quately, would be found to involve all the rest. On answer is that the infinite is inconsistent with any the other hand, any given man, as Dr Smith, is not end, if infinity has to be traversed before that end is inseparable from his own learning except hypo- reached: for infinity is untraversable.
thetically, if his learning is to be at all, inasmuch X Whereas Dr Smith is not essential wisdom, as Dr Smith's learning has and can have no exis- § That is, its existence and its essence are the tence apart from Dr Smith. Formally speaking, the same (Chap. XXII).
Doctor gives being to his own learning, so long as it II Denied by Buddhists, and by other Asiatic- lasts. But, besides that he might die and his learning minded and dissatisfied persons, who will have it with him — whereas God and God's goodness cannot that being is thought, or will, and that thought, cease to be — he might also forget all that he knows, will, and all conscious effort is misery.
28 OF GOD AS HE IS IN HIMSELF extraneous admixture in evil, as such, any more than in goodness. Evil therefore cannot be predicated of God.
5. A thing is perfect in so far as it is in aftuality: therefore it will be imperfect inasmuch as it is failing in actuality. Evil therefore is either a pri- vation, or includes a privation, or is nothing. But the subjedt of privation is potentiality; and that cannot be in God: therefore neither can evil.
This truth also Holy Scripture confirms, saying: God is lights and there is no darkness in Him (1 John i, 5): Far be from God impiety, and iniquity from the Almighty (Job xxxiv, 10).
CHAPTER XL-Tbat God is the Good of all Good GOD in His goodness includes all goodnesses, and thus is the good of all good. 2. God is good by essence: all other beings by participation: therefore nothing can be called good except inasmuch as it bears some like- ness to the divine goodness. He is therefore the good of all good.
Hence it is said of the Divine Wisdom: There came to me all good things along with it (Wisd. vii, 11).
From this it is further shown that God is the sovereign good (Chap. XLI).
CHAPTER XLll-That God is One THERE cannot possibly be two sovereign goods. But God is the sove- reign good. Therefore there is but one God. 2. God is all-perfe£t, wanting in no perfedtion. If then there are several gods, there must be several thus perfect beings. But that is impossible: for if to none of them is wanting any perfection, nor is there any admixture of imperfection in any, there will be nothing to distinguish them one from another.
7. If there are two beings, each necessarily existent, they must agree in point of necessary existence. Therefore they must be distinguished by some addition made to one only or to both of them; and thus either one or both must be composite. But no composite being exists necessarily of itself, as has been shown above (Chap. XVIII). Therefore there cannot be several neces- sary beings, nor several gods.
9. If there are two gods, this name 6 God* is predicated of each either in the same sense or in different senses. If in different senses, that does not touch the present question: for there is nothing to prevent anything from being called by any name in a sense different from that in which the name is ordi- narily borne, if common parlance so allows.* But if the predication is in the same sense, there must be in both a common nature, logically considered. f Either then this nature has one existence in both, or it has two different existences. If it has one existence, they will be not two but one being: for there is not one existence of two beings that are substantially distinct. But if the nature has a different existence in each possessor, neither of the pos- sessors will be his own essence, or his own existence, as is proper to God (Chap. XXII): therefore neither of them is that which we understand by the name of God. J * A name thus applied goes for no more than a suffices to show that St Thomas was no ultra-realist: nickname, or a family name. There is or was a he did not take the humanity, common to Peter and French family bearing the name Dieu. John, to be one and the same physical reality.
t Secundum rationem; where rfittoy meaning 'our t If either of the two supposed possessors of a mode of thinking,' is opposed to res. The phrase common divine nature, existing separately in each, 29 1 2. If there are many gods, the nature of godhead cannot be numeri- cally one in each. There must be therefore something to distinguish the di- vine nature in this and] that god: but that is impossible, since the divine nature does not admitf of addition or difference, whether in the way of points essential or of points accidental (Chap. XXIII, XXIV).
13. Abstract being is one only: thus whiteness, if there were any white- ness in the abstra6t, would be one only. But God is abstract being itself, see- ing that He is His own being (Chap. XXII).* Therefore there can be only one God.
This declaration of the divine unity we can also gather from Holy Writ. For it is said: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord (Deut. vi, 4). And, One Lord, one faith (Eph. iv, 5).
By this truth the Gentiles are set aside in their assertion of a multitude of gods. Yet it must be allowed that many of them proclaimed the existence of one supreme God, by whom all the other beings to whom they gave the name of gods had been created, f They awarded the name of godhead to all everlasting substances, J chiefly on the score of their wisdom and felicity and their government of the world. And this fashion of speech is found even in Holy Scripture, where the holy angels, or even men bearing the office of judges, are called gods: There is none li\e thee among gods, O Lord (Ps. lxxxv, 8); and, J have said, Te are gods (Ps. lxxxi, 6).§ Hence the Manicheans seem to be in greater opposition to this truth in their maintenance of two first principles, the one not the cause of the other. || CHAPTER XLlll-That God is Infinite INFINITY cannot be attributed to God on the score of multitude, see- ing there is but one God. Nor on the score of quantitative extension, seeing He is incorporeal. It remains to consider whether infinity belongs to Him in point of spiritual greatness. Spiritual greatness may be either in power or in goodness (or completeness) of nature. Of these two greatnesses the one follows upon the other: for by the fa<5t of a thing being in a6tuality it is capable of aftion. According then to the completeness of its a6tuality is the measure of the greatness of its power. Thus it follows that spiritual beings are called great according to the measure of their completeness, as Augustine says: " In things in which greatness goes not by bulk, being greater means being better" (De Trinit. vi, 9). But in God infinity can be understood negatively only, inasmuch as there is no term or limit to His perfeftion. And so infinity ought to be attributed to God.
2. Every actuality inhering in another takes limitation from that wherein it is: for what is in another is therein according to the measure of the re- were his own nature (essence), or his own existence, t So Plato, Timaeus, 40, 41. that nature, or that existence, could not be repeated X Spiritual substances are meant, i.e., angels, in another possessor of it. § Cf. John x, 34, for the meaning of gods here.
* By abstrafi here is meant ideal, in the Platonic Ps. lxxxv, 8, might refer to the false gods of the sense: thus ens abstraflum answers to avrb to oV. Gentiles. A better instance might be Ps. xlix, God, It is not abstraft in the sense of indeterminate: it the Lord of gods, spoke: and Ps. lxxvii, The bread of is not that thinnest of abstractions, being in general, angels, where the Hebrew is elim (gods). It is being, sheer, simple, and full. — See Chap. XXV || Manicheism, in its essential duality of good and note §, XXVI. In fact ens abstraftum here is tanta- evil, is much older than Manes. The earliest savages mount to ens perfeftum: cf. the argument about peopled the earth with spirits, some friendly, some petfefium bonum, III, Chap. XLVIII, 5. hostile to man: the reduction of these friendly and But probably this argument is not St Thomas's hostile spirits to two several heads, and the neglect- at all. It is wanting in the Bergamo autograph in ing to confess one, supreme over good and evil alike, the Vatican library. (cf. Isa. xlv, 6, 7) was the genesis of Manicheism.
30 OF GOD AS HE IS IN HIMSELF cipient. An a6tuality therefore that is in none, is bounded by none: thus, if whiteness were self-existent, the perfe6tion of whiteness in it would have no bounds till it attained all the perfeftion of whiteness that is attainable.* But God is an aftuality in no way existent in another: He is not a form inherent in matter; nor does His being inhere in any form or nature; since He is His own being, His own existence (Chap. XXI). The conclusion is that He is infinite.
4. A6tuality is more perfe6t, the less admixture it has of potentiality. Every a6tuality, wherewith potentiality is blended, has bounds set to its per- feftion: while that which is without any blend of potentiality is without bounds to its perfection. But God is pure adtuality without potentiality (Chap. XVI), and therefore infinite.
6. There cannot be conceived any mode in which any perfection can be had more perfeftly than by him, who is perfe6t by his essence, and whose being is his own goodness. But such is God: therefore anything better or more perfect than God is inconceivable. He is therefore infinite in goodness.
7. Our intelle6t, in understanding anything, reaches out to infinity; a sign whereof is this, that, given any finite quantity, our intellect can think of something greater. But this direction of our intellect to the infinite would be in vain, if there were not something intelligible that is infinite. There must therefore be some infinite intelligible reality, which is necessarily the greatest of realities; and this we call God.
8. An effect cannot reach beyond its cause: now our understanding can- not come but of God, who is the First Cause. If then our understanding can conceive something greater than any finite being, the conclusion remains that God is not finite, f 9. Every agent shows greater power in action, the further from actuality is the potentiality which it reduces to actuality, as there is need of greater power to warm water than to warm air. But that which is not at all, is in- finitely distant from actuality, and is not in any way in potentiality: there- fore if the world was made a fact from being previously no fact at all, the power of the Maker must be infinite.
This argument avails to prove the infinity of the divine power even to the mind of those who assume the eternity of the world. For they acknow- * This argument for the infinity seems to make identified with the universe, but as being infinitely against the personality of God. "An actuality that is above it: and better than it, so far above it and so far in none," it will be said, is no one's actuality. If better than it that the universe, as compared with personality is some sort of limitation, how can the His being, has in that comparison no being and no infinite be other than the impersonal? This ground goodness at all. See note § on page 15. True, His is beset with formidable difficulties. See General Meta- actuality is " in none," but that is because it is comphysics, Stonyhurst Series, p. 282. Such reply as I can plete and perfect in itself, individualised in itself, make is the following: I would rather call personality filling up the measure of divinity and identified with an exchuheness than a Imitation. Then I might observe it, so that there can be no second God, and none that the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, while could possibly be God but He who is God. Thus having one and the same nature in common, are God can be called by no proper name, as Michael or mutually exclusive of one another as Persons. But as JoSn9 applied to angel and to man, to distinguish one this mystery lies beyond the ken of philosophy, I individual from his compeers. Is not this completeprefer to reply that the adtuality of God is exclusive ness and exclusiveness to be called personality? Perof absolutely everything that comes within our direct sonality, a distinguishing perfection of the highest of cognition: it is exclusive of the entire universe. So creatures, cannot well be denied to the most perfect St Thomas, though not so the pantheistic school, of beings, their Creator.
who make their Absolute formally inclusive of all. t Our concept of an infinite being is invoked to Here surely is a great difference. God then, accord- prove not the existence but the infinity of God, His ing to St Thomas, is not infinite in the sense of existence as First Cause being supposed to be already formally containing within His own being, as part proved from other sources. There is then here no of Himself, the being of this world. He is distinct tacit falling back upon the argument of St Anselm, with a real, physical distinction from the universe rejected in Chap. XI. which He has created. He is infinite, not as being 31 31 ledge God to be the cause of the substantial being of the world, although they think that substance to have been from eternity, saying that the eternal God is the cause of an ever-existing world in the same way that a foot would be the cause of an everlasting foot-print, if it had been from eternity stamped on the dust. Still, even accepting the position thus defined, it follows that the power of God is infinite. For whether He produced things in time, accord- ing to us, or from eternity, according to them, there can be nothing in the world of reality that He has not produced, seeing that He is the universal principle of being; and thus He has brought things to be, without pre- supposition of any matter or potentiality. Now the measure of active power must be taken according to the measure of potentiality or passivity; for the greater the pre-existing or preconceived passivity, the greater the adtive power required to reduce it to complete aftuality. The conclusion remains that, as finite power in producing an effe£t is conditioned on the potentiality of matter, the power of God, not being conditioned on any potentiality, is not finite, but infinite, and so is His essence infinite.
To this truth Holy Scripture bears witness: Great is the Lord and exceed- ingly to be praised \ and of his greatness there is no end (Ps. cxliv, 3).
CHAPTER YAAV-That Qodhas Understanding IN no order of causes is it found that an intelligent cause is the instrument of an unintelligent one. But all causes in the world stand to the prime mover, which is God, as instruments to the principal agent. Since then in the world there are found many intelligent causes, the prime mover cannot possibly cause unintelligently.
5. No perfeftion is wanting in God that is found in any kind of beings (Chap. XXVIII): nor does any manner of composition result in Him for all that (Chap. XVIII). But among the perfeftions of creatures the highest is the possession of understanding: for by understanding a thing is in a manner all things, having in itself the perfe6tions of all things. * 6. Everything that tends definitely to an end, either fixes its own end, or has its end fixed for it by another: otherwise it would not tend rather to this end than to that. But the operations of nature tend to definite ends: the gains of nature are not made by chance: for if they were, they would not be the rule, but the exception, for chance is of exceptional cases. Since then physical agents do not fix their own end, because they have no idea of an end, they must have an end fixed for them by another, who is the author of nature. But He could not fix an end for nature, had He not Himself understanding^ 7. Everything imperfeft is derived from something perfe6t: for perfeftion is naturally prior to imperfe&ion, as actuality to potentiality.! But the forms that exist in particular things are imperfect, for the very reason that they do exist in particular, and not in the universality of their idea, or the fulness of their ideal being. They must therefore be derived from some perfect forms, * The vastness of the stellar universe is in a itself the promise and potency of the vast developmanner the reach and amplitude of my mind, when ment which we see? St Thomas asserts a priority of I come to form some slight idea of it. nature of the perfect to the imperfeft, not a priority t This is the Argument from Design, so valuable of time. God, though prior in duration, is not prior in to the theologian in dealing with evolution. See time to the creature, as He is not in time at all: Chap. XIII. there is no time antecedent to creation. In the series I Evolutionism says just the opposite. Is not the of created causes, the imperfect is doubtless prior in whole notion of development a process from the im- time to the perfect. The first verses of Genesis assure perfect to the perfect? But the eternal question us of that, as well as all sound study of evolution, abides — What begot the first germ, containing in 32 OF GOD AS HE IS IN HIMSELF which are not under particular limitations. Such forms cannot be other than obje&s of understanding, seeing that no form is found in its universality or ideal fulness, except in the understanding. Consequently such forms must be endowed with understanding, if they are to subsist by themselves: for only by that endowment can they be operative. God therefore, who is the first a6tuality existing by itself, whence all others are derived, must be endowed with under- standing.* This truth also is in the confession of Catholic faith: for it is said: He is wise of heart and mighty of power (Job ix, 4): With him is strength and wisdom (Ibid, xii, 1 6): Thy wisdom is made wonderful to me (Ps. cxxxviii, 6): O depth of riches of wisdom and of knowledge of God (Rom. vi, 33).
CHAPTER XIN-That in God the ASt of Understanding is His very Essence TO understand is an aft of an intelligent being, existing in that being, not passing out to anything external, as the aft of warming passes out to the objeft warmed:f for an intelligible objeft suffers nothing from being understood, but the intelligence that understands it is perfefted thereby. But whatever is in God is the divine essence. Therefore the aft of understanding in God is the divine essence.
5. Every substance is for the sake of its aftivity. If therefore the aftivity of God is anything else than the divine substance, His end will be some- # The 4 forms' here spoken of (not the human complement of the universe (II, 91). All that is soul) are entities denoted by abstract names, as beauty, dexterity, squareness. They exist only in particular substances, and in each case imperfectly according to the imperfections of that in which they exist. Thus beauty is marred by the age, bodily infirmities and accidents, of any beautiful living being. No living being on earth is ideally beautiful. Is then every ideal * form' something that practically cannot be? St Thomas thinb not. Recognising that the ideal cannot be except in a mind, he thereupon posits ideals which are themselves minds — self-conscious ideals, and these are the angels. The Platonic ideas, or ideals, are thus brought into return natura as angels, one angel being the self-conscious ideal of one quality, as, perhaps, of miftness, another of another, as, perhaps, of accuracy. Thus he says in II, 93: "Separate substances (i.e., angels) are cer- tain essences existing by themselves {guidditates sub- sistentes)" This essence, existing by itself and con- scious of itself — existing therefore in a mind, its own mind, as all ideal being needs to exist in a mind — this ideal essence, I say, is not limited, as forms are limited in the material universe, by being reduced to the particular. An angel, says St Thomas {Contra Gent., II, 93), is not reduced to the particular as one individual of many in a species: each angel is a species by himself, a living, conscious specific essence, sole of its kind. Thus among angels there are par- ticular species, but not particular individuals of a species: this or that species is this or that individual, containing an ample measure, though not a divine fulness, of the specific essence. St Thomas does not say that specific forms necessarily exist by themselves: he does not teach the necessary existence of angels: all he argues is that, if these forms exist by them- selves at all (si sint subsistentes), they must be self-con- scious and intelligent beings. The utmost that he can be said to contend for is that angels are a fitting absolutely necessary is the existence of a Supreme Being, who virtually contains in Himself all perfec- tions which are represented in our minds by various abstract forms; a Being who is the Actuality of all ideal perfection (Chap. XXVIII).
The argument then in the text is: * Imperfect forms are apparent everywhere in the material crea- tion. Imperfect forms must come of perfect forms: perfect forms are ideal forms: ideal forms can exist nowhere but in the mind: if these ideal forms exist anywhere by themselves, they must themselves be minds conscious of what they are: such self-conscious ideals are the angels: anyhow, whether existing by themselves or not, ideals must be represented in one Perfect Mind: God therefore is Mind.' The argu- ment is Platonic; or rather, Neoplatonist, as the making of the ideals into angels shows. It is rather a probable intuition than an argument. As an argu- ment, it has many difficulties. St Thomas cannot have meant to say that any angel was living perfect beauty, or living perfect wisdom, for then it would be God: but perhaps we might have a living perfect fragrance, or a living perfect agility; and we may suppose that only these minor perfections, which do not carry all other perfections with them, are per- sonified in the angels, and that only in an imperfect way.
Omitting the theory of angels, which will recur again (Book II, Chap. LV, XCVIII, with notes) we may formulate the matter finally thus: The ideal must be realised somewhere. It is realisable only in mind. Now whatever we may think of angels, and their intermediate realisation of ideals, we must ar- rive ultimately at one mind that realises the whole ideal order. That one grand realiser and realisation of all ideals is the Mind of God.
t In other words, the act of understanding is what is called an ' immanent act,' not a ' transient act.'
33 thing different from Himself; and thus God will not be His own goodness, seeing that the good of every being is its end.
From the aCt of understanding in God being identical with His being, it follows necessarily that the aCt of His understanding is absolutely eternal and invariable, exists in aCtuality only, and has all the other attributes that have been proved of the divine being. God then is not potentially intelli- gent, nor does He begin anew to understand anything, nor does He undergo any change or composition in the process of understanding.
CHAPTER XLVI-That God understands by nothing else than by His own Essence UNDERSTANDING is brought actually to understand by an im- pression made on the understanding, just as sense comes actually to feel by an impression made on sense. The impression made on the understanding then is to the understanding as aCtuality to potentiality. If therefore the divine understanding came to understand by any impression made on the understanding other than the understanding itself, the under- standing would be in potentiality towards that impression, which, it has been shown, cannot be (Chap. XVI, XVII).
3. Any impression on the understanding that is in the understanding over and above its essence, has an accidental being: by reason of which faCt our knowledge reckons as an accident. But there can be no accident in God. Therefore there is not in His understanding any impression besides the divine essence itself.
CHAPTER XLVII-That God perfeBly understands Himself WHEN by an impression on the understanding that power is brought to bear on its objeCt, the perfection of the intellectual aft depends on two things: one is the perfeCt conformity of the impression with the thing understood: the other is the perfeCt fixing of the impression on the understanding: which perfection is the greater, the greater the power of the understanding to understand. Now the mere divine essence, which is the intelligible representation whereby the divine understanding understands, is absolutely one and the same with God Himself and with the understanding of God. God therefore knows Himself most perfectly.
6. The perfections of all creatures are found at their best in God. But of perfections found in creatures the greatest is to understand God: seeing that the intellectual nature is pre-eminent above other natures, and the perfection of intellect is the act of understanding, and the noblest objeCt of under- standing is God. God therefore understands Himself perfectly.
This also is confirmed by divine authority, for the Apostle says: The Spirit of God searcheth into even the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii, 10).
34 CHAPTER XLVIII-7^/ God primarily and essentially knows Himself alone THE understanding is in potentiality in regard of its obje6t, in so far as it is a different thing from that objeft. If therefore the primary and essential object of divine understanding be something different from God, it will follow that God is in potentiality in respeft of some other thing, which is impossible (Chap. XVI).
5. A thing understood is the perfection of him who understands it: for an understanding is perfected by a6hially understanding, which means being made one with the objeft understood.* If therefore anything else than God is the first object of His understanding, something else will be His perfec- tion, and will be nobler than He, which is impossible.
CHAPTER XLIX-That God knows other things besides Himself WE are said to know a thing when we know its cause. But God Himself by His essence is the cause of being to others. Since therefore He knows His own essence most fully, we must suppose that He knows also other beings.
3. Whoever knows anything perfectly, knows all that can be truly said of that thing, and all its natural attributes. But a natural attribute of God is to be cause of other things. Since then He perfe6tly knows Himself, He knows that He is a cause: which could not be unless He knew something also of what He has caused, which is something different from Himself, for nothing is its own cause.
Gathering together these two conclusions, it appears that God knows Himself as the primary and essential obje6t of His knowledge, and other things as seen in His essence.t CHAPTER L-That God has a particular Knowledge of all things EVERY agent that a6ts by understanding has a knowledge of what it does, reaching to the particular nature of the thing produced; because the knowledge of the maker determines the form of the thing made. But God is cause of things by His understanding, seeing that in Him to be and to understand are one. But everything a£ts inasmuch as it is in actuality. God therefore knows in particular, as distinct from other things, whatever He causes to be. J 3. The collocation of things, distinft and separate, cannot be by chance, for it is in regular order. This collocation of things, then, distin6t and sepa- rate from one another, must be due to the intention of some cause. It can- not be due to the intention of any cause that afts by physical necessity, be- cause physical nature is determined to one line of aftion. Thus of no agent, that a£ts by physical necessity, can the intention reach to many distinct effefts, inasmuch as they are distinct. § The distinct arrangement and collo- * An Aristotelian phrase, meaning no more than particular results to follow from their action. Electhat the object is represented by an image in the mind, trical tension in the air tends to discharge itself in t For this and the following chapters see note the form of lightning, but not to kill this particular to Chap. LXIII. man under the tree, although it does kill. The X Since the Creator is an understanding, He under- volcanic nisus prompts to an eruption, but not to stands whatever He gives being to; and giving being the destruction of such and such a city that is built to each thing in particular, He understands each in over the volcano. So far as physical agencies are con- particular, cerned, the lava, or flaming gas, takes its deter- § This merely means that physical causes act mined path, neither making for the city, as such, without any definite intention on their part of any nor avoiding it, as such.
35 cation of things must proceed from the intention of some knowing cause.* Indeed it seems the proper function of intelleft to remark the distinction of things. It belongs therefore to the First Cause, which of itself is distinft from all others, to intend the distinft and separate collocation of all the materials of the Universe.