What has led men into this error is a piece of faulty reasoning. For, see- ing that what is common to many is specialised and individualised by addi- tion, they reckoned that the divine being, to which no addition is made, was not any individual being, but was the general being of all things: fail- ing to observe that what is common or universal cannot really exist without addition, but merely is viewed by the mind without addition. 'Animal' can- not be without 'rational' or 'irrational' as a differentia, although it may be thought of without these differentias. f Moreover, though the universal be thought of without addition, yet not without susceptibility of addition. 'Animal' would not be a genus if no differentia could be added to it; and so of other generic names. But the divine being is without addition, not only in thought, but also in rerum natura\ and not only without addition, but without even susceptibility of addition. Hence from this very fa<5t, that He neither receives nor can receive addition, we may rather conclude that God is not being in general, but individual being: for by this very fa£t His being is distinguished from all other beings, that nothing can be added to it (Chap. XXIV).
* If all things agreed in being — and that the di- T>to Cnatore9 the Vatican Council anathematises any vine being — all things would agree also in nature, since who say that "God is a universal or indefinite being, the being of God is simply identical with His nature, which by self-determination constitutes the universe." Agreeing at once in being and in nature, they would t This statement, along with the previous (n. 4), agree all over, all would be absolutely one, and one is St Thomas's repudiation of ultra-realism, a doctrine great and sole Reality would pervade and constitute with which the schoolmen are often charged, as the universe. To erect such a 'Reality,' or 'Idea,' or though they gave the objects of universal concepts, 'Absolute/ and then to proclaim it God, is panthe- as universal, a place in rerum natura. The neo-Kan- ism. St Thomas argues that this all-pervading entity tian school, identifying reality with thought, may be is not the universe, still less is it God: it has no con- more open to the accusation. Is not the old mediae - crete existence whatever: it is the shallowest, poorest val strife about ' universals ' still being waged under and barest of the mind's creations, extending to and other names?
denoting everything, and therefore meaning and com- Modern scholars make a great difficulty of adprehending next to nothing. In its fourth canon, De mitting that the "common element" in a number 21 CHAPTER XXVlll-That God is Universal Terfe&ion AS all perfection and nobility is in a thing inasmuch as the thing is, so every defeCt is in a thing inasmuch as the thing in some manner is not. As then God has being in its totality, so not-being is totally removed from Him, because the measure in which a thing has being is the measure of its removal from not-being. Therefore all defedt is absent from God: He is therefore universal perfection.
2. Everything imperfedt must proceed from something perfect: therefore the First Being must be most perfect.
3. Everything is perfedt inasmuch as it is in adtuality; imperfedt, inas- much as it is in potentiality, with privation of adtuality. That then which is nowise in potentiality, but is pure adtuality, must be most perfedt; and such is God.* 4. Nothing adts except inasmuch as it is in adtuality: adtion therefore follows the measure of adtuality in the agent. It is impossible therefore for any effedt that is brought into being by adtion to be of a nobler adtuality than is the adtuality of the agent. It is possible though for the adtuality of the effedt to be less perfedt than the adtuality of the adting cause, inasmuch as adtion may be weakened on the part of the objedt to which it is termi- nated, or upon which it is spent. Now in the category of efficient causation everything is reducible ultimately to one cause, which is God, of whom are all things. Everything therefore that adtually is in any other thing must be found in God much more eminently than in the thing itself; God then is most perfedt.
Hence the answer given to Moses by the Lord, when he sought to see the divine face or glory: I will show thee all good (Exod. xxxiii, 19).
CHAPTER XXIX— How Likeness to God may be found in Creatures EFFECTS disproportionate to their causes do not agree with them in name and essence. And yet some likeness must be found between such efFedts and their causes: for it is of the nature of an agent to do some- thing like itself. Thus also God gives to creatures all their perfedtions; and thereby He has with all creatures a likeness, and an unlikeness at the same time. For this point of likeness, however, it is more proper to say that the creature is like God than that God is like the creature. For that is said of similar objects, e.g., of dogs, can be thought of fection is perfect self-realisation, in the sense of every "without addition" of colour, size, and other points, power being realised to the utmost. The powers of which go to individualise this dog. Take all those man are many, not all of equally high quality. The points away, they say, and you have nothing left, utmost realisation of one might and would interfere Certainly you have no picture in the imagination with the realisation of another: the baser might be left. But cursory, rapid thinking, — and such is our brought out to the loss of nobler and better: the usual thinking, — is done without any picture in the perfection of man is a harmony of powers, which imagination; we think vaguely, or, as Cardinal New- implies both use and restraint of them severally acman in the Grammar of Assent calls it, " notionally." cording to the excellence of their several functions/ Only in vivid thought is a sensible picture in the In man, much must be left in potentiality, if the imagination formed, and the apprehension becomes best actuality that he is capable of is to be realised, what Newman calls "real." The object then appears In an orchestra, where every instrument played (or with its individualising features upon the imaginative brayed) continuously at its loudest, the result would canvas, the mind meanwhile remarking to itself that be din indescribable, a maximum of noise with a this figure, e.g., of this dog, is a specimen or type, to minimum of music. Perfection is actuality up to stanwhich other objects will conform with various differ- dard. In a finite nature, the standard imposes limitaences. tions, according to the Aristotelian canon of the * It does not follow from this that human per- golden mean, a canon not framed for the infinite.
22 OF GOD AS HE IS IN HIMSELF to be like a thing, which possesses its quality or form. Since then that which is found to perfection in God is found in other beings by some manner of imperfect participation, the said point of likeness belongs to God absolutely, but not so to the creature. And thus the creature has what belongs to God, and is rightly said to be like to God: but it cannot be said that God has what belongs to the creature, nor is it fitting to say that God is like the creature; as we do not say that a man is like his picture, and yet his picture is rightly pronounced to be like him.
CHAPTER XXX- What Names can be predicated of God WE may further consider what may be said or not said of God, or what may be said of Him only, what again may be said of God and at the same time also of other beings. Inasmuch as every per- fection of the creature may be found in God, although in another and a more excellent way, it follows that whatever names absolutely denote perfection without defeCt, are predicated of God and of other beings, as for instance, 'goodness/ 'wisdom/ 'being/ and the like. But whatever names denote such perfection with the addition of a mode proper to creatures, cannot be predi- cated of God except by way of similitude and metaphor, whereby the attri- butes of one thing are wont to be adapted to another, as when a man is called a 'block* for the denseness of his understanding. Of this sort are all names imposed to denote the species of a created thing, as 'man/ and 'stone*: for to every species is due its own proper mode of perfection and being. In like manner also whatever names denote properties that are caused in things by their proper specific principles,* cannot be predicated of God otherwise than metaphorically. But the names that express such perfections with that mode of supereminent excellence in which they appertain to God, are predicated of God alone, as for instance, 'Sovereign Good/ 'First Being/ and the like. I say that some of the aforesaid names imply perfection with- out defeCt, if we consider that which the name was imposed to signify. But if we consider the mode of signification, every name is attended with defeCt: for by a name we express things as we conceive them in our understanding: but our understanding, taking its beginning of knowledge from sensible ob- jects, does not transcend that mode which it finds in such sensible objeCts. In them the form is one thing, and that which has the form another. The form, to be sure, is simple, but imperfeCt, as not subsisting by itself: while that which has the form subsists, but is not simple — nay, is concrete and composite, f Hence whatever our understanding marks as subsisting, it marks in the concrete: what it marks as simple, it marks, not as something that />, but as that whereby something is.\ And thus in every name that we utter, if we consider the mode of signification, there is found an imperfection that does not attach to God, although the thing signified may attach to God in some eminent way, as appears in the name 'goodness' and 'good.' 'Goodness' denotes something as not subsisting by itself: 'good/ something as concrete and composite. In this respect, then, no name befits God suitably except in respeCt of that which the name is imposed to signify. Such names there- fore may be both affirmed and denied of God, affirmed on account of the * e.g., space-enclosing as a property of triangles, essence and existence. Thus, in creation, the abstracl t Concretionem bahens. The concrete to St Thomas alone is simple, concrete being is compound, means the composite. Any existing created substance, t Thus the concrete man is something that is: the as he teaches, is compounded of specific nature and abstract humanity is that whereby man is man, not individualising notes, of actuality and potentiality, of something that is by itself.
*3 meaning of the name, denied on account of the mode of signification. But the mode of supereminence, whereby the said perfections are found in God, cannot be signified by the names imposed by us, except either by negation, as when we call God 'eternal' or 'infinite/ or by reference or comparison of Him to other things, as when He is called the 'First Cause' or the 'Sove- reign Good.' For we cannot take in fcaperej* of God what He is, but what He is not, and how other beings stand related to Him.
CHAPTER XXXl-Thatthe Plurality of divine Names is not inconsistent with the Simplicity of the Divine *Being THE perfections proper to other things in respeCt of their several forms must be attributed to God in respeCt of His productivity alone, which productivity is no other than His essence. Thus then God is called 'wise,' not only in respeCt of His producing wisdom, but be- cause, in so far as we are wise, we imitate in some measure His produc- tivity, which makes us wise. But He is not called 'stone/ though He has made stones, because in the name of 'stone* is understood a determinate mode of being wherein a stone is distinguished from God. Still a stone is an imitation of God its cause, in being, in goodness, and other such respeCts. Something of the sort may be found in the cognitive and aCtive powers of man. The intellect by its one power knows all that the sentient part knows by several powers, and much more besides. Also, the higher the intellect, the more it can know by one effort, to which knowledge an inferior intel- lect does not attain without many efforts. Again, the royal power extends to all those particulars to which the divers powers under it are directed. Thus also God by His one simple being possesses all manner of perfection, all that other beings compass by divers faculties — yea, much more. Hereby the need is clear of many names predicated of God: for as we cannot know Him naturally otherwise than by arriving at Him from the efFeCts which He produces, the names whereby we denote His perfections must be several and diverse, answering to the diverse perfections that are found in things. But if we could understand His essence as it is in itself, and adapt to it a name proper to it, we should express it by one name only, as is promised to those who shall behold Him in essence: In that day there shall be one Lord, and his name shall be one (Zach. xiv, 9).
CHAPTER XXXII-That nothing is predicated of God and of other beings synonymously t AN efFeCt that does not receive a form specifically like the form whereby the agent aCts, is incapable of receiving in synonymous predication the name taken from that form. J But, of the things whereof God is cause, the forms do not attain to the species of the divine efficacy, since they receive piecemeal and in particular what is found in God simply and universally.
3. Everything that is predicated of several things synonymously, is either * Capere is xto/0£"'> 'find room for' in our be found in the beginning of his Categories, and in (limited) understanding.' the text-books. The conclusion of this chapter, if act 4 Synonymously,' that is, in the same sense, cepted, renders pantheism untenable. This and the next three chapters suppose the doc- t e.g., one who has no genius for painting, taktrine of Aristotle about synonyma and homonyma to ing lessons in painting from a Murillo, is incapable *4 genus, species, differentia, accidens, or proprium. But nothing is predicated of God as genus, as has been shown (Chap. XXV); and in like manner neither as differentia; nor again as species, which is made up of genus and differentia; nor can any accident attach to Him, as has been shown (Chap. XXIII); and thus nothing is predicated of God either as accident or as proprium, for pro- prium is of the class of accidents. The result is that nothing is predicated synonymously of God and other beings.
6. Whatever is predicated of things so as to imply that one thing pre- cedes and the other is consequent and dependent on the former, is certainly not predicated synonymously. Now nothing is predicated of God and of other beings as though they stood in the same rank, but it is implied that one pre- cedes, and the other is consequent and dependent. Of God all predicates are predicated essentially. He is called 4 being* to denote that He is essence itself; and 'good,' to denote that He is goodness itself. But of other beings predi- cations are made to denote participation. Thus Socrates is called 4 a man,' not that he is humanity itself, but one having humanity. It is impossible therefore for any predicate to be applied synonymously and in the same sense to God and other beings.
CHAPTER XXXIII- That it is not at all true that the application of common Predicates to God and to Creatures involves nothing beyond a mere Identity of Name WHERE there is a mere accidental identity of name, there is no order or respeft implied of one thing to another, but quite by accident one name is applied to several different things. But this is not the case with the names applied to God and to creatures: for in such a community of names we have regard to the order of cause and effe6t (Chap. XXIX, XXXII).* 2. Moreover, there is some manner of likeness of creatures to God (Chap. XXIX).
3. When there is no more than a mere identity of name between several things, we cannot be led from one of them to the knowledge of another; but from the attributes found in creatures we are led to a knowledge of the attributes of God (Chap. XXX, XXXI).
5. There is no use predicating any name of any thing unless by the . name we come to understand something about the thing. But if names are predicated of God and creatures by a mere coincidence of sound, we under- stand by those names nothing whatever about God, seeing that the significa- tions of those names are known to us only inasmuch as they apply to crea- tures: there would at that rate be no use in saying or proving of God that God is a good being, or anything else of the sort.
If it is said that by such names we only know of God what He is not — in that, e.g., He is called 'living' as not being of the genus of inanimate things — at least it must be allowed that the predicate 'living/ applied to God and to creatures, agrees in the negation of the inanimate, and thus will be something more than a bare coincidence of name.f of receiving a form, or quality, of painter like that name, two different senses are expressed of two en- which his master has. Murillo is a painter of another tirely different things, mere namesakes and nothing species than his pupil. If both are called painters, they more, as when we call a post alike a log stuck in the do not bear the designation in the same sense. ground and a delivery of letters.
* The theological and devotional terms which we t St Thomas says what suffices for his present derive from creatures and apply to God are not as argument: he is not undertaking to exhaust the sense the Aristotelian homonyma, where, under sameness of of the phrase * living God.'
25 CHAPTER XXXIV- That the things that are said of God and of Creatures are said analogously THUS then from the foregoing arguments the conclusion remains that things said alike of God and of other beings are not said either in quite the same sense, or in a totally different sense, but in an analogous sense, that is, in point of order or regard to some one object. And this happens in two ways: in one way inasmuch as many things have regard to one particular, as in regard to the one point of health an animal is called 'healthy' as being the subje6t of health; medicine is called 'healthful' as being productive of health; food is 'healthy,' being preservative of health; urine, as being a sign of health: in another way, inasmuch as we consider the order or regard of two things, not to any third thing, but to one of the two, as 'being' is predicated of substance and accident inasmuch as accident is referred to substance, not that substance and accident are referred to any third thing. Such names then as are predicated of God and of other beings are not predicated analogously in the former way of analogy — for then we should have to posit something before God — but in the latter way.* In this matter of analogous predication we find sometimes the same order in point of name and in point of thing named, sometimes not the same. The order of naming follows the order of knowing, because the name is a sign of an intelligible concept. When then that which is prior in point of fa6l happens to be also prior in point of knowledge, there is one and the same priority alike in point of the concept answering to the name and of the nature of the thing named. Thus substance is prior to accident by nature, inasmuch as substance is the cause of accident; f and prior also in know- ledge, inasmuch as substance is put in the definition of accident; and therefore 'being' is predicated of substance before it is predicated of accident, alike in point of the nature of the thing and in point of the concept attaching to the name.J But when what is prior in nature is posterior in knowledge, in such cases of analogy there is not the same order alike in point of the thing named and in point of the concept attaching to the name. Thus the power of heal- ing, that is in healing remedies, is: prior by nature to the health that is in the animal, as the cause is prior to the effedt: but because this power is known from its effect, it is also named from its effeft: hence, though 'healthful,' or 'health-producing,' is prior in order of fadt, yet the applica- tion of the predicate 'healthy' to the animal is prior in point of the concept attaching to the name. Thus then, because we arrive at the knowledge of God from the knowledge of other realities, the thing signified by the names * Therefore we call God 'good' as being the "It is one peculiarity of animal natures to be susorigin of goodness, and creatures 'good' as being ceptible of phenomena through the channels of effects of divine goodness. But at that rate, it ap- sense: it is another to have in those sensible phepears, we ought to know the goodness of God before nomena a perception of the individuals to which we know the goodness of creatures, which seems not this or that group of them belongs. This perception to be the case. This objection St Thomas proceeds of individual things, amid the mass of shapes and to clear away. colours which meets their sight, is given to brutes in t The thing appearing is the cause of the appear- large measure, and that, apparently, from the moance, of actual appearance, when a capable finite ment of their birth. It is by no mere physical instinct, mind is present, as in the case of a book being read; such as that which leads him to his mother for milk, of the potentiality of appearance, when, as with an that the new-dropped lamb recognises each of his unread book, no such capable finite mind is there. fellow-lambkins as a whole, consisting of many parts X Children have some inkling of substance before bound up in one, and, before he is an hour old, they have any of accidents, as is shown by this, that makes experience of his and their rival individuali- ze first names they use are nouns substantive, not ties. And much more distinctly do the horse and dog adjectives. On dumb animals Cardinal Newman recognise even the personality of their master." writes in his Grammar of Jssent (p. 1 1 1, ed. 189s): 26 OF GOD AS HE IS IN HIMSELF that we apply in common to God and to those other realities — the thing signified, I say, is by priority in God, in the mode proper to God: but the concept attaching to the name is posterior in its application to Him: hence He is said to be named from the effedts which He causes.* CHAPTER XXXV -That the several Names predicated of God are not synonymous THOUGH the names predicated of God signify the same thing, still they are not synonymous, because they do not signify the same point of view. For just as divers realities are by divers forms assimilated to the one simple reality, which is God, so our understanding by divers con- cepts is in some sort assimilated to Him, inasmuch as, by several different points of view, taken from the perfedlions of creatures, it is brought to the knowledge of Him. And therefore our understanding is not at fault in form- ing many concepts of one thing; because that simple divine being is such that things can be assimilated to it in many divers forms. According to these divers conceptions the understanding invents divers names, and assigns them to God — names which, though they denote one and the same thing, yet clearly are not synonymous, since they are not assigned from the same point of view. The same meaning does not attach to the name in all these cases, seeing that the name signifies the concept of the understanding before it sig- nifies the thing understood.
CHAPTER XXXVI- That the Propositions which our Under- standing forms of God are not void of meaning FOR all the absolute simplicity of God, not in vain does our under- standing form propositions concerning Him, putting together and putting asunder, f For though our understanding arrives by way of divers concepts to the knowledge of God, still it understands the absolute oneness of the objeft answering to all those concepts. Our mind does not attribute the manner of its understanding to the objefts understood: \ thus it does not attribute immateriality to a stone, though it knows the stone immaterially.§ And therefore it asserts unity of the objeft by an affirmative proposition, which is a sign of identity, when it says, 'God is good': in which case any diversity that the composition shows is referable to the understanding, but unity to the thing understood. And on the same principle sometimes our mind forms a statement about God with some mark of diversity by inserting a preposition, as when it is said, 'Goodness is in God.' Herein is marked a diversity, proper to the understanding; and a unity, proper to the thing.
* This distinction between the 'thing signified' thought for properties of noumena. Hegel denied (res nominis) and the 'concept attaching- to the that there were any noumena, and held thought- name' (ratio nominis) is of interest to the idealist, forms to be everything that is. Forms of thought, e.g., It supposes — as Kant also supposes, though Hegel universality, were quite recognised by the schoolmen, apparently does not — a distinction between things § All our knowledge is immaterial, or in other and our way of looking at them. words, universal, got by a spiritualisation of the imt That is, affirmative and negative propositions. pressions of sense: we know at once hoc aliquid et tale.
t Kant would have said: The mind does not, or To know hoc aliquid by itself would be impossible, anyhow should not, mistake the forms of its own The first knowledge is a judgement.
27 CHAPTER XXXVIII- That God is His own Goodness * EVERY good thing, that is not its own goodness, is called good by par- ticipation. But what is called good by participation presupposes some- thing else before itself, whence it has received the chara&er of good- ness. This process cannot go to infinity, as there is no processus in infinitum in a series of final causes: for the infinite is inconsistent with any end, while good bears the character of an end.f We must therefore arrive at some first good thing, which is not good by participation in reference to anything else, but is good by its own essence; and that is God.
4. What is, may partake of something; but sheer being can partake of nothing. For that which partakes, is potentiality: but being is adtuality. But God is sheer being, as has been proved (Chap. XXII): He is not then good by participation, but essentially so. J 5. Every simple being has its existence and what it is, in one: § if the two were different, simplicity would be gone. But God is absolute simplicity, as has been shown (Chap. XVIII): therefore the very goodness that is in Him is no other than His own very self.
The same reasoning shows that no other good thing is its own goodness: wherefore it is said: None is good but God alone (Mark x, 18; Luke xviii, 19).
CHAPTER XXXIX- That in God there can be no Evil ESSENTIAL being, and essential goodness, and all other things that bear the name of 'essential/ contain no admixture of any foreign ele- ment; although a thing that is good may contain something else be- sides being and goodness, for there is nothing to prevent the subject of one perfe&ion being the subject also of another. Everything is contained within the bounds of its essential idea in such sort as to render it incapable of con- taining within itself any foreign element. But God is goodness, not merely good. There cannot therefore be in Him anything that is not goodness, and so evil cannot be in Him at all.
3. As God is His own being, nothing can be said of God that signifies participation. If therefore evil could be predicated of Him, the predication would not signify participation, but essence. Now evil cannot be predicated of any being so as to be the essence of any: for to an essentially evil thing there would be wanting being, since being is good.|| There cannot be any * It is possible, I fear, in any school of learning and still remain Dr Smith. Nor does his learning in- to pass examinations and take degrees, philosophical volve his other attributes, his stature, for example, and theological, by consistent repeating of an accepted or his irascibility.
phraseology that one does not really understand. What t "The infinite is inconsistent with any end, is the meaning of the axiom that God is His while good bears the character of an end." It may own goodness, His own wisdom, His own power, be urged that end does not bear the same sense in and the rest? It means that goodness, wisdom, both these propositions. In the former it means limit power, is inseparable from God; and that each of (ircpas); in the latter it means, end in View, the the divine attributes, could we but view it ade- perfeclion that crowns growth and effort (tcXos). The