil, since it is the best thing to which an intelligent creature can attain: nor can he who enjoys that vision possibly think that there is any evil in it, or anything better than it, since the vision of that sovereign truth excludes all false judgement.!
8. Nothing that is viewed with wonder can grow tedious: as long as it is an object of wonder, the desire of seeing it remains. But the divine sub- stance is always viewed with wonder by any created intelligence, since no created intelligence can comprehend it. Therefore such intelligence can never find that vision tedious.
9. The nearer a thing comes to God, who is wholly unchangeable, the less changeable it is and the more enduring. But no creature can draw nearer to God than that which beholds His substance. The intelligent creature then gains in the vision of God a certain immutability, and cannot fall from that vision.
Hence it is said: Blessed are they who dwell in thy bouse \ O Lord: tbey shall praise thee for et>er and e^er (Ps. lxxxiii, 5): He shall neter be moled from his place \ that dtoettetb in Jerusalem (Ps. cxxiv, 1): Whoever shall overcome \ I will mafe him a pillar in the temple of my God, ana he shall not go out any more CHAPTER LXIII-i?0w in that Final Happiness every Desire of Man is fulfilled FROM what has been said it evidently appears that in that final happi- ness which comes of the vision of God every human desire is fulfilled, according to the text: Who Jilleth thy desire with good things (Ps. cii, 5). And every human endeavour there finds its final good: as may be seen by discussing the several heads. — 1. As man is an intelligent being, there is in him a desire of investigating truth, which desire men follow out in the pursuit of a contemplative life. And this will manifestly be fulfilled in that vision, since by the sight of the first and highest truth all things that man naturally desires to know will become known to him (Chap. L).
2. There is also a desire which a man has in keeping with his rational # If I desire hunting for its own sake, not as an ever, whereas it was not, there would be a delusion interlude between duties, I must desire to hunt in- built into their happiness: they would be living in cessantly, could I do so without fatigue. a fool's paradise, which is contrary to the idea of a t Not however the divine decrees (Chapp. LVI, perfect state, n. 4: LIX ad fin). A better argument perhaps is this, I And therefore all sin (Chap. X).
that if they thought that the vision was to last for faculty of managing and disposing of inferior things: which desire men prosecute in the pursuit of an aftive and civil life. And the chief scope and purpose of this desire is the laying out of man's whole life according to reason, which means living virtuously.* This desire will then be altogether fulfilled when reason shall be in the height of its vigour, being enlightened by divine light that it may not fall away from what is right.
3. Upon civil life there follow certain goods which a man needs for his social and political a<5tivities. Thus there is honour and high estate, the inor- dinate desire of which makes men intriguing t and ambitious. But that vision elevates men to the supreme height of honour, uniting them with God; and therefore, as God is the king of ages (1 Tim. i, 17), so th e Blessed united with Him are said to reign: They shall reign with Christ (Apoc. xx, 6).
4. Another objeft of desire following upon civil life is celebrity of fame, by inordinate desire of which men are said to be covetous of vain glory. By that divine vision the blessed become celebrated, not before men, who may deceive and be deceived, but in the most true knowledge of God and of all their companions in bliss. And therefore that happiness is very frequently termed c glory * in Holy Scripture, as in Ps. cxliv, 5: The saints shall exult in glory.
5. There is also another thing desirable in civil society, namely, riches, by inordinate craving and love for which men become illiberal and unjust; But in that blissful state there is sufficiency of all good things, inasmuch as the Blessed enjoy Him who comprises the perfeftion of them: wherefore it is said: All good things came to me with her (Wisdom vii, 11); and, Glory and wealth is in his house (Ps. cxi, 3).
6. There is also a third desire in man, common to him with other ani- mals, the desire of pleasurable enjoyments, which men pursue in the life of pleasure, and thereby become intemperate and incontinent. J But in the happi- ness of the sight of God there is perfedt delight, all the more perfedt than the pleasure of sense, which brute animals also can enjoy, as intelle6t is higher than sense; all the more perfeft as (quanto) the good in which we shall take delight is greater than any sensible good, and comes more home to us, and is more continually delightful; all the more perfeft again as the delight is more pure and free from all admixture of sadness or harassing solicitude; and of this it is said: They shall be inebriated by the plenty of thy house \ and thou wilt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure (Ps. xxxv, 9).
7. There is also a natural desire common to all things, in that they all desire self-preservation, so far as possible; by the immoderation of which de- sire men are rendered timid and spare themselves too much from labours. This desire also shall be perfeftly fulfilled when the Blessed attain to perfect everlasting duration, secure from all hurt, according to the text: They shall not hunger nor thirst any more, neither shall the sun fall upon them, nor any heat • Hence the Aristotelian maxim, that the end of ceeds from a habit acquired by custom: whereas in government is to make the citizens virtuous, up to a the incontinent man the will is inclined to sin by certain measure of human and social virtue. Or we some passion. And because passion quickly passes off, may say it is to 'rationalise' the community, that is, whereas a habit is a quality difficult to change, it to form them into a whole regulated by reason. The follows that the incontinent man repents at once, civil ruler, as such, is a living public reasonableness. when the fit of passion is over, which happens not t Superflui, which seems to be some translation of with the intemperate man: nay, the latter is even ircpirroi, trtpupyoi. glad to have sinned, because the aft of sin by habit X Intemperati et ineontinentes, the Aristotelian ok6~ has become connatural to him " (Sum. TSeoJ. 2a 2*, \aoroi kou a/cparci?. "In the intemperate man the q. 156, art. 3: Aquinas Ethic us y II, 339: 1, 170, 171). will is inclined to sin by its own choice, that pro- Thus it appears that by the vision of God subsistent intelligences gain true happiness, in which every desire is wholly laid to rest, and in which there is abundant sufficiency of all good things, which Aristotle considers a requisite of happiness-* Nothing in this life is so like this final and perfect happiness as the life of them who contemplate truth so far as possible. For the contemplation of truth begins in this life, but will be consummated in the life to come, whereas the life of action and the political life do not tran- scend the bounds of this present.
CHAPTER LXlV-That Qod governs things by His Providence THE foregoing conclusions sufficiently show that God is the end of all things. Hence it may be further gathered that by His providence He governs and rules all things. For whatever things are referred to an end, are all subject to His management to whom principally that end belongs, as appears in an army: for all the components of the army and all their works are referred to one last end, the good of the general, which is victory, and therefore it belongs to the general to govern the whole army. In like manner the art which is concerned with the end gives commands and laws to the art which is concerned with the means, as politics to the art of war, the art of war to the management of cavalry, navigation to ship- building. Since therefore all things are referred to an end, which is the divine goodness (Chapp. XVII, XVIII), God, to whom that goodness principally belongs, — as being His own substance, possessed, understood, and loved, — must have the chief control of all things.
5. Things that are distinct in their natures do not combine into one system, unless they be bound up in one by one directing control {ab uno ordinante). But in the universe there are things, having distinct and contrary natures, which nevertheless all combine in one system, some things taking up the activities of other things, some things being aided or even wrought by others. There must then be one ordainer and governor of the universe.
8. Every agent that intends an end cares more for that which is nearer to the last end. But the last end of the divine will is the divine goodness, and the nearest thing to that in creation is the goodness of the order of the entire universe, that being the end to which every particular good of this or that thing is referred, as the less perfect is referred to the more perfect, and every part is for its whole. What therefore God most cares for in creation is the order of the universe:f He is therefore its controller.
Hence Holy Scripture adscribes the course of events to the divine com- • "There will be need too of external prosperity, t This is St Thomas's way of saying that God while man is man: for his nature is not self-sufficient governs according to general laws of nature and for contemplation, but needs a healthy body, food thought. — The following argument may be added and other comforts" (Nic. Eta., X, ix, 1). The laying from Sum. Theol., la, q. 22, art. 2: "Since every to rest of all desire reminds us rather of Asiatic con- agent acts for an end, the direction of effects to an ceptions of happiness, involving the removal of work end on the part of the prime agent extends wide as and worry and of the consequences of sin, the most His causality extends. Whenever in the workings of accessible side of the concept of felicity, mortahbus an active cause anything occurs that is not directed aegris. But to the Thomist and the Christian, desire to an end, it is because that effect ensues upon the is appeased by full intensity of life (contemplatio, working of some other cause beside the intention of Otwpia): to the Asiatic by an intellectual stillness the original agent. But the causality of God, the verging on anesthesia {nirvana). We pray for requiem prime agent, extends to all beings:...hence all arternam, likewise for lux perpetua; but to the perfect things, whatsoever in any way have being, are Buddhist nirvana is simply extinction. Buddhism is ordained by God to an end." the antithesis of the scholastic thesis, ens est bonum.
mand: tVhogiveth command to the sun, and it riseth not, and encloseth the stars as under a seal (Job ix, 7): He hatb given a command, and it shall not pass afPay (Ps. cxlviii, 6).
CHAPTER LXV-Thal God preserves things in being FROM God's governing all things by His providence it follows that He preserves them in being.* For everything whereby things gain their end is part of the governing of them. But to the last end which God intends, namely, the divine goodness, things are directed not only by their activities, but also by the fact of their existence, because by that mere fact they bear some likeness to the divine goodness. Therefore it is proper to divine providence to keep things in being.
5. As a work of art presupposes a work of nature, so a work of nature presupposes a work of God creating: for the material of artificial things is from nature, and the material of natural things is through creation of God. But artificial things are preserved in being by virtue of natural things, as a house by the solidity of its stones. Therefore natural things are not preserved in being otherwise than through the power of God.f 6. The impression made by an agent does not remain in the effect when the action of the agent ceases, unless that impression turns into and becomes part of the nature of the effect. Thus the forms and properties of things generated remain in them to the end, after the generation is done, because they are made natural to the things: in like manner habits are difficult to change, because they turn into nature. But dispositions, bodily impressions, and emotions, though they remain for some little while after the action of the agent, do not remain permanently: they find place in the subject as being on the way to become part of its nature. J But what belongs to the nature of a superior genus in no way remains after the action of the agent is over, as light does not remain in a transparent medium after the source of light is taken away.§ But being is not the nature or essence of anything created, but of God alone (B. I, Chapp. XXI, XXII). Nothing then can remain in being when the divine activity ceases. || * It is more usual to argue the other way about, differs from disposition, as disposition is a quality easily as St Thomas himself does as quoted in the last note, changed. Thus one in a good humour is in a disposition that because God has created this world, and keeps to be kind. Habit is a part of character: disposition is it all in being, He must have His own designs about a passing fit " (Ethics and Natural Lav, p. 64). Un- it and be managing it to His own ends. fortunately, the word disposition in English is used to t By way of illustrating the importance of phy- signify natural or congenital character, the Latin sical science to the theologian, I note two propositions indoles. We might perhaps say mood. But the plural, of St Thomas in the fourth argument, here omitted: good dispositions, expresses St Thomas's dispositio.
(a ) " No corporeal thing acts otherwise than § Or as learning does not remain in the mind of through being in motion." So Aristotle, Physics, an ignorant and unintellectual pupil in the absence VIII, v. of his teacher. When the pupil is becoming capable (h ) " It is impossible for the motion of anything of private study, then learning is growing into someto continue, when the motor action of the moving thing of a habit in him: "it is turning into nature' cause ceases to be." (vertitur in naturam), as St Thomas says.
The first proposition has not been reconciled with II This is truly a magnificent argument. — In these the laws of gravitation and of electric and magnetic idealist days, there is no difficulty in bringing any attraction: the second is a denial of the inertia of theist to avow that things could not be at all, if they matter. St Thomas took them both from Aristotle. dropped out of the thought of the Supreme Mind.
t Insunt ut in via ad naturam, as one might say of But God's mere thinking of them is not enough to an undergraduate 'west ut in yia ad gradum. — " A raise them out of the order of pure possibilities, and habit is a quality difficult to change, whereby an agent, transfer them into the region of actual being. To whose nature it was to work one way or another give them actuality, God must will them; and to indeterminately, is disposed easily and readily at will keep them in existence He must will them con- to follow this or that particular line of action. Habit tinually. Cf. B. I, Chapp. LIII, LIV, LXXXI.
GOD THE END OF CREATURES 7. Concerning the origin of ithings there are two theories, one of faith, that things had a first commencement, and were then brought into being by God; the other the theory of sundry philosophers, that things have emanated (Jluxerint) from God from all eternity. On either theory we must say that things are preserved in being by God. For if things are brought into being by God after not being, the being of things must be consequent upon the divine will; and similarly their not being, because He has permitted things not to be when He willed and made things to be when He willed. Things therefore are, so long as He wills them to be. His will then is the upholder of creation. On the other hand, if things have emanated from God from all eternity, it is impossible to assign any time or instant in which first they ema- nated from God. Either then they were never produced by God at all, or their being is continually coming forth from God so long as they exist.
Hence it is said: 'Bearing up all things by the word of his poVter (Heb. i, 3). And Augustine says (De Gen. ad lit. iv, 12): " The power of the Creator, and the might of the Almighty and All-containing, is the cause of the permanence of every creature. If this power ever ceased from governing creation, all the brave show of creatures would at once cease, and all nature would fall to nothing. It is not like the case of one who has built a house, and goes away, and still the structure remains, when his work has ceased and his presence is withdrawn. The world could not endure for the twinkling of an eye, if God retired from the government of it."
Hereby is excluded the theory of some Doctors of the Law of the Moors, who, by way of sustaining the position that the world needs the preserving hand of God, have supposed all forms to be accidents,* and that no accident lasts for two successive instants, the consequence being that the formation of things is always in the making, — as though a thing needed no efficient cause except while it is in the making. Some of them are further said to hold that the indivisible atoms,t out of which they say that all substances are composed, — which atoms, according to them, alone are indestruftible, — could last for some short time, even though God were to withdraw His guidance from the world. Some of them further say that things would not cease to be but for God causing in them an accident of 4 ceasing/ J All which positions are manifestly absurd.
• To St Thomas, 'forms' were some 'accidental,' mediaeval formularies. Bat when you have caught others ' substantial.' the meaning, it remains for you to apply it to the t Corpora indryisibiRa^ so the Editions. But the ulterior conditions revealed by later science, — no Bergamo autograph, if we may trust the printers, has easy task.
corpora invisibilia. That a body may have accidents t Read des'ttionis (from dtsino), not decisionis. This impervious to sense, a microscopic composition quite accident des'ttionis may after all perhaps be no other other than what appears to the eye, does not seem than the forma cada^erica, supposed by some school- usually to have been recognised by the schoolmen, men to replace the soul as the ' form ' of the body Their ' accidents ' are the sensible phenomena of after death. These 4 Moors ' (Arabian commentators bodies. Here again the progress of physics has seri- on Aristotle) evidently were in possession of the ously affe&ed metaphysics. The use of reading a atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus, a theory mediaeval book about ' accidents ' is to enable you embraced by Epicureans, but no favourite with to understand mediaeval authors and to interpret Aristotelians.
CHAPTER LX VI— That nothing gives Being except in so much as it a8ls in the Power of God NOTHING gives being except in so much as it is an aftual being. But God preserves things in aftuality. 5. The order of effe<5ts is according to the order of causes. But among all effefts the first is being: all other things, as they proceed from their cause, are determinations of being. Therefore being is the proper effect of the prime agent, and all other things aft inasmuch as they a<5t in the power of the prime agent. Secondary agents, which are in a manner particular determinants of the aftion of the prime agent, have for the proper effefts of their a6lion other perfeftions determinant of being.* 6. What is essentially of a certain nature, is properly the cause of that which comes to have that nature only by participation. f But God alone is being by essence, all others are beings by participation. Therefore the being of everything that exists is an effedt properly due to God; so that anything that brings anything else into being does so insomuch as it a<5ts in the power Hence it is said: God created all things to be (Wisd. i, 14).
CHAPTER LXVll-That Qod is the Cause of AEHvity in all AElive Agents AS God not only gave being to things when they first began to be, but also causes being in them so long as they exist (Chap. LX V); so He did not once for all furnish them with aftive powers, but con- tinually causes those powers in them, so that, if the divine influx were to cease, all aftivity would cease.
Hence it is said: Thou hast wrought all our Works in us, O Lord (Isa. xxvi, 1 2). And for this reason frequently in the Scriptures the effe<5ts of nature are put down to the working of God, because He it is that works in every agent, physical or voluntary: e.g., Hast thou not drawn me out li\e mil^ and curdled me li\e cheese? with s\in and flesh thou hast clothed me, with bones and sinews thou hast put me together (Job x, 10, 11).
CHAPTER LXVlll-That God is everywhere and in all things AN incorporeal thing is said to be in a thing by contadl of power. Therefore if there be anything incorporeal fraught with infinite power, that must be everywhere. But it has been shown (B. I Chap. XLIII) that God has infinite power. He is therefore everywhere.
• Thus e.g. that this painting is a portrait rather there is no actual essential humanity, by participa- tion a landscape is attributable, under God, to the tion in which all men are men. Aristotle's doctrine will of the painter: but that this painting // at all, is of the four elements, fire being essentially hot, air the singular effect of divine action. essentially cold, earth essentially dry, and water essent This is a bit of Platonism that has passed through tially moist, is really a scheme of Platonic Ideas Aristotle to St Thomas. St Thomas gives the example operating as physical causes. For all his protests of fire being the cause of all things fiery. But there against the Ideas, Aristotle never became quite is no essential element of fire, any more than there emancipated from their control, is any essential beauty, outside of God. There is no actual essential nature anywhere in creation. Thus 4. Since God is the universal cause of all being, in whatever region being can be found there must be the divine presence, 6. An efficient cause must be together with its proximate and imme- diate effedt. But in everything there is some effect which must be set down for the proximate and immediate effe£t of God's power: for God alone can create (B. II, Chap. XXI); and in everything there is something caused by creation, — in corporeal things, primordial matter; in incorporeal beings, their simple essences (B. II, Chapp. XV, sq). God then must be in all things, especially since the things which He has once produced from not- being to being He continually and always preserves in being (Chap. LXV).
Hence it is said: I Jill heaven and earth (Jer. xxiii, 24): If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into bell, thou art there (Ps. exxxviii, 8).
God is indivisible, and wholly out of the category of the continuous: hence He is not determined to one place, great or small, by the necessity of His essence, seeing that He is from eternity before all place: but by the immensity of His power He reaches all things that are in place, since He is the universal cause of being. Thus then He is whole everywhere, reaching all things by His undivided power.* CHAPTER LXIX-Ofthe Opinion of those who withdraw from Natural Things their Proper AEHons SOME have taken an occasion of going wrong by thinking that no creature has any aftion in the produftion of natural effe<5ts, — thus that fire does not warm, but God causes heat where fire is present. So Avicebronf in his book, The Fountain of Life, lays it down that no body is adtive, but the power of a subsistent spirit permeating bodies does the aftions which seem to be done by bodies. But on such theories many awkward consequences follow.
1. If no inferior cause, and especially no corporeal cause, does any work, but God works alone in all agencies, and God does not change by working in different agencies; no difference of effeft will follow from the difference of agencies in which God works: but that is false by the testimony of sense.
2. It is contrary to the notion of wisdom for anything to be to no pur- pose in the works of the wise. But if created things in no way work to the produftion of effefts, but God alone works all effefts immediately, to no purpose are other things employed by Him.
3. To grant the main thing is to grant the accessories. But actually to do follows upon actually to be: thus God is at once pure aftuality and the first cause. If then God has communicated to other beings His likeness in respedt of being, it follows that He has communicated to them His likeness in respeft of adtion.
4. To detraft from the perfeftion of creatures is to detraft from the per- feftion of the divine power. But if no creature has any adtion in the produdtion of any effect, much is detracted from the perfection of the crea- • " God is in all things by porter, inasmuch as all attention. Nor docs he discuss immensity as an attrithings are subjeel to His power. He is in all things bute of God. He declares: "We say that there was no by presence, inasmuch as all things are naked and open place or space before the world was" (Sum. Tbeol., i, to bis eyes (Heb. iv, 13). He is in all things by q. 46, art. 1, ad 4). This is tantamount to saying essence, because His substance is at hand to all things that God is everywhere where creatures are; but that, as the cause of their being" (Sum. Tbeol., 1, q. 8, apart from creation, there is no meaning in speaking art. 3). For the scholastic meaning of ' place ' see of God as being everywhere, note, p. 100. 4 Space* scarcely engaged St Thomas's t The Jew, Salomon Ibn-Gebird.
ture: for it marks abundance of perfection to be able to communicate to another the perfection which one has oneself.
5. God is the sovereign good (B. I, Chap. XLI). Therefore it belongs to Him to do the best. But it is better for good conferred on one to be common to many than for it to be confined to that one: for common good always proves to be more godlike than the good of the individual. But the good of one comes to be common to many when it is derived from one to many, which cannot be except in so far as the agent diffuses it to others by a proper action of its own. God then has communicated His goodness in such a way that one creature can transmit to others the good which it has received.
6. To take away order from creation is to take away the best thing that there is in creation: for while individual things in themselves are good, the conjunction of them all is best by reason of the order in the universe: for the whole is ever better than the parts and is the end of the parts. But if actions are denied to things, the order of things to one another is taken away: for things differing in their natures are not tied up in the unity of one system otherwise than by this, that some act and some are acted upon.