Summa Contra Gentiles

Thomas Aquinas: Contra Gentiles: English

CONTRA GENTILES

BOOK ONE: GOD

translated by

Anton C. Pegis

The office of the wise man

“My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate impiety” (Prov. 8:7). [1] The usage of the multitude, which according to the Philosopher is to be followed in giving names to things, has commonly held that they are to be called wise who order things rightly and govern them well. Hence, among other things that men have conceived about the wise man, the Philosopher includes the notion that “it belongs to the wise man to order.” Now, the rule of government and order for all things directed to an end must be taken from the end. For, since the end of each thing is its good, a thing is then best disposed when it is fittingly ordered to its end. And so we see among the arts that one functions as the governor and the ruler of another because it controls its end. Thus, the art of medicine rules and orders the art of the chemist because health, with which medicine is concerned, is the end of all the medications prepared by the art of the chemist. A similar situation obtains in the art of ship navigation in relation to shipbuilding, and in the military art with respect to the equestrian art and the equipment of war. The arts that rule other arts are called architectonic, as being the ruling arts. That is why the artisans devoted to these arts, who are called master artisans, appropriate to themselves the name of wise men. But, since these artisans are concerned, in each case, with the ends of certain particular things, they do not reach to the universal end of all things. They are therefore said to be wise with respect to this or that thing; in which sense it is said that “as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10). The name of the absolutely wise man, however, is reserved for him whose consideration is directed to the end of the universe, which is also the origin of the universe. That is why, according to the Philosopher, it belongs to the wise man to consider the highest causes. [2] Now, the end of each thing is that which is intended by its first author or mover. But the first author and mover of the universe is an intellect, as will be later shown. The ultimate end of the universe must, therefore, be the good of an intellect. This good is truth. Truth must consequently be the ultimate end of the whole universe, and the consideration of the wise man aims principally at truth. So it is that, according to His own statement, divine Wisdom testifies that He has assumed flesh and come into the world in order to make the truth known: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth” (John 18:37). The Philosopher himself establishes that first philosophy is the science of truth, not of any truth, but of that truth which is the origin of all truth, namely, which belongs to the first principle whereby all things are. The truth belonging to such a principle is, clearly, the source of all truth; for things have the same disposition in truth as in being. [3] It belongs to one and the same science, however, both to pursue one of two contraries and to oppose the other. Medicine, for example, seeks to effect health and to eliminate illness. Hence, just as it belongs to the wise man to meditate especially on the truth belonging to the first principle and to teach it to others, so it belongs to him to refute the opposing falsehood. [4] Appropriately, therefore, is the twofold office of the wise man shown from the mouth of Wisdom in our opening words: to meditate and speak forth of the divine truth, which is truth in person (Wisdom touches on this in the words my mouth shall meditate truth), and to refute the opposing error (which Wisdom touches on in the words and my lips shall hate impiety). By impiety is here meant falsehood against the divine truth. This falsehood is contrary to religion, which is likewise named piety. Hence, the falsehood contrary to it is called impiety.

Chapter

The author’s intention in the present work

[1] Among all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is more perfect, more noble, more useful, and more full of joy. It is more perfect because, in so far as a man gives himself to the pursuit of wisdom, so far does he even now have some share in true beatitude. And so a wise man has said: “Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom” (Sirach 14:22). It is more noble because through this pursuit man especially approaches to a likeness to God Who “made all things in wisdom” (Ps. 103:24). And since likeness is the cause of love, the pursuit of wisdom especially joins man to God in friendship. That is why it is said of wisdom that “she is an infinite treasure to men! which they that use become the friends of God” (Wis. 7:14). It is more useful because through wisdom we arrive at the kingdom of immortality. For “the desire of wisdom leads to the everlasting kingdom” (Wis. 6:21). It is more full of joy because “her conversation has no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness” (Wis. 7:16). [2] And so, in the name of the divine Mercy, I have the confidence to embark upon the work of a wise man, even though this may surpass my powers, and I have set myself the task of making known, as far as my limited powers will allow, the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and of setting aside the errors that are opposed to it. To use the words of Hilary: “I am aware that I owe this to God as the chief duty of my life, that my every word and sense may speak of Him” [ De Trinitate I, 37]. [3] To proceed against individual errors, however, is a difficult business, and this for two reasons. In the first place, it is difficult because the sacrilegious remarks of individual men who have erred are not so well known to us so that we may use what they say as the basis of proceeding to a refutation of their errors. This is, indeed, the method that the ancient Doctors of the Church used in the refutation of the errors of the Gentiles. For they could know the positions taken by the Gentiles since they themselves had been Gentiles, or at least had lived among the Gentiles and had been instructed in their teaching. In the second place, it is difficult because some of them, such as the Mohammedans and the pagans, do not agree with us in accepting the authority of any Scripture, by which they may be convinced of their error. Thus, against the Jews we are able to argue by means of the Old Testament, while against heretics we are able to argue by means of the New Testament. But the Muslims and the pagans accept neither the one nor the other. We must, therefore, have recourse to the natural reason, to which all men are forced to give their assent. However, it is true, in divine matters the natural reason has its failings. [4] Now, while we are investigating some given truth, we shall also show what errors are set aside by it; and we shall likewise show how the truth that we come to know by demonstration is in accord with the Christian religion.

Chapter

On the way in which divine truth is to be made known

[1] The way of making truth known is not always the same, and, as the Philosopher has very well said, “it belongs to an educated man to seek such certitude in each thing as the nature of that thing allows.” The remark is also introduced by Boethius [ De Trinitate II]. But, since such is the case, we must first show what way is open to us in order that we may make known the truth which is our object. [2] There is a twofold mode of truth in what we profess about God. Some truths about God exceed all the ability of the human reason. Such is the truth that God is triune. But there are some truths which the natural reason also is able to reach. Such are that God exists, that He is one, and the like. In fact, such truths about God have been proved demonstratively by the philosophers, guided by the light of the natural reason. [3] That there are certain truths about God that totally surpass man’s ability appears with the greatest evidence. Since, indeed, the principle of all knowledge that the reason perceives about some thing is the understanding of the very substance of that being (for according to Aristotle “what a thing is” is the principle of demonstration) [ Posterior Analytics II, 3], it is necessary that the way in which we understand the substance of a thing determines the way in which we know what belongs to it. Hence, if the human intellect comprehends the substance of some thing, for example, that of a stone or of a triangle, no intelligible characteristic belonging to that thing surpasses the grasp of the human reason. But this does not happen to us in the case of God. For the human intellect is not able to reach a comprehension of the divine substance through its natural power. For, according to its manner of knowing in the present life, the intellect depends on the sense for the origin of knowledge; and so those things that do not fall under the senses cannot be grasped by the human intellect except in so far as the knowledge of them is gathered from sensible things. Now, sensible things cannot lead the human intellect to the point of seeing in them the nature of the divine substance; for sensible things are effects that fall short of the power of their cause. Yet, beginning with sensible things, our intellect is led to the point of knowing about God that He exists, and other such characteristics that must be attributed to the First Principle. There are, consequently, some intelligible truths about God that are open to the human reason; but there are others that absolutely surpass its power. [4] We may easily see the same point from the gradation of intellects. Consider the case of two persons of whom one has a more penetrating grasp of a thing by his intellect than, does the other. He who has the superior intellect understands many things that the other cannot grasp at all. Such is the case with a very simple person who cannot at all grasp the subtle speculations of philosophy. But the intellect of an angel surpasses the human intellect much more than the intellect of the greatest philosopher surpasses the intellect of the most uncultivated simple person; for the distance between the best philosopher and a simple person is contained within the limits of the human species, which the angelic intellect surpasses. For the angel knows God on the basis of a more noble effect than does man; and this by as much as the substance of an angel, through which the angel in his natural knowledge is led to the knowledge of God, is nobler than sensible things and even than the soul itself, through which the human intellect mounts to the knowledge of God. The divine intellect surpasses the angelic intellect much more than the angelic surpasses the human. For the divine intellect is in its capacity equal to its substance, and therefore it understands fully what it is, including all its intelligible attributes. But by his natural knowledge the angel does not know what God is, since the substance itself of the angel, through which he is led to the knowledge of God, is an effect that is not equal to the power of its cause. Hence, the angel is not able, by means of his natural knowledge, to grasp all the things that God understands in Himself; nor is the human reason sufficient to grasp all the things that the angel understands through his own natural power. Just as, therefore, it would he the height of folly for a simple person to assert that what a philosopher proposes is false on the ground that he himself cannot understand it, so (and even more so) it is the acme of stupidity for a man to suspect as false what is divinely revealed through the ministry of the angels simply because it cannot be investigated by reason. [5] The same thing, moreover, appears quite clearly from the defect that we experience every day in our knowledge of things. We do not know a great many of the properties of sensible things, and in most cases we are not able to discover fully the natures of those properties that we apprehend by the sense. Much more is it the case, therefore, that the human reason is not equal to the task of investigating all the intelligible characteristics of that most excellent substance. [6] The remark of Aristotle likewise agrees with this conclusion. He says that “our intellect is related to the prime beings, which are most evident in their nature, as the eye of an owl is related to the sun” [ Metaphysics Ia, 1] [7] Sacred Scripture also gives testimony to this truth. We read in Job: “Do you think you can comprehend the depths of God, and find the limit of the Almighty?” (11:7). And again: “Behold, God is great, exceeding our knowledge” (Job 36:26). And St. Paul: “We know in part” (1 Cor. 13:9). [8] We should not, therefore, immediately reject as false, following the opinion of the Manicheans and many unbelievers, everything that is said about God even though it cannot be investigated by reason.

Chapter

THAT THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD TO WHICH THE NATURAL REASON REACHES IS FITTINGLY PROPOSED TO MEN FOR BELIEF [1] Since, therefore, there exists a twofold truth concerning the divine being, one to which the inquiry of the reason can reach, the other which surpasses the whole ability of the human reason, it is fitting that both of these truths be proposed to man divinely for belief. This point must first be shown concerning the truth that is open to the inquiry of the reason; otherwise, it might perhaps seem to someone that, since such a truth can be known by the reason, it was uselessly given to men through a supernatural inspiration as an object of belief. [2] Yet, if this truth were left solely as a matter of inquiry for the human reason, three awkward consequences would follow. [3] The first is that few men would possess the knowledge of God. For there are three reasons why most men are cut off from the fruit of diligent inquiry which is the discovery of truth. Some do not have the physical disposition for such work. As a result, there are many who are naturally not fitted to pursue knowledge; and so, however much they tried, they would be unable to reach the highest level of human knowledge which consists in knowing God. Others are cut off from pursuing this truth by the necessities imposed upon them by their daily lives. For some men must devote themselves to taking care of temporal matters. Such men would not be able to give so much time to the leisure of contemplative inquiry as to reach the highest peak at which human investigation can arrive, namely, the knowledge of God. Finally, there are some who are cut off by indolence. In order to know the things that the reason can investigate concerning God, a knowledge of many things must already be possessed. For almost all of philosophy is directed towards the knowledge of God, and that is why metaphysics, which deals with divine things, is the last part of philosophy to be learned. This means that we are able to arrive at the inquiry concerning the aforementioned truth only on the basis of a great deal of labor spent in study. Now, those who wish to undergo such a labor for the mere love of knowledge are few, even though God has inserted into the minds of men a natural appetite for knowledge. [4] The second awkward effect is that those who would come to discover the abovementioned truth would barely reach it after a great deal of time. The reasons are several. There is the profundity of this truth, which the human intellect is made capable of grasping by natural inquiry only after a long training. Then, there are many things that must be presupposed, as we have said. There is also the fact that, in youth, when the soul is swayed by the various movements of the passions, it is not in a suitable state for the knowledge of such lofty truth. On the contrary, “one becomes wise and knowing in repose,” as it is said in the Physics [VII, 3]. The result is this. If the only way open to us for the knowledge of God were solely that of the reason, the human race would remain in the blackest shadows of ignorance. For then the knowledge of God, which especially renders men perfect and good, would come to be possessed only by a few, and these few would require a great deal of time in order to reach it. [5] The third awkward effect is this. The investigation of the human reason for the most part has falsity present within it, and this is due partly to the weakness of our intellect in judgment, and partly to the admixture of images. The result is that many, remaining ignorant of the power of demonstration, would hold in doubt those things that have been most truly demonstrated. This would be particularly the case since they see that, among those who are reputed to be wise men, each one teaches his own brand of doctrine. Furthermore, with the many truths that are demonstrated, there sometimes is mingled something that is false, which is not demonstrated but rather asserted on the basis of some probable or sophistical argument, which yet has the credit of being a demonstration. That is why it was necessary that the unshakeable certitude and pure truth concerning divine things should be presented to men by way of faith. [6] Beneficially, therefore, did the divine Mercy provide that it should instruct us to hold by faith even those truths that the human reason is able to investigate. In this way, all men would easily be able to have a share in the knowledge of God, and this without uncertainty and error. [7] Hence it is written: “Henceforward walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened” (Eph. 4:17-18). And again: “All your children shall be taught of the Lord” (Is. 54:13).

Chapter

THAT THE TRUTHS THE HUMAN REASON IS NOT ABLE TO INVESTIGATE ARE FITTINGLY PROPOSED TO MEN FOR BELIEF [1] Now, perhaps some will think that men should not be asked to believe what the reason is not adequate to investigate, since the divine Wisdom provides in the case of each thing according to the mode of its nature. We must therefore prove that it is necessary for man to receive from God as objects of belief even those truths that are above the human reason. [2] No one tends with desire and zeal towards something that is not already known to him. But, as we shall examine later on in this work, men are ordained by the divine Providence towards a higher good than human fragility can experience in the present life. That is why it was necessary for the human mind to be called to something higher than the human reason here and now can reach, so that it would thus learn to desire something and with zeal tend towards something that surpasses the whole state of the present life. This belongs especially to the Christian religion, which in a unique way promises spiritual and eternal goods. And so there are many things proposed to men in it that transcend human sense. The Old Law, on the other hand, whose promises were of a temporal character, contained very few proposals that transcended the inquiry of the human reason. Following this same direction, the philosophers themselves, in order that they might lead men from the pleasure of sensible things to virtue, were concerned to show that there were in existence other goods of a higher nature than these things of sense, and that those who gave themselves to the active or contemplative virtues would find much sweeter enjoyment in the taste of these higher goods. [3] It is also necessary that such truth be proposed to men for belief so that they may have a truer knowledge of God. For then only do we know God truly when we believe Him to be above everything that it is possible for man to think about Him; for, as we have shown, the divine substance surpasses the natural knowledge of which man is capable. Hence, by the fact that some things about God are proposed to man that surpass his reason, there is strengthened in man the view that God is something above what he can think. [4] Another benefit that comes from the revelation to men of truths that exceed the reason is the curbing of presumption, which is the mother of error. For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything; I mean to say that, in their estimation, everything is true that seems to them so, and everything is false that does not. So that the human mind, therefore, might be freed from this presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth, it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect. [5] A still further benefit may also be seen in what Aristotle says in the Ethics [X, 7]. There was a certain Simonides who exhorted people to put aside the knowledge of divine things and to apply their talents to human occupations. He said that “he who is a man should know human things, and he who is mortal, things that are mortal.” Against Simonides Aristotle says that “man should draw himself towards what is immortal and divine as much as he can.” And so he says in the De animalibus [I, 5] that, although what we know of the higher substances is very little, yet that little is loved and desired more than all the knowledge that we have about less noble substances. He also says in the De caelo et mundo [II, 12] that when questions about the heavenly bodies can be given even a modest and merely plausible solution, he who hears this experiences intense joy. From all these considerations it is clear that even the most imperfect knowledge about the most noble realities brings the greatest perfection to the soul. Therefore, although the human reason cannot grasp fully the truths that are above it, yet, if it somehow holds these truths at least by faith, it acquires great perfection for itself. [6] Therefore it is written: “For many things are shown to you above the understanding of men” (Sirach 3:75). Again: “So the things that are of God no man knows but the Spirit of God. But to us God has revealed them by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:11, 10).

Chapter 6.

THAT TO GIVE ASSENT TO THE TRUTHS OF FAITH IS NOT FOOLISHNESS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE ABOVE REASON [1] Those who place their faith in this truth, however, “for which the human reason offers no experimental evidence,” do not believe foolishly, as though “following artificial fables” (2 Peter 2:16). For these “secrets of divine Wisdom” (Job 11:6) the divine Wisdom itself, which knows all things to the full, has deigned to reveal to men. It reveals its own presence, as well as the truth of its teaching and inspiration, by fitting arguments; and in order to confirm those truths that exceed natural knowledge, it gives visible manifestation to works that surpass the ability of all nature. Thus, there are the wonderful cures of illnesses, there is the raising of the dead, and the wonderful immutation in the heavenly bodies; and what is more wonderful, there is the inspiration given to human minds, so that simple and untutored persons, filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit, come to possess instantaneously the highest wisdom and the readiest eloquence. When these arguments were examined, through the efficacy of the abovementioned proof, and not the violent assault of arms or the promise of pleasure, and (what is most wonderful of all) in the midst of the tyranny of the persecutors, an innumerable throng of people, both simple and most learned, flocked to the Christian faith. In this faith there are truths preached that surpass every human intellect; the pleasures of the flesh are curbed; it is taught that the things of the world should be spurned. Now, for the minds of mortal men to assent to these things is the greatest of miracles, just as it is a manifest work of divine inspiration that, spurning visible things, men should seek only what is invisible. Now, that this has happened neither without preparation nor by chance, but as a result of the disposition of God, is clear from the fact that through many pronouncements of the ancient prophets God had foretold that He would do this. The books of these prophets are held in veneration among us Christians, since they give witness to our faith. [2] The manner of this confirmation is touched on by St. Paul: “Which,” that is, human salvation, “having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed to us by them that hear Him: God also bearing them witness of signs, and wonders, and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 7:3-4). [3] This wonderful conversion of the world to the Christian faith is the clearest witness of the signs given in the past; so that it is not necessary that they should be further repeated, since they appear most clearly in their effect. For it would be truly more wonderful than all signs if the world had been led by simple and humble men to believe such lofty truths, to accomplish such difficult actions, and to have such high hopes. Yet it is also a fact that, even in our own time, God does not cease to work miracles through His saints for the confirmation of the faith. [4] On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this, The point is clear in the case of Muhammad. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.

Chapter

THAT THE TRUTH OF REASON IS NOT OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH [1] Now, although the truth of the Christian faith which we have discussed surpasses the capacity of the reason, nevertheless that truth that the human reason is naturally endowed to know cannot be opposed to the truth of the Christian faith. For that with which the human reason is naturally endowed is clearly most true; so much so, that it is impossible for us to think of such truths as false. Nor is it permissible to believe as false that which we hold by faith, since this is confirmed in a way that is so clearly divine. Since, therefore, only the false is opposed to the true, as is clearly evident from an examination of their definitions, it is impossible that the truth of faith should be opposed to those principles that the human reason knows naturally. [2] Furthermore, that which is introduced into the soul of the student by the teacher is contained in the knowledge of the teacher—unless his teaching is fictitious, which it is improper to say of God. Now, the knowledge of the principles that are known to us naturally has been implanted in us by God; for God is the Author of our nature. These principles, therefore, are also contained by the divine Wisdom. Hence, whatever is opposed to them is opposed to the divine Wisdom, and, therefore, cannot come from God. That which we hold by faith as divinely revealed, therefore, cannot be contrary to our natural knowledge. [3] Again. In the presence of contrary arguments our intellect is chained, so that it cannot proceed to the knowledge of the truth. If, therefore, contrary knowledges were implanted in us by God, our intellect would be hindered from knowing truth by this very fact. Now, such an effect cannot come from God. [4] And again. What is natural cannot change as long as nature does not. Now, it is impossible that contrary opinions should exist in the same knowing subject at the same time. No opinion or belief, therefore, is implanted in man by God which is contrary to man’s natural knowledge. [5] Therefore, the Apostle says: “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. This is the word of faith, which we preach” (Rom. 10:8). But because it overcomes reason, there are some who think that it is opposed to it: which is impossible. [6] The authority of St. Augustine also agrees with this. He writes as follows: “That which truth will reveal cannot in any way be opposed to the sacred books of the Old and the New Testament” [ De genesi ad litteram II, 18]. [7] From this we evidently gather the following conclusion: whatever arguments are brought forward against the doctrines of faith are conclusions incorrectly derived from the first and self-evident principles imbedded in nature. Such conclusions do not have the force of demonstration; they are arguments that are either probable or sophistical. And so, there exists the possibility to answer them.

Chapter

How the human reason is related to the truth of faith

[1] There is also a further consideration. Sensible things, from which the human reason takes the origin of its knowledge, retain within themselves some sort of trace of a likeness to God. This is so imperfect, however, that it is absolutely inadequate to manifest the substance of God. For effects bear within themselves, in their own way, the likeness of their causes, since an agent produces its like; yet an effect does not always reach to the full likeness of its cause. Now, the human reason is related to the knowledge of the truth of faith (a truth which can be most evident only to those who see the divine substance) in such a way that it can gather certain likenesses of it, which are yet not sufficient so that the truth of faith may be comprehended as being understood demonstratively or through itself. Yet it is useful for the human reason to exercise itself in such arguments, however weak they may be, provided only that there be present no presumption to comprehend or to demonstrate. For to be able to see something of the loftiest realities, however thin and weak the sight may be, is, as our previous remarks indicate, a cause of the greatest joy. [2] The testimony of Hilary agrees with this. Speaking of this same truth, he writes as follows in his De Trinitate [II, 10, ii]: “Enter these truths by believing, press forward, persevere. And though I may know that you will not arrive at an end, yet I will congratulate you in your progress. For, though he who pursues the infinite with reverence will never finally reach the end, yet he will always progress by pressing onward. But do not intrude yourself into the divine secret, do not, presuming to comprehend the sum total of intelligence, plunge yourself into the mystery of the unending nativity; rather, understand that these things are incomprehensible.”

Chapter

The order and manner of procedure in the present work

[1] It is clearly apparent, from what has been said, that the intention of the wise man ought to be directed toward the twofold truth of divine things, and toward the destruction of the errors that are contrary to this truth. One kind of divine truth the investigation of the reason is competent to reach, whereas the other surpasses every effort of the reason. I am speaking of a “twofold truth of divine things,” not on the part of God Himself, Who is truth one and simple, but from the point of view of our knowledge, which is variously related to the knowledge of divine things. [2] Now, to make the first kind of divine truth known, we must proceed through demonstrative arguments, by which our adversary may become convinced. However, since such arguments are not available for the second kind of divine truth, our intention should not be to convince our adversary by arguments: it should be to answer his arguments against the truth; for, as we have shown, the natural reason cannot be contrary to the truth of faith. The sole way to overcome an adversary of divine truth is from the authority of Scripture—an authority divinely confirmed by miracles. For that which is above the human reason we believe only because God has revealed it. Nevertheless, there are certain likely arguments that should be brought forth in order to make divine truth known. This should be done for the training and consolation of the faithful, and not with any idea of refuting those who are adversaries. For the very inadequacy of the arguments would rather strengthen them in their error, since they would imagine that our acceptance of the truth of faith was based on such weak arguments. [3] This, then, is the manner of procedure we intend to follow. We shall first seek to make known that truth which faith professes and reason investigates. This we shall do by bringing forward both demonstrative and probable arguments, some of which were drawn from the books of the philosophers and of the saints, through which truth is strengthened and its adversary overcome [Books I-III]. Then, in order to follow a development from the more manifest to the less manifest, we shall proceed to make known that truth which surpasses reason, answering the objections of its adversaries and setting forth the truth of faith by probable arguments and by authorities, to the best of our ability [Book IV]. [4] We are aiming, then, to set out following the way of the reason and to inquire into what the human reason can investigate about God. In this aim the first consideration that confronts us is of that which belongs to God in Himself [Book I]. The second consideration concerns the coming forth of creatures from God [Book II]. The third concerns the ordering of creatures to God as to their end [Book III]. [5] Now, among the inquiries that we must undertake concerning God in Himself, we must set down in the beginning that whereby His Existence is demonstrated, as the necessary foundation of the whole work. For, if we do not demonstrate that God exists, all consideration of divine things is necessarily suppressed.

Chapter

THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO SAY THAT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, BEING SELF-EVIDENT, CANNOT BE DEMONSTRATED [1] There are some persons to whom the inquiry seeking to demonstrate that God exists may perhaps appear superfluous. These are the persons who assert that the existence of God is self-evident, in such wise that its contrary cannot be entertained in the mind. It thus appears that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated, as may be seen from the following arguments. [2] Those propositions are said to be self-evident that are known immediately upon the knowledge of their terms. Thus, as soon as you know the nature of a whole and the nature of a part, you know immediately that every whole is greater than its part. The proposition God exists is of this sort. For by the name God we understand something than which a greater cannot be thought. This notion is formed in the intellect by one who hears and understands the name God. As a result, God must exist already at least in the intellect. But He cannot exist solely in the intellect, since that which exists both in the intellect and in reality is greater than that which exists in the intellect alone. Now, as the very definition of the name points out, nothing can be greater than God. Consequently, the proposition that God exists is self-evident, as being evident from the very meaning of the name God. [3] Again, it is Possible to think that something exists whose non-existence cannot be thought. Clearly, such a being is greater than the being whose non-existence can be thought. Consequently, if God Himself could be thought not to be, then something greater than God could be thought. This, however, is contrary to the definition of the name God. Hence, the proposition that God exists is self-evident. [4] Furthermore, those propositions ought to be the most evident in which the same thing is predicated of itself, for example, man is man, or whose predicates are included in the definition of their subjects, for example, Man is an animal. Now, in God, as will be shown in a later chapter, it is pre-eminently the case that His being is His essence, so that to the question what is He? and to the question is He? the answer is one and the same. Thus, in the proposition God exists, the predicate is consequently either identical with the subject or at least included in the definition of the subject. Hence, that God exists is self-evident. [5] What is naturally known is known through itself, for we do not come to such propositions through an effort of inquiry. But the proposition that God exists is naturally known since, as will be shown later on, the desire of man naturally tends towards God as towards the ultimate end. The proposition that God exists is, therefore, self-evident. [6] There is also the consideration that that through which all the rest are known ought itself to be self-evident. Now, God is of this sort. For just as the light of the sun is the principle of all visible perception, so the divine light is the principle of all intelligible knowledge; since the divine light is that in which intelligible illumination is found first and in its highest degree. That God exists, therefore, must be self-evident. [7] These, then, and others like them are the arguments by which some think that the proposition God exists is so self-evident that its contrary cannot be entertained by the mind.

Chapter

A REFUTATION OF THE ABOVEMENTIONED OPINION AND A SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS

[1] In part, the above opinion arises from the custom by which from their earliest days people are brought up to hear and to call upon the name of God. Custom, and especially custom in a child comes to have the force of nature. As a result, what the mind is steeped in from childhood it clings to very firmly, as something known naturally and self-evidently. [2] In part, however, the above opinion comes about because of a failure to distinguish between that which is self-evident in an absolute sense and that which is self-evident in relation to us. For assuredly that God exists is, absolutely speaking, self-evident, since what God is is His own being. Yet, because we are not able to conceive in our minds that which God is, that God exists remains unknown in relation to us. So, too, that every whole is greater than its part is, absolutely speaking, self-evident; but it would perforce be unknown to one who could not conceive the nature of a whole. Hence it comes about, as it is said in Metaphysics II [Ia, 1], that “our intellect is related to the most knowable things in reality as the eye of an owl is related to the sun.”’ [3] And, contrary to the Point made by the first argument, it does not follow immediately that, as soon as we know the meaning of the name God, the existence of God is known. It does not follow first because it is not known to all, even including those who admit that God exists, that God is that than which a greater cannot be thought. After all, many ancients said that this world itself was God. Furthermore, no such inference can be drawn from the interpretations of the name God to be found in Damascene [ De fide orthodoxa I, 9]. What is more, granted that everyone should understand by the name God something than which a greater cannot be thought, it will still not be necessary that there exist in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought. For a thing and the definition of a name are posited in the same way. Now, from the fact that that which is indicated by the name God is conceived by the mind, it does not follow that God exists save only in the intellect. Hence, that than which a greater cannot be thought will likewise not have to exist save only in the intellect. From this it does not follow that there exists in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought. No difficulty, consequently, befalls anyone who posits that God does not exist. For that something greater can be thought than anything given in reality or in the intellect is a difficulty only to him who admits that there is something than which a greater cannot be thought in reality. [4] Nor, again, is it necessary, as the second argument advanced, that something greater than God can be thought if God can be thought not to be. For that He can be thought not to be does not arise either from the imperfection or the uncertainty of His own being, since this is in itself most manifest. It arises, rather, from the weakness of our intellect, which cannot behold God Himself except through His effects and which is thus led to know His existence through reasoning. [5] This enables us to solve the third argument as well. For just as it is evident to us that a whole is greater than a part of itself, so to those seeing the divine essence in itself it is supremely self-evident that God exists because His essence is His being. But, because we are not able to see His essence, we arrive at the knowledge of His being, not through God Himself, but through His effects. [6] The answer to the fourth argument is likewise clear. For man naturally knows God in the same way as he naturally desires God. Now, man naturally desires God in so far as he naturally desires beatitude, which is a certain likeness of the divine goodness. On this basis, it is not necessary that God considered in Himself be naturally known to man, but only a likeness of God. It remains, therefore, that man is to reach the knowledge of God through reasoning by way of the likenesses of God found in His effects. [7] So, too, with the fifth argument, an easy solution is available. For God is indeed that by which all things are known, not in the sense that they are not known unless He is known (as obtains among self-evident principles), but because all our knowledge is caused in us through His influence.

Chapter

THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO SAY THAT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD CANNOT BE DEMONSTRATED BUT IS HELD BY FAITH ALONE [1] There are others who hold a certain opinion, contrary to the position mentioned above, through which the efforts of those seeking to prove the existence of God would likewise be rendered futile. For they say that we cannot arrive at the existence of God through the reason; it is received by way of faith and revelation alone. [2] What led some persons to hold this view was the weakness of the arguments which had been brought forth by others to prove that God exists. [3] Nevertheless, the present error might erroneously find support in its behalf in the words of some philosophers who show that in God essence and being are identical, that is, that that which answers to the question what is it? is identical with that which answers to the question is it? Now, following the way of the reason we cannot arrive at a knowledge of what God is. Hence, it seems likewise impossible to demonstrate by the reason that God exists. [4] Furthermore, according to the logic of the Philosopher, as a principle to demonstrate whether a thing is we must take the signification of the name of that thing [ Posterior Analytics II, 9]; and, again according to the Philosopher [ Metaphysics IV, 7], the meaning signified by a name is its definition. If this be so, if we set aside a knowledge of the divine essence or quiddity, no means will be available whereby to demonstrate that God exists. [5] Again, if, as is shown in the Posterior Analytics [I, 18], the knowledge of the principles of demonstration takes its origin from sense, whatever transcends all sense and sensibles seems to be indemonstrable. That God exists appears to be a proposition of this sort and is therefore indemonstrable. [6] The falsity of this opinion is shown to us, first, from the art of demonstration which teaches us to arrive at causes from their effects. Then, it is shown to us from the order of the sciences. For, as it is said in the Metaphysics [IV, 3], if there is no knowable substance higher than sensible substance, there will be no science higher than physics. It is shown, thirdly, from the pursuit of the philosophers, who have striven to demonstrate that God exists. Finally, it is shown to us by the truth in the words of the Apostle Paul: “For the invisible things of God... are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20). [7] Nor, contrary to the first argument, is there any problem in the fact that in God essence and being are identical. For this is understood of the being by which God subsists in Himself. But we do not know of what sort this being is, just as we do not know the divine essence. The reference is not to the being that signifies the composition of intellect. For thus the existence of God does fall under demonstration; this happens when our mind is led from demonstrative arguments to form such a proposition of God whereby it expresses that He exists. [8] Now, in arguments proving the existence of God, it is not necessary to assume the divine essence or quiddity as the middle term of the demonstration. This was the second view proposed above. In place of the quiddity, an effect is taken as the middle term, as in demonstrations quia. It is from such effects that the meaning of the name God is taken. For all divine names are imposed either by removing the effects of God from Him or by relating God in some way to His effects. [9] It is thereby likewise evident that, although God transcends all sensible things and the sense itself, His effects, on which the demonstration proving His existence is based, are nevertheless sensible things. And thus, the origin of our knowledge in the sense applies also to those things that transcend the sense.

Chapter

Arguments in proof of the existence of God

[1] We have now shown that the effort to demonstrate the existence of God is not a vain one. We shall therefore proceed to set forth the arguments by which both philosophers and Catholic teachers have proved that God exists. [2] We shall first set forth the arguments by which Aristotle proceeds to prove that God exists. The aim of Aristotle is to do this in two ways, beginning with motion. [3] Of these ways the first is as follows. Everything that is moved is moved by another. That some things are in motion—for example, the sun—is evident from sense. Therefore, it is moved by something else that moves it. This mover is itself either moved or not moved. If it is not, we have reached our conclusion—namely, that we must posit some unmoved mover. This we call God. If it is moved, it is moved by another mover. We must, consequently, either proceed to infinity, or we must arrive at some unmoved mover. Now, it is not possible to proceed to infinity. Hence, we must posit some prime unmoved mover. [4] In this proof, there are two propositions that need to be proved, namely, that everything that is moved is moved by another, and that in movers and things moved one cannot proceed to infinity. [5] The first of these propositions Aristotle proves in three ways. The first way is as follows. If something moves itself, it must have within itself the principle of its own motion; otherwise, it is clearly moved by another. Furthermore, it must be primarily moved. This means that it must be moved by reason of itself, and not by reason of a part of itself, as happens when an animal is moved by the motion of its foot. For, in this sense, a whole would not be moved by itself, but a part, and one part would be moved by another. It is also necessary that a self-moving being be divisible and have parts, since, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4], whatever is moved is divisible. [6] On the basis of these suppositions Aristotle argues as follows. That which is held to be moved by itself is primarily moved. Hence, when one of its parts is at rest, the whole is then at rest. For if, while one part was at rest, another part in it were moved, then the whole itself would not be primarily moved; it would be that part in it which is moved while another part is at rest. But nothing that is at rest because something else is at rest is moved by itself; for that being whose rest follows upon the rest of another must have its motion follow upon the motion of another. It is thus not moved by itself. Therefore, that which was posited as being moved by itself is not moved by itself. Consequently, everything that is moved must be moved by another. [7] Nor is it an objection to this argument if one might say that, when something is held to move itself, a part of it cannot be at rest; or, again, if one might say that a part is not subject to rest or motion except accidentally, which is the unfounded argument of Avicenna. For, indeed, the force of Aristotle’s argument lies in this: if something moves itself primarily and through itself, rather than through its parts, that it is moved cannot depend on another. But the moving of the divisible itself, like its being, depends on its parts; it cannot therefore move itself primarily and through itself. Hence, for the truth of the inferred conclusion it is not necessary to assume as an absolute truth that a part of a being moving itself is at rest. What must rather be true is this conditional proposition: if the part were at rest, the whole would be at rest. Now, this proposition would be true even though its antecedent be impossible. In the same way, the following conditional proposition is true: if man is an ass, he is irrational. [8] In the second way, Aristotle proves the proposition by induction [ Physics VIII, 4]. Whatever is moved by accident is not moved by itself, since it is moved upon the motion of another. So, too, as is evident, what is moved by violence is not moved by itself. Nor are those beings moved by themselves that are moved by their nature as being moved from within; such is the case with animals, which evidently are moved by the soul. Nor, again, is this true of those beings, such as heavy and light bodies, which are moved through nature. For such beings are moved by the generating cause and the cause removing impediments. Now, whatever is moved is moved through itself or by accident. If it is moved through itself, then it is moved either violently or by nature; if by nature, then either through itself, as the animal, or not through itself, as heavy and light bodies. Therefore, everything that is moved is moved by another. [9] In the third way, Aristotle proves the proposition as follows [VIII, 5]. The same thing cannot be at once in act and in potency with respect to the same thing. But everything that is moved is, as such, in potency. For motion is the act of something that is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency. That which moves, however, is as such in act, for nothing acts except according as it is in act. Therefore, with respect to the same motion, nothing is both mover and moved. Thus, nothing moves itself. [10] It is to be noted, however, that Plato, who held that every mover is moved [ Phaedrus ], understood the name motion in a wider sense than did Aristotle. For Aristotle understood motion strictly, according as it is the act of what exists in potency inasmuch as it is such. So understood, motion belongs only to divisible bodies, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4]. According to Plato, however, that which moves itself is not a body. Plato understood by motion any given operation, so that to understand and to judge are a kind of motion. Aristotle likewise touches upon this manner of speaking in the De anima [III, 7]. Plato accordingly said that the first mover moves himself because he knows himself and wills or loves himself. In a way, this is not opposed to the reasons of Aristotle. There is no difference between reaching a first being that moves himself, as understood by Plato, and reaching a first being that is absolutely unmoved, as understood by Aristotle. [11] The second proposition, namely, that there is no procession to infinity among movers and things moved, Aristotle proves in three ways. [12] The first is as follows [VII, 1]. If among movers and things moved we proceed to infinity, all these infinite beings must be bodies. For whatever is moved is divisible and a body, as is proved in the Physics [VI, 4]. But every body that moves some thing moved is itself moved while moving it. Therefore, all these infinites are moved together while one of them is moved. But one of them, being finite, is moved in a finite time. Therefore, all those infinites are moved in a finite time. This, however, is impossible. It is, therefore, impossible that among movers and things moved one can proceed to infinity.

[13] Furthermore, that it is impossible for the abovementioned infinites to be moved in a finite time Aristotle proves as follows. The mover and the thing moved must exist simultaneously. This Aristotle proves by induction in the various species of motion. But bodies cannot be simultaneous except through continuity or contiguity. Now, since, as has been proved, all the aforementioned movers and. things moved are bodies, they must constitute by continuity or contiguity a sort of single mobile. In this way, one infinite is moved in a finite time. This is impossible, as is proved in the Physics [VII, 1]. [14] The second argument proving the same conclusion is the following. In an ordered series of movers and things moved (this is a series in which one is moved by another according to an order), it is necessarily the fact that, when the first mover is removed or ceases to move, no other mover will move or be moved. For the first mover is the cause of motion for all the others. But, if there are movers and things moved following an order to infinity, there will be no first mover, but all would be as intermediate movers. Therefore, none of the others will be able to be moved, and thus nothing in the world will be moved. [15] The third proof comes to the same conclusion, except that, by beginning with the superior, it has a reversed order. It is as follows. That which moves as an instrumental cause cannot move unless there be a principal moving cause. But, if we proceed to infinity among movers and things moved, all movers will be as instrumental causes, because they will be moved movers and there will be nothing as a principal mover. Therefore, nothing will be moved. [16] Such, then, is the proof of both propositions assumed by Aristotle in the first demonstrative way by which he proved that a first unmoved mover exists. [17] The second way is this. If every mover is moved, this proposition is true either by itself or by accident. If by accident, then it is not necessary, since what is true by accident is not necessary. It is something possible, therefore, that no mover is moved. But if a mover is not moved, it does not move: as the adversary says. It is therefore possible that nothing is moved. For, if nothing moves, nothing is moved. This, however, Aristotle considers to be impossible—namely, that at any time there be no motion. Therefore, the first proposition was not possible, since from a false possible, a false impossible does not follow. Hence, this proposition, every mover is moved by another, was not true by accident. [18] Again, if two things are accidentally joined in some being, and one of them is found without the other, it is probable that the other can be found without it. For example, if white and musical are found in Socrates, and in Plato we find musical but not white, it is probable that in some other being we can find the white without the musical. Therefore, if mover and thing moved are accidentally joined in some being, and the thing moved be found without the mover in some being, it is probable that the mover is found without that which is moved. Nor can the example of two things, of which one depends on the other, be brought as an objection against this. For the union we are speaking of is not essential, but accidental. [19] But, if the proposition that every mover is moved is true by itself, something impossible or awkward likewise follows. For the mover must be moved either by the same kind of motion as that by which he moves, or by another. If the same, a cause of alteration must itself be altered, and further, a healing cause must itself be healed, and a teacher must himself be taught and this with respect to the same knowledge. Now, this is impossible. A teacher must have science, whereas he who is a learner of necessity does not have it. So that, if the proposition were true, the same thing would be possessed and not possessed by the same being—which is impossible. If, however, the mover is moved by another species of motion, so that (namely) the altering cause is moved according to place, and the cause moving according to place is increased, and so forth, since the genera and species of motion are finite in number, it will follow that we cannot proceed to infinity. There will thus be a first mover, which is not moved by another. Will someone say that there will be a recurrence, so that when all the genera and species of motion have been completed the series will be repeated and return to the first motion? This would involve saying, for example, that a mover according to place would be altered, the altering cause would be increased, and the increasing cause would be moved according to place. Yet this whole view would arrive at the same conclusion as before: whatever moves according to a certain species of motion is itself moved according to the same species of motion, though mediately and not immediately. [20] It remains, therefore, that we must posit some first mover that is not moved by any exterior moving cause. [21] Granted this conclusion—namely, that there is a first mover that is not moved by an exterior moving cause—it yet does not follow that this mover is absolutely unmoved. That is why Aristotle goes on to say that the condition of the first mover may be twofold [VIII, 5]. The first mover can be absolutely unmoved. If so, we have the conclusion we are seeking: there is a first unmoved mover. On the other hand, the first mover can be self-moved. This may be argued, because that which is through itself is prior to what is through another. Hence, among things moved as well, it seems reasonable that the first moved is moved through itself and not by another. [22] But, on this basis, the same conclusion again follows. For it cannot be said that, when a mover moves himself, the whole is moved by the whole. Otherwise, the same difficulties would follow as before: one person would both teach and be taught, and the same would be true among other motions. It would also follow that a being would be both in potency and in act; for a mover is, as such, in act, whereas the thing moved is in potency. Consequently, one part of the self-moved mover is solely moving, and the other part solely moved. We thus reach the same conclusion as before: there exists an unmoved mover. [23] Nor can it be held that both parts of the self-moved mover are moved, so that one is moved by the other, or that one moves both itself and the other, or that the whole moves a part, or that a part moves the whole. All this would involve the return of the aforementioned difficulties: something would both move and be moved according to the same species of motion; something would be at once in potency and in act; and, furthermore, the whole would not be primarily moving itself, it would move through the motion of a part. The conclusion thus stands: one part of a self-moved mover must be unmoved and moving the other part. [24] But there is another point to consider. Among self-moved beings known to us, namely, animals, although the moving part, which is to say the soul, is unmoved through itself, it is yet moved by accident. That is why Aristotle further shows that the moving part of the first self-moving being is not moved either through itself or by accident [VIII, 6]. For, since self-moving beings known to us, namely, animals, are corruptible, the moving part in them is moved by accident. But corruptible self-moving beings must be reduced to some first self-moving being that is everlasting. Therefore, some self-moving being must have a mover that is moved neither through itself nor by accident. [25] It is further evident that, according to the position of Aristotle, some self-moved being must be everlasting. For if, as Aristotle supposes, motion is everlasting, the generation of self-moving beings (this means beings that are generable and corruptible) must be endless. But the cause of this endlessness cannot be one of the self-moving beings, since it does not always exist. Nor can the cause be all the self-moving beings together, both because they would be infinite and because they would not be simultaneous. There must therefore be some endlessly self-moving being, causing the endlessness of generation among these sublunary self-movers. Thus, the mover of the self-moving being is not moved, either through itself or by accident. [26] Again, we see that among beings that move themselves some initiate a new motion as a result of some motion. This new motion is other than the motion by which an animal moves itself, for example, digested food or altered air. By such a motion the self-moving mover is moved by accident. From this we may infer that no self-moved being is moved everlastingly whose mover is moved either by itself or by accident. But the first self-mover is everlastingly in motion; otherwise, motion could not be everlasting, since every other motion is caused by the motion of the self-moving first mover. Ile first self-moving being, therefore, is moved by a mover who is himself moved neither through himself nor by accident. [27] Nor is it against this argument that the movers of the lower spheres produce an everlasting motion and yet are said to be moved by accident. For they are said to be moved by accident, not on their own account, but on account of their movable subjects, which follow the motion of the higher sphere. [28] Now, God is not part of any self-moving mover. In his Metaphysics [XII, 7], therefore, Aristotle goes on from the mover who is a part of the self-moved mover to seek another mover—God—who is absolutely separate. For, since everything moving itself is moved through appetite, the mover who is part of the self-moving being moves because of the appetite of some appetible object. This object is higher, in the order of motion, than the mover desiring it; for the one desiring is in a manner a moved mover, whereas an appetible object is an absolutely unmoved mover. There must, therefore, be an absolutely unmoved separate first mover. This is God. [29] Two considerations seem to invalidate these arguments. The first consideration is that, as arguments, they presuppose the eternity of motion, which Catholics consider to be false. [30] To this consideration the reply is as follows. The most efficacious way to prove that God exists is on the supposition that the world is eternal. Granted this supposition, that God exists is less manifest. For, if the world and motion have a first beginning, some cause must clearly be posited to account for this origin of the world and of motion. That which comes to be anew must take its origin from some innovating cause; since nothing brings itself from potency to act, or from non-being to being. [31] The second consideration is that the demonstrations given above presuppose that the first moved being, namely, a heavenly body, is self-moved. This means that it is animated, which many do not admit. [32] The reply to this consideration is that, if the prime mover is not held to be self-moved, then it must be moved immediately by something absolutely unmoved. Hence, even Aristotle himself proposed this conclusion as a disjunction: it is necessary either to arrive immediately at an unmoved separate first mover, or to arrive at a self-moved mover from whom, in turn, an unmoved separate first mover is reached. [33] In Metaphysics II [Ia, 2] Aristotle also uses another argument to show that there is no infinite regress in efficient causes and that we must reach one first cause—God. This way is as follows. In all ordered efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, whether one or many, and this is the cause of the last cause. But, when you suppress a cause, you suppress its effect. Therefore, if you suppress the first cause, the intermediate cause cannot be a cause. Now, if there were an infinite regress among efficient causes, no cause would be first. Therefore, all the other causes, which are intermediate, will be suppressed. But this is manifestly false. We must, therefore, posit that there exists a first efficient cause. This is God. [34] Another argument may also be gathered from the words of Aristotle. In Metaphysics II [Ia, 1] he shows that what is most true is also most a being. But in Metaphysics IV [4] he shows the existence of something supremely true from the observed fact that of two false things one is more false than the other, which means that one is more true than the other. This comparison is based on the nearness to that which is absolutely and supremely true. From these Aristotelian texts we may further infer that there is something that is supremely being. This we call God. [35] Damascene proposes another argument for the same conclusion taken from the government of the world [ De fide orthodoxa I, 3]. Averroes likewise hints at it [In II Physicorum ]. The argument runs thus. Contrary and discordant things cannot, always or for the most part, be parts of one order except under someone’s government, which enables all and each to tend to a definite end. But in the world we find that things of diverse natures come together under one order, and this not rarely or by chance, but always or for the most part. There must therefore be some being by whose providence the world is governed. This we call God.

Chapter

That to know God we must use the way of remotion

[1] We have shown that there exists a first being, whom we call God. We must, accordingly, now investigate the properties of this being. [2] Now, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion. For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not. Furthermore, we approach nearer to a knowledge of God according as through our intellect we are able to remove more and more things from Him. For we know each thing more perfectly the more fully we see its differences from other things; for each thing has within itself its own being, distinct from all other things. So, too, in the case of the things whose definitions we know. We locate them in a genus, through which we know in a general way what they are. Then we add differences to each thing, by which it may be distinguished from other things. In this way, a complete knowledge of a substance is built up. [3] However, in the consideration of the divine substance we cannot take a what as a genus; nor can we derive the distinction of God from things by differences affirmed of God. For this reason, we must derive the distinction of God from other beings by means of negative differences. And just as among affirmative differences one contracts the other, so one negative difference is contracted by another that makes it to differ from many beings. For example, if we say that God is not an accident, we thereby distinguish Him from all accidents. Then, if we add that He is not a body, we shall further distinguish Him from certain substances. And thus, proceeding in order, by such negations God will be distinguished from all that He is not. Finally, there will then be a proper consideration of God’s substance when He will be known as distinct from all things. Yet, this knowledge will not be perfect, since it will not tell us what God is in Himself. [4] As a principle of procedure in knowing God by way of remotion, therefore, let us adopt the proposition which, from what we have said, is now manifest, namely, that God is absolutely unmoved. The authority of Sacred Scripture also confirms this. For it is written: “I am the Lord and I change not” (Mal. 3:6);...“with whom there is no change” (James 2:17). Again: “God is not man... that He should be changed (Num. 23:19).

Chapter

That God is eternal

[1] From what we have said it is further apparent that God is eternal. [2] Everything that begins to be or ceases to be does so through motion or change. Since, however, we have shown that God is absolutely immutable, He is eternal, lacking all beginning or end. [3] Again. Those beings alone are measured by time that are moved. For time, as is made clear in Physics IV [11], is “the number of motion.” But God, as has been proved, is absolutely without motion, and is consequently not measured by time. There is, therefore, no before and after in Him; He does not have being after non-being, nor non-being after being, nor can any succession be found in His being. For none of these characteristics can be understood without time. God, therefore, is without beginning and end, having His whole being at once. In this consists the nature of eternity. [4] What is more, if it were true that there was a time when He existed after not existing, then He must have been brought by someone from non-being to being. Not by Himself, since what does not exist cannot act. If by another, then this other is prior to God. But we have shown that God is the first cause. Hence, He did not begin to be, nor consequently will He cease to be, for that which has been everlastingly has the power to be everlastingly. God is, therefore, eternal. [5] We find in the world, furthermore, certain beings, those namely that are subject to generation and corruption, which can be and not-be. But what can be has a cause because, since it is equally related to two contraries, namely, being and non-being, it must be owing to some cause that being accrues to it. Now, as we have proved by the reasoning of Aristotle, one cannot proceed to infinity among causes. We must therefore posit something that is a necessary being. Every necessary being, however, either has the cause of its necessity in an outside source or, if it does not, it is necessary through itself. But one cannot proceed to infinity among necessary beings the cause of whose necessity lies in an outside source. We must therefore posit a first necessary being, which is necessary through itself. This is God, since, as we have shown, He is the first cause. God, therefore, is eternal, since whatever is necessary through itself is eternal. [6] From the everlastingness of time, likewise, Aristotle shows the everlastingness of motion [ Physics VIII, 1], from which he further shows the everlastingness of the moving substance [VIII, 6]. Now, the first moving substance is God. God is therefore everlasting. If we deny the everlastingness of time and motion, we are still able to prove the everlastingness of the moving substance. For, if motion had a beginning, it must have done so through some moving cause. If this moving cause began, it did so through the action of some cause. Hence, either one will proceed to infinity, or he will arrive at a moving cause that had no beginning. [7] To this truth divine authority offers witness. The Psalmist says: “But You, Lord, endure forever”; and he goes on to say: “But You art always the selfsame: and Your years shall not fail” (Ps. 101:13, 28).

Chapter

That there is no passive potency in God

[1] If God is eternal, of necessity there is no potency in Him. [2] The being whose substance has an admixture of potency is liable not to be by as much as it has potency; for that which can be, can not-be. But, God, being everlasting, in His substance cannot not-be. In God, therefore, there is no potency to being. [3] Though a being that is sometime in potency and sometime in act is in time in potency before being in act, absolutely speaking act is prior to potency. For potency does not raise itself to act; it must be raised to act by something that is in act. Hence, whatever is in some way in potency has something prior to it. But, as is evident from what was said above, God is the first being and the first cause. Hence, He has no admixture of potency in Himself. [4] Moreover, that which is a necessary being through itself is in no way a possible being, since that which is through itself a necessary being has no cause, whereas, as we have shown above, whatever is a possible being has a cause. But God is through Himself a necessary being. He is, therefore, in no way a possible being, and so no potency is found in His substance. [5] Again, each thing acts in so far as it is in act. Therefore, what is not wholly act acts, not with the whole of itself, but with part of itself. But what does not act with the whole of itself is not the first agent, since it does not act through its essence but through participation in something. The first agent, therefore, namely, God, has no admixture of potency but is pure act. [6] Further, just as each thing naturally acts in so far as it is in act, so it is naturally receptive in so far as it is in potency; for motion is the act of that which exists in potency. But God is absolutely impassible and immutable, as is clear from what we have said. He has, therefore, no part of potency—that is, passive potency. [7] Then, too, we see something in the world that emerges from potency to act. Now, it does not educe itself from potency to act, since that which is in potency, being still in potency, can therefore not act. Some prior being is therefore needed by which it may be brought forth from potency to act. This cannot go on to infinity. We must, therefore, arrive at some being that is only in act and in no wise in potency. This being we call God.

Chapter

That there is no matter in God

[1] From this it is likewise evident that God is not matter. [2] Whatever matter is, it is in potency. [3] Matter, furthermore, is not a principle of acting. That is why, according to Aristotle, the efficient cause and matter do not coincide [ Physics II, 7]. But, as we have said, it belongs to God to be the first efficient cause of things. Therefore, He is not matter. [4] Moreover, for those who reduced all things to matter as to the first cause it follows that natural things exist by chance. Aristotle argues against these thinkers in Physics II [8]. Hence, if God, Who is the first cause, is the material cause of things, it follows that all things exist by chance. [5] Again, matter does not become the cause of something actual except by being altered and changed. But if, as we have proved, God is absolutely immobile, He cannot in any way be the cause of things according to the mode of matter. [6] Now, the Catholic faith professes this truth, namely, it asserts that God has created all things, not out of His own substance, but out of nothing. [7] On this point, however, the madness of David of Dinant stands confounded. He dared to assert that God is the same as prime matter on the ground that, if He were not, He would have to differ from it by some differences, and thus they would not be simple. For in the being that differs from another by a difference, the difference itself produces a composition. David’s position was the result of ignorance. He did not know how to distinguish between difference and diversity. The different, as is determined in Metaphysics X [3], is said relationally, for every different is different by something. Something is called diverse, however, absolutely, from the fact that it is not the same. Difference, therefore, must be sought among those things that agree in something, for we must point to something in them according to which they differ: for example, two species agree in genus and must therefore be distinguished by differences. But in things that agree in nothing we need not seek the whereby they differ; they are diverse by themselves. In the same way, opposite differences are distinguished from one another. For they do not share in the genus as a part of their essence, and therefore, since they are by themselves diverse, there is no need to seek that by which they differ. In this way, too, God and prime matter are distinguished: one is pure act, the other is pure potency, and they agree in nothing.

Chapter

That there is no composition in God

[1] From what we have set down we can conclude that there is no composition in God. [2] In every composite there must be act and potency. For several things cannot become absolutely one unless among them something is act and something potency. Now, beings in act are not united except by being, so to speak, bound or joined together, which means that they are not absolutely one. Their parts, likewise, are brought together as being in potency with respect to the union, since they are united in act after being potentially unitable. But in God there is no potency. Therefore, there is no composition in Him. [3] Every composite, moreover, is subsequent to its components. The first being, therefore, which is God, has no components. [4] Every composite, furthermore, is potentially dissoluble. This arises from the nature of composition, although in some composites there is another element that resists dissolution. Now, what is dissoluble can not-be. This does not befit God, since He is through Himself the necessary being. There is, therefore, no composition in God. [5] Every composition, likewise, needs some composer. For, if there is composition, it is made up of a plurality, and a plurality cannot be fitted into a unity except by some composer. If, then, God were composite, He would have a composer. He could not compose Himself, since nothing is its own cause, because it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now, the composer is the efficient cause of the composite. Thus, God would have an efficient cause. Thus, too, He would not be the first cause—which was proved above. [6] Again, in every genus the simpler a being, the more noble it is: e.g., in the genus of the hot, Ere, which has no admixture of cold. That, therefore, which is at the peak of nobility among all beings must be at the peak of simplicity. But the being that is at the peak of nobility among all beings we call God, since He is the first cause. For a cause is nobler than an effect. God can, therefore, have no composition. [7] Furthermore, in every composite the good belongs, not to this or that part, but to the whole—and I say good according to the goodness that is proper to the whole and its perfection. For parts are imperfect in comparison with the whole, as the parts of man are not a man, the parts of the number six do not have the perfection of six, and similarly the parts of a line do not reach the perfection of the measure found in the whole line. If, then, God is composite, His proper perfection and goodness is found in the whole, not in any part of the whole. Thus, there will not be in God purely that good which is proper to Him. God, then, is not the first and highest good. [8] Again, prior to all multitude we must find unity. But there is multitude in every composite. Therefore, that which is before all things, namely, God, must be free of all composition.

Chapter

That in God there is nothing violent or unnatural

[1] From this Aristotle concludes that in God there can be nothing violent or unnatural. [2] Everything in which there is found something violent and outside nature has something added to itself, for what belongs to the substance of a thing can be neither violent nor outside nature. Now, nothing simple has anything added to itself, since this would render it composite. Since, then, God is simple, as we have shown, nothing in Him can be violent or outside nature. [3] Furthermore, the necessity of coaction is a necessity from another. But in God there is no necessity from another; He is necessary through Himself and the cause of necessity for other things. Therefore, nothing in God is due to coaction. [4] Again, wherever there is something violent, there can be something beyond what befits a thing through itself; for the violent is opposed to what is according to nature. But in God there cannot be anything beyond what befits Him according to Himself; for God, as we have shown, is of Himself the necessary being. There can, therefore, be nothing violent in God. [5] Then, too, everything in which there can be something violent or unnatural is by nature able to be moved by another. For the violent is “that whose source is from the outside, the receiver being completely passive.” Now, as we have shown, God is absolutely immobile. There can, therefore, be nothing violent or unnatural in Him.

Chapter

That God is not a body

[1] From the preceding remarks it is also shown that God is not a body. [2] Every body, being a continuum, is composite and has parts. But, as we have shown, God is not composite, and is, therefore, not a body. [3] Again, everything possessed of quantity is in a certain manner in potency. For a continuum is potentially divisible to infinity, while numbers can be increased to infinity. But every body has quantity and is therefore in potency. But God is not in potency, being pure act, as has been shown. Therefore, God is not a body. [4] Furthermore, if God is a body, He must be some natural body, since, as the Philosopher proves, a mathematical body is not something self-existing, since dimensions are accidents. But God is not a natural body, being immobile, as we have shown, whereas every natural body is movable. God is, therefore, not a body. [5] Again, every body is finite, as is proved in De caelo I [I, 5] of a circular body and a rectilinear body. Now, we can transcend any given finite body by means of the intellect and the imagination. If, then, God is a body, our intellect and imagination can think of something greater than God. God is thus not greater than our intellect—which is awkward. God is, therefore, not a body. [6] Intellectual knowledge, moreover, is more certain than sensitive knowledge. In nature we find an object for the sense and therefore for the intellect as well. But the order and distinction of powers is according to the order of objects. Therefore, above all sensible things there is something intelligible among things. Now, every body having actual existence is sensible. Therefore, we can find something nobler above all bodies. Hence, if God is a body, He will not be the first and greatest being. [7] A living thing, likewise, is nobler than any non-living body, and the life of a living body is nobler than it, since it is this life that gives to the living body its nobility above other bodies. Therefore, that than which nothing is nobler is not a body. Ibis is God. God is, therefore, not a body. [8] Then, too, there are the arguments of the philosophers to the same effect, based on the eternity of motion. They are as follows. In every everlasting motion, the first mover cannot be moved either through Himself or by accident, as is clear from the above. Now, the body of the heavens is moved in a circle with an everlasting motion. Therefore, its first mover is not moved either through Himself or by accident. Now, no body moves locally unless it be moved, since the mover and the moved must be together. The moving body must thus be moved in order to be together with the moved body. But no power in a body moves unless it itself be moved by accident, since, when a body is moved, its power is by accident moved. The first mover of the heavens, therefore, is neither a body nor a power in a body. Now, that to which the motion of the heavens is ultimately reduced as to its first unmoved mover is God. God is, therefore, not a body. [9] Again, no infinite power is a power in a magnitude. But the power of the prime mover is an infinite power. Therefore, it is not in any magnitude. Therefore, God, Who is the prime mover, is neither a body nor a power in a body. [10] The first proposition is proved thus. If the power of some magnitude is infinite, it will be the power either of a finite magnitude or an infinite one. But there is no infinite magnitude, as is proved in Physics III [5] and De caelo I [5]. But a finite magnitude cannot have an infinite power. Therefore, an infinite power cannot reside in any magnitude. That an infinite power cannot reside in a finite magnitude is proved thus. A greater power produces an equal effect in a shorter time than a lesser power does in a longer time. This is true whether that effect be according to alteration, local motion, or any other motion whatever. But an infinite power is greater than every finite power. Therefore, by moving more swiftly, it should produce its effect in a shorter time than any finite power. Nor can it be in something lesser that still is in time, Therefore, this will be in an indivisible point of time. And thus to move, to be moved, and motion will take place in an instant—of which the contrary has been proved in Physics VI [3]. That an infinite power in a finite magnitude cannot move in time is likewise proved as follows. Let there be an infinite power A. Let us assume a part of that power to be AB. This part will, therefore, move in a greater time. Yet there must be some proportion of this time to the time in which the whole power moves, since both times are finite. Let these two times be related to one another in the proportion of one to ten, since for the present argument this proportion will do as well as any other. Now, if we add to the aforementioned finite power, we must diminish its time according to the proportion of the addition to the power; for a greater power moves in a lesser time. If the decuple be added, that power will move in a time that will be a tenth part of the time in which the first assumed part of the infinite power, namely, AB, moved. And yet this power, which is its decuple, is a finite power, since it has a determinate proportion to the finite power. Therefore, the finite and the infinite power will move in the same time—which is impossible. Therefore, the infinite power of a finite magnitude cannot move in time. [11] That the power of the first mover is infinite is proved thus. No finite power can move in an infinite time. But the power of the first mover moves in an infinite time because the first motion is endless. Therefore, the power of the prime mover is infinite. Ile first proposition is proved thus. If the finite power of some body moves in an infinite time, a part of that body, having a part of the power, will move in a shorter time; for the greater the power of a mover, the more it will be able to keep up its motion in a longer time. Thus, the aforementioned part will move in a finite time, and a greater part will be able to move in a longer time. Thus, as we add to the power of the mover, we shall always add to the time according to the same proportion. But after a certain addition has been made, the addition win reach the quantity of the whole or even exceed it. So, too, an addition of time will reach the quantity of time in which it moves the whole. But the time in which it moved the whole was said to be infinite. Therefore, a finite time will measure an infinite time—which is impossible. [12] But against this reasoning there are several objections. [13] One objection is this. It can be assumed that the body that moves the first moved is not divisible, as is the case with a heavenly body. But the preceding proof is based on the division of the first body. [14] The reply to this objection is as follows. There can be a true conditional proposition whose antecedent is impossible. If there is something that destroys the truth of this conditional proposition, it is then impossible. For example, if someone destroys the truth of the conditional proposition, If man flies, he has wings, it would be impossible. It is in this manner that the above proof is to be understood. For the following conditional proposition is true: If a heavenly body is divided, a part of it will have less power than the whole. Now, the truth of this conditional proposition is taken away if it be posited that the first mover is a body; and the reason is the impossibilities that follow from it. Therefore, to posit this is impossible. A similar reply can be given if objection is made concerning the increase of finite powers. We cannot assume powers in nature according to all proportions of time to any given time. Nevertheless, the proposition required in the above proof is a true conditional proposition. [15] The second objection is this. Although a body is divided, it is possible to find in a given body a power that is not divided when the body is divided. For example, the rational soul is not divided if the body is divided. [16] The reply is as follows. The above argument does not prove that God is not joined to a body as the rational soul is joined to the human body; it proves that He is not a power in a body in the manner of a material power, which is divided upon the division of the body. So, too, it is said of the human intellect that it is not a body or a power in a body. However, that God is not joined to a body as the soul is, this is another issue. [17] The third objection is this. If some given body has a finite power, as the above argument shows, and if through a finite power nothing can endure through an infinite time, it will follow that no body can endure through an infinite time. Thus, a heavenly body will of necessity be corrupted. [18] To this objection some reply that, as far as its own power is concerned, a heavenly body can fail, but it acquires an eternal duration from another being of an infinite power. Plato [ Timaeus ] seems to speak for this solution when he introduces God addressing the heavenly bodies as follows: “By your natures you are dissoluble, but through my will you are indissoluble; for my will is greater than your bond.” [19] The Commentator attacks this position in Metaphysics XI. According to him, it is impossible that what can of itself not-be should acquire a perpetuity of being from another. This would mean that something corruptible becomes incorruptible, which according to him is impossible. Hence, Averroes answers the objection as follows. All the potency that is in a heavenly body is finite, but there is no reason why a heavenly body should have every potency. For, according to Aristotle in Metaphysics VIII, there is in a heavenly body potency with respect to place, but not with respect to being. Hence, a heavenly body need not have a potency to non-being. [20] This reply of the Commentator, however, is not sufficient. Even if we should grant that in a heavenly body there is no sort of a passive potency to being, which is the potency of matter, yet there is in it a potency of an active kind, which is the power of being. For Aristotle expressly says in De caelo I [I, 3] that the heavens have the power to be forever.” [21] Hence, it is better to reply as follows. Since potency is said relatively to act, we must judge of potency according to the mode of the act. Now, according to its nature, motion has quantity and extension, and hence its infinite duration requires that the potency moving it be infinite. But being does not have any quantitative extension, especially in the case of a thing, such as the heavens, whose being is without change. Hence, the power of being need not be infinite in a finite body, even though it will endure to infinity. For it is one and the same whether through that power something will endure for an instant or for an infinite time, since its changeless being is not touched by time except by accident. [22] The fourth objection is this. In those beings that in moving are not themselves altered, it does not seem necessary that what moves in an infinite time should have an infinite power. For such a motion consumes nothing of their power, so that after they have moved for a time they are able to move for no less a time than before. Thus, the power of the sun is finite, and because its active power is not lessened by acting, it is able, according to its nature, to act on the sublunary world during an infinite time. [23] To this the reply is, as we have proved, that a body does not move unless it be moved. If, then, it should happen that a certain body is not moved, that body will consequently not move. But in everything that is moved there is a potency towards opposites, since the termini of motion are opposites. Therefore, of itself, every body that is moved can also not-be-moved. But what can not-be-moved is not of itself able to be moved through endless time, and hence neither to move through endless time. [24] The above demonstration, consequently, holds of the finite power of a finite body, which power of itself cannot move in an infinite time. But a body that of itself can be moved and not-moved, move and not-move, can acquire perpetuity of motion from another. This must be incorporeal. The first mover must, therefore, be incorporeal. Thus, according to its nature, nothing prevents a finite body, which acquires from another a perpetuity in being moved, from likewise having a perpetuity in moving. For the first heavenly body itself, according to its nature, can revolve the lower heavenly bodies with a perpetual motion, according as sphere moves sphere. Nor, according to the Commentator, is it impossible (as it was impossible in the me of perpetuity of being) that what of itself can be moved and not-moved should acquire perpetuity of motion from another. For motion is a certain flow out of the mover to the thing moved, and hence something moved can acquire from another a perpetuity of motion that it does not have of itself. To be, on the other hand, is something fixed and at rest in being, and, therefore, that which of itself is in potency to non-being cannot, as Averroes himself says [ In XII Metaphysicorum ], following the course of nature acquire from another a perpetuity of being. [25] The fifth objection is that, following the above reasoning, there does not seem to be a greater reason why an infinite power is not in a magnitude rather than outside a magnitude. For in either case it will follow that it moves in null time. [26] To this the reply is that, in magnitude, time, and motion, finite and infinite are found according to one and the same notion, as is proved in Physics III [4] and VI [2, 7]. Therefore, the infinite in one of them removes a finite proportion in the others. But in beings without magnitude there is no finite or infinite except equivocally. Hence, the aforementioned method of demonstration is not applicable among such potencies. [27] There is, however, another and better answer. The heavens have two movers, a proximate one with a finite power, which is responsible for the fact that they have a finite velocity, and a remote mover with an infinite power, which is responsible for the fact that their motion can be of an infinite duration. And thus it is evident that an infinite power that is not in a magnitude can move a body in time, but not immediately. But a power that is in a magnitude must move immediately, since no body moves except by being moved. Hence, if it did move, it would follow that it would move in null time. [28] An even better reply is this. A power that is not in a magnitude is an intellect, and moves by will. For we have proved that the intellect is not a corporeal power. Therefore, it moves according to the needs of the movable body and not the proportion of its power; whereas a power that is in a magnitude can move only through the necessity of nature. Thus, of necessity, it moves according to the proportion of its quantity. Hence, if it moves, it moves in an instant. [29] Thus, with the removal of the preceding objections, we see that the argumentation of Aristotle stands. [30] No motion, furthermore, which is from a corporeal mover can be continuous and regular, because in local motion a corporeal mover moves by pulling and pushing. Now, what is pulled or pushed is not uniformly disposed towards its mover from the beginning to the end of the motion, since at times it will be nearer and at other times farther away. Thus, no body can move with a continuous and regular motion. But the first motion is continuous and regular, as is proved in Physics VIII [7]. Therefore, the mover of the first motion is not a body. [31] Again, no motion to an end that passes from potency to act can be endless, since when it reaches act the motion comes to rest. If, then, the first motion is endless, it must aim at an end that is always and in all ways in act. But such an end is not a body or a power in a body, since all such things are movable either through themselves or by accident. Therefore, the end of the first motion is neither a body nor a power in a body. But the end of the first motion is the first mover, which moves as something desired. This, however, is God. God, therefore, is neither a body nor a power in a body. [32] However, although according to our faith it is false that the motion of the heavens is perpetual, as will be made evident later on, yet it is true that it will not fail either through a failure of power in the mover or through the corruption of the substance in the moved; for there is no evidence that the passing of time has slowed down the motion of the heavens. Hence, the above demonstrations do not lose their force. [33] With this demonstrated truth divine authority stands in agreement. For it is said in John (4:24): “God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth.” It is likewise said: “To the King of ages. immortal, invisible, the only God” (1 Tim. 1:17). Again: “The invisible things of God... are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20); for what is seen, not by sight, but by the intellect, is incorporeal. [34] Thereby is destroyed the error of the early natural philosophers, who posited only material causes, such as fire or water or the like, and who thus said that the first principles of things were bodies and called them gods. Among them there were some who further posited friendship and strife as moving causes. (They, too, were refuted through the above arguments.) For since, according to them, strife and friendship are in bodies, it will follow that the first moving principles are bodily powers. They also held that God is composed of the four elements and friendship, which would give us to understand that for them God was a heavenly body. Among the early thinkers, Anaxagoras alone approached the truth by positing that an intellect moved all things. [35] By this truth, too, are refuted the Gentiles, who, taking their beginning in the errors of the philosophers we have listed, posited that the elements of the world and the powers in them are gods; for example, the sun, the moon, the earth, water, and the like. [36] By the same arguments, moreover, are set aside the wild fantasies of the simple Jews, Tertullian, the Vodiani or Anthropomorphite heretics, who endowed God with a bodily figure; and also of the Manicheans, who thought that God was a certain infinite substance of light, stretched out through an infinite space. [37] The occasion of all these errors was that, in thinking of divine things, men were made the victims of their imagination, through which it is not possible to receive anything except the likeness of a body. This is why, in meditating on what is incorporeal, we must stop following the imagination.

Chapter

That God is His essence

[1] From what has been laid down we can infer that God is His essence, quiddity, or nature. [2] There must be some composition in every being that is not its essence or quiddity. Since, indeed, each thing possesses its own essence, if there were nothing in a thing outside its essence all that the thing is would be its essence; which would mean that the thing is its essence. But, if some thing were not its essence, there should be something in it outside its essence. Thus, there must be composition in it. Hence it is that the essence in composite things is signified as a part, for example, humanity in man. Now, it has been shown that there is no composition in God. God is, therefore, His essence. [3] Moreover, only that which does not enter the definition of a thing seems to be outside its essence or quiddity; for the definition signifies what a thing is. But it is only the accidents of a thing that do not fall in the definition; and therefore only the accidents in any thing are outside its essence. But, as will be shown, in God there are no accidents. There is, therefore, nothing in God outside His essence; and hence He is His essence. [4] Furthermore, forms that are not predicated of subsisting things, whether these be considered universally or each is taken singly, are forms that do not subsist through themselves as singulars individuated in themselves. We do not say that Socrates, or man, or animal is whiteness, because whiteness does not subsist as a singular through itself but is individuated through its subsisting subjects. In the same way, also, natural forms do not subsist as singulars through themselves but are individuated in their proper matters. That is why we do not say that this fire, or fire, is its own form. The very essences or quiddities of genera and species are individuated through the designated matter of this or that individual, even though the quiddity of the genus or the species should include common form and matter. That is why we do not say that Socrates or man is humanity. But the divine essence exists through itself as a singular existent and individuated through itself; for, as we have shown, it is not in any matter. The divine essence is predicated of God, therefore, so that we may say: God is His essence. [5] Again, the essence of a thing is either the thing itself or is related to the thing in some way as its cause; for a thing derives its species through its essence. But nothing can in any way be the cause of God, since, as we have shown, He is the first being. God is, therefore, His essence. [6] Then, too, what is not its essence is related to its essence, according to some part of itself, as potency to act. That is why the essence is signified in the manner of a form, for example, humanity. But, as was shown above, there is no potentiality in God. He must, therefore, be His essence.

Chapter

That in God being and essence are the same

[1] From what was proved above, however, we can further prove that His essence or quiddity is not something other than His being. [2] For it was shown above that there is some being that must be through itself, and this is God. If, then, this being that must be belongs to an essence that is not that which it is, either it is incompatible with that essence or repugnant to it, as to exist through itself is repugnant to the quiddity of whiteness, or it is compatible with it or appropriate to it, as to be in another is to whiteness. If the first alternative be the case, the being that is through itself necessary will not befit that quiddity, just as it does not befit whiteness to exist through itself. If the second alternative be the case, either such being must depend on the essence, or both must depend on another cause, or the essence must depend on the being. The first two alternatives are contrary to the nature of that which is through itself a necessary being; for if it depends on another, it is no longer a necessary being. From the third alternative it follows that that quiddity is added accidentally to the thing that is through itself a necessary being; for what follows upon a thing’s being is accidental to it and hence not its quiddity. God, therefore, does not have an essence that is not His being. [3] But against this conclusion it can be objected that that being does not absolutely depend on that essence, so as not to be unless the essence existed; it depends, rather, on the essence with reference to the union by which it is joined to it. Thus, that being is through itself necessary, but its union with the essence is not. [4] However, this reply does not escape the aforementioned difficulties. For, if that being can be understood without that essence, it will follow that the essence is related to that being in an accidental way. But that being is that which is through itself a necessary being. Therefore, that essence is related in an accidental way to that which is through itself a necessary being. It is, therefore, not its essence. But that which is through itself a necessary being is God. That essence, then, is not the essence of God, but some essence below God. On the other hand, if that being cannot be understood without that essence, it depends absolutely on that on which its union to that essence depends. We then reach the same impasse as before. 15] Another argument. Each thing is through its own being. Hence, that which is not its own being is not through itself a necessary being. But God is through Himself a necessary being. He is, therefore, His own being. [6] Again, if God’s being is not His essence, and cannot be part of that essence, since, as we have shown, the divine essence is simple, such a being must be something outside the divine essence. But whatever belongs to a thing and is yet not of its essence belongs to it through some cause; for, if things that are not through themselves one are joined, they must be joined through some cause. Being, therefore, belongs to that quiddity through some cause. This is either through something that is part of the essence of that thing, or the essence itself, or through something else. If we adopt the first alternative, and it is a fact that the essence is through that being, it follows that something is the cause of its own being. This is impossible, because, in their notions, the existence of the cause is prior to that of the effect. If, then, something were its own cause of being, it would be understood to be before it had being—which is impossible, unless we understand that something is the cause of its own being in an accidental order, which is being in an accidental way. This is not impossible. It is possible that there be an accidental being that is caused by the principles of its subject before the substantial being of its subject is understood as given. Here, however, we are speaking of substantial being, not accidental being. On the other hand, if the being belongs to the essence through some other cause, then this follows: given that what acquires its being from another cause is something caused, and is not the first cause, whereas God, as was demonstrated above, is the first cause and has no cause, the quiddity that acquires its being from another is not the quiddity of God. God's being must, therefore, be His quiddity. [7] Being, furthermore, is the name of an act, for a thing is not said to be because it is in potency but because it is in act. Everything, however, that has an act diverse from it is related to that act as potency to act; for potency and act are said relatively to one another. If, then, the divine essence is something other than its being, the essence and the being are thereby related as potency and act. But we have shown that in God there is no potency, but that He is pure act. God's essence, therefore, is not something other than His being. [8] Moreover, if something can exist only when several elements come together, it is composite. But no thing in which the essence is other than the being can exist unless several elements come together, namely, the essence and the being. Hence, every thing in which the essence is other than the being is composite. But, as we have shown, God is not composite. Therefore, God's being is His essence. [9] Every thing, furthermore, exists because it has being. A thing whose essence is not its being, consequently, is not through its essence but by participation in something, namely, being itself. But that which is through participation in something cannot be the first being, because prior to it is the being in which it participates in order to be. But God is the first being, with nothing prior to Him. His essence is, therefore, His being. [10] This sublime truth Moses was taught by our Lord. When Moses asked our Lord: “If the children of Israel say to me: what is His name? What shall I say to them?” The Lord replied: “I AM WHO AM.... You shall say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS has sent me to you” (Exod. 3:13, 14). By this our Lord showed that His own proper name is HE WHO IS. Now, names have been devised to signify the natures or essences of things. It remains, then, that the divine being is God's essence or nature. [11] Catholic teachers have likewise professed this truth. For Hilary writes in his book De Trinitate [II]: “Being is not an accident in God but subsisting truth, the abiding cause and the natural property His nature.” Boethius also says in his own work De Trinitate [II]: “The divine substance is being itself, and from it comes being.”

Chapter

That no accident is found in God

[1] It follows necessarily from this truth that nothing can come to God beyond His essence, nor can there be anything in Him in an accidental way. [2] For being cannot participate in anything that is not of its essence, although that which is can participate in something. The reason is that nothing is more formal or more simple than being, which thus participates in nothing. But the divine substance is being itself, and therefore has nothing that is not of its substance. Hence, no accident can reside in it. [3] Furthermore, what is present in a thing accidentally has a cause of its presence, since it is outside the essence of the thing in which it is found. If, then, something is found in God accidentally, this must be through some cause. Now, the cause of the accident is either the divine essence itself or something else. If something else, it must act on the divine essence, since nothing will cause the introduction of some form, substantial or accidental, in some receiving subject except by acting on it in some way. For to act is nothing other than to make something actual, which takes place through a form. Thus, God will suffer and receive the action of some cause—which is contrary to what we already established. On the other hand, let us suppose that the divine substance is the cause of the accident inhering in it. Now it is impossible that it be, as receiving it, the cause of the accident, for then one and the same thing would make itself to be actual in the same respect. Therefore, if there is an accident in God, it will be according to different respects that He receives and causes that accident, just as bodily things receive their accidents through the nature of their matter and cause them through their form. Thus, God will be composite. But, we have proved the contrary of this proposition above. [4] Every subject of an accident, moreover, is related to it as potency to act, since the accident is a certain form making the subject to be actual according to an accidental being. But, as we have shown above, there is no potentiality in God. There can, therefore, be no accident in Him. [5] Then, too, when a being has an accident inhering in it, it is in some way mutable according to its nature, since an accident can inhere or not-inhere. If, then, God has something belonging to Him in an accidental way, He will consequently be mutable. But the contrary of this was demonstrated above. [6] Again, that which has an accident inhering in it is not whatever it has in itself, since an accident is not part of the essence of the subject. But God is what He has in Himself. There is, therefore, no accident in God. The minor proposition is proved thus. Everything is found in a more noble way in the cause than in an effect. But God is the cause of all things. Hence, whatever is in Him is there in the most noble way. Now, what a thing itself is, this belongs to it in a most perfect way. For this is some thing more perfectly one than when something is joined to something else substantially as form to matter; just as substantial union is more perfect than when something inheres in something else as an accident. God, then, is whatever He has. [7] It is also a fact that a substance does not depend on an accident, although an accident depends on a substance. But what does not depend on something can sometimes be found without it. Some substance, then, can be found without an accident. This seems especially to fit the substance that is most simple, such as the divine substance is. The divine substance, therefore, has no accidents whatever. [8] In dealing with this problem, Catholics likewise give assent to this opinion. Whence Augustine says in his De Trinitate [V, 4] that “there is no accident in God.” [9] The proof of this truth serves as a refutation of the error of some Saracen theologians “who posit certain intentions superadded to the divine essence.

Chapter

THAT THE DIVINE BEING CANNOT 13E DETERMINED BY THE ADDITION OF SOME SUBSTANTIAL DIFFERENCE

[1] We can likewise show from what we have said that nothing can be added to the divine being to determine it with an essential determination, as a genus is determined by its differences. [2] Nothing can be in act unless everything that determines its substantial act of being exists. Thus, there cannot be an actual animal unless it be a rational or an irrational animal. Hence, the Platonists themselves, in positing the Ideas, did not posit self-existing Ideas of genera, which are determined to the being of their species through essential differences; rather, they posited self-existing Ideas solely of species, which for their determination need no essential differences. If, then, the divine being is determined essentially through something else superadded to it, it will be in act only if what is superadded is present. But the divine being, as we have shown, is the divine substance itself. Therefore the divine substance cannot be in act without the presence of something added; from which it can be concluded that it is not through itself a necessary being. But, we have proved the contrary of this proposition above. [3] Moreover, what needs an addition in order to be is in potency in relation to this addition. But, as we have shown, the divine substance is not in any way in potency; rather, the divine substance is its being. The divine being, therefore, cannot be determined in its substance through something superadded to it. [4] Again, that through which a thing derives being in act and is intrinsic to it is either the whole essence of that thing or a part of the essence. But that which determines something in an essential way makes that thing to be in act and is intrinsic to the determined thing; otherwise, the thing could not be determined substantially by it. It must therefore be either the essence itself or a part of the essence. But, if something is added to the divine being, this cannot be the whole essence of God, since it has already been shown that God’s being is not other than His essence. It must, then, be a part of the essence, which means that God will be composed of essential parts. But, we have proved the contrary of this above. [5] Furthermore, what is added to a thing to give it a certain essential determination does not constitute its nature but only its being in act. For rational added to animal gains for animal being in act, but it does not constitute the nature of animal as animal, since the difference does not enter the definition of the genus. But, if something is added in God by which He is determined in His essence, that addition must constitute for the being to which it is added the nature of its own quiddity or essence, since what is thus added gains for a thing its being in act. But in God this “being in act” is the divine essence itself, as we have shown above. It remains, then, that to the divine being nothing can be added that determines it in an essential way, as the difference determines the genus.

Chapter

That God is not in some genus

[1] From this we infer necessarily that God is not in some genus. [2] Every thing in a genus has something within it by which the nature of the genus is determined to its species; for nothing is in a genus that is not in some species of that genus. But, as we have shown, this determination cannot take place in God. God cannot, then, be in some genus. [3] If, moreover, God is in a genus, either He is in the genus of accident or in that of substance. He is not in the genus of accident, since the first being and the first cause cannot be an accident. Neither can God be in the genus of substance, since the substance that is a genus is not being itself; otherwise, every substance would be its being and would thus not be caused by another—which is impossible, as is evident from what we have said. Therefore, God is not in some genus. [4] Again, whatever is in a genus differs in being from the other things in that genus; otherwise, the genus would not be predicated of many things. But all the things that are in the same genus must agree in the quiddity of the genus, since the genus is predicated of all things in it in terms of what they are. In other words, the being of each thing found in a genus is outside the quiddity of the genus. This is impossible in God. God, therefore, is not in a genus. [5] Then, too, each thing is placed in a genus through the nature of its quiddity, for the genus is a predicate expressing what a thing is. But the quiddity of God is His very being. Accordingly, God is not located in a genus, because then being, which signifies the act of being, would be a genus. Therefore, God is not in a genus. [6] Now, that being cannot be a genus is proved by the Philosopher in the following way [ Metaphysics III, 3]. If being were a genus we should have to find a difference through which to contract it to a species. But no difference shares in the genus in such a way that the genus is included in the notion of the difference, for thus the genus would be included twice in the definition of the species. Rather, the difference is outside what is understood in the nature of the genus. But there can be nothing that is outside that which is understood by being, if being is included in the concept of the things of which it is predicated. Thus, being cannot be contracted by any difference. Being is, therefore, not a genus. From this we conclude necessarily that God is not in a genus. [7] From this it is likewise evident that God cannot be defined, for every definition is constituted from the genus and the differences. [8] It is also clear that no demonstration is possible about God, except through an effect; for the principle of demonstration is the definition of that of which the demonstration is made. [9] Now it can seem to someone that, although the name substance cannot properly apply to God because God does not substand accidents, yet the thing signified by the name is appropriate and thus God is in the genus of substance. For a substance is a being through itself. Now, this is appropriate to God, since we have proved that He is not an accident. [10] To this contention we must reply, in accord with what we have said, that being through itself is not included in the definition of substance. For, if something is called being, it cannot be a genus, since we have already proved that being does not have the nature of a genus. Neither can what is through itself be a genus, since the expression seems to indicate nothing more than a negation. Something is said to be a being through itself because it is not in another. This is a pure negation, which likewise cannot constitute the nature of a genus; for a genus would then say, not what a thing is, but what it is not. The nature of substance, therefore, must be understood as follows. A substance is a thing to which it belongs to be not in a subject. The name thing takes its origin from the quiddity, just as the name being comes from to be. In this way, the definition of substance is understood as that which has a quiddity to which it belongs to be not in another. Now, this is not appropriate to God, for He has no quiddity save His being. In no way, then, is God in the genus of substance. Thus, He is in no genus, since we have shown that He is not in the genus of accident.

Chapter

That God is not the formal being of all things

[1] We are now able to refute the error of certain persons who said that God is nothing other than the formal being of each thing. [2] This being is divided into the being of substance and the being of accident. Now, we have proved that the divine being is neither the being of substance nor that of accident. God, therefore, cannot be that being by which each thing formally is. [3] Furthermore, things are not distinguished from one another in having being, for in this they agree. If, then, things differ from one another, either their being must be specified through certain added differences, so that diverse things have a diverse being according to their species, or things must differ in that the being itself is appropriate to natures that are diverse in species. The first of these alternatives is impossible, since, as we have said, no addition can be made to a being in the manner in which a difference is added to a genus. It remains, then, that things differ because they have diverse natures, to which being accrues in a diverse way. Now, the divine being does not accrue to a nature that is other than it; it is the nature itself, as we have said. If, therefore, the divine being were the formal being of all things, all things would have to be absolutely one. [4] Then, too, a principle is naturally prior to that whose principle it is. Now, in certain things being has something that is as its principle. For the form is said to be a principle of being, and so is the agent, that makes things to be in act. If, therefore, the divine being is the being of each thing, it will follow that God, Who is His own being, has some cause. Thus, He is not through Himself a necessary being. But, we have proved the contrary of this conclusion above. [5] Moreover, that which is common to many is not outside the many except by the reason alone. Thus, animal is not something outside Socrates and Plato and the other animals except in the intellect that apprehends the form of animal stripped of all its individuating and specifying characteristics. For man is that which truly is animal; otherwise, it would follow that in Socrates and Plato there are several animals, namely, common animal itself, common man, and Plato himself. Much less, then, is common being itself something outside all existing things, save only for being in the intellect. Hence, if God is common being, the only thing that will exist is that which exists solely in the intellect. But we showed above that God is something not only in the intellect but also in reality. Therefore, God is not the common being of all things. [6] Again, strictly speaking, generation is the way to being and corruption the way to non-being. For form is not the terminus of generation, and privation is not the terminus of corruption, except because a form causes being and privation non-being. If a form did not cause being, a thing which received such a form would not be said to be generated. Hence, if God is the formal being of all things, He will consequently be the terminus of generation. This is false, since, as we have shown above, God is eternal. [7] It will also follow that the being of each thing has existed from eternity. Generation or corruption is therefore impossible. If it does exist, pre-existing being must accrue to something anew. It will therefore accrue either to something pre-existing or to something in no way pre-existing. In the first instance, since according to the above position the being of all existing things is one, it will follow that a thing that is said to be generated acquires, not a new being, but a new mode of being. The result is alteration, not generation. But, if the generated thing in no way pre-existed, it will follow that it is produced from nothing—which is contrary to the nature of generation. This position, therefore, entirely ruins generation and corruption and, as a consequence, is evidently impossible. [8] Sacred Teaching as well casts aside this error in confessing that God is “high and elevated,” according to Isaiah (6:1), and that He is “over all,” according to Romans (9:5). For, if He is the being of all things, He is part of all things, but not over them. [9] So, too, those who committed this error are condemned by the same judgment as are the idolaters who “gave the incommunicable name,” that is, of God, “to wood and stones,” as it is written (Wis. 14:21). If, indeed, God is the being of all things, there will be no more reason to say truly that a stone is a being than to say that a stone is God. [10] Four factors seem to have contributed to the rise of this error. The first is the warped interpretation of certain authoritative texts. There is in Dionysius this remark [ De caelisti hierarchia IV, 1]: “The being of all things is the super-essential divinity.” From this remark they wished to infer that God is the formal being of all things, without considering that this interpretation could not square with the words themselves. For, if the divinity is the formal being of all things, it will not be over all but among all, indeed a part of all. Now, since Dionysius said that the divinity was above all things, he showed that according to its nature it was distinct from all things and raised above all things. And when he said that the divinity is the being of all things, he showed that there was in all things a certain likeness of the divine being, coming from God. Elsewhere Dionysius has rather openly set aside this warped interpretation. He has said: “God neither touches nor is in any way mingled with other things, as a point touches a line or the figure of a seal touches wax” [ De divinis nominibusi II, 5]. [11] The second cause leading them to this error is a failure of reason. For, since that which is common is specified or individuated through addition, they thought that the divine being, which receives no addition, was not some proper being but the common being of all things. They ignored the fact that what is common or universal cannot exist without addition, but is considered without addition. For animal cannot be without the difference rational or the difference irrational, although it is considered without these differences. What is more, although a universal may be considered without addition, it is not without the receptibility of addition; for, if no difference could be added to animal, it would not be a genus. The same is true of all other names. But the divine being is without addition not only in thought but also in reality; and not only without addition but also without the receptibility of addition. From the fact, then, that it neither receives nor can receive addition we can rather conclude that God is not common being but proper being; for His being is distinguished from all the rest by the fact that nothing can be added to it. Hence the Commentator says in the Book of Causes that, out of the purity of its goodness, the first cause is distinguished from the rest and in a manner individuated. [12] The third factor that led them into this error concerns the divine simplicity. God is at the peak of simplicity. They therefore thought that the last point of resolution in our way of seeing things is God, as being absolutely simple. For it is not possible to proceed to infinity in composition among the things we know. Their reason also failed because they did not observe that what is most simple in our understanding of things is not so much a complete thing as a part of a thing. But, simplicity is predicated of God as of some perfect subsisting thing. [13] A fourth factor that could have led them to their error is the mode of expression we use when we say that God is in all things. By this we do not mean that God is in things as a part of a thing, but as the cause of a thing that is never lacking to its effect. For we do not say that a form is in matter as a sailor is in a ship.

Chapter

That God is not the form of any body

[1] Having shown that God is not the being of all things, we can likewise show that He is not the form of any thing. [2] As we have shown, the divine being cannot belong to any quiddity that is not being itself. Now, only God is the divine being itself. It is impossible, therefore, for God to be the form of some other being. [3] Furthermore, the form of a body is not the being itself, but a principle of being. But God is being itself. He is, therefore, not the form of a body. [4] Again, the union of form and matter results in a composite, which is a whole with respect to the matter and the form. But the parts are in potency in relation to the whole. In God, however, there is no potentiality. Therefore, God cannot be a form united to some thing. [5] Moreover, that which has being through itself is nobler than that which has being in another. But every form of a body has being in another. Since, then, God, as the first cause of being, is the noblest being, He cannot be the form of any being. [6] The same conclusion can also be reached in the following way from the eternity of motion. If God is the form of some movable body, since He is the first mover, the composite will be self-moving. But something self-moving can be moved and not-moved. Both possibilities are found in it. But such a being does not of itself have an indefectibility of motion. Above the self-moving being, therefore, we must posit another first mover, which gives to the self-moving being the endlessness of its motion. Thus, God, Who is the first mover, is not the form of a self-moving body. [7] This argumentation is suitable for those who posit the eternity of motion. Those who do not posit it can reach the same conclusion from the regularity of the motion of the heavens. For just as a self-mover can be at rest and in motion, so it can be moved more swiftly and less so. The necessity in the uniformity of the motion of the heavens, therefore, depends on some higher and absolutely immobile principle, which is not a part of a self-moving body as the form of that body. [8] The authority of Scripture is in agreement with this truth. For it is said in a Psalm (8:2): “Your magnificence is elevated above the heavens”; and in Job (11:8, 9): “He is higher than heaven, and what will you do?... His measure is longer than the earth and deeper than the sea.” [9] Thus, then, is removed the error of the Gentiles, who said that God is the soul of the heavens, or even the soul of the whole world. Thereby they defended the error of idolatry, by saying that the whole world was God not by reason of the body but by reason of the soul; just as man is said to be wise not by reason of the body but by reason of the soul. On the basis of this error the Gentiles thought it to follow that, not unfittingly, divine worship should be shown to the world and its parts. The Commentator also says that this point was the place where the Zabii stumbled and fell from wisdom—because, namely, they posited that God is the form of the heavens [ In XII Metaphysicorum ].

Chapter

ON THE DIVINE PERFECTION

[1] Although the things that exist and live are more perfect than the things that merely exist, nevertheless, God, Who is not other than His being, is a universally perfect being. And I call universally perfect that to which the excellence of no genus is lacking. [2] Every excellence in any given thing belongs to it according to its being. For man would have no excellence as a result of his wisdom unless through it he were wise. So, too, with the other excellences. Hence, the mode of a thing’s excellence is according to the mode of its being. For a thing is said to be more or less excellent according as its being is limited to a certain greater or lesser mode of excellence. Therefore, if there is something to which the whole power of being belongs, it can lack no excellence that is proper to some thing. But for a thing that is its own being it is proper to be according to the whole power of being. For example, if there were a separately existing whiteness, it could not lack any of the power of whiteness. For a given white thing lacks something of the power of whiteness through a defect in the receiver of the whiteness, which receives it according to its mode and perhaps not according to the whole power of whiteness. God, therefore, Who is His being, as we have proved above, has being according to the whole power of being itself. Hence, He cannot lack any excellence that belongs to any given thing. [3] But just as every excellence and perfection is found in a thing according as that thing is, so every defect is found in it according as in some way it is not. Now, just as God bas being wholly, so non-being is wholly absent from Him. For as a thing has being, in that way is it removed from non-being. Hence, all defect is absent from God. He is, therefore, universally perfect. [4] Those things that merely exist are not imperfect because of an imperfection in absolute being. For they do not possess being according to its whole power; rather, they participate in it through a certain particular and most imperfect mode. [5] Furthermore, everything that is imperfect must be preceded by something perfect. Thus, the seed is from the animal or the plant. The first being must, therefore, be most perfect. But we have shown that God is the first being. He is, therefore, most perfect. [6] Again, each thing is perfect according as it is in act, and imperfect according as it is in potency and lacking act. Hence, that which is in no way in potency, but is pure act, must be most perfect. Such, however, is God. God is, therefore, most perfect. [7] Nothing, moreover, acts except as it is in act. Hence, action follows the mode of act in the agent. It is therefore impossible that an effect brought forth by an action be of a more excellent act than is the act of the agent. On the other hand, it is possible that the act of the effect be less perfect than the act of the efficient cause, since an action can become weakened through the effect in which it terminates. Now, in the genus of the efficient cause there is a reduction to one cause, called God, as is evident from what we have said; and from this cause, as we shall show later on, all things come. Hence, it is necessary that whatever is found in act in any thing whatever must be found in God in a more eminent way than in that thing itself. But the converse is not true. God, therefore, is most perfect. [8] In every genus, furthermore, there is something that is most perfect for that genus, acting as a measure for all other things in the genus. For each thing is shown to be more or less perfect according as it approaches more or less to the measure of its genus. Thus, white is said to be the measure among all colors, and the virtuous man among all men. Now, the measure of all beings cannot be other than God, Who is His own being. No perfection, consequently, that is appropriate to this or that thing is lacking to Him; otherwise, He would not be the common measure of all things. [9] This is why, when Moses asked to see the divine countenance or glory, he received this reply from the Lord: “I will show you all good,” as it is written in Exodus (33:18, 19); by which the Lord gave Moses to understand that the fullness of all goodness was in Him. Dionysius likewise says: “God does not exist in a certain way; He possesses, and this before all others, all being within Himself absolutely and limitlessly” [ De div. nom. V, 4]. [10] We must note, however, that perfection cannot be attributed to God appropriately if we consider the signification of the name according to its origin; for it does not seem that what is not made [ factum ] can be called perfect [ perfectum ]. But everything that comes to be is brought forth from potency to act and from non-being to being when it has been made. That is why it is rightly said to be perfect, as being completely made, at that moment when the potency is wholly reduced to act, so that it retains no non-being but has a completed being. By a certain extension of the name, consequently, perfect is said not only of that which by way of becoming reaches a completed act, but also of that which, without any making whatever, is in complete act. It is thus that, following the words of Matthew (5:48), we say that God is perfect: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Chapter

ON THE LIKENESS OF CREATURES TO GOD

[1] In the light of what we have said, we are able to consider how a likeness to God is and is not possible in things. [2] Effects that fall short of their causes do not agree with them in name and nature. Yet, some likeness must be found between them, since it belongs to the nature of action that an agent produce its like, since each thing acts according as it is in act. The form of an effect, therefore, is certainly found in some measure in a transcending cause, but according to another mode and another way. For this reason the cause is called an equivocal cause. Thus, the sun causes heat among these sublunary bodies by acting according as it is in act. Hence, the heat generated by the sun must bear some likeness to the active power of the sun, through which beat is caused in this sublunary world; and because of this beat the sun is said to be hot, even though not in one and the same way. And so the sun is said to be somewhat like those things in which it produces its effects as an efficient cause. Yet the sun is also unlike all these things in so far as such effects do not possess heat and the like in the same way as they are found in the sun. So, too, God gave things all their perfections and thereby is both like and unlike all of them. [3] Hence it is that Sacred Scripture recalls the likeness between God and creatures, as when it is said in Genesis (1:26): “Let us make man to our image and likeness.” At times the likeness is denied, as in the text of Isaiah (40:18): “To whom then have you likened God, and what image will you make for Him?” or in the Psalm (82:1) [Vulgate]: “O God, who is like You?” [4] Dionysius is in agreement with this argument when he says: “The same things are both like and unlike God. They are like according as they imitate as much as they can Him Who is not perfectly imitable, they are unlike according as effects are lesser than their causes” [ De div. nom. IX, 7]. [5] In the light of this likeness, nevertheless, it is more fitting to say that a creature is like God rather than the converse. For that is called like something which possesses a quality or form of that thing. Since, then, that which is found in God perfectly is found in other things according to a certain diminished participation, the basis on which the likeness is observed belongs to God absolutely, but not to the creature. Thus, the creature has what belongs to God and, consequently, is rightly said to be like God. But we cannot in the same way say that God has what belongs to the creature. Neither, then, can we appropriately say that God is like a creature, just as we do not say that man is like his image, although the image is rightly said to be like him. [6] All the less proper, moreover, is the expression that God is likened to a creature. For likening expresses a motion towards likeness and thus belongs to the being that receives from another that which makes it like. But a creature receives from God that which makes it like Him. The converse, however, does not hold. God, then, is not likened to a creature; rather, the converse is true.

Chapter

The names that can be predicated of God

[1] From what we have said we can further consider what it is possible to say or not to say of God, what is said of Him alone, and also what is said of Him and other things together. [2] Since it is possible to find in God every perfection of creatures, but in another and more eminent way, whatever names unqualifiedly designate a perfection without defect are predicated of God and of other things: for example, goodness, wisdom, being, and the like. But when any name expresses such perfections along with a mode that is proper to a creature, it can be said of God only according to likeness and metaphor. According to metaphor, what belongs to one thing is transferred to another, as when we say that a man is a stone because of the hardness of his intellect. Such names are used to designate the species of a created thing, for example, man and stone, for to each species belongs its own mode of perfection and being. The same is true of whatever names designate the properties of things, which are caused by the proper principles of their species. Hence, they can be said of God only metaphorically. But the names that express such perfections along with the mode of supereminence with which they belong to God are said of God alone. Such names are the highest good, the first being, and the like. [3] I have said that some of the aforementioned names signify a perfection without defect. This is true with reference to that which the name was imposed to signify; for as to the mode of signification, every name is defective. For by means of a name we express things in the way in which the intellect conceives them. For our intellect, taking the origin of its knowledge from the senses, does not transcend the mode which is found in sensible things, in which the form and the subject of the form are not identical owing to the composition of form and matter. Now, a simple form is indeed found among such things, but one that is imperfect because it is not subsisting; on the other hand, though a subsisting subject of a form is found among sensible things, it is not simple but rather concreted. Whatever our intellect signifies as subsisting, therefore, it signifies in concretion; but what it signifies as simple, it signifies, not as that which is, but as that by which something is. As a result, with reference to the mode of signification there is in every name that we use an imperfection, which does not befit God, even though the thing signified in some eminent way does befit God. This is clear in the name goodness and good. For goodness has signification as something not subsisting, while good has signification as something concreted. And so with reference to the mode of signification no name is fittingly applied to God; this is done only with reference to that which the name has been imposed to signify. Such names, therefore, as Dionysius teaches [ De divinis nominibus I, 5, De caelesti hierarchia II, 3], can be both affirmed and denied of God. They can be affirmed because of the meaning of the name; they can be denied because of the mode of signification. [4] Now, the mode of supereminence in which the abovementioned perfections are found in God can be signified by names used by us only through negation, as when we say that God is eternal or infinite, or also through a relation of God to other things, as when He is called the first cause or the highest good. For we cannot grasp what God is, but only what He is not and how other things are related to Him, as is clear from what we said above.

Chapter

THAT THE DIVINE PERFECTION AND THE PLURALITY OF DIVINE NAMES ARE NOT OPPOSED TO THE DIVINE SIMPLICITY [1] From what has been said it can likewise be seen that the divine perfection and the plurality of names said of God are not opposed to His simplicity. [2] We have said that all the perfections found in other things are attributed to God in the same way as effects are found in their equivocal causes. These effects are in their causes virtually, as heat is in the sun. For, unless the power of the sun belonged to some extent to the genus of heat, the sun acting through this power would not generate anything like itself. The sun, then, is said to be hot through this power not only because it produces heat, but also because the power through which it does this has some likeness to heat. But through the same power through which it produces heat, the sun produces also many other effects among sublunary bodies-for example, dryness. And thus heat and dryness, which in fire are diverse qualities, belong to the sun through one and the same power. So, too, the perfections of all things, which belong to the rest of things through diverse forms, must be attributed to God through one and the same power in Him. This power is nothing other than His essence, since, as we have proved, there can be no accident in God. Thus, therefore, God is called wise not only in so far as He produces wisdom, but also because, in so far as we are wise, we imitate to some extent the power by which He makes us wise. On the other hand, God is not called a stone, even though He has made stones, because in the name stone there is understood a determinate mode of being according to which a stone is distinguished from God. But the stone imitates God as its cause in being and goodness, and other such characteristics, as do also the rest of creatures. [3] A similar situation obtains among the knowing and operative powers of man. For by its single power the intellect knows all the things that the sensitive part of the soul grasps through a diversity of powers-and many other things as well. So, too, the higher an intellect is, the more it can know more things through one likeness, while a lesser intellect manages to know many things only through many likenesses. So, too, a ruling power extends to all those things to which diverse powers under it are ordered. In this way, therefore, through His one simple being God possesses every kind of perfection that all other things come to possess, but in a much more diminished way, through diverse principles. [4] From this we see the necessity of giving to God many names. For, since we cannot know Him naturally except by arriving at Him from His effects, the names by which we signify His perfection must be diverse, just as the perfections belonging to things are found to be diverse. Were we able to understand the divine essence itself as it is and give to it the name that belongs to it, we would express it by only one name. This is promised to those who will see God through His essence: “In that day there shall be one Lord, and His name shall be one” (Zach. 14:9).

Chapter

That nothing is predicated univocally of God and other things

[1] It is thereby evident that nothing can be predicated univocally of God and other things. [2] An effect that does not receive a form specifically the same as that through which the agent acts cannot receive according to a univocal predication the name arising from that form. Thus, the heat generated by the sun and the sun itself are not called univocally hot. Now, the forms of the things God has made do not measure up to a spccific likeness of the divine power; for the things that God has made receive in a divided and particular way that which in Him is found in a simple and universal way. It is evident, then, that nothing can be said univocally of God and other things. [3] If, furthermore, an effect should measure up to the species of its cause, it will not receive the univocal predication of the name unless it receives the same specific form according to the same mode of being. For the house that is in the art of the maker is not univocally the same house that is in matter, for the form of the house does not have the same being in the two locations. Now, even though the rest of things were to receive a form that is absolutely the same as it is in God, yet they do not receive it according to the same mode of being. For, as is clear from what we have said, there is nothing in God that is not the divine being itself, which is not the case with other things. Nothing, therefore, can be predicated of God and other things univocally. [4] Moreover, whatever is predicated of many things univocally is either a genus, a species, a difference, an accident, or a property. But, as we have shown, nothing is predicated of God as a genus or a difference; and thus neither is anything predicated as a definition, nor likewise as a species, which is constituted of genus and difference. Nor, as we have shown, can there be any accident in God, and therefore nothing is predicated of Him either as an accident or a property, since property belongs to the genus of accidents. It remains, then, that nothing is predicated univocally of God and other things. [5] Again, what is predicated of many things univocally is simpler than both of them, at least in concept. Now, there can be nothing simpler than God either in reality or in concept. Nothing, therefore, is predicated univocally of God and other things. [6] Everything, likewise, that is predicated univocally of many things belongs through participation to each of the things of which it is predicated; for the species is said to participate in the genus and the individual in the species. But nothing is said of God by participation, since whatever is participated is determined to the mode of that which is participated and is thus possessed in a partial way and not according to every mode of perfection. Nothing, therefore, can be predicated univocally of God and other things. [7] Then, too, what is predicated of some things according to priority and posteriority is certainly not predicated univocally. For the prior is included in the definition of the posterior, as substance is included in the definition of accident according as an accident is a being. If, then, being were said univocally of substance and accident, substance would have to be included in the definition of being in so far as being is predicated of substance. But this is clearly impossible. Now nothing is predicated of God and creatures as though they were in the same order, but, rather, according to priority and posteriority. For all things are predicated of God essentially. For God is called being as being entity itself, and He is called good as being goodness itself. But in other beings predications are made by participation, as Socrates is said to be a man, not because he is humanity itself, but because he possesses humanity. It is impossible, therefore, that anything be predicated univocally of God and other things.

Chapter

THAT NOT ALL NAMES ARE SAID OF GOD AND CREATURES IN A PURELY EQUIVOCAL WAY [1] From what we have said it likewise appears that not everything predicated of God and other things is said in a purely equivocal way, in the manner of equivocals by chance. [2] For in equivocals by chance there is no order or reference of one to another, but it is entirely accidental that one name is applied to diverse things: the application of the name to one of them does not signify that it has an order to the other. But this is not the situation with names said of God and creatures, since we note in the community of such names the order of cause and effect, as is clear from what we have said. It is not, therefore, in the manner of pure equivocation that something is predicated of God and other things. [3] Furthermore, where there is pure equivocation, there is no likeness in things themselves; there is only the unity of a name. But, as is clear from what we have said, there is a certain mode of likeness of things to God. It remains, then, that names are not said of God in a purely equivocal way. [4] Moreover, when one name is predicated of several things in a purely equivocal way, we cannot from one of them be led to the knowledge of another; for the knowledge of things does not depend on words, but on the meaning of names. Now, from what we find in other things, we do arrive at a knowledge of divine things, as is evident from what we have said. Such names, then, are not said of God and other things in a purely equivocal way. [5] Again, equivocation in a name impedes the process of reasoning. If, then, nothing was said of God and creatures except in a purely equivocal way, no reasoning proceeding from creatures to God could take place. But, the contrary is evident from all those who have spoken about God. [6] It is also a fact that a name is predicated of some being uselessly unless through that name we understand something of the being. But, if names are said of God and creatures in a purely equivocal way, we understand nothing of God through those names; for the meanings of those names are known to us solely to the extent that they are said of creatures. In vain, therefore, would it be said or proved of God that He is a being, good, or the like. [7] Should it be replied that through such names we know only what God is not, namely, that God is called living because He does not belong to the genus of lifeless things, and so with the other names, it will at least have to be the case that living said of God and creatures agrees in the denial of the lifeless. Thus, it will not be said in a purely equivocal way.

Chapter

That names said of God and creatures are said analogically

[1] From what we have said, therefore, it remains that the names said of God and creatures are predicated neither univocally nor equivocally but analogically, that is, according to an order or reference to something one. [2] This can take place in two ways. In one way, according as many things have reference to something one. Thus, with reference to one health we say that an animal is healthy as the subject of health, medicine is healthy as its cause, food as its preserver, urine as its sign. [3] In another way, the analogy can obtain according as the order or reference of two things is not to something else but to one of them. Thus, being is said of substance and accident according as an accident has reference to a substance, and not according as substance and accident are referred to a third thing. [4] Now, the names said of God and things are not said analogically according to the first mode of analogy, since we should then have to posit something prior to God, but according to the second mode. [5] In this second mode of analogical predication the order according to the name and according to reality is sometimes found to be the same and sometimes not. For the order of the name follows the order of knowledge, because it is the sign of an intelligible conception. When, therefore, that which is prior in reality is found likewise to be prior in knowledge, the same thing is found to be prior both according to the meaning of the name and according to the nature of the thing. Thus, substance is prior to accident both in nature, in so far as substance is the cause of accident, and in knowledge, in so far as substance is included in the definition of accident. Hence, being is said of substance by priority over accident both according to the nature of the thing and according to the meaning of the name. But when that which is prior in nature is subsequent in our knowledge, then there is not the same order in analogicals according to reality and according to the meaning of the name. Thus, the power to heal, which is found in all health-giving things, is by nature prior to the health that is in the animal, as a cause is prior to an effect; but because we know this healing power through an effect, we likewise name it from its effect. Hence it is that the health-giving is prior in reality, but animal is by priority called healthy according to the meaning of the name. [6] Thus, therefore, because we come to a knowledge of God from other things, the reality in the names said of God and other things belongs by priority in God according to His mode of being, but the meaning of the name belongs to God by posteriority. And so He is said to be named from His effects.

Chapter

That many names said of God are not synonyms

[1] It is likewise shown from what has been said that, although names said of God signify the same reality, they are yet not synonyms because they do not signify the same notion. [2] For just as diverse things are likened through their diverse forms to the one simple reality that God is, so our intellect through its diverse conceptions is to some extent likened to God in so far as it is led through the diverse perfections of creatures to know Him. Therefore, in forming many conceptions of one thing, our intellect is neither false nor futile, because the simple being of God, as we have shown, is such that things can be likened to it according to the multiplicity of their forms. But in accord with its diverse conceptions our intellect devises diverse names that it attributes to God. Hence, since these names are not attributed to God according to the same notion, it is evident that they are not synonyms, even though they signify a reality that is absolutely one. For the signification of the name is not the same, since a name signifies the conception of the intellect before it signifies the thing itself understood by the intellect.

Chapter

How our intellect forms a proposition about God

[1] From this it is further evident that, although God is absolutely simple, it is not futile for our intellect to form enunciations concerning God in His simplicity by means of composition and division. [2] For although, as we have said, our intellect arrives at the knowledge of God through diverse conceptions, it yet understands that what corresponds to all of them is absolutely one. For the intellect does not attribute its mode of understanding to the things that it understands; for example, it does not attribute immateriality to a stone even though it knows the stone immaterially. It therefore sets forth the unity of a thing by a composition of words, which is a mark of identity, when it says, God is good or goodness. The result is that if there is some diversity in the composition, it is referred to the intellect, whereas the unity is referred to the thing understood by the intellect. On the same basis, our intellect sometimes forms an enunciation about God with a certain mark of diversity in it, through the use of a preposition, as when we say, there is goodness in God. Here, too, there is indicated a certain diversity, which belongs to the intellect, and a certain unity, which must be referred to the reality. p style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.125in"> Chapter 37

That God is good

[1] From the divine perfection, which we have shown, we can conclude to the goodness of God. [2] For that by which each thing is called good is the virtue that belongs to it; for “the virtue of each thing is what makes its possessor and his work good.” Now, virtue “is a certain perfection, for each thing is then called perfect when it reaches the virtue belonging to it,” as may be seen in Physics VII [3]. Hence, each thing is good from the fact that it is perfect. That is why each thing seeks its perfection as the good belonging to it. But we have shown that God is perfect. Therefore, He is good. [3] Again, it was shown above that there is a certain first unmoved mover, namely, God’s This mover moves as a completely unmoved mover, which is as something desired. Therefore, since God is the first unmoved mover, He is the first desired. But something is desired in two ways, namely, either because it is good or because it appears to be good. The first desired is what is good, since the apparent good does not move through itself but according as it has a certain appearance of the good, whereas the good moves through itself. The first desired, therefore, God, is truly good. [4] Furthermore, “the good is that which all things desire.” The Philosopher introduces this remark as a “felicitous saying” in Ethics I [1]. But all things, each according to its mode, desire to be in act; this is clear from the fact that each thing according to its nature resists corruption. To be in act, therefore, constitutes the nature of the good. Hence it is that evil, which is opposed to the good, follows when potency is deprived of act, as is clear from the Philosopher in Metaphysics IX [9]. But, as we have shown, God is being in act without potency. Therefore, He is truly good. [5] Moreover,.the communication of being and goodness arises from goodness. This is evident from the very nature and definition of the good. By nature, the good of each thing is its act and perfection. Now, each thing acts in so far as it is in act, and in acting it diffuses being and goodness to other things. Hence, it is a sign of a being’s perfection that it “can produce its like,” as may be seen from the Philosopher in Meteorologica IV [3]. Now, the nature of the good comes from its being something appetible. This is the end, which also moves the agent to act. That is why it is said that the good is diffusive of itself and of being. But this diffusion befits God because, as we have shown above, being through Himself the necessary being, God is the cause of being for other things. God is, therefore, truly good. [6] That is why it is written in a Psalm (72:1): “How good is God to Israel, to those who are of a right heart!” And again: “The Lord is good to those who hope in Him, to the soul that seeks Him” (Lam. 3:25).

Chapter

That God is goodness itself

[1] From this we can conclude that God is His goodness. [2] To be in act is for each being its good. But God is not only a being in act; He is His very act of being, as we have shown. God is, therefore, goodness itself, and not only good. [3] Again, as we have shown, the perfection of each thing is its goodness. But the perfection of the divine being is not affirmed on the basis of something added to it, but because the divine being, as was shown above, is perfect in itself. The goodness of God, therefore, is not something added to His substance; His substance is His goodness. [4] Moreover, each good thing that is not its goodness is called good by participation. But that which is named by participation has something prior to it from which it receives the character of goodness. This cannot proceed to infinity, since among final causes there is no regress to infinity, since the infinite is opposed to the end [ finis ]. But the good has the nature of an end. We must, therefore, reach some first good, that is not by participation good through an order toward some other good, but is good through its own essence. This is God. God is, therefore, His own goodness. [5] Again, that which is can participate in something, but the act of being can participate in nothing. For that which participates is in potency, and being is an act. But God is being itself, as we have proved. He is not, therefore, by participation good; He is good essentially. [6] Furthermore, in a simple being, being and that which is are the same. For, if one is not the other, the simplicity is then removed. But, as we have shown, God is absolutely simple. Therefore, for God to be good is identical with God. He is, therefore, His goodness. [7] It is thereby likewise evident that no other good is its goodness. Hence it is said in Matthew (19:17): “One is good, God.”

Chapter

That there cannot be evil in God

[1] From this it is quite evident that there cannot be evil in God. [2] For being and goodness, and all names that are predicated essentially, have nothing extraneous mixed with them, although that which is or good can have something besides being and goodness. For nothing prevents the subject of one perfection from being the subject of another, just as that which is a body can be white and sweet. Now, each nature is enclosed within the limits of its notion, so that it cannot include anything extraneous within itself. But, as we have proved, God is goodness, and not simply good. There cannot, therefore, be any non-goodness in Him. Thus, there cannot possibly be evil in God. [3] Moreover, what is opposed to the essence of a given thing cannot befit that thing so long as its essence remains. Thus, irrationality or insensibility cannot befit man unless he ceases to be a man. But the divine essence is goodness itself, as we have shown. Therefore, evil, which is the opposite of good, could have no place in God—unless He ceased to be God, which is impossible, since He is eternal, as we have shown. [4] Furthermore, since God is His own being, nothing can be said of Him by participation, as is evident from the above argument. If, then, evil is said of God, it will not be said by participation, but essentially. But evil cannot be so said of anything as to be its essence, for it would lose its being, which is a good, as we have shown. In evil, however, there can be nothing extraneous mixed with it, as neither in goodness. Evil, therefore, cannot be said of God. [5] Again, evil is the opposite of good. But the nature of the good consists in perfection, which means that the nature of evil consists in imperfection. Now, in God, Who is universally perfect, as we have shown above, there cannot be defect or imperfection. Therefore, evil cannot be in God. [6] Then, too, a thing is perfect according as it is in act. A thing will therefore be imperfect according as it falls short of act. Hence, evil is either a privation or includes privation. But the subject of privation is potency, which cannot be in God. Neither, therefore, can evil. [7] If, moreover, the good is “that which is sought by all,” it follows that every nature flees evil as such. Now, what is in a thing contrary to the motion of its natural appetite is violent and unnatural. Evil in each thing, consequently, is violent and unnatural, so far as it is an evil for that thing; although, among composite things, evil may he natural to a thing according to something within it. But God is not composite, nor, as we have shown, can there be anything violent or unnatural in Him. Evil, therefore, cannot be in God. [8] Scripture likewise confirms this. For it is said in the canonic Epistle of John (I, 1:5): “God is light and in Him there is no darkness”; and in Job (34:10) it is written: “Far from God be wickedness; and iniquity from the Almighty.”

Chapter

That God is the good of every good

[1] From the foregoing it is also shown that God is “the good of every good.”’ [2] For the goodness of each thing is its perfection, as we have said. But, since God is absolutely perfect, in His perfection He comprehends the perfections of all things, as has been shown. His goodness, therefore, comprehends every goodness. Thus, He is the good of every good. [3] Moreover, that which is said to be of a certain sort by participation is said to be such only so far as it has a certain likeness to that which is said to be such by essence. Thus iron is said to be on fire in so far as it participates in a certain likeness of fire. But God is good through His essence, whereas all other things are good by participation, as has been shown. Nothing, then, will be called good except in so far as it has a certain likeness of the divine goodness. Hence, God is the good of every good. [4] Since, furthermore, each thing is appetible because of the end, and since the nature of the good consists in its being appetible, each thing must be called good either because it is the end or because it is ordered to the end. It is the last end, then, from which all things receive the nature of good. As will be proved later on, this is God. God is, therefore, the good of every good. [5] Hence it is that God, promising to Moses a vision of Himself, says: “I will show you all good” (Exod. 33:19). And in Wisdom (7:11), it is said of the divine wisdom: “All good things come to me together with her.”

Chapter

That God is the highest good

[1] From this conclusion we prove that God is the highest good. [2] For the universal good stands higher tlpn any particular good, just as “the good of the people is better than the good of an individual,” since the goodness and perfection of the whole stand higher than the goodness and perfection of the part. But the divine goodness is compared to all others as the universal good to a particular good, being, as we have shown, the good of every good. God is, therefore, the highest good. [3] Furthermore, what is said essentially is said more truly than what is said by participation. But God is good essentially, while other things are good by participation, as we have shown. God is, therefore, the highest good. [4] Again, “what is greatest in any genus is the cause of the rest in that genus,” for a cause ranks higher than an effect. But, as we have shown, it is from God that all things have the nature of good. God is, therefore, the highest good. [5] Moreover, just as what is not mixed with black is more white, so what is not mixed with evil is more good. But Cod is most unmixed with evil, because evil can be in God neither in act nor in potency; and this belongs to God according to His nature, as we have shown. God is, therefore, the highest good. [6] Hence what is written in 1 Samuel (2:2): “There is none holy as the Lord is.”

Chapter

That God is one

[1] From what has been shown it is evident that God is one. [2] For it is not possible that there be two highest goods, since that which is said by superabundance is found in only one being. But God, as we have shown, is the highest good. God is, therefore, one. [3] Again, it has been shown that God is absolutely perfect, lacking no perfection. If, then, there are many gods, there must be many such perfect beings. But this is impossible. For, if none of these perfect beings lacks some perfection, and does not have any admixture of imperfection, which is demanded for an absolutely perfect being, nothing will be given in which to distinguish the perfect beings from one another. It is impossible, therefore, that there be many gods. [4] Again, that which is accomplished adequately through one supposition is better done through one than through many. But the order of things is the best it can be, since the power of the first cause does not fail the potency in things for perfection. Now, all things are sufficiently fulfilled by a reduction to one first principle. There is, therefore, no need to posit many principles. [5] Moreover, it is impossible that there be one continuous and regular motion from many movers. For, if they move together, none of them is a perfect mover, but all together rather take the place of one perfect mover. This is not befitting in the first mover, for the perfect is prior to the imperfect. If, however, they do not move together, each of them at times moves and at times does not. It follows from this that motion is neither continuous nor regular. For a motion that is continuous and one is from one mover. Furthermore, a mover that is not always moving is found to move irregularly, as is evident among lesser movers among whom a violent motion is stronger in the beginning and weaker at the end, whereas a natural motion proceeds conversely. But, as the philosophers have proved, the first motion is one and continuous. Therefore, its first mover must be one. [6] Furthermore, a corporeal substance is ordered to a spiritual substance as to its good. For there is in the spiritual substance a fuller goodness to which the corporeal substance seeks to liken itself, since whatever exists desires the best so far as this is possible. But all the motions of the corporeal creature are seen to be reduced to one first motion, beyond which there is no other first motion that is not in some way reduced to it. Therefore, outside the spiritual substance that is the end of the first motion, there is none that is not reduced to it. But this is what we understand by the name of God. Hence, there is only one God. [7] Among all the things that are ordered to one another, furthermore, their order to one another is for the sake of their order to something one; just as the order of the parts of an army among themselves is for the sake of the order of the whole army to its general. For that some diverse things should be united by some relationship cannot come about from their own natures as diverse things, since on this basis they would rather be distinguished from one another. Nor can this unity come from diverse ordering causes, because they could not possibly intend one order in so far as among themselves they are diverse. Thus, either the order of many to one another is accidental, or we must reduce it to some one first ordering cause that orders all other things to the end it intends. Now, we find that all the parts of this world are ordered to one another according as some things help some other things. Thus, lower bodies are moved by higher bodies, and these by incorporeal substances, as appears from what was said above. Nor is this something accidental, since it takes place always or for the most part. Therefore, this whole world has only one ordering cause and governor. But there is no other world beyond this one. Hence, there is only one governor for all things, whom we call God. [8] Then, too, if there are two beings of which both are necessary beings, they must agree in the notion of the necessity of being. Hence, they must be distinguished by something added either to one of them only, or to both. This means that one or both of them must be composite. Now, as we have shown, no composite being is through itself a necessary being. It is impossible therefore that there be many beings of which each is a necessary being. Hence, neither can there be many gods. [9] Furthermore, given two gods that are posited as agreeing in the necessity of being, either that in which they differ is in some way required for the completion of their necessity of being, or it is not. If it is not, then it is something accidental, because that which accrues to a thing without contributing to its being is an accident. Hence, this accident has a cause, which is, consequently, either the essence of the necessary being or something else. If its essence, then, since the necessity itself of being is its essence, as is evident from what was said above, the necessity of being will be the cause of that accident. But the necessity of being is found in both gods. Therefore, both will have that accident, and thus will not be distinguished with reference to it. If, however, the cause of the accident is something else, it follows that, unless that something else existed, this accident would not exist; and unless this accident existed, the aforesaid distinction would not exist. Therefore, unless that something else existed, these two supposed necessary beings would not be two but one. Therefore, the proper being of each depends on the other, and thus neither of them is through itself a necessary being. [10] If, however, that in which they are distinguished is required to complete the necessity of their being, either this will be because it is included in the nature of this necessity of being, as animate is included in the definition of animal, or this will be because their necessity of being is specified by it, as animal is completed by rational. If the first is the case, wherever the necessity of being is found there must be present that which is included in its nature, just as animate belongs to whatever being to which animal belongs. And thus, since the necessity of being is attributed to both the aforementioned beings, they will not thereby be distinguished. If the second is the case, this too is impossible. A difference specifying a genus does not complete the nature of the genus, but rather through it the genus comes to be in act. For the nature of animal is complete before the addition of rational. Rather, the fact is that there cannot be an animal in act that is not rational or irrational. Thus, therefore, something completes the necessity of being as to being in act, and not as to the notion of the necessity of being. This is impossible on two counts. First, because the quiddity of a necessary being is its being, as was proved above. Second, because, were it true, the necessary being would acquire being through something else, which is impossible. [11] It is, therefore, not possible to posit many beings of which each is through itself a necessary being. [12] What is more, if there are two gods, either the name God is predicated of both univocally, or equivocally. If equivocally, this is outside our present purpose. Nothing prevents any given thing from being equivocally named by any given name, provided we admit the usage of those who express the name. But if it be used univocally, it must be predicated of both according to one notion, which means that, in notion, there must be in both one nature. Either, therefore, this nature is in both according to one being, or according to a being that is other in each case. If according to one, there will not be two gods, but only one, since there cannot be one being for two things that are substantially distinguished. If each has its own being, therefore in neither being will the quiddity be its being. Yet this must be posited in God, as we have proved. Therefore, neither of these two beings is what we understand by the name God. It is, therefore, impossible to posit two gods. [13] Again, nothing that belongs to this designated thing as such can belong to another, for the singularity of some thing belongs to none other than to that singular thing. But its necessity of being belongs to the necessary being so far as it is this designated being. Therefore, it cannot belong to another, and therefore there cannot be several beings of which each is a necessary being. It is, consequently, impossible that there be several gods. [14] The proof of the minor. If the necessary being is not this designated being as a necessary being, the designation of its being is not necessary through itself but depends on another. But so far as each thing is in act it is distinct from all other things; this is to be this designated thing. Therefore, the necessary being depends on another to be in act; which is against the nature of the necessary being. Therefore, the necessary being must be necessary according as it is this designated being. [15] Furthermore, either the nature signified by the name God is individuated through itself in this God, or it is individuated through something else. If through something else, composition must result. If through itself, then it cannot possibly belong to another, since the principle of individuation cannot be common to several, It is impossible, therefore, that there be several gods. [16] If, again, there are several gods, the nature of the godhead cannot be numerically one in two of them. There must, therefore, be something distinguishing the divine nature in this and in that god. But this is impossible, because, as we have shown above, the divine nature receives the addition neither of essential differences nor of accidents. Nor yet is the divine nature the form of any matter, to be capable of being divided according to the division of matter. It is impossible, therefore, that there be two gods. [17] Then, too, the proper being of each thing is only one. But God is His being, as we have shown. There can, therefore, be only one God. [18] Moreover, a thing has being in the manner it possesses unity. Hence, each thing struggles as much as it can against any division of itself, lest thereby it tend to nonbeing. But the divine nature has being most powerfully. There is therefore, in it the greatest unity, and hence no plurality is in any way distinguished within it. [19] Furthermore, we notice in each genus that multitude proceeds from some unity. This is why in every genus there is found a prime member that is the measure of all the things found in that genus. In whatever things, therefore, we find that there is an agreement in one respect, it is necessary that this depend upon one source. But all things agree in being. There must, therefore, be only one being that is the source of all things. This is God. [20] Again, in every rulership he who rules desires unity. That is why among the forms of rulership the main one is monarchy or kingship. So, too, for many members there is one head, whereby we see by an evident sign that he to whom rulership belongs should have unity. Hence, we must admit that God, Who is the cause of all things, is absolutely one. [21] This confession of the divine unity we can likewise gather from holy Scripture. For it is said in Deuteronomy (6:4): “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one God”; and in Exodus (20:3): “You shall not have strange gods before Me”; and in Ephesians (4:5): “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” [22] Now by this truth are refuted those Gentiles who accepted a multitude of gods. However, many of them said that there was one highest God, by whom all the others whom they named gods were according to them caused. For they attributed the name of divinity to all everlasting substances, and this especially because of their wisdom and felicity and the rulership of things. This manner of speaking is found also in Sacred Scripture, in which the holy angels, or even men, or judges, are called gods. Thus, this verse of the Psalms (85:8): “There is none among the gods like You, O Lord”; and elsewhere: “I have said: You are gods” (Ps. 81:6). Many such expressions are found in different places in Scripture. [23] Hence, it is mainly the Manicheans who seem opposed to this truth, in that they posit two first principles of which one is not the cause of the other. [24] The Arians likewise attacked this truth by their errors, in confessing that the Father and the Son are not one but several gods; although the authority of Scripture forces e to believe that the Son is true God.

Chapter

That God is infinite

[1] Since, as the philosophers teach, “the infinite accompanies quantity,” infinity cannot be attributed to God on the ground of multitude. For we have shown that there is only one God and that no composition of parts or accidents is found in Him. Nor, again, according to continuous quantity can God be called infinite, since we have shown that He is incorporeal. It remains, then, to investigate whether according to spiritual magnitude it befits God to be infinite. [2] We speak of spiritual magnitude with reference to two points: namely, power and the goodness or completeness of one’s own nature. For something is said to be more or less white according to the mode in which its whiteness is completed. The magnitude of its power likewise is measured from the magnitude of its action or its works. Of these magnitudes one follows the other. For, from the fact that something is in act it is active, and hence the mode of the magnitude of its power is according to the mode in which it is completed in its act. Thus, it remains that spiritual beings are called great according to the mode of their completion. Augustine himself says that “in beings that are great but not in bulk, to be greater is the same as to be better.” [3] We must therefore show that God is infinite according to the mode of this sort of magnitude. The infinite here will not be taken in the sense of privation, as in the case of dimensive or numerical quantity. For this quantity is of a nature to have a limit, so that such things are called infinites according as there is removed from them the limits they have by nature; which means that in their case the infinite designates an imperfection. But in God the infinite is understood only in a negative way, because there is no terminus or limit to His perfection: He is supremely perfect. It is thus that the infinite ought to be attributed to God. [4] For everything that according to its nature is finite is determined to the nature of some genus. God, however, is not in any genus; His perfection, as was shown above, rather contains the perfections of all the genera. God is, therefore, infinite. [5) Again, every act inhering in another is terminated by that in which it inheres, since what is in another is in it according to the mode of the receiver. Hence, an act that exists in nothing is terminated by nothing. Thus, if whiteness were self-existing, the perfection of whiteness in it would not be terminated so as not to have whatever can be had of the perfection of whiteness. But God is act in no way existing in another, for neither is He a form in matter, as we have proved, nor does His being inhere in some form or nature, since He is His own being, as was proved above. It remains, then, that God is infinite. [6] Furthermore, in reality we find something that is potency alone, namely, prime matter, something that is act alone, namely, God, as was shown above, and something that is act and potency, namely, the rest of things. But, since potency is said relatively to act, it cannot exceed act either in a particular case or absolutely. Hence, since prime matter is infinite in its potentiality, it remains that God, Who is pure act, is infinite in His actuality. [7] Moreover, an act is all the more perfect by as much as it has less of potency mixed with it. Hence, every act with which potency is mixed is terminated in its perfection. But, as was shown above, God is pure act without any potency. He is, therefore, infinite. [8] Again, considered absolutely, being is infinite, since there are infinite and infinite modes in which it can be participated. If, then, the being of some thing is finite, that being must be limited by something other that is somehow its cause. But there can be no cause of the divine being, for God is a necessary being through Himself. Therefore, His being is infinite, and so is He. [9] Then, too, what has a certain perfection is the more perfect as it participates in that perfection more fully. But there cannot be a mode of perfection, nor is one thinkable, by which a given perfection is possessed more fully than it is possessed by the being that is perfect through its essence and whose being is its goodness. In no way, therefore, is it possible to think of anything better or more perfect than God. Hence, God is infinite in goodness. [10] Our intellect, furthermore, extends to the infinite in understanding; and a sign of this is that, given any finite quantity, our intellect can think of a greater one. But this ordination of the intellect would be in vain unless an infinite intelligible reality existed. There must, therefore, be some infinite intelligible reality, which must be the greatest of beings. This we call God. God is, therefore, infinite. [11] Again, an effect cannot transcend its cause. But our intellect can be only from God, Who is the first cause of all things. Our intellect, therefore, cannot think of anything greater than God. If, then, it can think of something greater than every finite thing, it remains that God is not finite. [12] There is also the argument that an infinite power cannot reside in a finite essence. For each thing acts through its form, which is either its essence or a part of the essence, whereas power is the name of a principle of action. But God does not have a finite active power. For He moves in an infinite time, which can be done only by an infinite power, as we have proved above. It remains, then, that God’s essence is infinite. [13] This argument, however, is according to those who posit the eternity of the world. If we do not posit it, there is all the greater confirmation for the view that the power of God is infinite. For each agent is the more powerful in acting according as it reduces to act a potency more removed from act; just as a greater power is needed to heat water than air. But that which in no way exists is infinitely distant from act, nor is it in any way in potency. If, then, the world was made after previously not being at all, the power of its maker must be infinite. [14] This argument holds in proving the infinity of the divine power even according to those who posit the eternity of the world. For they acknowledge that God is the cause of the substance of the world, though they consider this substance to be everlasting. They say that God is the cause of an everlasting world in the same way as a foot would have been the cause of an imprint if it had been pressed on sand from all eternity. If we adopt this position, according to our previous argumentation it still follows that the power of God is infinite. For, whether God produced things in time, as we hold, or from all eternity, according to them, nothing can be in reality that God did not produce; for God is the universal source of being. Thus, God produced the world without the supposition of any pre-existent matter or potency. Now, we must gather the proportion of an active power according to the proportion of a passive potency, for the greater the potency that preexists or is presupposed, by so much the greater active power will it be brought to actual fulfillment. It remains, therefore, that, since a finite power produces a given effect by presupposing the potency of matter, the power of God, which presupposes no potency, is infinite, not finite. Thus, so is His essence infinite. [15] Each thing, moreover, is more enduring according as its cause is more efficacious. Hence, that being whose duration is infinite must have been from a cause of infinite efficaciousness. But the duration of God is infinite, for we have shown above that He is eternal. Since, then, He has no other cause of His being than Himself, He must be infinite. [16] The authority of Sacred Scripture is witness to this truth. For the psalmist says: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: and of His greatness there is no end” (Ps. 144:3). [17] The sayings of the most ancient philosophers are likewise a witness to this truth. They all posited an infinite first principle of things, as though compelled by truth itself.” Yet they did not recognize their own voice. They judged the infinity of the first principle in terms of discrete quantity, following Democritus, who posited infinite atoms as the principles of things, and also Anaxagoras, who posited infinite similar parts as the principles of things. Or they judged infinity in terms of continuous quantity, following those who posited that the first principle of all things was some element or a confused infinite body. But, since it was shown by the effort of later philosophers that there is no infinite body, given that there must be a first principle that is in some way infinite, we conclude that the infinite which is the first principle is neither a body nor a power in a body.

Chapter

That God is intelligent

[1] From what has been said we can show that God is intelligent. [2] We have shown above that among movers and things moved we cannot proceed to infinity, but must reduce all movable things, as is demonstrable, to one first self-moving being. The self-moving being moves itself only by appetite and knowledge, for only such beings are found to move themselves, because to be moved and not moved lies in their power. The moving part in the first self-moving being must he appetitive and apprehending. Now, in a motion that takes place through appetite and apprehension, he who has the appetite and the apprehension is a moved mover, while the appetible and apprehended is the unmoved mover. Since, therefore, the first mover of all things, whom we call God, is an absolutely unmoved mover, He must be related to the mover that is a part of the self-moving being as the appetible is to the one who has the appetite. Not, however, as something appetible by sensible appetite, since sensible appetite is not of that which is good absolutely but of this particular good, since the apprehension of the sense is likewise particular; whereas that which is good and appetible absolutely is prior to that which is good and appetible here and now. The first mover, then, must be appetible as an object of intellect, and thus the mover that desires it must be intelligent. All the more, therefore, will the first appetible be intelligent, since the one desiring it is intelligent in act by being joined to it as an intelligible. Therefore, making the supposition that the first mover moves himself, as the philosophers intended, we must say that God is intelligent. [3] Moreover, the same conclusion must follow if the reduction of movable beings is, not to a first self-moving being, but to an absolutely unmoved mover. For the first mover is the universal source of motion. Therefore, since every mover moves through a form at which it aims in moving, the form through which the first mover moves must be a universal form and a universal good. But a form does not have a universal mode except in the intellect. Consequently, the first mover, God, must be intelligent. [4] In no order of movers, furthermore, is it the case that an intellectual mover is the instrument of a mover without an intellect. Rather, the converse is true. But all movers in the world are to the first mover, God, as instruments are related to a principal agent. Since, then, there are in the world many movers endowed with intelligence, it is impossible that the first mover move without an intellect. Therefore, God must be intelligent. [5] Again, a thing is intelligent because it is without matter. A sign of this is the fact that forms are made understood in act by abstraction from matter. And hence the intellect deals with universals and not singulars, for matter is the principle of individuation. But forms that are understood in act become one with the intellect that understands them in act. Therefore, if forms are understood in act because they are without matter, a thing must be intelligent because it is without matter. But we have shown that God is absolutely immaterial. God is, therefore, intelligent. [6] Then, too, as was shown above, no perfection found in any genus of things is lacking to God. Nor on this account does any composition follow in Him. But among the perfections; of things the greatest is that something be intelligent, for thereby it is in a manner all things, having within itself the perfections of all things. God is, therefore, intelligent. [7] Again, that which tends determinately to some end either has set itself that end or the end has been set for it by another. Otherwise, it would tend no more to this end than to that. Now, natural things tend to determinate ends. They do not fulfill their natural needs by chance, since they would not do so always or for the most part, but rarely, which is the domain of chance. Since, then, things do not set for themselves an end, because they have no notion of what an end is, the end must be set for them by another, who is the author of nature. He it is who gives being to all things and is through Himself the necessary being. We call Him God, as is clear from what we have said. But God could not set an end for nature unless He had understanding. God is, therefore, intelligent. [8] Furthermore, everything imperfect derives from something perfect; for the perfect is naturally prior to the imperfect, as is act to potency. But the forms found in particular things are imperfect because they are there in a particular way and not according to the community of their natures. They must therefore be derived from some forms that are perfect and not particular. But such forms cannot exist unless by being understood, since no form is found in its universality except in the intellect. Consequently, these forms must be intelligent, if they be subsistent; for only thus do they have operation. God, then, Who is the first subsistent act, from whom all other things are derived, must be intelligent. [9] This truth the Catholic faith likewise confesses. For it is said of God in Job (9:4): “He is wise of heart, and mighty in strength”; and later on (12:16): “With Him is strength and wisdom.” So, too, in the Psalms (138:6): “Your knowledge has become wonderful to me”; and Romans (21:33): “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God.” [10] The truth of this faith was so strong among men that they named God from the act of understanding. For theos [θεος], which among the Greeks signifies God, comes from theaste [θεασθαι], which means to consider or to see.

Chapter

THAT GOD’S ACT OF U11MERSTAMING IS HIS ESSENCE

[1] From the fact that God is intelligent it follows that His act of understanding is His essence. [2] To understand is the act of one understanding, residing in him, not proceeding to something outside as heating proceeds to the heated thing. For, by being understood, the intelligible suffers nothing; rather, the one understanding is perfected. Now, whatever is in God is the divine essence. God’s act of understanding, therefore, is His essence, it is the divine being, God Himself. For God is His essence and His being. [3] Furthermore, the act of understanding is to the intellect as being [ esse ] is to essence [ essentia ]. But, as we have proved, God’s being is His essence. Therefore, God’s understanding is His intellect. But the divine intellect is God’s essence; otherwise, it would be an accident in God. Therefore, the divine understanding is His essence. [4] Again, second act is more perfect than first act, as consideration is more perfect than knowledge. But the knowledge or intellect of God is His essence, if, as we have proved, He is intelligent; for, as is clear from the above, no perfection belongs to Him by participation but rather by essence. If, therefore, His consideration is not His essence, something will be nobler and more perfect than His essence. Thus, God will not be at the summit of perfection and goodness and hence will not be first. [5] Moreover, to understand is the act of the one understanding. If, therefore, God in understanding is not His understanding, God must be related to it as potency to act. Thus, there will be potency and act in God, which is impossible, as we proved above. [6] Then, too, every substance exists for the sake of its operation. If, then, the operation of God is other than the divine substance, the end of God will be something other than God. Thus, God will not be His goodness, since the good of each thing is its end. [7] If, however, God’s understanding is His being, His understanding must be simple, eternal and unchangeable, existing only in act, and including all the perfections that have been proved of the divine being. Hence, God is not potentially understanding, nor does He begin to understand something anew, nor still does He have any change or composition in understanding.

Chapter

That God understands through nothing other than through His essence

[1] From what has been shown above it appears with evidence that the divine intellect understands through no other intelligible species than through His essence. [2] The intelligible species is the formal principle of intellectual operation, just as the form of any agent is the principle of its own operation. Now, as we have shown, the divine intellectual operation is God’s essence. If, then, the divine intellect understood by an intelligible species other than the divine essence, something other would be added to the divine essence as principle and cause. This is opposed to what was shown above. [3] Furthermore, the intellect becomes understanding in act through an intelligible species, just as the sense becomes sensing in act through a sensible species. The intelligible species is to the intellect, therefore, as act to potency. If, then, the divine intellect understood through some intelligible species other than itself, it would be in potency with respect to something. This is impossible, as we proved above. [4] Moreover, an intelligible species in the intellect that is other than the intellect’s essence has an accidental being, which is why our knowledge is numbered among the accidents. But in God, as we have shown, there can be no accident. Therefore, there is not in the divine intellect any species other than the divine essence itself. [5] Again, the intelligible species is the likeness of something understood. If, then, there is in the divine intellect an intelligible species other than the divine essence, it will be the likeness of something understood. It will thus be the likeness either of the divine essence or of some other thing. It cannot be the likeness of the divine essence, because then the divine essence would not be intelligible through itself, but that species would make it intelligible. Nor can there be in the divine intellect a species other than the divine intellect that is the likeness of some other being. For that likeness would then be impressed on the divine intellect by some being. Not by itself, since then the same being would be agent and receiver, and also because there would be an agent that impressed, not its own likeness, but that of another on the receiver, and thus it would not be true that every agent produced its like. Nor by another, for there would then be an agent prior to God. It is, therefore, impossible that there be in God an intelligible species other than His essence. [6] Furthermore, God’s understanding, as we have shown, is His essence. If, therefore, God understood through a species that was not His essence, it would be through something other than His essence. This is impossible. Therefore, God does not understand through a species that is not His essence.

Chapter

That God understands Himself perfectly

[1] From this it further appears that God understands Himself perfectly. [2] Since through the intelligible species the intellect is directed to the thing understood, the perfection of intellectual operation depends on two things. One is that the intelligible species be perfectly conformed to the thing understood. The second is that it be perfectly joined to the intellect, which is realized more fully according as the intellect has greater power in understanding. Now, the divine essence, which is the intelligible species by which the divine intellect understands, is absolutely identical with God and it is also absolutely identical with His intellect. Therefore, God understands Himself most perfectly. [3] Furthermore, a material thing is made intelligible by being separated from matter and the conditions of matter. Therefore, that which is through its nature separate from all matter and material conditions is intelligible in its nature. Now every intelligible is understood by being one in act with the one understanding. But, as we have proved, God is intelligent. Therefore, since He is absolutely immaterial, and most one with Himself, He understands Himself perfectly. [4] Again, a thing is Understood in act because the intellect in act and the understood in act are one. But the divine intellect is always an intellect in act, since there is no potency or imperfection in God. On the other hand, the divine essence is through itself perfectly intelligible, as is clear from what we have said. Since, therefore, the divine intellect and the divine essence are one, it is evident from what we have said that God understands Himself perfectly. For God is His intellect and His essence. [5] Moreover, what is in something in an intelligible way is understood by it. The divine essence is in God in an intelligible way, for the natural being of God and His intelligible being are one and the same, since His being is His understanding. God, therefore, understands His essence, and hence Himself, since He is His essence. [6] The acts of the intellect, furthermore, like those of the other powers of the soul, are distinguished according to their objects. The operation of the intellect will be more perfect as the intelligible object is more perfect. But the most perfect intelligible object is the divine essence, since it is the most perfect and the first truth. The operation of the divine intellect is likewise the most noble, since, as we have shown, it is the divine being. Therefore, God understands Himself. [7] Again, the perfections of all things are found supremely in God. Now, among other perfections found in created things the greatest is to understand God. For the intellectual nature, whose perfection is understanding, excels all the others; and the most noble intelligible object is God. God, therefore, knows Himself supremely. [8] This is confirmed by divine authority. For the Apostle says: “The spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10).

Chapter

That primarily and essentially God knows only Himself

[1] Now, it appears from what we have said that primarily. and essentially God knows only Himself. [2] That thing alone is primarily and essentially known by the intellect by whose species the intellect understands; for an operation is proportioned to the form that is the principle of the operation. But, as we have proved, that by which God understands is nothing other than His essence. Therefore, the primary and essential object of His intellect is nothing other than Himself. [3] It is, furthermore, impossible to understand a multitude primarily and essentially, since one operation cannot be terminated by many. But, as we have proved, God at some time understands Himself. If, therefore, He understands something other than Himself as the primary and essential object of His understanding, His intellect must change from a consideration of Himself to the consideration of this something else. This something else is less noble than God. The divine intellect is thus changed for the worse, which is impossible. [4] Moreover, the operations of the intellect are distinguished according to their objects. If, then, God understands Himself and something other than Himself as the principal object, He will have several intellectual operations. Therefore, either His essence will be divided into several parts, or He will have an intellectual operation that is not His substance. Both of these positions have been proved to be impossible. It remains, then, that nothing other than the divine essence is known by God as the primary and essential object of His intellect. [5] Again, in so far as the intellect is different from its object, it is in potency to it. If, then, something other than Himself is God's primary and essential object, it will follow that He is in potency to something else. This is impossible, as is clear from what we have said.

[6] The thing understood, likewise, is the perfection of the one understanding. For the intellect is perfect according as it understands in act, and this obtains through the fact that the intellect is one with what is understood. If, then, something other than Himself is primarily understood by God, something else will be His perfection, and more noble than He. This is impossible. [7] Furthermore, the knowledge of the one understanding is comprised of many things understood. If, then, God knows many things as the principal and essential objects of His knowledge, it will follow that the knowledge of God is composed of many things. Thus, either the divine essence will be composite, or knowledge will be an accident in God. From what we have said, it is clear that both of these suppositions are impossible. It remains, therefore, that what is primarily and essentially understood by God is nothing other than His substance. [8] Again, intellectual operation derives its specification and nobility from that which is essentially and primarily understood by it. If, then, God understood something other than Himself as His essential and primary object, His intellectual operation would have its specification and nobility according to something other than God. This, however, is impossible, since, as we have shown, God’s operation is His essence. Thus, it is impossible that what is understood primarily and essentially by God be other than He.

Chapter

That God understands things other than Himself

[1] From the fact that God understands Himself primarily and essentially we must posit that He knows in Himself things other than Himself. [2] An effect is adequately known when its cause is known. So “we are said to know each thing when we know the cause.” But God Himself is through His essence the cause of being for other things. Since He has a most full knowledge of His essence, we must posit that God also knows other things. [3] Moreover, the likeness of every effect somehow preexists in its cause; for every agent produces its like. But whatever is in something is in it according to the mode of that in which it is. If, then, God is the cause of certain things, since according to His nature He is intellectual, the likeness of what He causes will exist in Him in an intelligible way. But what is in something in an intelligible way is understood by it. God, therefore, understands within Himself things other than Himself. [4] Again, whoever knows perfectly a given thing knows whatever can be truly said of it and whatever befits it according to its nature. But it befits God according to His nature to be the cause of other things. Since, then, God knows Himself perfectly, He knows Himself to be a cause. This cannot be unless He somehow knows what He causes. This is other than He, since nothing is the cause of itself. Therefore, God knows things other than Himself. [5] If we put together these two conclusions, it appears that God knows Himself as primarily and essentially known, whereas He knows other things as seen in His essence. [6] This truth is expressly taught by Dionysius. He says: “In seeing them, God does not insert Himself in singulars, but He knows them as contained within a single cause” [ De dev. nom. VII, 2]. And later on: “the divine wisdom, knowing itself, knows other things.” [7] To this judgment, too, the authority of Sacred Scripture bears witness. For it is said of God in the Psalms (101:20): “He looked forth from His high sanctuary”; as though to say that God sees other things from His own height.

Chapter

That God has a proper knowledge of all things

[1] Some have said that God has only a universal knowledge of other things. He knows them, that is, in so far as they are beings because He knows the nature of being through a knowledge of Himself. For this reason, it remains for us to show that God knows all other things as they are distinct from one another and from Himself. This is to know things according to their proper natures. [2] In order to show this point, let us suppose that God is the cause of every being, as is somewhat evident from what we said above and will be more fully shown later on. Thus, there is consequently nothing in any thing that is not caused by God, mediately or immediately. Now, when the cause is known, the effect is known. Whatever is in each and every thing can be known if we know God and all the causes that are between God and things. But God knows Himself and all the intervening causes between Himself and any given thing. Now, we have already shown that God knows Himself perfectly. By knowing Himself, God knows whatever proceeds from Him immediately. When this is known, God once more knows what proceeds from it immediately; and so on for all intermediate causes down to the last effect. Therefore, God knows whatever is found in reality. But this is to have a proper and complete knowledge of a thing, namely, to know all that there is in that thing, both what is common and what is proper. Therefore, God has a proper knowledge of things, in so far as they are distinct from one another. [3] Furthermore, whatever acts through an intellect knows what it does according to the proper nature of its work; for the knowledge of the maker determines the form for the thing made. Now, God causes things through His intellect, since His being is His understanding and each thing acts in so far as it is in act. God, therefore, has a proper knowledge of what He causes, so far as it is distinct from the others. [4] Moreover, the distinction of things cannot be from chance, because it has a fixed order. The distinction in things must therefore be from the intention of some cause. It cannot be from the intention of a cause acting through a necessity of nature, for nature is determined to one course of action, and thus the intention of no thing acting through the necessity of nature can terminate in many effects in so far as these are distinct. It remains, then, that distinction in things comes from the intention of a knowing cause. But it seems to be proper to the intellect to consider the distinction of things; and so Anaxagoras called the intellect the source of distinction. Now, the universal distinction of things cannot be from the intention of some secondary cause, because all such causes belong to the world of distinct effects. It belongs to the first cause, that is through itself distinguished from all other things, to aim at the distinction of all things. God, therefore, knows things as distinct. [5] Again, whatever God knows He knows most perfectly. For, as was shown above, there is all perfection in God as in the absolutely perfect being. Now, what is known only in a general way is not perfectly known, since one does not yet know what is most important in that thing, namely, the ultimate perfections, by which its proper being is completed; so that by such a knowledge a thing is known potentially rather than actually. Since, then, by knowing His own essence God knows things in a universal way, He must also have a proper knowledge of things. [6] Then, too, whoever knows a certain nature knows the essential accidents of that nature. The essential accidents of being as being are one and many, as is proved in Metaphysics IV [3]. If, then, by knowing His essence, God knows the nature of being in a universal way, it follows that He knows multitude. But multitude cannot be understood without distinction. Therefore, God knows things as they are distinct from one another. [7] Whoever, furthermore, perfectly knows a universal nature knows the mode in which that nature can be possessed. In the same way, he who knows whiteness knows that which receives it more and less. But the grades of beings are established from the diverse mode of being. If, then, by knowing Himself, God knows the universal nature of being, and this not imperfectly, since, as we have shown, every imperfection is remote from Him, God must know all grades of beings. Thus, God will have a proper knowledge of things other than Himself. [8] Furthermore, he who knows something perfectly knows all that is in it. But God knows Himself perfectly. Therefore, He knows all that is in Him according to His active power. But all things, in their proper forms, are in Him according to His active power, since God is the principle of every being. Therefore, God has a proper knowledge of all things. [9] Again, he who knows a certain nature knows whether that nature is communicable. He who did not know that the nature of animal is communicable to many would not know it perfectly. Now, the divine nature is communicable by likeness. God, therefore, knows in how many modes there can be something like His essence. But the diversities of forms arise from the fact that things imitate the divine essence diversely; and so the Philosopher has called a natural form “something divine.” Therefore, God has a knowledge of things in terms of their proper forms. [10] Moreover, men and other knowing beings know things as distinct from one another in their multitude. If, then, God does not know things in their distinction, it follows that He is the most foolish being of all, as He must have been for those who held that God did not know strife, a thing known to all-an opinion that the Philosopher considers to be untenable in De anima I [5]and Metaphysics III [4]. [11] We likewise receive this teaching from the canonic Scriptures. For it is said in Genesis (1:31): “And God saw all things that He had made, and they were very good.” And in Hebrews (4:13): “Neither is there any creature invisible in His sight: but all things are naked and open to His eyes.”

Chapters 51-52

Arguments inquiring how a multitude of intellectual objects is in the divine intellect

[1] Lest the multitude of intellectual objects, however, introduce a composition into the divine intellect, we must investigate the mode in which these intellectual objects are many. [2.] Now, this multitude cannot be taken to mean that many intellectual objects have a distinct being in God. For either these objects would be the same as the divine essence, and thus a certain multitude would be posited in the essence of God, which we set aside above in many ways; or they would be added to the divine essence, and thus there would be some accident in God, which we have shown above to be impossible. [3] Nor, again, can such intelligible forms be posited as existing in themselves. This is what Plato, avoiding the above difficulties, seems to have posited by introducing the Ideas. For the forms of natural things cannot exist without matter, since neither are they understood without matter. [4] And, even if this position were held, it would not enable us to posit that God has understanding of a multitude. For, since the aforementioned forms are outside God’s essence, if God could not understand the multitude of things without them, as the perfection of His intellect requires, it would follow that His perfection in understanding depended on something else, and consequently so would His perfection in being, since His being is His understanding. The contrary of this was shown above. [5] Furthermore, since whatever is outside His essence must be caused by Him, as will be shown later on it is necessary that, if the aforementioned forms are to be found outside God, they must be caused by Him. But God is the cause of things through His intellect, as will be shown later on. Therefore, so that these intelligibles may have existence, it is required according to the order of nature that God first understand them. Hence, God does not have knowledge of multitude by the fact that many intelligibles are found outside Him. [6] Furthermore, the intelligible in act is the intellect in act, just as the sensible in act is the sense in act. According as the intelligible is distinguished from the intellect, both are in potency, as likewise appears in the case of the sense. For neither the sight is seeing in act, nor is the visible object seen in act, except when the sight is informed by the species of the visible object, so that thereby from the sight and the object something one results. If, then, the intelligible objects of God are outside His intellect, it will follow that His intellect is in potency, as are also its intelligible objects. Thus, some cause reducing them to act would be needed, which is impossible, since there is nothing prior to God. [7] Then, too, the understood must be in him who understands. Therefore, to posit the forms of things as existing in themselves outside the divine intellect does not suffice for God to understand a multitude of things; these intelligibles must be in the divine intellect itself. [8] [Chapter 52] From the same arguments it likewise appears that the multitude of the aforementioned intelligibles cannot reside in any intellect other than the divine intellect—for example, that of a soul or an angel or intelligence. If this were true, the divine intellect would depend on a lower intellect for some operation. But this is impossible. [9] Then, too, just as self-subsisting things are from God, so is whatever inheres in them. Hence, the divine understanding, by which God is a cause, is a prerequisite for the being of the aforementioned intelligibles in some lower intellect. [10] It likewise follows that the divine intellect is in potency, since its intelligible objects are not joined to it. [11] Furthermore, just as each thing has its own being, so it has its own operation. It cannot happen, then, that because some intellect is disposed for operation another intellect will perform an intellectual operation; rather, the very same intellect in which the disposition is present will do this, just as each thing is through its own essence, not through the essence of another. Therefore, by the fact that there are many intelligible objects in some secondary intellect it could not come about that the first intellect knows a multitude.

Chapter

The solution of the above difficulty

[1] We can solve the above difficulty with ease if we examine diligently how the things that are understood by the intellect exist within the intellect. [2] So far as it is possible, let us proceed from our intellect to the knowledge that the divine intellect has. Let us consider the fact that an external thing understood by us does not exist in our intellect according to its own nature; rather, it is necessary that its species be in our intellect, and through this species the intellect comes to be in act. Once in act through this species as through its own form, the intellect knows the thing itself. This is not to be understood in the sense that the act itself of understanding is an action proceeding to the thing understood, as heating proceeds to the heated thing. Understanding remains in the one understanding, but it is related to the thing understood because the abovementioned species, which is a principle of intellectual operation as a form, is the likeness of the thing understood. [3] We must further consider that the intellect, having been informed by the species of the thing, by an act of understanding forms within itself a certain intention of the thing understood, that is to say, its notion, which the definition signifies. This is a necessary point, because the intellect understands a present and an absent thing indifferently. In this the imagination agrees with the intellect. But the intellect has this characteristic in addition, namely, that it understands a thing as separated from material conditions, without which a thing does not exist in reality. But this could not take place unless the intellect formed the abovementioned intention for itself. [4] Now, since this understood intention is, as it were, a terminus of intelligible operation, it is distinct from the intelligible species that actualizes the intellect, and that we must consider the principle of intellectual operation, though both are a likeness of the thing understood. For, by the fact that the intelligible species, which is the form of the intellect and the principle of understanding, is the likeness of the external thing, it follows that the intellect forms an intention like that thing, since such as a thing is, such are its works. And because the understood intention is like some thing, it follows that the intellect, by forming such an intention) knows that thing. [5] Now, the divine intellect understands by no species other than the divine essence, as was shown above. Nevertheless, the divine essence is the likeness of all things. Thereby it follows that the conception of the divine intellect as understanding itself, which is its Word, is the likeness not only of God Himself understood, but also of all those things of which the divine essence is the likeness. In this way, therefore, through one intelligible species, which is the divine essence, and through one understood intention, which is the divine Word, God can understand many things.

Chapter

HOW THE DIVINE ESSENCE, BEING ONE AND SIMPLE, IS THE PROPER LIKENESS OF ALL INTELLIGIBLE OBJECTS [1] But, again, it can seem to someone difficult or impossible that one and the same simple being, the divine essence for example, is the proper model or likeness of diverse things. For, since among diverse things there is a distinction by reason of their proper forms, whatever is like something according to its proper form must turn out to be unlike something else. To be sure, according as diverse things have something in common, nothing prevents them from having one likeness, as do man and a donkey so far as they are animals. But from this it will follow that God does not have a proper knowledge of things, but a common one; for the operation that knowledge is follows the mode in which the likeness of the known is in the knower. So, too, heating is according to the mode of the heat. For the likeness of the known in the knower is as the form by which the operation takes place. Therefore, if God has a proper knowledge of many things, He must be the proper model of singulars. How this may be we must investigate. [2] As the Philosopher says in Metaphysics VIII [3], the forms of things and the definitions that signify them are like numbers. Among numbers, the addition or subtraction of unity changes the species of a number, as appears in the numbers two and three. It is the same among definitions: the addition or subtraction of one difference changes the species. For sensible substance, with the difference rational taken away and added, differs in species. [3] Now, with reference to things that contain a multitude, the intellect and nature are differently disposed. For what is required for the being of something the nature of that thing does not permit to be removed. For the nature of an animal will not survive if the soul is taken away from the body. But what is joined in reality the intellect can at times receive separately, when one of the elements is not included in the notion of the other. Thus, in the number three the intellect can consider the number two only, and in the rational animal it can consider that which is sensible only. Hence, that which contains several elements the intellect can take as the proper notion of the several elements by apprehending one of them without the others. It can, for example, take the number ten as the proper notion of nine by subtracting unity, and similarly as the proper notion of each of the numbers included under it. So, too, it can take in man the proper exemplar of irrational animal as such, and of each of its species, except that they would add some positive differences. On this account a certain philosopher, Clement by name, said that the nobler beings in reality are the exemplars of the less noble [cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, De div. nom. V, 9]. [4] But the divine essence comprehends within itself the nobilities of all beings, not indeed compositely, but, as we have shown above, according to the mode of perfection. Now, every form, both proper and common, considered as positing something, is a certain perfection; it includes imperfection only to the extent that it falls short of true being. The intellect of God, therefore, can comprehend in His essence that which is proper to each thing by understanding wherein the divine essence is being imitated and wherein each thing falls short of its perfection. Thus, by understanding His essence as imitable in the mode of life and not of knowledge, God has the proper form of a plant; and if He knows His essence as imitable in the mode of knowledge and not of intellect, God has the proper form of animal, and so forth. Thus, it is clear that, being absolutely perfect, the divine essence can be taken as the proper exemplar of singulars. Through it, therefore, God can have a proper knowledge of all things. [5] Since, however, the proper exemplar of one thing is distinguished from the proper exemplar of another thing, and distinction is the source of plurality, we must observe in the divine intellect a certain distinction and plurality of understood exemplars, according as that which is in the divine intellect is the proper exemplar of diverse things. Hence, since this obtains according as God understands the proper relation of resemblance that each creature has to Him, it remains that the exemplars of things in the divine intellect are many or distinct only according as God knows that things can be made to resemble Him by many and diverse modes. In accord with this, Augustine says that God made man and a horse by distinct exemplars. He also says that the exemplars of things are a plurality in the divine mind. This conclusion likewise saves to some extent the opinion of Plato and his doctrine of Ideas, according to which would be formed everything that is found among material things.

Chapter

That God understands all things together

[1] From this it is further apparent that God understands all things together. [2] Our intellect cannot understand in act many things together. The reason is that, since “the intellect in act is its object in act,” if the intellect did understand many things together, it would follow that the intellect would be at one and the same time many things according to one genus—which is impossible. I say “according to one genus” because nothing prevents the same subject from being informed by diverse forms of diverse genera, just as the same body is figured and colored. Now, the intelligible species, by which the intellect is formed so as to be the objects that are understood in act, all belong to one genus; for they have one manner of being in the order of intelligible being, even though the things whose species they are do not have one manner of being. Hence, the species are not contrary through the contrariety of the things that are outside the soul. It is in this way that, when certain things that are many are considered as in any way united, they are understood together. For the intellect understands a continuous whole all at once, not part after part. So, too, it understands a proposition all at once, not first the subject and then the predicate, since it knows all the parts according to one species of the whole. [3] From these remarks we can infer that, whenever several things are known through one species, they can be known together. But all that God knows He knows through one species, which is His essence. Therefore, God can understand all things together. [4] Again, a knowing power does not know anything in act unless the intention be present. Thus, the phantasms preserved in the organ are not always actually imagined because the intention is not directed to them. For among voluntary agents the appetite moves the other powers to act. We do not understand together, therefore, many things to which the intention is not directed at the same time. But things that must fall under one intention must be understood together; for he who is considering a comparison between two things directs his intention to both and sees both together. [5] Now, all the things that are in the divine knowledge must fall under one intention. For God intends to see His essence perfectly, which is to see it according to its whole power, under which are contained all things. Therefore God, by seeing His essence, sees all things together. [6] Furthermore, the intellect of one considering successively many things cannot have only one operation. For since operations differ according to their objects, the operation by which the first is considered must be different from the operation by which the second is considered. But the divine intellect has only one operation, namely, the divine essence, as we have proved. Therefore, God considers all that He knows, not successively, but together. [7] Moreover, succession cannot be understood without time nor time without motion, since time is “the number of motion according to before and after.” But there can be no motion in God, as may be inferred from what we have said. There is, therefore, no succession in the divine consideration. Thus, all that He knows God considers together. [8] Then, too, God’s understanding is His being, as is clear from what we have said. But there is no before and after in the divine being; everything is together, as was shown above. Neither, therefore, does the consideration of God contain a before and after, but, rather, understands all things together. [9] Every intellect, furthermore, that understands one thing after the other is at one time potentially understanding and at another time actually understanding. For while it understands the first thing actually it understands the second thing potentially. But the divine intellect is never potentially, but always actually, understanding. Therefore, it does not understand things successively but rather understands them together. [10] Sacred Scripture bears witness to this truth. For it is written: “With God there is no change nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17).

Chapter

That God’s knowledge is not habitual

[1] From this it appears that there is no habitual knowledge in God. [2] Where there is habitual knowledge, not all things are known together; some are known actually, and some habitually. But, as we have proved, God has actual understanding of all things together. There is, therefore, no habitual knowledge in Him. [3] Furthermore, he who has a habit and is not using it is in a manner in potency, though otherwise than prior to understanding. But we have shown that the divine intellect is in no way in potency. In no way, therefore, is there habitual knowledge in it. [4] Moreover, if an intellect knows something habitually, its essence is other than its intellectual operation, which is the consideration itself. For an intellect that knows habitually is lacking its operation, but its essence cannot be lacking to it. In God, however, as we have proved, His essence is His operation. There is, therefore, no habitual knowledge in His intellect. [5] Again, an intellect that knows only habitually is not at its highest perfection. That is why happiness, which is something best, is posited in terms of act, not in terms of habit. If, therefore, God is habitually knowing through His substance, considered in His substance He will not be universally perfect. We have shown the contrary of this conclusion. [6] It has also been shown that God understands through His essence, but not through any intelligible species added to His essence. Now, every habitual intellect understands through some species. For either a habit confers on the intellect a certain ability to receive the intelligible species by which it becomes understanding in act, or else it is the ordered aggregate of the species themselves existing in the intellect, not according to a complete act, but in a way intermediate between potency and act. There is therefore no habitual knowledge in God. [7] Then, again, a habit is a certain quality. But no quality or accident can be added to God, as we have proved. Habitual knowledge, therefore, does not befit God. [8] But because the disposition by which one is only habitually considering or willing or doing is likened to the disposition of one sleeping, hence it is that, in order to remove any habitual disposition from God, David says: “Behold He neither slumbers nor sleeps, who keeps Israel” (Ps. 120:4). Hence, also, what is said in Sirach (23:28): “The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun”; for the sun is always shining.

Chapter

That God’s knowledge is not discursive

[1] We thereby further know that the divine consideration is not ratiocinative or discursive. [2] Our consideration is ratiocinative when we proceed from the consideration of one thing to another, as when in syllogistic reasoning we proceed from principles to conclusions. For, when someone examines how a conclusion follows from premises and considers both together, he is not on this account reasoning or discoursing, since this takes place, not by arguing, but by judging the arguments. So, too, knowledge is not material because it judges material things. Now, it has been shown that God does not consider one thing after the other as it were in succession, but all together. His knowledge, therefore, is not ratiocinative or discursive, although He knows all discourse and ratiocination. [3] Everyone reasoning sees the principle by one consideration and the conclusions by another. There would be no need to proceed to conclusions after the consideration of the principles if by considering the principles we also considered the conclusions. But God knows all things by one operation, His essence, as we proved above. His knowledge is, therefore, not ratiocinative. [4] Again, all ratiocinative knowledge contains some potency and some act, for conclusions are in principles potentially. But in the divine intellect potency has no place, as was proved above. God’s intellect, therefore, is not discursive. [5] Moreover, in all discursive knowledge there must be something caused, since principles are in a manner the efficient cause of the conclusion. Hence, demonstration is said to be “a syllogism making one to know.” But in the divine knowledge there can be nothing caused, since it is God Himself, as is clear from what has preceded. God’s knowledge, therefore, cannot be discursive. [6] What is naturally known, furthermore, is known to us without ratiocination. But in God there can be only natural knowledge, indeed, only essential knowledge; for, as was proved above, His knowledge is His essence. God’s knowledge, therefore, is not ratiocinative. [7] Again, every motion must be reduced to a first mover that is only mover and not moved. That from which the first motion originates, therefore, must be an absolutely unmoved mover. This, as was proved above, is the divine intellect. The divine intellect must, therefore, be an absolutely unmoved mover. But ratiocination is a certain motion of the intellect proceeding from one thing to another. Hence, the divine intellect is not ratiocinative. [8] Then, too, what is highest in us is lower than what is in God, for the lower reaches the higher only in its own highest part. But what is highest in our knowledge is, not reason, but intellect, which is the origin of reason. God’s knowledge, then, is not ratiocinative but solely intellectual. [9] Moreover, since God is absolutely perfect, as we proved above, every defect must be removed from Him. But ratiocinative knowledge arises from an imperfection in intellectual nature. For that which is known through another is less known than what is known through itself; nor is the nature of the knower sufficient for knowing that which is known through another without that through which it is made known. But in ratiocinative knowledge something is made known through another, whereas that which is known intellectually is known through itself, and the nature of the knower is able to know it without an external means. Hence, it is manifest that reason is a certain defective intellect. Therefore, the divine knowledge is not ratiocinative. [10] Furthermore, those things whose species are in the knower are comprehended without discursive reasoning. For the sight does not proceed discursively to know the stone whose likeness it possesses. But the divine essence, as was shown above, is the likeness of all things. Hence, it does not proceed to know something through discursive reasoning. [11] The solution of those difficulties that seem to introduce discursiveness into the divine knowledge is likewise at hand. First, because God knows other things through His essence. For it was shown that this does not take place discursively, since God’s essence is related to other things, not as a principle to conclusions, but as a species to things known. Secondly, because some might think it unbefitting if God were not able to syllogize. For God possesses the knowledge of syllogizing as one judging, and not as one proceeding by syllogizing. [12] To this truth, which has been rationally proved, Sacred Scripture likewise gives witness. For it is written: “And things are naked and open to His sight” (Heb. 4:13). For what we know by reasoning is not through itself naked and revealed to us, but is opened and laid bare by reason.

Chapter

That God does not understand by composing and dividing

[1] Through the same means we can also show that the divine intellect does not understand in the manner of a composing and dividing intellect. [2] For the divine intellect knows all things by knowing its own essence. Now it does not know its own essence by composing and dividing, since it knows itself as it is and there is no composition in it. It does not, therefore, know in the manner of a composing and dividing intellect. [3] Moreover, what is composed and divided by the intellect is of a nature to be considered separately by it. For there would be no need of composition and division if by apprehending the essence of a thing we grasped what belonged in it and what did not. If, then, God understood in the manner of a composing and dividing intellect, it would follow that He did not consider all things by one intuition but each thing separately. We have shown the contrary of this above. [4] Furthermore, there can be no before and after in God. But composition and division come after the consideration of the essence, which is their principle. Hence, composition and division cannot be found in the operation of the divine intellect. [5] Again, the proper object of the intellect is what a thing is. Hence, in relation to what a thing is the intellect suffers no deception except by accident, whereas as concerns composition and division it is deceived. So, too, a sense dealing with its proper sensibles is always true, but in other cases it is deceived. But in the divine intellect there is nothing accidental, but only that which is substantial. In the divine intellect, therefore, there is no composition and division, but only the simple apprehension of a thing. [6] Furthermore, in the case of a proposition formed by a composing and dividing intellect, the composition itself exists in the intellect, not in the thing that is outside the soul. If the divine intellect should judge of things in the manner of a composing and dividing intellect, the intellect itself will be composite. This is impossible, as is clear from what has been said. [7] Again, the composing and dividing intellect judges diverse things by diverse compositions, for the composition of the intellect does not exceed the terms of the composition. Hence, the intellect does not judge the triangle to be a figure by the same composition by which it judges man to be an animal. Now, composition or division is a certain operation of the intellect. If, then, God considers things by means of composing and dividing, it will follow that His understanding is not solely one but many. And thus His essence, as well, will not be solely one, since His intellectual operation is His essence, as was proved above. [8] But it is not on this account necessary for us to say that God does not know enunciables. For His essence, being one and simple, is the exemplar of all manifold and composite things. And thus God knows through His essence all multitude and composition both of nature and of reason. [9] With these conclusions the authority of Sacred Scripture is in harmony. For it is said in Isaiah (55:8): “For My thoughts are not your thoughts.” Yet it is said in a Psalm (93:11): “The Lord knows the thoughts of men,” which thoughts evidently proceed through composition and division in the intellect. [10] Dionysius likewise says: “Therefore, in knowing itself, the divine wisdom knows all things-the material immaterially, the divisible indivisibly, and the many unitedly” [ De div. nom. VII, 2].

Chapter

That the truth of enunciables; is not excluded from God

[1] From this it may be seen that, although the knowledge of the divine intellect is not of the sort belonging to an intellect that composes and divides, truth, which according to the Philosopher is found only in the composition and division of the intellect [ Metaph. V, 4; De anima III, 6], is yet not excluded from it. [2] For, since the truth of the intellect is “the adequation of intellect and thing,” inasmuch as the intellect says that what is is and what is not is not, truth belongs to that in the intellect which the intellect says, not to the operation by which it says it. For the intellect to be true it is not required that its act of understanding be adequated to the thing known, since the thing is sometimes material whereas the act of understanding is immaterial. Rather, what the intellect in understanding says and knows must be adequated to the thing, so that, namely, the thing be such as the intellect says it to be. Now, by His simple understanding, in which there is no composition and division, God knows not only the quiddities of things but also enunciations, as has been shown. Hence, that which the divine intellect says in understanding is composition and division. Therefore, truth is not excluded from the divine intellect by reason of its simplicity. [1] When the incomplex is said or understood, the incomplex, of itself, is neither equated to a thing nor unequal to it. For equality and inequality are by relation, whereas the incomplex, of itself, does not imply any relation or application to a thing. Hence, of itself, it can be said to be neither true nor false; but the complex can, in which the relation of the incomplex to a thing is designated by a sign of composition or division. Nevertheless, the incomplex intellect in understanding what a thing is apprehends the quiddity of a thing in a certain relation to the thing, because it apprehends it as the quiddity of that thing. Hence although the incomplex itself, or even a definition, is not in itself true or false, nevertheless the intellect that apprehends what a thing is is always said to be through itself true, as appears in De anima III [6], although it can be by accident false, in so far as a definition includes some composition either of the parts of a definition with one another or of the whole definition with the thing defined. Hence, according as the definition is understood to be the definition of this or that thing, as it is received by the intellect, it will be called absolutely false if the parts of the definition do not belong together, as if we should say insensible animal; or it will be called false with reference to a given thing, as when the definition of a circle is taken as that of a triangle. Given, therefore, by an impossible supposition, that the divine intellect knew only incomplexes, it would still be true in knowing its own quiddity as its own. [4] Again, the divine simplicity does not exclude perfection, because it possesses in its simple being whatever of perfection is found in other things through a certain aggregation of perfections or forms, as was shown above. But in apprehending incomplexes, our intellect does not yet reach its ultimate perfection, because it is still in potency to composition or division. So, too, among natural things, the simple are in potency with reference to the mixed, and the parts with reference to the whole. According to His simple understanding, therefore, God has that perfection of knowledge that our intellect has through both knowledges, that of complexes and that of incomplexes. But our intellect reaches truth in its perfect knowledge, that is to say, when it already has arrived at composition. Therefore, in the simple understanding of God as well there is truth. [5] Again, since God is the good of every good, as having every goodness in Himself, as has been shown above, the goodness of the intellect cannot be lacking to Him. But the true is the good of the intellect, as appears from the Philosopher [ Ethics VI, 2]. Therefore, truth is in God. [6] And this is what is said in a Psalm: “But God is true” (Rom. 3:4).

Chapter

That God is truth

[1] From the foregoing it is evident that God Himself is truth. [2] Truth is a certain perfection of understanding or of intellectual operation, as has been said. But the understanding of God is His substance. Furthermore, since this understanding is, as we have shown, the divine being, it is not perfected through any superadded perfection; it is perfect through itself, in the same manner as we have shown of the divine being. It remains, therefore, that the divine substance is truth itself. [3] Again, according to the Philosopher, truth is a certain goodness of the intellect. But God is His own goodness, as we have shown above. Therefore, He is likewise His own truth. [4] Furthermore, nothing can be said of God by participation, since He is His own being, which participates in nothing. But, as was shown above, there is truth in God. If, then, it is not said by participation, it must be said essentially. Therefore, God is His truth. [5] Moreover, although, according to the Philosopher, the true is properly not in things but in the mind, a thing is at times said to be true when it reaches in a proper way the act of its own nature. Hence, Avicenna says in his Metaphysics that “the truth of a thing is the property of the being established in each thing” [VIII, 6]. This is so in so far as each thing is of a nature to give a true account of itself and in so far as it imitates the model of itself which is in the divine mind. But God is His essence. Therefore, whether we speak of the truth of the intellect or of the truth of a thing, God is His truth. [6] This is confirmed by the authority of our Lord, Who says of Himself: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Chapter

That God is the purest truth

[1] It is clear from this demonstration that in God there is pure truth, with which no falsity or deception can be mingled. [2] For truth is not compatible with falsity, as neither is whiteness with blackness. But God is not only true, He is truth itself. Therefore, there can be no falsity in Him. [3] Moreover, the intellect is not deceived in knowing what a thing is, just as the sense is not deceived in its proper sensible. But, as we have shown, all the knowledge of the divine intellect is in the manner of an intellect knowing what a thing is. It is impossible, therefore, that there be error or deception or falsity in the divine knowledge. [4] Furthermore, the intellect does not err in the case of first principles; it errs at times in the case of conclusions at which it arrives by reasoning from first principles. But the divine intellect, as we have shown above, is not ratiocinative or discursive. Therefore, there cannot be falsity or deception in it. [5] Again, the higher a knowing power, so much the more universal is its proper object, containing several objects under it. Thus, that which sight knows by accident the common sense or the imagination apprehends as contained under its proper object. But the power of the divine intellect is at the very peak of elevation in knowing. Hence, all knowable objects are related to it as knowable properly,and essentially and not by accident. In such cases, however, the knowing power does not err. Therefore, the divine intellect cannot err in the case of any knowable object. [6] Moreover, intellectual virtue is a certain perfection of the intellect in knowing. But according to intellectual virtue no intellect expresses what is false, but always what is true; for to speak the true is the good of the act of the intellect, and it belongs to virtue “to make an act good.” But the divine intellect, being at the peak of perfection, is more perfect through its nature than the human intellect is through the habit of virtue. It remains, therefore, that there cannot be falsity in the divine intellect. [7] Furthermore, the knowledge of the human intellect is in a manner caused by things. Hence it is that knowable things are the measure of human knowledge; for something that is judged to be so by the intellect is true because it is so in reality, and not conversely. But the divine intellect through its knowledge is the cause of things. Hence, its knowledge is the measure of things, in the same way as an art is the measure of artifacts, each one of which is perfect in so far as it agrees with the art. The divine intellect, therefore, is related to things as things are related to the human intellect. But the falsity that is caused by the lack of equality between the human intellect and a thing is not in reality but in the intellect. If, therefore, there were no adequation whatever of the divine intellect to things, the falsity would be found in things and not in the divine intellect. Nevertheless, there is no falsity in things, because, so far as each thing has being, to that extent does it have truth. There is, therefore, no inequality between the divine intellect and things, nor can there be any falsity in the divine intellect. [8] Again, as the true is the good of the intellect, so the false is its evil. For we naturally seek to know the truth and flee from being deceived by the false. But, as we have proved, there can be no evil in God. Hence, there can be no falsity in Him. [9] Hence it is written: “But God is true” (Rom. 3:4); and in Numbers (23:19): “God is not a man, that He should lie”; and in John (I, 1:5): “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.”

Chapter

That the divine truth is the first and highest truth

[1] From what we have shown it clearly results that the divine truth is the first and highest truth. [2] As is clear from the Philosopher, things are disposed in truth as they are disposed in being. The reason for this is that the true and being follow one another; for the true then exists when that which is is said to be and that which is not is said not to be. But the divine being is first and most perfect. Therefore, its truth is the first and highest truth. [3] Again, what belongs to a thing essentially belongs to it most perfectly. But, as we have shown, truth is said of God essentially. Therefore, His truth is the highest and first truth. [4] Furthermore, there is truth in our intellect because it is adequated to the thing that the intellect understands. But, as can be seen in Metaphysics V [15], unity is the cause of equality. Since, then, in the divine intellect the intellect and that which it understands are absolutely one, its truth is the first and highest truth. [5] Moreover, that which is the measure in any given genus is most perfect in that genus. That is why all colors are measured by white. But the divine truth is the measure of all truth. For the truth of our intellect is measured by the thing outside the soul, since our intellect is said to be true because it is in agreement with the thing that it knows. On the other hand, the truth of a thing is measured by the divine intellect, which is the cause of things, as will later on be proved. In the same way, the truth of artifacts comes from the art of the artisan, for a chest is then true when it agrees with its art. And since God is the first intellect and the first intelligible, the truth of any given intellect must be measured by the truth of His intellect—if, as the Philosopher teaches, each thing is measured by that which is first in its genus. The divine truth, therefore, is the first, highest, and most perfect truth.

Chapter

THE ARGUMENTS OF THOSE WHO WISH TO TAKE AWAY THE KNOWLEDGE OF SINGULARS FROM GOD [1] Now, there are certain persons who are trying to take away the knowledge of singulars from the perfection of the divine knowledge. They use seven ways to confirm their position. [2] The first way is based on the very condition of singularity. For the principle of singularity is designated matter, and hence it seems that singulars cannot be known by any immaterial power, given that all knowledge takes place through a certain assimilation. So, too, in our own case only those powers apprehend singulars that make use of material organs, for example, the imagination, the senses, and the like. But because it is immaterial, our intellect does not know singulars. Much less, therefore, does the divine intellect know singulars, being the most removed from matter. Thus, in no way does it seem that God can know singulars. [3] The second way is based on the fact that singulars do not always exist. Therefore, either they will be known by God always, or they will be known at some time and not at another. The first alternative is impossible, since of that which does not exist there can be no knowledge; knowledge deals only with what is true, and what does not exist cannot be true. Nor is the second alternative possible, since, as we have shown, the knowledge of the divine intellect is absolutely unchangeable. [4] The third way is based on the fact that not all singulars come to be of necessity but some happen contingently. Hence, there can be a certain knowledge of them only when they exist. Now, that knowledge is certain which cannot be deceived. But all knowledge of the contingent can be deceived when the contingent is future, since the opposite of what is held by knowledge can happen; for, if it could not happen, it would then be necessary. Hence it is that we cannot have any knowledge of future contingents, but only a certain conjectural estimation. Now, we must suppose that all God’s knowledge is, as we have shown, most certain and infallible. And because of His immutability, as we have said, it is impossible for God to begin to know something anew. From all this it seems to follow that God does not know contingent singulars. [5] The fourth way is based on the fact that the will is the cause of some singulars. Before it exists, an effect can be known only in its cause, since, before it begins to be, this is the only way for an effect to exist. But the motions of the will can be known with certitude only by the one willing, in whose power they lie. It seems impossible, therefore, that God should have an eternal knowledge of such singulars as are caused by the will. [6] The fifth way is based on the infinity of singulars. The infinite as such is unknown. Everything that is known is in a manner measured by the comprehension of the knower, since this “measure” is nothing other than a certain certification of the measured thing. That is why every art repudiates the infinite. But singulars are infinite, at least potentially. It seems impossible, then, that God knows singulars. [7] The sixth way is based on the very lowliness of singulars. Since the dignity of a science is in a way determined from the dignity of its object, the lowliness of the knowable object likewise seems to redound to the lowliness of the science. But the divine intellect is most noble. Its nobility, therefore, forbids that it should know certain of the lowliest among singulars. [8] The seventh way is based on the evil found in some singulars. For, since that which is known is found in the knower in a certain way, and there can be no evil in God, as was shown abovc, it seems to follow that God has absolutely no knowledge of evil and privation. This is known only by an intellect that is in potency, for privation can exist only in potency. From this it follows that God has no knowledge of the singulars in which there is evil and privation.

Chapter

The order of what is to be said on the divine knowledge

[1] To remove this error, and likewise to show the perfection of the divine knowledge, we must diligently look into the truth of each of the above ways, so that what is opposed to the truth may be refuted. We shall first show, then, that the divine intellect knows singulars. Second, we shall show that it knows what does not exist in act. Third, that it knows future contingents with an infallible knowledge. Fourth, that it knows the motions of the will. Fifth, that it knows infinite things. Sixth, that it knows every lowly and least thing among beings. Seventh, that it knows evils and all privations and defects.

Chapter

That God knows singulars

[1] We shall therefore first show that the knowledge of singulars cannot be lacking to God. [2] It was shown above that God knows other things in so far as He is their cause. Now, singular things are God's effects. God causes things in so far as He makes them to be in act. Universals, on the other hand, are not subsisting things, but rather have being only in singulars, as is proved in Metaphysics VII [13]. God, therefore, knows things other than Himself, not only universally, but also in the singular. [3] Again, by knowing the principles of which the essence of a thing is composed, we necessarily know that thing itself. Thus, by knowing a rational soul and a certain sort of body, we know man. Now, the singular essence is composed of designated matter and individuated form. Thus, the essence of Socrates is composed of this body and this soul, just as the universal essence of man is composed of soul and body, as may be seen in Metaphysics VII [10]. Hence, just as the latter principles fall within the definition of universal man, so the former principles would fall in the definition of Socrates if he could be defined. Hence, whoever has a knowledge of matter and of what designates matter, and also of form individuated in matter, must have a knowledge of the singular. But the knowledge of Cod extends to matter and to individuating accidents and forms. For, since His understanding is His essence, He must understand all things that in any way are in His essence. Now, within His essence, as within the first source, there are virtually present all things that in any way have being, since He is the first and universal principle of being. Matter and accidents are not absent from among these things, since matter is a being in potency and an accident is a being in another. Therefore, the knowledge of singulars is not lacking to God. [4] Moreover, the nature of a genus cannot be known perfectly unless its first differences and proper attributes are known. The nature of number would not be known perfectly if the even and the odd were not known. But universal and singular are differences or essential attributes of being. If, then, in knowing His essence God knows perfectly the common nature of being, He must know the universal and the singular perfectly. But, just as He would not know the universal perfectly if He knew the intention of universality and did not know the universal reality, for example, man or animal, so He would not know the singular perfectly if He knew the nature of singularity and did not know this or that singular. Therefore, God must know singular things. [5] Furthermore, just as God is His being, so, as we have shown, He is His knowing. Now, since He is His being, all the perfections of being must be found in Him as in the first origin of being, as was shown above. Therefore, there must be found in His knowledge, as in the first source of knowledge, the perfection of all knowledge. But this would not be so if the knowledge of singulars were lacking to Him; for the perfection of some knowers consists in this knowledge. Therefore, it is impossible for God not to have a knowledge of singulars. [6] Furthermore, among all ordered powers it is commonly found that the higher power, though one, extends to several things, whereas a lower power extends to fewer things and is nevertheless multiplied by its relation to them. This happens in the case of the imagination and the sense. The one power of the imagination extends to all the things that the five powers of the senses know, and to more besides. But the knowing power in God is higher than it is in man. Therefore, whatever man knows by means of diverse powers, namely, the intellect, the imagination, and the sense, this God considers by His one simple intellect. God, therefore, knows the singulars that we apprehend by the sense and the imagination. [7] Moreover, the divine intellect does not gather its knowledge from things, as ours does; rather, as will be shown later on, it is through its knowledge the cause of things. The knowledge that the divine intellect has of other things is after the manner of practical knowledge. Now, practical knowledge is not perfect unless it reaches to singulars. For the end of practical knowledge is operation, which belongs to the domain of singulars. Therefore, the knowledge that God has of other things extends to singulars. [8] Furthermore, as was shown above, the first movable is moved by a mover moving through intellect and appetite. Now, a mover could not cause motion through his intellect unless he moved the movable in so far as it is of a nature to be moved in place. But this is true of the movable in so far as it is here and now, and consequently in so far as it is singular. Therefore, the intellect that is the mover of the first movable knows the first movable in so far as it is singular. Now, this mover is either held to be God, in which case we have made our point, or it is held to be some being below God. But, if the intellect of such a being can by its power know the singular, which our intellect cannot, all the more will the intellect of God be able to do this. [9] Again, the agent is more noble than the patient or thing acted upon, as act is more noble than potency. Hence, a form of a lower grade cannot by acting extend its likeness to a higher grade; rather, the higher form by acting can extend its likeness to a lower grade. Thus, from the incorruptible powers of the stars there are produced corruptible forms among sublunary things; but a corruptible power cannot produce an incorruptible form. Now, all knowledge takes place through the assimilation of the knower and the known. There is this difference, however, that the assimilation in human knowledge takes place through the action of sensible things on man’s knowing powers, whereas in the case of God’s knowledge the assimilation takes place contrariwise through the action of the forms of the divine intellect on the things known. Hence, since the form of the sensible thing is individuated through its materiality, it cannot extend the likeness of its singularity so that it be absolutely immaterial. It can extend its likeness to the level of the powers that use material organs; it reaches the intellect only through the power of the agent intellect in so far as it is completely divested of the conditions of matter. Thus, the likeness of the singularity of a sensible form cannot reach up to the human intellect. But the likeness of a form in the divine intellect, by reaching to the least of things to which its causality reaches, extends to the singularity of the sensible and material form. The divine intellect, therefore, can know singulars, but not the human intellect. [10] Then, too, if God does not know singulars which even men know, there would follow the difficulty that the Philosopher raises against Empedocles, namely, that God is the most foolish of beings [ De anima I, 5; Metaph. III, 4]. [11] This truth that we have proved is likewise strengthened by the authority of Sacred Scripture. For it is said in Hebrews (4:13): “Neither is there any creature invisible in His sight.” The contrary error likewise is removed by Sirach (16:16): “Do not say: I shall be hidden from God, and who shall remember me from on high?” [12] It is also clear from what has been said how the objection to the contrary does not conclude properly. For, although that by which the divine intellect understands is immaterial, it is nevertheless the likeness of both form and matter, being the first productive principle of both.

Chapter

That God knows the things that are not

[1] We must next show that the knowledge even of the things that are not is not lacking to God. [2] As is clear from what we have said above, the relation of the divine knowledge to the things known is the same as the relation of the things that we know to our knowledge. Now, the relation of a thing known to our knowledge is this, namely, that the known thing can exist without our having a knowledge of it, as Aristotle illustrates of the squaring of a circle; but the converse is not true. The relation of the divine knowledge to other things, therefore, win be such that it can be even of non-existing things. [3] Again, the knowledge of the divine intellect is to other things as the knowledge of an artisan to artifacts, since through His knowledge God is the cause of things. Now, the artisan knows through his art even those things that have not yet been fashioned, since the forms of his art flow from his knowledge to external matter for the constitution of the artifacts. Hence, nothing forbids that there be in the knowledge of an artisan forms that have not yet come out of it. Thus, nothing forbids God to have knowledge of the things that are not. [4] Furthermore, through His essence God knows things other than Himself in so far as His essence is the likeness of the things that proceed from Him. This is clear from what we have said. But since, as was shown above, the essence of God is of an infinite perfection, whereas every other thing has a limited being and perfection, it is impossible that the universe of things other than God equal the perfection of the divine essence. Hence, its power of representation extends to many more things than to those that are. Therefore, if God knows completely the power and perfection of His essence, His knowledge extends not only to the things that are but also to the things that are not. [5] Moreover, by that operation through which it knows what a thing is our intellect can know even those things that do not actually exist. It can comprehend the essence of a lion or a horse even though all such animals were to be destroyed. But the divine intellect knows, in the manner of one knowing what a thing is, not only definitions but also enunciables, as is clear from what we have said. Therefore, it can know even the things that are not. [6] Furthermore, an effect can be pre-known in its cause even before it exists. Thus, an astronomer pre-knows a future eclipse from a consideration of the order of the heavenly motions. But God knows all things through a cause; for, by knowing Himself, Who is the cause of other things, He knows other things as His effects, as was shown above. Nothing, therefore, prevents God from knowing even the things that are not. [7] Moreover, God’s understanding has no succession, as neither does His being. He is therefore an ever-abiding simultaneous whole-which belongs to the nature of eternity. On the other hand, the duration of time is stretched out through the succession of the before and after. Hence, the proportion of eternity to the total duration of time is as the proportion of the indivisible to something continuous; not, indeed, of that indivisible that is the terminus of a continuum, which is not present to every part of a continuum (the instant of time bears a likeness to such an indivisible), but of that indivisible which is outside a continuum and which nevertheless co-exists with any given part of a continuum or with a determinate point in the continuum. For, since time lies within motion, eternity, which is completely outside motion, in no way belongs to time. Furthermore, since the being of what is eternal does not pass away, eternity is present in its presentiality to any time or instant of time. We may see an example of sorts in the case of a circle. Let us consider a determined point on the circumference of a circle. Although it is indivisible, it does not co-exist simultaneously with any other point as to position, since it is the order of position that produces the continuity of the circumference. On the other hand, the center of the circle, which is no part of the circumference, is directly opposed to any given determinate point on the circumference. Hence, whatever is found in any part of time coexists with what is eternal as being present to it, although with respect to some other time it be past or future. Something can be present to what is eternal only by being present to the whole of it, since the eternal does not have the duration of succession. The divine intellect, therefore, sees in the whole of its eternity, as being present to it, whatever takes place through the whole course of time. And yet what takes place in a certain part of time was not always existent. It remains, therefore, that God has a knowledge of those things that according to the march of time do not yet exist. [8] Through these arguments it appears that God has a knowledge of non-being. But not all non-beings have the same relation to His knowledge. For those things that are not, nor will be, nor ever were, are known by God as possible to His power. Hence, God does not know them as in some way existing in themselves, but as existing only in the divine power. These are said by some to be known by God according to a knowledge of simple understanding. The things that are present, past, or future to us God knows in His power, in their proper causes, and in themselves. The knowledge of such things is said to be a knowledge of vision. For of the things that for us are not yet God sees not only the being that they have in their causes but also the being that they have in themselves, in so far as His eternity is present in its indivisibility to all time. [9] Nevertheless, whatever being a thing has God knows through His essence. For His essence can be represented by many things that are not, nor will be, nor ever were. His essence is likewise the likeness of the power of every cause, through which effects pre-exist in their causes. And the being that each thing has in itself comes from the divine essence as from its exemplary source. [10] Thus, therefore, God knows non-beings in so far as in some way they have being, namely, in His power, or in their causes, or in themselves. This is not incompatible with the nature of knowledge. [11] The authority of Sacred Scripture likewise offers witness to what has preceded. For it is said in Sirach (23:29): “For all things were known to the Lord God before they were created: so also after they were perfected He beholds all things.” And in Jeremias (1:5): “Before I formed you in the bowels of your mother I knew you.” [12] It is also clear from what has preceded that we are not forced to say, as some said, that God knows singulars universally because He knows them only in universal causes, just as one would know a particular eclipse not in itself but as it arises from the position of the stars. For we have shown that the divine knowledge extends to singulars in so far as they are in themselves.

Chapter

That God knows future contingent singulars;

[1] From this we can begin to understand somewhat that God had from eternity an infallible knowledge of contingent singulars, and yet they do not cease to be contingent. [2] The contingent is opposed to the certitude of knowledge only so far as it is future, not so far as it is present. For when the contingent is future, it can not-be. Thus, the knowledge of one conjecturing that it will be can be mistaken: it will be mistaken if what he conjectures as future will not take place. But in so far as the contingent is present, in that time it cannot not-be. It can not-be in the future, but this affects the contingent not so far as it is present but so far as it is future. Thus, nothing is lost to the certitude of sense when someone sees a man running, even though this judgment is contingent. All knowledge, therefore, that bears on something contingent as present can be certain. But the vision of the divine intellect from all eternity is directed to each of the things that take place in the course of time, in so far as it is present, as shown above. It remains, therefore, that nothing prevents God from having from all eternity an infallible knowledge of contingents. [3] Again, the contingent differs from the necessary according to the way each of them is found in its cause. The contingent is in its cause in such a way that it can both not-be and be from it; but the necessary can only be from its cause. But according to the way both of them are in themselves, they do not differ as to being, upon which the true is founded. For, according as it is in itself, the contingent cannot be and not-be, it can only be, even though in the future it can not-be. Now, the divine intellect from all eternity knows things not only according to the being that they have in their causes, but also according to the being that they have in themselves. Therefore, nothing prevents the divine intellect from having an eternal and infallible knowledge of contingents. [4] Moreover, just as from a necessary cause an effect follows with certitude, so it follows from a complete contingent cause if it be not impeded. But since, as appears from what was said above, God knows all things, He knows not only the causes of contingent things but also those things by which these causes may be impeded. Therefore, He knows with certitude whether contingent things are or are not. [5] Furthermore, an effect cannot exceed the perfection of its cause, though sometime it falls short of it. Hence, since our knowledge comes to us from things, it happens at times that we know what is necessary not according to the mode of necessity but according to that of probability. Now, just as in us things are the cause of knowledge, so the divine knowledge is the cause of the things known. Therefore, nothing prevents those things from being contingent in themselves of which God has a necessary knowledge. [6] Again, an effect whose cause is contingent cannot be a necessary one; otherwise, the effect could be even though the cause were removed. Now, of the most remote effect there is both a proximate and a remote cause. If, then, the proximate cause were contingent, its effect would have to be contingent even though the remote cause is necessary. Thus, plants do not bear fruit of necessity, even though the motion of the sun is necessary, because the intermediate causes are contingent. But the knowledge of God, though it is the cause of the things known through it, is yet a remote cause. Therefore, the contingency of the things known is not in conflict with this necessity, since it may be that the intermediate causes are contingent. [7] The knowledge of God, furthermore, would not be true and perfect if things did not happen in the way in which God knows them to happen. Now, since God knows all being, and is its source, He knows every effect not only in itself but also in its order to each of its causes. But the order of contingent things to their proximate causes is that they come forth from these causes in a contingent way. Hence, God knows that some things are taking place, and this contingently. Thus, therefore, the certitude and truth of the divine knowledge does not remove the contingency of things. [8] From what has been said, it is therefore clear bow the objection impugning a knowledge of contingents in God is to be repulsed. For change in that which comes later does not induce change in that which has preceded; for it is possible that from prime necessary causes there proceed ultimate contingent effects. Now, the things that are known by God are not prior to His knowledge, as is the case with us, but, rather, subsequent to it. It does not therefore follow that, if something known by God can change, His knowledge of it can be deceived or in any way changed. We shall be deceived in the consequent therefore, if, because our knowledge of changeable things is itself changeable, we suppose on this account that such is necessarily the case in all knowledge. [9] Again, when it is said that God knows or knew this future thing, a certain intermediate point between the divine knowledge and the thing known is assumed. This is the time when the above words are spoken, in relation to which time that which is known by God is said to be future. But this is not future with reference to the divine knowledge, which, abiding in the moment of eternity, is related to all things as present to them. If with respect to the divine knowledge we remove from its intermediate position the time when the words are spoken, we cannot say that this is known by God as non-existent, so as to leave room for the question whether it can not-be; rather, it will be said to be known by God in such a way that it is seen by Him already in its own existence. On this basis there is no room for the preceding question. For that which already is cannot, with respect to that moment of time, not be. We are therefore deceived by the fact that the time in which we are speaking is present to eternity, as is likewise past time (designated by the words God knew). Hence, the relation of past or present time to the future is attributed to eternity, to which such a relation does not belong. It is thus that we commit the fallacy of accident. There is more. If each thing is known by God as seen by Him in the present, what is known by God will then have to be. Thus, it is necessary that Socrates be seated from the fact that he is seen seated. But this is not absolutely necessary or, as some say, with the necessity of the consequent; it is necessary conditionally, or with the necessity of the consequence. For this is a necessary conditional proposition: if he is seen sitting, he is sitting. Hence, although the conditional proposition may be changed to a categorical one, to read what is seen sitting must necessarily be sitting, it is clear that the proposition is true if understood of what is said, and compositely; but it is false if understood of what is meant, and dividedly. Thus, in these and all similar arguments used by those who oppose God’s knowledge of contingents, the fallacy of composition and division takes place. [11] That God knows future contingents is also shown by the authority of Sacred Scripture. For it is said of the divine wisdom: “She knows signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages” (Wis. 8:8). And in Sirach (39:24-25) it is said: “There is nothing hidden from His eyes. He sees from eternity to eternity.” And in Isaiah (48:5): “I foretold you of old, before they came to pass I told you.”

Chapter

That God knows the motions of the will

[1] We must now show that God knows the thoughts of the mind and the motions of the will. [2] As was shown above, whatever in any way exists is known by God in so far as He knows His own essence. There is a certain being in the soul and a certain being in things outside the soul. God, therefore, knows all these differences of being and what is contained under them. But the being that is in the soul is that which is in the will or in thought. It remains, therefore, that God knows that which is in thought and in the will. [3] Moreover, in knowing His essence, God knows other things in the same way as an effect is known through a knowledge of the cause. By knowing His essence, therefore, God knows all things to which His causality extends. But it extends to the operations of the intellect and the will. For, since each thing acts through its form, from which the thing has a certain being, so the fount and source of all being, from which is also every form, must be the source of all operation; for the effects of second causes are grounded more principally in first causes. Therefore, God knows the thoughts and affections of the mind. [4] Again, just as God’s being is prime and for this reason the cause of all being, so His understanding is prime and on this account the cause of all intellectual operation. Hence, just as God, by knowing His being knows the being of each thing, so by knowing His understanding and willing He knows every thought and will. [5] Moreover, as is clear from what was said above, God knows things not only so far as they are in themselves, but also so far as they are in their causes; for He knows the order of a cause to its effect. But artifacts are in artisans through their intellect and will, just as natural things are in their causes through the powers of these causes. For just as natural things through their active powers assimilate their effects to themselves, so an artisan through his intellect induces into the artifact the form through which it is assimilated to his art. The situation is the same for all things that proceed intentionally from an agent. Therefore, od knows the thoughts and affections of the mind. [6] Again, God knows intelligible substances no less than He knows or we know sensible substances; for intellectual substances are more knowable, since they are in act. Now, both God and we know how sensible substances are informed and inclined. Since, then, the soul’s thinking is a certain information of the soul itself and its affection is a certain inclination of the soul towards something (so, too, we likewise caH the inclination of a natural thing a natural appetite), it remains that God knows the thoughts and affections of the mind. [7] This is confirmed by the testimony of Sacred Scripture. For it is said in a Psalm (7:10): “The searcher of hearts and reins is God.” And in the Proverbs (15:11): “Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more the hearts of the children of men?” And John (2:25): “He knew what was in man.” [8] As for the dominion that the will has over its acts, through which it lies in the power of the will to will or not to will, this excludes the determination of the power to one effect and any violence from a cause acting from the outside; but it does not exclude the influence of a higher cause from which come its being and operation. Thus, the causality in the first cause, which is God, is not removed with respect to the motions of the will. Hence, God, by knowing Himself, can know such motions.

Chapter

That God knows infinite things

[1] After this we must show that God knows infinite things. [2] By knowing Himself to be the cause of things God knows things other than Himself, as is clear from the above. But God is the cause of infinite things, if there are infinite things, since He is the cause of all things that are. Therefore, God knows infinite things. [3] Again, as is clear from what we have said, God knows His own power perfectly. But a power cannot be known perfectly unless all that it can do is known, since this is how the magnitude of a power is in a manner gauged. But since, as was shown above, His power is infinite, it extends to infinite things. Therefore, God knows infinite things. [4] Moreover, if the knowledge of God extends to all things that in any way are, as was shown, He must know not only that which is actual but also that which is potential. But among natural things there is the infinite in potency, though not in act, as the Philosopher proves in Physics III [6]. God, therefore, knows infinite things. So, too, unity, which is the source of number, would know the infinite species of number if it knew whatever was in it potentially; for unity is potentially every number. [5] Furthermore, God knows other things by His essence as through a certain exemplary means. But, since His essence is of an infinite perfection, as was shown above, an infinite number of things having finite perfections can be derived from it. For no one thing or any number of things copied from the divine essence can equal the perfection of their cause. There thus always remains a new way in which some copy is able, to imitate the divine essence. Hence, nothing prevents God from knowing infinite things through His essence. [6] Besides, God’s being is His understanding. Hence, just as His being is infinite, as we have shown, so His understanding is infinite. But as the finite is to the finite, so the infinite is to the infinite. If, then, we are able to grasp finite things according to our understanding, which is finite, so God according to His understanding can grasp infinite things. [7] Moreover, the intellect that knows the greatest intelligible, all the more, rather than less, knows lesser intelligibles, as is clear from the Philosopher in De anima III [4]. This arises because the intellect is not corrupted by an excelling intelligible, as is the sense, but is rather perfected by it. Now, let us take infinite things, whether of the same species (for example, an infinite number of men) or of infinite species, and let us even assume that some or all of them were infinite in quantity, were this possible the universe of these things would be of a lesser infinity than is God. For each of them, and all of them together, would have a being that is received and limited to a given species or genus and would thus be finite in some respect. Hence, it would fall short of the infinity of God, Who is absolutely infinite, as was shown above. Therefore, since God knows Himself perfectly, nothing prevents Him from also knowing that sum of infinite things. [8] Again, the more an intellect is more efficacious and penetrating in knowing, the more it can know many things through one means. So, too, every power is more united the more strong it is. But the divine intellect, as is clear from the above, is infinite in power or in perfection. Therefore, it can know infinite things through one means, namely, the divine essence. [9] Moreover, the divine intellect, like the divine essence, is absolutely perfect. Hence, no intelligible perfection is lacking to it. But that to which our own intellect is in potency is its intelligible perfection. Now, our intellect is in potency to all intelligible species. But such species are infinite, since the species of both numbers and figures are infinite. It remains, then, that God knows all such infinites. [10] Again, since our intellect can know infinite things in potency, being able to multiply the species of numbers infinitely, if the divine intellect did not know infinite things also in act, it would follow either that the human intellect knew more than did the divine intellect, or that the divine intellect did not know in act all the things that it knew in potency. Both alternatives are impossible, as appears from what was said above. [11] Again, the infinite cannot be known in so far as it cannot be numbered, for it is in itself impossible to number the parts of the infinite, as implying a contradiction. But to know something by the numbering of its parts belongs to an intellect that knows one part after the other; it does not belong to an intellect that comprehends the diverse parts together. Therefore, since the divine intellect knows all things together without succession, it is no more prevented from knowing infinite things than from knowing finite things. [12] Moreover, all quantity consists in a certain multiplication of parts, and this is why number is the first of quantities. Where, therefore, plurality does not bring about any difference, there neither does anything that follows quantity bring about any difference. Now, in the case of God’s knowledge, many things are known as one, since they are known not through diverse species but through one species, namely, the divine essence. Hence, many things are also known together by God, so that in this way plurality introduces no difference in the divine knowledge. Neither, therefore, does the infinite that accompanies quantity. Hence, to know infinite and finite objects makes no difference to the divine intellect. Thus, since God knows finite things, nothing prevents Him from also knowing infinite things. [13] What is said in a Psalm (146:5) agrees with this: “And of His wisdom there is no number.” [14] Now, from what has been said it is evident why our intellect does not know the infinite, as does the divine intellect. For our intellect is distinguished from the divine intellect on four points which bring about this difference. The first point is that our intellect is absolutely finite whereas the divine intellect is infinite. The second point is that our intellect knows diverse things through diverse species. This means that it does not extend to infinite things through one act of knowledge as does the divine intellect. The third point follows from the second. Since our intellect knows diverse things through diverse species it cannot know many things at one and the same time. Hence, it can know infinite things only successively by numbering them. This is not the case with the divine intellect which sees many things together as grasped through one species. The fourth point is that the divine intellect knows both the things that are and the things that are not, as has been shown. [15] It is likewise evident how the statement of Aristotle, who says that the infinite as infinite is unknown, is not opposed to the present conclusion. For, since the nature of the infinite belongs to quantity, as he himself says, the infinite as infinite would be known if it were known through the measurement of its parts, for this is the proper knowledge of quantity. But God does not know in this way. God, therefore, so to speak, does not know the infinite in so far as it is infinite, but, as we have shown, in so far as it is related to His knowledge as though it were something finite. [16] It must be observed, however, that God does not know infinite things with the knowledge of vision, to make use of an expression employed by others. For there neither are nor have been nor will be infinite things in act, since, according to the Catholic faith, generation is not infinite at either end. But God knows the infinite with the knowledge of simple understanding. For He knows the infinite things which neither are nor will be nor have been, which yet lie in the potency of the creation. God likewise knows the infinite things that are in His power, which neither are nor will be nor have been. [17] Hence, as concerns the question of the knowledge of singulars, we may reply by denying the major. There are not infinite singulars. However, if there were, God would still know them.

Chapter

That God knows lowly things

[1] Having achieved this conclusion, we must show that God knows lowly things, and that this is not opposed to the nobility of His knowledge. [2] The stronger a given active power is, the more does its action extend to more remote effects. This is also evident in the actions of sensible things. Now, the power of the divine intellect in knowing things is like an active power. For God knows things not by receiving anything from them, but, rather, by exercising His causality on them. Hence, since God is of an infinite power in understanding, as is clear from what has preceded, His knowledge must extend even to the most remote things. But the gradation of nobility and lowliness among all things is measured according to their nearness to and distance from God, Who is at the peak of nobility. Therefore, because of the perfect power of His intellect, God knows the lowliest possible among beings. [3] Furthermore, everything that is, in that it is or in what it is, is in act and the likeness of the first act, and on this account has nobility. Whatever is in potency likewise participates in nobility from its order to act; for it is thus that it is said to be. It remains, then, that, considered in itself, each thing is noble, but is called lowly with respect to something more noble. Now, the most noble of creatures are no less distant from God than the lowest of creatures are distant from the highest. Hence, if this distance prevented God from knowing them, all the more would the previous distance. It would thus follow that God did not know anything other than Himself. This was disproved above. If, then, God knows something other than Himself, however supreme in nobility it may be, by the same reason He knows anything whatever, however exceedingly lowly it may be called. [4] Moreover, the good of the order of the universe is more noble than any part of the universe, since the individual parts are ordered, as to an end, to the good of the order that is in the whole. Ibis is evident from the Philosopher in Metaphysics XI [10]. Hence, if God knows some other noble nature, He especially knows the order of the universe. But this order cannot be known without a knowledge both of the things that are more noble and of the things that are more lowly, in whose distances and relations the order of the universe consists. It remains, therefore, that God knows not only noble things but also the things that are deemed lowly. [5] Again, the lowliness of the things known does not of itself redound to the knower. For it belongs to the nature of knowledge that the knower should contain the species of the thing known according to his own manner. Accidentally, however, the lowliness of the things known can redound to the knower. This may be either because, while he is considering lowly things, his mind is turned away from thinking of more noble things; or it may be because, as a result of considering lowly things, he is inclined towards certain unbefitting affections. This, however, is not possible in God, as is clear from what has been said. The knowledge of lowly things, therefore, does not detract from the divine nobility, but rather belongs to the divine perfection according as it pre-contains all things in itself, as was shown above. [6] Furthermore, a power is not judged to be small because it can do small things but because it is limited to small things; for a power that can do great things can likewise do small ones. Hence, a knowledge that extends at the same time to both noble and lowly things is not to be judged as being lowly; rather, that knowledge is to be judged lowly which extends only to lowly things, as happens in our own case. For we examine divine and human things by different considerations, and the knowledge of the one is not the knowledge of the other, so that by comparison with the more noble knowledge the lower knowledge is deemed to be lowlier. But it is not thus in God. By one and the same knowledge and consideration He considers both Himself and all other things. No lowliness, therefore, is ascribed to His knowledge from the fact that He knows any lowly things whatever. [7] What is said of the divine wisdom is in harmony with this conclusion. Wisdom “reaches everywhere by reason of her purity... and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her” (Wis. 7:24-25). [8] Now, from what has been said it is evident that the argument advanced on the opposite side is not opposed to the truth we have shown. For the nobility of knowledge is measured in terms of those things to which knowledge is principally directed, and not in terms of all the things that fall within knowledge. For in the most noble among the knowledges that we have there are included not only the highest beings but also the lowest. For first philosophy extends its consideration from the first being to being in potency, which is the lowest being. Thus, under divine science are included the lowest of beings as being known along with its principal object. For the divine essence is the principal object known by God and in this object, as was shown above, all others are known. [9] It is also evident that this truth is not opposed to what the Philosopher says in Metaphysics XI [9]. Aristotle there intends to show that the divine intellect does not know anything other than itself that is its perfection in the sense of being its principal known object. In this sense he says that it is better not to know lowly things than to know them. This is the case, namely, when the knowledge of the lowly is different from the knowledge of the noble and the consideration of lowly things impedes the consideration of noble things.

Chapter

That God knows evils

[1] It now remains to show that God likewise knows evils. [2] When a good is known, the opposite evil is known. But God knows all particular goods, to which evils are opposed. Therefore, God knows evils. [3] Furthermore, the notions of contraries are themselves not contraries in the soul; otherwise, they would not be in the soul together nor would they be known together. The notion, therefore, by which evil is known is not opposed to the good but belongs, rather, to the notion of the good. Hence, if all the notions of goodness are found in God because of His absolute perfection, as was proved above, it follows that there is in Him the notion by which evil is known. And thus God also knows evils. [4] Again, the true is the good of the intellect. For an intellect is said to be good because it knows the true. But it is true not only that the good is good but also that evil is evil; for just as it is true that that which is is, so it is true that that which is not is not. The good of the intellect, therefore, also consists in the knowledge of evil. But, since the divine intellect is perfect in goodness, no intellectual perfection can be lacking to it. Therefore, it has a knowledge of evils. [5] Moreover, as was shown above, God knows the distinction of things. But negation is found within the notion of distinction; for those things are distinct of which one is not the other. Hence, the first notions, which are distinguished by themselves, mutually include a negation of one another. That is why the negative propositions among them are immediate: for example, no quantity is a substance. God, therefore, knows negation. But privation is a certain negation in a determinate subject, as is shown in Metaphysics IV [2]. God, therefore, knows privation. Consequently, He knows evil, which is nothing other than the privation of a due perfection. [6] Furthermore, if God knows all the species of things, as was proved above, and is likewise conceded and proved by certain philosophers, He must know contraries. This is so because the species of certain genera are contraries and also because the differences of genera are contraries, as is proved in Metaphysics X [8]. But between contraries there is included the opposition of form and privation, as is said in the same reference. Therefore, God must know privation and consequently evil. [7] Again, as was shown above, God knows not only form but also matter. But, since matter is a being in potency, it cannot be known perfectly unless those things to which its potency extends are known. This is the case with all other potencies. Now, the potency of matter extends both to form and to privation, since that which can be can also not-be. Therefore, God knows privation, and consequently He knows evil. [8] Again, if God knows something other than Himself, He especially knows that which is the best. Ibis is the order of the universe to which, as to the end, all particular goods are ordered. But in the order of the universe certain things exist to ward off dangers that may come about from certain other things. This is clear from what is given to animals for their own protection. Therefore, God knows such dangers. Hence, He knows evils. [9] Furthermore, in our own case the knowledge of evil is not considered blameworthy according to that which essentially belongs to knowledge, namely, the judgment that we have of evil things. But it is considered blameworthy by accident, in so far as through the consideration of evil one is sometimes inclined to evil things. This is not the case in God, because, as was shown above, He is immutable. Nothing, therefore, prevents God from knowing evils. [10] What is said in Wisdom (7:30) harmonizes with this conclusion: “No evil can overcome” the “wisdom” of God. And in Proverbs (15:11) it is said: “Hell and destruction are before the Lord.” And in the Psalm (68:6): “My offenses are not hidden from you.” And in Job (11:11) it is said: “For He knows the vanity of men, and when He sees iniquity, does He not consider it?” [11] We must observe, however, that on the knowledge of evil and privation the divine intellect and our own are differently disposed. For, since our intellect knows singular things through singular species that are proper and diverse, that which it is in act it knows through an intelligible species through which it is made an intellect in act. Hence, it can also know potency in so far as it is sometimes in potency to such a species; so that just as it knows act through act, so likewise it knows potency through potency. And because potency belongs to the nature of privation, since privation is a negation whose subject is a being in potency, it follows that it is suitable to our intellect in a certain manner to know privation in so far as it is of a nature to be in potency. Nevertheless, it can also be said that the knowledge of potency and privation follows from the knowledge of act. [12] The divine intellect, on the other hand, which is in no way in potency, does not know privation or anything else in the above given way. For, if it knew something through a species that is not itself, it would necessarily follow that its proportion to that species would be as the proportion of potency to act. God must therefore understand solely through the species that is His own essence. It follows, consequently, that He understands only Himself as the first object of His intellect. But in understanding Himself He understands other things, as was proved above. And He knows not only acts, but also potencies and, privations. [13] This is the meaning of the words that the Philosopher sets down in De anima III [6], when he says: “How does it apprehend evil or something black? For in a manner it knows contraries. But the knower must be potentially what it knows and this must be in it. But, if no contrary is present to a certain knower”—that is, in potency—“this knower knows itself and is in act and separable.”“ Nor must we adopt the interpretation of Averroes, who takes the position that it follows from this text that the intellect that is solely in act in no way knows privation. Rather, the sense is that it does not know privation by the fact of being in potency to something else; it knows privation because it knows itself and is always in act. [14] Moreover, we must observe that, if God knew Himself in such a way that, by knowing Himself, He did not know other beings, which are particular goods, then in no way would He know privation and evil. For to the good that He is there is no contrary privation, since privation and its opposite bear on the same thing, and thus to that which is pure act no privation is opposed. And, consequently, neither is evil. Hence, granted that God knows only Himself, by knowing the good that He is He will not know evil. But because, in knowing Himself, He knows the beings that are by nature subject to privations, He must know the privations and the evils that are opposed to particular goods. [15] We must likewise observe, as was shown above, that just as God in knowing Himself knows other things without any discursiveness of the intellect, so likewise it is not necessary that His knowledge be discursive if He knows the evil through the good. For the good is as the principle of the knowledge of what is evil. Hence, evils are known through goods as things are known through their definitions, not as conclusions are known through their principles. [16] Nor, again, does it mean that there is imperfection in the divine knowledge if God knows evils through the privation of goods. For the position says that evil exists only in so far as it is the privation of good. Hence, in this way alone is it knowable, for each thing is knowable to the extent that it has being.

Chapter

That God has will

[1] Having dealt with what concerns the knowledge of the divine intellect, it remains for us to deal with God’s will. [2] From the fact that God is endowed with intellect it follows that He is endowed with will. For, since the understood good is the proper object of the will, the understood good is, as such, willed. Now that which is understood is by reference to one who understands. Hence, he who grasps the good by his intellect is, as such, endowed with will. But God grasps the good by His intellect, For, since the activity of His intellect is perfect, as appears from what has been said, He understands being together with the qualification of the good. He is, therefore, endowed with will. [3] Again, whoever possesses some form is related through that form to things in reality. For example, white wood is through its whiteness like some things and unlike other things. But in one understanding and sensing there is the form of the understood and sensed thing, since all knowledge is through some likeness. There must, therefore, be a relation of the one understanding and sensing to understood and sensed things according as these are in reality. But this is not because of the fact that these beings understand and sense, since thereby we rather find a relation of things to the one understanding and sensing; for to understand and to sense exist according as things are in the intellect and the sense, following the mode of each. He who senses and understands has a relation to the thing outside the soul through his will and appetite. Hence, all sensing and understanding beings have appetite and will. Properly speaking, however, the will is in the intellect. Since, then, God is intelligent, He must be endowed with will. [4] Moreover, that which accompanies every being belongs to being inasmuch as it is in being. This accompaniment must be found in a supreme way in that which is the first being. Now, it belongs to every being to seek its perfection and the conservation of its being, and this in the case of each being according to its mode: for intellectual beings through will, for animals through sensible appetite, and to those lacking sense through natural appetite. To seek perfection belongs differently to those that have it and those that have it not. For those that have it not tend by desire, through the appetitive power proper to them, to acquire what is lacking to their desire, whereas those that have it rest in it. Hence, this cannot be lacking to the first being, which is God. Since, then, God is intelligent, there is in Him a will by which His being and His goodness are pleasing to Him. [5] Again, the more perfect understanding is, the more delightful it is to the one understanding, But God understands and His understanding is most perfect, as was shown above. Therefore, His understanding is most full of delight. But intelligible delight is through the will, as sensible delight is through the appetite of concupiscence. There is, therefore, will in God. [6] Furthermore, a form considered by the intellect does not move or cause anything except through the will, whose object is the end and the good, by which someone is moved to act. Hence, the speculative intellect does not move, nor does the imagination alone without an act of the estimative power. But the form of the divine intellect is the cause of motion and being in other things, since God produces things by His intellect, as will be shown later on. Therefore, God must be endowed with will. [7] Again, among moving powers in beings possessing an intellect, the first is found to be the will. For the will sets every power to its act: we understand because we will, we imagine because we will, and so with the rest. The will has this role because its object is the end; although it is also a fact that the intellect, though not in the manner of an efficient and moving cause, but in that of a final cause, moves the will by proposing to it its object, namely, the end. It therefore belongs supremely to the first mover to have a will. [8] Furthermore, “that is free which is for its own sake,” and thus the free has the nature of that which is through itself. Now, first and primarily, will has liberty in acting, for according as someone acts voluntarily he is said to perform any given action freely. To act through will, therefore, supremely befits the first agent, whom it supremely befits to act through himself. [9] Moreover, the end and the agent to the end are always found to be of one order in reality; and hence the proximate end that is proportioned to an agent falls into the same species as the agent both among natural things and artificial things. For the form of the art through which the artisan works is the species of the form that is in matter, which is the end of the artisan; and the form by which the generating fire acts is of the same species as the form of the generated fire, which is the end of generation. But nothing is co-ordered with God, as within the same order, except Himself; otherwise, there would be several first beings—whose contrary was proved above. He is therefore the first agent because of the end that He is Himself. He is therefore not only the appetible end, but also the seeker of Himself as the end, so to speak. And this He is with an intellectual appetite, since He is intelligent. This is will. There is, therefore, will in God. [10] The testimony of Sacred Scripture is witness to the divine will. For it is said in a Psalm (134:6): “Whatever the Lord pleased He has done.” And Romans (9:19): “Who resists His will?”

Chapter

That the will of God is His essence

[1] From this it appears that God’s will is not other than His essence. [2] It belongs to God to be endowed with will in so far as He is intelligent, as has been shown. But God has understanding by His essence, as was proved above. So, therefore, does He have will. God’s will, therefore, is His very essence. [3] Again, as to understand is the perfection of the one understanding, so to will is the perfection of the one willing; for both are actions remaining in the agent and not going out (as does heat) to some receiving subject. But the understanding of God is His being, as was proved above. For, since the divine being is in itself most perfect, it admits of no superadded perfection, as was proved above. The divine willing also is, therefore, His being; and hence the will of God is His essence. [4] Moreover, since every agent acts in so far as it is in act, God, Who is pure act, must act through His essence. Willing, however, is a certain operation of God. Therefore, God must be endowed with will through His essence. Therefore, His will is His essence. [5] Furthermore, if will were something added to the divine substance, since the divine substance is something complete in being it would follow that will would be added to it as an accident to a subject, that the divine substance would be related to it as potency to act, and that there would be composition in God. All this was refuted above. Hence, it is not possible that the divine will be something added to the divine substance.

Chapter

That the principal object of the divine will is the divine essence

[1] From this it further appears that the principal object of the divine will is the divine essence. [2] The understood good is the object of the will, as has been said. But that which is principally understood by God is the divine essence, as was proved above. The divine essence, therefore, is principally the object of the divine will. [3] Again, the appetible is to appetite as the mover to the moved, as was said above. Similar, too, is the relation of the object of the will to the will, since the will belongs to the class of appetitive powers. If, then, the principal object of the divine will be other than the divine essence, it will follow that there is something higher than the divine will moving it. The contrary of this is apparent from what has been said. [4] Moreover, the principal object willed is for each one willing the cause of his willing. For when we say, I will to walk in order to become healed, we are of the impression that we are assigning a cause. If, then, it be asked, why do you want to become healed? causes will be assigned one after the other until we arrive at the ultimate end. This is the principal object of the will, which is through itself the cause of willing. If, then, God should principally will something other than Himself, it will follow that something other is the cause of His willing. But His willing is His being, as has been shown.” Hence, something other will be the cause of His being—which is contrary to the nature of the first being. [5] Furthermore, for each being endowed with a will the principal object willed is the ultimate end. For the end is willed through itself, and through it other things become objects of will. But the ultimate end is God Himself, since He is the highest good, as has been shown. Therefore, God is the principal object of His will. [6] Moreover, every power is proportioned with equality to its principal object, for the power of a thing is measured according to its objects, as may be seen through the Philosopher in De caelo et mundo [11], But the will is proportioned with equality to its principal object, and similarly the intellect and likewise the sense. Now, nothing is proportioned with equality to the divine will save only God’s essence. Therefore, the principal object of the divine will is the divine essence. [7] But since the divine essence is God’s understanding and all else that is said to be in Him, it is further manifest that in the same way He principally wills Himself to understand, to will, to be one, and other such attributes.

Chapter

That in willing Himself God also wills other things

[1] Thereby it can be shown, however, that in willing Himself God also wills other things. [2] For to whom it belongs to win the end principally, to him it belongs to will the things that are ordered to the end for the sake of the end. Now, God Himself is the ultimate end of things, as appears somewhat from what has been said. Hence, because He wills Himself to be, He likewise wills other things, which are ordered to Him as to the end. [3] Again, everyone desires the perfection of that which is willed and loved by him for its own sake. For the things that we love for their own sake we want to be most perfect, and always to become better and be multiplied as much as possible. But God wills and loves His essence for its own sake. Now, the divine essence cannot be increased or multiplied in itself, as is manifest from what has been said; it can be multiplied solely according to its likeness, which is participated by many. God, therefore, wills the multitude of things in willing and loving His own essence and perfection. [4] Moreover, whoever loves something in itself and for its own sake consequently loves all the things in which it is found: for example, he who loves sweetness for itself must love all sweet things. But God wills and loves His own being in itself and for its own sake, as shown above. Every other being, however, is by way of likeness a certain participation of His being, as appears somewhat from what has been said. It remains, then, that God, in that He wills and loves Himself, wills and loves other things. [5] Furthermore, in willing Himself God wills all that is in Him. But all things in a certain manner pre-exist in Him through their proper models, as was shown above. God, therefore, in willing Himself likewise wills other things. [6] Then, again, the more perfect the power of a being, by so much does its causality extend to more, and more remote, things, as was said above. But the causality of the end consists in this, that other things are desired for its sake. The more perfect an end, therefore, and the more willed, by so much does the will of one willing the end extend to more things for the sake of that end. But the divine essence is most perfect as goodness and as end. It will, therefore, supremely diffuse its causality to many, so that many things may be willed for its sake; and especially so by God, Who wills the divine essence perfectly according to its power. [7] Moreover, will accompanies intellect. But by His intellect God principally understands Himself, and He understands other things in Himself. In the same way, therefore, He principally wills Himself, and wills all other things in willing Himself. [8] This is confirmed by the authority of Sacred Scripture. For it is said in Wisdom (11:25): “For You love all things that are, and hate none of the things which You have made.”

Chapter

That God wills Himself and other things by one act of will

[1] From this result it follows that God wills Himself and other things by one act of will. [2.] Every power is directed to its object and to the formal notion of the object by one operation or one act. For example, by the same sight we see light and color, which becomes visible in act through light. Now, when we will something solely for the sake of the end, that which is desired for the sake of the end derives the nature of something willed from the end; and thus the end is to it as the formal notion of the object is to the object, for example, as light is to color. Since, then, God wills other things for His own sake as for the sake of the end, as has been shown, He wills Himself and other things by one act of will. [3] Moreover, what is perfectly known and desired is known and desired according to its whole power. But the power of the end is measured not only according as it is desired in itself, but also according as other things become desirable for its sake. Hence, whoever desires an end perfectly desires it in both ways. But there is no act of will in God by which He wills Himself and does not do so perfectly, since there is nothing imperfect in Him. Therefore, by whatever act God wills Himself, He wills Himself absolutely and other things for His sake. But He does not will things other than Himself except in so far as He wills Himself, as has been proved. It remains, then, that God does not will Himself and other things by different acts of will, but by one and the same act. [4] Furthermore, as appears from what has been said, discursiveness is found in the act of a cognitive power according as we know principles by themselves and from them we arrive at conclusions. For, if we saw conclusions in principles by knowing the principles themselves, there would be no discursiveness, as likewise there is not when we see something in a mirror. But as principles are to conclusions in speculative matters, so ends are to the things ordered to them in operative and appetitive matters; for, just as conclusions are known through principles, so the appetite and doing of the things ordered to the end proceed from the end. If, then, someone wills separately the end and the things ordered to the end, there will be a certain discursiveness in His will. But this cannot be in God, since He is outside all motion. It remains, then, that God wills Himself and other things together and in the same act of will. [5] Again, since God wills Himself always, if He wills Himself and other things by different acts it will follow that there are at once two acts of will in Him. This is impossible, since one simple power does not have at once two operations. [6] Furthermore, in every act of the will the object willed is to the one willing as a mover to the moved. If, then, there be some action of the divine will, by which God wills things other than Himself, which is diverse from the action by which He wills Himself, there will be in Him some other mover of the divine will. This is impossible. [7] Moreover, God’s willing is His being, as has been proved. But in God there is only one being. Therefore, there is in Him only one willing. [8] Again, willing belongs to God according as He is intelligent. Therefore, just as by one act He understands Himself and other things, in so far as His essence is the exemplar of all things, so by one act He wills Himself and other things, in so far as His goodness is the likeness of all goodness.

Chapter

THAT THE MULTITUDE OF THE OBJECTS OF THE WILL IS NOT OPPOSED TO THE DIVINE SIMPLICITY [1] From this it follows that the multitude of the objects of the will is not opposed to the unity and simplicity of the divine substance. [2] For acts are distinguished according to their objects. If, then, the many objects that God wills caused a multitude in Him, it would follow that there was not in Him solely one operation of the will. This is against what has been proved above. [3] Again, it has been shown that God wills other things in so far as He wills His own goodness. Hence, other things are to His will in the manner in which they are comprehended by His goodness. But all things in His goodness are one, since other things are in Him according to His way, namely, “the material immaterially and the many unitedly,” as appears from what has been said. It remains, then, that the multitude of the objects of the will does not multiply the divine substance. [4] Moreover, the divine intellect and will are of an equal simplicity, for both are the divine substance, as has been proved. But the multitude of intellectual objects does not cause a multitude in the divine essence, nor a composition in the divine intellect. Neither, therefore, does a multitude of the objects of the will cause either a diversity in the divine essence or a composition in the divine will. [5] Furthermore, there is this difference between knowledge and appetite, that knowledge takes place according as the known is in some way in the knower, whereas appetite does not take place in this way, but rather conversely, according as the appetite is related to the appetible thing, which the one pursuing seeks or in which be rests. And on this account good and evil, which have reference to appetite, are in things, whereas the true and the false, which have reference to knowledge, are in the mind, as the Philosopher says in Metaphysics VI [4]. Now, that something be related to many is not opposed to its simplicity, since unity itself is the principle of numerical multitude. Hence, the multitude of the objects willed by God is not opposed to His simplicity.

Chapter

That the divine will extends to singular goods

[1] From this it is likewise apparent that, for the purpose of conserving the divine simplicity, we should not say that God wills other goods in a certain general way, in so far as He wills Himself to be the principle of the goods that can come forth from Him, but that He does not will them in the particular. [2] For to will implies a relationship of the one willing to the thing willed. But the divine simplicity does not forbid -its being related even to many particulars; for God is said to be something best and first in relation to singulars. Therefore, His simplicity does not forbid Him from willing things other than Himself in the concrete or the particular. [3] Again, the will of God is related to other things in so far as they participate in goodness in virtue of their order to the divine goodness, which is for God the reason of His willing. But not only the totality of goods, but even each one of them derives its goodness from the divine goodness, as well as its being. Therefore, the will of God extends to singular goods. [4] Moreover, according to the Philosopher, in Metaphysics XI [10], a twofold good of order is found in the universe: one according to which the whole universe is ordered to what is outside the universe, as the army is ordered to its general; the other according as the parts of the universe are ordered to one another, as are the parts of the army. Now, the second order is for the sake of the first. But God, from the fact of willing Himself as the end, wills other things that are ordered to Him as to the end, as has been proved. He therefore wills the good of the order that the whole universe has to Him, as well as the good of the order that the universe has in the mutual relations of its parts. But the good of an order arises from singular goods. Therefore, God also wills singular goods. [5] Furthermore, if God does not will the singular goods of which the universe is composed, it follows that in the universe the good that order is is by chance. For it is not possible that some part of the universe should bring together all the particular goods into the order of the universe; only the universal cause of the whole universe, God, Who acts through His will, as will later be shown, can do this. Now, that the order of the universe be by chance is impossible, since it would follow that the consequences of the order would all the more be by chance. It remains, then, that God wills even singulars among goods. [6] Again, the understood good, as such, is what is willed. But God understands even particular goods, as was proved above. He therefore wills even particular goods. [7] This is confirmed by the authority of Scripture, which, in the first chapter of Genesis (1:4, 31), shows the pleasure of the divine will with each single work, in the words: “God saw the light that it was good,” and similarly of His other works, and then of all the works together: “And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.”

Chapter

That God wills even the things that are not yet

[1] If willing implies a relationship of the one willing to the thing willed, it can possibly seem to someone that God cannot will save only the things that are. For relatives ought to be together, and when one is destroyed so is the other, as the Philosopher teaches. If, then, willing implies the relationship of the one willing to the thing willed, no one can will save the things that are. [2] Furthermore, will is said in relation to the things that are willed, and similarly with cause and creator. But not even God can be called Creator, or Lord, or Father, save of the things that are. Therefore, neither can He be said to will save the things that are. [3] From this it could be further concluded that, if the divine willing is unchangeable as is the divine being, and God does not will save the things that are in act, He wills nothing that does not always exist. [4] To these difficulties some answer that the things that are not in themselves are in God and in His intellect. Hence, nothing prevents God from willing the things that do not exist in themselves in so far as they are in Him. [5] But this does not seem to be a sufficient reply. For someone with a will is said to will something in so far as his will is related to the thing willed. If, then, the divine will is not related to the thing willed save only in so far as it exists in Him or in His intellect, it will follow that God does not will that thing except because He wills it to be in His being or in His intellect. But this is not the intention of those who bold the position; they intend that God wills such not-yet-existents to be even in themselves. [6] Again, if the will is related to the thing willed through its object, the understood good, and the intellect understands not only that the good exists in it but that it exists in its own nature, the will likewise is related to the thing willed not only as it is in the knower, but likewise as it is in itself. [7] Let us therefore reply that, since the apprehended good moves the will, the act of will itself must follow the condition of apprehension; just as the motions of the other movers follow the conditions of the mover that is the cause of motion. But the relation of the apprehension to the thing apprehended follows upon the apprehension itself, because one who apprehends is related to the apprehended thing in that he apprehends it. Now, he who apprehends does not apprehend a thing solely as it is in him, but as it is in its own nature; for not only do we know that a thing is understood by us because it is in the intellect, but we know also that it exists or has existed or will exist in its own nature. Therefore, although at that moment the thing does not exist save only in the intellect, the relation following upon the apprehension is to the thing, not as it exists in the knower, but as it is in its own nature, which the one apprehending apprehends. [8] The relation of the divine will, therefore, is to the non-existing thing according as it exists in its proper nature at a certain time, and not only according as it is in God knowing it. The thing that does not now exist God wills to be at a certain time; He does not will solely the fact that He understands it. [9] The relations of the one willing to the thing willed, of creator to created, and of maker to thing made, or of Lord to His subject creature, are not similar. For willing is an action remaining in the one willing, and hence does not require that something existing outside the will be understood. But to make, to create, and to govern signify an action terminating in an exterior effect, without whose existence such an action cannot be understood.

Chapter

That His own being and His own goodness God wills necessarily

[1] From what was shown above it follows that God wills His own being and His own goodness in a necessary way, and cannot will the contrary. [2] For it was shown above that God wills His own being and His own goodness as His principal object, which is for Him the reason for willing other things. In everything willed, therefore, God wills His own being and His own goodness, just as the sight in every color sees light. But it is impossible for God not to will something in act, for He would be willing only in potency, which is impossible, since His willing is His being. It is therefore necessary that God will His own being and His own goodness. [3] Again, every being endowed with will necessarily wills his own ultimate end: for example, man necessarily wills his own beatitude and cannot will misery. But God wills Himself to be as the ultimate end, as appears from what has been said. Therefore, He necessarily wills Himself to be, nor can He will Himself not to be. [4] Moreover, in appetitive and operative matters the end functions as an indemonstrable principle does in speculative matters. For just as in speculative matters the conclusions are reached from principles, so in active and appetitive matters the principle of all the things to be done and sought is taken from the end. But in speculative matters the intellect necessarily assents to the first and indemonstrable principles, and can in no way assent to their contraries. Therefore, the will necessarily inheres to the ultimate end, so as to be unable to will the contrary. Thus, if the divine will has no end other than itself, it necessarily wills itself to be. [5] Again, all things in so far as they are, are likened to God Who is primarily and supremely being. But all things, in so far as they are, in their own way naturally love their own being. All the more, then, does God naturally love His own being. But His nature is a being necessary through itself, as was shown above. Therefore, God of necessity wills Himself to be. [6] Furthermore, every perfection and goodness found in creatures is proper to God in an essential way, as was proved above. But to love God is the highest perfection of the rational creature, since thereby it is somehow united to God. Therefore, this love is found in God in an essential way. Therefore, of necessity God loves Himself. And thus He wills Himself to be.

Chapter

That God does not will other things in a necessary way

[1] But, if the divine will of necessity wills the divine goodness and the divine being, it might seem to someone that it wills of necessity other things as well, since God wills all other things in willing His own goodness, as was proved above. Nevertheless, if we consider the matter correctly, it appears that He does not will other things necessarily. [2] For God wills other things as ordered to the end of His goodness. But the will is not directed to what is for the sake of the end if the end can be without it. For, on the basis of his intention to heal, a doctor does not necessarily have to give to a sick person the medicine without which the sick person can nevertheless be healed. Since, then, the divine goodness can be without other things, and, indeed, is in no way increased by other things, it is under no necessity to will other things from the fact of willing its own goodness. [3] Furthermore, since the understood good is the object of the will, the will can will anything conceived by the intellect in which the nature of the good is present. Hence, although the being of any given thing is as such a good and its non-being an evil, the non-being of something can fall under the will (though not by necessity) because of some adjoined good that is preserved; since it is a good that something be, even though something else does not exist. Therefore, according to its own nature, the will cannot not will that good whose non-existence causes the nature of the good entirely to be lost. But there is no such good apart from God. According to its nature, therefore, the will can will the non-existence of anything whatever apart from God. But in God will is present according to its whole range, since all things in Him are universally perfect. God, therefore, can will the non-existence of anything whatever apart from Himself. Hence, it is not of necessity that things other than Himself exist. [4] Moreover, God, in willing His own goodness, wills things other than Himself to be in so far as they participate in His goodness. But, since the divine goodness is infinite, it can be participated in infinite ways, and in ways other than it is participated in by the creatures that now exist. if, then, as a result of willing His own goodness, God necessarily willed the things that participate in it, it would follow that He would will the existence of an infinity of creatures participating in His goodness in an infinity of ways. This is patently false, because, if He willed them, they would be, since His will is the principle of being for things, as will be shown later on. Therefore, God does not necessarily will even the things that now exist. [5] Again, the will of a wise man, by the fact of dealing with a cause, deals also with the effect that necessarily follows from the cause. For it would be foolish to wish the sun to be overhead and yet that it should not be daylight. But, as to an effect that does not follow of necessity from a cause, it is not necessary that someone will it because he wills the cause. Now, other things proceed from God Without necessity, as will be shown later on. It is not necessary, therefore, that God will other things from the fact of willing Himself. [6] Moreover, things proceed from God as artifacts from an artisan, as will be shown later on. But, although the artisan wishes to have the art, he does not necessarily wish to produce the artifacts. Neither, therefore, does God necessarily will that there be things other than Himself. [7] We must therefore consider why it is that God necessarily knows things other than Himself, but does not necessarily will them, even though from the fact that He understands and wills Himself He understands and wills other things. The reason is as follows. That he who understands should understand something arises from the fact that he is disposed in a certain way, since something is understood in act in so far as its likeness is in the one understanding. But that he who wills should will something arises from the fact that what is willed is disposed in a certain way. For we will something either because it is the end or because it is ordered to the end. Now, that all things be in God, so that they can be understood in Him, is necessarily required by the divine perfection; but the divine goodness does not necessarily require that other things exist, which are ordered to it as to the end. That is why it is necessary that God know other things, but not necessary that He will them. Hence, neither does God will all the things that can have an order to His goodness; but He knows all things that have any order whatever to His essence, by which He understands.

Chapter 82.

ARGUMENTS LEADING TO AWKWARD CONSEQUENCES IF GOD DOES NOT NECESSARILY WILL THINGS OTHER THAN HIMSELF [1] Awkward consequences seem to follow if God does not will necessarily the things that He wills. [2] For, if with respect to certain objects the will of God is not determined to them, it would seem to be disposed to opposites. But every power that is disposed to opposites is in a manner in potency, since “to opposites” is a species of the contingent possible. Therefore, there is potency in the will of God, which will consequently not be the substance of God, in which there is no potency, as was shown above. [3] If being in potency, as such, is of a nature to be moved, because what can be can not-be, it follows that the divine will is changeable. [4] Furthermore, if it is natural to God to will something about His effects, it is necessary. Now there can be nothing unnatural in God, since there cannot be anything accidental or violent in Him, as was proved above. [5] Again, if what is open to opposites, being indifferently disposed, tends no more to one thing than to another unless it be determined by another, it is necessary either that God will none of the things towards which He is disposed to opposites, of which the contrary was proved above, or that God be determined to one effect by another. Thus, there will be something prior to Him, determining Him to one effect. [6] But of these conclusions none necessarily follows. For to be open to opposites belongs to a certain power in a twofold way: in one way, from the side of itself; in another way, from the side of its object. From the side of itself, when it has not yet achieved its perfection, through which it is determined to one effect. This openness redounds to the imperfection of a power, and potentiality is shown to be in it; as appears in the case of an intellect in doubt, which has yet not acquired the principles from which to be determined to one alternative. From the side of its object, a certain power is found open to opposites when the perfect operation of the power depends on neither alternative, though both can be. An example is an art which can use diverse instruments to perform the same work equally well. This openness does not pertain to the imperfection of a power, but rather to its eminence, in so far as it dominates both alternatives, and thereby is determined to neither, being open to both. This is bow the divine will is disposed in relation to things other than itself. For its end depends on none of the other things, though it itself is most perfectly united to its end. Hence, it is not required that any potentiality be posited in the divine will. [7] Mutability, similarly, is not required- For, if there is no potentiality in the divine will, God does not thus prefer one of the opposites among His effects as if He should be thought as being in potency to both, so that He first wills both in potency and afterward He wills in act; rather, He wills in act whatever He wills, not only in relation to Himself but also in relation to His effects. The reason rather is because the object willed does not have a necessary order to the divine goodness, which is the proper object of the divine will; just as we call enunciables, not necessary, but possible when there is not a necessary order of the predicate to the subject. Hence, when it is said, God wills this effect, it is manifest that it is not a necessary enunciable but a possible one, not in the sense in which something is said to be possible according to some power, but in the sense in which the possible is that whose existence is neither necessary nor impossible, as the Philosopher teaches in Metaphysics V [12]. For example, for a triangle to have two equal sides is a possible enunciable, but not according to some power, since in mathematics there is neither power nor motion. The exclusion of the aforesaid necessity, therefore, does not take away the immutability of the divine will. This Sacred Scripture professes: “But the triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance” (1 Samuel 15:29). [8] However, although the divine will is not determined to its effects, we yet cannot say that it wills none of them, or that in order to will one of them it is determined by an exterior agent. For, since the apprehended good determines the will as its proper object, and the divine intellect is not outside God’s will, because both are His essence, if God’s will is determined to will something through the knowledge of His intellect, this determination of the divine will will not be due to something extraneous. For the divine intellect apprehends not only the divine being, which is God’s goodness, but also other goods, as was shown above. These goods it apprehends as certain likenesses of the divine goodness and essence, not as its principles. And thus, the divine will tends to them as befitting its goodness, not as necessary to it. The same thing happens in the case of our own will. When it is inclined to something as absolutely necessary to the end, it is moved to it with a certain necessity; but when it tends to something only because of a certain befittingness, it tends to it without necessity. Hence, neither does the divine will tend to its effects in a necessary way. [9] Nor, furthermore, is it necessary because of the foregoing to posit something unnatural in God. For His will wills itself and other things by one and the same act. But its relation to itself is necessary and natural, whereas its relation to other things is according to a certain befittingness, not indeed necessary and natural, nor violent and unnatural, but voluntary; for the voluntary need be neither natural nor violent.

Chapter

That God wills something other than Himself with the necessity of supposition

[1] From this we may infer that, although among His effects God wills nothing with absolute necessity, yet He does will something with the necessity of supposition. [2] For it has been shown that the divine will is immutable. Now, if something is found in any immutable being, it cannot afterwards not be; for we say that a thing has moved if it is otherwise disposed now than it was previously. If, then, the divine will is immutable, assuming that it wills something, God must by supposition will this thing. [3] Again, everything eternal is necessary. Now, that God should will some effect to be is eternal, for, like His being, so, too, His willing is measured by eternity, and is therefore necessary. But it is not necessary considered absolutely, because the will of God does not have a necessary relation to this willed object. Therefore, it is necessary by supposition. [4] Furthermore, whatever God could He can, for His power is not decreased, as neither is His essence. But He cannot now not will what He is posited as having willed, because His will cannot be changed. Therefore, at no time could He not will what He has willed. It is therefore necessary by supposition that He willed whatever He willed, and also that He wills it; neither, however, is absolutely necessary, but, rather, possible in the aforementioned way. [5] Moreover, whoever wills something, necessarily wills whatever it necessarily required for it, unless there be a defect in him either because of ignorance or because he is led astray through passion from the right choice of that which leads to the intended end. This cannot be said of God. If God, then, in willing Himself wills something other than Himself, it is necessary that He will for this object whatever is necessarily required by it. Thus, it is necessary that God will the rational soul to exist supposing that He wills man to exist.

Chapter

That the will of God is not of what is in itself impossible

[1] From this it appears that the will of God cannot be of the things that are impossible in themselves. For these have a contradiction in themselves, for example, that man is an ass, in which the rational and the irrational are included. For what is incompatible with something excludes some of the things that are necessary to it, as to be an ass excludes man’s reason. If, then, God necessarily wills the things that are required for what He wills by supposition, it is impossible for Him to will what is incompatible with these things. Thus, it is impossible for God to will the absolutely impossible. [3] Again, as was shown above, in willing His own being, which is His own goodness, God wills all other things in so far as they bear His likeness. But in so far as a thing is opposed to the nature of being as such, there cannot be preserved in it the likeness of the first being, namely, the divine being, which is the source of being. Hence, God cannot will something that is opposed to the nature of being as such. But just as it is opposed to the nature of man as man to be irrational, so it is opposed to the nature of being as such that something be at once being and nonbeing. God, therefore, cannot will that affirmation and negation be true together. But this is included in everything that is of itself impossible, which has an opposition with itself as implying a contradiction. The will of God, therefore, cannot be of that which is of itself impossible. [4] Moreover, the will is only of the understood good. Hence, whatever cannot be the object of the intellect is not an object of the will. But that which is of itself impossible is not an object of the intellect, since it is self-contradictory, except, of course, through the fault of one who does not understand what belongs to things—which cannot be said of God. Therefore, that which is of itself impossible cannot be the object of the will. [5] Furthermore, as a thing is disposed toward being, so it is disposed toward goodness. But the impossible is that which cannot be. Therefore, it cannot be good, and hence cannot be willed by God, Who does not will save only the things that are or can be good.

Chapter

THAT THE DIVINE WILL DOES NOT REMOVE CONTINGENCY FROM THINGS, NOR DOES IT IMPOSE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY ON THEM [1] From what has been said it results that the divine will does not remove contingency from things, nor does it impose absolute necessity on things. [2] God wills whatever is required for a thing that He wills, as has been said. But it befits certain things, according to the mode of their nature, that they be contingent and not necessary. Therefore, God wills that some things be contingent. Now, the efficacy of the divine will requires not only that something be that God wills to be, but also that it be as He wills it to be. For, among natural agents as well, when the acting power is strong it assimilates its effect to itself not only as to species but also as to the accidents, which are certain modes of that thing. Therefore, the efficacy of the divine will does not remove contingency. [3] Moreover, God wills the good of the universe of His effects more principally than He does any particular good, according as a fuller likeness of His goodness is found in it. But the completeness of the universe requires that there be some contingent things; otherwise, not all grades of beings would be contained in the universe. Therefore, God wills that there be some contingent things. [4] Furthermore, the good of the universe is seen in a certain order, as appears in Metaphysics XI [10]. But the order of the universe requires that there be some changeable causes, since bodies are part of the perfection of the universe, and they do not move unless they be moved. Now, contingent effects follow from a changeable cause, for an effect cannot have a more stable being than its cause. Hence we see that, even though the remote cause is necessary, provided the proximate cause is contingent, the effect is contingent, as may be seen in the things that happen among sublunary bodies, which are contingent because of the contingency of the proximate causes even though the remote causes, which are the heavenly motions, are necessary. God, therefore, wills something to come to pass contingently. [5] The necessity of supposition in the cause, moreover, does not require an absolute necessity in the effect. But God wills something in the creature, not by absolute necessity, but only by a necessity of supposition, as was shown above. From the divine will, therefore, an absolute necessity in created things cannot be inferred. But only this excludes contingency, for even the contingents open to opposites are made necessary by supposition: for example, that Socrates be moved, if he runs, is necessary. Therefore, the divine will does not exclude contingency from the things it wills. [6] Hence, it does not follow, if God wills something, that it will of necessity take place. But this conditional is true and necessary: If God wills something, it will be. But the consequent does not have to be necessary.

Chapter

That a reason can be assigned to the divine Will

[1] From what has been said we can infer that a reason can be assigned to the divine will. [2] The end is the reason for willing the things that are for the sake of the end. But God wills His own goodness as the end, and other things He wills as things that are for the sake of the end. His goodness, therefore, is the reason why He wills the other things which are different from Himself. [3] Again, a particular good is ordered to the good of the whole as to its end, as the imperfect to the perfect. Now, some things fall under the divine will according to their disposition in the order of the good. It remains, then, that the good of the universe is the reason why God wills each particular good in the universe. [4] Again, as was shown above, on the supposition that God wills something, it follows necessarily that He wills the things required for it. But that which imposes necessity on another is the reason why that other exists. Therefore, the reason why God wills the things that are required for each thing is that that thing be for which they are required. [5] Thus, therefore, can we proceed in assigning the reason of the divine will. God wills man to have a reason in order that man be; He wills man to be so that the universe may be complete; and He wills that the good of the universe be because it befits His goodness. [6] However, this threefold reason does not proceed according to the same relationship. For the divine goodness neither depends on the perfection of the universe nor is anything added to it from this perfection. For, although the perfection of the universe necessarily depends on certain particular goods that are its essential parts, yet on some of them it does not depend of necessity, but nevertheless a certain goodness or adornment accrues to the universe from them, as from those things that exist only for the support or adornment of the other parts of the universe. A particular good depends necessarily on the things that are absolutely required for it, even though this too has certain things that are for its embellishment. Hence, at times the reason of the divine will contains only a befittingness; at other times, usefulness; at still other times, a necessity of supposition; but a necessity that is absolute only when it wills itself.

Chapter

That nothing can be the cause of the divine Will

[1] Now, although a certain reason of the divine will can be assigned, it does not follow that anything is the cause of the divine will. [2] For to the will the cause of its willing is the end. But the end of the divine will is its goodness. Hence, it is the cause of God’s willing, just as it is also His act of will. [3] As to the other objects willed by God, none is the cause of willing for God. But one of them is the cause for the other to have an order to the divine goodness. And thus God is understood to will one of them for the sake of another. [4] It is nevertheless manifest that no discursiveness is to be posited in the divine will. For where there is one act that is no discursiveness, as was shown above in connection with the intellect. But by means of one act God wills His goodness and all other things, since His action is His essence. [5] Through the foregoing is set aside the error of certain persons who said that all things proceed from God according to His simple will, which means that we are not to give an explanation of anything except that God wills it. [6] This view is likewise opposed to Sacred Scripture, which proclaims that God made all things according to the order of His wisdom, as is said in the Psalm (103:24): “You made all things in wisdom.” And in Sirach (1:10) it is said that God “poured” His wisdom “out upon all His works.”

Chapter

That in God there is free choice

[1] From what has been said it can be shown that free choice is found in God. [2] Free choice is said in relation to the things that one wills, not of necessity, but of his own accord. Thus, there is in us free choice in relation to our willing to run or to walk. But God wills things other than Himself without necessity, as was shown above. Therefore, to have free choice befits God. [3] Again, towards the things to which it is not determined by nature the divine will is in a manner inclined through its intellect, as was shown above. But on this account is man said to have free choice as opposed to the other animals because he is inclined to willing by the judgment of the reason and not by the impulse of nature, as are the brutes. Therefore, in God there is free choice. [4] Furthermore, according to the Philosopher in Ethics III [5], “will is of the end, but election is of that which is for the sake of the end.” Since, then, God wills Himself as the end, and other things as what is for the sake of the end, it follows that with reference to Himself God has only will, but with reference to other things He has election. But election is made by choice. Therefore, free choice befits God. [5] Moreover, because he has free choice, man is said to be master of his acts. But this supremely befits the first agent, whose act does not depend on another. Therefore, God has free choice. [6] This can likewise be gathered from the very meaning of the name. For “that is free which is for its own sake,” according to the Philosopher in the beginning of the Metaphysics [I, 2]. But this befits no being more than the first cause, God.

Chapter

That in God there are not the passions of the appetites

[1] From what has preceded we can know that the passions of the appetites are not in God. [2] Now, according to intellective appetite there is no passion, but only according to sensitive appetite, as is proved in Physics VII [3]. But no such appetite can be in God, since He does not have sensitive knowledge, as is manifest from what has been said above. Therefore, there is no passion of the appetite in God. [3] Moreover, every passion of the appetite takes place through some bodily change, for example, the contraction or distension of the heart, or something of the sort. Now, none of this can take place in God, since He is not a body or a power in a body, as was shown above. There is, therefore, no passion of the appetite in Him. [4] Again, in every passion of the appetite the patient is somehow drawn out of his usual, calm, or connatural disposition. A sign of this is that such passions, if intensified, bring death to animals. But it is not possible for God to be somehow drawn outside His natural condition, since He is absolutely immutable, as has been shown. It appears, then, that such passions cannot be found in God. [5] Moreover, every affection arising from a passion is directed determinately to one thing according to the manner and measure of the passion. For passion has an impulse to something one, as does nature, and on this account it must be curbed and regulated by reason. But the divine will is not determined in itself to something one among creatures, except out of the order of its wisdom, as was shown above. Therefore, there is no passion of the appetite in God. [6] Furthermore, every passion belongs to something existing in potency. But God is completely free from potency, since He is pure act. God, therefore, is solely agent, and in no way does any passion have a place in Him. [7] Thus, therefore, by reason of its genus, passion is excluded in God. [8] Some passions, however, are excluded from God not only by reason of their genus, but also by reason of their species. For every passion is specified by its object. That passion, therefore, whose subject is absolutely unbefitting to God is removed from God even according to the nature of its proper species. [9] Such a passion, however, is sorrow or pain, for its subject is the already present evil, just as the object of joy is the good present and possessed. Sorrow and pain, therefore, of their very nature cannot be found in God. [10] Furthermore, the notion of the object of a given passion is derived not only from good and evil, but also from the fact that one is disposed in a certain way towards one of them. For it is thus that hope and joy differ. If, then, the mode itself in which one is disposed toward the object that is included in the notion of passion is not befitting to God, neither can the passion itself befit Him, even through the nature of its proper species. Now, although hope has as its object something good, yet it is not a good already possessed, but one to be possessed. This cannot befit God, because of His perfection, which is so great that nothing can be added to it. Hope, therefore, cannot be found in God, even by reason of its species. And likewise, neither can the. desire of something not possessed. [11] Moreover, just as the divine perfection excludes from God the potency of the addition of some good to be obtained, so likewise, and all the more, does it exclude the potency to evil. Fear has reference to the evil that can threaten, as hope has reference to a good to be obtained. By a twofold reason of its species, therefore, is fear excluded from God: both because it belongs only to one existing in potency and because it has for its object a threatening evil. [12] Again, repentance implies a change of affection. Therefore, the nature of repentance likewise is repugnant to God, not only because it is a species of sadness, but also because it implies a change of will. [13] Furthermore, without an error of the cognitive power it is impossible that what is good be apprehended as evil. Nor is it possible that the evil of one be the good of another, except among particular goods in which “the corruption of one is the generation of another.” But the universal good does not lose anything because of the existence of some particular good, but is rather mirrored by each one. God, however, is the universal good, and by participating in His likeness all things are called good. The evil of no thing, therefore, can be His good. Nor is it possible that what is absolutely good, and is not evil to itself, He should apprehend as something evil; for His knowledge is without error, as has been shown. Envy, therefore, cannot be found in God, even according to the nature of its species, not only because it is a species of sadness, but also because it is saddened by the good of another and thus takes his good as its own evil. [14] Moreover, to be saddened over a good and to seek evil are of the same nature, for the first arises because the good is judged to be evil, while the second arises because evil is judged to be good. Anger is the appetite of another’s evil for the sake of revenge. Anger, therefore, is far from God according to the nature of its species, not only because it is an effect of sadness, but likewise because it is an appetite for revenge arising from sadness due to an injury received. [15] Again, whatever other passions are species of these or are caused by them, are for the same reason removed from God.

Chapter

THAT IN GOD THERE ARE DELIGHT AND JOY, BUT THEY ARE NOT OPPOSED TO THE DIVINE PERFECTION [1] There are certain passions which, though they do not befit God as passions, do not signify anything by the nature of their species that is repugnant to the divine perfection. [2] Among these passions are joy and delight. Delight is of a present good. Neither, therefore, by reason of its object, which is a good, nor by reason of its disposition towards its object, which is possessed in act, is joy, according to the nature of its species, repugnant to the divine perfection. [3] From this it is manifest that joy or delight is properly in God. For just as the apprehended good and evil are the object of sensible appetite, so, too, are they of intellective appetite. It belongs to both to seek good and avoid evil, whether truly or by estimation. There is the difference that the object of intellective appetite is more common than that of the sensitive appetite, because intellective appetite has reference to good and evil absolutely, whereas sensitive appetite has reference to good or evil according to the sense. So, too, the object of the intellect is more common than that of the sense. But the operations of appetite derive their species from their objects. Hence, there are found in intellective appetite, which is the will, operations that in the nature of their species are similar to the operations of the sensitive appetite, differing in that in the sensitive appetite there are passions because of its union to a bodily organ, whereas in the intellective appetite there are simple operations; for just as through the passion of fear, which resides in the sensitive appetite, someone flees a future evil, so without passion the intellective appetite does the same thing. Since, then, joy and delight are not repugnant to God according to their species, but only in so far as they are passions, and since they are found in the will according to their species but not as passions, it remains that they are not lacking even to the divine will. [4] Again, joy and delight are a certain resting of the will in its object. But God, Who is His own principal object willed, is supremely at rest in Himself, as containing all abundance in Himself. God, therefore, through His will supremely rejoices in Himself. [5] Furthermore, delight is a certain perfection of operation, as appears from the Philosopher in Ethics X [4]; “for it perfects operation, as does beauty youth.” But God has the most perfect operation in understanding, as appears from what has been said. If, then, our understanding is delightful because of its perfection, the divine understanding will be most full of delight. [6] Moreover, each thing takes joy in its like as in something agreeable, except by accident in so far as it may interfere with one’s own advantage: for example, “potters quarrel among themselves” because one interferes with the profit of the other. Now, every good is a likeness of the divine good, as was said above, nor does God lose any good because of some good. It remains, then, that God takes joy in every good. [7] joy and delight, then, are properly in God. Now, joy and delight differ in notion. For delight arises from a really conjoined good, whereas joy does not require this, but the resting of the will in the object willed suffices for the nature of joy. Hence, delight is only of the conjoined good if it be taken properly, whereas joy is of a non-conjoined good. From this it is apparent that God properly delights in Himself, but He takes joy both in Himself and in other things.

Chapter

That in God there is love

[1] In the same way, there must be love in God according to the act of His will. [2] For this belongs properly to the nature of love, that the lover will the good of the one he loves. Now, God wills His own good and that of others, as appears from what has been said. This means, therefore, that God loves Himself and other things. [3] Again, for true love it is required that we will someone’s good as his good. For if we will someone’s good only in so far as it leads to the good of another, we love this someone by accident, just as he who wishes to store wine in order to drink it or loves a man so that this man may be useful or enjoyable to him, loves the wine or the man by accident, but essentially he loves himself. But God wills the good of each thing according as it is the good of each thing; for He wills each thing to be according as it is in itself good (although He likewise orders one thing to another’s use). God, then, truly loves Himself and other things. [4] Moreover, since each thing in its own way wills and seeks its proper good, if it is the nature of love that the lover will and seek the good of the one he loves, it follows that the lover is to the loved as to that which in some way is one with him. From this the proper nature of love is seen to consist in this, that the affection of the one tends to the other as to someone who is somehow one with him. On this account it is said by Dionysius that love is a “unitive power” [ De div. nom. IV, 13]. Therefore, the more that through which the lover is one with the one he loves is greater, the more is the love intense. For we love those whom the origin of birth joins to us, or the way of life, or something of the sort, more than those whom the community of human nature alone joins to us. Again, the more the source of the union is intimate to the lover, by so much the stronger becomes the love. Hence, at times, the love arising from some passion becomes more intense than the love that is of natural origin or from some habit; but it passes more easily. But the source whence all things are joined to God, namely, His goodness, which all things imitate, is what is supreme and most intimate in God, since it is His goodness. There is, therefore, in God not only a true love, but also a most perfect and a most enduring love. [5] Again, from the side of its object love does not signify anything repugnant to God, since its object is the good; neither does it from the mode of its disposition towards its object. For we love some thing, not less, but more when we have it, because a good is closer to us when we have it. So, too, a motion to an end among natural things becomes intensified from the nearness of the end. (The contrary sometimes happens by accident, namely, when in the one we love we experience something repugnant to love; then the object loved is loved less when it is gained.) Hence, love is not repugnant to the divine perfection according to the nature of its species. Therefore, it is found in God. [6] Moreover, it belongs to love to move towards union, as Dionysius says. For since, because of a likeness or congeniality between the lover and the one he loves, the affection of the lover is in a manner united to the one loved, his appetite tends to the perfection of the union, so that, namely, the union that has already begun in affection may be completed in act. Hence, it is also the privilege of friends to take joy in one another’s presence, in living together, and in conversation. But God moves all things to union, for in so far as He gives them being and other perfections, He joins them to Himself in the manner in which this is possible. God, therefore, loves Himself and other things. [7] Again, the principle of every affection is love. For joy and desire are only of a good that is loved, and fear and sadness are only of an evil that is opposed to the good that is loved; and from these all the other affections take their origin. But in God there is joy and delight, as was shown above. Therefore, in God there is love. [8] Now, it might seem to someone that God does not love this thing more than that. For, if increase or decrease in intensity properly belongs to a changeable nature, it cannot befit God, from whom all mutability is absent. [9] Again, none of the other things that are said of God in terms of operation are said of Him according to more and less; for neither does He know one thing more than another, nor does He take more joy over this thing than over that. [10] We must therefore observe that, although the other operations of the soul deal with only one object, love alone seems to be directed to two objects. For by the fact that we understand and rejoice, we must be somehow related to some object. Love, however, wills something for someone, for we are said to love the thing to which we wish some good, as explained above. Hence, the things that we want, absolutely and properly we are said to desire, but not to love; rather, we love ourselves for whom we want those things: whence it is by accident and improperly that such things are said to be loved. Now, then, the other operations are susceptible of more and less only according to the vigor of the action. This cannot take place in God. For the vigor of an action is measured according to the power by which it is done, and every divine action belongs to one and the same power. On the other hand, love is said according to more and less in a twofold way. In one way, from the good that we will to someone, and according to this we are said to love him more to whom we will the greater good. In a second way, from the vigor of the action, and in this way we are said to love him more to whom we will with greater fervor and efficacity, though not a greater good, yet an equal good. [11] In the first way, nothing prevents us from saying that God loves one thing more than another, according as He wills it a greater good. In the second way, this cannot be said, for the same reason that was given in the case of the other operations. [12] It is therefore apparent from what has been said that, from among our affections, there is none that can properly exist in God save only joy and love; although even these are not in God as passions, as they are in us. [13] That there are joy and delight in God is confirmed by the authority of Sacred Scripture. For it is said in a Psalm (15:11): “At Your right hand there are delights even to the ends.” In the Proverbs (8:30), divine Wisdom, which is God, as we have shown, says: “I... was delighted every day playing before Him at all times.” And Luke (15:10): “There is joy in heaven before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.” The Philosopher likewise says in Ethics VII [14] that “God ever rejoices with one simple delight.” [14] Sacred Scripture likewise records the love of God: “He hath loved the people” (Deut. 33:3); “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3); “For the Father Himself loves you” (John 16:27). Certain philosophers likewise made God’s love to be the principle of things. With this view the words of Dionysius agree when he says that “the divine love did not allow Him to be without offspring” [ De div. nom. IV, 11]. [15] It must be noted, however, that the other affections, which in their species are repugnant to the divine perfection, are also said of God in Sacred Scripture, not indeed properly, as has been proved, but metaphorically, because of a likeness either in effects or in some preceding affection. [16] I say of effects because the will at times, following the order of wisdom, tends to that effect to which someone is inclined because of a defective passion; for a judge punishes from justice, as the angry man punishes from anger. Hence, God is at times called angry in so far as, following the order of His wisdom, He wills to punish someone, according to a Psalm (2:13): “When His wrath shall be kindled in a short time.” On the other hand, God is called merciful in so far as out of His loving-kindness He takes away the miseries of men, just as we do the same thing through the passion of mercy. Hence the Psalm (102:8): “The Lord is compassionate and merciful: longsuffering and plenteous in mercy.” Sometimes, too, God is said to repent in so far as according to the eternal and immutable order of His providence He makes what He previously had destroyed, or destroys what He had previously had made—as those who are moved by repentance are found doing. Hence Genesis (6:7): “I repent that I have made man.” That this cannot be taken at the letter appears from what is said in 1 Samuel (15:29): “But the triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance.” [17] And I say in some preceding affection since love and joy, which are properly in God, are the principles of the other affections, love in the manner of a moving principle and joy in the manner of an end. Hence, those likewise who punish in anger rejoice as having gained their end. God, then, is said to be saddened in so far as certain things take place that are contrary to what He loves and approves; just as we experience sadness over things that have taken place against our will. This is apparent in Isaiah (59:15-16): God “saw, and it appeared evil in His eyes, because there is no judgment. And He saw that there is not a man, and He stood astonished, because there is none to oppose Himself.” [18] Now, what we have said sets aside the error of certain Jews who attributed anger, sadness, repentance, and all such passions in their proper sense to God, failing to distinguish what in Sacred Scripture is said properly and what metaphorically.

Chapter

How virtues may be held to be in God

[1] Following what has been said, it remains to show how virtues may be posited in God. For just as God’s being is universally perfect, containing in itself the perfections of all beings, so His goodness must in a manner contain the goodness in each and every thing. Now, virtue is a certain goodness in the virtuous, for “according to it is one called good, and his work good.” Therefore, the divine goodness must contain in its way all the virtues. [2] As a consequence, none of them is posited as a habit in God, as happens in our case. For it does not befit God to be good through something else superadded to Him, but through His essence, since He is absolutely simple. Nor, likewise, does He act through something added to His essence, since His action is His being, as has been shown. Hence, His virtue is not some habit, but His essence. [3] Again, a habit is an imperfect act, as being intermediate between potency and act; hence, those possessing a habit are compared to those who are asleep. But in God there is most perfect act. Act, therefore, is not in Him as a habit, for example, science, but as the act of considering, which is an ultimate and perfect act. [4] Further, habit is perfective of a power. But in God there is nothing in potency, but only in act. A habit, therefore, cannot be found in Him. [5] Moreover, a habit is in the genus of accident, which in no way is found in God, as was shown above. Neither, therefore, is any virtue said of God as a habit, but only according to His essence. [6] Now, since human virtues are those by which human life is directed, and human life is twofold, contemplative and active, the virtues belonging to the active life, so far as they perfect this life, cannot befit God. [7] For man’s active life consists in the use of bodily goods, and hence the active life is directed by the virtues by which we make a right use of these goods. Such goods, however, cannot befit God, nor, therefore, can such virtues so far as they direct this life. [8] Furthermore, such virtues perfect the ways of men in the domain of political life. Hence, for those who do not take part in such a life the active virtues do not seem very suitable. Much less, therefore, can they suit God, whose conduct and life is far removed from the manner of human life. [9] Of the virtues that deal with the active life some, likewise, direct the passions. These we cannot posit in God. For the virtues that deal with the passions take their species from the passions as from their proper objects; and so temperance differs from fortitude so far as it deals with desires, whereas the latter with fear and daring. But in God there are no passions, as has been shown, and therefore neither can such virtues be found in Him. [10] Again, such virtues are not found in the intellective part of the soul but in the sensitive part, in which alone passions can be found, as is proved in Physics VII [3]. In God, however, there is no sensitive part, but only intellect. It remains, then, that such virtues cannot be in God even according to their proper natures. [11] Of the passions, with which the virtues deal, some exist according to the inclination of the appetite to some corporeal good that is delightful to the sense, for example, food, drink, and sex. For the desires of these passions there are sobriety and chastity, and, in general, temperance and continence. Hence, because bodily delights are absolutely foreign to God, the aforesaid virtues neither befit God properly, since they deal with passions, nor are they said of God even metaphorically in Scripture, because there is no available likeness of them in God in terms of a likeness of some effect. [12] Some passions, however, follow the inclination of the appetite to some spiritual good, such as honor, power, victory, revenge, and the like; and concerned with their hopes, their darings, and in general their desires there are fortitude, magnanimity, gentleness, and other like virtues. These, properly speaking, cannot be found in God, since they deal with passions, but in Scripture they are said metaphorically of God, because of a likeness in effects. For example, what is said in 1 Samuel (2:2): “There is no one as strong as our God”; and Micah [rather, (Zephaniah 2:31): “Seek the just, seek the meek.”

Chapter

That in God there are the moral virtues that deal with actions

[1] Now, there are some virtues directing the active life of man that do not deal with passions, but with actions: for example, truth, justice, liberality, magnificence, prudence, and art. [2] Since, however, virtue derives its species from its object or its matter, and since the actions that are the matter or the objects of such virtues are not repugnant to the divine perfection, neither do these virtues, according to their proper species, have anything on whose account they are excluded from the divine perfection. [3] Again, these virtues are certain perfections of the intellect and the will, which are principles of operation without passion. But in God there are intellect and will, lacking no perfection. Therefore, these virtues cannot be absent from God. [4] Moreover, of the things that come into being from God the proper model is in the divine intellect, as was shown above. Now, the model in the mind of the maker of the thing to be made is art. Hence, the Philosopher says in Ethics VI [4] that “art is the true model of things to be made.” Art, then, is properly in God. And therefore it is said in Wisdom (7:21): “the artisan of all things has taught me wisdom.” [5] Again, the divine will, with reference to things other than God, is determined to one effect by His knowledge, as was shown above. But the knowledge directing the will to act is prudence; for, according to the Philosopher in Ethics VI [5], “prudence is the true notion of the things to be done.” There is, therefore, prudence in God. And this is what is said in Job (12:13): “With Him is prudence and strength.” [6] Furthermore, it was shown above that because God wills something He also wills those things that are necessary to it. But that which is necessary to the perfection of each thing is due to it. Therefore, there is justice in God, to which it belongs to give to each one what belongs to him. Hence it is said in a Psalm (3.o:8): “The Lord is just and loves justice.” [7] Moreover, as was shown above, the ultimate end for which God wills all things in no way depends on the things that exist for the sake of the end, and this either as to being or as to some perfection. Hence, He does not will to give to someone His goodness so that thereby something may accrue to Himself, but because for Him to make such a gift befits Him as the fount of goodness. But to give something not for the sake of some benefit expected from the giving, but because of the goodness and befittingness of the giving, is an act of liberality, as appears from the Philosopher in Ethics IV [1]. God, therefore, is supremely liberal; and, as Avicenna says, He alone can truly be called liberal, for every agent other than God acquires some good from his action, which is the intended end.” Scripture sets forth this liberality of God, saying in a Psalm (103:28): “When You open Your hand, they shall all be filled with good”; and in James (1:5): “Who gives to all men abundantly without reproaching.” [8] Again, all things that receive being from God must bear His likeness in so far as they are, are good, and have their proper models in the divine intellect, as was shown above. But it belongs to the virtue of truth, as appears from the Philosopher in Ethics IV [7], for someone in his deeds and words to show himself such as he is. Therefore, there is in God the virtue of truth. Hence, Romans (3:4): “But God is true”; and the Psalm (118:151): “All Your ways are truth.” [9] But, if there are any virtues that deal with notions belonging to subordinates in relation to their superiors, such cannot befit God: for example, obedience, worship, or something of the sort that is due a superior. [10] If, furthermore, some of the aforementioned virtues have certain imperfect acts, the virtues in question cannot be attributed to God according to those acts. Thus, prudence, according to the act of taking good counsel, does not befit God. For, since counsel is “a certain inquiry,” as is said in Ethics VI [9], and the divine knowledge is not inquiring, as was shown above, to take counsel cannot befit God. Hence Job (26:3): “How you have counseled him who has no wisdom!”; and Isaiah (40:14): “Whom has He consulted: and who has instructed Him?” But as to the act that consists in judging the matter of counsel and choosing what has been approved, nothing prevents prudence from being said of God. Nevertheless, counsel is at times said of God. This is either because of the likeness in privacy, since counsels take place in private, so that what is hidden in the divine wisdom is called by likeness counsel, as appears in Isaiah in the other version: “May Your ancient counsel be verified” (25:1 Septuagint); or in so far as He gives satisfaction to those who seek His counsel, since one who has understanding can, even without any discursiveness, instruct the inquiring. [11] In the same way, justice, as concerns the act of commutative justice, cannot befit God, since He does not receive anything from anyone. Hence Romans (11:35): “Who hath first given to Him and recompense shall be made him?” And Job (41:2): “Who hath given me before that I should repay him?” Through a likeness, however, we are said to give some things to God in so far as God looks with favor upon our gifts. Commutative justice, therefore, does not befit God, but only distributive. Hence, Dionysius says that “God is praised for His justice as giving to all according to their worth” [ De div. nom. VIII, 3]. And in the words of Matthew (25:15): “He gave... to every one according to his proper ability.” [12] We must observe, however, that the actions with which the above virtues deal, do not according to their natures depend on man; for to judge of the things that are to be done, or to give or distribute something, does not belong to man alone but to any being possessing an intellect. Yet, in so far as these are narrowed to the human sphere, in a manner they receive their species from them, as the curvature in a nose produces the species of the snub. The aforementioned virtues, therefore, according as they order man’s active life, are ordered to these actions in so far as they are narrowed to human affairs and take their species from them. In this manner they cannot befit God. But in so far as the aforementioned actions are taken in their generality, they can be attributed even to divine things. For just as man is a distributor of human goods, such as money and honor, so too God is the distributor of all the goods of the universe. The aforementioned virtues, therefore, are of a more universal extension in God than in man; for as the justice of man is to the community or the household, so the justice of God is to the whole universe. Hence, the divine virtues are said to be the exemplar virtues of ours; for the things that are contracted and particularized are the likenesses of certain absolute beings, just as the light of a candle is to the light of the sun. As for the other virtues, which do not properly befit God, they do not have an exemplar in the divine nature, but only in the divine wisdom, which contains the proper likenesses of all beings: this is the case with other corporeal beings.

Chapter

That in God there are contemplative virtues

[1] Concerning the contemplative virtues there can be no doubt that they supremely befit God. [2] For if wisdom consists in the knowledge of the highest causes, according to the Philosopher in the beginning of the Metaphysics [I, 2], and if God especially knows Himself, and does not know anything, as has been proved, except by knowing Himself Who is the first cause of all things, it is manifest that wisdom must most especially be attributed to Him. Hence Job (9:4): “He is wise in heart”; and Sirach (1:1): “All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with Him.” The Philosopher also says in the beginning of the Metaphysics [I, 2] that wisdom is a divine possession, not a human one. [3] Again, if science is the knowledge of a thing through its cause, and if God knows the order of all causes and effects, and thereby knows the proper causes of singulars, as was shown above, it is manifest that in a proper sense there is science in Him. Nevertheless, this is not the science caused by ratiocination, as our science is caused by demonstration. Hence 1 Samuel (2:3): “For the Lord is the God of all knowledge.” [4] Furthermore, if the immaterial knowledge of some things without discursiveness is intellect, and God has such knowledge of all things, as was shown above, there is therefore intellect in God. Hence Job (12:13): “He hath counsel and understanding.” [5] These virtues, likewise, are in God the exemplars of ours, as the perfect of the imperfect.

Chapter

That God cannot will evil

[1] From what has been said it can be shown that God cannot will evil. [2] For the virtue of a being is that by which he operates well. Now every operation of God is an operation of virtue, since His virtue is His essence, as was shown above. Therefore, God cannot will evil. [3] Again, the will never aims at evil without some error existing in the reason, at least with respect to a particular object of choice. For, since the object of the will is the apprehended good, the will cannot aim at evil unless in some way it is proposed to it as a good; and this cannot take place without error. But in the divine knowledge there cannot be error, as was shown above. God’s will cannot, therefore, tend towards evil. [4] Moreover, God is the highest good, as has been shown. But the highest good cannot bear any mingling with evil, as neither can the highest hot thing bear any mingling with the cold. The divine will, therefore, cannot be turned to evil. [5] Furthermore, since the good has the nature of an end, evil cannot enter the will except by turning away from the end. But the divine will cannot be turned from the end, since it can will nothing except by willing itself. Therefore, it cannot will evil. [6] And thus it appears that free choice in God naturally stands abiding in the -good. [7] This is what is said in Deuteronomy (32:4): “God is faithful and without any iniquity”; and Habakkuk (1:13): “Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and You cannot look on iniquity.” [8] By this is refuted the error of the Jews, who say in the Talmud that at times God sins and is cleansed from sin; and of the Luciferians, who say that God sinned in ejecting Lucifer.

Chapter

That God hates nothing, and the hatred of no thing befits Him

[1] From this it appears that the hatred of something does not befit God. [2] For as love is to the good, so hatred is to evil; for to those we love we will good, and to those we hate, evil. If, then, the will of God cannot be inclined to evil, as has been shown, it is impossible that He should hate anything. [3] Again, the will of God is directed to things other than Himself, as has been shown, in so far as, by willing and loving His own being and His own goodness, God wills it to be diffused as much as possible through the communication of likeness. This, then, is what God wills in other things, that there be in them the likeness of His goodness. But this is the good of each thing, namely, to participate in the likeness of God; for every other goodness is nothing other than a certain likeness of the first goodness. Therefore, God wills good to each thing. Hence, He hates nothing. [4] Furthermore, from the first being all the others take the origin of their being. If, then, God hates anything among the things that are, He wills it not to be, since to be is each thing’s good. He wills, therefore, the non-existence of His own action by which that thing is brought into being either mediately or immediately. For it was shown above that, if God wills something, He must will the things that are necessary for it. Now, this is impossible. This is apparent if things come into being through His will, for then the action by which things are produced must be voluntary. The same is the case if God is by nature the cause of things, for, just as His nature is pleasing to Him, so whatever His nature requires is pleasing to Him. God, therefore, does not hate anything. [5] Moreover, that which is found in all naturally active causes must be especially found in the first cause. But all agents in their own way love their effects as such: thus, parents love their children, poets their poetry, and artists their works. All the more, then, does God not hate anything, since He is the cause of all things. [6] This is what is said in Wisdom (11:25): “For You lovest all the things that are, and batest none of the things which You hast made.” [7] However, God is said by similitude to hate some things, and this in a twofold way. In the first way, because God, in loving things and by willing the existence of their good, wills the non-existence of the contrary evil. Hence, He is said to have a hatred of evils, for we are said to hate what we will not to exist. In the words of Zechariah (8:17): “And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his friend and love not a false oath. For all these are the things that I hate, saith the Lord.” These, however, are not effects in the manner of subsisting things, to which properly love and hate refer. [8] The second way arises from the fact that God wills some greater good that cannot be without the loss of some lesser good. And thus He is said to hate, although this is rather to love. For thus, inasmuch as He wills the good of justice or of the order of the universe, which cannot exist without the punishment or corruption of some things, God is said to hate the things whose punishment or corruption He wills. In the words of Malachi (1:3): “I have hated Esau”; and the Psalms (5:7): “You hate all workers of iniquity: You destroy all who speak a lie. The bloody and the deceitful man the Lord will abhor.”

Chapter

That God is living

[1] From what has already been proved it necessarily follows that God is living. [2] For it has been shown that God is understanding and willing, and the acts of understanding and willing belong only to a living being. Therefore, God is living. [3] Again, to live is attributed to some beings because they are seen to move themselves, but not to be moved by another. And on this account the things that seem to be moved by themselves, whose movers people in general do not perceive, we call by similitude living: for example, the living water of a flowing spring, but not the water of a cistern or a stagnant pool; or quicksilver, which appears to have a certain movement. For, in a proper sense, those things move through themselves that move themselves, being composed of a mover and something moved, for example, animate things. These alone we properly say are living, while all other things are moved by some exterior agent, be it a generating cause, or one removing an obstacle, or an impelling cause. And because all sensible operations involve motion, everything that moves itself to its own operations is further said to live, though this be not with motion; and so understanding, appetition, and sensing are actions of life. But it is supremely true of God that He does not act from another, but through Himself, since He is the first agent. Therefore, to live belongs to Him in a supreme way. [4] Again, the divine being comprehends every perfection of being, as has been shown. But to live is a certain perfection, which is why living things in the order of being are higher than non-living things. Hence, the divine being is living. Therefore, God is living. [5] This is likewise confirmed by the authority of the divine Scripture. For it is said in Deuteronomy (32:40) in the person of the Lord: “I will say: I live forever”; and in a Psalm (83:3): “My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.”

Chapter

That God is His life

[1] From this it further appears that God is His life. [2] For the life of the living being is the very act of living signified in an abstract manner, as running is in reality nothing other than to run. Now, “to live is for the living their very being,” as appears from the Philosopher in De anima II [4]. For, since an animal is said to be living because it has a soul, through which it has being as through its proper form, it follows that to live is nothing other than such a being arising from such a form. But God is His own being, as was proved above. Therefore, He is His own act of living and His own life. [3] Again, understanding is a certain way of living, as appears from the Philosopher in De anima II [2]; for to live is the act of a living being. But God is His own understanding, as was shown above, and therefore He is His own act of living and His own life. [4] Moreover, if God were not His life, since He is living, as has been shown, it would follow that He would be living through the participation of life. But everything that is through participation is reduced to that which is through itself. Therefore, God would be reduced to something prior, through which He would be living. This is impossible, as is apparent from what has been said. [5] Furthermore, if God is living, as has been shown, there must be life in Him. If, then, He is not His own life, there will be something in Him that is not He.. Thus, He will be composite, which has been disproved.” Therefore, God is His life. [6] This is what is said in John (14:6): “I am... the life.”

Chapter

That the life of God is everlasting

[1] From this it appears that God’s life is everlasting. [2] Nothing ceases to live except through separation from life. But nothing can be separated from God, since every separation takes place through the division of something from something. It is therefore impossible that God cease to live, since He is His life, as has been shown. [3] Again, everything that at times is and at times is not is through some cause, for nothing leads itself from nonbeing to being, since that which does not yet exist does not act. But the divine life has no cause, as neither does the divine being. Hence, God is not at times living and at times not-living, but He always lives. Therefore, His life is everlasting. [4] Furthermore, in every operation the agent abides, even though at times the operation passes through succession. Hence, in motion likewise, the movable remains the same in subject during the whole motion, although not in situation. Where, therefore, the action is the agent itself, of necessity nothing there passes through succession, but the whole remains all together. But the understanding and living of God are God Himself, as has been shown. Therefore, His life has no succession, but is life all together. Therefore, it is everlasting. [5] Moreover, God is absolutely immobile, as was shown above. But what begins to live and ceases to live, or in living suffers succession, is mutable. For one’s life begins through generation, it ceases through corruption, and as to succession, it exists because of some motion. But God neither began to live, nor will He cease to live, not in living does He suffer any succession. Therefore, His life is everlasting. [6] Hence what is said in Deuteronomy (32:40) in the person of the Lord: “I live forever”; and in 1 John (5:20): “This is true God and life eternal.”

Chapter

That God is blessed

[1] It remains from the foregoing to show that God is blessed. [2] The proper good of every intellectual nature is blessedness. Since, then, God is intelligent, His proper good will be blessedness. But He is not related to His proper good as is something that tends to a good not yet possessed, since this belongs to a nature that is movable and existing in potency; He is related rather as that which alreadypossesses its proper good. Therefore, He not only desires blessedness, as we do, but enjoys it. Therefore, He is blessed. [3] Moreover, that is supremely desired or willed by an intellectual nature which is most perfect in it; and this is its blessedness. But the most perfect thing in each being is its most perfect operation. For potency and habit are perfected by operation, and so the Philosopher says that "felicity is perfect operation" [Ethics X, 7]. But the perfection of operation depends on four things. First, on its genus, namely, that it be abiding in its operating cause. By an operation that abides in its cause I mean one through which nothing takes place but the operation itself: for example, to see and to hear. For these are the perfections of the beings whose operations they are, and can be ultimate because they are not ordered to something made as to their end. On the other hand, the operation or the action from which there follows some result beyond the action itself is the perfection of the thing produced, and not of the operating cause, and is related to it as to an end. Hence, such an operation of an intellectual nature is not blessedness or felicity. Second, it depends on the principle of operation, namely, that it be the operation of the highest power. Hence, there is not felicity in us according to the operation of sense, butt according to the operation of the intellect, and one perfected by a habit. Third, it depends on the object of operation. On this account, the highest felicity in us consists in understanding the highest intelligible. Fourth, it depends on the form of the operation, namely, that it be easily, firmly, and with delight. Such, however, is the operation of God, since He is intelligent, and His the highest power, nor does He need any perfecting habit, because He is perfect in Himself, as was shown above. Furthermore, He understands Himself, being the highest intelligible, and this perfectly, without any difficulty, and with delight. God is, therefore, blessed. [4] Furthermore, through blessedness every desire is given rest, because, when blessedness is possessed, nothing else remains to be desired, since it is the ultimate end. He must, therefore, be blessed who is perfect in relation to all the things that He can desire. Hence, Boethius says that blessedness is "a state made perfect by the accumulation of all goods" [ De consolatione philosophiae III, 2]. But such is the divine perfection, because it comprehends all perfection in a certain simplicity, as was shown above. Therefore, God is truly blessed. [5] Again, as long as someone is missing something that he needs, he is not yet blessed, for his desire is not yet at rest. Whoever, therefore, is self-sufficient, needing nothing, he is blessed. But it ha's been shown above that God does not need other things, since His perfection depends on nothing outside Himself, nor does God will other things for His own sake as though He needed them, but solely because this befits His goodness. Therefore, He is blessed. [6] Furthermore, it was shown above that God cannot will something impossible. But it is impossible that God should receive what He does not already have, since He is in no way in potency, as has been shown. Therefore, He cannot will to have anything that He does not have. Hence, whatever He wills, He has. Nor does He will anything evil, as was shown above. He is therefore blessed, in the manner in which some proclaim the blessed man to be “be who has whatever He wills and who wills nothing evil.” [7] Sacred Scripture, furthermore, proclaims the blessedness of God: “Which in His times He shall show Who is the Blessed and only Mighty” (1 Tim. 6:15).

Chapter

That God is His blessedness

[1] From this it is apparent that God is His blessedness. [2] For His blessedness is a certain intellectual operation, as has been shown. But it was shown above that His understanding is His substance. Therefore, He is His blessedness. [3] Again, blessedness, since it is the ultimate end, is that which he who can have it, or has it, principally wills. But it was shown above that God principally wills His essence. Therefore, His essence is His blessedness. [4] Furthermore, everyone relates to his blessedness whatever he wills. For it is what is not desired for the sake of something else, and that in which terminates the motion of the desire of someone desiring one thing for the sake of another—so that the motion may not be infinite. Since, then, God wills all other things for the sake of His goodness, which is His essence, it is necessary that, just as He is His essence and His goodness, He be His blessedness. [5] Moreover, that there be two highest goods is impossible. For, if one lacked something that the other had, neither would be highest and perfect. But God was shown above to be the highest good. Blessedness will also be shown to be the highest good because it is the ultimate end. Therefore, blessedness and God are identical. Therefore, God is His blessedness.

Chapter

That the perfect and unique blessedness of God excels every other blessedness

[1] From what has preceded we may further examine the excellence of the divine blessedness. [2] The nearer something is to blessedness, the more blessed it is. Hence, although a man may be called blessed because he hopes to obtain blessedness, in no way does his blessedness compare with the blessedness of the one who already possesses it in act. But the thing nearest to blessedness is blessedness itself. This has been shown of God. Therefore, God is in a unique way perfectly blessed. [3] Again, since delight is caused by love, as has been shown, the possession of what is Joved. But, other things being equal, each thing loves itself more than another, and a sign of this is that the nearer a thing is to something else the more it is naturally loved. God, therefore, delights more in His blessedness, which He Himself is, than do other blessed ones in the blessedness which is not they themselves. The desire has therefore all the more repose, and the blessedness is all the more perfect. [4] Furthermore, that which is through its essence is more excellent than what is said by participation: for example, the nature of fire is found more perfectly in fire itself than in things that are on fire. But God is blessed through His essence, and this befits no other being, since no being other than He can be the highest good, as can be seen from what has been said. And thus, whoever other than God is blessed, must be called blessed by participation. The divine blessedness, therefore, excels every other blessedness. [5] Moreover, blessedness consists in the perfect operation of the intellect, as has been shown. But no other intellectual operation can compare with God’s operation. 11is is evident not only because it is a subsistent operation but also because by one operation God knows Himself as perfectly as He is perfect, as well as all other things, those that are and those that are not, the good and the evil. But in all other beings with an intellect, the operation of the intellect is not itself subsistent, but the act of something subsistent. Nor, again, is God Himself, Who is the highest intelligible, understood by anyone as perfectly as He is perfect, since the being of no thing is as perfect as the divine being, nor can the operation of any being be more perfect than its substance. Nor, still, is there another intellect that knows also all the things that God can make, for then it would comprehend the divine power. And even as to the things that another intellect knows, it does not know them all by one and the same operation. God, therefore, is blessed above all things beyond compare. [6] Again, the more something is united, by so much the more are its power and goodness more perfect. But a successive operation is divided according to the diverse parts of time. Its perfection, therefore, can in no way be compared to the perfection of an operation that is all at once without succession, and this especially if it does not pass away in a moment but abides for eternity. Now, in God, to understand exists eternally all at once and without succession, whereas in us to understand implies succession because continuity and time are by accident joined to it. Hence, the divine blessedness infinitely excels human blessedness, as the duration of eternity excels the flowing now of time. [7] Furthermore, weariness and the various cares with which perforce our contemplation in this life is mingled (in this contemplation human felicity especially consists, if by chance there is such in the present life), and the errors, doubts and hazards to which the present life is exposed show that human felicity, especially that of the present life, cannot at all compare with the divine blessedness. [8] Moreover, the perfection of the divine blessedness can be observed from the fact that it includes within itself every blessedness in a most perfect way. For contemplative felicity God has the most perfect and everlasting consideration of Himself and other things. For active felicity He has the government, not of the life of one man, or of a household, a city, or a kingdom, but of the whole universe. [9] As for false and earthly felicity, it contains no more than a shadow of that most perfect felicity. For it consists in five things, according to Boethius [ De consolatione philosophiae III, 2]; namely, in pleasure, riches, power, honor, and fame. But God enjoys a most excelling delight in Himself, as well as a universal joy in all things, without the admixture of any contrary. For wealth, He has the all-abundant sufficiency of all good things within Himself, as was shown above. For power, He has His infinite strength. For honor, He has the primacy and rule over all beings. For fame, He has the admiration of every intellect that knows Him however little. To Him, then, Who is singularly blessed, be, honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

CONTRA GENTILES

BOOK TWO: CREATION

translated by

James F. Anderson

CONTENTS

The connection between the following considerations and the preceding ones

That the consideration of creatures is useful for instruction of faith

That knowledge of the nature of creatures serves to destroy errors concerning God

That the philosopher and the theologian consider creatures in different ways

Order of procedure

That it is proper to God to be the source of the being of other things

That active power exists in God

That God’s power is His substance

That God’s power is His action

How power is attributed to God

That something is said of God in relation to creatures

That relations predicated of God in reference to creatures do not really exist in Him

How the aforesaid relations are predicated of God

Continued

That God is to all things the cause of being

That God brought things into being from nothing

That creation is neither motion nor change

How objections against creation are solved

That in creation no succession exists

That no body is capable of creative action

That the act of creating belongs to God alone

That God is omnipotent

That God does not act by natural necessity

That God acts conformably to His wisdom

How the omnipotent God is said to be incapable of certain things

That the divine intellect is not confined to limited effects

That the divine will is not restricted to certain effects

How dueness is entailed in the production of things

How absolute necessity can exist in created things

That it is not necessary for creatures to have always existed

Arguments of those who wish to demonstrate the world’s eternity from the point of view of God

Arguments of those who wish to prove the eternity of the world from the standpoint ofcreatures

Arguments to prove the eternity of the world from the point of view of the making of things

Solution of the foregoing arguments, and first of those taken from the standpoint of God

Solution of the arguments proposed from the point of view of the things made

Solution of the arguments taken from the point of view of the making of things

Arguments by which some try to show that the world is not eternal

That the distinction of things is not the result of chance

That matter is not the first cause of the distinction of things

That a contrariety of agents does not account for the distinction of things

That the first cause of the distinction of things is not the world of secondary agents

That the distinction of things is not caused by some secondary agent introducing diverse forms into matter

That the distinction of things does not have its source in the diversity of merits or demerits

The true first cause of the distinction of things

That the perfection of the universe required the existence of some intellectual creatures

That intellectual substances are endowed with will

That intellectual substances have freedom of choice in acting

That the intellectual substance is not a body

That intellectual substances are immaterial

That the intellectual substance is not a material form

That in created intellectual substances, being and what is differ

That in created intellectual substances there is act and potentiality

That the composition of substance and being is not the same as the composition of matter and form

That intellectual substances are incorruptible

In what way an intellectual substance can be united to the body

The position of Plato concerning the union of the intellectual soul with the body

That in man there are not three souls, nutritive, sensitive, and intellective

That man’s possible intellect is not a separate substance

That man derives his specific nature, not from the passive, but from the possible, intellect

That this theory is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle

Against Alexander’s opinion concerning the possible intellect

That the soul is not a temperament, as Galen maintained

That the soul is not a harmony

That the soul is not a body

Against those who maintain that intellect and sense we the same

Against those who hold that the possible intellect is the imagination

How an intellectual substance can be the form of the body

Solution of the arguments advanced above in order to show that an intellectual substance cannot be united to the body as its form

That according to the words of Aristotle the intellect must be said to be united to the body as its form

That the soul is united to the body without intermediation

That the whole soul is in the whole body and in each of its parts

That there is not one possible intellect in all men

Concerning the theory of Avicenna, who said that intelligible forms are not preserved in the possible intellect

Solution of the seemingly demonstrative arguments for the unity of the possible intellect

That the agent intellect is not a separate substance, but part of the soul

That it is not impossible for the possible and agent intellect to exist together in the one substance of the soul

That Aristotle held not that the agent intellect is a separate substance, but that it is a part of the soul

That the human soul does not perish when the body is corrupted

Arguments to prove that the corruption of the body entails that of the soul [and their solution]

That the souls of brute animals are not immortal

That the human soul begins to exist when the body does

Solution of the preceding arguments

That the soul is not made of God’s substance

That the human soul is not transmitted with the semen

That the human soul is brought into being through the creative action of God

Arguments designed to prove that the human soul is formed from the semen

Solution of the preceding arguments

That an intellectual substance is united only to a human body as its form

That there are some intellectual substances which are not united to bodies

Concerning the great number of separate substances

Of the non-existence of a plurality of separate substances of one species

That the separate substance and the soul are not of the same species

How in separate substances genus and species are to be taken

That separate substances do not receive their knowledge from sensible things

That the intellect of a separate substance is always in act of understanding

How one separate substance understands another

That separate substances know material things

That separate substances know singulars

Whether separate substances have natural knowledge of all things at the same time

Chapter

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS AND THE PRECEDING ONES

“I meditated upon Your works: I meditated upon the works of Your hands” (Ps. 142-5). [1] Of no thing whatever can a perfect knowledge be obtained unless its operation is known, because the measure and quality of a thing’s power is judged from the manner and type of its operation, and its power, in turn, manifests its nature; for a thing’s natural aptitude for operation follows upon its actual possession of a certain kind of nature. [2] There are, however, two sorts of operation, as Aristotle teaches in Metaphysics IX [8]: one that remains in the agent and is a perfection of it, as the act of sensing, understanding, and willing; another that passes over into an external thing, and is a perfection of the thing made as a result of that operation, the acts of heating, cutting and building, for example. [3] Now, both kinds of operation belong to God: the former, in that He understands, wills, rejoices, and loves; the latter, in that He brings things into being, preserves them, and governs them. But, since the former operation is a perfection of the operator, the latter a perfection of the thing made, and since the agent is naturally prior to the thing made and is the cause of it, it follows that the first of these types of operation is the ground of the second, and naturally precedes it, as a cause precedes its effect. Clear evidence of this fact, indeed, is found in human affairs; for in the thought and will of the craftsman lie the principle and plan of the work of building. [4] Therefore, as a simple perfection of the operator, the first type of operation claims for itself the name of operation, or, again, of action; the second, as being a perfection of the thing made, is called making so that the things which a craftsman produces by action of this kind are said to be his handiwork. [5] Of the first type of operation in God we have already spoken in the preceding Book of this work, where we treated of the divine knowledge and will. Hence, for a complete study of the divine truth, the second operation, whereby things are made and governed by God, remains to be dealt with. [6], In fact, this order we can gather from the words quoted above. For the Psalmist first speaks of meditation upon the first type of operation, when he says: “I have meditated on all your operations”; thus, operation is here referred to the divine act of understanding and will. Then he refers to meditation on God’s works: “and I meditated on the works of Your hands”; so that by “the works of Your hands” we understand heaven and earth, and all that is brought into being by God, as the handiwork produced by a craftsman.

Chapter

THAT THE CONSIDERATION OF CREATURES IS USEFUL FOR INSTRUCTION OF FAITH

[1] This sort of meditation on the divine works is indeed necessary for instruction of faith in God. [2] First, because meditation on His works enables us in game measure to admire and reflect upon His wisdom. For things made by art are representative of the art itself, being made in likeness to the art. Now, God brought things into being by His wisdom; wherefore the Psalm (103:24) declares: “You made all things in wisdom.” Hence, from reflection upon God’s works we are able to infer His wisdom, since, by a certain communication of His likeness, it is spread abroad in the things He has made. For it is written: “He poured her out,” namely, wisdom, “upon all His works” (Eccli. 1:10). Therefore, the Psalmist, after saying: “Your knowledge is become wonderful to me: it is high, and I cannot reach it,” and after referring to the aid of the divine illumination, when he says: “Night shall be my light,” etc., confesses that he was aided in knowing the divine wisdom by reflection upon God’s works, saying: “Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows right well” (Ps. 138:6, 11, 14). [3] Secondly, this consideration [of God’s works] leads to admiration of God’s sublime power, and consequently inspires in men’s hearts reverence for God. For the power of the worker is necessarily understood to transcend the things made. And so it is said: “If they,” namely, the philosophers, “admired their power and effects,” namely of the heavens, stars, and elements of the world, “let them understand that He that made them is mightier than they” (Wis. 13:4). Also it is written: “The invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: His eternal power also and divinity” (Rom. 1:20). Now, the fear and reverence of God result from this admiration. Hence, it is said: “Great is Your name in might. Who shall not fear You, O King of Nations?” (Jer. l0:6-7). [4] Thirdly, this consideration incites the souls of men to the love of God’s goodness. For whatever goodness and perfection is distributed to the various creatures, in partial or particular measure, is united together in Him universally, as in the source of all goodness, as we proved in Book I. If, therefore, the goodness, beauty, and delightfulness of creatures are so alluring to the minds of men, the fountainhead of God’s own goodness, compared with the rivulets of goodness found in creatures, will draw the enkindled minds of men wholly to Itself. Hence it is said in the Psalm (91:5): “You have given me, O Lord, a delight in Your doings, and in the works of Your hands I shall rejoice.” And elsewhere it is written concerning the children of men: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Your house,” that is, of all creatures, “and You shall make them drink of the torrent of Your pleasure: for with You is the fountain of life” (Ps. 35:9-10). And, against certain men, it is said: “By these good things that are seen,” namely, creatures, which are good by a kind of participation, “they could not understand Him that is” (Wis. 13:1), namely, truly good; indeed, is goodness itself, as was shown in Book I. [5] Fourthly, this consideration endows men with a certain likeness to God’s perfection. For it was shown in Book I that, by knowing Himself, God beholds all other things in Himself. Since, then, the Christian faith teaches man principally about God, and makes him know creatures by the light of divine revelation, there arises in man a certain likeness of God’s wisdom. So it is said: “But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image” (2 Cor. 3:18). [6] It is therefore evident that the consideration of creatures has its part to play in building the Christian faith. And for this reason it is said: “I will remember the works of the Lord, and I will declare the things I have seen: by the words of the Lord are His works” (Sirach 42:15).

Chapter

THAT KNOWLEDGE OF THE NATURE OF CREATURES SERVES TO DESTROY ERRORS CONCERNING GOD

[1] The consideration of creatures is further necessary, not only for the building up of truth, but also for the destruction of errors. For errors about creatures sometimes lead one astray from the truth of faith, so far as the errors are inconsistent with true knowledge of God. Now, this happens in many ways. [2] First, because through ignorance of the nature of creatures men are sometimes so far perverted as to set up as the first cause and as God that which can only receive its being from something else; for they think that nothing exists beyond the realm of visible creatures. Such were those who identified God with this, that, and the other kind of body; and of these it is said: “Who have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and moon to be the gods” (Wis. 13: 2). [3] Secondly, because they attribute to certain creatures that which belongs only to God. This also results from error concerning creatures. For what is incompatible with a thing’s nature is not ascribed to it except through ignorance of its nature—as if man were said to have three feet. Now, what belongs solely to God is incompatible with the nature of a created thing, just as that which is exclusively man’s is incompatible with another thing’s nature. Thus, it is from ignorance of the creature’s nature that the aforesaid error arises. And against this error it is said: “They gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood” (Wis. 14:21). Into this error fell those who attribute the creation of things, or knowledge of the future, or the working of miracles to causes other than God. [4] Thirdly, because through ignorance of the creature’s nature something is subtracted from God’s power in its working upon creatures. This is evidenced in the case of those who set up two principles of reality; in those who assert that things proceed from God, not by the divine will, but by natural necessity; and again, in those who withdraw either all or some things from the divine providence, or who deny that it can work outside the ordinary course of things. For all these notions are derogatory to God’s power. Against such persons it is said: “Who looked upon the Almighty as if He could do nothing” (Job 22:17), and: “You show Your power, when men will not believe You to be absolute in power” (Wis..12: 17). [5] Fourthly, through ignorance of the nature of things, and, consequently, of his own place in the order of the universe, this rational creature, man, who by faith is led to God as his last end, believes that he is subject to other creatures to which he is in fact superior. Such is evidently the case with those who subject human wills to the stars, and against these it is said: “Be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear” (Jer. 10:2); and this is likewise true of those who think that angels are the creators of souls, that human souls are mortal, and, generally, of persons who hold any similar views derogatory to the dignity of man. [6] It is, therefore, evident that the opinion is false of those who asserted that it made no difference to the truth of the faith what anyone holds about creatures, so long as one thinks rightly about God, as Augustine tells us in his book On the Origin of the Soul [ De anima et ejus origine, IV, 4]. For error concerning creatures, by subjecting them to causes other than God, spills over into false opinion about God, and takes men’s minds away from Him, to whom faith seeks to lead them. [7] For this reason Scripture threatens punishment to those who eff about creatures, as to unbelievers, in the words of the Psalm (27:5): “Because they have not understood the works of the Lord and the operations of His hands, You shall destroy them, and shall not build them up”; and: “These things they thought and were deceived,” and further on: “They did not esteem the honor of holy Souls” (Wis. 7:2122).

Chapter

THAT THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE THEOLOGIAN CONSIDER CREATURES IN DIFFERENT WAYS

[1] Now, from what has been said it is evident that the teaching of the Christian faith deals with creatures so far as they reflect a certain likeness of God, and so far as error concerning them leads to error about God. And so they are viewed in a different light by that doctrine and by human philosophy. For human philosophy considers them as they are, so that the different parts of philosophy are found to correspond to the different genera of things. The Christian faith, however, does not consider them as such; thus, it regards fire not as fire, but as representing the sublimity of God, and as being directed to Him in any way at all. For as it is said: “Full of the glory of the Lord is His work. Did the Lord not make the saints declare all His wonderful works?” (Sirach 42: 16-17) [2] For this reason, also, the philosopher and the believer consider different matters about creatures. The philosopher considers such things as belong to them by nature-the upward tendency of fire, for example; the believer, only such things as belong to them according as they are related to God—the fact, for instance, that they are created by God, are subject to Him, and so on. [3] Hence, imperfection is not to be imputed to the teaching of the faith if it omits many properties of things, such as the figure of the heaven and the quality of its motion. For neither does the natural philosopher consider the same characters of a line as the geometrician, but only those that accrue to it as terminus of a natural body. [4] But any things concerning creatures that are considered in common by the philosopher and the believer are conveyed through different principles in each case. For the philosopher takes his argument from the proper causes of things; the believer, from the first cause—for such reasons as that a thing has been handed down in this manner by God, or that this conduces to God’s glory, or that God’s power is infinite. Hence, also, [the doctrine of the faith] ought to be called the highest wisdom, since it treats of the highest Cause; as we read in Deuteronomy (4:6): “For this is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of nations.” And, therefore, human philosophy serves her as the first wisdom. Accordingly, divine wisdom sometimes argues from principles of human philosophy. For among philosophers, too, the first philosophy utilizes the teachings of all the sciences in order to realize its objectives. [5] Hence again, the two kinds of teaching do not follow the same order. For in the teaching of philosophy, which considers creatures in themselves and leads us from them to the knowledge of God, the first consideration is about creatures; the last, of God. But in the teaching of faith, which considers creatures only in their relation to God, the consideration of God comes first, that of creatures afterwards. And thus the doctrine of faith is more perfect, as being more like the knowledge possessed by God, who, in knowing Himself, immediately knows other things. [6] And so, following this order, after what has been said in Book I about God in Himself, it remains for us to treat of the things which derive from Him.

Chapter

ORDER OF PROCEDURE

[1] We shall treat of these matters in the following order: first, the bringing forth of things into being [6-38]; second, their distinction [39-45]; third, the nature of these same things, brought forth and distinct from one another, so far as it is relevant to the truth of the faith [46-101].

Chapter

THAT IT IS PROPER TO GOD TO BE THE SOURCE OF THE BEING OF OTHER THINGS [1] Presupposing the things already demonstrated in Book I, let us now show that it belongs to God to be the principle and cause of being to other things. [2] For in Book I of this work it was shown, by means of Aristotle’s demonstration, that there is a first efficient cause, which we call God. But an efficient cause brings its effects into being. Therefore, God is the cause of being to other things. [3] Also, it was shown in Book I, by the argument of the same author, that there is a first immovable mover, which we call God. But the first mover in any order of movements is the cause of all the movements in that order. Since, then, many things are brought into existence by the movements of the heaven, and since God has been shown to be the first mover in the order of those movements, it follows necessarily that God is the cause of being to many things. [4] Furthermore, that which belongs to a thing through itself must be in it universally; as for man to be rational and fire to tend, upwards. But to enact an actuality is, through itself, proper to a being in act; for every agent acts according as it is in act. Therefore, every being in act is by its nature apt to enact something existing in act. But God is a being in act, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, it is proper to Him to enact some being in act, to which He is the cause of being. [5] It is, moreover, a sign of perfection in things of the lower order of reality that they are able to produce their like, as Aristotle points out in his Meteorology [IV, 3]. But, as was shown in Book I, God is supremely perfect. Therefore, it belongs to Him to produce something actual, like Himself, so as to be the cause of its existence. [6] Then, too, it was shown in Book I that God wills to communicate His being to other things by way of likeness. But it belongs to the will’s perfection to be the principle of action and of movement, as is said in De anima III [10]. Therefore, since God’s will is perfect, He does not lack the power of communicating His being to a thing by way of likeness. And thus He will be the cause of its being. [7] Moreover, the more perfect is the principle of a thing’s action, to so many more and more remote things can it extend its action: thus, fire, if weak, heats only things nearby; if strong, it heats even distant things. But pure act, which God is, is more perfect than act mingled with potentiality, as it is in us. But act is the principle of action. Since, then, by the act which is in us we can proceed not only to actions abiding in us, such as understanding and willing, but also to actions which terminate in things outside of us, and through which certain things are made by us, much more can God, because He is in act, not only understand and will, but also produce an effect. And thus He can be the cause of being to other things. [8] Hence, it is said: “Who does great things and unsearchable things without number” (Job5:9).

Chapter

THAT ACTIVE POWER EXISTS IN GOD

[1] Now, from this it is clear that God is powerful, and that active power is fittingly attributed to Him. [2] For active power is the principle of acting upon another, as such. But it is proper to God to be the source of being to other things. Therefore, it pertains to Him to be powerful. [3] Again, just as passive potency follows upon being in potency, so active potency follows upon being in act; for a thing acts in consequence of its being in act, and undergoes action because it is in potency. But it is proper to God to be in act. Therefore, active power belongs to Him. [4] The divine perfection, furthermore, includes in itself the perfections of all things, as was shown in Book I. But active power belongs to the perfection of a thing; for the more perfect any thing is, so much the greater is its power found to be. Therefore, active power cannot be wanting in God. [5] Moreover, whatever acts has the power to act, since that which has not the power to act cannot possibly act; and what cannot possibly act is necessarily non-active. But God is an acting and a moving being, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, He has the power to act; and active, but not passive, potency is properly ascribed to Him. [6] Thus it is said in the Psalm (88:9): “You are mighty, O Lord,” and elsewhere: “Your power and Your justice, O God, even to the highest great things You have done.” (Ps. 70: 18-19).

Chapter

THAT GOD’S POWER IS HIS SUBSTANCE

[1] Now, from this the further conclusion can be drawn that God’s power is His very substance. [2] For active power belongs to a thing according as it is in act. But God is act itself, not a being whose actuality is due to an act that is other than itself; for in God there is no potentiality, as was shown in Book I of this work. Therefore, God is His own power. [3] Again, we argue from the fact that whatever is powerful and is not its own power is powerful by participation of another’s power. But nothing can be said of God participatively, since He is His very own being, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, He is His own power. [4] Then, too, active power pertains to a thing’s perfection, as we have just seen. But every perfection of God is contained in His very being, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, God’s power is not other than His very being, as we likewise proved in Book I. Therefore, He is His own power. [5] Again, in things whose powers are not their substance, the powers themselves are accidents. Hence, natural power is placed in the second species of quality. But in God there can be no accident, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, God is His power. [6] Moreover, everything which is through another is reduced to that which is through itself, as to that which is first. But other agents are reduced to God as first agent. Therefore, God is agent through His very self. But that which acts through itself acts through its essence, and that by which a thing acts is its active power. Therefore, God’s very essence is His active power.

Chapter

THAT GOD’S POWER IS HIS ACTION

[1] From this it can be shown that God’s power is not other than His action. [2] For things identical with one and the same thing are identical with one another. But God’s power is His substance, as was just proved. And His action is His substance, as was shown in Book P with regard to His intellectual operation; for the same argument applies to His other operations. Therefore, in God power is not distinct from action. [3] The action of a thing, moreover, is a complement of its power; for action is compared to power as second act to first. But God’s power is not completed by another than Himself, since it is His very essence. Therefore, in God power and action are not distinct. [4] Then, too, just as active power is something acting, so is its essence something being. But, as we have seen, God’s power is His essence. Therefore, His action is His being. But His being is His substance. Therefore, God’s action is His substance; and thus the same conclusion follows as before. [5] Furthermore, an action that is not the substance of the agent is in the agent as an accident in its subject; and that is why action is reckoned as one of the nine categories of accident. But nothing can exist in God in the manner of an accident. Therefore, God’s action is not other than His substance and His power.

Chapter

HOW POWER IS ATTRIBUTED TO GOD

[1] But, since nothing is its own principle, and God’s action is not other than His power, it is clear from the foregoing that power is attributed to God, not as principle of action, but as principle of the thing made. And since power implies relation to something else as having the character of a principle (for active power is the principle of acting on something else, as Aristotle says in Metaphysics V [12]), it is evident that power is in truth attributed to God in relation to things made, not in relation to action, except according to our way of understanding, namely, so far as our intellect considers both God’s power and His action through diverse conceptions. Hence, if certain actions are proper to God which do not pass into something made but remain in Him, power is not attributed to Him in their regard, except according to our manner of understanding, and not according to reality. Such actions are understanding and willing. Properly speaking, therefore, God’s power does not regard such actions, but only effects. Consequently, intellect and will are in God, not as powers, but only as actions. [2] From the foregoing it is clear, also, that the multifarious actions attributed to God, as understanding, willing, producing things, and the like are not diverse realities, since each of these actions in God is His very being, which is one and the same. Indeed, from what has been shown be clearly seen how a thing may be signified in many ways without prejudice to the truth of its oneness in reality.

Chapter

THAT SOMETHING IS SAID OF GOD IN RELATION TO CREATURES

[1] Now, since power is proper to God in relation to His effects, and since power, as was said, has the character of a principle, and since principle expresses relationship to that which proceeds from it, it is evident that something can be said of God relatively, with regard to His effects. [2] It is, moreover, inconceivable that one thing be said in relation to another unless, conversely, the latter be said in relation to it. But other things are spoken of in relation to God; for instance, as regards their being, which they possess from God, they are dependent upon Him, as has been shown. Conversely, therefore, God may be spoken of in relation to creatures. [3] Further. Likeness is a certain kind of relation. But God, even as other agents, produces something like to Himself. Therefore, something is said of Him relatively. [4] Then, too, knowledge is spoken of in relation to the thing known. But God possesses knowledge not only of Himself, but also of other things. Therefore, something is said of God in relation to other things. [5] Again. Mover is spoken of in relation to thing moved, and agent in relation to thing done. But, as was shown, God is an agent and an unmoved mover. Therefore relations are predicated of Him. [6] And again. First implies a relation, and so does highest. But it was shown in Book I that God is the first being and the highest good. [7] It is, therefore, evident that many things are said of God relatively.

Chapter

THAT RELATIONS PREDICATED OF GOD IN REFERENCE TO CREATURES DO NOT REALLY EXIST IN HIM ¹ Now, these relations which refer to God’s effects cannot possibly exist in Him really. [2] For they cannot exist in Him as accidents in a subject, since there is no accident in Him, as was shown in Book I. Neither can they be God’s very substance, because, as Aristotle says in the Categories [VII], relative terms are those “which in their very being refer somehow to something else”; so that God’s substance would then have to be referred to something else. But that which is essentially referred to another depends upon it in a certain way, since it can neither be nor be understood without it. Hence, it would follow that God’s substance would depend on something else extrinsic to it, so that He would not be, of Himself, the necessary being, as He was shown to be in Book I. Therefore, such relations do not really exist in God. [3] It was shown in Book I, moreover, that God is the first measure of all things. Hence, He stands in relation to other beings as the knowable to our knowledge, which is measured by the knowable; for “opinion or speech is true or false according as a thing is or is not, as Aristotle says in the Categories [V]. But, although a thing is said to be knowable in relation to knowledge, the relation is not really in the knowable, but only in the knowledge. Thus, as Aristotle observes in Metaphysics v, the knowable is so called relatively, “not because it is itself related, but because something else is related to it.” Therefore the relations in question have no real being in God. [4] A further point. The aforesaid relations are predicated of God with respect not only to those things that are in act, but to those also that are in potency; for He both has knowledge of them and in relation to them is called the first being and the supreme good. But there are no real relations of that which is actual to that which is not actual, but potential; otherwise, it would follow that there are actually an infinity of relations in the same subject, since potentially infinite numbers are greater than the number two, which is prior to them all. God, however, is not referred to actual things otherwise than to potential things, for He is not changed as the result of producing certain things. Therefore, He is not referred to other things by a relation really existing in Him. [5] Furthermore, we observe that whatever receives something anew must be changed, either essentially or accidentally. Now, certain relations are predicated of God anew; for example, that He is Lord or Governor of this thing which begins to exist anew. Hence, if a relation were predicated of God as really existing in Him, it would follow that something accrues to God anew, and thus that He is changed either essentially or accidentally; the contrary of this having been proved in Book I.

Chapters 13 and 14

HOW THE AFORESAID RELATIONS ARE PREDICATED OF GOD

Chapter

THAT GOD IS TO ALL THINGS THE CAUSE OF BEING

[1] Now, because it has been proved that God is the source of being to some things, it must be demonstrated further that everything besides God derives its being from Him. [2] For whatever does not belong to a thing as such appertains to it through some cause, as white to man; that which has no cause is primary and immediate, so that it must needs be through itself and as such. But no single entity can as such belong to two things and to both of them; for what is said of a thing as such is limited to that very thing; the possession of dam angles equal to two right angles is proper to the triangle exclusively. So, if something belongs to two things, it will not belong to both as such. Therefore, no single thing can possibly be predicated of two things so as to be said of neither of them by reason of a cause. On the contrary, either the one must be the cause of the other—as fire is the cause of heat in a mixed body, and yet each is called hot—or some third thing must be the cause of both, as fire is the cause of two candles giving light. But being is predicated of everything that is. Hence, there cannot possibly be two things neither of which has a cause of its being, but either both of them must exist through a cause, or the one must be the cause of the other's being. Everything which is in any way at all must then derive its being from that whose being has no cause. But we have already shown that God is this being whose existence has no cause. Everything which is in any mode whatever, therefore, is from Him. Now, to say that being is not a univocal predicate argues nothing against this conclusion.'For being is not predicated of beings equivocally, but analogically, and thus a reduction to one must be made. [3] Furthermore, whatever a thing possesses by its own nature, and not from some other cause, cannot be diminished and deficient in it. For, if something essential be subtracted from or added to a nature, another nature will at once arise, as in the case of numbers, where the addition or the subtraction of the unit changes the species of the number. If, however, the nature or quiddity of a thing remains integral, and yet something in it is found to be diminished, it is at once clear that this diminution does not derive simply from that nature, but from something else, by whose removal the nature is diminished. Therefore, whatever belongs to one thing less than to others belongs to it not by virtue of its own nature alone, but through some other cause. Thus, that thing of which a genus is chiefly predicated will be the cause of everything in that genus. So we see that what is most hot is the cause of heat in all hot things; and what is most light, the cause of all illuminated things. But as we proved in Book I, God is being in the highest mode. Therefore, He is the cause of all things of which being is predicated. [4] Then, too, the order of causes necessarily corresponds to the order of effects, since effects are commensurate with their causes. Hence, just as effects are referred to their appropriate causes, so that which is common in such effects must be reduced to a common cause. Thus, transcending the particular causes of the generation of this or that thing is the universal cause of generation-the sun; and above the particular governors of the kingdom, as, indeed, of each city in it, stands the king, the universal cause of government in his whole realm. Now, being is common to everything that is. Above all causes, then, there must be a cause whose proper action is to give being. But we have already shown in Book I that God is the first cause. Everything that is must, therefore, be from God. [5] Moreover, the cause of everything said to be such and such by way of participation is that which is said to be so by virtue of its essence. Thus, fire is the cause of all hot things as such. But God is being by His own essence, because He is the very act of being. Every other being, however, is a being by participation. For that being which is its own act of being can be one only, as was shown in Book I. God, therefore, is the cause of being to all other things. [6] Again, everything that can be and not-be has a cause; for considered in itself it is indifferent to either, so that something else must exist which determines it to one. Since, then, it is impossible to go on to infinity, there must exist a necessary being which is the cause of all things that can he and not-be. Now, there is a certain kind of necessary being whose necessity is caused. But in this order of things, also, progression to infinity is impossible; so that we must conclude to the existence of something which is of itself necessary being. There can be but one such being, as we proved in Book I. And this being is God. Everything other than God, therefore, must be referred to Him as the cause of its being. [7] Moreover, as we proved above, God is the maker of things inasmuch as He is in act. But by virtue of His actuality and perfection God embraces all the perfections of things, as was shown in Book I; and thus He is virtually all things. He is, therefore, the maker of all things. But this would not be the case if something besides God were capable of being otherwise than from Him; for nothing is of such a nature as to be from another and not from another, since if a thing is of a nature not to be from another, then it is through itself a necessary being, and thus can never be from another. Therefore, nothing can be except from God. [8] A final argument. Imperfect things originate from perfect things, as seed from the animal. But God is the most perfect being and the highest good, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, He is the cause of the being of all things, and this is especially so in view of the truth already demonstrated that such a cause cannot but be one. [9] Now, this truth is confirmed by divine authority; for it is said in the Psalm (145:6): “Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the things that are in them”; and: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing” (John 1:3); and: “Of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things: to Him be glory for ever” (Rom. 11:36). [10] The error of the natural philosophers of old, who asserted that certain bodies exist without a cause, is by this truth abolished, as well as the error of those who say that God is not the cause of the substance of the heaven, but only of its motion.

Chapter

THAT GOD BROUGHT THINGS INTO BEING FROM NOTHING

[1] Now, what has been said makes it clear that God brought things into being from no pre-existing subject, as from a matter. [2] For, if a thing is an effect produced by God, either something exists before it, or not. If not, our assertion stands, namely, that God produces some effect from nothing preexisting. If something exists before it, however, we must either go on to infinity, which is impossible in natural causes, as Aristotle proves in Metaphysics II [2], or we must arrive at a first being which presupposes no other. And this being can be none other than God Himself. For we proved in Book I that God is not the matter of any thing; nor, as we have shown, can there be anything other than God which is not made to be by Him. It therefore follows that in the production of His effects God requires no antecedent matter to work from. [3] Every matter, furthermore, is limited to some particular species by the form with which it is endowed. Consequently, it is the business of an agent limited to some determinate species to produce its effect from pre-existing matter by bestowing a form upon it in any manner whatsoever. But an agent of this kind is a particular agent; for causes are proportionate to their effects. So, an agent that necessarily requires pre-existent matter from which to produce its effect is a particular agent. Now, it is as the universal cause of being that God is an agent, as we proved in the preceding chapter. Therefore, in His action He has no need of any pre-existing matter. [4] Again. The more universal an effect is, the higher its proper cause; for the higher the cause, to so many more things does its power extend. But to be is more universal than to be moved, since, as the philosophers also teach, there are some beings—stones and the like—which are immobile. So, above the kind of cause which acts only by moving and changing there must exist that cause which is the first principle of being, and this, as we have proved in the same place, is God. Thus, God does not act only by moving and changing. On the other hand, every agent which cannot bring things into being except from pre-existing matter, acts only by moving and changing, for to make something out of matter is the result of some kind of motion or change. Therefore, to bring things into being without pre-existing matter is not impossible. Hence, God brings things into being without pre-existing matter. [5] Moreover, to act only by motion and change is incompatible with the universal cause of being; for, by motion and change a being is not made from absolute non-being, but this being from this non-being. Yet, as was shown, God is the universal principle of being. Therefore, to act only by motion or by change is contrary to His nature. Neither, then, is it proper to Him to need pre-existing matter in order to make something. [6] An additional argument. Every agent produces something in some way like itself. But every agent acts according as it is in act. Therefore, to produce an effect by somehow causing a form to inhere in a matter will be the proper function of an agent actualized by a form inherent in it, and not by its whole substance. Hence, in Metaphysics VII [8], Aristotle proves that material things, which possess forms in matter, are generated by material agents having forms in matter, not by forms existing through themselves. But God is a being in act, not through anything inherent in Him, but through His whole substance, as was proved above. Therefore, the proper mode of His action is to produce the whole subsisting thing, and not merely an inhering entity, namely, a form in a matter. Now, every agent which does not require matter for its action acts in this way. In His action, consequently, God requires no pre-existing matter. [7] Then, too, matter stands in relation to an agent as the recipient of the action proceeding from that agent. For that same act which belongs to the agent as proceeding therefrom belongs to the patient as residing therein. Therefore, matter is required by an agent in order that it may receive the action of the agent. For the agent’s action, received in the patient, is an actuality of the patient’s, and a form, or some inception of a form, in it. But God acts by no action which must be received in a patient, for His action is His substance, as was proved above. Therefore, He requires no pre-existing matter in order to produce an effect. [8] Again. Every agent whose action necessitates the prior existence of matter possesses a matter proportioned to its action, so that whatever lies within the agent’s power exists in its entirety in the potentiality of the matter; otherwise, the agent could not actualize all that lies within its active power, and hence, as regards the things it could not actualize, it would possess that power in vain. But matter stands in no such relation to God. For in matter there does not exist potentiality to any particular quantity, as Aristotle points out in Physics III [6]; whereas God’s power is absolutely infinite, as we proved in Book I of this work. No pre-existing matter, therefore, is required by God as necessary ground for His action. [9] Diverse things, furthermore, have diverse matters; for the matter of spiritual things is not the same as that of corporeal things, nor is the matter of the heavenly bodies the same as that of corruptible bodies. Tlis, indeed, is clear from the fact that receptivity, which is the property of matter, is not of the same nature in these things. For receptivity in spiritual things is intelligible in character; thus, the intellect receives the species of intelligible things, though not according to their material being; while the heavenly bodies acquire new positions, but no new existences, as the lower bodies do. Hence, there is no one matter which is in potentiality to universal being. But God is universally productive of the total being of things. There is, then, no matter corresponding, in proportionate fashion, to Him. Hence, He stands in no need of matter. [10] Moreover, wherever in the universe we find some mutual proportion and order among things, one of those things must derive its being from another, or both from some one thing. For an order must be founded in one term by it corresponding to another; otherwise, order or proportion would be the result of chance, which cannot be allowed in the first principles of things, since it would then follow with even greater force that all else are fortuitous. So, if a matter commensurate with God’s action exists, it follows either that the one is derived from the other, or both from a third thing. But, since God is the first being and the first cause, He cannot be the effect of matter, nor can He derive His being from any third cause. It remains, therefore, that, if any matter proportioned to God’s action exists, then He Himself is the cause of it. [11] The first existent, furthermore, is necessarily the cause of the things that exist; for, if they were not caused, then they would not be set in order from that first being, as we have just shown. Now, the order that obtains between act and potentiality is this: although in one and the same thing which is sometimes in potentiality and sometimes in act, the potentiality is prior in time to the act, which however is prior in nature to the potentiality, nevertheless, absolutely speaking, act is necessarily prior to potentiality. This is evident from the fact that a potentiality is not actualized except by a being actually existing. But matter is only potentially existent. Therefore, God who is pure act, must be absolutely prior to matter, and consequently the cause of it. Matter, then, is not necessarily presupposed for His action. [12] Also, prime matter in some way is, for it is potentially a being. But God is the cause of everything that is, as was shown above. Hence, God is the cause of prime matter—in respect to which nothing pre-exists. The divine action, therefore, requires no pre-existing nature. [13] Holy Scripture confirms this truth, saying: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). For to create means nothing else than to bring something into being without any pre-existing matter. [14] This truth refutes the error of the ancient philosophers who asserted that matter has no cause whatsoever, for they perceived that in the actions of particular agents there is always an antecedent subject underlying the action; and from this observation they assumed the opinion common to all, that from nothing, comes nothing. Now, indeed, this is true of particular agents. But the ancient philosophers had not yet attained to the knowledge of the universal agent which is productive of the total being, and for His action necessarily presupposes nothing whatever.

Chapter

THAT CREATION IS NEITHER MOTION NOR CHANGE

[1] In the light of what has been proved, it is evident that God’s action, which is without pre-existing matter and is called creation, is neither a motion nor a change, properly speaking. [2] For all motion or change is the “act of that which exists potentially, as such.” But in the action which is creation, nothing potential pre-exists to receive the action, as we have just shown. Therefore, creation is not a motion or a change. [3] Moreover, the extremes of a motion or change are included in the same order, either because they fall under one genus, as contraries—for example, in the motion of growth or alteration and of carrying a thing from one place to another—or because they share in one potentiality of matter, as do privation and form in generation and corruption. But neither of these alternatives can be attributed to creation; for in this action no potentiality is present, nor does there exist anything of the same genus as this action and which is presupposed for it, as we have proved. In creation, therefore, neither motion nor change exists. [4] Again, in every change or motion there must be something existing in one way now and in a different way before, for the very word change shows this. But, where the whole substance of a thing is brought into being, there can be no same thing existing in different ways, because such a thing would not itself be produced, but would be presupposed to the production. Hence, creation is not a change. [5] Furthermore, motion or change must precede that which results therefrom; for in the being of the made lies the beginning of rest and the term of motion. Every change, then, must be a motion or a terminus of motion, which is successive. And for this reason, what is being made is not; because so long as the motion endures, something is coming to be, and is not; whereas in the very terminal point of motion, wherein rest begins, a thing no longer is coming to be; it is. In creation, however, this is impossible. For, if creation preceded its product, as do motion or change, then some subject would have to be prior to it; and this is contrary to the nature of creation. Creation, therefore, is neither a motion nor a change.

Chapter

HOW OBJECTIONS AGAINST CREATION ARE SOLVED

[1] Now, what has been said makes apparent the fruitless effort of those who impugn creation by arguments derived from the nature of motion or change—the contention, for example, that creation, like other motions or changes, must take place in a subject, or that in creation non-being must be transmuted into being, just as fire is changed into air. [2] For creation is not a change, but the very dependency of the created act of being upon the principle from which it is produced. And thus, creation is a kind of relation; so that nothing prevents its being in the creature as its subject. [3] Nevertheless, creation appears to be a kind of change from the point of view of our way of understanding only, namely, in that our intellect grasps one and the same thing as not existing before and as existing afterwards. [4] But, clearly, if creation is some sort of relation, then it is a certain reality; and neither is it uncreated nor is it created by another relation. For, since a created effect depends really upon its creator, a relation of real dependency, such as this, must itself be something real. But everything real is brought into being by God; it therefore owes its being to God. It is not, however, created by a creation other than that whereby this first creature itself is said to be created. For just as accidents and forms do not exist by themselves, so neither are they created by themselves; creation is the production of a being. Rather, just as accidents and forms exist in another, so are they created when other things are created. Moreover, a relation is not referred through another relation, for in that case we would fall into an infinite regress; but it is referential of itself, because it is a relation by essence. Hence, there is no need for another creation by which creation itself is created, and so on to infinity.

Chapter

THAT IN CREATION NO SUCCESSION EXISTS

[1] From the foregoing it is also clear that all creation is successionless. [2] For succession characterizes motion. But creation is not a motion, nor the term of a motion, as a change is; hence, there is no succession in it. [3] In every successive motion, furthermore, there exists some mean between the extremes of the motion; for a mean is that which a continuously moved thing attains first before reaching the terminal point. But between being and non-being, which are as it were the extremes of creation, no mean can possibly exist. Therefore, in creation there is no succession. [4] Again, in every making involving succession, a thing is in process of becoming prior to its actual production, as is shown in Physics VI [6]. But this cannot occur in creation. For the becoming which would precede the creature’s actual production would require a subject. The latter could not be the creature itself, of whose creation we are speaking, since, before being made, the creature is not. Nor would that subject lie in the maker, because to be moved is an act not of the mover, but of the thing moved. It therefore remains that some pre-existing matter of the thing produced would be the subject of the process of becoming. This is contrary to the idea of creation. It is therefore impossible that creation should involve succession. [5] And again. Every successive making must take place in time; since before and after in motion are numbered by time. But time, motion, and the thing that is in motion are all simultaneously divided. This, indeed, is manifestly so in local motion; for, if the motion is regular, half the motion will occupy half the time. Now, the division in forms corresponding to the division of time is in terms of intensification and diminution; thus, if a thing is heated to a certain degree in so much time, it is heated to a less degree in less time. Hence, there can be succession in motion, or in any making, so far as that which is affected by motion is divisible, either in point of quantity, as in local motion and in growth, or as regards intensity and remission, as in alteration. The latt&4, however, takes place in two ways: in one way, because the form, which is the term of the motion, is divisible with respect to intensity and remission, as is evidently the case when a thing is in process of motion toward whiteness; in another way, because a division of this kind occurs in dispositions to such a form; thus, the process whereby the form of fire comes to exist is successive on account of preceding alteration in the dispositions towards the form. But the very substantial being of the creature is not divisible in this way; for “substance is not susceptible of degrees. Nor do any dispositions precede creation, since there is here no pre-existing matter, and disposition is on the side of matter. It follows that in creation no succession is possible. [6] Successiveness in the making of things, moreover, derives from a defect of the matter, which is not suitably disposed from the beginning for the reception of the form; so that, when the matter is already perfectly disposed for the form, it receives it immediately. For instance, because a transparent body is always in a state of complete readiness to receive light, it is illuminated at once by the presence of a luminous object; nor is there here any antecedent motion on the part of the illuminable thing, but only the illuminating agent’s local motion by which it becomes present. But nothing having the character of matter is prerequisite to creation; nor for the accomplishment of His action does God as agent lack anything which might accrue to Him afterwards through movement~ because He is immobile, as we proved in Book I of this work. It therefore remains that creation is instantaneous. Thus, a thing simultaneously is being created and is created, even as a thing at the same moment is being illuminated and is illuminated. [7] And so it is that holy Scripture proclaims the creation of things to have been effected in an indivisible instant; for it is written: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). And Basil explains that this beginning is “the beginning of time” and is necessarily indivisible, as Aristotle proves in i VI [3].

Chapter

THAT NO BODY IS CAPABLE OF CREATIVE ACTION

[1] The preceding considerations make it perfectly clear that no body can produce anything by creation. [2] A body acts only if it is moved, for the agent acting and the patient being acted upon, or the maker making and the thing being made, must exist together, simultaneously. Now, “those things are simultaneously existent which are in the same place,” as is pointed out in Physics V [3], and it is only by motion that a body acquires a place. But no body is moved except in time. Therefore, whatever is made by the action of a body comes to be successively. Yet, as we have just shown, creation is successionless. Therefore, nothing can be produced creatively by any bodily thing whatsoever. [3] Again. Every agent that acts so far as it is moved, necessarily moves that upon which it acts; the thing made and the thing acted upon are determined by the disposition of the maker and agent, for every agent produces its like. So, if an agent, while varying in disposition, acts in that it is changed by movement, a succession of new dispositions must also arise in the patient and in the thing made; and this cannot take place without motion. But as was shown, a body does not move unless it is moved. Therefore, nothing is made by the action of a body except through the motion or change of the thing made. It was, however, shown above that creation is neither a change nor a motion. It remains that no body can cause anything by creating it. [4] Moreover, since agent and effect must be similar to each other, a thing that does not act by its total substance cannot produce the total substance of its effect. Thus, Aristotle proves [ Metaph. VI, 8], conversely, that an immaterial form, which acts by its whole self, cannot be the proximate cause of a process of generation whereby the form alone is actualized. But no body acts by its total substance, although the whole substance acts. For, since every agent acts through the form by which it is in act, only that thing whose total substance is a form will be capable of acting by its total substance. Of no body can it be said that its whole substance consists of form; every body possesses matter because every body is mutable. Therefore, no body can produce a thing according to its total substance; and this pertains to the very essence of creation. [5] Furthermore, creation is the act of an infinite power alone. For the greater the power of an agent, the greater is its capacity for actualizing a potentiality more and more remote from actual existence; a power able to produce fire from water is greater than one that can make fire from air; so that where pre-existing potentiality is altogether eliminated, every relation of a determinate distance is transcended; and thus the power of an agent which produces something from no pre-existing potentiality whatever must immeasurably surpass the power of an agent which produces something from matter. Now, no power possessed by a body is infinite as Aristotle proved in Physics VIII [10]. Hence, no bodily thing is capable of creating—of making something from nothing. [6] Again, as Aristotle proves in Physics VII [2], there is nothing intermediate between this mover moving and this thing moved by it- this thing making and this thing made by it; mover and moved, maker and made must exist together. But a bodily agent can be present to its effect only by contact, whereby the extremities of contiguous things come together. No bodily thing, then, can act except by contact. Now, contact involves the relation of one thing to another. Consequently, where there is nothing pre-existent besides the agent, there can be no contact; and this is the case in creation. Hence, no body can act by creating. [7] Patently false, therefore, is the position of those who said that the substance of the heavenly bodies causes the matter of the elements; matter can have no other cause than an agent which acts by creating, for matter is the first subject of motion and change.

Chapter

THAT THE ACT OF CREATING BELONGS TO GOD ALONE

[1] In the light of what has been said, it can be shown further that creation is an action proper to God, and that He alone can create. [2] Corresponding to the order of agents is the order of actions; for the nobler the agent, the nobler is its action; so that the first action must belong to the first agent. But creation is the first action because it presupposes no other action, whereas all others presuppose it. Therefore, creation is exclusively proper to God, who is the first agent. [3] Moreover, it was proved that God creates things, from the fact that there can be nothing besides Himself that is not caused by Him. But of nothing else can this be said, for only He is the universal cause of being. Hence, creation belongs to God alone, as His proper action. [4] Furthermore, effects correspond proportionally to their causes, so that we attribute actual effects to actual causes, potential effects to potential causes, and, similarly, particular effects to particular causes and universal effects to universal causes, as Aristotle teaches in Physics II [3]. Now, the act of being is the first effect, and this is evident by reason of the universal presence of this act. It follows that the proper cause of the act of being is the first and universal agent, namely, God. Other agents, indeed, are not the cause of the act of being as such, but of being this-of being a man or being white, for example. On the contrary, the act of being, as such, is caused by creation, which presupposes nothing; because nothing can pre-exist that is outside being as such. By makings other than creation, this being or such being is produced; for out of pre-existent being is made this being or such a being. It remains that creation is the proper action of God. [5] Again, whatever is caused as regards some particular nature cannot be the first cause of that nature, but only a second and instrumental cause; for example, since the human nature of Socrates has a cause, he cannot be the first cause of human nature; if so, since his human nature is caused by someone, it would follow that he was the cause of himself, since be is what he is by virtue of human nature. Thus, a univocal generator must have the status of an instrumental agent in respect to that which is the primary cause of the whole species. Accordingly, all lower efficient causes must be referred to higher ones, as instrumental to principal agents. The existence of every substance other than God is caused, as we proved above. No such substance, then, could possibly be the cause of existence otherwise than as instrumental and as acting by virtue of another agent. But it is only in order to cause something by way of motion that an instrument is ever employed; for to be a moved mover is the very essence of an instrument. We have already shown, however, that creation is not a motion. Hence, no substance besides God can create anything. [6] An instrument, moreover, is used because it is adapted to a certain effect, and can therefore mediate between the first cause and the effect, being in contact with both; the influence of the first cause thus reaches the effect through the instrument. Hence, there must be a recipient of the influx of the first cause upon that which is caused by the instrument. But this is contrary to the notion of creation, which presupposes nothing whatever. It therefore remains that nothing besides God can create, either as principal agent or as instrument. [7] Furthermore, it is by an action proper and connatural to itself that every instrumental agent carries out the action of the principal agent; thus, by processes of dissolving and dividing, natural heat generates flesh, and a saw, by cutting, plays its part in completing the work of making a stool. If, therefore, there exists a creature which participates in the work of creation as an instrument of the first creator, it must do so by an action due and proper to its own nature. Now, the effect answering to an instrument’s proper action is prior, in the order of productive process, to the effect corresponding to the principal agent. So it is that the ultimate end corresponds to the first agent; thus, the cutting of the wood precedes the form of the stool, and the digestion of food, the production of flesh. Hence, by the proper operation of the creating instrument, something will have to be produced that is prior, in the order of production, to being—which is the effect corresponding to the action of the first agent. But this is impossible, because, the more universal a thing is, the greater its priority in the order of production; so, as Aristotle says in his book On the Generation of Animals [II, 3], animal precedes man in the generation of man. That any creature should exercise creative action, either as principal agent, or instrumentally, is, therefore, impossible. [8] Again, that which is caused with respect to some nature cannot be the cause of that nature simply, for then it would be the cause of itself. It can, however, be the cause of that nature in this individual; if Plato is the cause of human nature in Socrates, he is not so absolutely speaking, for Plato is himself caused with respect to human nature. Now, that which is the cause of something in this individual is the communicator of a common nature to some particular thing whereby that nature is specified or individuated. Such communication cannot be effected by creation, which presupposes nothing to which anything can be communicated by action. That a created being should be the creative cause of anything else is thus impossible. [9] And again, since every agent acts so far as it is in act, the mode of action must follow the mode of a thing’s actual being; the hotter a thing actually is, the more beat it gives. Therefore, anything whose actuality is subject to generic, specific, and accidental determinations must have a power that is limited to effects similar to the agent as such; for every agent produces its like. But nothing whose being is finite can be like another of the same genus or species, except as regards the nature of the genus or the species; for each single being, so far as it is this particular thing, is distinct from every other one. Therefore, nothing whose being is finite can be the efficient cause of another, except as regards its possession of a genus or species, not as regards its subsisting as distinct from others. Hence, that by which the effect of a finite agent subsists as an individual is the necessary pre-condition of such an agent’s action. Therefore, it does not create. Rather, the act of creation belongs solely to that agent whose being is infinite, and which, as we proved in Book I, embraces in itself the likeness of all being. [10] Moreover, since the reason why anything is made is that it may be, if a thing is said to be made which existed before, it follows that it is made not through itself, but by accident; whereas that is made through itself which was not before. Thus, if from white a thing is made black, it indeed is made both black and colored; but black through itself, because it is made from not-black, and colored by accident, since it was colored before. So, in the production of a being of some particular kind, what is made through itself is that particular being; what is made by accident is simply a being; when a human being is born, it is a man that comes to be in an unqualified sense, a being that comes to be in a qualified sense, because a man is made, not from non-being as such, but from this particular non-being, as Aristotle says in Physics I [8]. Therefore, when a thing comes to be from non-being unqualifiedly speaking, what it made through itself is a being. In that case it must derive from that which is, through itself, the cause of being, for effects are referred to their proportionate causes. Now, it is the first being alone which is the cause of being as being; other things are the cause of being, by accident, and of this particular being, through themselves. Since to create is to produce being from nothing pre-existing, it follows that this act is exclusively God’s own. [11] The authority of Sacred Scripture bears witness to this truth, affirming that God created all things: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). Damascene, also, in the second part of his work writes: “All those who say that the angels are creators of any substance whatever have the devil as their father, for no creatures in existence are creators” [ De fide orthodoxa ]. [12] Thus is destroyed the error of certain philosophers who said that God created the first separate substance, which in turn created the second, and so on in orderly fashion to the last one.

Chapter

THAT GOD IS OMNIPOTENT

[1] It is evident, then, that God’s power is not determined to some single effect. [2] For, if God alone can create, then anything that can be brought into being only by creative causality must necessarily be produced by Him. In this category fall all separate substances—which are not composed of matter and form, and whose existence we now suppose, as well as the totality of corporeal matter. These diverse existents, then, are the immediate effects of God’s power. Now, no power which produces immediately a number of effects, but not from matter, is determined to one particular effect. I say immediately, because, if it produced them through intermediaries, the diversity might result from the latter. And I say not from matter, because the same agent by the same action causes diverse effects in accordance with the diversity of the matter involved; the heat of fire hardens clay and melts wav. God’s power, therefore, is not determined to one effect. [3] Again, every perfect power reaches out to all those things to which the effect possessed by it through itself and proper to it can extend; whatever can have the character of a dwelling falls within the range of the art of building, if it is perfect. Now, God’s power is through itself the cause of being, and the act of being is His proper effect, as was made clear above. Hence, His power reaches out to all things with which the notion of being is not incompatible; for, if God’s power were limited to some particular effect, He would not be through Himself the cause of a being as such, but of this particular being. Now, the opposite of being, namely, non-being, is incompatible with the notion of being. Hence, God can do all things which do not essentially include the notion of non-being, and such are those which involve a contradiction. It follows that God can do whatever does not imply a contradiction. [4] Furthermore, every agent acts so far as it is in act. Hence, the mode of an agent’s power in acting accords with its mode of act; man begets man, and fire begets fire. Now, God is perfect act, possessing in Himself the perfections of all things, as we have already shown. His active power, therefore, is perfect, extending to everything not repugnant to the notion of that which is being in act; namely, to everything except that which implies a contradiction. God, then, is omnipotent as regards all but this. [5] Corresponding to every passive power, moreover, there is an active one; because potency is for the sake of act, as is matter for the sake of form. Now, it is only by the power of a thing existing actually that a potentially existent being can be made actual. A potency would thus be without purpose unless there existed the active power of an agent which could actualize it. And yet, in the real world, there is nothing purposeless. Thus, we see that all things potentially existent in the matter of generable and corruptible entities can be actualized by the active power present in the heavenly body, which is the primary active force in nature. Now, just as the heavenly body is the first agent in respect to lower bodies, so God is the first agent as regards the totality of created being. Therefore, by His active power God is able to do everything whatsoever that lies within the potency of the created being. But in the potency of the created being is everything that is not opposed to itself; just as human nature is patient of everything except that which would destroy it. Therefore, God can do all things. [6] Furthermore, there are three reasons why some particular effect may escape the power of some particular agent. First, because the effect has no likeness or affinity to the agent—for every agent produces its like in some fashion. Thus, the power in human seed cannot produce an irrational animal or a plant, yet it can produce a man—a being superior to those things. Secondly, because of the excellence of the effect, which is disproportionate to the agent’s power; thus, an active corporeal power cannot produce a separate substance. Thirdly, because the effect requires a matter upon which the agent cannot act; a carpenter cannot make a saw, since his art does not enable him to act upon iron, from which a saw is made. [7] But for none of these reasons can any effect be withdrawn from God’s power. For, first, not because of its dissimilarity to Him can any effect be impossible to Him, since every being, so far as it has being, is similar to Him, as was shown above. Nor, secondly, because of the excellence of the effect, since it has been shown already that God transcends all things in goodness and perfection. Nor, thirdly, because of any material deficiency, since God is Himself the cause of matter, which cannot be produced except by creation. Moreover, in acting, God needs no matter, because He brings a thing into being where nothing whatever existed before; hence, His action cannot be hindered from producing its effect because of any lack of matter. [8] We therefore conclude that God’s power is not limited to some particular effect, but that He is able to do absolutely all things; in other words, He is omnipotent. [9] So too, Divine Scripture teaches this as a matter of faith. For in the person of God Himself it is said: “I am the almighty God: walk before me and be perfect” (Gen. 17:1); and Job (42:2) says: “I know that You can do all things”; and in the person of the angel: “No word shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). [10] Thus is eliminated the error of certain philosophers who asserted that God produced immediately one effect only, as if His power were limited to the production of it, and that God can produce another only by acting in accordance with the natural train of events. Of such persons it is written: “Who looked upon the Almighty as if He could do nothing” (Job 22:17).

Chapter

THAT GOD DOES NOT ACT BY NATURAL NECESSITY

[1] From what has been said it follows that God acts, in the realm of created things, not by necessity of His nature, but by the free choice of His will. [2] For the power of every agent which acts by natural necessity is determined to one effect; that is why all natural things invariably happen in the same way, unless there be an obstacle; while voluntary things do not. God’s power, however, is not ordered to one effect only, as we have just shown. Therefore, God acts, not out of natural necessity, but by His will. [3] Also, as we have demonstrated, whatever does not imply a contradiction is subject to the divine power. Now, there are many entities which do not exist in the realm of created things, but which, if they did so exist, would imply no contradiction; particularly obvious examples are the number, quantities, and distances of the stars and of other bodies, wherein, if the order of things were different, no contradiction would be implied. Thus, numerous entities, non-existent in the order of reality, are subject to the divine power. Now, whoever does some of the things that he can do, leaving others undone, acts by choice of his will, not by necessity of his nature. Therefore, God acts by His will, not by necessity of His nature. [4] Then, too, the mode of any agent’s action is in keeping with the way in which the likeness of its effect exists in it; for every agent produces its like. Now, whatever is present in something else exists in it conformably to the latter’s mode. But God is intelligent by His essence, as we have shown, so that the likeness of His effect must exist in Him in an intelligible mode. Therefore, He acts by His intellect. But the intellect does not produce an effect except by means of the will, whose object is a good apprehended by the intellect and which moves the agent as an end. God, therefore, acts by His will, not of natural necessity. [5] Moreover, there are two modes of action distinguished by Aristotle in Metaphysics IX [8]: a kind of action which remains in the agent and is a perfection of that agent—for example, seeing; another, which passes into things outside the agent, and is a perfection of the thing made as a result of that action, as burning in the case of fire. Now, God’s action cannot belong to the class of actions which are not immanent in the agent, because His action is His substance, as was shown above. Hence, it must be of the order of actions which are present in the agent as actualities perfecting its own being. Such actions, however, are exclusively proper to a being endowed with knowledge and appetite. So, God acts by knowing and by willing—not by necessity of His nature, therefore, but by the decision of His will. [6] That God acts for an end can also be evident from the fact that the universe is not the result of chance, but is ordered to a good, as Aristotle makes clear in Metaphysics XI [10]. Now, the first agent acting for an end must act by intellect and will, for things devoid of intellect act for an end as directed thereto by another. This is obviously true in the world of things made by art; it is the archer that directs the flight of the arrow to a definite mark. This must be the case also in the realm of natural things; the right ordering of a thing to a due end requires knowledge of that end and of the means to it, and of the due proportion between both; and this knowledge is found only in an agent endowed with intelligence. But God is the first agent; therefore, He acts, not by a necessity of His nature, but by His intellect and will. [7] Moreover, that which acts by itself is prior to that which acts by another, for whatever is by another must be referred to that which is by itself; otherwise, we fall into an infinite regress. A thing that is not master of its own action, however, does not act by itself; it acts as directed by something else, not as directing itself. Hence, the first agent must act as master of His own action. But it is only by will that one is master of his own action. It follows, therefore, that God, who is the first agent, acts by His will, not by necessity of His nature. [8] A further argument. To the first agent belongs the first action, even as the first motion pertains to the first thing movable. But the will’s action is naturally prior to that of nature. For that which is more perfect is prior in nature, though in one and the same particular thing it be temporally posterior. Now, voluntary action is more perfect than natural action; in the realm of our own experience, agents which act by will are obviously more perfect than those whose actions are determined by natural necessity. Action by way of the will is, therefore, proper to God, the first agent. [9] This is likewise evident from the fact that when both actions are found together, the power which acts by will is superior to that which acts by nature, and uses the latter as an instrument; thus in man the intellect, which acts by means of the will, is superior to the vegetative soul, which acts by natural necessity. The power of God, however, is supreme over all things. It therefore acts on all things by will, not by natural necessity. [10] Again, the will has for its object a good considered precisely as such, whereas nature does not attain to goodness in its universal aspect, but only to this particular good which is its perfection. Now, every agent acts inasmuch as it aims at a good, because the end moves the agent; so that the agent acting by will must be compared to the agent acting by natural necessity as universal agent to particular agent. But a particular agent is related to a universal one as posterior to it and as its instrument. Therefore, the primary agent must be a voluntary one, and not an agent by natural necessity. [11] Divine Scripture teaches us this truth, too, declaring: “Whatever the Lord wished He has done” (Ps. 134:6), and: “Who works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11). [12] And Hilary, too, in his work De synodis writes: “God’s will gave substance to all creatures.” And he adds: “For the whole universe of things were created such as God willed them to be.” [13] This also abolishes the error of those philosophers who maintain that God’s action is determined by natural necessity.

Chapter

THAT GOD ACTS CONFORMABLY TO HIS WISDOM

[1] Now, it evidently follows from the foregoing that God produces His effects according to His wisdom. [2] For the will is moved to act as the result of some sort of apprehension; the apprehended good is indeed the object of will. But, as was just shown, God is a voluntary agent. Since in Him there exists intellectual apprehension-no other kind—and since He understands nothing except in the very act of understanding Himself, and since this act is itself an act of wisdom, it follows that God produces all things according to His wisdom. [3] Moreover, because every agent produces its like, it necessarily acts in keeping with the way in which the likeness of its effect exists in it; fire heats according to the measure of heat present in it. But the likeness of the effect produced by any voluntary agent, as such, is present in that agent according to the apprehension of his intellect, and not only according to the disposition of the agent’s nature; for in the latter case, the agent would produce but one effect, because the natural principal of that which is one is itself one. Thus, every voluntary agent produces its effect according to the nature of his intellect. But in the preceding chapter we proved that God acts by His will. It is by the wisdom of His intellect, therefore, that God brings things into being. [4] Moreover, according to the Philosopher, “it is the office of a wise man to set things in order.” For things can be ordered only by knowing their relation and proportion to one another, and to something higher, which is their end; for the order of certain things to one another is for the sake of their order to an end. But only a being endowed with intellect is capable of knowing the mutual relations and proportions of things; and to judge of certain things by the highest cause is the prerogative of wisdom. All ordering, therefore, is necessarily effected by means of the wisdom of a being endowed with intelligence. Even so, in the world of the mechanical arts, the planners of buildings are called the wise men of their craft. Now, the things produced by God have a mutual order among themselves which is not fortuitous, since this order is observed always or for the most part. That God brought things into being by ordering them is thus evident. Therefore, God brought things into being by His wisdom. [5] Then, too, things which proceed from the will are either things-to-be-done, such as acts of the virtues, which are perfections of the doer, or things-to-be-made, which pass into matter outside the agent. So it is clear that creatures proceed from God as things made. Now, as Aristotle says, “art is the reason concerned with things to be made.” All created things, therefore, stand in relation to God as products of art to the artist. But the artist brings his works into being by the ordering of his wisdom and intellect. So, too, did God make all things by the ordering of His intellect. [6] This truth is confirmed by divine authority. For we read in a Psalm (103:24): “You have made all things in wisdom”; and in the Book of Proverbs (3:19): “The Lord by wisdom has founded the earth.” [7] Excluded hereby is the error of those who said that all things depend on the simple will of God, without any reason.

Chapter

HOW THE OMNIPOTENT GOD IS SAID TO BE INCAPABLE OF CERTAIN THINGS

[1] Now, from what has been said already, we can see that, although God is omnipotent, He is nevertheless said to be incapable of some things. [2] For we proved above that active power exists in God; that there is no passive potency in Him had already been demonstrated in Book I of this work. (We, however, are said to-be-able as regards both active and passive potentiality.) Hence, God is unable to do those things whose possibility entails passive potency. What such things are is, then, the subject of this inquiry. [3] Let us observe, first of all, that active potency relates to acting; passive potency, to existing. Hence, there is potency with respect to being only in those things which have matter subject to contrariety. But, since there is no passive potency in God, His power does not extend to any thing pertaining to His own being. Therefore, God cannot be a body or anything of this kind. [4] Furthermore, motion is the act of this passive potency of which we are speaking. But, since there is no passive potency in God, He cannot be changed. It can be concluded further that He cannot be changed with respect to the various kinds of change: increase and diminution, or alteration, coming to be and passing away—all are foreign to Him. [5] Thirdly, since a deprivation is a certain loss of being, it follows that God can lack nothing. [6] Moreover, every failing follows upon some privation. But the subject of privation is the potency of matter. In no way, therefore, can God fail. [7] Then, too, since weariness results from a defect of power, and forgetfulness from defect of knowledge, God cannot possibly be subject to either. [8] Nor can He be overcome or suffer violence, for these are found only in something having a movable nature. [9] Likewise, God can neither repent, nor be angry or sorrowful, because all these things bespeak passion and defect. [10] An additional argument is this. The object and effect of an active power is a being made, and no power is operative if the nature of its object is lacking; sight is inoperative in the absence of the actually visible. It must therefore be said that God is unable to do whatever is contrary to the nature of being as being, or of made being as made. We must now inquire what these things are. [11] First of all, that which destroys the nature of being is contrary to it. Now, the nature of being is destroyed by its opposite, just as the nature of man is destroyed by things opposite in nature to him or to his parts. But the opposite of being is non-being, with respect to which God is therefore inoperative, so that He cannot make one and the same thing to be and not to be; He can not make contradictories to exist simultaneously. [12] Contradiction, moreover, is implied in contraries and privative opposites: to be white and black is to be white and not white; to be seeing and blind is to be seeing and not seeing. For the same reason, God is unable to make opposites exist in the same subject at the same time and in the same respect. [13] Furthermore, to take away an essential principle of any thing is to take away the thing itself. Hence, if God cannot make a thing to be and not to be at the same time, neither can He make a thing to lack any of its essential principles while the thing itself remains in being; God cannot make a man to be without a soul. [14] Again, since the principles of certain sciences—of logic, geometry, and arithmetic, for instance—are derived exclusively from the formal principles of things, upon which their essence depends, it follows that God cannot make the contraries of those principles; He cannot make the genus not to be predicable of the species, nor lines drawn from a circle’s center to its circumference not to be equal, nor the three angles of a rectilinear triangle not to be equal to two right angles. [15] It is obvious, moreover, that God cannot make the past not to have been, for this, too, would entail a contradiction; it is equally as necessary for a thing to be while it is as to have been while it was. [16] Also, there are things incompatible with the nature of thing made, as such. And these God cannot make, because whatever He does make must be something made. [17] And from this it is clear that God cannot make God. For it is of the essence of a thing made that its own being depends on another cause, and this is contrary to the nature of the being we call God, as is evident from things previously said. [18] For the same reason God cannot make a thing equal to Himself; for a thing whose being does not depend on another is superior in being, and in the other perfections, to that which depends on something else, such dependence pertaining to the nature of that which is made. [19] Likewise, God cannot make a thing to be preserved in being without Himself. For the preservation of each and every thing depends on its cause, so that, if the cause is taken away, the effect is necessarily removed also. Hence, if there can be a thing which is not kept in being by God, it would not be His effect. [20] Moreover, since God is a voluntary agent, that which He cannot will He cannot do. Now, we can see what He cannot will if we consider how there can be necessity in the divine will; for that which necessarily is cannot not-be, and what cannot be necessarily is not. [21] It clearly follows that God cannot make Himself not to be, or not to be good or happy; because He necessarily wills Himself to be, to be good and happy, as we, have shown in Book I of this work. [22] We proved also, in that same Book, that God cannot will any evil. It is therefore evident that God cannot sin. [23] And it has already been demonstrated that the will of God cannot be mutable; so, what He wills He cannot cause to be not fulfilled. [24] But observe that God is said to be unable to do this in a different sense than in the preceding instances, for in those cases God’s inability either to will or to make is absolute, whereas in this case God can either make or will if His will or His power be considered in themselves, though not if they be considered on the supposition of His having willed the opposite. For the divine will, as regards creatures, has only suppositional necessity, as was shown in Book I. Thus, all such statements as that God cannot do the contrary of what He has designed to do are to be understood compositely, for so understood they presuppose the divine will as regards the opposite. But, if such expressions be understood in a divided sense, they are false, because they then refer to God’s power and will absolutely. [25] Now, as we have shown, just as God acts by will, so also does He act by intellect and knowledge. It follows that He cannot do what He has foreseen that He will not do, or abstain from doing what He has foreseen that He will do, for the same reason that He cannot do what He wills not to do, or omit to do what He wills. That God is unable to do these things is both conceded and denied: conceded on a certain condition or supposition; denied with respect to His power or will considered absolutely.

Chapter

THAT THE DIVINE INTELLECT IS NOT CONFINED TO LIMITED EFFECTS

[1] We have shown above that God’s power is not limited to certain determinate effects, because He acts not by a necessity of His nature, but by His intellect and will. But, lest someone should think that His intellect or knowledge can only attain to certain effects, and thus that He acts by a necessity of His knowledge, though not of His nature, it must be shown that His knowledge or intellect is limitless in its effects. [2] For it was demonstrated in Book I of this work that all that can proceed from Him God comprehends in the act of understanding His own essence, wherein all such things must necessarily exist by some kind of likeness, even as effects exist virtually in their cause. So, if God’s power is not limited to certain determinate effects, as we have sbown, a like judgment must be made concerning His intellect. [3] We argue further from our proof of the infinity of the divine essence. By no addition of finite things, even if their number were infinite, is it possible to equal the infinite, because the infinite exceeds the finite, however great. But it is certain that nothing besides God is infinite in essence; for, by the very nature of their essence, all other things are included under certain genera and species. Hence, no matter bow many or bow great divine effects be taken into account, the divine essence will always exceed them; it can be the raison d’être of more. Therefore, God’s intellect as we have shown, which knows the divine essence perfectly, surpasses all finiteness in the realm of effects. Therefore, it is not necessarily confined to these or those effects. [4] Also, we have proved that the divine intellect is cognizant of infinite things. But God brings things into being by way of intellectual knowledge. Consequently, the causality of the divine intellect is not restricted to the production of finite effects. [5] If, moreover, the causality of God’s intellect were confined to certain effects, as though it produced them of necessity, this would have to do with the things brought into being by it. But that is impossible, since, as we have shown before, God knows even those things which never are, nor will be, nor have been. Hence, it is not by any necessity on the part of His intellect or His knowledge that God works. [6] Again. God’s knowledge is in relation to the things produced by it as the knowledge of the craftsman to his handiwork. Now, every art includes in its scope all the things that can be comprised under the generic subject of that art; the art of building, for example, extends to all houses. But the genus that is subject to the divine art is being, since, as we have shown, God is by His intellect the universal source of being. Hence, the causality of the divine intellect extends to everything not incompatible with the notion of being; for it is the nature of all such things, considered in themselves, to be contained under being. The divine intellect, therefore, is not restricted to the production of certain determinate effects. [7] So it is said in a Psalm (146:5): “Great is the Lord, and great is His power, and of His wisdom there is no number.” [8] Excluded hereby is the position of those philosophers who say that, because God understands Himself, this particular disposition of things flows from Him necessarily—as though He did not, by His own free choice, determine the limits of each single thing and the disposition of them all, as the Catholic faith declares. [9] Bear in mind, however, that, although God’s intellect is not restricted to these or those effects, He nevertheless decides on certain determinate effects to be produced in a definite order by His wisdom. Thus, we read in the Book of Wisdom (11:21): “Lord, You have ordered all things in number, weight, and measure.”

Chapter

THAT THE DIVINE WILL IS NOT RESTRICTED TO CERTAIN EFFECTS

[1] From the preceding considerations, it can also be shown that God’s will, by which He acts, is subject to no necessity as regards the production of certain determinate effects. [2] For the will must be commensurate with its object. But the object of will is a good grasped by the intellect, as stated above. Therefore, it is of the nature of will to reach out to whatever the intellect can propose to it under the aspect of goodness. Therefore, if, as we have proved, God’s intellect is not restricted to certain effects, it follows that neither is the divine will necessitated to produce certain determinate effects. [3] Moreover, nothing acting by the will produces a thing by not willing. But it was previously shown that, with respect to things other than Himself, God wills nothing by absolute necessity. Therefore, effects proceed from God’s will, not of necessity, but as He freely ordains.

Chapters 28 and 29

HOW DUENESS IS ENTAILED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THINGS

[1] From the foregoing it must also be shown that in the creation of things God did not work of necessity, as though He brought things into being as a debt of justice. [2] As Aristotle points out, justice involves a relationship to another, to whom it renders what is due. But, for the universal production of things, nothing is presupposed to which anything may be due. It follows that the universal production of things could not result from a debt of justice. [3] Then too, since the act of justice consists in rendering to each that which is his own, the act by which a thing becomes one’s own property is prior to the act of justice, as we see in human affairs; a man’s work entitles him to possess as his own that which his employer, by an act of justice, pays to him. The act by which a person first acquires something of his own cannot, therefore, be an act of justice. But, by the act of creation, a created thing first possesses something of its own. It is not from a debt of justice, therefore, that creation proceeds. [4] Furthermore, no one owes anything to another except because he depends on him in some way, or receives something either from him or from someone else, on whose account he is indebted to that other person; a son is a debtor to his father, because he receives being from him; a master to his servant, because he receives from him the services he requires; and every man is a debtor to his neighbor, on God’s account, from whom we have received all good things. God, however, depends on nothing, nor does He stand in need of anything that He may receive from another, as things previously said make perfectly clear. Hence, it was from no debt of justice that God brought things into being. [5] Another argument is this. In every genus that which is for its own sake is prior to that which is for the sake of something else. Thus, that which is absolutely the first of all causes is a cause solely on its own account. But whatever acts by reason of a debt of justice acts not on its own account alone, but on account of that to which it is indebted. Now, since God is the first cause and the primal agent, He did not bring things into existence because of any debt of justice. [6] Hence St. Paul says: “Who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things” (Rom. 13:35-36); and in the Book of Job (41:2) we read: “Who has given me before that I should repay him? All things that are under heaven are mine.” [7] Thus is set aside the error of those who try to prove that God can do nothing except what He does, on the argument that He can do only that which He ought to do; on the contrary, as we have proved, God does not produce things from a debt of justice. [8] True enough, prior to the universal production of things, nothing created exists to which anything can be due; nevertheless, it is preceded by something uncreated, namely, the principle of creation. And this precedence can be considered in two ways. For the divine goodness precedes as end and prime motivating principle of creation—as Augustine says, “because God is good, we are.” And God’s knowledge and will precede as that by which things are brought into being. [9] Therefore, if we consider God’s goodness absolutely, we find nothing due in the creation of things. For in one way a thing is said to be a person’s due by reason of the relation of another person to him, so that he is obliged to make a return to that person for what he has received from him; thanks are due a benefactor for his kindness because the recipient owes this to him. This sort of dueness, however, has no place in the creation of things, because there is nothing pre-existent that could owe anything to God, nor does any benefaction of His pre-exist. In another way, something is said to be due a thing according to itself; for whatever is required for a thing’s completeness is necessarily due that thing; it is a man’s due to possess hands or strength, since without these he cannot be complete. But for the fulfillment of His goodness God needs nothing outside Him. Therefore, the production of things is not due Him by way of necessity. [10] Moreover, as we have shown, God brings things into being by His will. Now, if God wills His own goodness to be, He is under no necessity of willing the production of anything else; the antecedent of this conditional proposition is necessary, but not the consequent; for, as we proved in Book I, God necessarily wills His goodness to be, but He does not necessarily will anything else. Therefore, the production of creatures is not something due the divine goodness of necessity. [11] Also, it has been shown that God brings things into being neither by a necessity of His nature, nor of His knowledge, nor of His will, nor of His justice. By no mode of necessity, then, is it due the divine goodness that things be brought into being. [12] It may be said, however, that this is God’s due by way of a certain fittingness. But justice, properly so called, requires a debt of necessity, for what is rendered to someone by an act of justice is owed to him by a necessity of right. [13] Therefore, it cannot be said that the production of creatures arose from a debt of justice by which God is the creature’s debtor, nor from a debt of justice whereby He is a debtor to His own goodness, if justice be taken in its proper sense. But, if the term be taken broadly, we may speak of justice in the creation of things, meaning that creation befits the divine goodness. [14] If, however, we consider the plan which God by His intellect and His will laid down for the production of things, then the latter proceeds from the necessity of that plan. For it is impossible that God should plan to do a certain thing which afterwards He did not; otherwise, His decision would be either changeable or weak. The fulfillment of His ordinance is therefore something necessarily due. Nevertheless, this dueness does not suffice for introducing the notion of justice, properly so called, into the creative production of things, wherein nothing can be considered except the act of God creating. (And, as Aristotle explains in Ethics V [11], there is no justice properly speaking between a man and himself.) Therefore, it cannot properly be said that God brought things into being from a debt of justice, on the grounds that by His knowledge and will He ordained Himself to their production. [15] [Chapter 29] On the other hand, considering the production of a particular creature, we can see a debt of justice in it by comparing a posterior creature to a prior one; and I say prior, not only in time but also in nature. [16] Thus, in the effects to be produced first by God, we discover nothing due, whereas in the production of subsequent effects, dueness is found, yet in a different order. For, if things prior in nature are also prior in being, those which follow become due on account of those naturally prior; given the causes, the possession of actions by which to produce their effects is due them. On the other hand, if things prior in nature are posterior in being, then the prior become due on account of the posterior; for medicine to come first in order that health may follow, is something due. Both cases have this in common: the dueness or necessity is taken from that which is naturally prior in relation to that which is naturally posterior. [17] Now, the necessity arising from that which is posterior in being, although prior in nature, is not absolute, but conditional; if this ought to come to pass, then this must precede. So, in accordance with this kind of necessity, dueness is found in the production of creatures in three ways. First, there is a conditional indebtedness on the part of the whole universe of things in relation to each part of it that is necessary for the perfection of the whole; for, if God willed the production of such an universe, it was due that He should make the sun and moon, and like things without which the universe cannot be. Secondly, something conditionally due is found in one creature in relation to another; if God willed the existence of animals and plants, then it was due that He should make the heavenly bodies by which those things are kept in being; and if He willed the existence of man, then He has to make plants and animals, and the other things which man requires for a complete existence. And yet God made both these and other things of His pure will. Thirdly, there is something conditionally due in each creature as regards its parts, properties, and accidents, upon which the creature depends either for its being or for some perfection proper to it. For example, given that God willed to make man, it was man’s due, on this supposition, that God should unite in him soul and body, and furnish him with senses, and other like aids, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Now, in all these cases, rightly considered, God is said to be a debtor, not to the creature, but to the fulfillment of His own purpose. [18] But there is also another mode of necessity in the nature of things whereby a thing is said to be necessary absolutely; and this necessity depends on causes which are prior in being-on essential principles, for instance, and on efficient or moving causes. But this kind of necessity can have no place in the first creation of things so far as efficient causes are concerned, since in that creation the sole efficient cause was God, who alone can create, as we have already shown. But, as we have also proved, it is not by any necessity of His nature but by His will, that God works while creating; and things done by the will can have no necessity except only on the supposition of the end; for the existence of those things by which an end is attained is that end’s due. As regards formal or material causes, on the other hand, nothing prevents our finding absolute necessity even in the primal creation of things; for just because certain bodies were composed of the elements it was necessary that they be hot or cold; and from the very fact that a surface was extended in the form of a triangle it was necessary for it to have three angles equal to two right angles. But this kind of necessity results from the relation of an effect to its created material, or formal, cause, so that God cannot be said to be a debtor from the point of view of such necessity; here the debt of necessity falls upon the creature. However, in the propagation of things, where the creature is already active, an absolute necessity can arise from the created efficient cause; the sun’s motion, for example, necessarily gives rise to changes in terrestrial bodies. [19] According to the foregoing kinds of dueness, then, natural justice is found in things, both as regards the creation of things and as regards their propagation. And so it is that God is said to have formed and to govern all things justly and reasonably. [20] By what has been said a double error is eliminated: the error of those who, setting limits to God’s power, said that God can do only that which He does because He is bound to this; and the error of those who assert that all things follow from the sheer will of God, there being no other reason either to be sought in things, or to be assigned.

Chapter

HOW ABSOLUTE NECESSITY CAN EXIST IN CREATED THINGS

[1] Although all things depend on the will of God as first cause, who is subject to no necessity in His operation except on the supposition of His intention, nevertheless absolute necessity is not on this account excluded from things, so as to compel us to say that all things are contingent. (One might infer this from the fact that things have with no absolute necessity proceeded from their cause, for usually, in things, an effect is contingent which does not proceed from its cause necessarily.) On the contrary, there are some things in the universe whose being is simply and absolutely necessary. [2] Such is the being of things wherein there is no possibility of not-being. Now, some things are so created by God that there is in their nature a potentiality to non-being; and this results from the fact that the matter present in them is in potentiality with respect to another form. On the other hand, neither immaterial things, nor things whose matter is not receptive of another form, have potentiality to non-being, so that their being is absolutely and simply necessary. [3] Now, if it be said that whatever is from nothing of itself tends toward nothing, so that in all creatures there is the power not to be—this clearly does not follow. For created things are said to tend to nothing in the same way in which they are from nothing, namely, not otherwise than according to the power of their efficient cause. In this sense, then, the power not to be does not exist in created things. But in the Creator there is the power to give them being, or to cease pouring forth being into them, for He produces things not by a necessity of His nature, but by His will, as we have shown. [4] Moreover, it is because created things come into being through the divine will that they are necessarily such as God willed them to be. Now, the fact that God is said to have produced things voluntarily, and not of necessity, does not preclude His having willed certain things to be which are of necessity and others which are contingently, so that there may be an ordered diversity in things. Therefore, nothing prevents certain things that are produced by the divine will from being necessary. [5] Then, too, it pertains to God’s perfection to have placed the seal of His own likeness upon created things, excluding only entities incompatible with the nature of created being; for it belongs to the perfect agent to produce its like as far as possible. But to be simply necessary is not incompatible with the notion of created being; for nothing prevents a thing being necessary whose necessity nevertheless has a cause, as in the case of the conclusions of demonstrations. Hence, nothing prevents certain things being produced by God in such fashion that they exist in a simply necessary way; indeed, this is a proof of God’s perfection. [6] Again, the more distant a thing is from that which is a being by virtue of itself, namely, God, the nearer it is to non-being; so that the closer a thing is to God, the further is it removed from non-being. Now, things which presently exist are near to non-being through having potentiality to non-being. Therefore, that the order of things be complete, those nearest to God, and hence the most remote from nonbeing, must be totally devoid of potentiality to non-being; and such things are necessary absolutely. Thus, some created things have being necessarily. [7] And so we must bear in mind that if the universe of created things be considered as deriving from their first principle, then they are seen to depend on a will, and on no necessity of their principle, except a suppositional one, as we have said. On the other hand, if created things be considered in relation to their proximate principles, they are found to have absolute necessity. For nothing prevents the non-necessary production of certain principles on the supposition of which such and such an effect nevertheless follows necessarily; the death of this animal is an absolutely necessary consequence of its being composed of contraries, although it was not absolutely necessary for it to be composed of contraries. Similarly, the production of such and such natures by God was voluntary; but, having been so constituted, something having absolute necessity comes forth from them or exists as a result. [8] In created things, however, there are diverse modes of necessity arising from diverse causes. For, since a thing cannot be without its essential principles, which are matter and form, whatever belongs to a thing by reason of its essential principles must have absolute necessity in all cases. [9] Now, from these principles, so far as they are principles of existing, there arises a threefold absolute necessity in things. First, through the relation of a thing’s principles to its act of being. Since matter is by its nature a being in potentiality, and since that which can be can also not be, it follows that certain things, in relation to their matter, are necessarily corruptible animals because they are composed of contraries; fire because its matter is receptive of contraries. On the other hand, form is by its nature act, and through it things exist in act; so that from it there results in some things a necessity to be. And this happens either because those things are forms not existing in matter, so that there is no potentiality to non-being in them, but rather by their forms they are always able to be, as in the case of separate substances; or because their forms equal in their perfection the total potentiality of their matter, so that there remains no potentiality to another form, nor consequently, to non-being; such is the case with the heavenly bodies. But in things whose form does not fulfill the total potentiality of the matter, there still remains in the matter potentiality to another form; and hence in such things there is no necessity to be; rather, the power to be is in them the result of the victory of form over matter, as we see in the elements and things composed of them. The form of an element does not embrace the matter in its total potentiality, for matter receives the form of one element only by being made subject to one of two contraries; but the form of a mixed body embraces the matter according as it is disposed by a certain kind of mixture. Now, contraries, and all intermediaries resulting from the mixture of extremes, must have a common identical subject. The manifest consequence of this fact is that all things which either have contraries or are composed of contraries are corruptible, whereas things not of this sort are everlasting—unless they be corrupted accidentally, as forms which are not subsistent but which exist by being in matter. [10] Secondly, from essential principles of things absolute necessity arises in them from the order of the parts of their matter or of their form, if it happens that in certain things these principles are not simple. For, since man’s proper matter is a mixed body, having a certain temperament and endowed with organs, it is absolutely necessary that a man have in himself each of the elements and humours and principal organs. Even so, if man is a rational mortal animal, and this is his nature or form, then it is necessary for him to be both animal and rational. [11] Thirdly, there is absolute necessity in things from the order of their essential principles to the properties flowing from their matter or form; a saw, because it is made of iron, must be hard; and a man is necessarily capable of learning. [12] However, the agent’s necessity has reference both to the action itself and the resulting effect. Necessity in the former case is like the necessity that an accident derives from essential principles; just as other accidents result from the necessity of essential principles, so does action from the necessity of the form by which the agent actually exists; for as the agent actually is, so does it act. But this necessitation of action by form is different in the case of action that remains in the agent itself, as understanding and willing, and in action which passes into something else, as heating. In the first case, the necessity of the action itself results from the form by which the agent is made actual, because in order for this kind of action to exist, nothing extrinsic, as a terminus for it, is required. Thus, when the sense power is actualized by the sensible species, it necessarily acts; and so, too, does the intellect when it is actualized by the intelligible species. But in the second case, the action’s necessity results from the form, so far as the power to act is concerned; if fire is hot, it necessarily has the power of heating, yet it need not heat, for something extrinsic may prevent it. Nor in this question does it make any difference whether by its form one agent alone suffices to carry out an action, or whether many agents have to be assembled in order to perform a single action-as, for example, many men to pull a boat—because all are as one agent, who is put in act by their being united together in one action. [13] Now, the necessity in the effect or thing moved, resulting from the efficient or moving cause, depends not only on the efficient cause, but also on the condition of the thing moved and of the recipient of the agent’s action; for the recipient is either in no way receptive of the effect of such action—as wool to be made into a saw—or else its receptivity is impeded by contrary agents or by contrary dispositions in the movable or by contrary forms, to such an extent that the agent’s power is ineffective; a feeble heat will not melt iron. In order that the effect follow, it is therefore necessary that receptivity exist in the patient, and that the patient be under the domination of the agent, so that the latter can transform it to a contrary disposition. And if the effect in the patient resulting from the agent’s victory over it is contrary to the natural disposition of the patient, then there will be necessity by way of violence, as when a stone is thrown upwards. But if the effect is not contrary to the natural disposition of its subject, there will be necessity not of violence, but of natural order; the movement of the heaven, for example, results from an extrinsic active principle, and yet it is not contrary to the natural disposition of the movable subject, and hence is not a violent but a natural movement. This is true also in the alteration of lower bodies by the heavenly bodies, for there is a natural inclination in lower bodies to receive the influence of higher bodies. Such is the case, also, in the generation of the elements; for the form to be engendered is not contrary to prime matter, which is the subject of generation, although it is contrary to the form that is to be cast aside; for matter existing under a contrary form is not the subject of generation. [14] It is therefore clear from what we have said that the necessity which arises from an efficient cause in some cases depends on the disposition of the agent alone; but in others, on the disposition of both agent and patient. Consequently, if this disposition, according to which the effect follows of necessity, be absolutely necessary both in the agent and in the patient, then there will be absolute necessity in the efficient cause, as with things that act necessarily and always. On the other hand, if this disposition be not absolutely necessary, but removable, then from the efficient cause no necessity will result, except on the supposition that both agent and patient possess the disposition necessary for acting. Thus, we find no absolute necessity in those things that are sometimes impeded in their activity either through lack of power or the violent action of a contrary; such things, then, do not act always and necessarily, but in the majority of cases. [15] The final cause is responsible for a twofold necessity in things. In one way, necessity results from that cause inasmuch as it is first in the intention of the agent. And in this regard, necessity derives from the end in the same way as from the agent; for it is precisely so far as an agent intends an end that an agent acts. This is true of natural as well as voluntary actions. For in natural things the intention of the end belongs to the agent in keeping with the latter’s form, whereby the end is becoming to it; hence, the natural thing necessarily tends to its end in accordance with the power of its form; a heavy body tends toward the center according to the measure of its gravity. And in voluntary things the will inclines to act for the sake of an end only so far as it intends that end, although the will, as much as it desires the end, is not always inclined to do this or that as means to it, when the end can be obtained not only by this or that means, but in several ways. Now, in another way, necessity follows from the end as posterior in actual being; and such necessity is not absolute, but conditional. Thus, we say that a saw will have to be made of iron if it is to do the work of saw.

Chapter

THAT IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR CREATURES TO HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED

[1] It remains for us to show from the foregoing that it is not necessary for created things to have existed from eternity. [2] For, if the existence of the whole universe of creatures, or of any single creature, is necessary, then its necessity must be derived either from itself or from something else. But it cannot owe its necessity to itself; for we proved above that every being must derive its existence from the first being. But anything whose being is not self-derived cannot possibly have necessary existence from itself, because that which necessarily is cannot not-be; so, whatever of itself has necessary existence is for that reason incapable of not being; and it follows that it is not a non-being, and hence is a being. [3] But, if the creature’s necessity of which we speak is derived from something other than itself, then this must be from some extrinsic cause; for whatever is received within a creature owes its being to another. An extrinsic cause, however, is either an efficient or a final one. Now, from the efficient cause it follows that the effect exists necessarily when the agent necessarily acts; for it is through the agent’s action that the effect depends on the efficient cause. Consequently, if the agent need not act in order to produce the effect, then it is not absolutely necessary for the effect to be. God, however, acts out of no necessity in the production of creatures, as we have shown. Therefore, it is not absolutely necessary for the creature to be, as concerns necessity dependent on the efficient cause. Nor is it necessary as regards dependence on the final cause. For the means to an end derive necessity from the end only so far as without them the end either cannot be—life cannot be preserved without food—or cannot well be-as a journey without a horse. Now, as we have shown in Book I, the end of God’s will, whereby things came into being, cannot be anything else than His own goodness. But the divine goodness does not depend on creatures, either as to being, since it is necessarily existent in virtue of itself, or as to well-being, since it is by itself absolutely perfect. (All these points have been previously demonstrated.) Therefore, it is not absolutely necessary for a creature to exist; nor, then, is it necessary to maintain that a creature always existed. [4] Consider, also, that nothing proceeding from a will is absolutely necessary, except when it chances to be necessary for the will to will it. But, as we have shown, God brings creatures into being not through a necessity of His nature, but voluntarily. Nor, as proved in Book I, does He necessarily will the existence of creatures. Hence, it is not absolutely necessary for the creature to be, and therefore neither is it necessary for creatures to have existed always. [5] Moreover, we proved above that God’s action is not outside Himself, as though passing from Him and terminating in the created thing, in the way in which heat issues from fire and terminates in wood. On the contrary, His act of will is identical with His action; and things are as God wills them to be. But it is not necessary that God will a creature to have existed always, for indeed, as we proved in Book I, it is not necessary that God will a creature to be at all. Hence, it is not necessary for a creature to have always been. [6] Then, too, a thing does not proceed necessarily from a voluntary agent except because of something due. But, as we have shown above, it is not by reason of any debt that God brings the creature into being, if the universal production of creatures be considered absolutely. Therefore, God does not of necessity produce the creature. Nor, then, is it necessary that God should have produced the creature from eternity because He Himself is eternal. [7] Also, we have just shown that absolute necessity in created things results not from a relation to a first principle which is of itself necessarily existent, namely, God, but from a relation to other causes whose existence is not essentially necessary. But the necessity arising from a relation to that which is not of itself necessarily existent does not make it necessary for something to have always existed; if a thing runs, it follows that it is in motion, yet it is not necessary for it to have always been in motion, because the running itself is not essentially necessary. There is, therefore, no necessity that creatures should have existed always.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS OF THOSE WHO WISH TO DEMONSTRATE THE WORLD’S ETERNITY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF GOD [1] However, since many have held that the world has existed always and of necessity, and have attempted to demonstrate this, it remains for us to present their arguments, so as to show that they do not constitute a necessary demonstration of the world’s eternity. First, we give the arguments taken from God’s side of the matter; second, those taken from the point of view of the creature; third, those derived from a consideration of the mode of the production of things, according to which they are held to begin to exist anew. [2] On the part of God the following arguments are used in order to prove the eternity of the world. [3] Every agent which does not always act is moved through itself or by accident: through itself, as in the case of a fire which, not always burning, begins to burn either because it is newly lit or because it is for the first time placed in proximity to the fuel; by accident, as when an agent that moves an animal begins to move it by some new movement made in its regard, either from within, as an animal begins to be moved when it awakes after having digested its food, or from without, as when actions arise anew that lead to the initiation of some new action. Now, God is moved neither through Himself nor by accident, as we proved in Book I of this work. Therefore, God acts always in the same way. And by His action created things take their place in being. Hence, creatures always have been. [4] Again, an effect proceeds from its efficient cause through the latter’s action. But God’s action is eternal; otherwise, from being an agent potentially He would become an agent actually; and He would have to be actualized by some prior agent-which is impossible. Therefore, the things created by God have existed from eternity. [5] And again. Given a sufficient cause, its effect must be granted. For if, given the cause, it were still unnecessary to grant its effect, it would then be possible that the effect should be and not be; the sequence from cause to effect will in that case be only possible. But that which is possible needs something to make it actual. Some cause, therefore, will have to be posited in order to do this; thus, the first cause was not sufficient. God, however, is the sufficient cause of the production of creatures; otherwise, He would not be a cause; rather, He would be in potentiality to a cause, since in that case He would become a cause by the addition of something. But this is clearly impossible. Since, then, God has existed from eternity, it seems to follow necessarily that the creature also has existed from eternity. [6] Also, a voluntary agent delays in carrying out its intention only because of something expected but not yet present, and this sometimes is in the agent itself, as when complete competency to do something, or the removal of an impediment to one’s power, is waited for; while sometimes this anticipated thing is outside the agent, as when one awaits a person in whose presence an action is to be done, or at any event when one looks forward to the presence of an opportune moment that has not yet arrived. For, if the will be perfectly equipped, the power acts at once, unless there be a defect in it; at the will’s command the movement of a limb follows immediately, if no defect exists in the motive power carrying out the movement. And from this we see that when one wills to do something and it is not done at once, this failure must be due either to a defect in the power, of which defect one awaits the removal, or to the fact that the will is not perfectly equipped to do this thing. By the will being perfectly equipped I mean that it wills to do something absolutely, in every respect; whereas the will is imperfectly equipped when one does not will absolutely to do a thing, but on the condition that something exist which is not yet present or that a present obstacle be removed. It is certain however, that God has willed from eternity the existence of whatever He now wills to exist, for no new movement of will can possibly accrue to Him. Nor could any defect or obstacle stand in the way of His power, nor could anything else be looked for as cause of the universal production of creatures, since nothing besides Him is uncreated, as we have proved above. Therefore, it seems necessary to conclude that God brought creatures into being from all eternity. [7] Moreover, an intellectual agent chooses one thing in preference to another only because of the superiority of the one over the other. But, where there is no difference, there can be no superiority, so that in the absence of difference there is no choice of the one rather than of the other. And on this account, no action will proceed from an agent equally indifferent to each of two alternatives, any more than from matter; for a potentiality of this kind is like that of matter. Now, there can be no difference between non-being and non-being. Therefore, one non-being is not preferable to another non-being. But outside the total universe of created things nothing whatever exists except the divine eternity. In nothingness, however, no difference of moments can possibly be assigned, so that a thing should be made in one moment rather than in another. Nor is there any difference of moments in eternity, the whole of which is, as was shown in Book I, uniform and simple. It therefore follows that God’s will is indifferent as concerns the production of the creature throughout all eternity. Accordingly, His will is either that the creature should never be established within His eternity, or that it should always have been so. The former clearly is not the case, for it is evident that creatures were originated and established by His will. It follows with apparent necessity that the creature has always existed. [8] Furthermore, things directed to an end receive their necessity from that end; especially is this true of things done voluntarily. Therefore, if the end remains the same, it follows that the things ordered to it remain the same or are produced in the same way, unless there arises a new relation between them and the end. Now, the end of creatures issuing forth from the divine will is the divine goodness, which alone can be the end of the divine will. From the fact that the divine goodness, throughout all eternity, is unchangeable in itself and in relation to the divine will, it would seem to follow that creatures are in the same manner brought into being by God’s will throughout all eternity. For it cannot be said that some new relation to the end accrued to them, if they are held to have been absolutely non-existent prior to a particular time from which they are supposed to have begun to be. [9] Since the divine goodness is maximally perfect, it is said that all things issued from God on account of His goodness, but not in such a way that something accrued to Him from creatures; rather, this is said because it is of the essence of goodness to communicate itself as far as possible, and by so doing goodness itself is manifested. Now, since all things partake of God’s goodness so far as they have being, the more enduring they are, so much the more do they participate in His goodness. This is why the perpetual being of a species is called a divine being. The divine goodness, however, is infinite, so that it is proper to it to communicate itself in an infinite manner, not in some limited time only. Therefore, it seems to belong to the divine goodness that some created things should have existed from eternity. [10] These, then, are the arguments, taken from God’s side of the question, which seem to show that creatures have existed always.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS OF THOSE WHO WISH TO PROVE THE ETERNITY OF THE WORLD FROM THE STANDPOINT OF CREATURES [1] There are also the following arguments, taken from the point of view of creatures, which seemingly arrive at the same conclusion. [2] Things having no potentiality to non-being cannot possibly fail to exist. Now, in certain created things there is no potentiality to non-being. For there can be potentiality to non-being only in those things which possess matter subject to contrariety; for potentiality to being and non-being is potentiality to privation and form, the subject of which is matter; and privation is always connected with the contrary form, since matter cannot possibly exist without any form at all. But some creatures, wherein there is no matter subject to contrariety, do exist, either because they are completely without matter, as intellectual substances are—this we will show later—or because they have no contrary opposite, as with the heavenly bodies-and this is proved by their movement, which has no contrary. It is, then, impossible for certain creatures not to exist; therefore, they must always exist. [3] Moreover, each and every thing continues in being in proportion to its power of being—except by accident, as in things caused to perish by violence. But there are some creatures endowed with the power of existing, not for any limited time, but forever; the heavenly bodies, for instance, and intellectual substances, which are imperishable because they have no contrary. It is therefore proper to these things to exist always. On the other hand, that which begins to be does not exist always. Therefore, an existential beginning does not pertain to imperishable or incorruptible things. [4] Furthermore, whenever something begins to be moved for the first time, either the mover, or the moved, or both, must needs exist in a different state now, while there is movement, than before, when no movement existed. For there is a certain condition or relation in the mover to the thing moved, as a result of which it moves actually; and the new relation does not arise without a change either in both or at least in one or other of the extremes related. But that thing is moved whose condition of existence is different now than it was before. Therefore, prior to the newly initiated movement, another movement must take place either in the movable thing or in the mover; so that every movement is either eternal or is preceded by another movement. Therefore, motion has always existed, and so, also, have things movable. Hence, creatures have always existed. For God is wholly immutable, as we proved in Book I of this work. [5] Again, every agent which engenders its like intends to preserve perpetual being in the species, for existence cannot be so maintained in the individual. Now, it is impossible that natural desire should be futile. The species of generable things, therefore, must be perpetual. [6] And again, if time is everlasting, so also must motion be; for time “is the number of motion.” And, consequently, things movable must be perpetual, since motion is the “act of the movable.” But time must be everlasting. For time cannot be known to exist without the now, any more than a line without a point. But the now is always “the end of the past and the beginning of the future,” for this is the definition of the now. Thus, every given now has time preceding it and following it, so that no now can be either first or last. It remains that mobile things, which created substances are, exist from eternity. [7] Also, it is necessary either to affirm or to deny. If, therefore, a thing’s existence is affirmed as a result of denying it, then that thing must exist always. Now, time is such a thing. For to suppose that time did not always exist is to think of it as not existing prior to existing; and, similarly, if time will not exist always, its non-existence must succeed its existence. But if time does not exist, there can be no before and after in duration; for “the number of before and after is time.” And thus, time must have existed before it began to be and will continue to exist after it has ceased to be. Time is, therefore, necessarily eternal. But time is an accident, and an accident cannot be without a subject. Now, God, who is above time, is not the subject of this accident, for He is altogether immutable, as we proved in Book I of this work. It remains that some created substance is eternal. [8] Many propositions, moreover, are of such nature that he who denies them must posit them; for example, whoever denies that truth exists posits the existence of truth, for the denial which he puts forward he posits as true. The same is true of one who denies the principle that contradictories are not simultaneous; for, by denying this, he asserts that the negation which he posits is true and that the opposite affirmation is false, and thus that both are not true of the same thing. Therefore, if a thing that is affirmed by being denied must, as we have just shown, exist always, then the aforesaid propositions, and all that follow from them, are everlasting. But these propositions are not God. It is, therefore, necessary that something besides God be eternal. [9] These arguments, then, and others of like nature, can be taken from the standpoint of created things in order to prove that the latter have existed always.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THE ETERNITY OF THE WORLD FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE MAKING [OF THINGS] [1] In order to establish the same conclusion, this time from the side of the making itself, other arguments also can be adduced, such as the following. [2] That which is asserted universally, by everyone, cannot possibly be totally false. For a false opinion is a kind of infirmity of the understanding, just as a false judgment concerning a proper sensible happens as the result of a weakness of the sense power involved. But defects, being outside the intention of nature, are accidental. And nothing accidental can be always and in all things; the judgment about savors given by every tasting cannot be false. Thus, the judgment uttered by everyone concerning truth cannot be erroneous. “Now, it is the common opinion of all the philosophers that nothing arises from what is not. This opinion, therefore, must be true; so that if a thing is made it must needs be made from something; and if the latter, also, is made, then it, too, must be made from something else. But this process cannot go on to infinity, since in that case no generation of anything would be completed; it is impossible to pass through an infinite number of things. It is therefore necessary to arrive at a first thing that was not made. But any and every thing which has not always existed must be made. Consequently, that being from which all things were first made, must be everlasting. Yet this is not God, because He cannot be the matter of anything, as we proved in Book I of this work. Thus, it follows that something besides God is eternal, namely, prime matter. [3] Moreover, if a thing does not exist in the same way now as it did before, then in some respect it must be changed, for to be moved [or changed] is not to exist in the same state now as before. But everything that begins to exist anew is not now as it was before; hence, the reason for this must be that some motion or change has occurred. But every motion or change is in a subject, for it is “the act of the movable.” Now, since motion precedes that which is made by it, for it terminates in the latter, it follows that a movable subject must exist prior to anything made. And since to proceed to infinity in this matter is impossible, we must come to a first subject not newly originated but always existent. [4] Then, too, in the case of a thing that begins to be anew, it was possible, before it existed, that it would exist; otherwise, it was impossible for it to be, and necessary for it not to be; so that it would always have been a non-entity and would never have begun to be. But that which is possibly existent is potentially a subject of being. Therefore, antecedently to everything which begins to exist de novo, there must be a subject which is potentially a being. And since an infinite regress is here impossible, we must affirm the existence of a primary subject which did not begin to be de novo. [5] Furthermore, no permanent substance exists while it is being made, for it is made in order that it may be; so, it would not be made if it existed already. But, while it is being made, something must exist which is the subject of the making; for, since making is an accident, there can be no making without a subject. Thus, whatever is made has some pre-existing subject. And since this cannot go on indefinitely, it follows that the first subject was not made, but is everlasting; and it follows, also, that something besides God is eternal, because He cannot be the subject of making or of movement. [6] These, then, are the arguments through adhering to which, as though they were demonstrations, some people say that created things must always have existed; in so saying they contradict the Catholic faith, which affirms that nothing besides God has always existed, but that all things, save the one eternal God, have had a beginning.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE FOREGOING ARGUMENTS, AND FIRST OF THOSE TAKEN FROM THE STANDPOINT OF GOD [1] It remains for us to show that the arguments proposed above issue in no necessary conclusions. First, let us consider those taken from the agent’s point of view. [2] God need not be moved either essentially or accidentally if His effects begin to exist anew, as the first argument would have it. For the newness of an effect can indicate change on the agent’s part inasmuch as it does manifest newness of action; a new action cannot possibly be in the agent unless the latter is in some way moved, at least from inaction to action. But the newness of an effect produced by God does not demonstrate newness of action in Him, since His action is His essence, as we have proved above. Neither, therefore, can newness of effect prove change in God the agent. [3] Nor, if the action of the first agent is eternal, does it follow that His effect is eternal, as the second argument concludes. For we have already shown in this Book that God acts voluntarily in the production of things, but not in such fashion that there be some other intermediate action of His, as in us the action of the motive power intervenes between the act of the will and the effect, as we have also previously shown. On the contrary, God’s act of understanding and willing is, necessarily, His act of making. Now, an effect follows from the intellect and the will according to the determination of the intellect and the command of the will. Moreover, just as the intellect determines every other condition of the thing made, so does it prescribe the time of its making; for art determines not only that this thing is to be such and such, but that it is to be at this particular time, even as a physician determines that a dose of medicine is to be drunk at such and such a particular time, so that, if his act of will were of itself sufficient to produce the effect, the effect would follow anew from his previous decision, without any new action on his part. Nothing, therefore, prevents our saying that God’s action existed from all eternity, whereas its effect was not present from eternity, but existed at that time when, from all eternity, He ordained it. [4] From this we see also that, although God is the sufficient cause of bringing things into being, it is not necessary to hold that because He is eternal His effect is eternal, as the third argument maintained. Given a sufficient cause, its effect is given, too, but not an effect that does not belong to the cause; for this would result from the insufficiency of the cause, as if a hot thing, for example, failed to give heat. Now, the will’s proper effect is the being of that which it wills; and if something else were to be than what the will determines, this would be an effect not proper to the cause but foreign to it. But, as we have said, just as the will wills this thing to be such and such, so does it will it to be at such and such a time. Hence, for the will to be a sufficient cause it is not necessary that the effect should exist when the will exists, but at that time when the will has ordained its existence. But with things that proceed from a cause acting naturally, the case is different. For, as nature is, so is its action; hence, given the existence of the cause, the effect must necessarily follow. On the other hand, the will acts in keeping not with the manner of its being, but of its intention. So, then, just as the effect of a natural agent follows the being of the agent, if the latter is sufficient, so the effect of a voluntary agent follows the mode of his purpose. [5] Moreover, what has been said makes it clear that, contrary to the fourth argument, the effect of God’s will was not delayed, although having been always willed, the effect was not itself always existent. For within the scope of God’s will fall not only the existence of His effect but also the time of its existence. Therefore, this thing willed, namely, that a creature should exist at a certain time, is not delayed, for the creature began to exist at that time which God appointed from all eternity. [6] Prior to the initial existence of the totality of created being there is no diversity of parts of any duration, as was supposed in the fifth argument. For nothingness has neither measure nor duration. Now, God’s duration, which is eternity, does not have parts, but is utterly simple, without before or after; since God is immovable, as we have shown in Book I of this work. Therefore, the beginning of the whole of creation is not to be thought of in comparison to any diverse parts designated in some pre-existing measure, to which parts the beginning of creatures can stand in similar or dissimilar relations, so that there would have to be a reason in the agent why he brought the creature into being in this designated part of that duration rather than at some other preceding or subsequent point. Such a reason would be required if, beside the totality of created being, there existed some duration divisible into parts, as is the case in particular agents, which produce their effects in time, but do not produce time itself. God, however, brought into being both the creature and time together. In this case, therefore, the reason why He produced them now and not before does not have to be considered, but only why He did not produce them always. A comparison with place will make this point clear. Particular bodies are brought into being not only at a definite time, but also in a definite place; and since the time and the place in which they are involved are extrinsic to them, there must be a reason why they are produced in this place and time rather than in another. On the other hand, outside the entire heaven there is no place, the universal place of all things being produced together with it; so that there is no reason for considering why the heaven was established in being here and not there. And because they thought that such a reason ought to be sought for, some have fallen into the error of attributing infinity to bodily things. Similarly, outside the entire universe of creatures there is no time, time having been produced simultaneously with that universe; hence, we do not have to look for the reason why it was produced now and not before, so as to be led to concede the infinity of time; we have only to ask why it was not always produced, or why it was produced after not being or with some beginning. [7] Now, in order to inquire into this matter, the sixth argument was adduced from the point of view of the end, which alone can introduce necessity into things done voluntarily. But the only possible end of God’s will is His own goodness; and He does not act for the sake of bringing this end into being, as the craftsman acts in order to produce his handiwork. For God’s goodness is eternal and immutable, so that nothing can accrue to Him. Nor can it be said that God acts for His own betterment. Nor does He act in order to obtain this end for Himself, as a king fights in order to gain possession of a city; for God is His own goodness. We therefore conclude that God acts for an end inasmuch as He produces an effect so that it may participate in His end. Therefore, in producing a thing for the sake of an end, in this sense, the uniform relation of the end to the agent is not to be thought of as the reason for His work being eternal; on the contrary, the thing to be attended to is the relation of the end to the effect brought forth on account of the end in order that the effect be produced in such a manner as to be most fittingly ordained to that end. Hence, from the fact that the relation of the end to the agent is uniform, we cannot conclude that the effect is eternal. [8] Nor, as the seventh argument seemed to imply, is it necessary that God’s effect should have always existed because it would then be more fittingly directed to its end. On the contrary, by not having existed always, it is more fittingly directed to its end. For every agent that produces an effect in participation of its own form intends to produce its own likeness in that effect. Thus, to produce the creature in participation of His own goodness was becoming to God’s will, for by its likeness to Him the creature might show forth His goodness. But this representation cannot be in terms of equality, in the manner in which a univocal effect represents its cause—so that eternal effects would have to be produced by the divine goodness. Rather, this representation is in keeping with the way in which the transcendent is manifested by that which is transcended. Now, the transcendence of God’s goodness over the creature is shown most of all by the fact that creatures have not always existed. For this makes it perfectly clear that all things other than God have Him as the author of their being; and that His power is not fettered to the production of those effects, as nature is to natural effects; and, consequently, that He is a voluntary and intelligent agent. (Some, assuming the eternity of creatures, have asserted views contrary to these.) [9] There is, then, nothing from the agent’s side of the question that compels us to maintain the eternity of creatures.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS PROPOSED FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THINGS MADE

[1] Likewise, there is nothing on the part of creatures that induces us necessarily to affirm their eternity. [2] The necessity of being that we find in creatures, whence the first argument about this question is drawn, is a necessity of order, as we have previously shown. But, as we proved above, a necessity of order does not compel the subject in which a necessity of this kind is present to exist always. For, although the substance of the heaven has necessity with respect to being, in virtue of the fact that it lacks potentiality to non-being, this necessity nevertheless is consequent upon its substance. Hence, once its substance has been established in being, this necessity entails the impossibility of not-being; but if we consider the production of its very substance, it does not entail the impossibility of the heaven’s not being at all. [3] Likewise, the power of existing always, whereon the second argument is based, presupposes the production of the substance; so that, where the point at issue is the production of the substance of the heaven, this power cannot be a sufficient proof of the eternity of that substance. [4] Nor does the argument brought up next compel us to assert the eternity of motion. For what we have said already makes it clear that, without any change in God the agent, He can enact something new that is not eternal. But, if something can be done by Him anew, it is evidently possible, also, for something to be moved by Him anew. For newness of motion follows upon the decision of the eternal will of God, that motion be not always in existence. [5] Then, too, the intention of natural agents to perpetuate the species—this was the starting point of the fourth argument—presupposes that natural agents already exist. Hence, this argument is relevant only to natural things already brought into being; where it is a question of the production of things, it has no place. But the question, whether it is necessary to hold that the engendering of things will go on for ever, will be dealt with later. [6] Furthermore, the fifth argument, drawn from a consideration of time, supposes the eternity of motion rather than proves it. For, as Aristotle teaches, the before and after and the continuity of time follow upon the before and after and the continuity of motion. Clearly, then, the same instant is the beginning of the future and the end of the past because some assigned point in motion is the beginning and the end of the diverse parts of motion. So, not every instant need be of this kind unless we think of every assignable point in time as existing between a before and an after in movement; and this is to suppose that movement is eternal. On the other hand, if we held that motion is not eternal, we can say that the first instant of time is the beginning of the future and the terminus of no time past. Nor, simply because a line, wherein some point is a beginning and not an end, is fixed and not flowing, is it incompatible with time’s successiveness if we suppose a now that is a beginning and not an end; for even in some particular movement, which is not stationary either, but transitory, it is possible to designate a point which is a beginning only and not an end; otherwise, all movement would be perpetual; and this is impossible. [7] True, if time had a beginning, we are supposing its nonexistence to precede its existence. But the supposition of time’s non-existence does not compel us to assert its existence, as the sixth argument would have it. For the before that we speak of as preceding time implies nothing temporal in reality, but only in our imagination. Indeed, when we say that time exists after not existing, we mean that there was no time at all prior to this designated now; even so, when we declare that above the heaven there is nothing, we are not implying the existence of a place outside the heaven which can be said to be above in relation to it, but that there is no place at all above it. In either case, the imagination can add a certain dimension to the already existing thing; and just as this is no reason for attributing infinite quantity to a body, as is said in Physics III [6], so neither does it justify the supposition that time is eternal. [8] The truth of propositions whose denial entails their affirmation—and this was the starting point of the seventh argument—possesses the necessity of that order which obtains between predicate and subject. By such necessity, therefore, a thing is not compelled to exist everlastingly, except perhaps the divine intellect, in whom all truth is rooted, as was shown in Book I of this work. [9] It is therefore clear that the arguments adduced from the point of view of creatures do not oblige us to maintain that the world is eternal.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS TAKEN FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE MAKING OF THINGS [1] Lastly, we must show that no argument drawn from the standpoint of the making of things can necessitate that same conclusion. [2.] The common opinion of the philosophers, on which the first argument was based, namely, that from nothing comes nothing, is true as regards that particular making which they had in mind. Since our knowledge originates in sense perception, which is concerned with singular things, the progress of human thought has been from particular to universal considerations. That is why those who sought the principle of things considered only particular makings of things, inquiring how this particular fire or stone comes to be. And so those who came first, considering the making of things in a more extrinsic fashion than they needed to, claimed that a thing is made only as concerns certain accidental dispositions, such as rarity, density, and the like, and consequently they said that to be made was nothing else than to be altered; and this they held because it was their understanding that each and every thing was made from a being actually existing. But later thinkers, considering the making of things from a more intrinsic point of view, advanced to the problem of the making of things in terms of their substance; and they maintained that from an actually existing being a thing need be made only in an accidental respect, but that from a being potentially existent it is made in essential fashion. But this making, namely, of a being from any being whatever, is that of a particular being—one that is made inasmuch as it is this being, a man or a fire, for example, but not inasmuch as it is, universally, because there was previously existent being that is transformed into this being. Entering more deeply into the problem of the origin of things, philosophers came at last to consider the procession of all created being from one first cause: a truth made evident by arguments previously proposed. Now, in this procession of all being from God it is impossible for anything to be made from some other preexisting thing; otherwise, this procession would not consist in the making of all created being. [3] Now, the first philosophers of nature, who shared the commonly received opinion that nothing is made from nothing, did not attain to the idea of such a making as this. Or, if any of them conceived of it, they did not consider it making properly speaking, since the word making implies motion or change, whereas in the origination of all being from one first being, the transmutation of one being into another is, as we have shown, inconceivable. And on this account it is the business not of the philosopher of nature to consider that origination, but of the metaphysician, who considers universal being and things existing apart from motion. Nevertheless, in virtue of a certain likeness we transfer the word making even to that origination of things, saying that anything at all whose essence or nature originates from something else is made. [4] From this we see that the second argument, based on the concept of motion, is also inconclusive. For creation can be called a change only in a metaphorical sense, that is, only so far as the created thing is thought of as having being after not being, even as with things not mutually transformed we say that one comes to be from another simply because one succeeds the other; for instance, that day comes from night. Now, since that which in no way exists is not in any particular state, the idea of motion used in the argument does not warrant the conclusion that, when a thing begins to be, it is in another state now than it was before. [5] Whence it is also clear that, contrary to the third argument, no passive potentiality need precede the existence of all created being. Such a necessity obtains in the case of things that come into being by way of motion, for motion is the act of a thing existing potentially. But before a created thing misted, its existence was possible, in virtue of the power of its agent, by which also it began to be. Or that thing was possible on account of the relationship between the terms involved, wherein no incompatibility is found; and this is possibility “according to no potentiality,” as Aristotle states in Metaphysics V [12]. For the predicate, act of being, is not incompatible with the subject, world or man, as commensurable is incompatible with diameter. It therefore follows that the existence of the world or of man is not impossible, and, consequently, that before they actually existed their existence was possible, even in the absence of all potentiality. On the other hand, things produced by way of motion must be previously possible by virtue of a passive potentiality; and when Aristotle uses this argument in Metaphysics VII [7] it is to these things that he refers. [6] Moreover, from what has been said it is clear that the fourth argument likewise misses the mark. For, in things made by way of motion, to be made and to be are not simultaneous, because the production of such things involves succession. But in things that are not made by way of motion, the making does not precede the being. [7] In the light of all this, then, it is clear that nothing stands in the way of one’s holding that the world has not always existed—a truth which the Catholic faith affirms: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1); and in the Book of Proverbs (8:22) it is said of God: “Before He made anything from the beginning,” etc.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS BY WHICH SOME TRY TO SHOW THAT THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL

[1] We now note a number of arguments introduced by certain persons with the intention of proving that the world did not always exist. [2] It has been demonstrated that God is the cause of all things. But a cause must precede in duration the things produced by its action. [3] Moreover, since all being is created by God, it cannot be said to be made from some being. It follows that it is made from nothing and, consequently, that it has being after not-being. [4] Also, an infinite number of things cannot be traversed. But, if the world had always existed, an infinite number of things would have now been traversed, for what is past is passed by; and if the world always existed, then there are an infinite number of past days or revolutions of the sun. [5] Moreover, in that case it follows that an addition is made to the infinite; to the [infinite number of past days or revolutions every day brings another addition. [6] Then, too, it follows that it is possible to proceed to infinity in the line of efficient causes, if the engendering of things has gone on perpetually—and this in turn follows necessarily on the hypothesis that the world always existed; the father is the cause of his son, and another person the cause of that father, and so on endlessly. [7] Furthermore, if the world always existed, it will follow that there exists an infinite number of things, namely, the immortal souls of an infinite number of human beings who died in the past. [8] Now, these arguments, though not devoid of probability, lack absolute and necessary conclusiveness. Hence it is sufficient to deal with them quite briefly, lest the Catholic faith might appear to be founded on ineffectual reasonings, and not, as it is, on the most solid teaching of God. It would seem fitting, then, to state how these arguments are countered by the partisans of the doctrine of the world’s eternity. [9] The first statement, that the agent necessarily precedes the effect resulting from its operation, is true of things which produce something by way of motion, because the effect does mot exist until the motion is ended, but the agent must exist even when the motion begins. No such necessity obtains, however, in the case of things that act instantaneously. For instance, when the sun is at the point of the east, it immediately illuminates our hemisphere. [10] The second argument also is ineffectual. If the proposition (a) something is made from something be not admitted, then the contradictory of it which must be given is: (b) something is not made from something, and not (c) something is made from nothing, except in the sense of proposition (b). And from this it cannot be concluded that something is made after not-being. [11] Nor is the third argument cogent. For, although the infinite does not exist actually and all at once, it can exist successively. For, so considered, any infinite is finite. Therefore, being finite, any single one of the preceding solar revolutions could be completed; but if, on the assumption of the world’s eternity, all of them are thought of as existing simultaneously, then there would be no question of a first one, am, therefore, of a passing through them, for, unless there we two extremes, no transition is possible. [12] The fourth argument is weak. For there is no reason why an addition should not be made to the infinite on that side of it which is finite. Now, from the supposition of the eternity of time it follows that time is infinite in relation to the prior but finite in relation to the posterior; for the present is the terminal point of the past. [13] Nor does the objection to the theory of the world’s eternity that is raised in the fifth argument have compelling force. For, according to the philosophers, it is impossible to proceed to infinity in the order of efficient causes which act together at the same time, because in that case the effect would have to depend on an infinite number of actions simultaneously existing. And such causes are essentially infinite, because their infinity is required for the effect caused by them. On the other hand, in the sphere of non-simultaneously acting causes, it is not, according to the partisans of the perpetual generation theory, impossible to proceed to infinity. And the infinity here is accidental to the causes; thus, it is accidental to Socrates’ father that he is another man’s son or not. But it is not accidental to the stick, in moving the stone, that it be moved by the hand; for the stick moves just so far as it is moved. [14] The objection concerning the souls, however, is more difficult. Yet the argument is not very useful, because it supposes many things. For those who maintained that the world is eternal also held that human souls do not survive the body; and it was asserted that of all souls there remains only the separated intellect—either the agent intellect, according to some, or also the possible intellect, according to others. On the other hand, some have supposed a sort of circular movement in souls, saying that, after several ages have passed, the same souls return to bodies. And indeed there are those who do not consider it incongruous that, in the realm of things devoid of order, actual infinities should be found. [15] However, a more effective approach toward proving the non-eternity of the world can be made from the point of view of the end of the divine will, as we have previously indicated. For in the production of things the end of God’s will is His own goodness as it is manifested in His effects. Now, His power and goodness are made manifest above all by the fact that things other than Himself were not always in existence. For this fact shows clearly that these things owe their existence to Him, and also is proof that God does not act by a necessity of His nature, and that His power of acting is infinite. Respecting the divine goodness, therefore, it was entirely fitting that God should have given created things a temporal beginning. [16] The preceding considerations enable us to avoid various errors made by the pagan philosophers: the assertion of the world’s eternity; the assertion of the eternity of the world’s matter, out of which at a certain time the world began to be formed, either by chance, or by some intellect, or even by love or by strive. For in all these cases something beside God is claimed to be eternal; and this is incompatible with the Catholic faith.

Chapter

THAT THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS IS NOT THE RESULT OF CHANCE

[1] Having settled the problems concerning the production of things, it remains for us to deal with those that need to be taken into account as regards the distinction of things. And in this connection what we must do first is show that the distinction of things is not fortuitous. [2] For chance occurs only in things which can be otherwise; we do not say that things that exist necessarily and always are the result of chance. Now, it was shown above that certain things have been created in whose nature there is no possibility of not being; in this category belong immaterial substances and those in which no contrariety is found. It is therefore impossible that their substances be from chance. But it is by their substance that they are distinct from one another. Consequently, their distinction is not the result of chance. [3] Moreover, chance is found only in things that are possibly otherwise; and the source of this possibility is matter and not the form, which indeed determines the matter, reservoir of multiple possibilities, to one. It follows that those things whose distinction from one another is derived from their forms are not distinct by chance, although this is perhaps the case with things whose distinction stems from matter. Now, the distinction of species is derived from the form, and the distinction of singulars of the same species is from matter. Therefore, the distinction of things in terms of species cannot be the result of chance; but perhaps the distinction of certain individuals can be the result of chance. [4] Again, since matter is the principle and cause of fortuitous things, as we have shown, in the making of things that are generated from matter there can be chance. Now, we proved above that the first production of things into being was not from matter. Therefore, chance can have had no place in it. Nevertheless, that production necessarily involved the distinction of the things produced. For in the world of creation there are many things which are neither generated from one another nor from some one common source, because they are not united in the possession of a common matter. It is impossible, therefore, that the distinction of things should be the result of chance. [5] Then, too, a thing that is a cause through itself is prior to one that is by accident. If, therefore, posterior things are from a cause determinate through itself, it would be incongruous to attribute things prior in nature to an indeterminate cause by accident. But the distinction of things is naturally prior to their movements and operations, because determinate movements and operations belong to things determinate and distinct. Now, the movements and operations of things are from causes that are determinate and are causes through themselves, since they proceed from their causes in the same manner either always, it is found, or in most cases. Consequently, the distinction of things is also the result of that kind of cause, and not of chance, which is an indeterminate cause by accident. [6] And again, the form of any thing proceeding from an intellectual and voluntary agent is intended by that agent. But, as we have already seen, the universe of creatures has as its author God, who is a voluntary and intellectual agent. Nor can there be any defect in His power so that He might fail in accomplishing His intention; for, as we proved in Book I of this work, His power is infinite. It therefore follows of necessity that the form of the universe is intended and willed by God, and for that reason it is not the result of chance. For it is things outside the scope of the agent’s intention that we say are fortuitous. Now, the form of the universe consists in the distinction and order of its parts. The distinction of things, therefore, is not the result of chance. [7] That which is good and best in the effect, furthermore, is the final cause of its production. But the good and the best in the universe consists in the mutual order of its parts, which is impossible without their distinction from one another; for by this order the universe is established in its wholeness, and in this does its optimum good consist. Therefore, it is this very order of the parts of the universe and of their distinction which is the end of the production of the universe. It remains that the distinction of things is not fortuitous. [8] Sacred Scripture bears witness to this truth, as the Book of Genesis (1:1) makes clear; for, after the words, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” we read: “God divided the light from the darkness,” etc., so that not only the creation of things, but also their distinction, is shown to be from God, and not the result of chance; and as constituting the good and the highest good of the universe. Hence, it is added: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Gen. 1:34). [9] Eliminated hereby is the opinion of the ancient natural philosophers who held that there was but one cause, a material one, from which all things were made by rarity and density. For these thinkers were obliged to say that the distinction of things which we observe in the universe resulted not from the ordering intention of some principle, but from the fortuitous movement of matter. [10] Set aside, likewise, is the opinion of Democritus and Leucippus, who posited an infinite number of material principles, namely, indivisible bodies of the same nature but differing in shape, order, and position, whose coming together—which was necessarily fortuitous, since they denied the existence of an efficient cause—they attributed to the diversity in things, by reason of the three differentiating characters of the atoms just mentioned, namely, figure, order, and position. Thus, it followed that the distinction of things was the result of chance. And in the light of what has been said this is clearly false.

Chapter

THAT MATTER IS NOT THE FIRST CAUSE OF THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS

[1] Moreover, it plainly follows that the distinction ot things i is not to be attributed primarily to diversity of matter. [2] For it is only by chance that anything determinate can proceed from matter, because matter is in potentiality to many things, of which, if but one were to issue forth, this could not possibly happen except in the minority of instances; and such a thing it is that comes about by cliance-and especially is this so in the absence of an agent’s intention. Now, we have shown that the distinction of things is not the result of chance. It therefore follows that the primary reason why things are distinct from one another does not lie in the diversity of their matter. [3] Moreover, things that result from the intention of an agent do so not primarily on account of matter. For an efficient cause is prior in causal operation to matter, because it is only so far as it is moved by such a cause that matter itself becomes causally operative. Hence, if an effect follows upon a disposition of matter and the intention of an agent, it does not result from matter as its first cause. And on this account we observe that things referred to matter as their primary cause fall outside the intention of the agent concerned—monsters, for instance, and other failures of nature. The form, however, results from the agent’s intention. This is evident from the fact that the agent produces its like according to its form, and if it sometimes fails to do so, the failure is fortuitous and is due to the matter involved. Hence, forms are not consequent upon the disposition of matter as their first cause; on the contrary, the reason why matters are disposed in such and such ways is that there might be forms of such and such kinds. Now, it is by their forms that things are distinguished into species. Therefore, it is not in the diversity of matter that the first cause of the distinction of things is to be found. [4] Then, too, the distinction of things cannot result from matter except in the case of things made from pre-existing matter. But there are many things distinct from one another that cannot be made from pre-existing matter: the celestial bodies, for example, which have no contrary, as their motion shows. It follows that the diversity of matter cannot be the first cause of the distinction of things. [5] Again. There is a cause of the distinction that obtains between all things whose existence is caused and which, therefore, are distinct from one another. For each and every thing is made a being according as it is made one, undivided in itself and distinct from others. But, if matter is by virtue of its diversity the cause of the distinction of things, we shall then have to maintain that matters are in themselves distinct. It is, however, certain that every matter owes its existence to something else, for it was shown above that every thing which is in any way whatever owes its being to God. So the cause of distinction in matters is something other than matter itself. Therefore, the first cause of the distinction of things cannot be the diversity of matter. [6] Furthermore, since every intellect acts for the sake of a good, it does not produce a better thing for the sake of a thing of less worth, but vice versa; and the same is true of nature. Now, as we see from what has been said above, all things proceed from God acting by His intellect. Inferior things, therefore, proceed from God for the sake of better things, and not vice versa. Form, however, is nobler than matter, since it is its perfection and act. Hence, God does not produce such and such forms of things for the sake of such and such matters; rather, He produced such and such matters that there might be such and such forms. Therefore, the distinction of species in things, following as it does upon their form, is not on account of their matter. On the contrary, diverse matters were created in order that they might befit diverse forms. [7] Excluded hereby is the opinion of Anaxagoras, who asserted that there were an infinite number of material principles which in the beginning were mixed together in one confused whole, but which an intellect later separated, thus establishing the distinction of things from one another. Eliminated, likewise, is the opinion of any other thinkers who postulate various material principles as the cause of the distinction of things.

Chapter

THAT A CONTRARIETY OF AGENTS DOES NOT ACCOUNT FOR THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS

[1] From what has been said it can be shown, also, that the cause of the distinction of things is not a diversity or even a contrariety of agents. [2] For, if the diverse agents that cause the diversity of things are ordered to one another, there must be some single cause of this order; for many things are not united save by some one thing. And thus the ordering principle of this unity is the first and sole cause of the distinction of things. But, if these diverse agents are not ordered to one another, their unified action in producing the diversity of things will be accidental. The distinction of things, therefore, will be fortuitous. But we have already proved that the contrary is true. [3] Ordered effects, moreover, do not proceed from diverse causes devoid of order, except perhaps accidentally; for the diverse, as such, do not produce the one. Now, things mutually distinct are found to have a mutual order, and not fortuitously, since in the majority of cases one is served by another. Hence, the distinction of things thus ordered cannot possibly be accounted for by a diversity of agents without order. [4] And let us add that the first cause of the distinction of things cannot be things whose distinction from one another itself is caused. Yet, if we consider several agents of the same order, their distinction from one another must necessarily have a cause; for their being itself is caused, since, as we have shown, all beings are from one first being. But we have just proved that the cause of a thing’s being, and of its distinction from other things, is the same. Diversity of agents, therefore, cannot possibly be the first cause of the distinction among things. [5] Furthermore, if the diversity of things results from the diversity or contrariety of diverse agents, this would seem especially true, as many say, of the contrariety of good and evil, such that all good things proceed from a good principle and evils from an evil principle—good and evil being found in every genus. It is, however, impossible that there should be one first principle of all evils. For, since things that exist through another are referred to those that exist of themselves, the first active cause of evils would necessarily be evil of itself. Now, we say that a thing is such of itself which is such by its essence. Therefore, the essence of a thing evil of itself will not be good. But this is impossible. For every thing that is must necessarily be good so far as it is being. For every thing loves its own being and desires its preservation, an indication of which is the fact that every thing resists its own dissolution; and the good is that which all things desire. It is, therefore, impossible for the distinction among things to proceed from two contrary principles, the one good, the other evil. [6] Again, every agent acts so far as it is in act; and so far as it is in act, each and every thing is perfect; while every thing that is perfect, as such, is said to be good. It follows that every agent, as such, is good. If, then, a thing were evil of itself, it could not be an agent. But, if a thing is the first principle of evils, it must of necessity be evil of itself, as we have just shown. Therefore, the distinction in things cannot possibly proceed from two principles, one good, the other evil. [7] What is more, if every being, as such, is good, then evil, as such, is a non-being. But there can be no efficient cause of non-being as such. For every agent acts so far as it is a being in act; and every agent produces its like. Therefore, no cause that is of itself active in character can be assigned to evil as such. Evils cannot, then, be referred to one first cause that is of itself the cause of all evils. [8] Consider, too, that anything brought into being outside the scope of the agent’s intention has no essential cause, but happens accidentally, as when a person finds a treasure while digging with the object of planting things. But evil in an effect cannot arise except beside the agent’s intention; every agent intends good, for good is “that which all desire.” Evil, therefore, has no essential cause, but occurs accidentally in the effects of causes. Hence, there is no question of maintaining the existence of one first principle of all evils. [9] Bear in mind, also, that contrary agents have contrary actions, so that contrary principles are not to be attributed to things produced by one action. Now, good and evil are produced by the same action; for instance, by one and the same action water is corrupted and air generated. Hence, there is no reason for postulating contrary principles in order to explain the difference of good and evil that we find in things. [10] Another argument is this. That which has no being at all is neither good nor evil. And, as we have shown, whatever is, so far as it is, is good. Hence, a thing must be evil so far as it is a non-being. But this is a being deprived of being; so that evil, as such, is a being deprived of being; indeed, evil is itself this very privation. Now, privation has no efficient cause that is such through itself. For every agent acts so far as it has form; that which is through itself the effect of an agent, then, must be something having form, since an agent produces its like, except by accident. It remains, therefore, that evil has no cause efficient through itself, but occurs by accident in the effects of such causes. [11] There is, then, no single primary and essential principle of evils; rather, the first principle of all things is the one first good, in whose effects evil results accidentally. [12] Hence, in the Book of Isaiah (45:6-7) it is said: “I am the Lord and there is none other God: I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil: I am the Lord that do all these things”; and we read also that “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from God,” and that “Good is set against evil. So also is the sinner against a just man. And so look upon all the works of the Most High. Two and two, and one against another” (Eccli. 11:14; 33:15). [13] Now, God is said to make or create evils, so far as He creates things which in themselves are good, yet are injurious to others; the wolf, though in its own kind a good of nature, is nevertheless evil to the sheep; so, too, is fire in relation to water, being dissolutive of the latter. And, likewise, God is the cause of those evils among men which are called penal. That is why it is said: “Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord has not done?” (Amos 3:6). And in this connection Gregory remarks: “Even evils, which have no subsistent nature of their own, are created by the Lord: but He is said to create evils when He uses created things, which in themselves are good, to punish us for our evil doings.” [14] This cancels the error of those who postulated contrary first principles—an error originated by Empedocles, who laid down two primary efficient principles, friendship and strife, declaring the former to be the cause of generation, the latter of corruption, so that, as Aristotle remarks in Metaphysics I [4], it would appear that Empedocles was the first to posit two contrary principles, good and evil. [15] Pythagoras also postulated two primary principles, good and evil, not as efficient principles, however, but as formal ones. For, as Aristotle points out, Pythagoras held that these two are the genera under which all other things are contained. [16] Now, although these errors of the earliest philosophers were sufficiently disposed of by thinkers of later times, certain men of perverse mind have presumed to link them up with Christian doctrine. The first of these was Marchius—from whom the Marchians are named, who under the Christian label founded a heresy, holding the existence of two opposing principles. Following after him were the Cerdonians, then later the Marchianists, and at last came the Manicheans, who spread this error abroad most of all.

Chapter

THAT THE FIRST CAUSE OF THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS IS NOT THE WORLD OF SECONDARY AGENTS [1] From the same principles it can be shown, also, that the distinction of things is not caused by the order of secondary agents. And this contrary to the opinion of those who supposed that since God is one and simple He produces but one effect, which is the first caused substance, and that this effect, since it cannot possibly be on a par with the simplicity of the first cause (not being pure act, it contains some admixture of potentiality), possesses a certain multiple character, making it possible for some kind of plurality to issue from it; so that, with the effects perpetually falling short of the simplicity of their causes, the diversity of the things of which the universe consists is being established while the effects are being multiplied. [2] This position, then, does not assign one cause to the entire diversity of things, but different causes to different effects, while maintaining that the total diversity of things results from the concurrence of all causes. Now, we say that those things happen fortuitously which result from the concurrence of diverse causes, and not from one determinate cause. So, it will follow that the distinction of things and the order of the universe are the products of chance. [3] Moreover, that which is best in things caused is referred, as to its first cause, to that which is best in causes; for effects must be proportionate to their causes. Now, among all caused beings what is best is the order of the universe, and in this does its good consist; even as in human affairs “the good of a people is more godlike than the good of one individual.” Therefore, the order of the universe must be referred to god as its proper cause, whom we have proved above to be the highest good. Therefore, the distinction of things, wherein the order of the universe consists, proceeds not from secondary causes, but from the intention of the first cause. [4] Then, too, it seems absurd to assign a defect in things as the cause of what is best in them. But, as we have just now shown, the best in things caused is their distinction and order. So, it would be incongruous to say that this distinction of things is the result of secondary causes falling short of the simplicity of the first cause. [5] Moreover, in all ordered efficient causes, where action is done for the sake of an end, the ends of the secondary causes must be pursued for the sake of the end of the first cause; the ends of the art of war, of horsemanship, and of bridle-making, for example, are ordained to the end of the political art. Now, the issuance of beings from the first being is brought about by an action ordained to an end, since, as we have shown, it is accomplished by the causality of an intellect; and every intellect acts for an end. So, if there are secondary causes at work in the production of things, the ends and actions of those causes are necessarily directed to the end of the first cause, which is the last end in things caused. Now, this is the distinction and order of the parts of the universe, which, as it were, constitute its ultimate form. Therefore, it is not on account of the actions of secondary agents that the distinction of things and their order exist; on the contrary, the actions of secondary causes are for the sake of the order and distinction to be established in things. [6] If the distinction of the parts of the universe and their order, furthermore, is the proper effect of the first cause, being the ultimate form and greatest good in the universe, then the distinction and order of things must needs be in the intellect of the first cause; for in things brought into being through the causality of an intellect, the form engendered in the things made proceeds from a like form in that intellect; the house existing in matter proceeds from the house existing in an intellect. But the form of distinction and order cannot exist in an agent intellect unless the forms of the distinct and ordered things are present there. Present in God’s intellect, therefore, are the forms of diverse things mutually distinct and ordered. Nor, as we have shown above, is this multiplicity incompatible with God’s simplicity. Hence, if things outside the mind proceed from forms that are in it, it will be possible, in the case of things brought about by intellectual causation, for many and diverse things to be produced immediately by the first cause without detriment to the divine simplicity, on whose account some fell into the position referred to above. [7] Also, the action of an intellectual agent terminates in the form which the agent apprehends, and in no other, except accidentally and by chance. But, as we have shown, God is such an agent. Nor can His action be of a fortuitous character, since He cannot fail in its performance. It therefore necessarily follows that He produces His effect by the very fact that He knows it and intends it. But through the same idea whereby He apprehends one effect, He can grasp many effects other than Himself. Accordingly, without any intermediary He can cause many things all at once. [8] Moreover, as we have previously shown, the power of God is not limited to the production of one effect; and this accords with His simplicity, because, the more unified a power is, the more unlimited is its scope since it is able to extend itself to so many more things. But, except in the case of the agent’s being determined to one effect, there is no necessary reason why only one thing should be made by one cause. Therefore, it is not necessary to say that, because God is one and absolutely simple, no multiplicity can proceed from Him unless it be through the mediation of certain things lacking in the simplicity proper to Himself. [9] Then, too, it was shown above that God alone can create. Now, there are numerous things that can come into being only by creation, such as all those which are not composed of form and matter subject to contrariety; for things of this kind are necessarily incapable of being generated, since it is from a contrary and from matter that every process of generation takes place. Now, in this category belong all intellectual substances, and all heavenly bodies, and even prime matter itself. It must therefore be maintained that all such things originated immediately from God. [10] Hence it is said: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1); and, in the Book of Job (37:18): “Can you, like Him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?” [11] Excluded by the preceding considerations is the opinion of Avicenna,” who says that God, by knowing Himself, produced one first intelligence, wherein there already exist potentiality and act; that this intelligence, by knowing God, produces the second intelligence; by knowing itself as it is in act, produces the soul of the sphere; and by knowing itself as being in potentiality, produces the substance of the first sphere. And thus, proceeding from this point, he teaches that the diversity of things is the effect of secondary causes. [12] Excluded, also, is the opinion of certain heretics of early times who said that the angels, and not God, created the world. It is said that Simon Magus was the originator of this error.

Chapter

THAT THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS IS NOT CAUSED BY SOME SECONDARY AGENT INTRODUCING DIVERSE FORMS INTO MATTER [1] Certain modern heretics say that God created the matter of all visible things, but that an angel diversified it by various forms. This opinion is clearly false. [2] For the heavenly bodies, in which no contrariety is found, cannot have been formed from any matter, because whatever is made from pre-existing matter must be made from a contrary. Therefore, no angel could possibly have formed the heavenly bodies from matter antecedently created by God. [3] The heavenly bodies, moreover, either have no matter in common with the lower bodies, or they have only prime matter in common with them; for the heaven neither is composed of elements nor is of an elemental nature—a fact shown by its motion, which is of another kind than that of all the elements. And prime matter could not have existed by itself prior to all formed bodies, since its being is purely potential, whereas everything actually existent is from some form. There is, then, no possibility of an angel’s having formed all visible bodies from matter antecedently created by God. [4] Again, everything made is made in order that it may be, for making is the way to being. It befits every caused thing to be made, even as it befits it to be. The act of being, however, does not belong to the form only, nor to the matter only, but to the composite. For matter exists only in potency, while form is that by which something is, since it is act. It remains, therefore, that it is the composite which, properly speaking, is. Hence, it belongs to the composite alone to be made, and not to matter without form. So, there is not one agent that creates the matter alone and another that introduces the form. [5] And again, the first induction of forms into matter cannot have originated from an agent acting by means of movement only. All motion directed to a form is from a determinate form toward a determinate form, for matter cannot exist in the absence of all form; the existence of some form in matter is presupposed. But every agent whose action is directed only toward material forms is necessarily an agent that acts by means of motion. For, since material forms are not self-subsistent, and since, in their case, to be is to be in matter, there are but two possible ways in which they can be brought into being: either by the creation of the whole composite, or by the transmutation of matter to this or that form. The first induction of forms into matter, therefore, cannot possibly be from an agent that creates the form alone; rather, this is the work of Him who is the Creator of the whole composite. [6] Then, too, motion in respect of form is naturally posterior to local motion, since the former is the act of that which is more imperfect, as Aristotle proves [ Physics, VIII, 7]. Now, in the natural order, things posterior are caused by things prior. Therefore, motion with respect to form is caused by local motion. The first local motion, however, is that of the heaven. Hence, all motion toward form is brought about through the mediation of the heavenly motion. Consequently, things that cannot be produced in that way cannot be made by an agent capable of acting only by means of movement; and, as we have just shown, the agent that can act only by inducing form into matter must be that kind of agent. There are, however, many sensible forms which cannot be produced by the motion of the heaven except through the intermediate agency of certain determinate principles pre-supposed to their production; certain animals, for example, are generated only from seed. Therefore, the primary establishment of these forms, for producing which the motion of the heaven does not suffice without their pre-existence in the species, must of necessity proceed from the Creator alone. [7] Furthermore, just as the local motion of part and whole is the same—the motion of the whole earth and of one piece of it, for example—so the change in which generation consists is the same in the part and in the whole. Now, the parts of generable and corruptible things are generated by acquiring actual forms from forms present in matter, and not from forms existing outside matter, since the generator must be like the generated, as Aristotle proves in Metaphysics VII [8]. Neither, then, is it possible that the total acquisition of forms by matter should be brought about through motion proceeding from some separate substance such as an angel; rather, this must be effected either by the intermediation of a corporeal agent, or by the Creator, who acts without motion. [8] Also, just as the act of being is first among effects, so, correspondingly, is it the proper effect of the first cause. But it is by virtue of form and not of matter that this act exists. Therefore, the first causation of forms is to be attributed above all to the first cause. [9] Furthermore, since every agent produces its like, the effect obtains its form from that reality to which it is made like through the form acquired by it; the material house acquires its form from the art which is the likeness of the house present in the mind. But all things are like God, who is pure act, so far as they have forms, through which they become actual; and so far as they desire forms, they are said to desire the divine likeness. It is therefore absurd to say that the formation of things is the work of anything other than God the Creator of all. lio] So it is that in order to cast out this error, Moses, after saying that God “in the beginning created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1), went on to explain how God distinguished all things by forming them in their proper species. And St. Paul says that “in Christ were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16).

Chapter

THAT THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS DOES NOT HAVE ITS SOURCE IN THE DIVERSITY OF MERITS OR DEMERITS [1] We now have to show that the distinction among things did not result from diverse movements of free choice in rational creatures, as Origen maintained in his Peri Archon. For he wished to oppose the objections and errors of the early heretics who endeavored to prove that the heterogeneous character of good and evil in things has its origin in contrary agents. Now, there are, as Origen saw, great differences in natural as well as human things which seemingly are not preceded by any merits; some bodies are luminous, some dark, some men are born of pagans, others of Christians, etc. And having observed this fact, Origen was impelled to assert that all diversity found in things resulted from a diversity of merits, in accordance with the justice of God. For he says that God, of His goodness alone, first made all creatures equal, and all of them spiritual and rational; and these by their free choice were moved in various ways, some adhering to God more, and some less, some withdrawing from Him more, and some less; and as a result of this, diverse grades in spiritual substances were established by the divine justice, so that some were angels of diverse orders, some human souls in various conditions, some demons in their differing states. And because of the diversity among rational creatures, Origen stated that Cod had instituted diversity in the realm of corporeal creatares so that the higher spiritual substances were united to the higher bodies, and thus the bodily creature would subserve, in whatever other various ways, the diversity of spiritual substances. [2] This opinion, however, is demonstrably false. For in the order of effects, the better a thing is, so much the more is it prior in the intention of the agent. But the greatest good in things created is the perfection of the universe, consisting in the order of distinct things; for always the perfection of the whole has precedence of the perfection of the individual parts. Therefore, the diversity of things results from the original intention of the first agent, not from a diversity of merits. [3] Then, too, if all rational creatures were created equal from the beginning, it must be said that one of them would not depend, in its action, upon another. But that which results from the concurrence of diverse causes, one of which does not depend on another, is fortuitous. In accordance with the opinion just cited, therefore, this distinction and order of things is fortuitous. Yet this, as we have proved above, is impossible. [4] Moreover, what is natural to a person is not acquired by him through the exercise of his will; for the movement of the will, or of free choice, presupposes the existence of the willer, and his existence presupposes the things proper to his nature. If the diverse grades of rational creatures result from a movement of free choice, then the grade of none of them will be natural, but every grade will be accidental. Now, this is impossible. For, since the specific difference is natural to each thing, it would follow, on that theory, that all created rational substances—angels, demons, human souls, the souls of the heavenly bodies (Origen attributed animation to these bodies)—are of one species. The diversity of natural actions proves the falsity of this position. For the natural mode of understanding proper to the human intellect is not the same as that which sense and imagination, the angelic intellect, and the soul of the sun, require-unless, perhaps, we picture the angels and heavenly bodies with flesh and bones and like parts, so that they may be endowed with organs of sense; which is absurd. It therefore remains that the diversity of intellectual substances is not the consequence of a diversity of merits, resulting from movements of free choice. [5] Again, if natural things are not acquired by a movement of free choice, whereas a rational soul owes its union with a certain body to preceding merit or demerit in keeping with the movement of free choice, then it would follow that the union of this soul with this body is not natural. Neither, then, is the resulting composite natural. Nevertheless, according to Origen, man and the sun and the stars are composed of rational substances and such and such bodies. Therefore, all these things—which are the noblest among corporeal substances—are unnatural. [6] Moreover, if the union of a particular rational substance with a particular body befits that substance, not so far as it is such a substance, but so far as it has merited that union, then it is not united to that body through itself, but by accident. Now, no species results from the accidental union of things; for from such a union there does not arise a thing one through itself; thus, white man is not a species, nor is clothed man. From the hypothesis in question, therefore, it would follow that man is not a species, nor is the sun a species, nor the moon, nor anything of the kind. [7] Again, things resulting from merit may be changed for better or for worse; for merits and demerits may increase and diminish-a point particularly stressed by Origen, who said that the free choice of every creature can always be turned to either side. Hence, if a rational soul has obtained this body on account of preceding merit or demerit, then it is possible for it to be united again to another body; and it will follow not only that the human soul may take to itself another human body, but also that it may sometimes assume a sidereal body—a notion “in keeping with the Pythagorean fables according to which any soul could enter any body.” Obviously, this idea is both erroneous as regards philosophy, according to which determinate matters and determinate movable things are assigned to determinate forms and determinate movers, and heretical according to faith, which declares that in the resurrection the soul resumes the same body that it has left. [8] Also, since multitude without diversity cannot exist, if from the beginning any multitude at all of rational creatures existed, then there must have been some diversity among them. And this means that one of those creatures had something which another had not. And if this was not the consequence of a diversity in merit, for the same reason neither was it necessary that the diversity of grades should result from a diversity of merits. [9] Every distinction, furthermore, is either in terms of a division of quantity, which exists only in bodies—so that, according to Origen, such distinctness could not exist in the substances first created; or in terms of formal division. But without a diversity of grades there can be no formal division, since division of this kind is reduced to privation and form. Necessarily, then, one of the reciprocally divided forms is better and the other less good. Hence, as Aristotle remarks, the species of things are like numbers, one number being in addition to or in subtraction from the other. Therefore, if there were many rational substances created from the beginning, there must have been a diversity of grades among them. [10] Then, too, if rational creatures can subsist without bodies, there was no need to have introduced distinctness in the realm of corporeal nature on account of the different merits of rational creatures; because, even in the absence of a diversity of bodies, diverse grades in rational substances could be found. If, however, rational creatures cannot subsist without bodies, then the corporeal creature also was produced from the beginning simultaneously with the rational creature. Now, the corporeal creature is more remote from the spiritual than spiritual creatures are from one another. So, if God from the beginning established such a great distance among His creatures without any antecedent merits, it was unnecessary for a diversity of merits to have been acquired previously in order that rational creatures might be constituted in diverse grades. [11] Again, if, corresponding to the multiformity of rational creatures there is multiformity in corporeal creatures, then, for the same reason, corresponding to the uniformity of rational creatures, there would be uniformity in the corporeal nature. Consequently the corporeal nature would have been created, even if multifarious merits of rational creatures had not preceded, but a corporeal nature uniform in character. Hence, prime matter would have been created—a principle common to all bodies—but it would have been created under one form only. But prime matter contains potentially a multiplicity of forms. On the hypothesis under consideration, prime matter would therefore have remained unfulfilled, its one form alone being actualized; and this is at variance with the divine goodness. [12] Moreover, if the heterogeneity of corporeal creatures arises from the various movements of the rational creature’s free choice, it will have to be said that the reason why there is only one sun in the world is that only one rational creature was moved by its free choice in such a way as to deserve being joined to such a body as the sun. But, that only one rational creature sinned in this way was a matter of chance. Therefore, the existence of only one sun in the world is the result of chance; it does not answer to a need of corporeal nature. [13] The spiritual creature, furthermore, does not deserve reduction to a lower status except for sin; and yet, by being united to visible bodies, it is brought down from its lofty state of being, wherein it is invisible. Now, from this it would seem to follow that visible bodies are joined to spiritual creatures because of sin—a notion seemingly akin to the error of the Manicheans who asserted that these visible things originated from the evil principle. [14] This opinion is clearly contradicted by the authority of sacred Scripture, for in regard to each production of visible creatures, Moses says: “God saw that it was good,” etc. (Gen. 1); and afterwards, concerning the totality of His creatures, Moses adds: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.” By this we are clearly given to understand that the corporeal and visible creatures were made because it is good for them to be; and that this is in keeping with God’s goodness, and not because of any merits or sins of rational creatures. [25] Now, Origen seems not to have taken into consideration the fact that when we give something, not in payment of a debt, but as a free gift, it is not contrary to justice if we give unequal things, without having weighed the difference of merits; although payment is due to those who merit. But, as we have shown above, God brought things into being, not because He was in any way obliged to do so, but out of pure generosity. Therefore, the diversity of creatures does not presuppose a diversity of merits. [16] And again, since the good of the whole is better than the good of each part, the best maker is not he who diminishes the good of the whole in order to increase the goodness of some of the parts; a builder does not give the same relative value to the foundation that he gives to the roof, lest he ruin the house. Therefore, God, the maker of all things, would not make the whole universe the best of its kind, if He made all the parts equal, because many grades of goodness would then be lacking in the universe, and thus it would be imperfect.

Chapter

THE TRUE FIRST CAUSE OF THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS

[1] From the foregoing it can be shown what is truly the first cause of the distinction of things. [2] Since every agent intends to introduce its likeness into its effect, in the measure that its effect can receive it, the agent does this the more perfectly as it is the more perfect itself; obviously, the hotter a thing is, the hotter its effect, and the better the craftsman, the more perfectly does he put into matter the form of his art. Now, God is the most perfect agent. It was His prerogative, therefore, to induce His likeness into created things most perfectly, to a degree consonant with the nature of created being. But created things cannot attain to a perfect likeness to God according to only one species of creature. For, since the cause transcends the effect, that which is in the cause, simply and unitedly, exists in the effect in composite and multiple fashion—unless the effect attain to the species of the cause; which cannot be said in this case, because no creature can be equal to God. The presence of multiplicity and variety among created things was therefore necessary that a perfect likeness to God be found in them according to their manner of being. [3] Moreover, just as things made from matter lie in the passive potentiality of matter, so things made by an agent must exist in the active power of the agent. The passive potentiality of matter, however, would not be completely actualized if only one of the things to which matter is in potentiality were made from it. Therefore, if an agent whose power extends to a number of effects were to produce only one of them, its power would not be as fully actualized as when it produces several. Now, by the fact that the active power is actualized the effect receives the likeness of the agent. Hence, there would not be a perfect likeness of God in the universe if all things were of one grade of being. For this reason, then, is there distinction among created things: that, by being many, they may receive God’s likeness more perfectly than by being one. [4] Then, too, a thing approaches to God’s likeness the more perfectly as it resembles Him in more things. Now, goodness is in God, and the outpouring of goodness into other things. Hence, the creature approaches more perfectly to God’s likeness if it is not only good, but can also act for the good of other things, than if it were good only in itself; that which both shines and casts light is more like the sun than that which only shines. But no creature could act for the benefit of another creature unless Plurality and inequality existed in created things. For the agent is distinct from the patient and superior to it. In order that there might be in created things a perfect representation of God, the existence of diverse grades among them was therefore necessary. [5] Furthermore, a plurality of goods is better than a single finite good, since they contain the latter and more besides. But all goodness possessed by creatures is finite, falling short of the infinite goodness of God. Hence, the universe of creatures is more perfect if there are many grades of things than if there were but one. Now, it befits the supreme good to make what is best. It was therefore fitting that God should make many grades of creatures. [6] Again, the good of the species is greater than the good of the individual, just as the formal exceeds that which is material. Hence, a multiplicity of species adds more to the goodness of the universe than a multiplicity of individuals in one species. It therefore pertains to the perfection of the universe that there be not only many individuals, but that there be also diverse species of things, and, consequently, diverse grades in things. [7] Whatever acts by intellect, moreover, represents in the thing made the species present in its intellect, for thus does an agent that causes things by art produce his like. Now, as we have already shown, God, acting as an intellectual agent and not by natural necessity, made the creature. Hence, the species present in God’s intellect is represented in the creature made by Him. But an intellect which understands many things is not adequately represented in only one thing. Therefore, since the divine intellect knows many things, as was proved in Book I, it represents itself more perfectly if it produces many creatures of all grades than if it had produced only one. [8] But there is more. The highest degree of perfection should not be lacking in a work made by the supremely good workman. But the good of order among diverse things is better than any of the members of an order, taken by itself. For the good of order is formal in respect to each member of it, as the perfection of the whole in relation to the parts. It was not fitting, therefore, that God’s work should lack the good of order. And yet, without the diversity and inequality of created things, this good could not exist. [9] To sum up: The diversity and inequality in created things are not the result of chance, nor of a diversity of matter, nor of the intervention of certain causes or merits, but of the intention of God Himself, who wills to give the creature such perfection as it is possible for it to have. [10] Accordingly, in the Book of Genesis (1:31) it is said: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good,” each one of them having been previously said to be good. For each thing in its nature is good, but all things together are very good, by reason of the order of the universe, which is the ultimate and noblest perfection in things.

Chapter

THAT THE PERFECTION OF THE UNIVERSE REQUIRED THE EXISTENCE OF SOME INTELLECTUAL CREATURES

[1] Having determined the actual cause of the diversity among things, it remains for us to tackle the third problem that we proposed, namely, to inquire into those things themselves, as far as this concerns the truth of faith. And first we shall show that, as a result of the order established by God’s assigning to creatures the optimum perfection consonant with their manner of being, certain creatures were endowed with an intellectual nature, thus being given the highest rank in the universe. [2] An effect is most perfect when it returns to its source; thus, the circle is the most perfect of all figures, and circular motion the most perfect of all motions, because in their case a return is made to the starting point. It is therefore necessary that creatures return to their principle in order that the universe of creatures may attain its ultimate perfection. Now, each and every creature returns to its source so far as it bears a likeness to its source, according to its being and its nature, wherein it enjoys a certain perfection. Indeed, all effects are most perfect when they are most like their efficient causes—a house when it most closely resembles the art by which it was produced, and fire when its intensity most fully approximates that of its generator. Since God’s intellect is the principle of the production of creatures, as we have shown above, the existence of some creatures endowed with intelligence was necessary in order that the universe of created things might be perfect. [3] A thing’s second perfection, moreover, constitutes an addition to its first perfection. Now, just as the act of being and the nature of a thing are considered as belonging to its first perfection, so operation is referred to its second perfection. Hence, the complete perfection of the universe required the existence of some creatures which return to God not only as regards likeness of nature, but also by their action. And such a return to God cannot be made except by the act of the intellect and will, because God Himself has no other operation in His own regard than these. The greatest perfection of the universe therefore demanded the existence of some intellectual creatures. [4] Moreover, in order that creatures might perfectly represent the divine goodness, it was necessary, as we have shown, not only that good things should be made, but also that they should by their actions contribute to the goodness of other things. But a thing is perfectly likened to another in its operation when not only the action is of the same specific nature, but also the mode of acting is the same. Consequently, the highest perfection of things required the existence of some creatures that act in the same way as God. But it has already been shown that God acts by intellect and will. It was therefore necessary for some creatures to have intellect and will. [5] Again. It is according to the form of the effect pre-existing in the agent that the effect attains likeness to the agent, for an agent produces its like with respect to the form by which it acts. Now, in some cases the form of the agent is received in the effect according to the same mode of being that it has in the agent; the form of the fire generated has the same mode of being as the form of the generating fire. But in other cases the form of the agent is received in the effect according to another mode of being; the form of the house that exists in an intelligible manner in the builder’s mind is received, in a material mode, in the house that exists outside the mind. And the former likeness clearly is more perfect than the latter. Now, the perfection of the universe of creatures consists in its likeness to God, just as the perfection of any effect whatever consists in its likeness to its efficient cause. Therefore, the highest perfection of the universe requires not only the second mode in which the creature is likened to God, but also the first, as far as possible. But the form through which God produces the creature is an intelligible form in Him, since, as we have shown above, God is an intellectual agent. Therefore, the highest perfection of the universe demands the existence of some creatures in which the form of the divine intellect is represented according to intelligible being; that is to say, it requires the existence of creatures of an intellectual nature. [6] Likewise, the only thing that moves God to produce creatures is His own goodness, which He wished to communicate to other things by likening them to Himself, as was shown in Book I of this work. Now, the likeness of one thing is found in another thing in two ways: first, as regards natural being-the likeness of heat produced by fire is in the thing heated by fire; second, cognitively, as the likeness of fire is in sight or touch. Hence, that the likeness of God might exist in things perfectly, in the ways possible, it was necessary that the divine goodness be communicated to things by likeness not only in existing, but also in knowing. But only an intellect is capable of knowing the divine goodness. Accordingly, it was necessary that there should be intellectual creatures. [7] Again, in all things becomingly ordered, the relation to the last term of the things intermediate between it and the first imitates the relation of the first to all the others, both intermediate and last, though sometimes deficiently. Now, it has been shown in Book I that God embraces in Himself all creatures. And in corporeal creatures there is a representation of this, although in an other mode. For we find that the higher body always comprises and contains the lower, yet according to quantitative extension, whereas God contains all creatures in a simple mode, and not by extension of quantity. Hence, in order that the imitation of God, in this mode of containing, might not be lacking to creatures, intellectual creatures were made which contain corporeal creatures, not by quantitative extension, but in simple fashion, intelligibly; for what is intellectually known exists in the knowing subject, and is contained by his intellectual operation.

Chapter

THAT INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES ARE ENDOWED WITH WILL

[1] Now, these intellectual substances must be capable of willing. [2] There is in all things appetite for the good, since, as the philosophers teach, the good is what all desire. In things devoid of knowledge this desire is called natural appetite; thus it is said that a stone desires to be below. In things having sense knowledge this desire is called animal appetite, which is divided into concupiscible and irascible. In things possessed of understanding it is called intellectual or rational appetite, and this is will. Created intellectual substances, therefore, are endowed with will. [3] Moreover, that which exists through another is referred to that which exists through itself, as being prior to the former. That is why, according to Aristotle [ Ethics I, 1], things moved by another are referred to the first self-movers. Likewise, in syllogisms, the conclusions, which are known from other things, are referred to first principles, which are known through themselves. Now, there are some created substances that do not activate themselves, but are by force of nature moved to act; such is the case with inanimate things, plants, and brute animals; for to act or not to act does not lie in their power. It is therefore necessary to go back to some first things that move themselves to action. But, as we have just shown, intellectual substances hold the first rank in created things. These substances, then, are self-activating. Now, to move itself to act is the property of the will, and by the will a substance is master of its action, since within such a substance lies the power of acting or not acting. Hence, created intellectual substances are possessed of will. [4] The principle of every operation, furthermore, is the form by which a thing is in act, since every agent acts so far as it is in act. So, the mode of operation consequent upon a form must be in accordance with the mode of that form. Hence, a form not proceeding from the agent that acts by it causes an operation of which that agent is not master. But, if there be a form which proceeds from the agent acting by it, then the consequent operation also will be in the power of that agent. Now, natural forms, from which natural motions and operations derive, do not proceed from the things whose forms they are, but wholly from extrinsic agents. For by a natural form each thing has being in its own nature, and nothing can be the cause of its own act of being. So it is that things which are moved naturally do not move themselves; a heavy body does not move itself downwards; its generator, which gave it its form, does so. Likewise, in brute animals the forms sensed or imagined, which move them, are not discovered by them, but are received by them from extrinsic sensible things, which act upon their senses and are judged of by their natural estimative faculty. Hence, though brutes are in a sense said to move themselves, inasmuch as one part of them moves and another is moved, yet they are not themselves the source of the actual moving, which, rather, derives partly from external things sensed and partly from nature. For, so far as their appetite moves their members, they are said to move themselves, and in this they surpass inanimate things and plants; but, so far as appetition in them follows necessarily upon the reception of forms through their senses and from the judgment of their natural estimative power, they are not the cause of their own movement; and so they are not master of their own action. On the other hand, the form understood, through which the intellectual substance acts, proceeds from the intellect itself as a thing conceived, and in a way contrived by it; as we see in the case of the artistic form, which the artificer conceives and contrives, and through which he performs his works. Intellectual substances, then, move themselves to act, as having mastery of their own action. It therefore follows that they are endowed with will. [5] The active, moreover, should be proportionate to the passive, and the moving to the movable. But in things having cognition the apprehending power is related to the appetitive power as mover to movable, for that which is apprehended by sense or imagination or intellect moves the intellectual or the animal appetite. Intellectual apprehension, however, is not limited to certain things, but reaches out to them all. And this is why Aristotle, in De anima III [5], says of the possible intellect that it is “that by which we become all things. Hence, the appetite of an intellectual substance has relationship to all things; wherefore Aristotle remarks, in Ethics III [2], that appetite extends to both possible and impossible things. Intellectual substances, then, are possessed of will.

Chapter

THAT INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES HAVE FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN ACTING

[1] It is therefore clear that the aforesaid substances are endowed with freedom of choice in acting. [2] That they act by judgment is evident from the fact that through their intellectual cognition they judge of things to be done. And they must have freedom, if, as just shown, they have control over their own action. Therefore, these substances in acting have freedom of choice. [3] Also, “the free is that which is its own cause.” Hence, that which is not the cause of its own acting is not free in acting. But things that do not move nor act unless they are moved by other things are not the cause of their own acting. So, only things that move themselves act freely. And these alone act by judgment. For the thing that moves itself is divided into mover and moved; and the mover is the appetite moved by intellect, imagination, or sense, to which faculties judgment belongs. Among these things, therefore, those alone judge freely which in judging move themselves. But no judging power moves itself to judge unless it reflects on its own action; for, if it moves itself to judge, it must know its own judgment; and this only an intellect can do. Thus, irrational animals have in a certain way freedom of movement or action, but not of judgment, whereas inanimate things, which are moved only by other things, have not even free action or movement. Intellectual beings, on the other hand, enjoy freedom not only of action, but also of judgment; and this is to have free choice. [4] Then, too, the apprehended form is a moving principle according as it is apprehended under the aspect of the good or the fitting; for the outward action in things that move themselves proceeds from the judgment, made through that form, that something is good or fitting. Hence, if he who judges moves himself to judge, he must do so in the light of a higher form apprehended by him. And this form can be none other than the very intelligible essence of the good or the fitting, in the light of which judgment is made of any determinate good or fitting thing; so that only those beings move themselves to judge which apprehend the all-embracing essence of the good or the fitting. And these are intellectual beings alone. Hence, none but intellectual beings move themselves not only to act, but also to judge. They alone, therefore, are free in judging; and this is to have free choice. [5] Movement and action, moreover, issue from a universal conception only through the intermediation of a particular apprehension. For movement and action have to do with particular things, whereas it is the nature of the intellect to grasp universals. Hence, for movement and action of any kind to result from the intellect’s grasp of something, the universal conception formed by it must be applied to particulars. But the universal contains many particulars potentially; so that the universal conception can be applied to many and diverse things. For this reason the judgment of the intellect concerning things to be done is not determined to one thing only. It follows, in short, that all intellectual beings have freedom of choice. [6] Furthermore, certain things lack liberty of judgment, either because they have no judgment at all, as plants and stones, or because they have a judgment determined by nature to one thing, as do irrational animals; the sheep, by natural estimation, judges the wolf to be harmful to it, and in consequence of this judgment flees from the wolf; and so it is in other cases. Hence, so far as matters of action are concerned, whatever things possess judgment that is not determined to one thing by nature are of necessity endowed with freedom of choice. And such are all intellectual beings. For the intellect apprehends not only this or that good, but good itself, as common to all things. Now, the intellect, through the form apprehended, moves the will; and in all things mover and moved must be proportionate to one another. It follows that the will of an intellectual substance will not be determined by nature to anything except the good as common to all things. So it is possible for the will to be inclined toward anything whatever that is presented to it under the aspect of good, there being no natural determination to the contrary to prevent it. Therefore, all intellectual beings have a free will, resulting from the judgment of the intellect. And this means that they have freedom of choice, which is defined as the free judgment of reason.

Chapter

THAT THE INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE IS NOT A BODY

[1] From the foregoing we proceed to show that no intellectual substance is a body. [2] For it is only by quantitative commensuration that a body contains anything at all; so, too, if a thing contains a whole thing in the whole of itself, it contains also a part in a part of itself, a greater part in a greater part, a lesser part in a lesser part. But an intellect does not, in terms of any quantitative commensuration, comprehend a thing understood, since by its whole self it understands and encompasses both whole and part, things great in quantity and things small. Therefore, no intelligent substance is a body. [3] Then, too, no body can receive the substantial form of another body, unless by corruption it lose its own form. But the intellect is not corrupted; rather, it is perfected by receiving the forms of all bodies; for it is perfected by understanding, and it understands by having in itself the forms of the things understood. Hence, no intellectual substance is a body. [4] Again, the principle of diversity among individuals of the same species is the division of matter according to quantity; the form of this fire does not differ from the form of that fire, except by the fact of its presence in different parts into which the matter is divided; nor is this brought about in any other way than by the division of quantity—without which substance is indivisible. Now, that which is received into a body is received into it according to the division of quantity. Therefore, it is only as individuated that a form is received into a body. If, then, the intellect were a body, the intelligible forms of things would not be received into it except as individuated. But the intellect understands things by those forms of theirs which it has in its possession. So, if it were a body, it would not be cognizant of universals but only of particulars. But this is patently false. Therefore, no intellect is a body. [5] Likewise, nothing acts except in keeping with its species, because in each and every thing the form is the principle of action; so that, if the intellect is a body, its action will not go beyond the order of bodies. It would then have no knowledge of anything except bodies. But this is clearly false, because we know many things that are not bodies. Therefore, the intellect is not a body. [6] Moreover, if an intelligent substance is a body, it is either finite or infinite. Now, it is impossible for a body to be actually infinite, as is proved in the Physics [III, 5]. Therefore, if we suppose that such a substance is a body at all, it is a finite one. But this also is impossible, since, as was shown in Book I of this work, infinite power can exist in no finite body. And yet the cognitive power of the intellect is in a certain way infinite; for by adding number to number its knowledge of the species of numbers is infinitely extended; and the same applies to its knowledge of the species of figures and proportions. Moreover, the intellect grasps the universal, which is virtually infinite in its scope, because it contains individuals which are potentially infinite. Therefore, the intellect is not a body. [7] It is impossible, furthermore, for two bodies to contain one another, since the container exceeds the contained. Yet, when one intellect has knowledge of another, the two intellects contain and encompass one another. Therefore, the intellect is not a body. [8] Also, the action of no body is self-reflexive. For it is proved in the Physicss that no body is moved by itself except with respect to a part, so that one part of it is the mover and the other the moved. But in acting the intellect reflects on itself, not only as to a part, but as to the whole of itself. Therefore, it is not a body. [9] A body’s action, moreover, is not terminated in action, nor movement in movement-a point proved in the Physics [V, 2]. But the action of an intelligent substance is terminated in action; for just as the intellect knows a thing, so does it know that it knows; and so on indefinitely. An intelligent substance, therefore, is not a body. [10] Hence it is that sacred Scripture calls intellectual substances spirits; and this term it customarily employs in reference to the incorporeal God; as St. John says: “God is a spirit” (John 4:24); and in the Book of Wisdom (7:22-23) we read: “for in her” namely, divine Wisdom, “is the spirit of understanding, containing all intelligible spirits.” [11] This, then, does away with the error of the early natural philosophers, who supposed that no substance exists except the corporeal, and who therefore said that the soul is a body, either fire or air or water, or something of the kind—an opinion which some have endeavored to introduce into the Christian faith by saying that the soul is the effigy of the body, like a body externally represented.

Chapter

THAT INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES ARE IMMATERIAL

[1] It clearly follows that intellectual substances are immaterial. [2] For everything composed of matter and form is a body, since matter cannot receive diverse forms except with respect to its various parts. And this diversity of parts can exist in matter only so far as one common matter is divided into several by dimensions existing in matter; for, without quantity, substance is indivisible. But it has just been shown, that no intelligent substance is a body. It remains, therefore, that such a substance is not composed of matter and form. [3] Furthermore, just as man does not exist apart from this man, so matter does not exist apart from this matter. Any subsistent thing that is composed of matter and form is, then, composed of individual form and individual matter. But the intellect cannot be composed of individual matter and form, because the species of things understood are made actually intelligible by being abstracted from individual matter. And as a result of being actually intelligible they become one with the intellect. That is why the intellect also must be without individual matter. Therefore, a substance endowed with intelligence is not composed of matter and form. [4] Then, too, the action of anything composed of matter and form belongs not to the form alone, nor to the matter alone, but to the composite; for to act belongs to that which exists, and existence belongs to the composite through its form, so that the composite also acts through its form. So, if the intelligent substance is composed of matter and form, its act of understanding will be the act of the composite. Now, action terminates in a thing like the agent that produces it; that is why the composite, in generating, produces not a form but a composite. Hence, if the act of understanding is an action of the composite, neither the form nor the matter would be known, but only the composite. But this is patently false. Therefore, the intelligent substance is not composed of matter and form. [5] Again. The forms of sensible things have a more perfect mode of existence in the intellect than in sensible things, for in the intellect they are simpler and extend to more things; thus, through the one intelligible form of man, the intellect knows all men. Now, a form existing perfectly in matter makes a thing to be actually such—to be fire or to be colored, for example— and if the form does not have that effect, then the form is in that thing imperfectly, as the form of heat in the air carrying it, and the power of the first agent in its instrument. So, if the intellect were composed of matter and form, the forms of the things known would make the intellect to be actually of the same nature as that which is known. And the consequence of this is the error of Empedocles, who said that “the soul knows fire by fire, and earth by earth”; and so with other things. But this is clearly incongruous. Therefore, the intelligent substance is not composed of matter and form. [6] And since a thing’s mode of presence in its recipient accords with the latter’s mode of being, it would follow, were the intellect composed of matter and form, that the forms of things would exist in it materially, just as they exist outside the mind. Therefore, just as they are not actually intelligible outside the mind, so they would not be actually intelligible when present in the intellect. [7] Moreover, the forms of contraries, as they exist in matter, are contrary; hence, they exclude one another. But as they exist in the intellect the forms of contraries are not contrary; rather, one contrary is the intelligible ground of another, since one is understood through the other. They have, then, no material being in the intellect. Therefore, the intellect is not composed of matter and form. [8] And again, matter does not receive a fresh form except through motion or change. But the intellect is not moved through receiving forms; rather, it is perfected and at rest while understanding, whereas movement is a hindrance to understanding. Hence, forms are not received in the intellect as in matter or a material thing. Clearly, then, intelligent substances are immaterial, even as they are incorporeal, too. [9] Hence, Dionysius says: “On account of the rays of God’s goodness all intellectual substances, which are known to be incorporeal and immaterial, have remained immutably in existence [ De div. nom. IV].

Chapter

THAT THE INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE IS NOT A MATERIAL FORM

[1] From the same principles we proceed to show that intellectual natures are subsistent forms, and are not in matter as though their being depends on matter. [2] Forms dependent in being upon matter do not themselves have being properly, but being properly belongs to the composites through their forms. Consequently, if intellectual substances were forms of this kind, it would follow that they have material being, just as they would if they were composed of matter and form. [3] Moreover, forms that do not subsist through themselves cannot act through themselves; rather, the composites act through them. Hence, if intellectual natures were forms of this sort, it would follow that they do not themselves understand, but that it is the things composed of them and matter which understand. And thus, an intelligent being would be composed of matter and form; which is impossible, as we have just shown. [4] Also, if the intellect were a form in matter and not self-subsistent, it would follow that what is received into the intellect would be received into matter, since forms whose being is bound to matter receive nothing that is not received into the matter. But the reception of forms into the intellect is not a reception of forms into matter. Therefore, the intellect cannot possibly be a material form. [5] Moreover, to say that the intellect is not a subsistent form, but a form embedded in matter, is the same in reality as to say that the intellect is composed of matter and form. The difference is purely nominal, for in the first way the intellect will be called the form itself of the composite; in the second way, the composite itself. So, if it is false that the intellect is composed of matter and form, it will be false that it is a form which does not subsist, but is material.

Chapter

THAT IN CREATED INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES, BEING AND WHAT IS DIFFER

Although intellectual substances are not corporeal, nor composed of matter and form, nor existing in matter as material forms, it is not to be supposed that they therefore equal the divine simplicity. For a certain composition is found in them by the fact that in them being is not the same as what is. [2] For, if being is subsisting, nothing besides this act itself is added to it. Because, even In things whose being is not subsistent, that which is in the existing thing in addition to its being is indeed united to the thing, but is not one with the thing’s being, except by accident, so far as the thing is one subject having being and that which is other than being. ‘nus it is clear that in Socrates, beside his substantial being, there is white, which, indeed, is other than his substantial being; for to be Socrates and to be white are not the same except by accident. If, then, being is not in a subject, there will remain no way in which that which is other than being can be united to it. Now, being, as being, cannot be diverse; but it can be diversified by something beside itself; thus, the being of a stone is other than that of a man. Hence, that which is subsisting being can be one only. Now, we have shown in Book I that God is His own subsisting being. Hence, nothing beside Him can be its own being. Of necessity, therefore, in every substance beside Him the substance itself is other than its being. [3] Moreover, a common nature, if considered in separation from things, can be only one, although there can be a plurality of things possessing that nature. For, if the nature of animal subsisted as separate through itself, it would not have those things that are proper to a man or an ox; if it did have them, it would not be animal alone, but man or ox. Now, if the differences constitutive of species be removed, there remains the undivided nature of the genus, because the same differences which constitute the species divide the genus. Consequently, if this itself which is being is common as a genus, separate, self-subsisting being can be one only. But, if being is not divided by differences, as a genus is, but, as it is in truth, by the fact that it is the being of this or that, then it is all the more manifest that being existing through itself can only be one. Since God is subsisting being, it therefore remains that nothing other than He is its own being. [4] Again, absolutely infinite being cannot be twofold, for being that is absolutely infinite comprises every perfection of being; hence, if infinity were present in two such things, in no respect would they be found to differ. Now, subsisting being must be infinite, because it is not terminated in some recipient. Therefore, there cannot be a subsisting being besides the first. [5] Then, too, if there is a self-subsisting being, nothing belongs to it except that which is proper to a being inasmuch as it is a being, since what is said of a thing, not as such, appertains to it only accidentally, by reason of the subject. Consequently, if the thing so spoken of is held to be separated from the subject, it in no way belongs to it. Now, to be caused by another does not appertain to a being inasmuch as it is being; otherwise, every being would be caused by another, so that we should have to proceed to infinity in causes—an impossibility, as was shown in Book I of this work. Therefore, that being which is subsisting must be uncaused. Therefore, no caused being is its own being. [6] The substance of each and every thing, furthermore, belongs to it through itself and not through another; thus, it does not pertain to the substance of air to be actually luminous, since this quality it acquires through something else. But every created thing has its being through another; otherwise, it would not be caused. Therefore, the being of no created substance is that substance. [7] Also, since every agent acts so far as it is in act, it belongs to the first agent, which is most perfect, to be most perfectly in act. Now, a thing is the more perfectly in act the more its act is posterior in the way of generation, for act is posterior in time to potentiality in one and the same thing that passes from potentiality to act. Further, act itself is more perfectly in act than that which has act, since the latter is in act because of the former. These things being posited, then, it is clear from what has been shown in Book I of this work that God alone is the first agent. Therefore, it belongs to Him alone to be in act in the most perfect way, that is, to be Himself the most perfect act. Now, this act is being, wherein generation and all movement terminate, since every form and act is in potentiality before it acquires being. Therefore, it belongs to God alone to be His own being, just as it pertains to Him only to be the first agent. [8] Moreover, being itself belongs to the first agent according to His proper nature, for God’s being is His substance, as was shown in Book I. Now, that which belongs to a thing according to its proper nature does not belong to other things except by way of participation, as heat is in other bodies from fire. Therefore, being itself belongs to all other things from the first agent by a certain participation. That which belongs to a thing by participation, however, is not that thing’s substance. Therefore, it is impossible that the substance of a thing other than the first agent should be being itself. [9] Wherefore in Exodus (3:14) the proper name of God is stated to be “HE WHO IS,” because it is proper to Him alone that His substance is not other than His being.

Chapter

THAT IN CREATED INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES THERE IS ACT AND POTENTIALITY

[1] Now, from the foregoing it is evident that in created intellectual substances there is composition of act and potentiality. [2] For in whatever thing we find two, one of which is the complement of the other, the proportion of one of them to the other is as the proportion of potentiality to act; for nothing is completed except by its proper act. Now, in the created intellectual substance two principles are found: the substance itself and its being, which, as we have just shown, is not the substance itself. Now, being itself is the complement of the existing substance, for each and every thing is in act through having being. It therefore remains that in each of the aforesaid substances there is composition of act and potentiality. [3] There is also the consideration that what ever is present in a thing from an agent must be act, for it belongs to an agent to make something in act. Now, it was shown above that all other substances have being from the first agent; and the substances themselves are caused by the fact that they have being from another. Therefore, being is present in caused substances as a certain act of their own. But that in which act is present is a potentiality, since act, as such, is referred to potentiality. Therefore, in every created substance there is potentiality and act. [4] Likewise, whatever participates in a thing is compared to the thing participated in as act to potentiality, since by that which is participated the participator is actualized in such and such a way. But it was shown above that God alone is essentially a being, whereas all other things participate in being. Therefore, every created substance is compared to its own being as potentiality to act. [5] Furthermore, it is by act that a thing is made like its efficient cause, for the agent produces its like so far as it is in act. Now, as shown above it is through being itself that every created substance is likened to God. Therefore, being itself is compared to all created substances as their act. Whence it follows that in every created substance there is composition of act and potentiality.

Chapter

THAT THE COMPOSITION OF SUBSTANCE AND BEING IS NOT THE SAME AS THE COMPOSITION OF MATTER AND FORM [1] Now, these compositions are not of the same nature, although both are compositions of potentiality and act. [2] First, this is so because matter is not the very substance of a thing; for, if that were true, it would follow that all forms are accidents, as the early natural philosophers supposed. But matter is not the substance; it is only part of the substance. [3] Secondly, because being itself is the proper act, not of the matter, but of the whole substance; for being is the act of that whereof we can say that it is. Now, this act is predicated not of the matter, but of the whole. Hence, matter cannot be called that which is; rather, the substance itself is that which is. [4] Thirdly, because neither is the form the being itself, but between them there is a relation of order, because form is compared to being itself as light to illuminating, or whiteness to being white. [5] Then, too, because being is compared even to the form itself as act. For in things composed of matter and form, the form is said to be the principle of being, for this reason: that it is the complement of the substance, whose act is being. Thus, transparency is in relation to the air the principle of illumination, in that it makes the air the proper subject of light. [6] Accordingly, in things composed of matter and form, neither the matter nor the form nor even being itself can be termed that which is. Yet the form can be called that by which it is, inasmuch as it is the principle of being; the whole substance itself, however, is that which is. And being itself is that by which the substance is called a being. [7] But, as we have shown, intellectual substances are not composed of matter and form; rather, in them the form itself is a subsisting substance; so that form here is that which is and being itself is act and that by which the substance is. [8] And on this account there is in such substances but one composition of act and potentiality, namely, the composition of substance and being, which by some is said to be of that which is and being, or of that which is and that by which a thing is. [9] On the other hand, in substances composed of matter and form there is a twofold composition of act and potentiality: the first, of the substance itself which is composed of matter and form; the second, of the substance thus composed, and being; and this composition also can be said to be of that which is and being, or of that which is and that by which a thing is. [10] It is therefore clear that composition of act and potentiality has greater extension than that of form and matter. Thus, matter and form divide natural substance, while potentiality and act divide common being. Accordingly, whatever follows upon potentiality and act, as such, is common to both material and immaterial created substances, as to receive and to be received, to perfect and to be perfected. Yet all that is proper to matter and form, as such, as to be generated and to be corrupted, and the like, are proper to material substances, and in no way belong to immaterial created substances.

Chapter

THAT INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES ARE INCORRUPTIBLE

[1] Now, from what has just been said it is clearly shown that every intellectual substance is incorruptible. [2] For all corruption occurs through the separation of form from matter; absolute corruption, through the separation of the substantial form; relative corruption, through the separation of an accidental form. For, so long as the form remains, the thing must exist, since by the form the substance is made the proper recipient of the act of being. Now, where there is no composition of matter and form, there can be no separation of them; neither, then, can there be corruption. It has been shown, however, that no intellectual substance is composed of matter and form. Therefore, no intellectual substance is corruptible. [3] Moreover, that which belongs to a thing through itself is necessarily in it always and inseparably—thus, roundness is in a circle through itself, but is by accident in a coin; so that the existence of a non-round coin is possible; whereas it is impossible for a circle not to be round. Now, being is consequent upon form through itself; for by through itself we mean according as that thing is such; and each and every thing has being according as it has form. Therefore, substances which are not themselves forms can be deprived of being, so far as they lose form, even as a coin is deprived of roundness as a result of ceasing to be circular. But substances which are themselves forms can never be deprived of being; thus, if a substance were a circle, it could never be non-round. Now, we have already shown that intellectual substances are themselves subsisting forms. Hence, they cannot possibly cease to be, and therefore they are incorruptible. [4] In every instance of corruption, furthermore, potentiality remains after the removal of act. For when a thing is corrupted it does not dissolve into absolute non-entity, any more than a thing is generated from absolute non-entity. But, as we have proved, in intellectual substances the act is being itself, while the substance is as potentiality. Therefore, if an intellectual substance is corrupted, it will remain after its corruption; which is simply impossibility. Therefore, every intellectual substance is incorruptible. [5] Likewise, in every thing which is corrupted there must be potentiality to non-being. Hence, if there be a thing in which there is no potentiality to non-being, such a thing cannot be corruptible. Now, in the intellectual substance there is no potentiality to non-being. For it is clear from what we have said that the complete substance is the proper recipient of being itself. But the proper recipient of an act is related to that act as potentiality, in such fashion that it is in no way in potentiality to the opposite; thus, the relationship of fire to heat is such that fire is in no way in potentiality to cold. Hence, neither in the case of corruptible substances is there potentiality to non-being in the complete substance itself, except by reason of the matter. But there is no matter in intellectual substances, for they are themselves complete simple substances. Consequently, there is no potentiality to not-being in them. Therefore, they are incorruptible. [6] Then, too, in whatever things there is composition of potentiality and act, that which holds the place of first potentiality, or of first subject, is incorruptible; so that even in corruptible substances prime matter is incorruptible. But, with intellectual substances, that which holds the place of first potentiality and subject is itself the complete substance of those things. Hence, the substance itself is incorruptible. But nothing is corruptible except by the fact that its substance is corruptible. Therefore, all intellectual natures are incorruptible. [7] Moreover, whatever is corrupted is corrupted either through itself or by accident. Now, intellectual substances cannot be corrupted through themselves, because all corruption is by a contrary. For the agent, since it acts according as it is a being in act, always by its acting brings something into actual being, so that if a thing is corrupted by its ceasing to be in act, this must result from the mutual contrariety of the terms involved; since things are contrary which exclude one another. And on this account whatever is corrupted through itself must either have a contrary or be composed of contraries. Yet neither the one nor the other is true of intellectual substances; and a sign of this is that in the intellect things even of contrary nature cease to be contraries. Thus, white and black are not contraries in the intellect, since they do not exclude one another; rather, they are co-implicative, since by grasping the one we understand the other. Therefore, intellectual substances are not corruptible through themselves. Likewise, neither are they corruptible by accident, for in this manner are accidents and non-subsistent forms corrupted. Now, it was shown above that intellectual substances are subsistent. Therefore, they are altogether incorruptible. [8] Again, corruption is a kind of change, and change must be the terminal point of a movement, as is proved in the Physics [V, 1]. Hence, whatever is corrupted must be moved. Now, it is shown in natural philosophy that whatever is moved is a body. Hence, whatever is corrupted must be a body, if it is corrupted through itself, or a form or power of a body depending thereon, if it be corrupted by accident. Now, intellectual substances are not bodies, nor powers or forms dependent on a body. Consequently, they are corrupted neither through themselves nor by accident. They are, then, utterly incorruptible. [9] And again. Whatever is corrupted is corrupted through being passive to something, for to be corrupted is itself to be passive in a certain way. Now, no intellectual substance can be passive in such a way as will lead to its corruption. For passivity is a kind of receptivity, and what is received into an intellectual substance must be received in it in a manner consonant with its mode, namely, intelligibly. What is thus received into an intellectual substance, however, perfects that substance and does not corrupt it, for the intelligible is the perfection of the intelligent. Therefore, an intelligent substance is incorruptible. [10] Furthermore, just as the sensible is the object of sense, so the intelligible is the object of intellect. But sense is not corrupted by a corruption proper to itself except on account of the exceedingly high intensity of its object; thus, is sight corrupted by very brilliant objects, hearing by very loud sounds, etc. Now, I say by corruption proper to the thing itself because the sense is corrupted also accidentally through its subject being corrupted. But this mode of corruption cannot happen to the intellect, since it is not the act of any body, as depending thereon, as we have shown above. And clearly it is not corrupted by the exceeding loftiness of its object, because he who understands very intelligible things understands things less intelligible not less but more. Therefore, the intellect is in no way corruptible. [11] Also, the intelligible is the proper perfection of the intellect; so that “the intellect in act and the intelligible in act are one. Hence, whatever appertains to the intelligible, as such, must appertain to the intellect, as such, because perfection and the perfectible are of one genus. Now, the intelligible, as such, is necessary and incorruptible; for necessary things are perfectly knowable by the intellect, whereas contingent things, as such, are only deficiently knowable, for concerning them we have not science but opinion. So it is that the intellect has scientific knowledge of corruptible things so far as they are incorruptible, that is, inasmuch as they are universal. The intellect, therefore, must be incorruptible. [12] Moreover, a thing is perfected according to the mode of its substance. Hence, the mode of a thing’s substance can be learned from the mode of its perfection. Now, the intellect is not perfected by movement, but by the fact of its being outside movement; for, as concerns the intellective soul, we are perfected by science and prudence when bodily changes and alterations of the soul’s passions are put at rest, as Aristotle points out in Physics VII [3]. Hence, the mode of an intelligent substance consists in the fact that its being is above movement and consequently above time; whereas the being of every corruptible thing is subject to motion and time. Therefore, an intelligent substance cannot possibly be corruptible. [13] A further argument. It is impossible for natural desire to be in vain, “since nature does nothing in vain.” But every intelligent being naturally desires to be forever; and to be forever not only in its species but also in the individual. This point is made clear as follows. Natural appetite is present in some things as the result of apprehension; the wolf naturally desires the killing of the animals on which it feeds, and man naturally desires happiness. But in some other things natural desires results without apprehension from the sole inclination of natural principles, and this inclination, in some, is called natural appetite; thus, a heavy body desires to be down. Now, in both ways there is in things a natural desire for being; and a sign of this is that not only things devoid of knowledge resist, according to the power of their natural principles, whatever is corruptive of them, but also things possessed of knowledge resist the same according to the mode of their knowledge. Hence, those things lacking knowledge, in whose principles there is a power of keeping themselves in existence forever so that they remain always the same numerically, naturally desire to exist everlastingly even in their numerical self-identity. But things whose principles have not the power to do this, but only the power of perpetuating their existence in the same species, also naturally desire to be perpetuated in this manner. Hence, this same difference must be found also in those things in which there is desire for being, together with knowledge, so that those things which have no knowledge of being except as now desire to be as now, but not to be always, because they do not apprehend everlasting being. Yet they desire the perpetual existence of the species, though without knowledge, because the generative power, which conduces to this effect, is a forerunner and not a subject of knowledge. Hence, those things which know and apprehend perpetual being desire it with natural desire. And this is true of all intelligent substances. Consequently, all intelligent substances, by their natural appetite, desire to be always. That they should cease to be is, therefore, impossible. [14] Furthermore, all things that begin to be and cease to be do so in virtue of the same potency, for the same potency regards being and non-being. Now, intelligent substances could not begin to be except by the potency of the first agent, since, as we have shown, they are not made out of a matter that could have existed antecedently to them. Hence, there is no potency with respect to their non-being except in the first agent, inasmuch as it lies within His power not to pour being into them. But nothing can be said to be corruptible with respect to this potency alone; and for two reasons: because things are said to be necessary and contingent according to a potentiality that is in them, and not according to the power of God, as we have already shown, and also because God, who is the Author of nature, does not take from things that which is proper to their natures; and we have just shown that it is proper to intellectual natures to exist forever, and that is why God will not take this property from them. Therefore, intellectual substances are in every way incorruptible. [15] So it is that in the Psalm (148:1, 6): “Praise the Lord from the heavens,” after speaking of the angels and the heavenly bodies together, it is added: “He established them for ever and for ages of ages,” thus designating the everlastingness of those things. [16] Dionysius also, in his work On the Divine Names [4], says that “it is because of the rays of God’s goodness that intelligible and intellectual substances subsist and are and live; and they have life unfailing and undiminishable, being free from universal corruption, free from generation and death, lifted above the instability of this world in flux.”

Chapter

IN WHAT WAY AN INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE CAN BE UNITED TO THE BODY

[1] Having shown that an intellectual substance is not a body or a power dependent on a body, it remains for us to inquire whether an intellectual substance can be united to a body. [2] In the first place, it is evident that an intellectual substance cannot be united to a body by way of mixture. [3] For things mixed together are necessarily altered in relation to one another. But such alteration occurs only in things whose matter is the same, and which can be active and passive in relation to one another. But intellectual substances have no matter in common with bodies, since, as shown above, they are immaterial. Hence, they are not combinable with bodies. [4] Moreover, the things that are combined with one another do not themselves, having been combined, remain actually, but only virtually; for, were they to remain actually, it would be not a mixture, but only a collection; that is why a body constituted by a mixture of elements is none of those elements. But this cannot possibly occur in the case of intellectual substances, since, as we have just shown, they are incorruptible. [5] Therefore, an intellectual substance cannot be united to a body by way of mixture. [6] It is likewise evident that an intellectual substance cannot be united to a body by way of contact properly so called. For there is contact only between bodies, since things are in contact when they come together at their extremities, as the points or lines or surfaces which are the extremities of bodies. It is, therefore, impossible for an intellectual substance to be united to a body by way of contact. [7] And from this it follows that neither by continuation nor composition or colligation can union of an intellectual substance with a body be effected. For without contact none of these is possible. [8] There is, however, a certain kind of contact whereby an intellectual substance can be united to a body. For, when they are in contact, natural bodies alter one another, thus being mutually united not only by way of their quantitative extremities, but also by way of likeness in quality or form, as long as the altering body impresses its form upon the body altered. Now, if the quantitative extremities alone be considered, then in all cases contact must of necessity be mutual. On the other hand, if attention is given to activity and passivity, it will be found that certain things touch others and are not themselves touched, while certain things are themselves touched and touch nothing else. For, indeed, the heavenly bodies touch elemental bodies in this way, inasmuch as they alter them, but they are not touched by the elemental bodies, since they are not acted upon by them. Consequently, if there are any agents not in contact by their quantitative extremities, they nevertheless will be said to touch, so far as they act; and in this sense we say that a person in sorrow touches us. Hence, it is possible for an intellectual substance to be united to a body by contact, by touching it in this way. For intellectual substances, being immaterial and enjoying a higher degree of actuality than bodies, act on the latter and move them. [9] This, however, is not contact of quantity, but of power. It therefore differs from bodily contact in three ways. First, because by this contact the indivisible can touch the divisible. Now, in bodily contact this cannot occur, since only an indivisible thing can be touched by a point. But an intellectual substance, though it is indivisible, can touch divisible quantity, so far as it acts upon it. For, indeed, a point is indivisible in one way and an intellectual substance in another. A point is indivisible as being the terminus of a quantity, and for this reason it occupies a determinate position in a continuous quantity, beyond which it cannot extend. But an intellectual substance is indivisible, as being outside the genus of quantity, and that is why no quantitative indivisible entity with which it can make contact is assigned to it. Contact of quantity differs from quantity of power, secondly, because the former obtains only with respect to the extremities, whereas the latter regards the whole thing touched. For by contact of power a thing is touched according as it is acted upon and is moved. And this comes about inasmuch as the thing is in potentiality. Now, potentiality regards the whole and not the extremities of the whole; so that it is the whole that is touched. And from this the third difference emerges, because in contact of quantity, which takes place in respect of extremities, that which touches must be extrinsic to that which is touched; and it cannot penetrate the thing touched, but is obstructed by it. But, since contact of power, which appertains to intellectual substances, extends to the innermost things, it makes the touching substance to be within the thing touched, and to penetrate it without hindrance. [10] The intellectual substance, then, can be united to a body by contact of power. Now, things united by contact of this kind are not unqualifiedly one. For they are one with respect to acting and being acted upon, but this is not to be unqualifiedly one. Thus, indeed, one is predicated in the same mode as being. But to be acting does not mean to be, without qualification, so that neither is to be one in action to be one without qualification. [11] Now, one, in the unqualified sense of the term, has a threefold reference: to the indivisible, to the continuous, and to the one in reason. Now, from the union of an intellectual substance and a body there cannot result a thing indivisibly one, because such a union must consist in a composite of two things; nor a thing continuously one, because the parts of the continuous are parts of quantity. It therefore remains for us to inquire whether from an intellectual substance and a body there can be formed a thing one in reason. [12] Now, from two permanent entities a thing one in reason does not result unless one of them has the character of substantial form and the other of matter. For the joining of subject and accident does not constitute a unity of this kind; the idea of man, for example, is not the same as the idea of white. So, it must be asked whether an intellectual substance can be the substantial form of a body. [13] Now, to those who consider the question reasonably, such a union would seem to be impossible. [14] From two actually existing substances one thing cannot be made, because the act of each thing is that by which it is distinguished from another. Now, an intellectual substance n an actually existing substance, as is clear from what has been said. And so, too, is a body. It therefore seems that from an intellectual substance and a body something one cannot be made. [15] Also, form and matter are contained in the same genus, for every genus is divided by act and potentiality. But intellectual substance and body are diverse genera. Hence, it does not seem possible for one to be the form of the other. [16] Moreover, every thing whose being is in matter must be material. Now, if an intellectual substance is the form of a body, it must have its being in corporeal matter. For the form’s act of being is not outside that of the matter. Hence, it will follow that an intellectual substance is not immaterial, as it was shown to be above. [17] Likewise, it is impossible for a thing that has its being in a body to be separate from the body, It is, however, proved by philosophers that the intellect is separate from the body, and that it is neither a body nor a power in a body. Therefore, an intellectual substance is not the form of a body; if it were, it would have its being in a body. [18] Again a thing having its being in common with a body must have its operation in common with a body, for every thing acts in keeping with its being. Nor can the operative power of a thing be superior to its essence, since power is consequent upon principles of the essence of a thing. Now, if an intellectual substance is the form of a body, its being must be common to it and the body, since from form and matter there results a thing unqualifiedly one, which exists by one act of being. Therefore, an intellectual substance not only will have its operation in common with the body, but also its power will be a power in a body—a conclusion evidently impossible in the light of what has already been said.

Chapter

TIRE POSITION OF PLATO CONCERNING THE UNION OF THE INTELLECTUAL SOUL WITH THE BODY

[1] Moved by these and like reasons, some have said that no intellectual substance can be the form of a body. But, since the very nature of man seemed to contradict this position, in that he appears to be composed of an intellectual soul and a body, they sought to save the nature of man by devising certain solutions. [2] Accordingly, Plato and his followers asserted that the intellectual soul is not united to the body as form to matter, but only as mover to movable, for Plato said that the soul is in the body “as a sailor in a ship.” Thus, the union of soul and body would only be by contact of power—which we have spoken of above. [3] But this doctrine seems not to fit the facts. For, as a result of contact of power, a thing unqualifiedly one does not arise, as we have shown; whereas from the union of soul and body there results a man. On Plato’s theory, then, a man is not one unqualifiedly speaking, nor, consequently, is he a being unqualifiedly speaking, but a being by accident. [4] In order to avoid this, Plato asserted that man is not a being composed of body and soul, but that the soul itself using the body is man; just as Peter is not a thing composed of man and clothes, but a man using clothes. [5] This, however, is shown to be impossible. For animal and man are sensible and natural realities. But this would not be the case if the body and its parts were not of the essence of man and animal; rather, the soul would be the entire essence of both, according to the aforesaid position; for the soul is neither a sensible nor a material thing. It is, therefore, impossible that man and animal should be a soul using a body, and not a thing composed of body and soul. [6] It is, moreover, impossible that things diverse in being should have one operation. Now, I speak of an operation being one, not with reference to that in which the action terminates, but to the manner of its issuance from the agent. For many men pulling a boat make one action on the part of the thing done, which is one, yet on the part of the haulers there are many actions, since there are many acts of hauling. For, since action is consequent upon form and power, things having diverse forms and powers must likewise have diverse actions. Now, though the soul has an operation proper to itself, in which the body does not share, namely, understanding, there are nevertheless some operations common to it and the body, as fear, anger, sensation, and the like; for these operations occur through some transmutation in a determinate part of the body, and, therefore, obviously are operations of soul and body together. It necessarily follows that the soul and the body make up one single being, and that they have not each a distinct being. [7] Now, according to the opinion of Plato, this argument may be obviated by pointing out that there is nothing contradictory in the action of mover and moved being the same, though of things diverse in being; since the same act belongs to the mover as that from which it is and to the moved as that in which it is. Accordingly, Plato asserted that the aforesaid operations were common to soul and body, being operations of the soul as mover and of the body as moved. [8] But this cannot be, because, as Aristotle proves in De anima II [5], “sensation occurs as the result of one’s being moved by external objects of sense.” Hence, man cannot sense without an external sensible object, any more than a thing can be moved without a mover. Therefore, the sense organ is moved and is passive in sensing-but in relation to an external sensible object. And that whereby it is passive [suffers] is the sense, for it is obviously the fact that things devoid of sense are not passive in relation to sensibles by the same kind of passivity. Therefore, sense is the passive power of the organ itself. Hence, the sensitive soul has not the function of mover and agent in sensing, but of that whereby the patient is passive; and this cannot possibly be diverse in being from the patient. Therefore, the sensible soul is not, in being, diverse from the animate body. [9] Furthermore, although motion is the common act of the mover and the moved, nevertheless to cause motion is one thing, to receive motion is another; that is why there are two categories, action and passion. If, then, in sensing the sensitive soul plays the role of agent and the body of patient, the operation of the soul will be one thing and that of the body another. Therefore, the sensitive soul will have an operation proper to itself, and, consequently, will enjoy a subsistence of its own. It will therefore follow that, when the body is destroyed, the soul will not cease to be. Thus, the sensitive souls, even of irrational animals, will be immortal; which indeed seems improbable, though it is not inconsistent with Plato’s opinion. But there will be an occasion later on to inquire into this matter. [10] Then, too, the movable does not derive its species from its mover. Therefore, if the soul is united to the body only as mover to thing movable, then the body and its parts do not owe to the soul that which they specifically are; so that, with the passing of the soul, the body and its parts will remain of the same species. But this is clearly false; for flesh and bones and hands, and like parts, after the soul’s departure, are so callcd only in an equivocal sense, because none of these parts is then possessed of its proper operation, which stems from the specific nature of the thing whose parts they are. It remains that the soul is not united to the body only as mover to movable, or as a man to his clothes. [11] Again, the movable does not owe its being to its mover, but only its movement. If, then, the soul were united to the body merely as its mover, the body would indeed be moved by the soul, but it would not owe its being to the soul. Now, in the living thing living is a certain being. Therefore, the body would not live in virtue of the soul. [12] Likewise, the movable is neither generated by the mover’s being joined to it nor corrupted by its separation from it, because the movable does not depend on the mover for its being, but only for its being moved. Therefore, if the soul were united to the body only as its mover, it will follow that in the union of soul and body there will be no generation, nor will their separation mean corruption. And thus death, which consists in the separation of soul and body, will not be the corruption of the animal. And this is manifestly false. [13] Furthermore, to be moved and not to be moved, to move and not to move, lie within the power of every self-mover. But the soul, according to the Platonic opinion, moves the body in the capacity of self-mover. It is, therefore, in the soul’s power to move the body and not to move it. Accordingly, if the soul is united to the body merely as mover to movable, it will be in the soul’s power to be separated from the body at will and to be reunited to it at will. And this clearly is false. [14] Now, that the soul is united to the body as its proper form is proved as follows. That by which something becomes a being in act from a being in potency is its form and act. But it is through the soul that the body becomes a being in act from being potentially existent, for living is the being of the living thing.10 Now, the seed before animation is living only in potency, and, through the soul, becomes living in act. Therefore, the soul is the form of the animated body. [15] In addition, since being as well as operating belong neither to the form alone, nor to the matter alone, but to the composite, to be and to act are attributed to two things, one of which is to the other as form to matter. For we say that a man is healthy in body and in health, and that he is knowing in knowledge and in his soul, knowledge being a form of the knower’s soul and health a form of the healthy body. Now, life and sensation are ascribed to both soul and body, for we are said to live and to sense both in soul and body. But we live and sense by the soul as the principle of life and sensation. The soul is, therefore, the form of the body. [16l The whole sensitive soul, moreover, is related to the whole body as a part to a part. And part is to part in such fashion that it is its form and act, for sight is the form and act of the eye. Therefore, the soul is the form and act of the body.

Chapter

THAT IN MAN THERE ARE NOT THREE SOULS, NUTRITIVE, SENSITIVE, AND INTELLECTIVE

[1] Now, according to Plato’s theory, the arguments proposed above can be met, so far as the present question is concerned. For Plato maintains that in us the same soul is not intellective, nutritive, and sensitive. That is why, even if the sensitive soul were the form of the body, it would not be necessary to conclude that some intellectual substance can be the form of a body. [2] That this opinion is impossible we must now show by the following arguments. [3] Things attributed to the same thing according to diverse forms are predicated of one another by accident; a white thing is said to be musical by accident, because whiteness and music are accidental to Socrates, for example. Accordingly, if in us the intellective, sensitive, and nutritive soul are diverse powers or forms, then the things that appertain to us according to those forms will be predicated of one another by accident. Now, it is with respect to the intellective soul that we are said to be men; to the sensitive soul, animals; to the nutritive soul, living beings. It follows that the predication, man is an animal, or an animal is a living thing, will be by accident. But this predication is through itself, since man, as such, is an animal, and animal, as such, is a living thing. It is by the same principle, therefore, that one is a man, an animal, and a living thing. [4] Now, it may be said that even if the aforesaid souls are diverse, it does not follow that the predications in question will be by accident, because these souls are mutually subordinate. But this, again, is ruled out. For the sensitive is subordinate to the intellective and the nutritive to the sensitive, as potency is subordinate to act, since in the order of generation the intellective comes after the sensitive and the sensitive after the nutritive; thus, animal is prior to man in that line. Therefore, if this order makes the above mentioned predications to be through themselves, they will be so, not in that mode of predication through itself which arises from the form, but in that mode which arises from the matter and the subject; as a surface, for example, is said to be colored. But this is impossible, because in this latter mode of predication through itself that which is formal is predicated through itself of the subject, as when we say: The surface is white or the number is even. And again, in this kind of predication through itself the subject is placed in the definition of the predicate, as number in the definition of even. But, in the previous case, the contrary is true; for man is not predicated of animal through itself, but vice versa; nor is the subject placed in the definition of the predicate, but vice versa. Therefore, such things are not predicated through themselves by reason of the order in question. [5] Moreover, the principle of a thing’s unity is the same as that of its being; for one is consequent upon being. Therefore, since each and every thing has being from its form, it will also have unity from its form. Consequently, if several souls, as so many distinct forms, are ascribed to man, he will not be one being, but several. Nor will an order among forms suffice to give man unity, because to be one in respect of order is not to be one unqualifiedly speaking; since unity of order is the least of unities. [6] Also, the impossibility noted above will again arise, namely, that from the intellective soul and the body there results a thing that is one not unqualifiedly speaking but only accidentally. For whatever comes to a thing after it is complete in its being, comes to it accidentally, since it is outside that thing’s essence. Now, every substantial form makes a being complete in the genus of substance, for it makes a being in act, and this particular thing. Therefore, whatever accrues to a thing after its first substantial form will accrue to it accidentally. Now, the nutritive soul is a substantial form, for the living is predicated substantially of man and animal. It will then follow that the sensitive soul accrues to man accidentally, and likewise the intellective soul. Thus, neither animal nor man will signify one thing unqualifiedly speaking, nor will they denote a genus or a species in the category of substance. [7] Again, if man, in Plato’s theory, is not a thing composed of body and soul, but a soul using a body, this is to he understood either of the intellective soul only, or of the three souls, if there are three, or of two of them. If of three or two, it follows that man is not one being, but two or three, since he is then three souls or at least two. And if this is understood of the intellective soul only, so that the sensitive soul is thought to be the body’s form, and the intellective soul, using the animated and sense-endowed body, to be the man, then this, again, will lead to absurd consequences, namely, that man is not an animal, but uses an animal (for through the sensitive soul a thing is an animal), and that man does not sense, but uses a sentient thing. These statements being contrary to the facts, it is impossible that there should be in us three souls differing in substance, the intellective, the sensitive, and the nutritive. [8] And again, the one cannot be made from two or more, without something to unite them, unless one of them be related to the other as act to potentiality; for thus matter and form become one, without anything outside uniting them. Now, if there are several souls in man, they are not related to one another as matter and form, but they are all by hypothesis acts and principles of actions. So, if they are united in order to form one thing, say, a man or an animal, there must be something to unite them. But this cannot be the body, since it is precisely the body which is united together by the soul; a sign of which is the fact that, when the soul departs, the body is dissolved. It therefore remains that there must be some thing of a more formal character to make these several entities into one. And this will be the soul rather than those several entities which are united by this thing. Hence, if this latter, again, has diverse parts and is not one thing in itself, there will still be need of something to unite them. Since, then, it is impossible to go on to infinity, it is necessary to come to a thing that is one in itself. And the soul, especially, is such a thing. Therefore, there must be but one soul in one man or in one animal. [9] Then, too, if that which belongs to the soul in man is an aggregate of several things, it follows that, as the totality of them is to the whole body, so each of them is to each part of the body. Nor does this idea conflict with Plato’s position, for he located the rational soul in the brain, the nutritive in the liver, and the appetitive in the heart. But this doctrine is evidently false, for two reasons. First, because there is a part of the soul which cannot be allocated to any part of the body, namely, the intellect; as we have already proved, the intellect is not the act of some part of the body. Secondly, because it is manifest that the operations of different parts of the soul appear in the same part of the body, as we see in the case of animals that live after being cut in two, since the same part has the movement, sensation, and appetite by which it is moved; so too, the same part of a plant, after being cut off, is nourished, grows, and blossoms. And from this it is clear that the diverse parts of the soul are in one and the same part of the body. Therefore, there are not distinct souls in us which are allocated to various parts of the body. [10] Furthermore, diverse powers that are not rooted in one principle do not hinder one another in acting, unless, perhaps, their action be contrary; and this is not so in the present case. Now, we observe that the diverse actions of the soul hinder one another, for when one is intense another is remiss. Therefore, these actions and the powers that are their proximate principles must be referred to one principle. But this principle cannot be the body, both because there is an action in which the body does not share, namely, understanding, and because, if the body, as such, were the principle of these powers and actions, they would be found in all bodies; which is clearly false. It therefore remains that their principle is some one form, by which this body is such a body. And this principle is the soul. It follows, then, that all the actions of the soul which are in us proceed from the one soul. Thus, there are not several souls in us. [11] Now, this conclusion accords with what is said in the book On the Teachings of the Church [Gennadius, De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus ] “Nor do we believe that there are two souls in one man, as James and other Syrians write: one being the animal soul by which the body is animated and which is mingled with the blood; the other, a spiritual soul, which provides the reason. On the contrary, we say that it is one and the same soul in man which both gives life to the body by its union with it, and orders itself by its own reason.”

Chapter

THAT MAN’S POSSIBLE INTELLECT IS NOT A SEPARATE SUBSTANCE

[1] There have been others who discovered an additional reason for holding that the intellectual soul cannot be united to the body as its form. For they say that the intellect, which Aristotle calls possible, is a separate substance not united to us as a form. [2] First, they endeavor to prove this from the words of Aristotle, who says that this intellect is “separate, not mixed with the body, simple, impassible”—things that could not be said of the intellect if it were the body’s form. [3] Also, they try to prove this from the demonstration by which Aristotle shows that, since the possible intellect receives all the species of sensible things through being in potentiality to them, it must be devoid of them all. Likewise, the pupil, which receives all the species of colors, lacks all color. For, if of itself it had any color, the latter would prevent it from seeing other colors; indeed, it would see nothing except under that color. And the same would be true of the possible intellect, if by itself it possessed any form or nature of sensible things. But this would necessarily be the case if the possible intellect were combined with the body, or if it were a form of some body. For, since one thing is made from form and matter, the form must share something of the nature of which it is the form. Therefore, the possible intellect cannot be combined with the body, or be the act or form of a body. [4] If, moreover, the possible intellect were the form of a material body, its receptivity would be of the same kind as that of prime matter. For that which is the form of a body receives nothing without its matter. Now, prime matter receives individual forms, which in fact are individuated through being in matter. Hence, the possible intellect would receive forms as they are individual. And thus it would not be cognizant of universals; which is clearly false. [5] Then, too, prime matter is not cognizant of the forms which it receives. If, then, the receptivity of the possible intellect were the same as that of prime matter, the possible intellect would not be cognizant of the forms received. And this is false. [6] Again, as Aristotle proves in Physics VIII [10] an infinite power cannot possibly exist in a body. But the possible intellect is endowed with a certain infinite power, since by it we judge of things infinite in number, inasmuch as by it we know universals, under which potentially infinite particulars are contained. Therefore, the possible intellect is not a power in a body. [7] Now, for these reasons Averroes was moved, and, as he himself says, some of the ancients, to hold that the possible intellect, by which the soul understands, has a separate existence from the body, and is not the form of the body. [8] However, since such an intellect would in no way belong to us, nor would we understand by it, unless it were united to us in some manner, Averroes determines how it is brought into contact with us, saying that the species understood in act is the form of the possible intellect, just as the visible in act is the form of the power of sight. Thus there arises one thing from the possible intellect and the form understood in act. The possible intellect, then, is united to anyone to whom that form is united. Now, it is united to us by means of the phantasm, which is a kind of subject of that understood form; and in this way the possible intellect also is brought into connection with us. [9] But it is easy to see that these notions are worthless and impossible. For the one who understands is the one who has intellect. Now, the thing understood is the thing whose intelligible species is unite& to the intellect. Hence, simply because the intelligible species united to the intellect is present in a man in some way, it does not follow that it is the man who understands, but only that he is understood by [Averroes’] separate intellect. [10] Moreover, the actually understood species is the form of the intellect, just as the actually visible species is the form of the power of sight, or of the eye itself. Now, the species understood is compared to the phantasm as the actually visible species to the colored thing outside the mind; indeed, Averroes himself uses this comparison, as does Aristotle. Through the intelligible form, therefore, the possible intellect is in touch with the phantasm in us, even as the power of sight is in touch with the color present in the stone. But this contact does not make the stone to see, but only to be seen. So, too, the aforesaid contact of the possible intellect with us does not make us to understand, but only to be understood. Now, of course, it is properly and truly said that man understands, for we would not inquire into the nature of the intellect were it not for the fact that we understand ourselves. Therefore, the manner of contact in question is not sufficient. [11] Furthermore, every knower by its cognitive power is united to its object, and not vice versa, just as every operator by its operative power is united to the thing operated. But man is intelligent by his intellect as by his cognitive power. Hence, he is not united to the intellect by the intelligible form; on the contrary, it is by the intellect that he is united to the intelligible. [12] Then, too, that by which a thing operates must be its form. For nothing acts except so far as it is in act; and nothing is in act except by its form. And that is why Aristotle proves that the soul is a form, from the fact that an animal lives and senses through its soul. Now, man understands, and this by his intellect alone; and therefore Aristotle, when inquiring into the principle by which we understand, explains to us the nature of the possible intellect. Consequently, the possible intellect must be united to us formally, and not merely by its object. [13] Again. “The intellect in act and the intelligible in act are one... just as the sense in act and the sensible in act.” But the intellect in potentiality and the intelligible in potentiality are not one, any more than the sense in potentiality and the sensible in potentiality. Hence, the species of a thing, as present in phantasms, is not actually intelligible, since in this state it is not one with the intellect in act, but is one with it according as the species is abstracted from the phantasms. just so, the species of color is not actually perceived as it exists in the stone, but only as it exists in the pupil. Now, according to the [Averroistic] doctrine stated above, the intelligible species is in contact with us only in respect of its existence in the phantasms; it is not, then, in contact with us according as it is one with the possible intellect as its form. Therefore, the intelligible species cannot be the means of bringing the possible intellect into contact with us; because, according as it is in contact with the possible intellect, it is not in contact with us, or vice versa. [14] Now, he who invented this doctrine was evidently deceived by an equivocation. For colors existing outside the soul are in the presence of light actually visible, as having the power to move the sight; but are not actually visible in the sense of being actually perceived as the result of becoming one with the sense power in act. And similarly, phantasms are made actually intelligible by the light of the agent intellect, so that they are able to move the possible intellect; but not so as to be actually understood, through union with the possible intellect actualized. [15] Likewise, where the living thing has a higher operation, there is a higher kind of life corresponding to that operation. For in plants the only action we find is that which has to do with nutrition. But in animals we find a higher action, namely, sensation and locomotion; and that is why the animal lives by a higher kind of life. Now, in man we find a still higher vital operation than in the animal, namely, understanding. Therefore, man will have a higher kind of life. Now, life is through the soul. Therefore, the soul by which man lives will be of a higher sort than the sensible soul. But none is higher than the intellect. Therefore, the intellect is man’s soul, and, consequently, his form. [16] And again. That which follows upon the operation of a thing does not give a thing its species, because operation is second act, whereas the form to which a thing owes its species is first act. But, according to the doctrine under consideration, the union of the possible intellect with man is the result of an operation of man, for it takes place by means of the imagination which, according to Aristotle, is “a movement resulting from the exercise of a sense power.” Therefore, man does not derive his species from that union. So it is not because of having an intellect that man differs specifically from brute animals. [17] Furthermore, if man derives his species in virtue of his being rational and having an intellect, then whoever belongs to the human species is rational and endowed with an intellect. But a child, even before leaving the womb, is specifically human, although there are as yet no actually intelligible phantasms present in it. Therefore, a man has not an intellect as the result of its being united to him by means of an intelligible species whose subject is a phantasm.

Chapter

THAT MAN DERIVES HIS SPECIFIC NATURE, NOT FROM THE PASSIVE, BUT FROM THE POSSIBLE, INTELLECT [1] These arguments are countered by others in keeping with the doctrine considered above. For Averroes says that man differs specifically from the brutes by the intellect which Aristotle calls passive and which is the same as the cogitative power that is proper to man, in place of which the other animals have a certain natural estimative power. Now, it is the function of this cogitative power to distinguish individual intentions and to compare them with one another, even as the intellect which is separate and unmixed compares and distinguishes universal intentions. And by this cogitative power, together with the imagination and memory, the phantasms are prepared to receive the action of the agent intellect, whereby they are made intelligible in act, just as there are certain arts which prepare the matter for the master artificer. Accordingly, this power is given the name of intellect or reason, which physicians declare to be seated in the middle cell of the head. And according to the disposition of this power, one man differs from another in genius and in other qualities pertaining to understanding. And by the use and exercise of this power a man acquires the habit [habituss] of science. Hence, the habits of the sciences are in this passive intellect as their subject. Moreover, this passive intellect is in the child from the beginning, and through it the child receives its specific nature as a human being, before it actually understands. [2] But it is quite obvious that these notions are false and involve an abuse of terms. For the vital operations are compared to the soul as second acts to the first act, as Aristotle makes clear in De anima II [1]. Now, in the same thing first act precedes the second in time, just as knowledge precedes reflection, Consequently, in whatever thing we find a vital operation we must place a part of the soul which will be related to that operation as first act to second act. But man has a proper operation higher than the other animals, namely, understanding and reasoning, which is the operation of man as man, as Aristotle says in Ethics I [7]. Hence, we must attribute to man a principle that properly gives him his specific nature and is related to the act of understanding as first act to second act. Now, this principle cannot be the aforesaid passive intellect, because the principle of man’s proper operation must be impassible and not mixed with the body, as Aristotle proves [ De anima III, 4]; whereas, the contrary is clearly true of the passive intellect. Therefore, it is impossible that man’s specific nature, whereby he is distinguished from the other animals, should be given him by the cogitative power, which is called the passive intellect. [3] Furthermore, an affection of the sensitive part of a thing cannot place it in a higher kind of life than the sensitive, just as an affection of the nutritive soul does not place it in a higher kind of life than the nutritive. Now, it is clear that the imagination, and like powers consequent upon it, such as the memory and so on, are affections of the sensitive part, as Aristotle proves in the De memoria [I]. Hence, an animal cannot be placed by these powers or by any one of them in a higher category of life than the sensitive. But man’s life is of a higher kind—a point clearly explained in De anima II [2], where Aristotle, in distinguishing the kinds of life, places the intellective, which he attributes to man, above the sensitive, which he ascribes to all animals in general. Therefore, it is not by virtue of the aforesaid cogitative power that man is a living being with a life proper to himself. [4] Then, too, every self-mover is composed of mover and moved, as Aristotle proves in Physics VIII [5]. Now, man, in common with the other animals, is a self-mover. Therefore, mover and moved are parts of him. And the first mover in man is the intellect, since the intellect by its intelligible object moves the will. Nor can it be said that the passive intellect alone is the mover, because the passive intellect has to do with particulars only, whereas, actual movement involves both the universal judgment, which belongs to the possible intellect, and the particular judgment, which can belong to the passive intellect, as Aristotle explains in De anima III [11], and in Ethics VII [3]. Therefore, the possible intellect is a part of man. And it is the most noble and most formal thing in him. Hence, man derives his specific nature from it, and not from the passive intellect. [5] The possible intellect, moreover, is demonstrably not the act of any body, because it is cognizant of all sensible forms universally. Therefore, no power whose operation can extend to the universals of all sensible forms can be the act of a body. Now, such a power is the will, for our will can reach out to all the things that we can understand, at least our will to know them. And the act of the will is clearly directed to the universal; as Aristotle says in the Rhetoric [II, 4], “we hate robbers in general, but are angry only with individual ones.” Therefore, the will cannot be the act of any part of the body, nor can it follow upon a power that is an act of the body. Now, every part of the soul is an act of the body, with the single exception of the intellect properly so called. Therefore, the will is in the intellective part; and that is why Aristotle says in De anima in: “Will is in the reason, but the irascible and concupiscible appetite are in the sensitive part.” So it is that acts of concupiscence and irascibility involve passion, but not the act of the will, which involves choice. Now, man’s will is not outside him, as though it resided in some separate substance, but is within him. Otherwise, man would not be master of his own actions, since he would then be acted upon by the will of a separate substance, and in him there would be only the appetitive powers functioning in association with passion, namely, the irascible and concupiscible powers, which are in the sensitive part, as in other animals that are acted upon rather than act themselves. But this is impossible and would destroy all moral philosophy and sociality. It follows that there must exist in us the possible intellect, so that by it we differ from brute animals, and not only in terms of the passive intellect. [6] Likewise, just as nothing is able to act except through an active potentiality in it, so nothing can be passive save through an inherent passive potentiality; the combustible is able to be burned not only because there is a thing capable of burning it, but also because it has in itself a potentiality to be burned. Now, understanding is a kind of undergoing, as is stated in De anima III [4]. Therefore, since the child is potentially understanding, even though he is not actually understanding, there must be in him a potentiality whereby he is able to understand. And this potentiality is the possible intellect. Hence, there must already be a union of the possible intellect to the child before he understands actually. Therefore, it is not through the actually understood form that the possible intellect is brought into connection with man; rather, the possible intellect itself is in man from the beginning as part of himself. [7] Averroes, however, has an answer to this argument. For he avers that a child is said to be understanding potentially for two reasons: first, because the phantasms in him are potentially intelligible; second, because the possible intellect is able to come in contact with him, and not because the intellect is already united to him. [8] Now we have to show that neither of these reasons suffices. Thus, the potentiality that enables the agent to act is distinct from the potentiality that enables the patient to receive action; and they differ as opposites. So, just because a thing is able to act, it does not follow that it is capable of receiving action. But ability to understand is ability to be passive; for as Aristotle remarks, “understanding is a kind of undergoing.” The child, therefore, is not said to be able to understand simply because the phantasms in him can be actually understood; this has to do with the ability to act, since the phantasms move the possible intellect. [9] Moreover, a potentiality derivative from the specific nature of a thing does not belong to it as a result of that which does not confer upon the thing its specific nature. Now, ability to understand is a consequence of the specific nature of man, for understanding is an operation of man as man. But phantasms do not give man his specific nature; rather, they are consequent upon his operation. Therefore, it cannot be said that the child is potentially understanding because of the phantasms. [10] And it is likewise impossible to say that a child is potentially understanding because the possible intellect can be in touch with him. For a person is said to be able to act or to be passive by active or passive potentiality, just as he is said to be white by whiteness. But he is not said to be white before whiteness is united to him. Therefore, neither is a person said to be able to act or to be passive before active or passive potentiality is present in him. Consequently, it cannot be said that a child is able to understand before the possible intellect, which is the power of understanding, is in contact with him. [11] Furthermore, a person is said in one way to be able to act before having the nature by which he acts, and in another way after he already has that nature, but is accidentally prevented from acting; thus, a body is in one sense said to be capable of being lifted upwards before it is light, and in another, after it is made light but is impeded in its movement. Now, a child is potentially understanding, not as though he has not yet the nature enabling him to understand, but as having an obstacle to understanding, since he is prevented from understanding “because of the multiform movements in him,” as is said in Physics VII [3]. Hence, he is not said to have the power of understanding because the possible intellect, which is the principle of understanding, can be joined to him, but because it is already in contact with him and is prevented from exercising its proper action; so that, upon the removal of the obstacle, he immediately understands. [12] Likewise, “a habit is that by which one acts when he wills.” Therefore, a habit and the operation in keeping with it must exist in the same subject. Intellectual consideration, which is the act of the habit of science, cannot, however, be the function of the passive intellect, but belongs to the possible intellect itself; for a power must not be the act of a body if it is to be capable of understanding. Thus, the habit of science is not in the passive but in the possible intellect. Now, science is in us, and it is in accordance with this science that we are said to know scientifically. Therefore, the possible intellect also is in us, and has no being apart from us. [13] Scientific knowledge, moreover, consists in the assimilation of the knower to the thing known. Now, the knower is assimilated to the thing known, as such, only with respect to universal species; for such are the objects of science. Now, universal species cannot be in the passive intellect, since it is a power using an organ, but only in the possible intellect. Therefore, scientific knowledge cannot reside in the passive intellect, but only in the possible intellect. [14] Also, the intellect in the state of habit is, as the opponent admits, the effect of the agent intellect. But it is the agent intellect which causes things to be actually intelligible, and the proper recipient of these things is the possible intellect, to which the agent intellect is compared as “art to its material,” in Aristotle’s phrase. Therefore, the intellect in habit, which is the habit of science, must have its locus in the possible, and not in the passive intellect. [15] Then, too, the perfection of a higher substance cannot possibly depend upon a lower substance. Now, the perfection of the possible intellect depends on the operation of man, for it depends on the phantasms, which move the possible intellect. Therefore, the possible intellect is not a higher substance than man. Consequently, it must be part of man as his act and form. [16] Again, things separate in being also have separate operations, because things are for the sake of their operations, as first act for the sake of second act; that is why Aristotle says that, if any operation of the soul does not involve the body, then “it is possible for the soul to have a separate existence.” But the operation of the possible intellect requires the body, for Aristotle says in De anima III [4] that the intellect can act by itself, namely, it can understand, when it has been actuated by a species abstracted from phantasms-wbich have no existence apart from the body. Therefore, the possible intellect is not altogether separate from the body. [17] And again, every thing naturally endowed with a certain operation has by nature those attributes without which that operation cannot be carried out. Thus, Aristotle proves in De caelo II [8] that if the movement of the stars were progressive, like that of animals, nature would have given them organs of progressive movement. But the operation of the possible intellect is accomplished by bodily organs, in which there must be phantasms. Therefore, nature has united the possible intellect to bodily organs. Consequently, it has no being separate from the body. [18] Furthermore, if the possible intellect had being separate from the body, it would know substances that are separate from matter, rather than sensible forms, because such substances are more intelligible and more conformed to the intellect. But it cannot know substances that are altogether separate from matter, because there are not phantasms of them; and this intellect “in no case understands without a phantasm,” as Aristotle says in De anima III [7], because the phantasms are to it “as sensible objects to the senses,” without which objects the sense power is inoperative. Therefore, the possible intellect is not a substance separate from the body in being. [19] In every genus, moreover, the passive potentiality is equal in its scope to that of the correlative active potentiality, and so there does not exist in nature a passive potentiality without a corresponding natural active potentiality. But the agent intellect makes only the phantasms to be intelligible. Therefore, the possible intellect is moved by no other intelligible objects than the species abstracted from the phantasms. And thus, it is unable to understand separate substances. [20] Then, too, the species of sensible things exist in separate substances in an intelligible mode, and it is through those species that such substances have knowledge of sensible things. If, then, the possible intellect understands separate substances, it would in knowing them receive knowledge of sensible things. It would not, therefore, receive this knowledge from phantasms, for nature does not abound in superfluities. [21] Yet, if it be said that separate substances have no knowledge of sensible things, at least it will have to said that they enjoy a higher kind of knowledge: a knowledge which the possible intellect must not lack if it understands those substances. Accordingly, the possible intellect will have a twofold science: one, in the manner of separate substances; the other, received from the senses. And one of these would be superfluous. [22] The possible intellect, furthermore, is that “by which the soul understands,” as is said in De anima III [4]. Therefore, if the possible intellect understands separate substances, then we also understand them. And this is clearly false, because in relation to them we are “as the eye of the owl to the sun,” as Aristotle remarks [ Metaph. II, 1]. [23] Now, these arguments are answered as follows, along the lines of the doctrine we have been dealing with. The possible intellect, as the result of being self-subsistent, knows separate substances, and is in potentiality to them as a transparent body to the light. But, so far as the possible intellect is in contact with us, it is from the beginning in potentiality to forms abstracted from phantasms. That is why we do not from the beginning know separate substances by its means. [24] This answer, however, cannot stand. For the possible intellect, according to them, is said to be in contact with us as a result of being perfected by intelligible species abstracted from phantasms. Prior to its contact with us, therefore, the intellect is to be thought of as being in potentiality to these species; so that it is not in potentiality to them by its being in contact with us. [25] Moreover, according to this view the possible intellect would owe not to itself, but to something else, the fact of its being in potentiality to the intelligible species in question. But a thing ought not to be defined in terms of things not belonging to it in itself. Therefore, the definition of the possible intellect is not derived from its being in potentiality to those species, as Aristotle defines it in De anima III [4]. [26] Again, the possible intellect cannot understand several things at the same time unless it understands one through another, for a single power is not perfected by several acts at the same time except in keeping with a certain order. Consequently, if the possible intellect understands separate substances, and species abstracted from phantasms, it must either understand the substances through the species or the species through the substances. Now, in either case it follows that we do not understand separate substances. For, if we understand the natures of sensible things so far as the possible intellect understands them, and the possible intellect knows them through understanding separate substances, then we will understand them in the same way. And this also follows if the converse is true. But this is manifestly false. It remains that the possible intellect does not understand separate substances, and, therefore, it is not a separate substance.

Chapter

THAT THIS THEORY IS CONTRARY TO THE TEACHING OF ARISTOTLE

[1] Averroes, however, attempts to strengthen his position by appealing to authority, saying, therefore, that Aristotle was of the same opinion. We shall, then, show clearly that Averroes’ doctrine is contrary to that of Aristotle. [2] First, because Aristotle in De anima II [1] defines the soul as “the first act of an organic physical body having life potentially”; and he adds that this definition “applies universally to every kind of soul”; nor, as Averroes imagines, does Aristotle express any doubt concerning this definition. The Greek texts, as well as Boethius’ translation, give clear proof of this. [3] And afterwards in the same chapter, Aristotle remarks that “certain parts of the soul are separable.” But these are no other than intellective parts. Hence, it remains that these parts are acts of the body. [4] Nor is this point contradicted by what Aristotle says later on, namely: “Nothing is clear as yet about the intellect and the power of insight, but it seems to be another kind of soul” [II, 1] For Aristotle does not mean by this to exclude the intellect from the common definition of soul, but from the nature proper to the other parts of the soul; thus, he who says that “the flying animal is of another kind than the walking” does not exclude the former from the common definition of animal. So, in order to explain what he meant by saying another, Aristotle immediately adds: “And this alone is capable of separate existence, as the everlasting apart from the perishable.” Nor is it Aristotle’s intention, as Averroes imagines, to say that, in contrast with the clear knowledge which we have concerning the other parts of the soul, it is not yet clear whether the intellect is the soul. The genuine text does not read, nothing has been declared, or nothing has been said, but nothing is clear; and this must be taken to refer to that which is proper to the intellective soul, and not to the common definition. But if, as Averroes says, soul is predicated equivocally of the intellect and of other souls, then Aristotle would first have pointed out the equivocation, and given the definition afterwards, in keeping with his usual procedure. Otherwise, his argument would have been based on an equivocation, and in demonstrative science there is no room for that sort of thing. [5] Moreover, Aristotle in De anima II [3] reckons the intellect among the powers of the soul; and in the text previously quoted” he calls it the power of insight. Therefore, the intellect is not outside the human soul, but is one of its powers. [6] And when in that same work Aristotle begins his discussion of the possible intellect by speaking of it as “the part of the soul with which the soul has knowledge and wisdom” [III, 4], he thus plainly indicates that the possible intellect is a part of the soul. [7] Aristotle indeed makes this point still more explicit when he explains later on what the nature of the possible intellect is: “By the intellect,” he says, “I mean that by which the soul judges and understands” [III, 4]. This makes it perfectly clear that the intellect is that part of the human soul by which it understands. [8] The Averroistic position in question is, then, contrary to the opinion of Aristotle and to the truth, and is to be rejected therefore as sheer fiction.

Chapter

AGAINST ALEXANDER’S OPINION CONCERNING THE POSSIBLE INTELLECT

[1] Having considered these sayings of Aristotle, Alexander asserted that the possible intellect is a power in us, so that the common definition of soul given by Aristotle in De anima might apply to that intellect. But because he was unable to understand how an intellectual substance could be the form of a body, be held that the power of which we speak does not have its foundation in an intellectual substance, but that it is consequent upon a blending of elements in the human body. For the particular kind of blending found in the human body makes man to be in potentiality to receive the influx of the agent intellect, which is always in act, and according to him is a separate substance, the effect of that influx being that man is made to understand actually. Now, that which enables man to understand is the possible intellect. And thus, it seemed to follow that the possible intellect is in us the result of a particular blending. [2] But this position seems at first glance to be contrary to both the words and the proof of Aristotle. For, as we have already pointed out, Aristotle proves in De anima in that the possible intellect is “free from all admixture with, the body” [III, 4]. And this could not possibly be said of a power resulting from a blending of elements, since such a power must be rooted in that very blending of elements, as we see in the case of taste, smell, and the like. Seemingly, then, this notion of Alexander’s is incompatible with the words and the proof of Aristotle. [3] To this, however, Alexander replies that the possible intellect is the very preparedness in human nature to receive the influx of the agent intellect. And preparedness is not itself a particular sensible nature, nor is it intermixed with the body, rather, preparedness is a certain relation, and the order of one thing to another. [4] But this notion also clearly clashes with Aristotle’s meaning. For Aristotle proves that the reason why the possible intellect does not itself have the nature of any particular sensible thing, and consequently is free from any admixture with the body, is because it is receptive of all the forms of sensible things, and cognizant of them. Now, preparedness cannot be thought of in such terms, for it does not mean to receive, but to be prepared to receive. So it is that Aristotle’s demonstration proceeds not from preparedness, but from a prepared recipient. [5] Moreover, if what Aristotle says about the possible intellect applies to it as a preparedness, and not by reason of the nature of the subject prepared, it will follow that it applies to every preparedness. Now, in the senses there is a certain preparedness to receive sensibles in act. And so, the same thing must be said of the senses as of the possible intellect. But Aristotle clearly says the contrary in explaining the difference between the receptivity of the senses and of the intellect, from the fact that the sense is corrupted by objects exceedingly high or intense, but not the intellect. [6] Likewise, Aristotle says that the possible intellect is passive to the intelligible, receives intelligible species, is in potentiality to them. He even compares it to “a tablet on which nothing is written.” Now, none of these things can be said of preparedness, but they all apply to the subject prepared. The notion that the possible intellect is a mere preparedness is, therefore, contrary to Aristotle’s meaning. [7] “The agent is superior to the patient, and the maker to the thing made,” as act to potentiality. Now, the more immaterial a thing is, the higher its level of being. Therefore, the effect cannot be more immaterial than its cause. But every cognitive power, as such, is immaterial. Thus, Aristotle says that the power of sense, which occupies the lowest place in the order of cognitive powers, is “receptive of sensible species without matter.” It is therefore impossible for a cognitive power to be caused by a commingling of elements. Now, the possible intellect is the highest cognitive power in us; for Aristotle says that the possible intellect is “that by which the soul knows and understands.”“ Therefore, the possible intellect is not caused by a mixture of elements. [8] If the principle of an operation proceeds from certain causes, that operation must not go beyond those causes, for the second cause acts by virtue of the first. But even the operation of the nutritive soul exceeds the power of the elemental qualities; for, in De anima II [4], Aristotle proves that “fire is not the cause of growth, but in a sense its concurrent cause, the principal cause of growth being the soul,” to which heat is compared as the instrument to the craftsman. It follows that the vegetative soul cannot be produced by an intermingling of the elements, and much less, therefore, the sense and possible intellect. [9] Understanding is an operation in which no bodily organ can possibly take part. Now, this operation is attributed to the soul, or even to the man, for it is said that the soul understands, or man, by the soul. Hence, there must be in man a principle, independent of the body, which is the source of that operation. However, the preparedness that results from a blending of the elements clearly depends on the body; and, consequently, it is not this principle. But the possible intellect is for Aristotle says in De anima in that this intellect is “that by which the soul knows and understands.” Therefore, the possible intellect is not a preparedness. [10] Now, seemingly it is not enough to say that the principle of the operation of understanding in us is the intelligible species brought into act by the agent intellect. For man comes to understand actually after understanding potentially. So, it follows that he understands not only by the intelligible species, whereby he is made to understand actually, but also by an intellective power, which is the principle of this operation of understanding; and such is the case also with the senses. Now, Aristotle holds that this power is the possible intellect. Therefore, the possible intellect is independent of the body. [11] Moreover, a species is intelligible in act only so far as it is freed from its presence in matter. But this cannot be done so long as it remains in a material power, namely, a power which is caused by material principles, or is the act of a material organ. The presence in us of an intellective power that is immaterial must, therefore, be granted. And this power is the possible intellect. [12] Also, Aristotle speaks of the possible intellect as being part of the soul. Now, the soul is not a preparedness, but an act, since preparedness is the order of potentiality to act. And yet an act is followed by a preparedness for a further act; the act of transparency is followed by an order to the act of light. Therefore, the possible intellect is not a preparedness itself, but is a certain act. [13] Man owes his specific essence and his human nature to that part of the soul which is proper to him, namely, the possible intellect. Now, nothing receives its species and its nature so far as it is in potentiality, but so far as it is in act. And since preparedness simply consists in an order of potentiality to act, the possible intellect cannot be merely a preparedness existing in human nature.

Chapter

THAT THE SOUL IS NOT A TEMPERAMENT, AS GALEN MAINTAINED

[1] The opinion of the physician Galen about the soul is similar to the previously discussed notion, of Alexander concerning the possible intellect. For Galen says that the soul is a temperament. Now, he was moved to say this because of our observation that diverse passions, ascribed to the soul, result from various temperaments in us: those possessed of a choleric temperament are easily angered; melancholics easily grow sad. And so we see that the same arguments which we used a moment ago against Alexander’s theory can serve to disprove this notion of Galen’s, as well as some arguments specifically relevant to that notion. [2] For it was shown above that the operation of the vegetative soul, sensitive knowledge, and, much more, the operation of the intellect transcend the power of the active and passive qualities. But temperament is caused by active and passive qualities. Therefore, it cannot be a principle of the soul’s operations. It is, then, impossible for a soul to be a temperament. [3] Moreover, temperament is something constituted by contrary qualities, as a kind of mean between them, and therefore it cannot possibly be a substantial form, since “substance has no contrary, and does not admit of variation of degree.” But the soul is a substantial, not an accidental, form; otherwise, a thing would not obtain genus or species through the soul. It follows that the soul is not a temperament. [4] Again, temperament is not responsible for the local movement of an animal’s body; if it were, then that body would follow the movement of the preponderant element, and thus would always be moved downwards. But the soul moves the body in all directions; therefore, it is not the temperament. [5] Then, too, the soul rules the body and resists the passions, which follow the temperament. For by temperament some are more prone than others to concupiscence or anger, yet refrain more from these things because something keeps them in check, as we see in continent persons. Now, it is not the temperament that does this. Therefore, the soul is not the temperament. [6] It would seem that Galen was misled through not having considered that passions are attributed to the temperament in quite a different manner than to the soul. For passions are ascribed to the temperament as a dispositive cause in their regard, and as concerns that which is material in them, such as the heat of the blood and the like. On the other hand, passions are ascribed to the soul as their principal cause, and as regards that which is formal in them; for instance, the desire of vengeance in the passion of anger.

Chapter

THAT THE SOUL IS NOT A HARMONY

[1] Along the lines of the foregoing theory is the view of those who say that the soul is a harmony. For these persons thought of the soul not as a harmony of sounds, but of the contraries of which they observed animate bodies to be composed. In the De anima [I, 4] this notion seems to be attributed to Empedocles, although Gregory of Nyssa ascribes it to Dinarchus. And it is disproved in the same way as Galen’s theory, as well as by arguments that apply properly to itself. [2] For every mixed body has harmony and temperament. Nor can harmony move a body or rule it or curb the passions, any more than can temperament. Moreover, harmony is subject to intensification and remission; and so, too, is temperament. All these things show that the soul is not a harmony, even as it is not a temperament. [3] Furthermore, the nature of harmony pertains to the qualities of the body rather than to those of the soul; thus, health consists in a kind of harmony of the humours; strength, in a certain harmony of sinews and bones; beauty, in harmony of limbs and colors. But it is impossible to assign the things of which sense or intellect or the other powers of the soul are the harmony. Therefore, the soul is not a harmony. [4] Again, harmony has two senses; for it can be taken to signify the composition itself, or the mode of composition. Now, the soul is not a composition, since each part of the soul would have to consist in the composition of some of the parts of the body; and such an allotting of psychic part to corporeal part is impossible. Nor is the soul a mode of composition; for, since in the various parts of the body there are various modes or proportions of composition, each part of the body would have a distinct soul: since bone, flesh, and sinew are in each case composed according to a different proportion, each would possess a different soul. Now, this is patently false. Therefore, the soul is not a harmony.

Chapter

THAT THE SOUL IS NOT A BODY

[1] There were also others whose thinking was even wider of the mark, since they asserted that the soul is a body. Although they held divergent and various opinions, it suffices to refute them here collectively. [2] For, since living things are physical realities, they are composed of matter and form. Now, they are composed of a body and a soul, which makes them actually living. Therefore, one of these two must be the form and the other matter. But the body cannot be the form, because the body is not present in another thing as its matter and subject. The soul, then, is the form, and consequently is not a body, since no body is a form. [3] It is, moreover, impossible for two bodies to coincide. But, so long as the body lives, the soul is not apart from it. Therefore, the soul is not a body. [4] Then, too, every body is divisible Now, whatever is divisible requires something to keep together and unite its parts, so that, if the soul is a body, it will have something else to preserve its integrity, and this yet more will be the soul; for we observe that, when the soul departs, the body disintegrates. And if this integrating principle again be divisible, we must at last either arrive at something indivisible and incorruptible, which will be the soul, or go on to infinity; which is impossible. Therefore, the soul is not a body. [5] Again. It has been proved in Book I of this work, and in Physics VIII [5], that every self-mover is composed of two parts: one, the part that moves and is not moved; the other, the part that is moved. Now, the animal is a self-mover, and the mover in it is the soul, and the body is the moved. Therefore, the soul is an unmoved mover. But no body moves without being moved, as was shown in that same Book. Therefore, the soul is not a body. [6] Furthermore, we have already shown that understanding cannot be the act of a body. But it is the act of a soul. Consequently, at least the intellective soul is not a body. [7] Now the arguments by which some have tried to prove that the soul is a body are easily solved. They argue as follows: that the son is like the father even in accidents of the soul, despite the fact that the begetting of the one by the other involves the parting of body from body; that the soul suffers with the body; that the soul is separate from the body, and separation is between mutually contacting bodies. [8] But against this argumentation it has already been pointed out that the bodily temperament has a certain dispositive causality with respect to the passions of the soul. Moreover, it is only accidentally that the soul suffers with the body; for, since the soul is the form of the body, it is moved accidentally by the body’s being moved. Also, the soul is separate from the body, not as a thing touching from a thing touched, but as form from matter, although, as we have shown, that which is incorporeal does have a certain contact with the body. [9] Indeed, what motivated many to adopt this position was their belief that there is nothing that is not a body, for they were unable to rise above the imagination, which is exclusively concerned with bodies. That is why this view is proposed in the person of the foolish, who say of the soul: “The breath in our nostrils is smoke, and speech a spark to move our heart” (Wis. 2:2).

Chapter

AGAINST THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THAT INTELLECT AND SENSE ARE THE SAME

[1] Thinking that there was no difference between intellect and sense, some of the early philosophers” were close to the persons referred to above. But that notion of theirs is impossible. [2] For sense is found in all animals, whereas animals other than man have no intellect. This is evident from the fact that the latter perform diverse and opposite actions, not as though they possessed intellect, but as moved by nature, carrying out certain determinate operations of uniform character within the same species; every swallow builds its nest in the same way. Therefore, intellect is not the same as sense. [3] Moreover, sense is cognizant only of singulars; for every sense power knows through individual species, since it receives the species of things in bodily organs. But the intellect is cognizant of universals, as experience proves. Theref ore, intellect differs from sense. [4] Then, too, sense-cognition is limited to corporeal things. This is clear from the fact that sensible qualities, which are the proper objects of the senses, exist only in such things; and without them the senses know nothing. On the other hand, the intellect knows incorporeal things, such as wisdom, truth, and the relations of things. Therefore, intellect and sense are not the same. [5] Likewise, a sense knows neither itself nor its operation; for instance, sight neither sees itself nor sees that it sees. This self-reflexive power belongs to a higher faculty, as is proved in the De anima [III, 2]. But the intellect knows itself, and knows that it knows. Therefore, intellect and sense are not the same. [6] Sense, furthermore, is corrupted by excess in the sensible object. But intellect is not corrupted by the exceedingly high rank of an intelligible object; for, indeed, he who understands greater things is more able afterwards to understand lesser things. The sensitive power therefore differs from the intellective.

Chapter

AGAINST THOSE WHO HOLD THAT THE POSSIBLE INTELLECT IS THE IMAGINATION

[1] The opinion of those who asserted that the possible intellect is not distinct from the imagination was akin to the notion just discussed. And that opinion is evidently false. [2] For imagination is present in non-human animals as well as in man. This is indicated by the fact that in the absence of sensible things, such animals shun or seek them; which would not be the case unless they retained an imaginative apprehension of them. But non-human animals are devoid of intellect, since no work of intellect is evident in them. Therefore imagination and intellect are not the same. [3] Moreover, imagination has to do with bodily and singular things only; as is said in the De anima [3], imagination is a movement caused by actual sensation. The intellect, however, grasps objects universal and incorporeal. Therefore, the possible intellect is not the imagination. [4] Again, it is impossible for the same thing to be mover and moved. But the phantasms move the possible intellect as sensibles move the senses, as Aristotle says in De anima III [7]. Therefore, the possible intellect cannot be the same as the imagination. [5] And again. It is proved in De anima III [4] that the intellect is not the act of any part of the body. Now the imagination has a determinate bodily organ. Therefore, the imagination is not the same as the possible intellect. [6] So it is that we read in the Book of Job (35:11): “Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and instructs us more than the fowls of the air.” And by this we are given to understand that man is possessed of a power of knowledge superior to sense and imagination, which are shared by the other animals.

Chapter

HOW AN INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE CAN BE THE FORM OF THE BODY

[1] From the preceding arguments, then, we can conclude that an intellectual substance can be united to the body as its form. [2] For, if an intellectual substance is not united to the body merely as its mover, as Plato held that it is, nor is in contact with it merely by phantasms, as Averroes said, but as its form; and if the intellect whereby man understands is not a preparedness in human nature, as Alexander supposed it to be, nor the temperament, according to Galen, nor a harmony, as Empedocles imagined, nor a body, nor the senses or the imagination, as the early philosophers maintained, then it remains that the human soul is an intellectual substance united to the body as its form. This conclusion can be made evident as follows. [3] For one thing to be another’s substantial form, two requirements must be met. First, the form must be the principle of the substantial being of the thing whose form it is; I speak not of the productive but of the formal principle whereby a thing exists and is called a being. The second requirement then follows from this, namely, that the form and the matter be joined together in the unity of one act of being; which is not true of the union of the efficient cause with that to which it gives being. And this single act of being is that in which the composite substance subsists: a thing one in being and made up of matter and form. Now, as we have shown, the fact that an intellectual substance is subsistent does not stand in the way of its being the formal principle of the being of the matter, as communicating its own being to the matter. For it is not unfitting that the composite and its form should subsist in the same act of being, since the composite exists only by the form, and neither of them subsists apart from the other. [4] Nevertheless, it may be objected that an intellectual substance cannot communicate its being to corporeal matter in such fashion that the two will be united in the same act of being, because diverse genera have diverse modes of being, and to the nobler substance belongs a loftier being. [5] Now, this argument would be relevant if that single act of being belonged in the same way to the matter as to the intellectual substance. But it does not. For that act of being appertains to the corporeal matter as its recipient and its subject, raised to a higher level; it belongs to the intellectual substance as its principle, and in keeping with its very own nature. Nothing, therefore, prevents an intellectual substance from being the human body’s form, which is the human soul. [6] Thus are we able to contemplate the marvelous connection of things. For it is always found that the lowest in the higher genus touches the highest of the lower species. Some of the lowest members of the animal kingdom, for instance, enjoy a form of life scarcely superior to that of plants; oysters, which are motionless, have only the sense of touch and are fixed to the earth like plants. That is why Blessed Dionysius says in his work On the Divine Names that “divine wisdom has united the ends of higher things with the beginnings of the lower.” We have, therefore, to consider the existence of something supreme in the genus of bodies, namely, the human body harmoniously tempered, which is in contact with the lowest of the higher genus, namely, the human soul, which holds the lowest rank in the genus of intellectual substances, as can be seen from its mode of understanding; so that the intellectual soul is said to be on the horizon and confines of things corporeal and incorporeal, in that it is an incorporeal substance and yet the form of a body. Nor is a thing composed of an intellectual substance and corporeal matter less one than a thing made up of the form of fire and its matter, but perhaps it is more one; because the greater the mastery of form over matter, the greater is the unity of that which is made from it and matter. [7] But, though the form and the matter are united in the one act of being, the matter need not always be commensurate with the form. Indeed, the higher the form, the more it surpasses matter in its being. This fact is clearly apparent to one who observes the operations of forms, from the study of which we know their natures; for, as a thing is, so does it act. That is why a form whose operation transcends the condition of matter, itself also surpasses matter in the rank of its being. [8] For we find certain lowest-grade forms whose operations are limited to the class of those proper to the qualities which are dispositions of matter; qualities such as heat, cold, moisture and dryness, rarity and density, gravity and levity, etc. And those forms are the forms of the elements: forms which therefore are altogether material and wholly embedded in matter. [9] Above these are found the forms of mixed bodies. Although their operations are no greater in scope than those which can be effected through qualities of the aforesaid variety, nevertheless they sometimes produce those same effects by a higher power which they receive from the heavenly bodies, and which is consequent upon the latter’s species. A case in point is that of the lodestone attracting iron. [10] One rung higher on the ladder of forms, we encounter those whose operations include some which exceed the power of the previously mentioned material qualities, although the latter assist organically in the operations of those forms. Such forms are the souls of plants, which likewise resemble not only the powers of the heavenly bodies, in surpassing the active and passive qualities, but also the movers of those bodies, the souls of plants being principles of movement in living things, which move themselves. [11] A step above, we find other forms resembling the higher substances, not only in moving, but even, somehow, in knowing, so that they are capable of operations to which the aforesaid qualities are of no assistance, even organically, although these operations are performed only by means of a bodily organ. Such forms are the souls of brute animals. For sensation and imagination are not brought about by heating and cooling, although these are necessary for the due disposition of the organ involved. [12] Above all these forms, however, is a form like to the higher substances even in respect of the kind of knowledge proper to it, namely, understanding. This form, then, is capable of an operation which is accomplished without any bodily organ at all. And this form is the intellective soul; for understanding is not effected through any bodily organ. That is why this principle, the intellective soul by which man understands and which transcends the condition of corporeal matter, must not be wholly encompassed by or imbedded in matter, as material forms are. This is proved by its intellectual operation, wherein corporeal matter has no part. But since the human soul’s act of understanding needs powers-namely, imagination and sense-which function through bodily organs, this itself shows that the soul is naturally united to the body in order to complete the human species.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS ADVANCED ABOVE IN ORDER TO SHOW THAT AN INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE CANNOT BE UNITED TO THE BODY AS ITS FORM [1] With the preceding points in mind, it is not difficult to solve the arguments previously proposed against the union in question. [2] In the first argument a false supposition is made, because body and soul are not two actually existing substances; rather, the two of them together constitute one actually existing substance. For man’s body is not actually the same while the soul is present and when it is absent; but the soul makes it to be actually. [3] In the second argument the statement that form and matter are contained in the same genus is true, not in the sense that they are both species of the same genus, but in the sense that they are the principles of the same species. So, if the intellectual substance and the body existed apart from one another, they would be species of diverse genera; but by being united, they are of one and the same genus as principles of it. [4] Nor is the third argument valid. For from the fact that the intellectual substance is in matter it does not follow that it is a material form, because that soul is not present in matter in the sense of being embedded in it or wholly enveloped by it, but in another way, as we have pointed out. [5] As to the fourth argument, the fact that an intellectual substance is united to the body as its form does not prevent the intellect from being, as the philosophers say, separate from the body. For in the soul two things must be taken into consideration: its essence, and its power. Through its essence the soul gives being to such and such a body; by its power it performs its proper operations. Accordingly, if a psychic operation is carried out by means of a bodily organ, then the power of the soul which is the principle of that operation must be the act of that part of the body whereby such an operation is performed; thus, sight is the act of the eye. But, if the soul’s operation is not effected by means of a bodily organ, then its power will not be the act of a body. And this is what is meant by saying that the intellect is separate; nor does separateness in this sense prevent the substance of the soul of which the intellect is a power (namely, the intellective soul) from being the act of the body, as the form which gives being to such a body. [6] Concerning the fifth argument, let it be said that because the soul is in its substance the form of the body, it does not follow that every operation of the soul must be performed by means of the body, so that every power of the soul will be the act of a bodily thing. For we have already proved that the human soul is not a form wholly embedded in matter, but among all other forms occupies a most exalted place above matter. That is why it can produce an operation without the body, as being operationally independent of the body; since neither is it existentially dependent on the body. [7] As for the arguments whereby Averroes endeavors to establish his theory, they clearly fail to prove that an intellectual substance is not united to the body as its form. [8] For the terms which Aristotle applies to the possible intellect, namely, that it is impassible, unmixed, and separate, do not compel us to admit that an intellective substance is not united to the body as a form giving being. For these expressions are also true if we say that the intellective power, which Aristotle calls the power of insight, is not the act of an organ, as though it exercises its operation by it. This point, too, ‘is made clear in his own demonstration, since he proves that this power is pure of all admixture, or is separate, because of the intellectual character of its operation, whereby it understands all things, and because a power is the source of a thing’s operation. [9] Clearly, that is why Aristotle’s demonstration does not result in the proposition that the intellective substance is not united to the body as its form. For, if we maintain that the soul’s substance is thus united in being to the body, and that the intellect is not the act of any organ, it will not follow that the intellect has a particular nature—I refer to the natures of sensible things-since the soul is not held to be a harmony, nor the form of an organ. (As Aristotle in De anima II [12] says of the sense-power, it is a certain form of an organ.) None of these things is true of man’s soul, because the intellect has no operation in common with the body. [10] Now, by saying that the intellect is free from all admixture, or is separate, Aristotle does not mean to exclude its being a part or power of the soul which is the form of the whole body. This is clear from what he says toward the end of De anima I [5] in opposing those who maintained that the soul has diverse parts of itself in diverse parts of the body: “If the whole soul holds together the whole body, it is fitting that each part of the soul should hold together a part of the body. But this seems an impossibility. For it is difficult to imagine what bodily part the intellect will hold together, or how it will do this.” [11] Moreover, from the fact that the intellect is not the act of any part of the body, it clearly does not follow that its receptiveness is that of prime matter, for intellectual receptiveness and operation are altogether without a corporeal organ. [12] Nor, again, does union with the body rob the intellect of its infinite power, since that power is not placed in a magnitude, but is rooted in the intellectual substance, as was said.

Chapter

THAT ACCORDING TO THE WORDS OF ARISTOTLE THE INTELLECT MUST BE SAID TO BE UNITED TO THE BODY AS ITS FORM [1] Now, since Averroes seeks to confirm his doctrine especially by appealing to the words and proof of Aristotle, it remains for us to show that in the Philosopher’s judgment we must say that the intellect, as to its substance, is united to the body as its form. [2] For Aristotle proves in the Physics [VIII, 5] that in movers and things moved it is impossible to proceed to infinity. Hence, he concludes to the necessity of a first moved thing, which either is moved by an immobile mover or moves itself. And of these two he takes the second, namely, that the first movable being moves itself; for what is through itself is always prior to that which is through another. Then he shows that a self-mover necessarily is divided into two parts, part moving and part moved; whence it follows that the first self-mover must consist of two parts, the one moving, the other moved. Now, every thing of this kind is animate. The first movable being, namely, the heaven, is therefore animate in Aristotle’s opinion. So it is expressly stated in De caelo [II, 2] that the heaven is animate, and on this account we must attribute to its differences of position not only in relation to us, but also in relation to itself. Let us, then, ask with what kind of soul Aristotle thinks the heaven to be animated. [3] In Metaphysics XI [7], Aristotle proves that in the heaven’s movement two factors are to be considered: something that moves and is wholly unmoved, and something that moves and is also moved. Now, that which moves without being moved moves as an object of desire; nor is there any doubt that it moves as a thing desirable by that which is moved. And he shows that it moves not as an object of concupiscent desire, which is a sense desire, but of intellectual desire; and he therefore says that the first unmoved mover is an object of desire and understanding. Accordingly, that which is moved by this mover, namely, the heaven, desires and understands in a nobler fashion than we, as he subsequently proves. In Aristotle’s view, then, the heaven is composed of an intellectual soul and a body. He indicates this when he says in De anima II [3] that “in certain things there is intellect and the power of understanding, for example, in men, and in other things Eke man or superior to him,” namely, the heaven. [4] Now the heaven certainly does not possess a sensitive soul, according to the opinion of Aristotle; otherwise, it would have diverse organs, and this is inconsistent with the heaven’s simplicity. By way of indicating this fact, Aristotle goes on to say that “among corruptible things, those that possess intellect have all the other powers,” thus giving us to understand that some incorruptible things, namely, the heavenly bodies, have intellect without the other powers of the soul. [5] It will therefore be impossible to say that the intellect makes contact with the heavenly bodies by the instrumentality of phantasms. On the contrary, it will have to be said that the intellect, by its substance, is united to the heavenly body as its form. [6] Now, the human body is the noblest of all lower bodies, and by, its equable temperament most closely resembles the heaven, which is completely devoid of contrariety; so that in Aristotle’s judgment the intellectual substance is united to the human body not by any phantasms, but as its form. [7] As for the heaven being animate, we have spoken of this not as though asserting its accordance with the teaching of the faith, to which the whole question is entirely irrelevant. Hence, Augustine says in the Enchiridion: “Nor is it certain, to my mind, whether the sun, moon, and all the stars belong to the same community, namely, that of the angels; although to some they appear to be luminous bodies devoid of sense or intelligence.”

Chapter

THAT THE SOUL IS UNITED TO THE BODY WITHOUT INTERMEDIATION

[1] It can be inferred from the foregoing that the soul is united to the body immediately, no medium being required to unite the soul to the body, whether it be the phantasms, as Averroes holds, or the body’s powers, as some say, or the corporeal spirit, as others have asserted. [2] For we have shown that the soul is united to the body as its form. Now, a form is united to matter without any medium at all, since to be the act of such and such a body belongs to a form by its very essence, and not by anything else. That is why, as Aristotle proves in Metaphysics VIII [6] there is nothing that makes a unitary thing out of matter and form except the agent which reduces the potentiality to act, for matter and form are related as potentiality and act. [3] Even so, it can be said that there is a medium between the soul and the body, not, however, from the point of view of being, but of movement and the order of generation. Respecting movement, we find such a medium, since the movement of the body by the soul entails a certain order among movables and movers. For the soul performs all its operations through its powers; thus, it moves the body by means of its power, and, again, the members by means of the [vital] spirit, and, lastly, one organ by means of another. And in the line of generation, a certain medium is found in the fact that dispositions to a form precede the form’s reception in matter, but are posterior to it in being. That is why the body’s dispositions, which make it the proper perfectible subject of such and such a form, may thus be called intermediaries between the soul and the body.

Chapter

THAT THE WHOLE SOUL IS IN THE WHOLE BODY AND IN EACH OF ITS PARTS [1] In the light of the same considerations it can be shown that the whole soul is present in the whole body and in its several parts. [2] For the proper act must reside in its proper perfectible subject. Now, the soul is the act of an organic body, not of one organ only. It is, therefore, in the whole body, and not merely in one part, according to its essence whereby it is the body’s form. [3] Moreover, the soul is the form of the whole body in such fashion as to be also the form of each part. For, were it the form of the whole and not of the parts, it would not be the substantial form of that body; thus, the form of a house, which is the form of the whole and not of each part, is an accidental form. That the soul is the substantial form both of the whole and of the parts, is clear from the fact that not only the whole but also the parts owe their species to it. This explains why it is that, when the soul departs, neither the whole body nor its parts remain of the same species as before; the eye or flesh of a dead thing are so called only in an equivocal sense. Consequently, if the soul is the act of each part, and an act is in the thing whose act it is, it follows that the soul is by its essence in each part of the body. [4] And this is manifestly true of the whole soul. For since a whole is spoken of in relation to parts, the word whole must be taken in various senses, according to the meaning of parts. Now, the term part has a double signification; it may refer to the quantitative division of a thing (thus, two cubits is a part of three cubits), or to a division of its essence (form and matter are in this sense said to be parts of a composite). Accordingly, whole is used in reference both to quantity and to the perfection of the essence. Now, whole and part quantitatively so called appertain to forms only accidentally, namely, so far as the forms are divided when the quantitative subject in which they reside is divided. But whole and part as applied to the perfection of the essence are found in forms essentially. Respecting this kind of totality, which belongs to forms essentially, it is therefore clear that the whole of every form is in the whole subject and the whole of it in each part; just as whiteness, by its total essence, is in a whole body, so is it in each part. The case is different with a totality that is ascribed to forms accidentally, for in this sense we cannot say that the whole whiteness is in each part. If, then, there exists a form which is not divided as a result of its subject being divided—and souls of perfect animals are such forms—there will be no need for a distinction, since only one totality befits things of that kind; and it must be said unqualifiedly that the whole of this form is in each part of the body. Nor is this difficult to grasp by one who understands that the soul is not indivisible in the same way as a point, and that an incorporeal being is not united to a corporeal one in the same way as bodies are united to one another, as we explained above. [5] Nor is it incongruous that the soul, since it is a simple form, should be the act of parts so diverse in character. For in every case the matter is adapted to the form according to the latter’s requirements. Now, the higher and simpler a form is, the greater is its power; and that is why the soul, which is the highest of the lower forms, though simple in substance, has a multiplicity of powers and many operations. The soul, then, needs various organs in order to perform its operations, and of these organs the soul’s various powers are said to be the proper acts; sight of the eye, hearing of the ears, etc. For this reason perfect animals have the greatest diversity of organs; plants, the least. [6] Reflection on the fact that the soul needs various organs for the performance of its multifarious activities was the occasion for some philosophers to say that the soul is in some particular part of the body. Thus, Aristotle himself says in the De motu animalium [X] that the soul is in the heart, because one of the soul’s powers is ascribed to that part of the body. For the motive power, of which Aristotle was treating in that work, is principally in the heart, through which the soul communicates movement and other such operations to the whole body.

Chapter

THAT THERE IS NOT ONE POSSIBLE INTELLECT IN ALL MEN

[1] On the basis of what has already been said it can be clearly demonstrated that there is not one possible intellect of all present, future and past men, as Averroes imagined. [2] For it has been proved that the substance of the intellect is united to the human body as its form. But one form cannot possibly exist in more than one matter, because the proper act comes to be in the proper potentiality, since they are proportioned to one another. Therefore, there is not one intellect of all men. [3] Moreover, every mover ought to have its proper instruments; the flute-player uses one kind of instrument, the builder another. Now, the intellect is related to the body as its mover, as Aristotle shows in De anima III [10]. So, just as it is impossible for the builder to use a flute-player’s instruments, so is it impossible for the intellect of one man to be the intellect of another. [4] Again, Aristotle in De anima I [3] takes the ancients to task for discussing the soul without saying anything about its proper recipient, “as if it were possible, as in the Pythagorean fables, that any soul might put on any body.” It is, then, impossible for the soul of a dog to enter the body of a wolf, or for a man’s soul to enter any body other than a man’s. But the proportion between man’s soul and man’s body is the same as between this man’s soul and this man’s body. Therefore, the soul of this man cannot possibly enter a body other than his own. But it is this man’s soul by which this man understands: man understands by his soul, as Aristotle puts it in De anima I [4]. Hence, this man and that man have not the same intellect. [5] Then, too, a thing owes its being and its unity to the same principle, for unity and being are consequent upon one another. But every thing has being through its form. Therefore, a thing’s unity follows upon the unity of its form. Hence, there cannot possibly be one form of diverse individual things. But the form of this particular man is his intellective soul. Therefore, it is impossible that there should be one intellect for all men. [6] Now, if it be said that this man’s sensitive soul is distinct from that man’s, and that to this extent there is not one man although there is one intellect-such an argument cannot stand. For each thing’s proper operation is a consequence and a manifestation of its species. Now, just as the proper operation of an animal is sensation, so the operation proper to man is understanding, as Aristotle says in Ethics I [7]. It is therefore necessary that just as this individual is an animal because it possesses the power of sensation, as Aristotle remarks in De anima II [2], so is be a man in virtue of that by which he understands. But “that whereby the soul, or man through the soul, understands,” is the possible intellect, as the same philosopher says in De anima III [4]. This individual, then, is a man through the possible intellect. Now, suppose that this man has a distinct sensitive soul from that man’s, and yet not a distinct possible intellect but one and the same possible intellect. The consequence is obviously impossible, namely, that this man and that man will be two animals, but not two men. Therefore, there is not one possible intellect of all men. [7] Now, the Commentator Averroes replies to these arguments by saying that the possible intellect comes into contact with us through its form, that is, by the intelligible species, whose single subject is the phantasm existing in us and which is distinct in distinct subjects. Thus, the possible intellect is particularized in diverse subjects, not by reason of its substance but of its form. [8] It is clear from what has been said above” that this reply is worthless. For, if the possible intellect makes contact with us only in that way, man’s understanding is rendered impossible, as we have shown.” [9] But, even if we supposed that the contact in question sufficed to account for man’s knowing, Averroes’ reply still fails to solve the arguments we adduced. For in the Averroistic theory under consideration nothing pertaining to the intellect save only the phantasm will be particularized in accordance with the number of men. Nor will this phantasm itself be particularized so far as it is actually understood, because in this state it exists in the possible intellect, being abstracted from material conditions by the agent intellect. But the phantasm, as understood potentially, is not above the level of being of the sensitive soul; so that this man will still remain indistinguishable from that man, except as concerns the sensitive soul; and there will follow the incongruity previously noted, namely, that this and that man are not several men. [10] Moreover, a thing derives its species, not from that which is in potentiality, but from that which is in act. Yet the phantasm, as particularized, has only a potentially intelligible being. Therefore, it is not to the phantasm as particularized that this individual owes the specific character of intellective animal, which is the nature of man. And so we have the same result as before, namely, that the thing from which man’s specific nature is derived is not particularized in diverse subjects. [11] Again, the source of a living thing’s species is its first and not its second perfection, as is clear from what Aristotle says in De anima II. But the phantasm is not the first but a second perfection, for the imagination is “a movement resulting from the exercise of a sense-power,” as we read in the same work. Therefore, it is not to the particularized phantasm that man owes his specific nature. [12] Phantasms that are potentially understood are distinct. But the source of a thing’s specific nature must be one, since of one thing there is one specific nature. Therefore, man does not derive his specific nature through phantasms as particularized in diverse subjects and hence as potentially understood. [13] The source of man’s specific nature must always remain the same in the same individual as long as the individual continues to be; otherwise, the individual would not always be of one and the same species, but sometimes of this one and sometimes of that one. But phantasms do not always remain the same in one man; rather, some new ones appear, while some old ones pass away. Therefore, the human individual neither acquires his specific nature through the phantasm nor by its means is he brought into contact with the principle of his specific essence, namely, the possible intellect. [14] Now, if it be argued that this man does not derive his specific nature from the phantasms themselves but from the powers in which the phantasms reside, namely, imagination, memory, and cogitation—the latter, which Aristotle in De anima in calls the passive intellect, being proper to man—even so the same impossibilities ensue. For, since the cogitative power is operationally limited to particular things, makes its judgments on the basis of particular intentions, and acts by means of a bodily organ, it is not above the generic level of the sensitive soul. Now, man is not a man in virtue of his sensitive soul, but an animal. Therefore, it still remains that the only thing particularized in us is that which belongs to man as an animal. [15] Moreover, the cogitative power, since it operates by means of an organ, is not that whereby we understand, for understanding is not the operation of an organ. Now, that whereby we understand is that by which man is man, since understanding is man’s proper operation, flowing from his specific nature. Consequently, it is not by the cogitative power that this individual is a man, nor is it by this power that man differs substantially from the brutes, as the Commentator imagines. [16] Nor, again, does the cogitative power bear any ordered relationship to the possible intellect whereby man understands, except through its act of preparing the phantasms for the operation of the agent intellect which makes them actually intelligible and perfective of the possible intellect. But this activity of the cogitative power does not always remain the same in us. By its means, therefore, man cannot possibly be brought into contact with the principle of the human species, nor can he receive his specific nature from it. Clearly, the counter-argument cited above is therefore to be completely rejected. [17] Furthermore, that whereby a thing operates or acts is a principle not only of the being of the operation flowing from it, but also of the multiplicity or unity involved. Thus, there is from the same heat but one heating or active calefaction, though there may be many things heated, many passive calefactions according to the number of different things heated simultaneously by the same heat. Now, the possible intellect is that by which the soul understands, as Aristotle says in De anima III.” Hence, if the possible intellect of this and that man is numerically one and the same, then the act of understanding will of necessity be one and the same in both men; which is obviously impossible, since a single operation cannot belong to distinct individuals. Therefore, this and that man cannot have the one possible intellect. [18] Now, if it be argued that the very act of understanding is multiplied in accordance with the diversity of phantasms, the contention is baseless. For, as has been said, the one action of the one agent is multiplied only according to the diverse subjects into which that action passes. But understanding, willing, and the like, are not actions that pass into external matter; on the contrary, they remain in the agent as perfections of that very agent, as Aristotle makes clear in Metaphysics IX [8]. Therefore, one act of understanding of the possible intellect cannot be multiplied by means of a diversity of phantasms. [19] The phantasms, moreover, are in a certain manner related to the possible intellect as the active to the passive. In this connection Aristotle remarks in De anima [III, 4] in that to understand is in a certain way to be passive. Now, the passivity of the patient is diversified according to the diverse forms or species of the agents, not according to their numerical diversity. For the one passive subject is heated and dried at the same time by two active causes, heating and drying; two heating agents do not produce two heatings in one heatable thing, but only one heating, unless, perchance, those agents be distinct species of heat. For, since two heats specifically the same cannot be present in one subject, and movement is numbered in relation to its terminal point, if the movement take place at one time and in the same subject, there cannot be a double heating in one subject. I mean that this is the case unless another species of beat is involved, as in the seed there is, said to be the beat of fire, of heaven, and of the soul. Hence the possible intellect’s act of understanding is not multiplied in accordance with the diversity of phantasms, except as concerns its understanding of diverse species (so we may say that its act of understanding is different in the case of understanding a man and understanding a horse); on the contrary, one act of understanding these things befits all men at the same time. Therefore, it will still follow that the act of understanding is numerically the same in this and that man. [20] Again, the possible intellect understands man, not as this man, but simply as man, according to man’s specific nature. Now, this nature of man’s is one, regardless of the multiplication of phantasms, whether in one man or in several, according to the diverse human individuals to which phantasms properly speaking belong. Consequently, the multiplication of phantasms cannot cause the multiplication of the possible intellect’s act of understanding with respect to a single species. We are, then, left with the same result as before, namely, numerically one action of many different men. [21] Also, the possible intellect is the proper subject of the habit of science, because its act is scientific consideration. But, if an accident is one, it is multiplied only in reference to its subject; so that, if there is one possible intellect of all men, then specifically the same habit of science—the habit of grammar, for instance—will of necessity be numerically the same in all men; which is inconceivable. Therefore, the possible intellect is not one in all. [22] But to this they [the Averroists] reply that the subject of the habit of science is not the possible intellect but the passive intellect and the cogitative power. [23] This, however, is impossible. For, as Aristotle proves in Ethics II, “from like acts, like habits are formed, which in turn give rise to like acts.” Now, the habit of science is formed in us by acts of the possible intellect, and we are capable of performing those acts according to the habit of science. Therefore, the habit of science is in the possible, and not the passive, intellect. [24] It is with respect to the conclusions of demonstrations, moreover, that there is science. For a demonstration is “a syllogism productive of scientific knowledge,” as Aristotle says in Posterior Analytics I [2]. Now, the conclusions of demonstrations are universals, and so, too, are their principles. Therefore, science will reside in that power which is cognizant of universals. But the passive intellect has no knowledge of universals, but only of particular intentions. Hence, it is not the subject of the habit of science. [25] Then, too, against this [Averroistic theory about the passive intellect] are a number of arguments adduced above, when we were treating of the possible intellect’s union with man. [26] Seemingly, the fallacy of locating the habit of science in the passive intellect resulted from the observation that men are more or less apt for scientific studies according to the various dispositions of the cogitative and imaginative powers. [27] This aptitude, however, depends on these powers as on remote dispositions, as it likewise depends on a fine sense of touch and on bodily temperament. In this connection, Aristotle remarks in De anima II [9] that men possessed of a highly developed sense of touch and of soft flesh are “mentally well endowed.” Now, the habit of science gives rise to an aptitude for reflection, being the proximate principle of that action; for the habit of science must perfect the power whereby we understand, so that it acts easily at will, even as the other habits perfect the powers in which they inhere. [28] Moreover, the dispositions of the cogitative and imaginative powers are relative to the object, namely, the phantasm, which, because of the well-developed character of these powers, is prepared in such a way as to facilitate its being made actually intelligible by the agent intellect. Now, dispositions relative to objects are not habits, but dispositions relative to.powers are habits. Thus, the habit of fortitude is not a disposition whereby frightening things become endurable, but a disposition by which the irascible part of the soul is disposed to endure such things. It is therefore evident that the habit of science is not in the passive intellect, as the Commentator says, but rather in the possible intellect. [29] And if there is one possible intellect for all men, it must be granted that if (as the Averroists assert) men have always existed, then the possible intellect has always existed, and much more the agent intellect, because “the agent is superior to the patient,” as Aristotle says. Now, if both the agent and the recipient are eternal, the things received must be eternal. It would then follow that the intelligible species existed from all eternity in the possible intellect; so, in that case, the latter receives no intelligible species anew. But it is only as the subjects from which intelligible species may be derived that sense and imagination have any necessary role to play in the understanding of things. Therefore, neither sense nor imagination will be necessary for understanding. And thus we shall come back to Plato’s theory that we do not acquire knowledge through the senses, but are awakened by them to the remembrance of things we knew before. [30] To this Averroes replies that the intelligible species have a twofold subject: the possible intellect, wherein they have eternal being; the phantasm, as ground of their newness. So too, the subject of the visible species is twofold: the thing outside the soul, and the power of sight. [31] But this reply cannot stand, because the action and perfection of an eternal thing could not possibly depend on something temporal. And phantasms are temporal, new ones springing up in us every day from the senses. It follows that the intelligible species whereby the possible intellect is actualized and operates cannot depend on the phantasms, as the visible species depends on things outside the soul. [32] Nothing receives what it already has, since, as Aristotle remarks, the recipient must be devoid of the thing received. Now, prior to my sensation or yours, intelligible species were present in the possible intellect, for our predecessors would have had no understanding of anything unless the possible intellect had been actualized by the intelligible species. Nor can it be said that these species already received into the possible intellect have ceased to exist, for the possible intellect not only receives but also preserves what it receives; that is why in De anima II [4] it is called the place of species. Hence, species are not received from our phantasms into the possible intellect. Therefore, it would be useless for our phantasms to be made actually intelligible by the agent intellect. [33] Likewise, “The presence in the recipient of the thing received accords with the recipient’s manner of being. But the intellect, in itself, transcends movement. Therefore, what is received into it is received in a fixed and immovable manner. [34] Since the intellect is a higher power than the sense, its unity must be greater. This explains the observed fact of one intellect exercising judgment upon diverse kinds of sensible things belonging to diverse sensitive powers. And from this we can gather that the operations belonging to the various sensitive powers are united in the one intellect. Now, some of the sensitive powers only receive-the senses, for instance; while some retain, as imagination and memory, which therefore are called store-houses. The possible intellect, then, must both receive and retain what it has received. [35] It is idle, moreover, to say that in the realm of natural things what is acquired as the result of movement has no abiding reality but immediately ceases to be. The opinion of those who say that all things are always in motion is rejected in the light of the fact that motion necessarily terminates in repose. Much less, therefore, can it be said that what is received into the possible intellect is not preserved. [36] Again, if from the phantasms in us the possible intellect comes into possession of no intelligible species because it has already received from the phantasms of our predecessors, then for the same reason it receives from none of the phantasms of those whom others preceded. But, if the world is eternal, as the Averroists say, there has never existed a person without predecessors. It follows that the possible intellect never receives any species from phantasms. There was then no point in Aristotle’s having posited the agent intellect in order to make the phantasms actually intelligible. [37] The apparent consequence of all this, furthermore, is that the possible intellect has no need of phantasms in order to understand. Now, it is the possible intellect by which we understand. It will, therefore, follow that we need not have senses and phantasms in order to understand. And this is manifestly false, as well as being contrary to the judgment of Aristotle. [38] Now, it may be said that for the same reason we would not need a phantasm in order to consider the things whose species are retained in the possible intellect, even if there are many possible intellects in many different persons. Not only is this objection contrary to Aristotle, who says that “the soul in no wise understands without a phantasm,” it is also clearly irrelevant. For the possible intellect, like every substance, operates in a manner consonant with its nature. Now, it is by its nature the form of the body. Hence, it does indeed understand immaterial things, but it sees them in something material. An indication of this is that in teaching universal notions particular examples are employed, so that the universals may be viewed in them. Hence, the possible intellect, before possessing the intelligible species, is related in one way to the phantasms which it needs, and in another way after receiving that species; before, it needs that phantasm in order to receive from it the intelligible species, and thus the phantasm stands in relation to the possible intellect as the object moving the latter; but, after the species has been received into the possible intellect, the latter needs the phantasm as the instrument or foundation of its species, so that the possible intellect is then related to the phantasm as efficient cause. For by the intellect’s command there is formed in the imagination a phantasm corresponding to such and such an intelligible species, the latter being mirrored in this phantasm as an exemplar in the thing exemplified or in the image. Consequently, were the possible intellect always in possession of the species, it would never stand in relationship to the phantasms as recipient to object moving it. [39] Then, too, the possible intellect, according to Aristotle, is that “whereby the soul and man understand.” But, if the possible intellect is one in all men and is eternal, then all the intelligible species of the things that are or have been known by any men whatever must already be received in it. Therefore, each of us, since we understand by the possible intellect, and, in fact, our act of understanding is itself the possible intellect’s act of understanding, will understand all that is or has been understood by anyone whatever; which is plainly false. [40] Now, to this the Commentator replies that we do not understand by the possible intellect except so far as it is in contact with us through our phantasms. And since phantasms are not the same in all, nor disposed in the same manner, neither is whatever one person understands understood by another. And this reply seems to be consistent with things previously said. For, even if the possible intellect is not one, we do not understand the things whose species are in the possible intellect without the presence of phantasms disposed for this purpose. [41] But, that this reply cannot wholly avoid the difficulty is made clear as follows. When the possible intellect has been actualized by the reception of the intelligible species, it can act of itself, as Aristotle says in De anima III [4]. This accounts for the experienced fact that when we have once acquired knowledge of a thing, it is in our power to consider it again at will. And since we are able to form phantasms adapted to the thinking that we wish to do, they are no hindrance to us [in our reconsideration of things], unless, perhaps, there be an obstacle on the part of the organ to which the phantasm belongs, as in madmen and those afflicted with lethargy, who cannot freely exercise their imagination and memory. For this reason Aristotle says in Physics VIII [4] that one already possessed of the habit of science, though he be considering potentially, needs no mover to bring him from potentiality to act, except a remover of obstacles, but is himself able to exercise his knowledge at will. If, however, the intelligible species of all sciences are present in the possible intellect—which the hypothesis of its unicity and eternity necessarily implies—then that intellect will require phantasms, just as one already in possession of a science needs them in order to think in terms of that science; this the intellect cannot do without phantasms. Therefore, since every man understands by the possible intellect as a result of its being actualized by the intelligible species, every man will be able to apply his mind at will to the things known in every science. This is manifestly false, since in that case no one would need a teacher in order to acquire a science. Therefore, the possible intellect is not one and eternal.

Chapter

CONCERNING THE THEORY OF AVICENNA, WHO SAID THAT INTELLIGIBLE FORMS ARE NOT PRESERVED IN THE POSSIBLE INTELLECT [1] What Avicenna has to say, however, seems to conflict with the arguments given above, for he asserts in his De animal that the intelligible species do not remain in the possible intellect except when they are being actually understood. [2] Avicenna endeavors to prove this by arguing that, as long as the apprehended forms remain in the apprehending power, they are actually apprehended, since [as Aristotle says] “sense is actualized by being identified with the thing actually sensed” and, similarly, “the intellect in act is one with the thing actually understood” [ De anima III, 2]. So, it seems that whenever sense or intellect becomes one with the thing sensed or understood, as the result of possessing its form, there is actual apprehension through sense or intellect. And Avicenna says that the powers wherein are preserved the forms not actually apprehended are not powers of apprehension, but store-houses thereof; for example, the imagination, which is the store-house of sense-apprehended forms, and the memory, which, he says, is the store-house of intentions apprehended without the senses—the sheep’s apprehension of the wolf as its enemy, for instance. Now, it happens that these powers preserve forms not actually apprehended, so far as they possess bodily organs wherein forms are received in a manner closely resembling apprehension. Accordingly, the apprehensive power, by turning to these store-houses, apprehends actually. Now, the possible intellect certainly is an apprehensive power, and certainly it has no corporeal organ. Hence, Avicenna concludes that it is impossible for the intelligible species to be preserved in the possible intellect, except while it understands actually. There are, then, the following alternatives: either the intelligible species themselves must be preserved in some bodily organ or in some power having such an organ; or the intelligible forms are of necessity self-existent, our possible intellect being to them as a mirror to the things seen in it; or the intelligible species have to be infused anew into the possible intellect whenever it understands actually. Now, the first of these three is impossible, because forms existing in powers which employ bodily organs are only potentially intelligible; and the second is the opinion of Plato, which Aristotle refutes in the Metaphysics [I, 9]. So, Avicenna takes the third, namely, that whenever we understand actually, the agent intellect, which he says is a separate substance, infuses intelligible species into our possible intellect. [3] Now, if anyone attacks Avicenna by arguing that on his theory there is no difference between a man when he first learns and when afterwards he wishes to consider actually what he had learned before, Avicenna replies that learning simply consists “in acquiring the perfect aptitude for uniting oneself with the agent intellect so as to receive the intelligible form from it”; so that before learning there exists in man the bare potentiality for such reception, and learning is, as it were, the potentiality adapted. [4] In apparent harmony with this position is Aristotle’s proof, given in the De memoria [I] that the memory is in the sensitive and not the intellective part of the soul; whence it seems to follow that the retention of the intelligible species is not the function of the intellective part. [5] But, if this position is examined carefully, it will be seen that in principle it differs little or not at all from that of Plato. For Plato maintained that intelligible forms are separate substances, from which knowledge poured into our souls, while Avicenna asserts that knowledge flows into our souls from one separate substance, the agent intellect. Now, so far as the manner of acquiring knowledge is concerned, it makes no difference whether it be caused by one or several separate substances; in either case, it follows that our knowledge is not caused by sensible things—a consequence clearly contradicted by the fact that a person who lacks one sense lacks, also, the knowledge of those sensible things which are known through that sense. [6] And a mere innovation is the statement that by casting its gaze upon the singulars present in the imagination the possible intellect is illuminated by the light of the agent intellect so as to know the universal, and that the actions of the lower powers—imaginative, memorative, cogitative—make the soul fit subject for receiving the influx of the agent intellect. For it is a matter of observation that our soul is the more disposed to receive from separate substances, the further removed it is from corporeal and sensible things; by withdrawing from the lower we approach the higher. The notion that the soul is disposed to receive the influx of a separate intelligence by reflecting upon corporeal phantasms is, therefore, without verisimilitude. [7] Now, Plato followed the root-principle of his position more consistently, because he held that sensible things do not dispose the soul to receive the influx of separate forms, but merely awaken the intellect to consider the things the knowledge of which it had received from an external cause. For he asserted that knowledge of all things knowable was caused in our souls from the beginning by separate forms. Learning he therefore declared to be a kind of remembering. And this is a necessary consequence of his position, for, since separate substances are immobile and ever the same, the knowledge of things always shines forth from them into our soul, which is the fit subject of that knowledge. [8] Moreover, the presence in the recipient of the thing received accords with the recipient’s manner of being. Now, the possible intellect exists in a more stable manner than corporeal matter. Therefore, since forms flowing into corporeal matter from the agent intellect are according to Avicenna preserved in that matter, much more are they preserved in the possible intellect. [9] Again, intellective cognition is more perfect than sensitive; so that, if there is something to preserve things apprehended by the senses, this will be all the more true of things apprehended by the intellect. [10] Likewise, we see that distinct things, which in a lower order of powers belong to distinct powers, in a higher order belong to one. Thus, the common sense apprehends the things sensed by all the proper senses. It follows that apprehension and preservation, which in the sensitive part of the soul are functions of distinct powers, must be united in the highest power, namely, the intellect. [11] Then, too, according to Avicenna, the agent intellect causes all sciences by way of influx. Hence, if to learn is simply to be made apt for union with that intellect, then he who learns one science does not learn that one more than another; which is obviously false. [12] This doctrine of Avicenna’s is also clearly contrary to Aristotle, who says in De anima III [4] that the possible intellect is the place of species, a phrase having the same meaning as Avicenna’s store-house of intelligible species. [13] Moreover, Aristotle goes on to say that when the possible intellect acquires knowledge, it is capable of acting on its own initiative, although it is not actually understanding. Therefore, it has no need of the influx of any higher agent. [14] He also says in Physics VIII [4] that, before learning, a man is in a state of essential potentiality with respect to knowledge and therefore needs a mover to bring him to a state of actual knowledge, but, when he has already learned, he needs no mover essentially so called. Therefore, the influx of the agent intellect is unnecessary for him. [15] And in De anima III [7,8] Aristotle says that “phantasms are to the possible intellect what sensibles are to the senses.” So, it is clear that intelligible species in the possible intellect are derived from the phantasms, not from a separate substance. [16] The arguments seemingly contrary to this conclusion are not difficult to solve. For the possible intellect is completely actualized with respect to the intelligible species when actually exercising its power; when it is not so doing, it is not in their regard completely actualized, but is in a state between potentiality and act. And Aristotle remarks that, when this part, namely, the possible intellect, “has become each of its objects, it is said to be actually possessed of knowledge; and this happens when it is capable of acting on its own initiative, yet, even so, its condition is one of potentiality, in a certain sense, but not in the same sense as before learning or discovering.” [17] Now, the memory is located in the sensitive part of the soul, because its scope is limited to things subject to determinate times; there is memory only of what is past. Therefore, since memory does not abstract from singular conditions, it does not belong to the intellective part of the soul, which is cognizant of universals. This, however, does not stand in the way of the possible intellect’s retentiveness of intelligibles, which abstract from all particular conditions.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE SEEMINGLY DEMONSTRATIVE ARGUMENTS FOR THE UNITY OF THE POSSIBLE INTELLECT

[1] We must now show the inefficacy of the arguments put forward with the object of proving the unit of the possible intellect. [2] For it seems that every form which is one specifically and many in number is individuated by matter; because things one in species and many in number agree in form and differ in matter. Therefore, if the possible intellect is multiplied numerically in different men, while being specifically one, then it must be individuated in this and that man by matter. But this individuation is not brought about by matter which is a part of the intellect itself, since in that case the intellect’s receptivity would be of the same genus as that of prime matter, and it would receive individual forms; which is contrary to the nature of intellect. It remains that the intellect is individuated by that matter which is the human body and of which the intellect is held to be the form. But every form individuated by matter of which that form is the act is a material form. For the being of a thing must stem from that to which it owes its individuation; since just as common principles belong to the essence of the species, so individuating principles belong to the essence of this individual thing. It therefore follows that the possible intellect is a material form, and, consequently, that it neither receives anything nor operates without a bodily organ. And this, too, is contrary to the nature of the possible intellect. Therefore, the possible intellect is not multiplied in different men, but is one for them all. [3] Also, if the possible intellect in this and that man were distinct, then the species understood would be numerically distinct in this and that man, though one in species. For the possible intellect is the proper subject of species actually understood, so that, with a multiplication of possible intellects, the intelligible species must be multiplied numerically in those diverse intellects. Now, species or forms which are specifically the same and numerically diverse are individual forms. And these cannot be intelligible forms, because intelligibles are universal, not particular. Therefore, the possible intellect cannot be multiplied in diverse human individuals; it must be one in all. [4] And again, the master imparts the knowledge that he possesses to his disciple. Hence, either he conveys numerically the same knowledge or a knowledge numerically, but not specifically, diverse. The latter seems impossible, because in that case the master would cause his own knowledge to exist in his disciple, even as he causes his own form to exist in something else by begetting one specifically like to himself; and this seems to apply to material agents. It follows that the master causes numerically the same knowledge to exist in the disciple. But, unless there were one possible intellect for both persons, this would be impossible. So, the existence of one possible intellect for all men seems to be a necessary conclusion. [5] Nevertheless, just as this doctrine is devoid of truth, as we have shown, so the arguments put forward to confirm it are easy of solution. [6] As to the first argument adduced above, we admit that the possible intellect is specifically one in different men and yet is numerically many; though this is not to be taken so as to emphasize the fact that man’s parts are not ascribed to his generic or specific essence as such, but only as principles of the whole man. Nor does it follow that the possible intellect is a material form dependent on the body for its being. For just as it belongs to the human soul by its specific nature to be united to a particular species of body, so this particular soul differs only numerically from that one as the result of having a relationship to a numerically different body. In this way are human souls individuated in relation to bodies, and not as though their individuation were caused by bodies; and so the possible intellect, which is a power of the soul, is individuated likewise. [7] Averroes’ second argument fails because it does not distinguish between that by which one understands and that which is understood. The species received into the possible intellect is not that which is understood; for, since all arts and sciences have to do with things understood, it would follow that all sciences are about species existing in the possible intellect. And this is patently false, because no science, except logic and metaphysics, is concerned with such things. And yet, in all the sciences, whatever is known is known through those species. Consequently, in the act of understanding, the intelligible species received into the possible intellect functions as the thing by which one understands, and not as that which is understood, even as the species of color in the eye is not that which is seen, but that by which we see. And that which is understood is the very intelligible essence of things existing outside the soul, just as things outside the soul are seen by corporeal sight. For arts and sciences were discovered for the purpose of knowing things as existing in their own natures. [8] Nor need we follow Plato in holding that, because science is about universals, universals are self-subsisting entities outside the soul. For, although the truth of knowledge requires the correspondence of cognition to thing, this does not mean that these two must have the same mode of being. For things united in reality are sometimes known separately; in a thing that is at once white and sweet, sight knows only the whiteness, taste only the sweetness. So, too, the intellect understands, apart from sensible matter, a line existing in sensible matter, although it can also understand it with sensible matter. Now, this diversity comes about as a result of the diversity of intelligible species received into the intellect, the species being sometimes a likeness of quantity alone, and sometimes a likeness of a quantitative sensible substance. Similarly, although the generic nature and the specific nature never exist except in individual things, the intellect nevertheless understands those natures without understanding the individuating principles; and to do this is to understand universals. Thus, there is no incompatibility between the fact that universals do not subsist outside the soul, and that in understanding universals the intellect understands things that do exist outside the soul. The intellect’s understanding of the generic or specific nature apart from the individuating principles is due to the condition of the intelligible species received into it, for the species is immaterialized by the agent intellect through being abstracted from matter and material conditions whereby a particular thing is individuated. Consequently, the sensitive powers are unable to know universals; they cannot receive an immaterial form, since whatever is received by them is always received in a corporeal organ. [9] Hence, it does not follow that the intelligible species are numerically one in this or that knower; otherwise, this and that person’s act of understanding would be numerically one, since operation follows upon the form which is the principle of the species. But in order that there be one thing understood, there must be a likeness of one and the same thing; and this is possible if the intelligible species are numerically distinct. For there is no reason why there should not be several different images of one thing; it is thus that one man is seen by several. Hence, the existence of several intelligible species in several persons is not incompatible with the intellect’s knowledge of the universal. [10] Nor does it then follow, if intelligible species are several in number and specifically the same, that they are not actually intelligible but only potentially intelligible, like other individual things. For to be individual is not incompatible with being actually intelligible, since, on the supposition that the possible and agent intellects are separate substances not united to the body but self-subsistent, it must be said that they are themselves individual things; and yet they are intelligible. No; it is materiality that is incompatible with intelligibility, a sign of this being the fact that for the forms of material things to be made actually intelligible they must be abstracted from matter. Hence, things whose individuation is effected by particular signate matter are not actually intelligible, but nothing prevents things whose individuation is not due to matter from being actually intelligible. Now, intelligible species, in common with all other forms, are individuated by their subject, which in this case is the possible intellect. That is why the possible intellect, being immaterial, does not deprive of actual intelligibility the species which it individuates. [11] Moreover, just as individuals in the realm of sensible things are not actually intelligible if there be many of them in one species—for example, horses or men—so neither are sensible individuals which are unique in their species, as this particular sun and this particular moon. But species are individuated in the same way by the possible intellect, whether there be several such intellects or only one; yet they are not multiplied in the same way in the one species. Hence, so far as the actual intelligibility of the species received into the possible intellect is concerned, it makes no difference whether there be one or several possible intellects in all men. [12] Then, too, the possible intellect, according to Averroes, is the last in the order of intelligible substances, which in his view are several. Nor can it be denied that some of the higher substances are cognizant of things which the possible intellect knows; for in the movers of the spheres are present the forms of the things caused by the movement of a sphere, as he himself says. Hence, even if there is but one possible intellect, it will still follow that the intelligible forms are multiplied in different intellects. [13] Now, while we have said that the intelligible species received into the possible intellect is not that which is understood but that whereby one understands, this does not prevent the intellect, by a certain reflexion, from understanding itself, and its act of understanding, and the species whereby it understands. Indeed, it understands its own act of understanding in two ways: particularly, for it understands that it presently understands; universally, so far as it reasons about the nature of its act. So, likewise, the intellect understands both itself and the intelligible species in two ways: by perceiving its own being and its possession of an intelligible species—and this is a kind of particular knowing—by considering its own nature and that of the intelligible species, which is a universal knowing. It is in this latter mode that the intellect and the intelligible are treated in the sciences. [14] As to the third argument, its solution emerges from what has already been said. For Averroes statement that knowledge in the disciple and in the master is numerically one is partly true and partly false. It is numerically one as concerns the thing known; it is not numerically one either in respect of the intelligible species whereby the thing is known, or of the habit of knowledge itself. Nor does this entail the consequence that the master causes knowledge in the disciple in the same way as fire generates fire. For things are not in the same fashion generated by nature as by art; fire generates fire naturally, by making actual the form of fire potentially present in the matter, whereas the master causes knowledge in his disciple by way of art, since this is the aim of the art of demonstration, which Aristotle teaches in the Posterior Analytics; for demonstration is “a syllogism productive of scientific knowledge,” as he says in that work [I, 2]. [15] It must be borne in mind, however, that according to Aristotle’s teaching in Metaphysics VII [9] there are some arts wherein the matter is not an active principle productive of the art’s effect. The art of building is a case in point, since in wood and stone there is no active force tending to the construction of a house, but only a passive aptitude. On the other hand, there exists an art whose matter is an active principle tending to produce the effect of that art. Such is the art of medicine, for in the sick body there is an active principle conducive to health. Thus, the effect of an art of the first kind is never produced by nature, but is always the result of the art; every house is an artifact. But the effect of an art of the second kind is the result both of art and of nature without art, for many are healed by the action of nature without the art of medicine. Now, in those things that can be done both by art and by nature, art imitates nature; if the cause of a person’s illness is something cold, nature cures him by heating; and that is why the physician, if his services are needed in order to cure the patient, does so by applying beat. Now, the art of teaching resembles this art. For in the person taught there is an active principle conducive to knowledge, namely, the intellect, and there are also those things that are naturally understood, namely, first principles. Knowledge, then, is acquired in two ways: by discovery without teaching, and by teaching. So, the teacher begins to teach in the same way as the discoverer begins to discover, that is, by offering to the disciple’s consideration principles known by him, since all learning results from pre-existent knowledge; by drawing conclusions from those principles; and by proposing sensible examples, from which the phantasms necessary for the disciple’s understanding are found in the soul. And since the outward action of the teacher would have no effect without the inward principle of knowledge, whose—presence in us we owe to God, the theologians remark that man teaches by outward ministration, but God by inward operation. So, too, is the physician said to minister to nature in the practice of his art of healing. Thus, knowledge is caused in the disciple by his master, not by way of natural action, but of art, as was said. [16] Furthermore, since the Commentator locates the habits of science in the passive intellect as their subject, the unicity of the possible intellect does nothing whatever to effect a numerical unity of knowledge in disciple and master. For the passive intellect certainly is not the same in different individuals, since it is a material power. That is why this argument is wide of the mark even in terms of Averroes own position.

Chapter

THAT THE AGENT INTELLECT IS NOT A SEPARATE SUBSTANCE, BUT PART OF THE SOUL

[1] From the foregoing it can be inferred that neither is there one agent intellect in all, as maintained by Alexander and by Avicenna, who do not hold there is one possible intellect for all. [2] For, since agent and recipient are proportionate to one another, to every passive principle there must correspond a proper active one. Now, the possible intellect is compared to the agent intellect as its proper patient or recipient, because the agent intellect is related to it as art to its matter; So that if the possible intellect is part of the human soul and is multiplied according to the number of individuals, as was shown, then the agent intellect also will be part of the soul and multiplied in like manner, and not one for all. [3] Again, the purpose for which the agent intellect renders the species actually intelligible is not that they may serve as means of understanding on its part, especially as a separate substance, because the agent intellect is not in a state of potentiality; this purpose, on the contrary, is that the possible intellect may understand by those species which the agent intellect has made actually intelligible. Thus, the function of the agent intellect in regard to the intelligible species is simply to render them fit vehicles for the possible intellect’s understanding. Now, the agent intellect makes them to be such as it is itself; for every agent produces its like. Therefore, the agent intellect is proportionate to the possible intellect; and since the possible intellect is a part of the soul, the agent intellect will not be a separate substance. [4] just as prime matter is perfected by natural forms, which are outside the soul, so the possible intellect is perfected by forms actually understood. Natural forms, however, are received into prime matter, not by the action of some separate substance alone, but by the action of a form of the same kind, namely, a form existing in matter; thus, this particular flesh is begotten through a form in this flesh and these bones, as Aristotle proves in Metaphysics VII [8]. If the possible intellect is a part of the soul and not a separate substance, as we have shown, then the agent intellect, by whose action the intelligible species are made present in the possible intellect, will not be a separate substance but an active power of the soul. [5] Also, Plato held that the cause of our knowledge is Ideas, which he said were separate substances: a theory disproved by Aristotle in Metaphysics I [9]. Now, it is certain that our knowledge depends on the agent intellect as its first principle. So, if the agent intellect were a separate substance, there would be little or no difference between this opinion and the Platonic theory referred to, which the Philosopher has refuted. [6] Then, too, if the agent intellect is a separate substance, its action must be continuous and not interrupted; or at least it is not continued or interrupted at our will—this in any case must be said. Now, the function of the agent intellect is to make phantasms actually intelligible. Therefore, either it will do this always or not always. If not always, this, however, will not be by our choosing. Yet we understand actually when the phantasms are made actually intelligible. Hence it follows that either we always understand or that it is not in our power to understand actually. [7] A separate substance, furthermore, has one and the same relationship to all the phantasms present in any men whatever, just as the sun stands in the same relation to all colors. Persons possessed of knowledge perceive sensible things, but so also do the ignorant. Hence, the same phantasms are in both, and these phantasms will in like manner be made actually intelligible by the agent intellect. Therefore, both will understand m similar fashion. [8] Even so, it can be said that the agent intellect is, in itself, always acting, but that the phantasms are not always made actually intelligible, but only when they are disposed to this end. Now, they are so disposed by the act of the cogitative power, the use of which is in our power. Hence, to understand actually is in our power. And this is the reason why not all men understand the things whose phantasms they have, since not all are possessed of the requisite act of the cogitative power, but only those who are instructed and habituated. [9] This reply, however, seems not entirely adequate. For the disposition to understand which the cogitative power causes must either be a disposition of the possible intellect to receive intelligible forms flowing from the agent intellect, as Avicenna says, or a disposition of the phantasms to be made actually intelligible, as Averroes and Alexander declare. But the former seems incongruous, because the possible intellect by its very nature is in potentiality with respect to species actually intelligible, so that it bears the same relationship to them as a transparent medium to light or to color-species. Now, a thing equipped by nature to receive a certain form needs no further disposition to that form, unless there happen to be contrary dispositions in it, as the matter of water is disposed to the form of air by the removal of cold and density. But there is nothing contrary in the possible intellect that could prevent it from receiving any intelligible species whatever, for the intelligible species even of contraries are not contrary in the intellect, as Aristotle proves in Metaphysics VII [7], since one is the reason of the knowledge of the other. And any falsity occurring in the intellect’s affirmative or negative judgments is due, not to the presence in the possible intellect of certain things understood, but to its lack of certain things. In and of itself, therefore, the possible intellect needs no preparation in order to receive the intelligible species issuing from the agent intellect. [10] Moreover, colors made actually visible by light unfailingly impress their likeness upon the transparent body and, consequently, upon the power of sight. Therefore, if the very phantasms which the agent intellect has illumined did not impress their likeness on the possible intellect, but only disposed it to receive them, the phantasms would not bear the same relationship to the possible intellect as colors to the faculty of sight as Aristotle maintains. [11] According to this [Avicennian theory], the phantasms would not be essentially necessary for our understanding, nor, then, would the senses; but necessary only accidentally, as things so to speak inciting and preparing the possible intellect to accomplish its receptive function. This is part of the Platonic doctrine, and is contrary to the order in which art and science come to birth in the mind, as Aristotle explains it in Metaphysics I [1], and in the Posterior Analytics [II, 15], where he says that “memory results from sensation; one experience from many memories; from many experiences the universal apprehension which is the beginning of science and art.” This position of Avicenna’s, however, is in accord with what its author says about the generation of natural things.” For he asserts that the actions of all lower agents have merely the effect of preparing matter to receive the forms which flow into their matters from the separate agent intellect. So, too, for the same reason, he holds that the phantasms prepare the possible intellect, and that the intelligible forms emanate from a separate substance. [12] Similarly, on the hypothesis that the agent intellect is a separate substance it would seem incongruous that the phantasms should he prepared by the cogitative power so as to be actually intelligible and move the possible intellect. For, seemingly, this agrees with the position of those who say that the lower agents are merely dispositive causes with respect to the ultimate perfection [of a thing], the source of which is a separate agent: a position contrary to the judgment expressed by Aristotle in Metaphysics VII [8]. For the human soul would seem to be not less perfectly fitted for understanding than the lower things of nature for their proper operations. [13] Then, too, among these lower things the more noble effects are produced not only by higher agents but also require agents of their own genus; for the sun and man generate a man. Likewise, we observe that among other perfect animals, some less noble are generated entirely by the sun’s action, without an active principle of their own genus; so it is with animals engendered by putrefaction. Now, understanding is the noblest effect found in this world of lower things. Therefore, it is not enough to ascribe this effect to a remote agent, unless a proximate one is also assigned. This argument, however, does not militate against Avicenna, because he holds that any animal can be generated without seed. [14] Again, the effect intended reveals the agent. Hence, animals engendered by putrefaction are not intended by a lower nature, but only by a higher one, because they are produced by a higher agent alone; for this reason Aristotle says in Metaphysics VII [7] that their production is fortuitous. On the other hand, animals generated from seed are intended both by the higher and the lower nature. Now, this effect which consists in abstracting universal forms from phantasms is intended by us, and not merely by a remote agent. Hence, there must exist in us a proximate principle of such an effect; and this is the agent intellect, which, therefore, is not a separate substance but a power of our soul. [15] And again, present in the nature of every mover is a principle sufficient for its natural operation. If this operation consists in an action, then the nature contains an active principle; for instance, the powers of the nutritive soul of plants. But, if this operation is a passion, the nature contains a passive principle, as appears in the sensitive powers of animals. Now, man is the most perfect of all lower movers, and his proper and natural operation is understanding, which is not accomplished without a certain passivity, in that the intellect is passive to the intelligible; nor again, without action, in that the intellect makes things that are potentially intelligible to be actually so. Therefore, the proper principles of both these operations must be in man’s nature, nor must either of them have being in separation from his soul. And these principles are the agent and the possible intellects. [16] Also, if the agent intellect is a separate substance, it is manifest that it is above man’s nature. Now, an operation which man performs solely hy the power of a supernatural substance is a supernatural operation; for instance, the working of miracles, prophesying, and other like things which men do by God’s favor. Since man cannot understand except by the power of the agent intellect, understanding will not be for man a natural operation if the agent intellect is a separate substance. Nor in that case can man be defined as being intellectual or rational. [17] Furthermore, no thing operates except by virtue of a power formally in it. Hence, Aristotle in De anima II [2] shows that the thing whereby we live and sense is a form and an act. Now, both actions-of the agent intellect and of the possible intellect as well-are proper to man, since man abstracts from phantasms, and receives in his mind things actually intelligible. For, indeed, we should not have become aware of these actions had we not experienced them in ourselves. It follows that the principles to which we ascribe these actions, namely, the possible and agent intellects, must be powers formally existing in us. [18] And if it be argued that these actions are attributed to man so far as those intellects are in contact with us, as Averroes claims, we refer to our previous proof that the possible intellect’s conjunction with us does not suffice as a means of understanding on our part, if, as Averroes maintains, it is a separate substance. And, clearly, the same thing is true of the agent intellect. For the agent intellect stands in the same relation to the intelligible species received into the possible intellect as art to the artificial forms which it produces in matter, as the example used by Aristotle in De anima III [5] makes clear. But art-forms are artistically inoperative, attaining only to a formal likeness, and that is why the subject of these forms cannot through them exercise the action of a maker. Therefore, neither can man exercise the operation of the agent intellect through the presence in him of intelligible species made actual by the agent intellect. [19] Again, a thing that cannot initiate its proper operation without being moved by an external principle is moved to operate rather than moves itself. Thus, irrational animals are moved to operate rather than move themselves, because every one of their operations depends on an extrinsic principle which moves them. For the sense, moved by an external sensible object, places an impress upon the imagination, thus giving rise to an orderly process in all the powers, down to the motive ones. Now, man’s proper operation is understanding, and of this the primary principle is the agent intellect, which makes species intelligible, to which species the possible intellect in a certain manner is passive; and the possible intellect, having been actualized, moves the will. Therefore, if the agent intellect is a substance outside man, all man’s operation depends on an extrinsic principle. Man, then, will not act autonomously, but will be activated by another. So, he will not be master of his own operations, nor will he merit either praise or blame. All moral science and social intercourse thus will perish; w1iich is unfitting. Therefore, the agent intellect is not a substance separate from man.

Chapter

THAT IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE POSSIBLE AND AGENT INTELLECT TO EXIST TOGETHER IN THE ONE SUBSTANCE OF THE SOUL [1] Perhaps someone will think it impossible for one and the Vme substance, namely, that of our soul, to be in potentiality to all intelligibles, as becomes the possible intellect, and to actualize them, as becomes the agent intellect. For nothing acts so far as it is in potentiality, but so far as it is in act. That is why it will seem impossible for the agent and possible intellect to exist concurrently in the one substance of the soul. [2] Upon close examination, however, it is seen that this concurrence entails nothing incongruous or difficult. For nothing prevents one thing from being in one respect potential in relation to some other thing, and actual in another respect, as we observe in things of nature; air is actually damp and potentially dry, and the reverse is true of earth. Now, this same interrelationship obtains between the intellective soul and the phantasms. For the intellective soul has something actual to which the phantasm is potential, and is potential to something present actually in the phantasm; since the substance of the human soul is possessed of immateriality, and, as is clear from what has been said, it therefore has an intellectual nature—every immaterial substance being of this kind. But this does not mean that the soul is now likened to this or that determinate thing, as it must be in order to know this or that thing determinately; for all knowledge is brought about by the likeness of the thing known being present in the knower. Thus, the intellectual soul itself remains potential with respect to the determinate likenesses of things that can be known by us, namely, the natures of sensible things. It is the phantasms which present these determinate sensible natures to us. But these phantasms have not yet acquired intelligible actuality, since they are likenesses of sensible things even as to material conditions, which are the individual properties, and, moreover, the phantasms exist in material organs. Consequently, they are not actually intelligible. They are, however, potentially intelligible, since in the individual man whose likeness the phantasms reflect it is possible to receive the universal nature stripped of all individuating conditions. And so, the phantasms have intelligibility potentially, while being actually determinate as likenesses of things. In the intellective soul the opposite was the case. Hence, there is in that soul an active power vis-à-vis the phantasms, making them actually intelligible; and this power is called the agent intellect; while there is also in the soul a power that is in potentiality to the determinate likenesses of sensible things; and this power is the possible intellect. [3] That which exists in the soul, however, differs from what is found in natural agents. For in the latter, one thing is in potentiality to something according to the same manner of being as that of its actual presence in something else; the matter of air is in potentiality to the form of water in the same way as it is in water. That is why natural bodies, which have matter in common, are mutually active and passive in the same order. On the other hand, the intellective soul is not in potentiality to the likenesses of things in the phantasms, according to the mode of their presence therein, but according as they are raised to a higher level by abstraction from material individuating conditions, thus being made actually intelligible. The action of the agent intellect on the phantasm, therefore, precedes the reception by the possible intellect, so that operational primacy here is ascribed not to the phantasms, but to the agent intellect. And for this reason Aristotle says that the agent intellect is related to the possible intellect as art to its matter. [4] A quite similar case would be that of the eye, if, being transparent and receptive of colors, it were endowed with sufficient light to make colors actually visible; even as certain animals are said to illuminate objects for themselves by the light of their own eyes, and so they see more at night and less by day, for their eyes are weak, being activated by a dim light and confused by a strong one. There is something comparable to this in our intellect, which, “as regards things which are most evident of all, is as the eyes of the owl to the blaze of day”; so that the little intelligible light which is connatural to us suffices for our act of understanding. [5] It is clear that the intelligible light connatural to our soul suffices to cause the action of the agent intellect, if one considers the necessity of affirming the existence of the agent intellect. For the soul was found to be in potentiality to intelligible things, as the senses are to sensible things; since, just as we do not always sense, so neither do we always understand. Now, these intelligibles which the human intellective soul understands were asserted by Plato to be intelligible of themselves, namely, Ideas, so that in his doctrine there was no necessity of an agent intellect: an intellect having an active role with respect to intelligibles. But, if this doctrine were true, it would follow necessarily that the more intelligible in their own nature things are, the greater would be our understanding of them; which is manifestly false. For the nearer things are to our senses, the more intelligible they are to us, though in themselves they are less intelligible. That is why Aristotle was impelled to maintain that those things which are intelligible to us are not existing entities intelligible in themselves, but are made intelligible from sensibles. Aristotle, therefore, saw the necessity of admitting a power capable of doing this, namely, the agent intellect. So, the function of that intellect is to make intelligibles proportionate to our minds. Now, the mode of intellectual light connatural to us is not unequal to the performance of this function. Nothing, therefore, stands in the way of our ascribing the action of the agent intellect to the light of our soul, and especially since Aristotle compares the agent intellect to a light.

Chapter

THAT ARISTOTLE HELD NOT THAT THE AGENT INTELLECT IS A SEPARATE SUBSTANCE, BUT THAT IT IS A PART OF THE SOUL [1] Now, since a number of persons agree with the Avicennian theory dealt with above, in the belief that it is the position of Aristotle, we must show from his own words that in his judgment the agent intellect is not a separate substance. [2] For Aristotle says [ De anima III, 5] that in “every nature we find two factors, the one material, which, like the matter in every genus, is in potentiality to all the things contained under it, the other causal, which, like the efficient cause, produces all the things of a given genus, the latter factor standing to the former as art to its matter”; and therefore, Aristotle concludes, “these two factors must likewise be found within the soul.” The quasi-material principle in the soul is “the (possible) intellect wherein all things become intelligible”; the other principle, having the role of efficient cause in the soul, “is the intellect by which all things are made” (namely, actually intelligible), and this is the agent intellect, “which is like a habit,” and not a power. Aristotle explains what he means by calling the agent intellect a habit, when he goes on to speak of it as a kind of light, for “in a certain way light makes potential colors to be colors actually,” that is to say, so far as it makes them actually visible. And this function in regard to intelligibles is attributed to the agent intellect. [3] These considerations clearly imply that the agent intellect is not a separate substance, but, rather, a part of the soul; for Aristotle says explicitly that the possible and agent intellects are differences of the soul, and that they are in the soul. Therefore, neither of them is a separate substance. [4] Aristotle’s reasoning also proves the same point. For in every nature containing potentiality and act we find something which, having the character of matter, is in potentiality to the things of that genus, and something in the role of an efficient cause which actualizes the potentiality; similarly, in the products of art there is art and matter. But the intellective soul is a nature in which we find potentiality and act, since sometimes it is actually understanding, and sometimes potentially. Consequently, in the nature of the intellective soul there is something having the character of matter, which is in potentiality to all intelligibles—and this is called the possible intellect; and there also is something which, in the capacity of an efficient cause, makes all in act— and this is called the agent intellect. Therefore, both intellects, on Aristotle’s showing, are within the nature of the soul, and have no being separate from the body of which the soul is the act. [5] Aristotle says, moreover, that the agent intellect is a sort of habit like light. Now, by a habit we mean, not something existing by itself, but something belonging to one who has it. Therefore, the agent intellect is not a substance existing separately by itself, but is part of the human soul. [6] Yet, what this Aristotelian phrase means is not that the effect produced by the agent intellect may be called a habit, as though the sense were that the agent intellect makes man to understand all things, and this effect is like a habit. “For the essence of habit,” as the Commentator, Averroes, says on this very text, “consists in this, that its possessor understands by means of that which is proper to him-understands by himself and whenever he wills, with no need of anything extrinsic”; since Averroes explicitly likens to a habit, not the effect itself, but “the intellect by which we make all things.” [7] Nevertheless, the agent intellect is not to be thought of as a habit such as we find in the second species of quality and in reference to which some have said that the agent intellect is the habit of principles. For this habit of principles is derived from sensible things, as Aristotle proves in Posterior Analytics II [19]; and thus it must be the effect of the agent intellect, whose function is to make actually understood the phantasms, which are potentially understood. Now, the meaning of habit is grasped in terms of its distinction from privation and potentiality; thus, every form and act can be called a habit. This is clearly what Aristotle has in mind, because he says that the agent intellect is a habit in the same way as “light is a habit.” [8] Now, Aristotle goes on to say, that this intellect, namely, the agent intellect is separate, unmixed, impassible, and an actually existing substance. And of these four perfections attributed to that intellect, Aristotle had previously ascribed two to the possible intellect, namely, freedom from admixture and separate existence. The third—impassibility—he had applied to it in showing the distinction between the impassibility of the senses and that of the possible intellect, pointing out that if passivity be taken broadly, the possible intellect is passive so far as it is in potentiality to intelligibles. The fourth perfection—substantial actuality—Aristotle simply denies of the possible intellect, saying that it was “in potentiality to intelligibles, and none of these things was actual before the act of understanding.” Thus, the possible intellect shares the first two perfections with the agent intellect; in the third it agrees partly, and partly differs; but in the fourth the agent intellect differs altogether from the possible intellect. Aristotle goes on to prove in a single arguments that these four perfections belong to the agent intellect: “For always the agent is superior to the patient, and the (active) principle to the matter.” For he had already said that the agent intellect is like an efficient cause, and the possible intellect like matter. Now, through this proposition, as a demonstrative mean, the first two perfections are inferred as follows: “The agent is superior to the patient and to matter. But the possible intellect, which is as patient and matter, is separate and unmixed, as was proved before. Much more, therefore, is the agent possessed of these perfections.” The other perfections are inferred through this middle proposition, as follows: “The agent is superior to the patient and to matter by being compared to the latter as an agent and an actual being to a patient and a potential being. But the possible intellect is, in a certain way, a patient and a potential being. Therefore, the agent intellect is a non-passive agent and an actual being.” Now, from those words of Aristotle, it evidently cannot be inferred that the agent intellect is a separate substance; rather, that it is separate in the same sense of the term as he had previously applied to the possible intellect, namely, as not having an organ. Aristotle’s statement that the agent intellect is an actual substantial being is not incompatible with the fact that the substance of the soul is in potentiality, as was shown above. [9] The Philosopher goes on to say that actual knowledge is identical with its object. On this text the Commentator remarks” that the agent intellect differs from the possible, because that which understands and that which is understood are the same in the agent intellect, but not in the possible intellect. But this clearly is contrary to Aristotle’s meaning. For Aristotle had used the same words before in speaking of the possible intellect, namely, that “it is intelligible in precisely the same way as its objects are; since in things devoid of matter, the intellect and that which is understood are the same; for speculative knowledge and its object are identical.” For he plainly wishes to show that the possible intellect is understood as are other intelligible objects, from the fact that the possible intellect, so far as it is actually understanding, is identical with that which is understood. Moreover, Aristotle had remarked a little before that the possible intellect “is in a sense potentially whatever is intelligible, though actually it is nothing until it has exercized its power of understanding”; and here he explicitly gives us to understand that, by actually knowing, the possible intellect becomes its objects. Nor is it surprising that he should say this of the possible intellect, since he had already said the same thing about sense and the sensible object in act. For the sense is actualized by the species actually sensed and, similarly, the possible intellect is actualized through the intelligible species in act; and for this reason the intellect in act is said to be the very intelligible object itself in act. We must therefore say that Aristotle, having definitively treated of the possible and agent intellects, here begins his treatment of the intellect in act, when he says that actual knowledge is identical with the thing actually known. [10] Continuing, Aristotle states: “Although in the individual, potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, it is not altogether prior even in time.” Indeed, in several places he employs this distinction between potentiality and act, namely, that act is in its nature prior to potentiality, but that in time, potentiality precedes act in one and the same thing that is changed from potentiality to act; and yet, absolutely speaking, potentiality is not even temporally prior to act, since it is only by an act that a potentiality is reduced to act. That is why Aristotle says that the intellect which is in potency, namely, the possible intellect so far as it is in potency, is temporally prior to the intellect in act—and this, I say, in one and the same subject. Aristotle, however, adds: but not altogether, that is to say, not universally; because the possible intellect is reduced to act by the agent intellect, which again is in act, as he said, through some possible intellect brought into act; thus, Aristotle remarked in Physics III [3] that, before learning, a person needs a teacher, that he may be brought from potency to act. In these words, then, Aristotle explains the relationship which the possible intellect, as potential, bears to the intellect in act. [11] Aristotle then declares: But it is not at one time understanding and at another not, thus indicating the difference between the intellect in act and the possible intellect. For he had said earlier that the possible intellect is not perpetually understanding, but sometimes is not actually understanding, namely, when it is in potentiality to intelligibles, and sometimes is actually understanding, namely, when it is actually identified with them. Now, the intellect becomes in act by the fact that it is the intelligibles themselves, as he had already said. Hence, it does not pertain to the intellect to understand sometimes and sometimes not to understand. [12] The Philosopher thereupon adds: That alone is separate which truly is. This remark cannot apply to the agent intellect, since it alone is not separate, for he had already spoken of the possible intellect as being separate. Nor can that statement be understood to refer to the possible intellect, since Aristotle had already said the same thing concerning the agent intellect. It remains that the above remark applies to that which includes both intellects, namely, to the intellect in act, of which he was speaking; because that alone in our soul which belongs to the intellect in act is separate and uses no organ; I mean that part of the soul whereby we understand actually and which includes the possible and agent intellect. And that is why Aristotle goes on to say that this part of the soul alone is immortal and everlasting, as being independent of the body in virtue of its separateness.

Chapter

THAT THE HUMAN SOUL DOES NOT PERISH WHEN THE BODY IS CORRUPTED

Chapters 80 and 81 ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THAT THE CORRUPTION OF THE BODY ENTAILS THAT OF THE SOUL [AND THEIR SOLUTION] ¹ There are certain arguments which would seem to prove the impossibility of human souls remaining after the body. [2] For, if human souls are multiplied in accordance with the multiplication of bodies, as was shown above, then the souls cannot remain in their multiple being when the bodies are destroyed. One of two alternatives, therefore, follows ineluctably: either the human soul perishes utterly, or only one soul remains. And, seemingly, this state of affairs would accord with the theory of those who maintain that what is one in all men is alone incorruptible, whether this be the agent intellect only, as Alexander declares, or, in the Averroistic doctrine, the possible along with the agent intellect. [3] Moreover, the formal principle [ ratio ] is the cause of specific diversity. But, if many souls remain after the corruption of bodies, they must be mutually diverse; for just as there is identity where there is unity of substance, so those things we diverse which are substantially many. Now, in souls that survive the death of the bodies which they inform, the only possible diversity is of a formal character, since such souls are not composed of matter and form—a point proved above with respect to every intellectual substance. It therefore follows that those souls are specifically diverse. Nevertheless, souls are not changed to another species as a result of the body’s corruption, because whatever is changed from species to species is corrupted. Consequently, even before souls were separated from their bodies, they were specifically diverse. Now, composite things owe their specific nature to their form. It follows that individual men will be specifically diverse—an awkward consequence. It is, therefore, seemingly impossible that a multiplicity of. human souls should survive their bodies. [4] Then, too, for those who espouse the doctrine of the eternity of the world it would seem utterly impossible to maintain that a multiplicity of human souls remain after the death of the body. For, if the world exists from eternity, then movement did, too, so that generation likewise is eternal. But in that case an infinite number of men have died before us. If, then, the souls of the dead remain in their multiple being after death, it must be said that there actually exist now an infinite number of souls of men already dead. This, however, is impossible, because the actually infinite cannot exist in nature. Hence it follows, on the hypothesis of the world’s eternity, that souls do not remain many after death. [5] Also, “That which comes to a thing and departs from it, without the latter being corrupted, accrues to it accidentally”; for this is the definition of an accident. Thus, if the soul is not corrupted as the result of its severance from the body, it would follow that the soul is united to the body accidentally, and, further, that man is an accidental being, composed of body and soul. In that case, too, we should be faced with the consequence that there is no human species, for one species does not result from things joined together by accident; white man, for example, is not a species. [6] A completely inoperative substance, moreover, cannot possibly exist. All psychic operation, however, is corporeally determined, as we see by induction. For the soul’s nutritive powers function through the bodily qualities, and by a bodily instrument acting upon the body, which is perfected by the soul, which is nourished and increased, and from which the seed is separated for generative purposes. Secondly, all the operations of the powers belonging to the sensitive soul are executed through bodily organs, some of them entailing a certain bodily transmutation, as in those which are called passions of the soul, for instance, love, joy, and the like. And again, while understanding is not an operation carried out through any bodily organ, nevertheless its objects are the phantasms, which stand in relation to it as colors to the power of sight; so that, just as sight cannot function in the absence of colors, so the intellective soul is incapable of understanding without phantasms. Moreover, to enable it to understand, the soul needs the powers which prepare the phantasms so as to render them actually intelligible, namely, the cogitative power and the memory-powers which, being acts of certain bodily organs and functioning through them, surely cannot remain after the body perishes. And that is why Aristotle says that the soul never understands without a phantasm, and that it understands nothing without the passive intellect, which he terms the cogitative power, and which is destructible. This explains why he says in De anima I [4] that man’s understanding is corrupted through the decay of some inward part, namely, the phantasm, or the passive intellect. Aristotle also remarks in De anima III [5] that after death we do not remember what we know in life. Evidently, then, no operation of the soul can remain after death. Therefore, neither does its substance continue to be, since no substance can exist without operation. [7] [Chapter 81] Now, because these arguments arrive at a false conclusion, as was shown above, we must endeavor to solve them. And first of all, it must be understood that whatever things have to be adapted and proportioned to one another simultaneously derive their multiplicity or unity, each from its own cause. Therefore, if the being of one thing depends on another, its unity or multiplicity likewise depends thereon; otherwise, its unity or multiplicity depends on some other extrinsic cause. Thus, form and matter must always be mutually proportioned and, as it were, naturally adapted, because the proper act is produced in its proper matter. That is why matter and form must always agree with one another in respect to multiplicity and unity. Consequently, if the being of the form depends on matter, its multiplication, as well as its unity, depends on matter. But if this is not the case, then the form will have to be multiplied in accordance with the multiplication of the matter, that is to say, together with the matter and in proportion to it; yet not in such a manner that the unity or multiplicity of the form itself depends upon the matter. It has been shown,” however, that the human soul is a form not depending in its being on matter. It therefore follows that souls are multiplied in accordance with the multiplication of bodies, yet the latter will not be the cause of the multiplication of souls. And for this reason it does not follow that-, with the destruction of bodies, the plurality of souls ceases, as the first argument concluded. [8] From this the reply to the second argument also clearly emerges. For not every diversity of form causes diversity in species, but that diversity alone which concerns formal principles, or otherness in respect of the intelligible essence of the form; for obviously, the form of this and that fire is essentially distinct, yet neither the fire nor its form is specifically diverse. Thus, a multiplicity of souls separated from their bodies is due to the substantial diversity of the forms, since the substance of this soul is other than the substance of that soul. This diversity, nevertheless, does not result from a diversity in the essential principles of the soul itself, nor from otherness in respect of the intelligible essence of the soul, but from diversity in the commensuration of souls to bodies, since this soul is adapted to this and not to that body, and that soul to another body, and so in all other instances. And such adaptabilities remain in souls even after the bodies have perished, even as their substances remain, as not depending in their being on bodies. For souls are in their substances the forms of bodies; otherwise, they would be united to their bodies accidentally, so that from the union of soul and body there would result a thing not essentially, but only accidentally, one. Now, it is as forms that souls have to be adapted to bodies. Clearly, that is why these diverse adaptabilities remain in separated souls, and consequently explains their enduring plurality. [9] For some advocates of the eternity of the world the third argument cited above has been the occasion of their lapsing into various bizarre opinions. For some admitted the conclusion unqualifiedly, declaring that human souls perish utterly with their bodies. Others said that of all souls there remains a single separate entity common to them all, namely, the agent intellect, according to some, or, in addition, the possible intellect, according to others. Still others maintained that souls continue to exist in their multiplicity after the death of the bodies; yet, on pain of having to admit an infinite number of souls, these persons averred that the same souls are united to different bodies after a certain period of time has elapsed. This was the Platonists’ theory, of which we shall treat further on. Avoiding all these inferences, another group of thinkers held that it is not impossible for separate souls to be actually infinite in number. For in the case of things devoid of mutual order, to be actually infinite is to be infinite accidentally, and those thinkers saw no incongruity in admitting this. Such is the position of Avicenna and Al-Ghazali. Aristotle does not tell us explicitly which of these opinions he himself shared, but he does expressly affirm the eternity of the world. Nevertheless, of all the opinions cited above, the last one is not inconsistent with the principle laid down by him. For in Physics III [5] and in De caelo I [5] he proves that there is no actual infinity in natural bodies, but he does not prove that there is no actual infinity in immaterial substances. In any case it is certain that this question presents no difficulty to those who profess the Catholic faith, and do not posit the eternity of the world. [10] Moreover, if the soul remains in existence after the death of the body, it does not follow that it must have been accidentally united to it, as the fourth argument concluded. For an accident is described as that which can be present or absent without the corruption of the subject composed of matter and form. However, if this statement is applied to the principles of the composite subject, it is found to be false; because it is clear, as Aristotle shows in Physics I [9], that prime matter is ungenerated and incorruptible. That is why prime matter remains in its essence when the form departs. Nevertheless, the form was united to it not accidentally but essentially, since it was joined to it according to one act of being. The soul likewise is united to the body as regards one act of being, as was shown above. Therefore, although the soul continues to exist after the body has passed away, it is nevertheless united to the body substantially and not accidentally. Now, prime matter does not remain in act after the form’s departure, except in relation to the act of another form, whereas the human soul remains in the same act; and the reason for this is that the human soul is a form and an act, while prime matter is a being only potentially. [11] The proposition advanced in the fifth argument, namely, that no operation ran remain in the soul when separated from the body, we declare to be false, in view of the fact that those operations do remain which are not exercised through organs. Such are the operations of understanding and willing. Those operations, however, do not endure which are carried out by means of bodily~ organs, and of such a kind are the operations of the nutritive and sensitive powers. [12] Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that the soul understands in a different manner when separated from the body and when united to it, even as it exists diversely in those cases; for a thing acts according as it is. Indeed, although the soul, while united to the body, enjoys an absolute being not depending on the body, nevertheless the body is the soul’s housing, so to speak, and the subject that receives it. This explains why the soul’s proper operation, understanding, has its object, namely, the phantasm, in the body, despite the fact that this operation does not depend on the body as though it were effected through the instrumentality of a bodily organ. It follows that, so long as the soul is in the body, it cannot perform that act without a phantasm; neither can it remember except through the powers of cogitation and memory, by which the phantasms are prepared, as stated above. Accordingly, understanding, so far as this mode of it is concerned, as well as remembering, perishes with the death of the body. The separated soul, however, exists by itself, apart from the body. Consequently, its operation, which is understanding, will not be fulfilled in relation to those objects existing in bodily organs which the phantasms are; on the contrary, it will understand through itself, in the manner of substances which in their being are totally separate from bodies, and of which we shall treat subsequently. And from those substances, as from things above it, the separated soul will be able to receive a more abundant influx, productive of a more perfect understanding on its own part. There is an indication of this evert in the young. For the more the soul is freed from preoccupation with its body, the more fit does it become for understanding higher things. Hence, the virtue of temperance, which withdraws the soul from bodily pleasures, is especially fruitful in making men apt in understanding. Then, too, sleeping persons, their bodily senses being dormant, with no disturbance of the humours or vapors to impede their mental processes, are, under the influence of higher beings, enabled to perceive some things pertaining to the future which transcend the scope of human reason. And this is all the more true of those in a fainting condition or in ecstasy, since such states involve an even greater withdrawal from the bodily senses. Nor does this come to pass undeservedly. For, since the human soul, as we have shown already, is situated on the boundary line between corporeal and incorporeal substances, as though it existed on the horizon of eternity and time, it approaches to the highest by withdrawing from the lowest. Consequently, when the soul shall be completely separated from the body, it will be perfectly likened to separate substances in its mode of understanding, and will receive their influx abundantly. [13] Therefore, although the mode of understanding vouchsafed to us in the present life ceases upon the death of the body, nevertheless another and higher mode of understanding will take its place. [14] Now, recollection, being an act performed through a bodily organ, as Aristotle shows in the De memoria [I], cannot remain in the soul after the body, unless recollection be taken equivocally for the understanding of things which one knew before. For there must be present in the separate soul even the things that it knew in this life, since the intelligible species are received into the possible intellect inexpugnably, as we have already shown. [15] As for the other operations of the soul, such as loving, rejoicing, and the like, one must beware of equivocation. For sometimes such operations are taken inasmuch as they are passions of the soul, and in this sense they are acts of the sensible appetite appertaining to the concupiscible and irascible powers, entailing some bodily change. And thus they cannot remain in the soul after death, as Aristotle proves in the De anima [I, 4]. Sometimes, however, such operations are taken for a simple act of the will, in the absence of all passion. That is why Aristotle says in Book VII of the Ethics that God rejoices in a single and simple operation; and in Book X that in the contemplation of wisdom there is marvelous delight; and in Book VII he distinguishes the love of friendship from the love that is a passion. Now, since the will is a power employing no organ, as neither does the intellect, it is plain that these things of which we are speaking remain in the separated soul, so far as they are acts of the will. [16] From the preceding arguments, therefore, it cannot be concluded that the soul of man is mortal.

Chapter

THAT THE SOULS OF BRUTE ANIMALS ARE NOT IMMORTAL

[1] This truth can be clearly inferred from what has been already said. [2] For we demonstrated above that no operation of the sensitive part of the soul can be performed without the body. In the souls of brute animals, however, there is no operation superior to those of the sensitive part, since they neither understand nor reason. This is evident from the fact that all animals of the same species operate in the same way, as though moved by nature and not as operating by art; every swallow builds its nest and every spider spins its web, in the same manner. The souls of brutes, then, are incapable of any operation that does not involve the body. Now, since every substance is possessed of some operation, the soul of a brute animal will be unable to exist apart from its body; so that it perishes along with the body. [3] Likewise, every form separate from matter is understood in act. for the agent intellect renders species intelligible in act by way of abstraction, as we see from what was said above. But if the soul of the brute animal continues to exist after its body has passed away, then that soul will be a form separate from matter, and therefore a form understood in act. And yet, as Aristotle says in De anima III [4], with things separate from matter, that which understands is identical with that which is understood. It follows that the soul of a brute animal, if it survives the body, will be intellectual; and this is impossible. [4] Then, too, in every thing capable of attaining a certain perfection, we find a natural desire for that perfection, since good is what all things desire, yet in such fashion that each thing desires the good proper to itself. In brutes, however, we find no desire for perpetual existence, but only a desire for the perpetuation of their several species, since we do observe in them the desire to reproduce and thereby perpetuate the species—a desire common also to plants and to inanimate things, though not as regards desire proper to an animal as such, because animal appetite is consequent upon apprehension. For, since the apprehending power of the sensitive soul is limited to the here and now, that soul cannot possibly be cognizant of perpetual existence. Nor, then, does it desire such existence with animal appetite. Therefore, the soul of a brute animal is incapable of perpetual existence. [5] Moreover, as Aristotle remarks in Ethics X [4], pleasures perfect operations. Hence, a thing’s activity is directed to that object wherein it takes pleasure, as to its end. But all the pleasures of brute animals have reference to the preservation of their body; thus, they delight in sounds, odors, and sights only to the extent that they signify for them food or sex, the sole objects of all their pleasures. All the activities of such animals, then, have but a single end: the preservation of their bodily existence. Thus, there is in them no being whatever which is independent of the body. [6] The teaching of the Catholic faith is in harmony with this doctrine. For in the Old Testament we read, concerning the soul of the brute animal, that “the life of all flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:14, Gen. 9:4-5), which seemingly means that the existence of such souls depends on the permanence of the blood. And it is said in the work On the Teachings of the Church: “We declare that man alone has a subsistent soul,” that is, a soul having life of itself; and that “the souls of brute animals perish along with their bodies.” [7] Aristotle likewise states, in De anima II [2], that “the intellective part of the soul differs from the other parts as the incorruptible from the corruptible.” [8] This eliminates Plato’s theory that the souls even of brute animals are immortal. [9] Nevertheless, it would seem possible to show that the souls of such animals are immortal. For, if a thing possesses an operation through itself, distinctly its own, then it is subsisting through itself. But the sensitive soul in brutes enjoys an operation through itself, wherein the body has no part, namely, motion; for a mover is compounded of two parts, the one being mover and the other moved. Since the body is a thing moved, it remains that the soul is exclusively a mover, and, consequently, is subsisting through itself. Hence, the soul cannot be corrupted by accident, when the body is corrupted, for only those things are corrupted by accident which do not have being through themselves. Nor can the soul be corrupted through itself, since it neither has a contrary nor is composed of contraries. The result of the argument, therefore, is that the soul is altogether incorruptible. [10] And, seemingly, Plato’s argument that every soul is immortal comes to the same thing, namely, that the soul is a self-mover; and everything of this sort must be immortal. For the body dies only when its mover departs from it, and a thing cannot abandon itself. That is why Plato inferred that Is thing which moves itself cannot die. And thus he came to the conclusion that every soul possessed of the power of motion, even that of brute animals, is immortal. Now, we have remarked that this argument is reductively the same as the preceding one, since, given Plato’s position that nothing moves without being moved, a thing that moves itself is a mover through itself and therefore has an operation through itself. [11] Now, Plato also maintained that the sensitive soul enjoys an operation of its own, not only in respect to movement, but also as regards sensation. For he said that sensation is a movement of the sensing soul itself, and that the soul, thus moved, moved the body to sensation; wherefore Plato said, in defining sense, that it is the motion of the soul through the body. [12] Now, these Platonic dicta are patently false. For the act of sensation is not an act of movement; rather, to sense is to be moved; since, through the sensible objects altering the condition of the senses in acting upon them, the animal is made actually sentient from being only potentially so. However, it cannot be maintained that the passivity of the sense in respect of the sensible is the same as that of the intellect in relation to the intelligible, so that sensation could then be an operation of the soul without a bodily instrument, just as understanding is. This is impossible, because the intellect grasps things in abstraction from matter and material conditions, which are individuating principles, whereas the sense does not, being manifestly limited to the perception of particulars, while the intellect attains to universals. Clearly, then, the senses are passive to things as existing in matter, but not the intellect, which is passive to things according as they are abstracted. Thus, in the intellect there is passivity in utter independence of corporeal matter, but not in the senses. [13] Moreover, diverse senses are receptive of diverse sensible objects—sight of colors, hearing of sounds, and so on. And it is quite clear that this diversity stems from the diverse dispositions of the organs. The organ of sight, for instance, is, necessarily, in potentiality to all colors, and the organ of hearing to all sounds. But, if this sense-receptivity occurred without a corporeal organ, then the same power would be receptive of all sensible objects; for an immaterial power is of itself related indifferently to all such qualities; and that is why the intellect, which employs no bodily organ, is cognizant of all sensible things. Without a bodily organ, then, no sensation takes place. [14] There is also the fact that sense is overwhelmed by an exceedingly high degree of intensity on the part of its objects; but the intellect is not, because he who understands the higher intelligibles is more and not less able to understand other things. Hence, the state of passivity brought about in the sense by the sensible differs in kind from that which the intelligible causes in the intellect; the latter occurs without a bodily organ, the former with a bodily organ, the harmonious structure of whose parts is shattered by the pre-eminent power of some sensible objects. [15] Now, Plato’s statement, that the soul is self-moving, appears true in the light of our observations of bodily things. For no body seems to move without being moved, and Plato accordingly asserted that every mover is moved. Moreover, since it is impossible to proceed to infinity, every thing moved being moved by something else, he laid it down that the first mover in each and every order of things, moves itself. It therefore followed that the soul, being the first mover in the order of animal movements, is a self-moving reality. [16] This conclusion, however, is seen to be false, for two reasons. First, because it has been proved in Book I of this work that whatever is moved through itself is a body; since, then, the soul is not a body, it cannot possibly be moved except by accident. [17] The second reason is this. A mover, precisely as such, is in act; the thing moved, as such, is in potentiality; and nothing can be in act and in potentiality in the same respect. The same thing, therefore, cannot possibly be mover and moved in the same respect, so that, if a thing is said to move itself, one part of it must be mover and the other part moved. And this is what is meant by saying that an animal moves itself, for the animal’s soul is the mover and its body the moved. Now, Plato did not hold that the soul is a body, although he did use the word movement in this connection, and in the proper sense of the term, movement belongs to bodies. But it was not this meaning that Plato had in mind; rather, he was taking movement in a more universal, extended sense, as applying to any operation, even as Aristotle does in De anima III [7]: “Sensation and understanding are certain movements.” But in this case movement is the act, not of that which exists potentially, but of that which is perfect. So, in saying that the soul moves itself, Plato meant that it acts without the help of the body, whereas just the reverse is true of other forms, incapable as they are of exercising any action whatever apart from matter. (It is not any separately existing beat that produces beat, but only something hot.) Plato wishes to conclude from this that every soul capable of causing movement is immortal, for that which by its essence is endowed with operation can likewise enjoy an essential mode of existence. [18] But we have shown already that the brute animal’s operation of sensing is impossible without the body. And this impossibility is all the more apparent in the case of the operation of appetite. For all things pertaining to sense appetite manifestly involve some bodily change; that is why they are called passions of the soul. [19] From these points it follows that movement is itself no organless operation of the sensitive soul. For it is only through sense and appetite that the soul of the brute animal moves; since the power designated as the executor of movement makes the animal’s members obedient to the appetite’s command. Thus, the powers of which we speak are of the sort that perfect the body as regards its being moved, rather than powers of actively moving. [20] It is, then, clearly impossible for any operation of the brute animal’s soul to be independent of its body. And from this it can be inferred with necessity that the soul of the brute perishes with the body.

Chapter

THAT THE HUMAN SOUL BEGINS TO EXIST WHEN THE BODY DOES

[1] Now, since the same things are found both to begin to be and to end, someone might suppose that, because the human soul will not cease to exist, neither will it have begun to exist, but, on the contrary, has always been. And it would seem possible to prove this by the following arguments. [2] That which will never cease to be has the power to exist forever. But no such thing can ever be truly said not to be; for the extent of a thing’s existential duration is exactly commensurate with its power of existing. But of every thing which had begun to exist, it is at some time true to say that it is not. Therefore, that which will never cease to exist, at no time begins to be. [3] Moreover, just as the truth of intelligible things is imperishable, so is that truth, of itself, eternal; because it is necessary, and whatever is necessary is eternal, for what is necessary to be cannot possibly not be. Now, the imperishable being of the soul is demonstrated from the imperishability of intelligible truth. Hence, by the same reasoning, the soul’s eternity can be proved from the eternal being of intelligible both. [4] Also, a thing that lacks several of its principal parts is not perfect. But, clearly, the principal parts of the universe are intellectual substances, in the genus of which human souls belong, as we have shown above. If every day as many human souls begin to exist as men are born, then, obviously, many of the principal parts of the universe are added to it daily, so that it lacks a multiplicity of things. Consequently, the universe is imperfect. But this is impossible. [5] Then, too, some draw their arguments from the authority of Sacred Scripture. For in Genesis (2:2) it is said that “on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made: and He rested from all His work which He had done.” But, if God made new souls every day, this would not be true. Therefore, no new human souls ever begin to exist, but they have existed from the beginning of the world. [6] Hence, for these and similar reasons, proponents of the doctrine of the world’s eternity have said that, just as the human soul is incorruptible, so has it existed from all eternity. That is why the upholders of the theory of the immortality of human souls in their multiple existence—I refer to the Platonists—asserted that they have existed from eternity, and are united to bodies at one time and separated from them at another, these vicissitudes following a fixed cyclical pattern throughout set periods of years. Advocates of the theory that human souls are immortal in respect of some single reality, pertaining to all men, which remains after death, declared, however, that this one entity has endured from all eternity; whether it be the agent intellect alone, as Alexander held, or, together with this, the possible intellect, as Averroes maintained. Aristotle, also, seems to be making the same point when, speaking of the intellect, he says that it is not only incorruptible, but also everlasting. [7] On the other hand, some who profess the Catholic faith, yet are imbued with the teachings of the Platonists, have taken a middle position. For, since the Catholic faith teaches that nothing is eternal except God, these persons maintain, not that human souls are eternal, but that they were created with, or rather before, the visible world, yet are fettered to bodies anew. Among these Christians, Origen was the first exponent of this theory, and a number of his disciples followed suit. The theory, indeed, survives to this day among heretics, the Manicheans, for example, siding with Plato in proclaiming the eternity and transmutation of souls. [8] Now, all these opinions can be easily shown to have no foundation in truth. For it has already been proved that there does not exist only one possible agent intellect for all men. Hence, it remains for us to proceed against those theories which, while envisaging the existence of many human souls, maintain that they existed before bodies, either from eternity, or from the foundation of the world. The incongruity of such a notion is exposed by the following arguments. [9] For, it has already been established that the soul is united to the body as its form and act. Now, although act is prior in its nature to potentiality, nevertheless in one and the same thing it is temporally posterior to it; for a thing is moved from potentiality to act. Thus, seed, which is potentially living, preceded the soul, which is the act of life. [10] Moreover, it is natural to every form to be united to its proper matter; otherwise, that which is made of form and matter would be something preternatural. But that which befits a thing naturally is attributed to it before that which befits it preternaturally, because the latter is in it by accident, the former, through itself. Now, that which is by accident is always posterior to that which is through itself. It is, therefore, becoming to the soul to be united to the body before being separated from it. The soul, then, was not created before the body to which it is united. [11] Again, every part existing in separation from its whole is imperfect. Now, the soul, being a form, as has been proved, is a part of the specific nature of man. Hence, as long as it exists through itself apart from the body, it is imperfect. But in the order of natural things, the perfect is prior to the imperfect. It would, therefore, be inconsistent with the order of nature were the soul created apart from the body before being united to it. [12] And again, if souls are created without bodies, it must be asked how they are united to bodies. This union could he effected in but two ways: by violence or by nature. Now, everything violent is against nature, so that if the union of soul and body is brought about by violence it is not natural. Hence, man, who is composed of both, is something unnatural; which is obviously false. There is also the consideration that intellectual substances are of a higher order than the heavenly bodies. But in the latter there is nothing violent or contrary. Much less, therefore, does any such thing exist in intellectual substances. [13] Now, if the union of souls to bodies is natural, then, in their creation, souls had a natural desire to be united to bodies. Now, natural appetite immediately issues in act if no obstacle stands in the way, as we see in the movement of heavy and light bodies; for nature always works in the same way. So, unless something existed to prevent it, souls would have been united to bodies from the very beginning of their creation. But whatever obstructs the realisation of natural appetite does violence to it. That at some time souls existed in separation from bodies was therefore the result of violence. And this is incongruous, not only because in such substances there can be nothing violent, as was shown, but also because the violent and the unnatural, being accidental, cannot be prior to that which is in keeping with nature, nor can they be consequent upon the total species. [14] Furthermore, since everything naturally desires its own perfection, it pertains to matter to desire form, and not conversely. But the soul is compared to the body as form to matter, as was-shown above.” Therefore, the union of the soul to the body is not brought about in response to the desire of the soul, but, rather, of the body. [15] Now, the argument may be raised that union with the body is natural to the soul, as well as separation from it, according to various periods of time. But such a notion seems impossible. For changes that take place naturally in a subject are accidental, such as youth and old age; so that, if its union with, and separation from the body are for the soul natural changes, then union with the body will be an accident of the soul. The human being constituted by this union therefore will not be an essential but an accidental being. [16] Then, too, whatever is subject to alternate phases of existence according to various periods of time is subject to the movement of the heaven, which the whole course of time follows. But intellectual and incorporeal substances, including separately existing souls, transcend the entire realm of bodily things. Hence, they cannot be subject to the movements of the heavenly bodies. Therefore, it is impossible that they should be naturally united during one period of time and separated during another, or that they should naturally desire this at one time, and that at another. [17] On the other hand, the hypothesis that souls are united to bodies neither by violence nor by nature, but by free choice, is likewise impossible. For no one voluntarily enters into a state worse than the previous one, unless he be deceived. But the separate soul enjoys a higher state of existence than when united to the body; especially according to the Platonists, who say that through its union with the body, the soul forgets what it knew before, its power to contemplate truth in a pure manner thus being checked. Hence, the soul is not willingly united to the body unless it be the victim of deception. But there can be nothing in the soul that could cause deception, since, for the Platonists, the soul is possessed of all knowledge. Nor can it be said that the soul’s judgment, proceeding from universal scientific knowledge and applied to a particular matter of choice, is overwhelmed by the passions, as in the incontinent; for no passions of this sort occur without bodily change, and, consequently, they cannot exist in the separate soul. We are, then, left with the conclusion that, if the soul had existed before the body, it would not be united to the body of its own will. [18] Moreover, every effect issuing from the concurrent operation of two mutually unrelated wills is fortuitous, as in the case of a person who goes out to shop and meets his creditor in the market place without any prior arrangement between the two. Now, the will of the generative agent, whereon the body’s production depends, is independent of the will of the separate soul which wills to be united. It follows that the union of the soul and body is fortuitous, since it cannot be effected without the concurrence of both wills. Thus, the begetting of a man results not from nature, but from chance, which is patently false, since it occurs in the majority of cases. [19] Now, again, the theory may be advanced that the soul is united to the body by divine decree, and not by nature, nor of its own will. But such a supposition also seems inadmissible on the hypothesis that souls were created before bodies. For God established each thing in being in a mode congruent with its nature. Hence, in the Book of Genesis (1:10, 31) it is said of each creature: “God saw that it was good,” and of all creatures collectively: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.” If, then, God created souls separate from bodies, it must be said that this manner of being is more suitable to their nature. But it is not becoming to the ordering of things by the divine goodness to relegate them to a lower state, but, rather, to raise them to a higher. Hence, it could not have been by God’s ordinance that the soul was united to the body. [20] Moreover, it is inconsistent with the order of divine wisdom to raise up lower things to the detriment of higher things. But generable and corruptible bodies have the lowest rank in the order of things. Hence, it would not have been consistent with the order of divine wisdom to ennoble human bodies by uniting pre-existing souls to them, since this would be impossible without detriment to the latter, as we have already seen. [21] Having this point in mind—for he asserted that human souls had been created from the beginning—Origen said that they were united to bodies by divine decree, but as a punishment. For Origen thought that souls had sinned before bodies existed, and that according to the gravity of their sin, souls were shut up in bodies of higher or lower character, as in so many prisons. [22] This doctrine, however, is untenable, for, being contrary to a good of nature, punishment is said to be an evil. If, then, the union of soul and body is something penal in character, it is not a good of nature. But this is impossible, for that union is intended by nature, since natural generation terminates in it. And again, on Origen’s theory, it would follow that man’s being would not be a good according to nature, yet it is said, after man’s creation: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.” [23] Furthermore, good does not issue from evil save by accident. Therefore, if the soul’s union with the body were due to sin on the part of the separate soul, it would follow that this union is accidental, since it is a kind of good. In that case the production of man was a matter of chance. But such a thing is derogatory to God’s wisdom, of which it is written that “It ordered all things in number, weight, and measure” (Wis. 11:21). [24] That notion also clearly clashes with apostolic doctrine. For St. Paul says of Jacob and Esau, that “when they were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil, it was said that the elder shall serve the younger” (Rom. 9:11-17). Hence, before this was said, their souls had not sinned at all, yet the Apostle’s statement postdates the time of their conception, as Genesis (25:23) makes clear. [25] Earlier, in treating of the distinction of things, we leveled against Origen’s position a number of arguments which may also be used here. Omitting them, therefore, we pass on to others. [26] It must be said that the human soul either needs the senses or does not need them. Now, experience seems to show clearly that the former is true. For a person who lacks a certain sense has no knowledge of the sensible objects which are perceived through that sense; a man born blind has neither knowledge nor any understanding of colors. Furthermore, if the human soul does not require the senses in order to understand, then sensitive and intellective cognition in man would have so ordered relationship to one another. But experience demonstrates the contrary; for our senses give rise to memories, and from these we obtain experiential knowledge of things, which in turn is the means through which we come to an understanding of the universal principles of sciences and arts. Now, nature is wanting in nothing that is necessary for the fulfilment of its proper operation; thus, to animals whose soul is endowed with powers of sense and movement nature gives the appropriate organs of sense and movement. Hence, if the human soul needs the senses in order to understand, then that soul would never have been made to be in the first place without the indispensable assistants which the senses are. But the senses do not function without corporeal organs, as we have seen. Ile soul, therefore, was not made without such organs. [27] The argument that the human soul does not need the senses in order to understand, and thus is said to have been created apart from the body, necessarily implies that, before being united to the body, the soul was by itself cognizant of all scientific truths. The Platonists indeed admitted this in saying that Ideas, which according to Plato are the separate intelligible forms of things, are the cause of knowledge; and thus, the separate soul, having no obstacle confronting it, received full knowledge of all sciences. Therefore, since the soul is found to be ignorant when united to the body, it must be said that it forgets the knowledge which it previously possessed. The Platonists acknowledge this inference, also, adducing the following observation as indicative of its truth: If a man, however ignorant he may be, is questioned systematically about matters taught in the sciences, he will answer the truth; so, if a man has forgotten some of the things that he knew before, and a person proposes to him one by one the things he has forgotten, he recalls them to his memory. And from this they inferred that learning was nothing else than remembering. This theory then necessarily led to the conclusion that union with the body places an obstacle in the way of the soul’s understanding. In no case, however, does nature unite a thing to that which impedes its operation; on the contrary, nature unites the thing to that which facilitates its operation. Thus, the union of body and soul will not be natural, so that man will not be a natural thing, nor will his engendering be natural; which, of course, is false. [28] The ultimate end of every thing, moreover, is that which it strives to attain by its operations. But man, by all his proper operations fittingly ordered and rightly directed, strives to attain the contemplation of truth; for the operations of the active powers are certain preparations and dispositions to the contemplative powers. The end of man, therefore, is to arrive at the contemplation of truth. It is for this purpose, then, that the soul is united to the body, and in this union does man’s being consist. Therefore, it is not union with the body that causes the soul to lose knowledge which it had possessed; on the contrary, the soul is united to the body so that it may acquire knowledge. [29] Then, too, if a person ignorant of the sciences is questioned about matters pertaining to the sciences, his answers will not be true, except with regard to the universal principles of which no one is ignorant, but which are known by all in the same way and naturally. But, if that ignorant person is questioned systematically later on, he will answer truly concerning matters closely related to the principles, by referring them to the latter; and he will go on answering truly as long as he is able to apply the power of first principles to the subjects about which he is questioned. This makes it quite clear, therefore, that through the primary principles new knowledge is caused in the person questioned. This new knowledge, then, is not caused by recalling to memory things previously known. [30] Furthermore, if the knowledge of conclusions were as natural to the soul as knowledge of principles, then everyone’s judgment concerning conclusions, as well as principles, would be the same, since things natural are the same for all. But not all persons share the same judgment in respect to conclusions, but only to principles. Clearly, then, the knowledge of principles is natural to us, but not the knowledge of conclusions. The non-natural, however, is acquired by us through the natural; thus it is through our hands that we produce, in the world of things outside us, all our artifacts. Therefore, we have no knowledge of conclusions except that which we acquire from principles. [31] Again, since nature is always directed to one thing, of one power there must naturally be one object, as color of sight, and sound of hearing. Hence, the intellect, being one power, has one natural object, of which it has knowledge essentially and naturally. And this object must be one under which are included all things known by the intellect; just as under color are included all colors essentially visible. Now, this is none other than being [ ens ]. Our intellect, therefore, knows being naturally, and whatever essentially belongs to a being as such; and upon this knowledge is founded the knowledge of first principles, such as the impossibility of simultaneously affirming and denying, and the like. Thus, only these principles are known naturally by our intellect, while conclusions are known through them; just as, through color, sight is cognizant of both common and accidental sensibles. [32] And again. That which we acquire through the senses did not exist in the soul before its union with the body. But our knowledge of principles themselves is derived from sensible things; if, for instance, we had not perceived some whole by our senses, we would be unable to understand the principle that the whole is greater than its parts; even as a man born blind is utterly insensible of colors. Therefore, neither did the soul prior to its union with the body have any knowledge of principles; much less, of other things. Hence, Plato’s argument that the soul existed before its union with the body is without solidity. [33] There is also the argument that if all souls existed before the bodies to which they are united, it would then seemingly follow that the same soul is united to different bodies according to the vicissitudes of time-an obvious consequence of the doctrine of the eternity of the world. For from the hypothesis of the engendering of human beings from eternity it follows that an infinite number of human bodies have come into being and passed away throughout the whole course of time. Hence, two possibilities: either an actually infinite number of souls prc-existed, if each soul is united to a single body, or, if the number of souls is finite, then the same souls are united at one time to these particular bodies and at another time to those. And seemingly we would be faced with the same consequence if we held that souls existed before bodies but that they were not produced from eternity. For, even if it be supposed that the engendering of men has not always been in progress, nevertheless, in the very nature of the case, it indubitably can be of infinite duration; because every man is so constituted by nature that, unless he be impeded accidentally, he is able to beget another man, even as he himself was begotten of another. But this would be impossible if, given the existence of a finite number of souls, one soul cannot be united to several bodies. That is why a number of proponents of the doctrine that souls exist before bodies espoused the theory of transmigration; which cannot possibly be true. Therefore, souls did not exist before bodies. [34] Now, the impossibility of one soul’s being united to diverse bodies is clearly seen in the light of the following considerations. Human souls do not differ specifically from one another, but only numerically; otherwise, men also would differ specifically, one from the other. Material principles, however, are the source of numerical distinction. It follows that the distinction among human souls must be attributed to something material in character—but not so as to imply that matter is a part of the soul, because the soul is an intellectual substance, and no such substance has matter, as we have proved above. It therefore remains that in the manner explained above the diversity and plurality of souls result from their relationship to the diverse matters to which they are united; so that, if there are different bodies, they must have different souls united to them. One soul, then, is not united to several bodies. [35] Moreover, it was shown above that the soul is united to the body as its form. But forms must be proportionate to their proper matters, since they are related to one another as act to potentiality, the proper act corresponding to the proper potentiality. Therefore, one soul is not united to a number of bodies. [36] We argue further from the fact that the power of the mover must be proportionate to the thing movable by it, for not every power moves every movable. But, even if the soul were not the form of the body, it could not be said that the soul is not the body’s mover, for we distinguish the animate from the inanimate by sense and movement. It therefore follows that the distinction among souls must correspond to the distinction among bodies. [37] Likewise, in the realm of things subject to generation and corruption it is impossible for one and the same thing to be reproduced by generation; for generation and corruption are movements in respect of substance, so that in things generated and corrupted the substance does not remain the same, as it does in things moved locally. But, if one soul is united successively to different generated bodies, the self-same man will come into being again through generation. This follows necessarily for Plato, who said that man is a “soul clothed with a body.” This consequence also holds for any others. For a thing’s unity follows upon its form, even as its being does, so that those things are one in number whose form is one in number. It is, therefore, impossible for one soul to be united to different bodies. From this it follows, too, that souls were not in existence before bodies. [38] With this truth the Catholic faith expressly agrees. For it is said in a Psalm (32:15): “He who made the hearts of every one of them”; namely, because God created a soul specially for each one, and neither created them all together, nor united one to different bodies. In this connection also we read in the work On the Teachings of the Church: “We declare that human souls were not created from the beginning together with other intellectual natures, nor all at the same time, as Origen imagines.”

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE PRECEDING ARGUMENTS

[1] The arguments in proof of the thesis that souls have existed from eternity, or that at least they existed before bodies, are easily solved. [2] As to the first argument, the statement that the soul has the power to exist always, must be granted. But it must be borne in mind that the power and potentiality of a thing extend not to what was, but to what is or will be; hence, there is no possibility with respect to things past. Therefore, from the fact that the soul has the power to exist always it can be concluded, not that the soul always was, but that it always will be. [3] Moreover, that to which a power is ordained does not follow from the power except on the supposition of the latter’s existence. Therefore, though the soul have the power to exist always, it cannot be inferred that the soul does exist always, except after it has actually received this power; and if it is assumed that the soul has received this power from eternity, the point that has to be proved, namely, the soul’s existence from eternity, will be begged. [4] The second argument, concerning the eternity of the truth which the soul understands, calls for a distinction. In one way, this eternity can be taken to refer to the thing understood; in another, to that by which it is understood. In the first case, the thing understood would be eternal, but not the one who understands; in the second, eternity would be on the side of the soul which understands. Now, the understood truth is eternal, not in the latter but in the former reference; since, a we have already clearly shown, the intelligible species, whereby our soul understands truth, come to us repeatedly ham the phantasms through the operation of the agent intellect. It cannot, then, he inferred that the soul is eternal, but that the truths understood are based upon something eternal; for, indeed, their foundation is in the first truth, as in the universal cause embracing all truth. But the soul stands in relation to this eternal entity, not as subject to form, but as thing to proper end, since the true is the good of the intellect, and its end. Now, argument concerning a thing’s duration can be drawn from its end, just as the question of its beginning is arguable through its efficient cause; for, indeed, a thing ordained to an eternal end must be capable of enduring forever. That is why the soul’s immortality can be proved from the eternity of intelligible truth, but not its eternity. And what we have already said on the question of the eternity of creatures makes it quite clear that the eternity of the soul cannot be demonstrated from the eternity of its efficient cause. [5] The third argument, in regard to the perfection of the universe, is void of necessity. For the perfection of the universe envisages species, not individuals; since the universe is constantly receiving the addition of myriad individuals of pre-existing species. Human souls, however, do not differ in specific nature but only in number, as was shown above. Hence, it is not incompatible with the perfection of the universe if new souls be created. [6] And from this we see the solution of the fourth argument. For in the Book of Genesis (2:2) it is said at the same time that “God ended His work,” and that “He rested from an His work which He had done.” Hence, just as the consummation or perfection of creatures is considered in terms of species, not individuals, so God’s resting must be understood to refer to cessation from forming new species, but not new individuals, of which others specifically alike have existed before. Thus, since all human souls are of one species, and likewise all men, it is not inconsistent with God’s rest if He creates new souls every day. [7] Now, it should be known that in Aristotle we do not find the statement that the human intellect is eternal; yet he customarily says this of those things which he thinks have existed always. But he does say that the human intellect is everlasting; and this can be said of those things that always will be, even if they have not always been. Hence, when Aristotle, in Metaphysics XI [3], excepted the intellective soul from the condition of other forms, he did not say that it was prior to matter, but Plato said this of the Ideas; and so it would seem that Aristotle might consistently have said something of the sort here about the soul; but what he did say was that the soul remains after the body.

Chapter

THAT THE SOUL IS NOT MADE OF GOD’S SUBSTANCE

[1] Things already said make it quite clear that the soul is not of God’s substance. [2] For it was shown in Book I of this work that the divine substance is eternal, and that no perfection of it has any beginning. Human souls, however, did not exist before bodies, as we have just shown. Therefore, the soul cannot be made of God’s substance. [3] It was likewise shown in Book I that God cannot be the form of anything. But the human soul is, as proved above, the form of the body. Therefore, it is not of the divine substance. [4] Moreover, everything from which something is made is in potentiality to that which is made from it. But the divine substance is not in potentiality to anything, since it is pure act, as was shown in Book I. Therefore, neither the soul nor anything else can possibly be made from God’s substance. [5] Then, too, that from which something is made is in some way changed. But God is absolutely unchangeable, as was proved in Book I It is, therefore, impossible for anything to be made from Him. [6] Furthermore, that the soul suffers variations in knowledge and virtue, and their opposites, is a fact of observation. But in God there is absolutely no variation, either through himself or by accident. [7] Also, it was shown in Book I that God is pure act, completely devoid of potentiality. But in the human soul we find both potentiality and act, since it contains the possible intellect, which is in potentiality to all intelligibles, as well as -the agent intellect, as was shown above. Therefore, it is not of God’s nature that the human soul is made. [8] Again, since the divine substance is utterly indivisible, the soul cannot be part of it, but only the whole substance, But the divine substance can be one only, as shown in Book I. It therefore follows that of all men there is but one soul so far as intellect is concerned. And this was disproved above. Therefore, the soul is not made of God’s substance. [9] Now, the theory that the soul is part and parcel of God’s own substance or nature seems to have had three sources: the doctrine that no substance is incorporeal; the doctrine that there is but one intellect for all men; the very likeness of our soul to God. As to the first source, some, having denied that any substance is incorporeal, asserted that God is the noblest body, whether it be air or fire or anything else putatively a principle, and that the soul was of the nature of this body. For, as Aristotle points out [ De Anima I, 2], the partisans of this doctrine all attributed to the soul whatever to their mind had the character of a principle. So, from this position, it followed that the soul is of the substance of God. And from this root sprang the theory of Manes, who held that God is a luminous body Wended through infinite space, and of this body, he said, the human soul is a fragment. [10] This theory, however, was previously refuted by the demonstration that God is not a body, as well as the proof that neither the human soul nor any intellectual substance is a body. [11] As to the second source indicated above, some have held that of all men there is but a single intellect, whether an agent intellect alone, or an agent and a possible intellect together, as we explained above. And since the ancients attributed divinity to every separate substance, it followed that our soul, the intellect by which we understand, is of the nature of the divine. And that is why in this age certain persons who profess the Christian faith and who posit a separately existing agent intellect explicitly identify the agent intellect with God. [12] Now, this whole doctrine of the unicity of man’s intellect has already been refuted. [13] In the very likeness of our soul to God may be found the third source of the theory that the soul is of the substance or nature of God Himself. For we find that understanding, which is thought to be proper to God above all, is possessed by no substance in this lower world except man-and this on account of his soul. It might, then, seem that the soul partakes of the nature of God; and this notion might appeal especially to persons firmly convinced of the immortality of the human soul. [14] This idea even seems to find support in the Book of Genesis (1:26), where, after the statement, “Let us make man to Our image and likeness,” it is added: “God formed man of the slime of the earth; and breathed into his face the breath of life.” From this text some wished to infer that the soul is of the very nature of God. For, since he who breathes into another’s face puts forth into the latter numerically the same thing that was in himself, holy Scripture itself would here seem to imply that God put into man something divine in order to give him life. [15] But the likeness in question is no proof that man is a part of the divine substance, for man’s understanding suffers from many defects—which cannot be said of God’s. This likeness, then, is rather indicative of a certain imperfect image than of any consubstantiality. And, indeed, Scripture implies this in saying that man was made “to the image” of God. And thus the “breathing” of which Genesis speaks signifies the pouring forth of life from God into man according to a certain likeness, and not according to unity of substance. So, too, “the spirit of life” is said to have been “breathed into his face,” for, since the organs of several senses are located in this part of the body, life is more palpably manifested in the face. God, therefore, is said to have breathed the spirit into man’s face, because He gave man the spirit of life, but not by detaching it from His own substance. For he who literally breathes into the face of someone—and this bodily breathing is evidently the source of the Scriptural metaphor—blows air into his face, but does not infuse part of his substance into him.

Chapter

THAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS NOT TRANSMITTED WITH THE SEMEN

[1] From points previously established it can be shown that the human soul is not transmitted with the semen, as though it were begotten by coition. [2] For any principles whatever whose operations cannot be without the body cannot without the body begin to be at all; a thing’s way of being and its way of operating are in mutual accord, since everything operates inasmuch as it is a being. Contrariwise, those principles whose operations are performed without the body are not generated through the generation of the body. Now, the nutritive and sensitive soul cannot operate independently of the body, as we have seen before. On the other hand, as we have likewise pointed out, the intellective soul does not operate through any bodily organ. Therefore, the nutritive and sensitive souls are brought into being through the body’s engendering; but not the intellective soul. The transmission of the semen, however, has as its aim the generation of the body. It is, therefore, through the transmission of the semen that the nutritive and sensitive souls begin to be; but this is not true of the intellective soul. [3] Moreover, there are but two ways in which the human soul could conceivably originate through the transmission of the semen. First, it might be thought to exist in the semen actually, as though it were parted by accident from the soul of the generative agent, in the manner in which the semen is separated from the body. A case in point are annulose animals which live after being cut in two and which contain one soul actually and several potentially, since, when the body of such an animal is divided, the soul begins to exist actually in each living part. Second, the semen might be thought to possess a power productive of the intellective soul, and thus the latter would be held to exist virtually in the semen, but not actually. [4] Now, the first of these is impossible for two reasons. One: since the intellective soul is the most perfect of souls and its power the highest, its proper perfectible subject is a body having many different organs through which its multifarious operations can be carried out; and that is why the soul cannot possibly be actually present in the semen separated from the body; for, indeed, not even the souls of perfect brute animals are multiplied by division, as with annulose animals. And the second reason is this. The intellect, which is the proper and principal power of the intellective soul, is not the act of any part of the body, and therefore it cannot be divided accidentally as a result of the body’s being divided. Nor, then, can the intellective soul be so divided. [5] The seconds is also impossible. For it is by transmuting the body that the active power in the semen contributes to the generation of the animal; indeed, a power present in matter cannot act otherwise. But every form that is initiated through the transmutation of matter is dependent upon matter for its being, since by this means the form is made actual from being potential, and thus the material transmutation issues in the actual being of the matter through its union with the form. Hence, if in this way the form also begins to be simply, then the form will have no being at all except that which accrues to it through being united to a matter; that is to say, the form will be dependent on matter for its being. Hence, from the hypothesis that the human soul is brought into being through the active power in the semen it follows that its being depends upon matter, as with other material forms. But the contrary of this has already been proved. The intellective soul, therefore, is in no way produced through the transmission of the semen. [6] Moreover, every form brought into being through the transmutation of matter is educed from the potentiality of matter, for the transmutation of matter is its reduction from potentiality to act. Now, the intellective soul cannot be educed from the potentiality of matter, since it has already been shown that the intellective soul altogether exceeds the power of matter, through having a materially independent operation, as was likewise proved above. The intellective soul, therefore, is not brought into being through the transmutation of matter; nor, then, is it produced by the action of a power in the semen. [7] Then, too, the operation of no active power exceeds the genus to which that power belongs. But the intellective soul transcends the whole genus of bodies, since it enjoys an operation completely surpassing the range of bodily things, namely, the operation of understanding. Therefore, no corporeal power can produce the intellective soul. But every action of a power present in the semen is exercised through some bodily potency, since the formative power acts by means of a threefold heat-the heat of fire, of the heaven, and of the soul. Therefore, the intellective soul cannot be produced by a power in the semen. [8] Furthermore, it is ridiculous to say that an intellective substance is either divided in consequence of the division of a body or produced by a power corporeal in nature. But, as was previously shown, the human soul is an intellectual substance. Therefore, it cannot be said that the soul is divided as the result of the semen’s being divided, or that it is brought into being by an active power in the semen. In no way, then, does the human soul begin to exist through the transmission of the semen. [9] Again, if the generation of a thing is the cause of a thing’s being, then its corruption will be the cause of its ceasing to be. The corruption of the body, however, does not cause the soul to cease to be, since the soul is immortal, as was proved above. Consequently, neither is the production of the body the cause of the soul’s entry into existence. But the transmission of the semen is the proper cause of the engendering of the body. Hence, the transmission of the semen is not the generating cause that brings the soul into being. [10] Thus is excluded the error of Apollinaris and his followers, who said that “souls are generated by souls, just as bodies are generated by bodies.”

Chapter

THAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS BROUGHT INTO BEING THROUGH THE CREATIVE ACTION OF GOD

[1] On the basis of what has already been said, it can be demonstrated that God alone brings the human soul into being- [2] There are but three possibilities: whatever is brought into being is either generated through itself, or by accident, or it is created. But the human soul is not generated through itself, since it is not composed of matter and form, as was shown above. Nor is it generated by accident; for, since the soul is the form of the body, it would be generated through the generation of the body, which results from the active power of the semen-a notion just now disproved. And, as was shown a while back, the human soul begins to be, for it is not eternal, nor does it exist before the body. It therefore remains that it comes into being by way of creation. Now, it was shown above that only God can create. Hence, He alone brings the human soul into being. [3] There is also the point, previously demonstrated, that everything whose substance is not its being has an author of its being. But the human soul is not its being; this, as we proved in the same place, is the prerogative of God alone. The human soul, therefore, has an active cause of its being. Now, that which has being through itself is also actuated through itself; while that which does not have being through itself, but only together with another, is produced not through itself, but through this other thing being made; the form of fire emerges when the fire itself is produced. Now, it pertains to the human soul distinctively, in contrast to other forms, to be subsisting in its being, and to communicate to the body the being proper to itself. The human soul therefore enjoys, through itself, a mode of production beyond that of other forms, which come to be by accident through the making of the composites. But, since the human soul does not have matter as part of itself, it cannot be made from something as from matter. It therefore remains that the soul is made from nothing. And thus, it is created. And in view of the previously demonstrated fact that creation is the proper work of God, it follows that the soul is created immediately by Cod alone. [4] Moreover, as we have just proved, things of the same genus come into being in the same way. But the soul belongs to the genus of intellectual substances, which cannot conceivably be brought into being except by way of creation. Therefore, it is through creation by God that the human soul comes into being. [5] Furthermore, whatever is produced by an agent acquires therefrom either something that is the source of a thing’s being in such and such a species, or it acquires being itself, purely and simply. Now, the soul cannot be brought into being in such a way as to acquire something having the character of a source of its being, as with things composed of matter and form, which are generated through acquiring an actual form; because the soul, being a simple substance, as we have already shown, contains nothing that would be a source of its own being. Thus, the only way in which the soul is brought into being by an agent is by receiving from it being unqualifiedly speaking. Now, being itself is the proper effect of the first and universal agent. For secondary agents act by impressing the likenesses of their forms on the things they make, these likenesses being the forms of the thing made. Therefore, the soul cannot be brought into being save by the first and universal agent, namely, God. [6] Then, too, the end of a thing corresponds to its source; for a thing achieves its perfection when it attains its proper source, whether by way of likeness to it, or in any manner whatsoever. Now, the end and ultimate perfection of the human soul lies in its transcending by knowledge and love the whole order of creatures, thus reaching up to the first principle, which is God. It is therefore He that is the proper principle of the soul’s origin. [7] This truth also seems to be implied in sacred Scripture, for in speaking of the formation of other animals, it ascribes their souls to other causes, as in the text: “Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures with a living soul” (Gen. 1:20), and so it is with other things. But when man is spoken of later on, the creation of his soul by God is revealed: “God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7). [8] And this does away with the error of those who maintained that souls were created by angels.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS DESIGNED TO PROVE THAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS FORMED FROM THE SEMEN

[1] There are, however, certain arguments which seem to militate against what we have said above. [2] From the fact that man is an animal inasmuch as he has a sensitive soul, and the concept of animal applies univocally to man and other animals, it seems to follow that man’s sensitive soul is of the same genus as the souls of other animals. Now, things of the same genus have the same manner of coming into being. Hence, the sensitive soul of man, just as of other animals, comes into being through a power in the semen. But in man the intellective and sensitive soul are, as shown above’s the same in respect of substance. Seemingly, therefore, the intellective soul also is produced through a power in the semen. [3] Moreover, as Aristotle teaches in the Degeneration animalium [II, 3], the fetus is an animal before becoming a man. But, during the time in which the fetus is an animal and not a man, it has a sensitive and not an intellective soul; and, just as in other animals, this sensitive soul in indubitably produced by the active power of the semen. And yet that same sensitive soul is potentially intellective, just as that animal is potentially a rational animal; and the notion that the supervening intellective soul is substantially distinct from the sensitive one has been refuted already. It therefore seems that the substance of the intellective soul is derived from a power in the semen. [4] Then, too, the soul, being the form of the body, is united to the body according to the soul’s own being. But things that we one in being are the term of one action and of one agent; for, if there were diverse agents, and, consequently, diverse actions, effects diverse in being would ensue. Hence, it is in the being of soul and body that the one action of one agent must terminate. But the body’s production is clearly due to the action of a power in the semen. Hence, the soul, which is the body’s form, is the effect of the same cause, and not of a separate agent. [5] Furthermore, it is by a power present in the emitted semen that man generates things specifically like himself. But any univocal agent generates such things by causing the form of the effect generated, which owes its specific nature to that form. Consequently, the human soul, whence man derives his specific nature, is produced by a power in the semen. [6] Then there is the argument of Apollinaris, that whoever completes a work co-operates with the agent, so that, if souls are created by God, He is responsible for completing the generation of children who are sometimes born of adulterers; and thus God co-operates with adulterers—which seems incongruous. [7] Also, in a book ascribed to Gregory of Nyssa, there are arguments designed to prove the same thing. The author argues as follows. From the soul and the body there results one being, and this is one man. Hence, if the soul is made before the body, or the body before the soul, one and the same thing will be prior and posterior to itself; which does not seem possible. Body and soul, then, are produced simultaneously. But the formation of the body begins at the time when the semen is separated. Hence, the soul also is brought into being a a result of the separation of the semen. [8] Seemingly imperfect, moreover, is the operation of an agent which does not produce a thing in its entirely, but only some part of it. Suppose that God brought the soul into being and that the body was formed by a seminal power. Now, body and soul are parts of one being: man. So, on that hypothesis the operation of both God and the seminal power would seem to be imperfect; which obviously cannot be allowed. Therefore, man’s soul and body are produced by one and the same cause. But man’s body certainly is produced through a power residing in the semen. The same, therefore, is true of the soul. [9] Again, in everything generated from seed, all the parts of the thing generated -are together contained in the seed virtually, though they appear not to be present actually. “For example, in wheat or any other seed we observe that the plant itself, with stem, joints, fruit and tassel, are contained virtually in the original seed, and that afterwards the seed spreads forth and discloses itself, thus attaining perfection by a kind of natural resultance, without assuming anything extrinsic. Now, the soul certainly is part of man. Therefore, the human soul is virtually contained in the human seed, and does not originate from any external cause. [10] And again, things having the same development and the same term must have the same originative principle. But in the generation of a man we find the same development and term in the body as in the soul; for the manifestation of the soul’s operations goes hand in hand with the development in shape and size of the members of the body, the operation of the nutritive soul appearing first, and afterwards, that of the sensitive soul, and lastly, when the bodily development is complete, the operation of the intellective soul. Hence, both the body and the soul have the same source. But the body originates through the separation of the semen. The principle of the soul’s origin is, therefore, the same. [11] Furthermore, that which is conformed to a thing is made by the action of that to which it is conformed; the wax that is conformed to the seal receives this conformity from the seal’s impress. Now, clearly, the body of a man or of any animal is conformed to its own soul, for its organs are disposed in a manner befitting the psychic operations which are to be exercised by those organs.” Hence, the body is formed by the action of the soul, and that is why Aristotle says in De anima II [4] that the soul is the efficient cause of the body. But this would not be so if the soul was not present in the semen; for the body is formed by the semen’s power. Therefore, the human soul is in the human seed, and thus owes its origin to the separation of that seed. [12] Likewise, nothing lives except by a soul. But the semen is a living entity. And this is evident for three reasons: because it is parted from a living being; because the semen exhibits vital heat and vital operation, which are the marks of a living thing; and because, if plant seeds were not possessed of life in themselves, they could not, when sown, obtain from the soil, which is inanimate, the heat indispensable to life. Therefore, the soul is in the semen, and thus originates with its separation. [131 Moreover, if the soul did not, as we have shown, exist before the body, nor begin to exist with the separation of the semen, it follows that the formation of the body came first, the newly created soul being infused into it afterwards. But this, if true, would imply that the soul is for the sake of the body, since what exists on another’s account is posterior to it; the clothes are for the man. That notion, however, is not true, because the body is for the soul’s sake; the end is always nobler. It must, therefore, be said that the soul originates simultaneously with the separation of the semen.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE PRECEDING ARGUMENTS

[1] In order to facilitate the solution of these arguments, certain things must be premised in explanation of the order and process of the generation of man and of animals in general. [2] To be taken into account first of all is the falsity of the opinion of those who say that the vital operations appearing in the embryo before its complete development do not proceed from a soul, or from a soul’s power existing in the embryo, but from the soul of the mother. If this were true, the embryo would not even be an animal, since every animal consists of soul and body. Vital operations, moreover, do not issue from an extrinsic active principle, but from an internal power; and in this respect particularly are living things, to which self-movement properly belongs, seen to differ from the non-living. For the thing that is nourished assimilates the nourishment and thus must possess an active power of nutrition; what the agent effects is like to itself. And this fact is much more manifest in the operation of the senses; it is through a power existing in this person, and not in another, that he is enabled to see and to hear. Hence, nourishment and even sensation on the part of the embryo prior to its complete development cannot be attributed to the soul of the mother. [3] Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the soul in its complete essence is present in the semen from the very beginning, though its operations are not manifested because of the lack of organs. This is impossible in view of the fact that since the soul is united to the body as its form, it is united only to a body of which it is properly the act. Now, a soul is the “act of an organic body.” Prior to the organization of the body, therefore, the soul is not in the semen actually, but only potentially or virtually. Thus, Aristotle says in De anima II [1] that “seeds and fruits are endowed with life potentially so far as they are rid of,” that is, lack, “a soul; whereas the thing of which the soul is the act has indeed the power of life, but is not without a soul.” [4] And the hypothesis of the soul’s presence in the semen from the beginning would entail the further consequence that animal generation takes place solely by way of partition, as with annulose animals, where two are produced from one. For, if the semen were possessed of a soul at the moment of its separation, it would then already be endowed with a substantial form. But in every case substantial generation precedes the substantial form; it never comes after it; and if any changes follow in the wake of the substantial form, they concern not the being but the well-being of the thing generated. Thus, the engendering of the animal would be completed with the mere alienation of the semen; and all subsequent changes would have no bearing upon the process of generation. [5] But this theory would be even more ridiculous if applied to the rational soul. For, first, the soul cannot possibly be divided as the body is, so as to be present in the separated semen; and second, it would follow that in all extra-copulative emissions of semen, without conception taking place, rational souls would nevertheless be multiplied. [6] Another theory, likewise inadmissible, is stated as follows. From the moment of severance the soul is not present in the semen actually but virtually, because of the lack of organs and yet this very power of the semen—itself a body potentially endowed with organs though actually without them—is, proportionately to the semen, a potential but not an actual soul. Moreover, since plant life requires fewer organs than animal life, from the moment that the organic development of the semen suffices for plant life, the aforesaid seminal power becomes a vegetative soul; and later, the organs having been perfected and multiplied still more, the same power is raised to the level of a sensitive soul; and finally, with the perfecting of the organs form, the same soul becomes rational, not indeed, by the action of that seminal power, but through the influx of an external agent. And for this reason the proponents of the theory suppose Aristotle to have said in the De generatione animalium that “the intellect is from without” [II, 3]. Now, this theory would involve the consequence that numerically one and the same power is at one time a purely vegetative soul, and afterwards a sensitive soul, the substantial form itself thus being perfected successively more and more. It would further follow both that the substantial form would be brought from potentiality to act, not all at once but in successive stages, and that generation is a continuous movement, just as alteration is. Now, all these consequences are impossible in nature. [7] But that theory would entail a consequence still more incongruous, namely, the mortality of the rational soul. For nothing formal in character that accrues to a corruptible thing makes it incorruptible by nature; in that case, the corruptible would be changed into the incorruptible, which is impossible, since they differ in genus, as Aristotle says in Metaphysics X [10]. In the process described above, however, the substance of the sensitive soul is held to be generated accidentally by the generated body, and hence that substance must necessarily be corruptible with the corruption of the body. Therefore, if the same soul becomes rational through the infusion into it of a kind of light, having the role of a form in its regard, for the sensitive is potentially intellective, then necessarily the rational soul perishes along with the body. But this is impossible, as we proved above, and as the Catholic faith teaches. [8] Therefore, the very same power which is separated, together with the semen, and is called the formative power, is not the soul, nor does it become the soul in the process of generation; but, being based, as on its proper subject, on the vital spirit which the semen contains as a kind of froth, this power is responsible for the formation of the body so far as it functions by virtue of the father’s soul, to whom generation is attributed as the principal agent, and not by virtue of the soul of the subject conceived, even after the soul exists in that subject; for the latter does not generate itself, but is generated by the father. And the truth of this becomes quite clear if we survey the powers of the soul one by one. For, indeed, the body’s formation cannot be attributed to the soul of the embryo by reason of the generative power; not only because that power does not function until the powers of nutrition and growth, which are its auxiliaries, have completed their work—for the generative function is the prerogative of that which already exists as a complete being—but also because the generative power has as its object, not the perfection of the individual itself, but the preservation of the species. Nor can The body’s formation be attributed to the nutritive power, whose function is to assimilate nourishment to the subject nourished; and this is not the case here, since in the process of formation the nourishment is not assimilated to something already existing, but is brought to a form more perfect in character and one more closely resembling the father. So, neither can the formation of the body be ascribed to the power of growth, whose proper function is to produce change, not in the form, but only in quantity. And the sensitive and intellective parts clearly have no operation appropriate to such a formation. It therefore remains that the formation of the body, especially as concerns its primary and principal parts, a not due to the soul of the thing generated, nor to a formative power acting by virtue of the soul of the generated subject, but to a formative power acting by virtue of the generative soul of the father, the work of that soul being the production of that which is specifically like the generator. [9] This formative power thus remains the same in the abovementioned vital spirit from the beginning of the body’s formation until the end. The species of the subject formed, however, does not remain the same; since at first it possesses the form of semen, afterwards of blood, and so on, until at last it arrives at that wherein it finds its fulfilment. For, although the generation of simple bodies does not proceed in serial order, since each of them possesses a form related immediately to prime matter, a progressive order must obtain in the generation of other bodies because of the many intermediate forms between the first elemental form and the ultimate form which is the object of the generative process; so that there are many generations and corruptions following one another. [10] Nor is it inconsistent if the generation of an intermediate form takes place and then at once is interrupted, because the intermediate forms lack specific completeness, but are on the way toward that end. Thus, the reason why they are generated is not that they may remain in existence, but that the ultimate term of generation may be attained through them. And if the process of generation is not entirely continuous, and there are many intermediate generations, this is nothing to be wondered at, for such is the case, too, in alteration and growth, since neither of them is continuous throughout, local movement alone being truly continuous, as Physics VIII [7] makes clear. [11] Therefore, the more noble a form is and the further removed it is from the elemental form, the more numerous must be the intermediate forms, through which the ultimate form is reached step by step, and, consequently, the intervening generative processes will be multiplied too. That is why, in the generation of an animal and a man, wherein the most perfect type of form exists, there are many intermediate forms and generations—and, hence, corruptions, because the generation of one thing is the corruption of another. Thus, the vegetative soul, which is present first (when the embryo lives the life of a plant), perishes, and is succeeded by a more perfect soul, both nutritive and sensitive in character, and then the embryo lives an animal life; and when this passes away it is succeeded by the rational soul introduced from without, while the preceding souls existed in virtue of the semen. [12] With these considerations in mind, it is easy to answer the objections. To the first objection, that the sensitive soul must originate in the same way in man and in irrational animals because animal is predicated of them both univocally, we reply that this is not necessary. For, although the sensitive souls in man and brute are generically alike, they differ specifically, as do the things whose forms they are; since, just as the human animal differs specifically from the other animals by the fact that it is rational, so the sensitive soul of man differs specifically from the sensitive soul of the brute by the fact that it is also intellective. Therefore, in the soul of the brute there is nothing supra-sensitive, and, consequently, it transcends the body neither in being nor in operation; and that is why the brute soul must be generated together with the body and perish with the body. But in man the sensitive soul is possessed of intellective power over and above the sensitive nature and is therefore raised above the body both in being and in operation; it is neither generated through the generation of the body, nor corrupted through the body’s corruption. Thus, the diversity in mode of origin of the human and of the brute soul is not on the part of the sensitive faculty, from which the generic nature is derived, but on the part of the intellective faculty, whence the specific difference stems. Hence, it cannot be inferred that they are diverse generically, but only specifically. [13] As to the second objection, to say that the thing conceived is an animal before a man does not prove that the rational soul is produced together with the semen. For the sensitive soul, by which it was an animal, does not remain, but is succeeded by a soul both sensitive and intellective in character, by which it is at once animal and man, as we have already made clear. [14] In the third objection, the remark that the actions of diverse agents do not terminate in the production of one thing must be understood to refer to diverse agents that are not ordered to one another. For, if they are so ordered, they must have one effect; since the action of the primary efficient cause upon the effect of the secondary efficient cause is more powerful even than that which is exercised by the latter. This accounts for our observation of the fact that an effect produced by a principal agent through an instrument is more properly attributed to the principal agent than to the instrument. In some instances, however, the action of the principal agent attains to something in the effect produced, to which the action of the instrument does not attain. The vegetative power, for example, extends to the production of the form of flesh, which the instrument of that power, namely, the heat of fire, cannot produce, although it acts dispositively in regard to that effect by dissolving and consuming. Therefore, since every active power of nature is compared to God as an instrument to the primary and principal agent, nothing prevents the action of nature, in that self-same generated subject which is man from terminating in a part of man, and not in the whole, the production of which is due to the action of God. The human body, therefore, is formed at the same time both by the power of God, as principal and first agent, and by the power of the semen, as secondary agent; but it is God’s action that produces the human soul, which the seminal power cannot produce, but to which it disposes. [15] The answer to the fourth objection thus is clear; for a man begets that which is like himself in species, so far as his seminal power acts in a dispositive manner toward the ultimate form from which he derives his specific nature. [16] Regarding the fifth objection, there is nothing incongruous in God’s co-operating with adulterers in the action of nature; for it is not the nature of adulterers that is evil, but their will, and the action deriving from their seminal power is natural, not voluntary. Hence, it is not unfitting that God should co-operate in their action by bringing it to its final completion. [17] Now, the inference drawn in the sixth objection clearly lacks necessity. For, even if it is granted that man’s body is formed before the soul is created, or vice versa, it does not follow that one and the same man is prior to himself, because a man is not his body nor his soul. Rather, it follows that some part of him is prior to the other; and quite reasonably so, because matter is temporally prior to form—I mean, matter so far as it is in potentiality to form, and not as actually completed by a form, for in that state it is simultaneous with the form. It follows that the human body, so far as it is in potentiality to the soul, as not yet having one, precedes the soul in time; it is, then, not actually human, but only potentially human. However, when the body is actually human, as being perfected by the human soul, it neither precedes nor follows the soul, but is simultaneous with it. [18] Nor does the argument follow that is put forward in the seventh objection, namely, that if the soul is not produced by the seminal power, but only the body, then the operation both of God and of nature is imperfect. The inference is false, because both the body and the soul are made by the power of God; although the formation of the body derives from Him by means of the natural power residing in the semen, whereas He produces the soul immediately. Nor does it follow that the action of the seminal power is imperfect, since it fulfils its proper function. [19] The eighth argument is likewise inconclusive. For, while it is true that the seed contains virtually whatever does not exceed the scope of a power corporeal in nature—such as the grass, the stalk, the joints, and so on—it cannot be concluded that the part of man which totally surpasses such a power is contained virtually in the seed. [20] The ninth argument, to the effect that the operations of the soul seem to develop in the process of generation as the parts of the body develop, does not prove that the human soul and body have the same source; rather, it proves that the disposition of the body’s parts is necessary for the soul’s operation. [21] The tenth objection, that the body is conformed to the soul and that, therefore, the soul forms a body like to itself, is partly true and partly false. This statement is true if referred to the soul of the begetter, but false if referred to the soul of the begotten; for, as regards its primary and principal parts, the body is not formed by the power of the latter’s soul, but by that of the former, as we have just shown. So, too, is every matter configured to its form: a configuration which, however, is not brought about by the action of the thing generated, but by the action of the generating form. [22] As to the eleventh objection, it is quite clear, from what has been said, that at the beginning of its separation the semen is only potentially animate; hence, it does not at that time have a soul actually, but virtually. In the process of generation the semen is, by its own power, endowed with a vegetative and a sensitive soul, which do not remain but pass away, being succeeded by a rational soul. [23] Nor, again, is the reasoning in the twelfth objection conclusive. For, if the formation of the body precedes the human soul, it does not follow that the soul is for the sake of the body. Indeed, a thing is for the sake of another, in two ways. In one way, for the sake of the latter’s operation, or preservation, or anything of the sort which follows upon being; and such things are posterior to that on whose account they are; the clothes are for the man, and tools for the worker. In another way, for the sake of its being; and thus, a thing which is for the sake of another is prior to the latter in time, but posterior in nature. It is in this sense that the body is for the sake of the soul, just as in every case matter is for the sake of the form. But this would not be true if the joining of soul and body did not constitute a thing one in being, as those say who deny that the soul is the form of the body.

Chapter

THAT AN INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE IS UNITED ONLY TO A HUMAN BODY AS ITS FORM

[1] Having shown that a certain intellectual substance—the human soul—is united to a body as its form, we must now inquire whether any intellectual substance is united to any other body as its form. As to the heavenly bodies, we have, indeed, already presented Aristotle’s opinion on the question of their being animated by an intellectual soul, and have observed that Augustine leaves the matter in doubt. Bodies composed of elements, then, should be the focal point of the present inquiry. [2] Now, it is quite clear that an intellectual substance is not united as form to such a body except a human one. For, were it united to a body other than the human, the latter would be either mixed or simple. But it cannot be united to a mixed body, because that body would have to be the most symmetrically structured one of its genus; and it is a fact of observation that mixed bodies have forms so much the more noble, the nearer they come to possessing an equable blending of their constituent parts. Thus, if the subject of a form of the noblest type, such as an intellectual substance, is a mixed body, it must possess that harmonious quality in the highest degree. And this explains why we find that flesh of fine texture and a keen sense of touch, which reveal evenness of bodily temperament, are signs of mental acuteness. Now, the most evenly tempered body is the human, so that, if an intellectual substance is united to a mixed body, the latter must be of the same nature as the human body; and its form, too, would be of the same nature as the human soul, if it were an intellectual substance. Hence, there would be no specific difference between the animal so constituted and man. [3] It is likewise impossible for an intellectual substance to be united as form to a simple body, such as air, water, fire, or earth. For each of these bodies is of uniform character in the whole and in the parts; a part of air is of the same nature and species as the whole air, having, indeed, the same motion; and so it is with the other simple bodies. Like movers, however, must have like forms. Therefore, if any part of any one of those bodies—air, for example—is animated by an intellectual soul, then for that very reason the whole air and all its parts will be animated. But this manifestly is not so; for there is no evidence of vital operation in the parts of the air or of other simple bodies. Therefore, a substance of intellectual type is not united as form to any part of the air or of similar bodies. [4] Moreover, if an intellectual substance is united as form to one of the simple bodies, it will either be endowed with an intellect only, or will have other powers such as those that belong to the sensitive or to the nutritive part, as in man. In the first case, there would be no point in its being united to a body. For every corporeal form has some operation proper to itself which is exercised through the body; whereas the intellect has no operation pertaining to the body, except by way of moving it; because understanding is not an operation that can be exercised through any bodily organ, and, for the same reason, neither is the act of the will. The movements of the elements, moreover, are derived from natural movers, namely, from generators; the elements do not move themselves. Hence, the mere possession of movement on their part does not imply that they are animated. But, if the intellectual substance, hypothetically united to an element or a part of an element, is endowed with other psychic parts, then, since these parts are parts of certain organs, a diversity of organs will necessarily be found in the body of the element. But this is incompatible with its simplicity. An intellectual substance, therefore, cannot possibly be united as form to an element or to a part thereof. [5] There is also the fact that the nearer a body is to prime matter, the less noble it is, being more in potentiality and less in complete act. The elements, however, are nearer than mixed bodies to prime matter, since they are the proximate matter of mixed bodies. Hence, the bodies of the elements are less noble in their specific nature than mixed bodies. Since, then, the nobler form belongs to the nobler body, it is impossible that the noblest form, namely, the intellective soul, should be united to bodies of the elements. [6] Furthermore, if such bodies or any of their parts were animated by souls of the noblest type—the intellective—then the more closely bodies are annexed to the elements, the nearer they must be to life. Yet this evidently is not so, but rather the contrary; for plants have life in a lesser degree than animals, yet they are nearer to earth; and minerals, which are nearer still, have no life at all. Therefore, an intellectual substance is not united as form to an element or to a part thereof. [7] Then, too, extreme contrariety is destructive of life in all corruptible agents; excessive heat or cold, wet or dryness, are fatal to animals and plants. Now, it is in the bodies of the elements especially that we find the extremes of these contraries. So, life cannot possibly exist in them. It is, therefore, impossible for an intellectual substance to be united to them as their form. [8] Again, although the elements are incorruptible as a whole, each of their parts is corruptible as having contrariety. So, if some of their parts have cognitive substances united to them, it seems that the power of discerning things corruptive of them will be attributed to them in the highest degree. Now, this power is the sense of touch, which discriminates between hot and cold, and similar contraries; and for this reason, all animals possess that sense, as something necessary for preservation from corruption. But the sense of touch cannot possibly be present in a simple body, since the organ of touch must not contain contraries actually but only potentially; and this is bue of mixed and tempered bodies alone. It is, therefore, impossible that any parts of the elements should be animated by an intellective soul. [9] And again, every living body has local motion of some kind through its soul; thus, the heavenly bodies—if in fact they are animated—have circular movement; perfect animals, a progressive movement; shell fish, a movement of expansion mid contraction; plants, a movement of increase and decrease; and all these are in some way movements in respect of place. Yet in the elements there is no evidence of any motion deriving from a soul, but only of natural movements. Therefore, The elements are not living bodies. [10] There is, however, another hypothesis, namely, that although an intellectual substance be not united to a body of an element, or to a part thereof, as its form, nevertheless it is united to it as its mover. Now, the former cannot be said of the air; for, since a part of air is not terminable through itself, no determinate part of it can have its own proper movement, by reason of which an intellectual substance may be united to it. [11] Moreover, if an intellectual substance is naturally united to a body as a mover to its proper movable, then the motive power of that substance must be limited to the movable body to which it is united naturally; for in no case does the exercise of the power of a proper mover exceed its proper movable. But it seems ridiculous to say that the power of an intellectual substance does not, in discharging its function of moving, exceed a determinate part of an element, or some mixed body. Seemingly, then, it must not be said that an intellectual substance is in a natural fashion united to an elemental body as its mover, unless it is also united to it as its form. [12] Furthermore, principles other than the intellectual substance can cause the movement of a body composed of elements. Therefore, intellectual substances would not need to be naturally united to such bodies so as to account for this movement. [13] This rules out the opinion of Apuleius and of certain Platonists, who said that “the demons are animals ethereal in body, endowed with reason, passive in soul, and of eternal duration”; as well as the theory of certain heathen thinkers, who, supposing the elements to be animated, instituted divine worship in their honor. Likewise set aside is the opinion of those who say that angels and demons have bodies naturally united to them-bodies of the nature of the higher or lower elements.

Chapter

THAT THERE ARE SOME INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES WHICH ARE NOT UNITED TO BODIES

[1] Now, the preceding considerations enable us to show that some intellectual substances exist in complete separation from bodies. [2] For we have already shown that when bodies perish the intellect retains its substantial character forever. And, indeed, if the substance of the intellect which remains be one in all, as some say, it follows necessarily that it is separate in its being from the body; and thus our thesis is established, namely, that some intellectual substance subsists apart from a body. But, if a number of intellective souls remain after the bodies have perished, then it belongs to some intellectual substances to subsist apart from a body—especially in view of the demonstrated fact that souls do not pass from one body to another. But to exist apart from bodies is an accidental competence on the part of souls, since they are naturally forms of bodies. Now, that which is through itself must be prior to that which is by accident. Therefore, there are some intellectual substances, prior in nature to souls, which, through themselves, enjoy subsistence without bodies. [3] Furthermore, everything included in the essence of the genus must also be found in that of the species, whereas certain things belong to the latter which are not in the former; for instance, rational belongs to the essence of man, but not to the essence of animal. Now, whatever is of the essence of the species, but not of the genus, does not necessarily exist in all species of the genus; thus, there are many species of irrational animals. But it belongs to the intellectual substance, according to its genus, to be subsisting through itself, since it is, through itself, endowed with operation, as shown above. Now, it is of the essence of a thing thus subsisting not to be united to another. Hence, it is not of the generic essence of an intellectual substance to be united to a body, although this is of the essence of that intellectual substance which is the soul. There are, then, some intellectual substances which are not united to bodies. [4] Then, too, the higher nature in its lowest part touches the lower nature in its highest part. Now, the intellectual nature is higher than the corporeal, and it makes contact with it in one of its parts, namely, the intellective soul. Consequently, just as the body perfected by the intellective soul is the highest in the genus of bodies, so the intellective soul which is united to a body is the lowest in the genus of intellectual substances. Therefore, there are some intellectual substances not united to bodies which, in the order of nature, are superior to the soul. [5] If in a genus, moreover, there exists something imperfect, then one finds a reality antecedent to it; a thing which, in the order of nature, is perfect in that genus, for the perfect is prior in nature to the imperfect. Now, forms existing in matters are imperfect acts, since they have not complete being. Hence, there are some forms that are complete acts, subsisting in themselves, and having a complete species. But every form that subsists through itself without matter is an intellectual substance, since, as we have seen, immunity from matter confers intelligible being. Therefore, there are some intellectual substances that are not united to bodies, for every body has matter. [6] Then, too, it is possible for substance to be without quantity, but not vice versa. “For substance is prior to the other genera in time, in nature, and in knowledge.” But no corporeal substance is without quantity. Hence, there can be some things in the genus of substance that are completely incorporeal. But all possible natures are found in the order of things; otherwise, the universe would be imperfect. And indeed, “in the case of eternal things, to be and to be possible are one and the same.” Therefore, below the first substance, God, who is not in a genus (as was shown in Book I of this works), and above the soul, which is united to a body, there are some substances subsisting without bodies. [7] Furthermore, if in a thing composed of two entities the less perfect one be found to exist through itself, then the one which is more perfect and has less need of the other is also found to exist in the same way. Now, as we have seen, there is in fact a substance composed of an intellectual substance and a body. And a bodily thing existing through itself, is also an observed fact—of which all inanimate bodies are evident instances. All the more reason, then, for our finding intellectual substances that are not united to bodies. [8] Also, the substance of a thing must be proportionate to its operation, because operation is the act and the good of the operator’s substance. Now, understanding is the proper operation of an intellectual substance. Hence, an intellectual substance must be the kind of substance to which such operation belongs. But, since understanding is an operation that is not exercised through a corporeal organ, it has no need of the body except so far as intelligibles are taken from sensible things. This is an imperfect way of understanding; the perfect way consists in the understanding of things which in their very nature are intelligible; to understand only those things which are not intelligible in themselves but which are made intelligible by the intellect, is an imperfect way of understanding. Now, prior to every imperfect thing there must be something perfect in the same genus; so that above human souls, which understand by receiving from phantasms, there are some intellectual substances which understand things that are intelligible in themselves, without receiving knowledge from sensible things; and, therefore, such substances are by their nature entirely separate from bodies. [9] Again, in Metaphysics XI [8] Aristotle reasons as follows. Movement that is continuous, regular, and in its own nature unfailing must be derived from a mover which is not moved, either through itself or by accident, as was proved in Book I of this work. Moreover, a plurality of movements must proceed from a plurality of movers. The movement of the heaven, however, is continuous, regular, and in its nature unfailing, And besides the first movement, there are many such movements in the heaven, as the studies of the astronomers show. Hence, there must be several movers which are not moved, either through themselves or by accident. But, as we proved in that same Book, no body moves unless it is itself moved; and an incorporeal mover united to a body is moved accidentally in keeping with the movement of the body, as we see in the case of the soul. Hence, there must be a number of movers which neither are bodies nor are united to bodies. Now, the heavenly movements proceed from an intellect, as we have also shown. We therefore conclude to the existence of a plurality of intellectual substances that are not united to bodies. [10] With this conclusion Dionysius is in agreement, when, speaking of the angels, he says that “they are understood to be immaterial and incorporeal” [ De div. nom. IV]. [11] Excluded hereby are the error of the Sadducees, who said that “no spirit exists” (Acts 23:8); the doctrine of the natural philosophers of old, who maintained that every substance is corporeal; as well as the position of Origen, who held that no substance, save the divine Trinity, can subsist apart from a body; and, indeed, of all the other thinkers who hold that all the angels, both good and bad, have bodies naturally united to them.

Chapter

CONCERNING THE GREAT NUMBER OF SEPARATE SUBSTANCES

[1] In treating this problem, let it be noted that Aristotle attempts to prove that not only some intellectual substances exist apart from a body, but also that they are of the same number, neither more nor less, as the movements observed in the heaven. [2] Now, Aristotle proves that no movements unobservable by us exist in the heaven, because every movement in the heaven exists by reason of the movement of some star—a thing perceptible to the senses; for the spheres are the conveyers of the stars, and the movement of the conveyer is for the sake of the movement of the conveyed. He proves also that there are no separate substances from which some movements do not arise in the heaven, for the heavenly movements are directed to the separate substances as their ends; so that, if there were any separate substances other than those which he enumerates, there would be some movements directed to them as their ends; otherwise, those movements would be imperfect. In view of all this, Aristotle concludes that such substances are not more numerous than the movements that are and can be observed in the heaven; especially since there are not several heavenly bodies of the same species, so as to make possible the existence of several movements unknown to us. [3] This proof, however, lacks necessity. For, as Aristotle himself teaches in Physics II [9], with things directed to an end, necessity derives from the end, and not conversely. So if, as he says, the heavenly movements are ordained to separate substances as their ends, the number of such substances cannot be inferred with necessity from the number of the movements. For it can be said that there are some separate substances of a higher nature than those which are the proximate ends of the celestial movements; even so, the fact that craftsmen’s tools we for those who work with them does not preclude the existence of other men who do not work with such tools themselves, but direct the workers. And, in point of fact, Aristotle himself adduces the preceding proof, not as necessary but as probable; for he says: “hence the number of the unchangeable substances and principles may probably be taken to be just so many; the assertion of necessity may be left to more powerful thinkers.” [4] It therefore remains to be shown that the intellectual substances existing apart from bodies are much more numerous than the heavenly movements. [5] Now, intellectual substances are in their genus transcendent with respect to all corporeal natures. Hence, the rank of such substances must be determined in accordance with their elevation above the corporeal nature. Now, some intellectual substances transcend the corporeal substance only in their generic nature, and yet, as we have seen, are united to bodies as form. And since intellectual substances enjoy a kind of being that is entirely independent of the body, as was shown above, we find a higher grade of such substances, which, though not united to bodies as forms, are nevertheless the proper movers of certain determinate bodies. And the nature of an intellectual substance likewise does not depend on its producing movement, since the latter follows upon their principal operation, which is understanding. Consequently, there will exist a still higher grade of intellectual substances, which are not the proper movers of certain bodies, but are superior to the movers. [6] Moreover, just as an agent that acts by nature acts by its natural form, so an agent that acts by intellect acts by its intellectual form, as we see in those who act by art. Therefore, just as the former agent is proportionate to the patient by reason of its natural form, so the latter agent is proportionate to the patient and to the thing made, through the form in its intellect; that is to say, the intellective form is then such that it can be introduced by the agent’s action into matter which receives it. Therefore, the proper movers of the spheres, which (if we wish to side with Aristotle here) move by their intellect, must have such understandings as are explicable by the motions of the spheres and reproducible in natural things. But above intelligible conceptions of this sort there are some which are more universal. For the intellect apprehends the forms of things in a more universal mode than that in which they exist in things; and for this reason we observe that the form of the speculative intellect is more universal than that of the practical intellect, and among the practical arts, the conception of the commanding art is more universal than that of an executive art. Now, the grades of intellectual substances must be reckoned according to the grade of intellectual operation proper to them. Therefore, there are some intellectual substances above those which are the proper and proximate movers of certain determinate spheres. [7] The order of the universe, furthermore, seems to require that whatever is nobler among things should exceed in quantity or number the less noble; since the latter seem to exist for the sake of the former. That is why the more noble things, as existing for their own sake, should be as numerous as possible. Thus we see that the incorruptible, or heavenly, bodies so far exceed the corruptible, or element-composed, bodies, that the latter are in number practically negligible by comparison. However, just as the heavenly bodies are nobler than those composed of elements—the incorruptible than the corruptible—so intellectual substances are superior to all bodies, as the immovable and immaterial to the movable and material. The number of separate intellectual substances, therefore, surpasses that of the whole multitude of material things. Such substances, then, are not limited to the number of the heavenly movements. [8] Then, too, it is not through the matter that the species of material things are multiplied, but through the form. Now, forms outside of matter enjoy a more complete and universal being than forms in matter, because forms are received into matter in keeping with the receptive capacity of matter. Hence, those forms which exist apart from matter, and which we call separate substances, are seemingly not less numerous than the species of material things. [9] But we do not on this account say, with the Platonists, that separate substances are the species of these sensible things. For, not being able to arrive at the knowledge of such substances except from sensible things, the Platonists supposed the former to be of the same species as the latter, or rather to be their species. In the same way, a person who had not seen the sun or the moon or the other stars, and had heard that they were incorruptible bodies, might call them by the names of these corruptible bodies, thinking them to be of the same species as the latter; which could not be so. And it is likewise impossible that immaterial substances should be of the same species as material ones, or that they should be the species of the latter. For the specific essence of these sensible things includes matter, though not this particular matter, which is the proper principle of the individual, just as the specific essence of man includes flesh and bones, but not this flesh and these bones which are principles of Socrates and Plato. Thus, we do not say that separate substances are the species of these sensible things, but that they are other species superior to them, inasmuch as the pure is nobler than the mixed. Those substances, then, must be more numerous than the species of these material things. [10] Moreover, a thing is multipliable in respect of its intelligible being rather than its material being. For we grasp with our intellect many things which cannot exist in matter. This accounts for the fact that any straight finite line can be added to mathematically, but not physically; and that rarefaction of bodies, the velocity of movements, and the diversity of shapes can be increased ad infinitum in thought, though not in nature. Now, separate substances are by their nature endowed with intelligible being. Therefore, greater multiplicity is possible in such substances than in material ones, considering the properties and the nature of both these kinds of being. But in eternal things, to be and to be possible are one and the same. The multitude of separate substances is, therefore, greater than that of material bodies. [11] Now, to these things Holy Scripture bears witness. For it is said in the Book of Daniel (7:10): “Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him.” And Dionysius in his work, The Celestial Hierarchy, writes that the number of those substances “exceeds all material multitude.” [12] This excludes the error of those who say that the number of separate substances corresponds to the number of heavenly movements, or of the heavenly spheres, as well as the error of Rabbi Moses, who said that the number of angels which Scripture affirms is not the number of separate substances, but of forces in this lower world; as if the concupiscible power were called the “spirit of concupiscence,” and so on.

Chapter

ON THE NON-EXISTENCE OF A PLURALITY OF SEPARATE SUBSTANCES OF ONE SPECIES

[1] From the preceding observations concerning these substances it can be shown that there are not several of them belonging to the same species. [2] For it was shown above that separate substances are certain subsisting quiddities. But the species of a thing is what is signified by the definition, which is the sign of a thing’s quiddity. Hence, subsisting quiddities are subsisting species. Therefore, several separate substances cannot exist unless they be several species. [3] Moreover, things specifically the same, but numerically diverse, possess matter. For the difference that results from the form introduces specific diversity; from the matter, numerical diversity. But separate substances have no matter whatever, either as part of themselves or as that to which they are united as forms. It is therefore impossible that there be several such substances of one species. [4] Then, too, the reason why there exist among corruptible things several individuals in one species is that the specific nature, which cannot be perpetuated in one individual, may be preserved in several. Hence, even in incorruptible bodies there is but one individual in one species. The nature of the separate substance, however, can be preserved in one individual, because such substances are incorruptible, as was shown above. Consequently, in those substances there is no need for several individuals of the same species. [5] Furthermore, in each individual that which belongs to the species is superior to the individuating principle, which lies outside the essence of the species. Therefore, the universe is ennobled more by the multiplication of species than by the multiplication of individuals of one species. But it is in separate substances, above all, that the perfection of the universe consists. Therefore, it is more consonant with the perfection of the universe that they constitute a plurality, each diverse in species from the other, rather than a numerical multiplicity within one and the same species. [6] Again, separate substances are more perfect than the heavenly bodies. But in the heavenly bodies, on account of their very perfection, we find that one species contains only one individual; both because each of them exhausts the entire matter pertaining to its species, and because each heavenly body possesses perfectly the power of its species to fulfil in the universe that to which the species is ordered, as the sun and the moon exemplify conspicuously. For all the more reason, then, should we find in separate substances but one individual of the one species. p style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.125in"> Chapter 94

THAT THE SEPARATE SUBSTANCE AND THE SOUL ARE NOT OF THE SAME SPECIES

[1] From the above we can proceed to prove that the soul is not of the same species as separate substances. [7] For the difference between the human soul and a separate substance is greater than that between one separate substance and another. But, as we have just shown, all separate substances differ in species from one another. Much more, then, does a separate substance differ in species from the soul. [3] Moreover, the being proper to each thing accords with its specific nature; things diverse in the nature of their being are diverse in species. But the being of the human soul and of the separate substance is not of the same nature; for in the being of a separate substance the body cannot communicate, as, indeed, it can in the being of the human soul, which is united in being to the body as form to matter. The human soul, therefore, differs in species from separate substances. [4] Furthermore, that which of itself has species cannot be of the same species as that which of itself does not, but which is part of a species. Now, the separate substance is so endowed, but the soul, being part of the human species, is not. The soul, therefore, cannot possibly be of the same species as separate substances—unless, perchance, man be of the same species as they; which is clearly impossible. [5] Then, too, the species of a thing is gathered from its proper operation; for the operation manifests the power, which reveals the essence. Now, understanding is the proper operation of the separate substance and of the intellective soul. But these two have an utterly different mode of understanding; the soul understands by receiving from phantasms; the separate substance does not, since it has no corporeal organs—which are the necessary loci of phantasms. It follows that the human soul and the separate substance are not of the same species.

Chapter

HOW IN SEPARATE SUBSTANCES GENUS AND SPECIES ARE TO BE TAKEN

[1] We must now consider in what respect species is diversified in separate substances. For in material things which are of diverse species and of one genus, the concept of the genus is taken from the material principle; the difference of species from the formal principle. Thus, the sensitive nature, whence the notion of animal is derived, is in man material with respect to the intellective nature, from which man’s specific difference, rational, is obtained. Therefore, if separate substances are not composed of matter and form, as we have seen,” it is not clear how genus and specific difference can apply to them. [2] It must, therefore, be known that the diverse species of things possess the nature of being [ ens ] in graded fashion. Thus, in the first division of being we at once find something perfect, namely, being through itself and being in act, and something imperfect, namely, being in another and being in potency. And passing thus from species to species, it becomes quite apparent that one species has an additional grade of perfection over another-animals over plants, and animals that can move about over those that cannot; while in colors one species is found to be more perfect than another the nearer it approaches to whiteness. Wherefore Aristotle says in Metaphysics VIII [8] that “the definitions of things are like number, the species of which is changed by the subtraction or addition of unity”; just as in definitions the subtraction or addition of a difference gives us a new species. Hence, the essence of a determinate species consists in this, that the common nature is placed in a determinate grade of being. Now, in things composed of matter and form, the form has the character of a term, and that which is terminated by it is the matter or something material. The concept of the genus must, therefore, be taken from the material principle, and the specific difference from the formal principle. Accordingly, from genus and difference, as from matter and form, there results one thing. And just as it is one and the same nature that is constituted by the matter and the form, so the difference does not add to the genus a nature extraneous to it, but is a certain determination of the generic nature itself. For instance, suppose that the genus is animal with feet, and its difference, animal with two feet; this difference manifestly adds nothing extraneous to the genus. [3] Clearly, then, it is accidental to the genus and difference that the determination introduced by the difference be caused by a principle other than the nature of the genus; for the nature signified by the definition is composed of matter, as that which is determined, and form as that which determines. Therefore, if a simple nature exists, it will be terminate d by itself, and will not need to have two parts, one terminating, the other terminated. Thus, the concept of the genus will be derived from the very intelligible essence of that simple nature; its specific difference, from its termination according as it is in such a grade of beings. [4] From this, also, we see that if there is a nature devoid of limits and infinite in itself, as was shown in Book Is to be true of the divine nature, neither genus nor species is applicable to it; and this agrees with the things we proved concerning God in that same Book. [5] It is likewise clear from what has been said that no two separate substances are equal in rank, but that one is naturally superior to another; because there are diverse species in separate substances according to the diverse grades allotted to them, and there are not here several individuals in one species. And so it is that we read in the Book of Job (38:33): “Do you know the order of heaven?” While Dionysius says in The Celestial Hierarchy [X] that just as in the whole multitude of angels there is a highest, a middle, and a lowest hierarchy, so in each hierarchy there is a highest, a middle, and a lowest order, and in each order, highest, middle, and lowest angels. [6] Now, this disposes of the theory of Origen, who said that all spiritual substances, including souls, were created equal from the beginning; and that the diversity found among these substances—this one being united to a body and that one not, this one being higher and that one lower—results from a difference of merits. The theory is false, because we have just shown that this difference of grades is natural; that the soul is not of the same species as separate substances; that the latter are themselves not of the same species with one another; and that they are not equal in the order of nature.

Chapter

THAT SEPARATE SUBSTANCES DO NOT RECEIVE THEIR KNOWLEDGE FROM SENSIBLE THINGS

[1] This point can be demonstrated from what has gone before. [2] For sensibles by their very nature are the appropriate objects of sense-apprehension, as are intelligibles of intellectual apprehension. Thus, every cognitive substance that derives its knowledge from sensibles possesses sensitive knowledge, and, consequently, has a body united to it naturally, since such knowledge is impossible without a bodily organ. But it has already been shown that separate substances have no bodies naturally united to them. Hence, they do not derive intellective knowledge from sensible things. [3] The object of a higher power, moreover, must itself be higher. But the intellective power of a separate substance is higher than that of the human soul, since, as we have also shown, the intellect with which the human soul is endowed is the lowest in the order of intellects. And the object of that intellect, we have seen, is the phantasm, which, in the order of objects, is higher than the sensible thing existing outside the soul, as the order of cognitive powers clearly shows. Therefore, the object of a separate substance cannot be a thing existing outside the soul, as that from which it derives its knowledge immediately; nor can it be a phantasm. It therefore remains that the object of the separate substance’s intellect is something higher than a phantasm. But in the order of knowable objects, nothing is higher than a phantasm except that which is intelligible in act. Separate substances, then, do not derive intellectual knowledge from sensibles, but they understand things which are intelligible even through themselves. [4] Then, too, the order of intelligibles is in keeping with the order of intellects. Now, in the order of intelligibles, things that are intelligible in themselves rank above things whose intelligibility is due solely to our own making. And all intelligibles derived from sensibles must be of the latter sort, because sensibles are not intelligible in themselves. But the intelligibles which our intellect understands are derived from sensibles. Therefore, the separate substance’s intellect, being superior to ours, has not as the object of its understanding intelligibles received from sensibles, but those which are in themselves intelligible in act. [5] Furthermore, the mode of a thing’s proper operation corresponds proportionately to the mode of its substance and nature. Now, a separate substance is an intellect existing by itself and not in a body, so that the objects of its intellectual operation will be intelligibles having no bodily foundation. But all intelligibles derived from sensibles have some sort of basis in bodies; our intelligibles, for instance, are founded on the phantasms, which reside in bodily organs. Therefore, separate substances do not derive their knowledge from sensible things. [6] Again, just as prime matter ranks lowest in the order of sensible things, and is, therefore, purely potential with respect to all sensible forms, so the possible intellect, being the lowest in the order of intelligible things, is in potentiality to all intelligibles, as we have already seen. Now, in the order of sensibles the things above prime matter are in actual possession of their form, through which they are established in sensible being. Therefore, separate substances, which, in the order of intelligibles, are above the human possible intellect, are actually in intelligible being; for, an intellect receiving knowledge from sensibles, is in intelligible being, not actually, but potentially. The separate substance, therefore, does not receive knowledge from sensibles. [7] And again, the perfection of a higher nature does not depend on a lower nature. Now, since the separate substance is intellectual, its perfection consists in understanding. Therefore, the act of understanding exercised by such substances does not depend on sensible things, in such fashion as to derive knowledge from them. [8] And from this we see that in separate substances there is no agent and possible intellect, except, perhaps, in an equivocal sense. For a possible and an agent intellect are found in the intellective soul by reason of its receiving intellective knowledge from sensible things; since it is the agent intellect which makes intelligible in act the species received from such things, while the possible intellect is that which is in potentiality to the knowledge of all forms of sensibles. Since, then, separate substances do not receive knowledge from sensibles, no agent or possible intellect exists in them. And so it is that when Aristotle, in De anima III [5], introduces the possible and agent intellects, he says that they must be located in the soul. [9] It is likewise manifest that for such substances local distance cannot be a hindrance to knowledge. For local distance is through itself related to sense, but to intellect, only by accident, so far as it receives things from sense. The reason why local distance bears such a relationship to sense is that sensibles move the senses in respect of a determinate distance; whereas things intelligible in act, inasmuch as they move the intellect, are not in place, being separate from corporeal matter. Since separate substances do not derive intellective knowledge from sensible things, it follows that their knowledge is unaffected by local distance. [10] It is also quite clear that time does not enter into the intellectual operation of separate substances. For just as things intelligible in act are without place, so, too, are they outside of time; following upon local movement, time measures only such things as exist somehow in place. Thus, the understanding exercised by a separate substance is above time; whereas time touches our intellectual operation, through the fact that we obtain knowledge from phantasms, which have a determinate temporal reference. Hence, in composition and division our intellect always links up with time, past or future, but not in understanding what a thing is. For it understands what a thing is by abstracting intelligibles from sensible conditions; so that in this operation it grasps the intelligible apart from time and all conditions to which sensible things are subject. On the other hand, the intellect composes or divides by applying previously abstracted intelligibles to things; and in this application time is necessarily involved.

Chapter

THAT THE INTELLECT OF A SEPARATE SUBSTANCE IS ALWAYS IN ACT OF UNDERSTANDING

[1] The truth of this statement clearly emerges from what was said above. [2] For, whatever is sometimes in act and sometimes in potentiality is measured by time. But the intellect of a separate substance is above time, as we have just shown. Therefore, it is not sometimes in act of understanding and sometimes not. [3] Moreover, there is always actually present in every living substance some vital operation with which it is endowed by its very nature, although other operations are sometimes present potentially. Thus, the process of nourishment is perpetual in animals, but not sensation. Now, as preceding considerations make clear, separate substances are living substances, and the only vital operation which they have is understanding. It follows that they are by their very nature always actually understanding. [4] Then, too, the philosophers teach that the separate substances move the heavenly bodies by their intellect. But the movement of the heavenly bodies is always continuous. Therefore, the act of understanding exercised by separate substances is continuous and perpetual. [5] And the same conclusion follows even if that teaching is denied, because separate substances are higher than the heavenly bodies; so that, if the proper operation of a heavenly body, namely, its movement, is continuous, for all the more reason will the proper operation of separate substances, namely, understanding, be continuous. [6] Furthermore, whatever sometimes operates and sometimes does not operate is moved either through itself or by accident. Changes occurring in the sensible part of our nature, then, are responsible for the fact that we are sometimes understanding and sometimes not understanding, as Aristotle observes in Physics VIII [6]. But separate substances are not moved through themselves, since they are not bodies, nor are they moved by accident, because they are not united to bodies; so that in them understanding, which is their proper operation, is not intermittent, but continuous.

Chapter

HOW ONE SEPARATE SUBSTANCE UNDERSTANDS ANOTHER

[1] Now, if separate substances understand those things which are intelligible through themselves, as was shown, and if separate substances are intelligible through themselves, since, as we have also seen, freedom from matter makes a thing intelligible through itself, then it follows that separate substances have separate substances as the proper objects of their understanding. Each of them, therefore, knows both itself and others. [2] Indeed, each separate substance knows itself otherwise than the possible intellect knows itself. For the possible intellect exists as in potency in intelligible being, and becomes in act through the intelligible species, just as prime matter is actualized in sensible being by a natural form. Now, nothing is known, so far as it is only in potentiality, but so far as it is in act. That is why the form is the principle of the knowledge of the thing which becomes in act through the form. And the cognitive power likewise is rendered actually cognitive through some species. Thus, our possible intellect knows itself, thanks only to the intelligible species whereby it becomes in act in intelligible being; and for this reason Aristotle says in De anima III [4] that the human intellect “is itself knowable in the same way as other things are,” namely, through species derived from phantasms, as through proper forms. But separate substances by their very nature enjoy intelligible being actually; so that each of them knows itself through its essence, and not through the species of another thing. [3] Now, as the likeness of the thing known is in the knower, so in every case is the knowledge. But, one separate substance is like another as regards the nature of the genus that such substances have in common, while they differ from each other in species, as was made clear above. It would then seem to follow that the one separate substance knows the other, not according to the proper nature of the species, but only as regards the common nature of the genus. [4] Some therefore sayr, that one separate substance is the efficient cause of another. Now, in every efficient cause there must be the likeness of its effect, and, similarly, in every effect the likeness of its cause must be present; for every agent produces its like. Thus, in the higher separate substance there exists the likeness of the lower, as in the cause resides the likeness of the effect; and in the lower is the likeness of the higher, as in the effect dwells the likeness of its cause. Now, in non-univocal causes the likeness of the effect exists in the cause in a higher mode, while the likeness of the cause is in the effect in a lower mode. But the higher separate substances must be non-univocal causes of the lower ones, since the former, placed in diverse grades, are not of one species. Therefore, a lower separate substance knows a higher substance in a lower way, according to the mode of the substance knowing and not of the substance known; whereas the higher knows the lower in a higher way. This is expressed as follows in the work On Causes [VIII]: “An intelligence knows what is below it and what is above it, according to the mode of its substance, because the one is the cause of the other.” [5] But, since it was shown above that separate intellectual substances are not composed of matter and form, they cannot be caused except by way of creation. We have also proved that to create belongs to God alone. One separate substance, therefore, could not be the cause of another. [6] It has been demonstrated, moreover, that all the principal parts of the universe are created immediately by God. Hence, one of them is not caused by another. Now, each of the separate substances is a principal part of the universe, much more than the sun or the moon; since each of them has the nature of a species all its own, which is nobler than that of any corporeal things. Therefore, one separate substance is not caused by another, but all are immediately from God. [7] So, a6cording to what was said above, each of the separate substances knows God, by its natural knowledge, after the manner of its substance; and through this knowledge they are like God as their cause. But God knows them as their proper cause, possessing in Himself the likeness of them all. Not in this way, however, could one separate substance know another, since one is not the cause of another. [8] We must, therefore, consider that, since none of these substances is by its essence a sufficient principle of the knowledge of all other things, there must accrue to each of them, over and above its own substance, certain intelligible likenesses, whereby each of them is enabled to know another in its proper nature. [9] Now, this can be made clear as follows. The proper object of intellect is intelligible being, which includes all possible differences and species of being, since whatever can be, can be known. Now, since all knowledge is brought about by way of likeness, the intellect cannot know its object wholly unless it has in itself the likeness of all being and of all its differences. But such a likeness of all being, can be nothing other than an infinite nature: a nature not determined to some species or genus of being, but the universal principle of all being and the power productive of all being; and this, as was shown in Book I, is the divine nature alone. Indeed, no other nature can be the universal likeness of all being, since every nature except God is limited to some genus and species of being. It therefore remains that God alone, by His essence, knows all things. Every separate substance, on the other hand, is by its nature possessed of a perfect knowledge only of its own species; while the possible intellect knows itself not at all in this way, but through the intelligible species, as we remarked already in this chapter. [10] Now, from the very fact that a substance is intellectual, all being lies within the scope of its understanding. Since it is not endowed by its nature with actual understanding of all being, a separate substance, considered in itself, is in potentiality, as it were, to the intelligible likenesses whereby all being is known, and these likenesses will be its act, so far as it is intellectual. It is, however, impossible that these likenesses should not be several. For we have, already shown that the perfect likeness of all being cannot but be infinite. And just as the nature of a separate substance is not infinite, but limited, so an intelligible likeness existing in it cannot be infinite, but is limited to some species or genus of being, so that a plurality of such likenesses is required for the comprehension of all being. Now, the higher the rank of a separate substance, the more is its nature like to the divine; and thus it is less limited, inasmuch as it approaches nearer to the perfection and goodness of the universal being, enjoying, therefore, a more universal participation in goodness and being. The intelligible likenesses existing in the higher substance are, consequently, less numerous and more universal. And this is what Dionysius says in The Celestial Hierarchy [12], namely, that the higher angels have a more universal knowledge; while in the book On Causes we read [X]: “The higher intelligences have more universal forms.” Now, the apogee of this universality is found in God, who, through one thing, namely, His essence, is cognizant of all things; whereas its lowest realization is in the human intellect, which for each intelligible object needs an intelligible species appropriate to,that object and on a par with it. [11] Consequently, in the higher substances, knowledge acquired through forms of greater universality is not more imperfect, as it is with us. For through the likeness of animal, whereby we know a thing only in its genus, we have a more imperfect knowledge than through the likeness of man, whereby we know the complete species; since to know a thing only in terms of its genus is to know it imperfectly and as though in potency, while to know a thing in its species is to know it perfectly and in act. Occupying the lowest place in the order of intellectual substances, our intellect requires likenesses particularized to such a degree that there must exist in it a proper likeness corresponding to each proper object of its knowledge. That is why, through the likeness of animal it does not know rational, and therefore neither does it know man, except in a relative manner. The intelligible likeness present in a separate substance is, however, more universal in its power, and suffices to represent more things. Hence, it makes for a more perfect, not a more imperfect, knowledge; because it is universal in power, after the fashion of the productive form in a universal cause which, the more universal it is, the greater its causal range and its efficacy. Therefore, by one likeness the separate substance knows both animal and its differences; or, again, it knows them in a more universal or more limited way according to the order of such substances. [12] We have examples of this, as we remarked, in the two extremes, the divine and human intellects. For through one thing, His essence, God knows all things; whereas man requires diverse likenesses in order to know diverse things. And the higher his intellect, the more things is he able to know through fewer; and so it is that particular examples must be presented to the slow-witted to enable them to acquire knowledge of things. [13] Now, although a separate substance, considered in its nature, is potential with respect to the likenesses whereby all being is known, we must not suppose that it is deprived of all such likenesses; for this is the condition of the possible intellect before it understands, as Aristotle points out in De anima III [4]. Nor must we even think that it is possessed of some of those likenesses actually, and of others only potentially; in the way in which prime matter in the lower bodies has one form actually and others potentially, and as our possible intellect, when we are presently knowing, is in act with respect to some intelligibles and in potentiality as regards others. For, since these separate substances are not moved, either through themselves or by accident, as we have shown, all that is in them in potency must be in act, otherwise, they would pass from potentiality to act, being moved, in that case, through themselves or by accident. Thus, they have in them potentiality and act as regards intelligible being, as do the heavenly bodies as regards natural being. For the matter of a heavenly body is perfected by its form to such an extent that it does not remain in potentiality to other forms; and the intellect of a separate substance is likewise wholly perfected by intelligible forms, so far as its natural knowledge is concerned. Our possible intellect, however, is proportionate to the corruptible bodies to which it is united as a form; for it is so constituted as to possess certain intelligible forms actually, while remaining in potentiality to others. And so it is said in the book On Causes [X] that an intelligence is full of forms, since the whole potentiality of its intellect is fulfilled through intelligible forms. Accordingly, one separate substance is able to know another through intelligible species of this sort. [14] Because a separate substance is intelligible by essence, someone may see no necessity for holding that one such substance is understood by another through intelligible species, but may think that one understands another through the very essence of the substance understood. For, in the case of material substances, knowledge through an intelligible species seems to result accidentally from the fact that such substances are not by their essence intelligible in act; and that is why they must needs be understood through abstract intentions. This, moreover, seems to agree with the remark made by Aristotle in Metaphysics XI [9], that intellect, act of understanding, and thing understood are not different in the case of substances separate from matter. [15] The admission of this point, however, involves a number of difficulties. For, in the first place, the intellect in act is the thing understood in act, according to the teaching of Aristotle, and it is difficult to see how one separate substance is identified with another when it understands it. [16] Then too, every agent or operator acts through its form, to which its operation corresponds, as the operation of heating to the form of heat; thus, what we see is the thing by whose species our sight is in-formed. But it does not seem possible for one separate substance to be the form of another, since each has existence separate from the other. It therefore seems impossible that the one should be seen by the other through its essence. [17] Moreover, the thing understood is the perfection of the one who understands. But a lower substance cannot be the perfection of a higher one. Hence it would follow that the higher would not understand the lower, if each were understood through its essence, and not through another species. [18] Also, the intelligible is within the intellect as to that which is understood. But no substance enters into the mind save God alone, who is in all things by His essence, presence, and power. It therefore seems impossible for a separate substance to be understood by another through its essence, and not through its likeness present in the latter. [19] And, indeed, this must be true for Aristotle, who asserts that understanding occurs as the result of the thing actually understood being one with the intellect actually understanding; so that a separate substance, though actually intelligible of itself, is nevertheless not understood in itself except by an intellect with which it is one. And it is in this way that a separate substance understands itself through its essence. Accordingly, the intellect, the thing understood, and the act of understanding are the same. [20] On the other hand, according to Plato’s position, understanding is effected through the contact of the intellect with the intelligible thing. One separate substance can, therefore, understand another through its essence, when it is in contact with it spiritually; the higher substance understanding the lower through enclosing and containing it, so to speak, by its power; the lower understanding the higher, as though grasping it as its own perfection. Wherefore Dionysius likewise says, in The Divine Names [IV], that the higher substances are intelligible “as the food of the lower.”

Chapter

THAT SEPARATE SUBSTANCES KNOW MATERIAL THINGS

[1] Thus, through the intelligible forms in question a separate substance knows not only other separate substances, but also the species of corporeal things. [2] For their intellect, being wholly in act, is perfect in point of natural perfection, and, therefore, it must comprehend its object—intelligible being—in a universal manner. Now, the species of corporeal things are also included within intelligible being, and the separate substance, therefore, knows them. [3] Moreover, since the species of things are distinguished as the species of numbers are distinguished, as noted above, the higher species must contain in some way that which is in the lower, just as the greater number contains the lesser. Since, then, separate substances are above corporeal substances, it ‘follows that whatever things exist in corporeal substances in a material way are present in separate substances in an intelligible way, for that which is in something is in it according to the mode of that in which it is. [4] Also, if the separate substances move the heavenly bodies, as the philosophers say, then whatever results from the movement of the heavenly bodies is attributed to those bodies as instruments, since they move in being moved, but is ascribed to the separate substances which move them, as principal agents. Now, separate substances act and move by their intellect. Hence, they are actually causing whatever is effected by the movement of the heavenly bodies, even as the craftsman works through his tools. Therefore, the forms of things generated and corrupted enjoy intelligible being in the separate substances. And that is why Boethius, in his book On the Trinity [II], says that from forms that are without matter came the forms that are in matter. Separate substances, then, ‘know not only separate substances, but also the species of material things. For, if they know the species of generable and corruptible bodies, as the species of their proper effects, much more do they know the species of the heavenly bodies, as being the species of their proper instruments. [5] Indeed, the intellect of a separate substance is in act, having all the likenesses to which it is in potentiality, as well as being endowed with the power to comprehend all the species and differences of being; so that of necessity every separate substance knows all natural things and the total order thereof. [6] But since the intellect in perfect act is the thing understood in act, someone may think that a separate substance does not understand material things; for it would seem incongruous that a material thing should be the perfection of a separate substance. [7] Rightly considered, however, it is according to its likeness present in the intellect that the thing understood is the perfection of the one who understands it; for it is not the stone existing outside the soul that is a perfection of our possible intellect. Now, the likeness of the material thing is in the intellect of a separate substance immaterially, according to the latter’s mode, not according to that of a material substance. Hence, there is no incongruity in saying that this likeness is a perfection of the separate substance’s intellect, as its proper form.

Chapter

THAT SEPARATE SUBSTANCES KNOW SINGULARS

[1] Now, the likenesses of things existing in the intellect of a separate substance are more universal than in our intellect, and more efficacious as means through which something is known. And that is why separate substances, through the likenesses of material things, know material things, not only in terms of the nature of the genus or the species, as our intellect does, but in their individual nature as well. [2] For, since the species of things present in the intellect must be immaterial, they could not in our intellect be the principle of knowing singulars, which are individuated by matter; the species of our intellect are, in fact, of such limited power that one leads only to the knowledge of one. Hence, even as it is impossible for the likeness of the generic nature to lead to the knowledge of the genus and difference so that the species be known through that likeness, so the likeness of the specific nature cannot lead to the knowledge of the individuating principles, which are material principles, so that through that likeness the individual may be known in its singularity. But the likeness existing in the separate substance’s intellect as a certain single and immaterial thing is of more universal power and, consequently, is able to lead to the knowledge of both the specific and the individuating principles, so that through this likeness, residing in its intellect, the separate substance can be cognizant, not only of the generic and specific natures, but of the individual nature as well. Nor does it follow that the form through which it knows is material; nor that those forms are infinite, according to the number of individuals. [3] Moreover, whatever lies within the competence of a lower power a higher power can also do, but in a higher way. That is why the lower power operates through many instruments; the higher, through one only. For the higher, a power is, the greater its compactness and unity; whereas the lower power is, on the contrary, divided and multiplied. Ibis accounts for our observation of the fact that the one power of the common sense apprehends the diverse genera of sensible objects which the five external senses perceive. Now, in the order of nature the human soul is lower than a separate substance. And the human soul is cognizant of singulars and of universals through two principles, sense and intellect. Therefore, the separate substance, which is higher, knows both universals and singulars in a higher way, through one principle; namely, the intellect. [4] A further argument. The species of intelligible things come to our intellect in an order contrary to that in which they reach the intellect of a separate substance. For they reach our intellect by way of analysis, through abstraction from material and individuating conditions; that is why we cannot know singulars through them. But it is as it were by way of synthesis that intelligible species reach the intellect of a separate substance, for the latter has intelligible species by reason of its likeness to the first intelligible species—the divine intellect—which is not abstracted from things, but productive of them. And it is productive not only of the form, but also of the matter, which is the principle of individuation. Therefore, the species of the separate substance’s intellect regard the total thing, not only the principles of the species, but even the individuating principles. The knowledge of singulars, therefore, must not be denied to separate substances, although our intellect cannot be cognizant of singulars. [5] Moreover, if, as the philosophers say, the heavenly bodies are moved by the separate substances, then, since separate substances act and move by their intellect, they must know the movable thing which they move; and this is some particular entity, for universals are immovable. The new places, also, which result from movement are certain singular realities that cannot be unknown to the substance which exercises movement by its intellect. Therefore, it must be said that separate substances know singulars belonging to these material things.

Chapter

WHETHER SEPARATE SUBSTANCES HAVE NATURAL KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THINGS AT THE SAME TIME

[1] Now, since “the intellect in act is the thing understood in act, just as the sense in act is the sensible in act,” and since the same thing cannot at the same time be many things actually, it is seemingly impossible, as we observed above, that the intellect of a separate substance should be possessed of diverse species of intelligibles. [2] But it must be known that not everything is actually understood, the intelligible species of which is actually present in the intellect. For, since an intelligent substance is also endowed with will, being, thereby, master of its own acts, it is in its power after it possesses an intelligible species to use it for understanding actually, or, if it have several intelligible species, to use one of them. That is why we do not actually consider all the things of which we have scientific knowledge. Therefore, an intellectual substance, being cognizant of things through a plurality of species, uses the one that it chooses, and thereby actually knows at the same time through the one species all the things which it knows; for they are all as one intelligible thing so far as they are known through one, even as our intellect knows at the same time several things brought together or related to one another as one individual thing. On the other hand, the things that the intellect knows through diverse species, it does not know at the same time. And, consequently, just as there is one understanding, so is there one thing actually understood. [3] Therefore, in the intellect of a separate substance there is a certain succession of understandings, but not movement properly so called, since act does not succeed potentiality; rather, act succeeds act. [4] But the divine intellect knows all things at the same time, because it knows all things through one thing, its essence, and because its action is its essence. [5] Wherefore, in God’s understanding there is no succession, but His act of understanding, wholly and simultaneously perfect, endures through all the ages. Amen.

CONTRA GENTILES

BOOK THREE: PROVIDENCE

Q. 1-83

translated by

Vernon J. Bourke

CONTENTS

Prologue

How every agent acts for an end

That every agent acts for a good

That evil in things is not intended

Arguments which seem to prove that evil is not apart from intention

Answers to these arguments

That evil is not an essence

Arguments which seem to prove that evil is a nature or some real thing

Answers to these arguments

That good is the cause of evil

That evil is based on the good

That evil does not wholly destroy good

That evil has a cause of some sort

That evil is an accidental cause

That there is no highest evil

That the end of everything is a good

That all things are ordered to one end Who is God

How God is the end of all things

That all things tend to become like God

How things imitate divine goodness

That things naturally tend to become like God inasmuch as He is a cause

How things are ordered to their ends in various ways

That the motion of the heavens comes from an intellectual principle

How even beings devoid of knowledge seek the good

That to understand God is the end of every intellectual substance

Whether felicity consists in a will act

That human felicity does not consist in pleasures of the flesh

That felicity does not consist in honors

That man’s felicity does not consist in glory

That man’s felicity does not consist in riches

That felicity does not consist in worldly power

That felicity does not consist in goods of the body

That human felicity does not lie in the senses 119

That man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in acts of the moral virtues

That ultimate felicity does not lie in the act of prudence

That felicity does not consist in the operation of art

That the ultimate felicity of man consists in the contemplation of God

That human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God which is generally possessed by most men

That human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God gained through demonstration

Human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God which is through faith

Whether in this life man is able to understand separate substances through the study and investigation of the speculative sciences

That we cannot in this life understand separate substances in the way that Alexander claimed

That we cannot in this life understand separate substances in the way that Averroes claimed

That man’s ultimate felicity does not consist in the kind of knowledge of separate substances that the foregoing opinions assume

That in this life we cannot understand separate substances

That the soul does not understand itself through itself in this life

That in this life we cannot see God through His essence

That man’s ultimate felicity does not come in this life

That separate substances do not see God in His essence by knowing Him through their essence

That the natural desire of separate substances does not come to rest in the natural knowledge which they have of God

How God may be seen in His essence

That no created substance can, by its own natural power, attain the vision of God in His essence

That the created intellect needs an influx of divine light in order to see God through His essence

Arguments by which it seems to be proved that God cannot be seen in His essence, and the answers to them

That the created intellect does not comprehend the divine substance

That no created intellect while seeing God sees all that can be seen in Him

That every intellect, whatever its level, can be a participant in the divine vision

That one being is able to see God more perfectly than another

How those who see the divine substance may see all things

That those who see God see all things in Him at once

That through the vision of God one becomes a partaker of eternal life

That those who see God will see Him perpetually

How man’s every desire is fulfilled in that ultimate felicity

That God governs things by His providence

That God preserves things in being

That nothing gives being except in so far as it

That God is the cause of operation for all things that operate

That God is everywhere

The opinion of those who take away proper actions from natural things

How the same effect is from God and from a natural agent

That divine providence does not entirely exclude evil from things

That divine providence does not exclude contingency from things

That divine providence does not exclude freedom of choice

That divine providence does not exclude fortune and chance

That God’s providence applies to contingent singulars

That God’s providence applies immediately to all singulars

That the execution of divine providence is accomplished by means of secondary causes

That other creatures are ruled by God by means of intellectual creatures

That lower intellectual substances are ruled by higher ones

On the ordering of the angels among themselves

On the ordering of men among themselves and to other things

That lower bodies are ruled by God through celestial bodies

Epilogue to the preceding chapters

Chapter

Prologue “The Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods” (Ps- 94:3). “For the Lord will not cast off His people” (Ps. 93:14)”For in His hand are all the ends of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are His. For the sea is His and He made it, and His hands formed dry land” (Ps. 94:4-5) [1] That there is one First Being, possessing the full perfection of the whole of being, and that we call Him God, has been shown in the preceding Books. From the abundance of His perfection, He endows all existing things with being, so that He is fully established not only as the First Being but also as the original source of all existing things. Moreover, He has granted being to other things, not by a necessity of His nature but according to the choice of His will, as has been made clear in our earlier explanations. From this it follows that He is the Lord of the things that He has made, for we are masters of the things that are subject to our will. In fact, He holds perfect dominion over things produced by Himself, since to produce them He is in need neither of the assistance of an external agent nor of the underlying presence of matter, for He is the universal maker of the whole of being. [2] Now, each of the things produced through the will of an agent is directed to an end by the agent. For the proper object of the will is the good and the end. As a result, things which proceed from will must be directed to some end. Moreover, each thing achieves its ultimate end through its own action which must be directed to the end by Him Who gives things the principles through which they act. [3] So, it must be that God, Who is in all ways perfect in Himself, and Who endows all things with being from His own power, exists as the Ruler of all beings, and is ruled by none other. Nor is there anything that escapes His rule, just as there is nothing that does not receive its being from Him. As He is perfect in being and causing, so also is He perfect in ruling. [4] Of course, the result of this rule is manifested differently in different beings, depending on the diversity of their natures. For some beings so exist as God’s products that, possessing understanding, they bear His likeness and reflect His image. Consequently, they are not only ruled but are also rulers of themselves, inasmuch as their own actions are directed to a fitting end. If these beings submit to the divine rule in their own ruling, then by virtue of the divine rule they are admitted to the achievement of their ultimate end; but, if they proceed otherwise in their own ruling, they are rejected. [5] Still other beings, devoid of understanding, do not direct themselves to their end, but are directed by another being. Some of these are incorruptible and, as they can suffer no defect in their natural being, so in their own actions they never fail to follow the order to the end which is prearranged for them. They are unfailingly subject to the rule of the First Ruler. Such are the celestial bodies whose motions occur in ever the same way. [6] Other beings, however, are corruptible. They can suffer a defect in their natural being, yet such a defect works to the advantage of another being. For, when one thing is corrupted, another comes into being. Likewise, in their proper actions they may fall short of the natural order, yet such a failure is balanced by the good which comes from it. Thus, it is evident that not even those things which appear to depart from the order of the primary rule do actually escape the power of the First Ruler. Even these corruptible bodies are perfectly subject to His power, just as they are created by God Himself. [7] Contemplating this fact, the Psalmist, being filled with the Holy Spirit, first describes for us the perfection of the First Ruler, in order to point out the divine rule to us: as a perfection of nature, by the use of the term “God”; as a perfection of power, by the use of the words, “great Lord” (suggesting that He has need of no other being for His power to produce His effect); and as a perfection of authority, by the use of the phrase, “a great King above all gods” (for even if there be many rulers, they are all nonetheless subject to His rule). [8] In the second place, handdescribes for us the manner of this rule. First, as regards those intellectual beings who are led by Him to their ultimate end, which is Himself, he uses this expression: “For the Lord will not cast off His people.” Next, in regard to corruptible beings which are not removed from the power of the First Ruler, even if they go astray sometimes in their own actions, handsays: “For in His hands are all the ends of the earth.” Then, in regard to celestial bodies which exist above all the highest parts of the earth (that is, of corruptible bodies) and which always observe the right order of the divine rule, he says: “and the heights of the mountains are His.” [9] In the third place, he indicates the reason for this universal rule: the things created by God must also be ruled by Him. Thus it is that he says: “For the sea is His,” and so on. [10] Therefore, since we have treated of the perfection of the divine nature in Book One, and of the perfection of His power inasmuch as He is the Maker and Lord of all things in Book Two, there remains to be treated in this third Book His perfect authority or dignity, inasmuch as He is the End and Ruler of all things. So, this will be our order of procedure: first, we shall treat of Himself, according as He is the end of all things; second, of His universal rule, according as He governs every creature [64-110]; third, of His particular rule, according as He governs creatures possessed of understanding [111-163.

Chapter

HOW EVERY AGENT ACTS FOR AN END

[1] The first thing that we must show, then, is that in acting every agent intends an end. [2] In the case of things which obviously act for an end we call that toward which the inclination of the agent tend the end. For, if it attain this, it is said to attain its end; but if it fail in regard to this, it fails in regard to the end in tended, as is evident in the case of the physician working fo the sake of health, and of the man who is running toward a set objective. As far as this point is concerned, it makes n difference whether the being tending to an end is a knowing being or not. For, just as the target is the end for th archer, so is it the end for the motion of the arrow. Now every inclination of an agent tends toward something definite. A given action does not stem from merely any power but heating comes from heat, cooling from cold. Thus it is that, actions are specifically distinguished by virtue of diversity of active powers. In fact, an action may sometime terminate in something which is made, as building does i a house, and as healing does in health. Sometimes, however, it does not, as in the cases of understanding an sensing. Now, if an action does in fact terminate in some thing that is made, the inclination of the agent tend through the action toward the thing that is produced. But if it does not terminate in a product, then the inclination of the agent tends toward the action itself. So, it must be that every agent in acting intends an end, sometimes the action itself, sometimes a thing produced by the action. [3] Again, with reference to all things that act for an end, we say that the ultimate end is that beyond which the agent seeks nothing else; thus, the action of a physician goes as far as health, but when it is attained there is no desire for anything further. Now, in the action of all agents, one may find something beyond which the agent seeks nothing further. Otherwise, actions would tend to infinity, which is impossible. Since “it is impossible to proceed to infinity,” the agent could not begin to act, because nothing is moved toward what cannot be reached. Therefore, every agent acts for an end. [4] Besides, if the actions of an agent are supposed to proceed to infinity, then there must be as a consequence to these actions either something that is produced, or nothing. Supposing that there is something that results, then the existence of this thing would come about after an infinite number of actions. But that which presupposes an infinite number of things cannot come into existence, since it is impossible to proceed to infinity. Now, that which is impossible in regard to being is impossible in regard to coming into being. And it is impossible to produce that which cannot come into being. Therefore, it is impossible for an agent to begin to produce something that presupposes an infinite number of actions. Supposing, on the other hand, that nothing follows as a product of these actions, then the order of such actions must either depend on the ordering of the active powers (as in the case of a man who senses so that he may imagine, imagines so that he may understand, and then understands so that he may will); or it depends on the ordering of objects (thus, I think of body so that I may be able to think of soul, which latter I think so that I may be able to think of immaterial substance, which in turn I think so that I may be able to think about God). Indeed, it is impossible to proceed to infinity, either through a series of active powers (for instance, through the forms of things, as is proved in Metaphysics [Ia, 2: 994a 1–b6], for the form is the principle of action) or through a series of objects (for there is not an infinite number of beings, because there is one First Being, as we demonstrated earlier [I:42]). So, it is not possible for actions to proceed to infinity. There must, then, be something which satisfies the agent’s desire when it is attained. Therefore, every agent acts for an end. [5] Moreover, for things which act for an end, all things intermediate between the first agent and the ultimate end are as ends in regard to things prior, and as active principles with regard to things consequent. So, if the agent’s desire is not directed to some definite thing, but, rather, the actions are multiplied to infinity, as was said, then the active principles must be multiplied to infinity. This is impossible, as we showed above. Therefore, the agent’s desire must be directed to some definite thing. [6] Furthermore, for every agent the principle of its action is either its nature or its intellect. Now, there is no question that intellectual agents act for the sake of an end, because they think ahead of time in their intellects of the things which they achieve through action; and their action stems from such preconception. This is what it means for intellect to be the principle of action. just as the entire likeness of the result achieved by the actions of an intelligent agent exists in the intellect that preconceives it, so, too, does the likeness of a natural resultant pre-exist in the natural agent; and as a consequence of this, the action is determined to a definite result. For fire gives rise to fire, and an olive to an olive. Therefore, the agent that acts with nature as its principle is just as much directed to a definite end, in its action, as is the agent that acts through intellect as its principle. Therefore, every agent acts for an end. [7] Again, there is no fault to be found, except in the case of things that are for the sake of an end. A fault is never attributed to an agent, if the failure is related to something that is not the agent’s end. Thus, the fault of failing to heal is imputed to the physician, but not to the builder or the grammarian. We do find fault with things done according to art, for instance, when the grammarian does not speak correctly, and also in things done according to nature, as is evident in the case of the birth of monsters. Therefore, it is just as true of the agent that acts in accord with nature as of the agent who acts in accord with art and as a result of previous planning that action is for the sake of an end. [8] Besides, if an agent did not incline toward some definite effect, all results would be a matter of indifference for him. Now, handwho looks upon a manifold number of things with indifference no more succeeds in doing one of them than another. Hence, from an agent contingently indifferent to alternatives no effect follows, unless he be determined to one effect by something. So, it would be impossible for him to act. Therefore, every agent tends toward some determinate effect, and this is called his end. [9] Of course, there are some actions that do not seem to be for an end. Examples are playful and contemplative actions, and those that are done without attention, like rubbing one’s beard and the like. These examples could make a person think that there are some cases of acting without an end. However, we must understand that contemplative actions are not for another end, but are themselves ends. On the other hand, acts of play are sometimes ends, as in the case of a man who plays solely for the pleasure attaching to play; at other times they are for an end, for instance, when we play so that we can study better afterward. Actions that are done without attention do not stem from the intellect but from some sudden act of imagination or from a natural source. Thus, a disorder of the.humors produces an itch and is the cause of rubbing the beard, and this is done without intellectual attention. So, these actions do tend to some end, though quite apart from the order of the intellect. [10] Through this consideration the error of the ancient natural philosophers is refuted; they claimed that all things come about as a result of material necessity, for they completely excluded final cause from things.

Chapter

THAT EVERY AGENT ACTS FOR A GOOD

[1] Next after this we must show that every agent acts for a good. [2] That every agent acts for an end has been made clear from the fact that every agent tends toward something definite. Now, that toward which an agent tends in a definite way must be appropriate to it, because the agent would not be inclined to it except by virtue of some agreement with it. But, what is appropriate to something is good for it. So, every agent acts for a good. [3] Again, the end is that in which the appetitive inclination of an agent or mover, and of the thing moved, finds its rest. Now, the essential meaning of the good is that it provides a terminus for appetite, since “the good is that which all desire.” Therefore, every action and motion are for the sake of a good. [4] Besides, every action and movement are seen to be ordered in some way toward being, either that it may be preserved in the species or in the individual, or that it may be newly acquired. Now, the very fact of being is a good, and so all things desire to be. Therefore, every action and movement are for the sake of a good. [5] Moreover, every action and movement are for the sake of some perfection. Even if the action itself be the end, it is clear that it is a secondary perfection of the agent. But, if the action be a changing of external matter, it is obvious that the mover intends to bring about some perfection in the thing that is moved. Even the thing that is moved also tends toward this, if it be a case of natural movement. Now, we call what is perfect a good. So, every action and movement are for the sake of a good. [6] Furthermore, every agent acts in so far as it is in act, and in acting it tends to produce something like itself. So, it tends toward some act. But every act has something of good in its essential character, for there is no evil thing that is not in a condition of potency falling short of its act. Therefore, every action is for the sake of a good. [7] Again, an intelligent agent acts for the sake of an end, in the sense that it determines the end for itself. On the other hand, an agent that acts from a natural impulse, though acting for an end, as we showed in the preceding chapter, does not determine the end for itself, since it does not know the meaning of an end, but, rather, is moved toward an end determined for it by another being. Now, the intelligent agent does not determine the end for itself, unless it do so by considering the rational character of the good, for an object of the intellect is only motivating by virtue of the rational meaning of the good, which is the object of the will. Therefore, even the natural agent is neither moved, nor does it move, for the sake of an end, except in so far as the end is a good; for the end is determined for the natural agent by some appetite. Therefore, every agent acts for the sake of a good. [8] Besides, there is the same general reason for avoiding evil that there is for seeking the good, just as there is the same general reason for moving downward and for moving upward. But all things are known to flee from evil; in fact, intelligent agents avoid a thing for this reason: they recognize it as an evil thing. Now, all natural agents resist corruption, which is an evil for each individual, to the full extent of their power. Therefore, all things act for the sake of a good. [9] Moreover, that which results from the action of an agent, but apart from the intention of the agent, is said to happen by chance or by luck. But we observe that what happens in the workings of nature is either always, or mostly, for the better. Thus, in the plant world leaves are arranged so as to protect the fruit, and among animals the bodily organs are disposed in such a way that the animal can be protected. So, if this came about apart from the intention of the natural agent, it would be by chance or by luck. But this is impossible, for things which occur always, or for the most part, are neither chance nor fortuitous events, but only those which occur in few instances. Therefore, the natural agent tends toward what is better, and it is much more evident that the intelligent agent does so. Hence, every agent intends the good when it acts. [10] Furthermore, everything that is moved is brought to the terminus of the movement by the mover and agent. So, the mover and the object moved must tend toward the same thing. Now, the object moved, since it is in potency, tends toward act, and so toward the perfect and the good, for it goes from potency to act through movement. Therefore, both the mover and the agent always intend the good in their movement and action. [11] This is the reason why the philosophers, in defining the good, have said: “the good is what all desire. And Dionysius states that “all crave the good and the best [ De div. nom. IV, 4].”

Chapter

THAT EVIL IN THINGS IS NOT INTENDED

[1] From this it is clear that evil occurs in things apart from the intention of the agents. [2] For that which follows from an action, as a different result from that intended by the agent, clearly happens apart from intention. Now, evil is different from the good which every agent intends. Therefore, evil is a result apart from intention. [3] Again, a defect in an effect and in an action results from some defect in the principles of the action; for instance, the birth of a monstrosity results from some corruption of the semen, and lameness results from a bending of the leg bone. Now, an agent acts in keeping with the active power that it has, not in accord with the defect of power to which it is subject. According as it acts, so does it intend the end. Therefore, it intends an end corresponding to its power. So, that which results as an effect of the defect of power will be apart from the intention of the agent. Now, this is evil. Hence, evil occurs apart from intention. [4] Besides, the movement of a mobile thing and the motion of its mover tend toward the same objective. Of itself, the mobile thing tends toward the good, but it may tend toward evil accidentally and apart from intention. This is best seen in generation and corruption. When it is under one form, matter is in potency to another form and to the privation of the form it already has. Thus, when it is under the form of air, it is in potency to the form of fire and to the privation of the form of air. Change in the matter terminates in both at the same time; in the form of fire, in so far as fire is generated; in the privation of the form of air, inasmuch as air is corrupted. Now, the intention and appetite of matter are not toward privation but toward form, for it does not tend toward the impossible. Now, it is impossible for matter to exist under privation alone, but for it to exist under a form is possible. Therefore, that which terminates in a privation is apart from intention. It terminates in a privation inasmuch as it attains the form which it intends, and the privation of another form is a necessary result of this attainment. So, the changing of matter in generation and corruption is essentially ordered to the form, but the privation is a consequence apart from the intention. The same should be true for all cases of change. Therefore, in every change there is a generation and a corruption, in some sense; for instance, when a thing changes from white to black, the white is corrupted and the black comes into being. Now, it is a good thing for matter to be perfected through form, and for potency to be perfected through its proper act, but it is a bad thing for it to be deprived of its due act. So, everything that is moved tends in its movement to reach a good, but it reaches an evil apart from such a tendency. Therefore, since every agent and mover tends to the good, evil arises apart from the intention of the agent. [5] Moreover, in the case of beings that act as a result of understanding or of some sort of sense judgment, intention is a consequence of apprehension, for the intention tends to what is apprehended as an end. If it actually attains something which does not possess the specific nature of what was apprehended, then this will be apart from the intention. For example, if someone intends to eat honey, but he cats poison, in the belief that it is honey, then this will be apart from the intention. But every intelligent agent tends toward something in so far as he considers the object under the rational character of a good, as was evident in the preceding chapter. So, if this object is not good but bad, this will be apart from his intention. Therefore, an intelligent agent does not produce an evil result, unless it be apart from his intention. Since to tend to the good is common to the intelligent agent and to the agent that acts by natural instinct, evil does not result from the intention of any agent, except apart from the intention.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS WHICH SEEM TO PROVE THAT EVIL IS NOT APART FROM INTENTION

[1] Now, there are certain points which seem to run counter to this view. [2] That which happens apart from the intention of the agent is called fortuitous, a matter of chance, something which rarely happens. But the occurrence of evil is not called fortuitous, a matter of chance, nor does it happen rarely, but always or in most cases. For corruption always accompanies generation in the things of nature. Even in the case of volitional agents sin occurs in most cases, since “it is as difficult to act in accord with virtue as to find the center of a circle,” as Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics [II, 9: 1109a 24]. So, evil does not seem to happen apart from intention. [3] Again, in Ethics III [5: 1113b 16] Aristotle expressly states that “wickedness is voluntary.” He proves this by the fact that a person voluntarily performs unjust acts: “now it is unreasonable for the agent of voluntarily unjust actions not to will to be unjust, and for the self-indulgent man not to wish to be incontinent” [1114a 11]; and he proves it also by the fact that legislators punish evil men as doers of evil in a voluntary way [1113b 22]. So, it does not seem that eviloccurs apart from the will or the intention. [4] Besides, every natural change has an end intended by nature. Now, corruption is a natural change, just as generation is. Therefore, its end, which is a privation having the rational character of evil, is intended by nature: just as are form and the good, which are the ends of generation.

Chapter

ANSWERS TO THESE ARGUMENTS

[1] So that the solution of these alleged arguments maybe made more evident we should notice that evil may be considered either in a substance or in its action. Now, evil is in a substance because something which it was originally to have, and which it ought to have, is lacking in it. Thus, if a man has no wings, that is not an evil for him, because handwas not born to have them; even if a man does not have blond hair, that is not an evil, for, though he may have such hair, it is not something that is necessarily due him. But it is an evil if he has no hands, for these he is born to, and should, bave-if he is to be perfect. Yet this defect is not an evil for a bird. Every privation, if taken properly and strictly, is of that which one is born to have, and should have. So, in this strict meaning of privation, there is always the rational character of evil. [2] Now, since it is in potency toward all forms, matter is indeed originated to have all of them; however, a certain one of them is not necessarily due it, since without this certain one it can be actually perfect. Of course, to each thing composed of matter some sort of form is due, for water cannot exist unless it have the form of water, nor can fire be unless it possess the form of fire. So, the privation of such forms in relation to matter is not an evil for the matter, but in relation to the thing whose form it is, it is an evil for it; just as the privation of the form of fire is an evil for fire. And since privations, just as much as habits and forms, are not said to exist, except in the sense that they are in a subject, then if a privation be an evil in relation to the subject in which it is, this will be evil in the unqualified sense. But, otherwise, it will be an evil relative to something, and not in the unqualified sense. Thus, for a man to be deprived of a hand is an unqualified evil, but for matter to be deprived of the form of air is not an unqualified evil, though it is an evil for the air. [3] Now, a privation of order, or due harmony, in action is an evil for action. And because there is some due order and harmony for every action, such privation in an action must stand as evil in the unqualified sense. [4] Having observed these points, we should understand that not everything that is apart from intention is necessarily fortuitous or a matter of chance, as the first argument claimed. For, if that which is apart from intention be either an invariable or a frequent consequence of what is intended, then it does not occur fortuitously or by chance. Take, for example, a man who directs his intention to the enjoyment of the sweetness of wine: if intoxication is the result of drinking the wine, this is neither fortuitous nor a matter of chance. Of course, it would be a matter of chance if this result followed in but few cases. [5] So the evil of natural corruption, though a result which is apart from the intention of the agent of generation, is nevertheless an invariable consequence, for the acquisition of one form is always accompanied by the privation of another form. Hence, corruption does not occur by chance, nor as something that happens in few cases; even though privation at times is not an unqualified evil, but is only so in relation to some definite thing, as has been said. However, if it be the kind of privation which takes away what is due to the thing generated, this will be by chance and unqualifiedly evil, as in the case of the birth of monsters. For, such a thing is not the necessary result of what is intended; rather, it is repugnant to what is intended, since the agent intends a perfect product of generation. [6] Now, evil in relation to action occurs in the case of natural agents as a result of the defect of an active power. Hence, if the agent has a defective power, the evil is a result apart from the intention, but it will not be a chance result because it follows necessarily from this kind of agent, pro-vided this kind of agent is subject to this defect of power, either always or frequently. However, it will be a matter of chance if this defect is rarely associated with this kind of agent. [7] In the case of voluntary agents, the intention is directed to some particular good, if action is to result, for universals cause no movement, but particular things do, since actions go on in their area. Therefore, if a particular good that is intended has attached to it, either always or frequently, a privation of good according to reason, then the result is a moral evil; and not by chance, but either invariably or for the most part. This is clearly the case with a man who wills to enjoy a woman for the sake of pleasure, to which pleasure there is attached the disorder of adultery. Hence, the evil of adultery is not something which results by chance. However, it would be an instance of chance evil if some wrong resulted in a few cases from the object intended: for example, in the case of a person who kills a man while shooting at a bird. [8] That a person may frequently direct his intention to goods of this kind, to which privations of good according to reason are consequent, results from the fact that most men live on the sense level, because sensory objects are better known to us, and they are more effective motives in the domain of particular things where action goes on. Now, the privation of good according to reason is the consequence of most goods of this kind. [9] From this it is evident that, though evil be apart from intention, it is nonetheless voluntary, as the second argument suggests, though not essentially but accidentally so. For intention is directed to an ultimate end which a person wills for its own sake, but the will may also be directed to that which a person wills for the sake of something else, even if handwould not will it simply for itself. In the example of the man who throws his merchandise into the sea in order to save himself [cf. Ethics III, 1: 1110a 8-29], he does not intend the throwing away of the merchandise but his own safety; yet hand wills the throwing not for itself but for the sake of safety. Likewise, a person wills to do a disorderly action for the sake of some sensory good to be attained; he does not intend the dis order, nor does handwill it simply for itself, but for the sake of this result. And so, evil consequences and sins are called voluntary in this way, just as is the casting of merchandise into the sea. [10] The answer to the third difficulty is similarly evident. Indeed, the change of corruption is never found without the change of generation; neither, as a consequence, is the end of corruption found without the end of generation. So, nature does not intend the end of corruption as separated from the end of generation, but both at once. It is not the unqualified intention of nature that water should not exist, but that there should be air, and while a thing is so existing it is not water. So, nature directly intends that this existing thing be air; it does not intend that this thing should not exist as water, except as a concomitant of the fact that it is to be air. Thus, privations are not intended by nature in themselves, but only accidentally; forms, however, are intended in themselves. [11] It is clear, then, from the foregoing that what is evil in an unqualified sense is completely apart from intention in the workings of nature, as in the birth of monsters; on the other hand, that which is not evil in the unqualified sense, but evil in relation to some definite thing, is not directly intended by nature but only accidentally.

Chapter

THAT EVIL IS NOT AN ESSENCE

[1] From these considerations it becomes evident that no essence is evil in itself. [2] In fact, evil is simply a privation of something which a subject is entitled by its origin to possess and which it ought to have, as we have said. Such is the meaning of the word “evil” among all men. Now, privation is not an essence; it is, rather, a negation in a substance. Therefore, evil is not an essence in things. [3] Again, each thing has actual being in accord with its essence. To the extent that it possesses being, it has something good; for, if good is that which all desire, then being itself must be called a good, because all desire to be. As a consequence, then, each thing is good because it possesses actual being. Now, good and evil are contraries. So, nothing is evil by virtue of the fact that it has essence. Therefore, no essence is evil. [4] Besides, everything is either an agent or a thing that is made. Now, evil cannot be an agent, because whatever acts does so inasmuch as it is actually existent and perfect. Similarly, it cannot be a thing that is made, for the termination of every process of generation is a form, and a good thing. Therefore, nothing is evil by virtue of its essence. [5] Moreover, nothing tends toward its contrary, for each thing inclines to what is like and suitable to itself. Now, every being intends a good, when it is acting, as has been proved. Therefore, no being, as being, is evil. [6] Furthermore, every essence belongs to some definite thing in nature. Indeed, if it falls in the genus of substance, it is the very nature of the thing. However, if it is in the genus of accident, it must be caused by the principles of some substance, and thus it will be natural to this substance, though perhaps it may not be natural to another substance. For example, heat is natural to fire, though it may not be natural to water. Now, what is evil in itself can not be natural to anything. For it is of the very definition of evil that it be a privation of that which is to be in a subject by virtue of its natural origin, and which should be in it. So, evil cannot be natural to any subject, since it is a privation of what is natural. Consequently, whatever is present naturally in something is a good for it, and it is evil if the thing lacks it. Therefore, no essence is evil in itself. [7] Again, whatever possesses an essence is either a form itself, or has a form. In fact, every being is placed in a genus or species through a form. Now, a form, as such, has the essential character of goodness, because a form is a principle of action; so, too, does the end to which every agent looks; and so also does the action whereby each thing having a form is perfected. Hence, everything that has an essence is, by virtue of that fact, a good thing. Therefore, evil has no essence. [8] Besides, being is divided by act and potency. Now, act, as such, is good, for something is perfect to the extent that it is in act. Potency, too, is a good thing, for potency tends toward act, as appears in every instance of change. Moreover, potency is also proportionate to act and not contrary to it. It belongs in the same genus with act; privation does not belong to it, except accidentally. So, everything that exists, whatever the mode of its existence, is a good thing to the extent that it is a being. Therefore, evil does not possess any essence. [9] Moreover, we have proved in Book Two of this work [15] that every act of being, whatever its type may be, comes from God. And we have shown in Book One [28, 41] that God is perfect goodness. Now, since evil could not be the product of a good thing, it is impossible for any being, as a being, to be evil. [10] This is why Genesis (1:31) states: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good”; and Ecclesiastes (3:11): “He hath made all things good in their time”; and also I Timothy (4:4): “Every creature of God is good.” [11] And Dionysius, in chapter four of On the Divine Names says that “evil is not an existing thing,” that is, in itself; “nor is it something among things that have existence,” but it is a sort of accident, something like whiteness or blackness. [12] Through this consideration, the error of the Manicheans is refuted, for they claimed that some things are evil in their very natures.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS WHICH SEEM TO PROVE THAT EVIL IS A NATURE OR SOME REAL THING

[1] Now, it appears that the preceding view may be opposed by certain arguments. [2] Each thing is specified by its own specific difference. But evil is a specific difference in some genera; for instance, among habits and acts in the moral order. just as virtue is specifically a good habit, so is the contrary vice specifically a bad habit. The same may be said of virtuous and vicious acts. Therefore, evil is that which gives specificity to some things, and thus it is an essence and is natural to certain things. [3] Again, of two contraries, each is a definite nature, for, if one contrary were supposed to be nothing, then it would be either a privation or a pure negation. But good and evil are said to be contraries. Therefore, evil is a nature of some sort. [4] Besides, good and evil are spoken of by Aristotle in the Categories [8: 14a 24] as “genera of contraries.” Now, there is an essence and a definite nature for each kind of genus. There are no species or differences for non-being; so, that which does not exist cannot be a genus. Therefore, evil is a definite essence and nature. [5] Moreover, everything that acts is a real thing. Now, evil does act precisely as evil, for it attacks the good and corrupts it. So, evil precisely as evil is a real thing. [6] Furthermore, wherever the distinction of more or less is found, there must be certain things arranged in hierarchic order, since neither negations nor privations admit of more or less. But among evils, one may be worse than another. It would seem, then, that evil must be a real thing. [7] Again, thing and being are convertible. There is evil in the world. Therefore, it is a real thing and a nature.

Chapter

ANSWERS TO THESE ARGUMENTS

[1] It is not difficult to answer these arguments. Evil and good are assigned as specific differences in moral matters, as the first argument asserted, because moral matters depend on the will. For this reason, anything that is voluntary belongs in the class of moral matters. Now, the object of the will is the end and the good. Hence, moral matters get their species from the end, just as natural actions are specified by the form of the active principle; for instance, the act of heating is specified by heat. Hence, because good and evil are so termed by virtue of a universal order, or privation of order, to the end, it is necessary in moral matters for the primary distinction to be between good and evil. Now, there must be but one primary standard in any one genus. The standard in moral matters is reason. Therefore, it must be from a rational end that things in the moral area are termed good or evil. So, in moral matters, that which is specified by an end that is in accord with reason is called good specifically; and that which is specified by an end contrary to the rational end is termed evil specifically. Yet that contrary end, even though it runs counter to the rational end, is nevertheless some sort of good: for instance, something that delights on the sense level, or anything like that. Thus, these are goods for certain animals, and even for man, when they are moderated by reason. It also happens that what is evil for one being is good for another. So, evil, as a specific difference in the genus of moral matters, does not imply something that is evil in its own essence, but something that is good in itself, though evil for man, inasmuch as it takes away the order of reason which is the good for man.

[2] From this it is also clear that evil and good are contraries according to the way they are understood in the area of moral matters, but they are not when taken without qualification, as the second argument suggested. Rather, in so far as it is evil, evil is the privation of good. [3] In the same way, too, one may understand the statement that evil and good, as found in the moral area, are “genera of contraries”—from which phrase the third argument begins. Indeed, in all moral contraries, either both contraries are evil, as in the case of prodigality and illiberality, or one is good and the other evil, as in the case of liberality and illiberality. Therefore, moral evil is both a genus and a difference, not by the fact that it is a privation of the rational good whence it is termed evil, but by the nature of the action or habit ordered to some end that is opposed to the proper rational end. Thus, a blind man is an individual man, not inasmuch as he is blind but in so far as he is this man. So, also, irrational is an animal difference, not because of the privation of reason but by virtue of a certain kind of nature, to which the absence of reason follows as a consequence. One can also say that Aristotle calls good and evil genera, not according to his own opinion (for he does not number them among the primary ten genera in which every kind of contrariety is found) but according to the opinion of Pythagoras, who supposed that good and evil are the first genera and first principles, and who placed ten prime contraries under each of them: under the good were, “limit, even, one, right, male, rest, straight, light, square, and finally good”; and under evil were, “the unlimited, odd, multitude, left, female, motion, curved, darkness, oblong, and finally evil [cf. Met. I, 5: 986a 24-27].Thus, here and in several places in the treatises on logic, he uses examples in accord with the views of other philosophers, as if they were more acceptable in his time. In fact, this statement has some truth, since it is impossible for a probable statement to be entirely false. In the case of all contraries, one is perfect and the other is a diminished perfection, having, as it were, some privation mixed with it. For instance, white and hot are perfect conditions, but cold and black are imperfect, connoting something of privation. Therefore, since every diminution and privation pertains to the formal character of evil, and every perfection and fulfillment to the formal character of good, it appears to be always so between contraries, that one is included under the good and the other approaches the notion of evil. From this point of view, good and evil seem to be genera of all contraries. [4] In this way it also becomes apparent how evil is opposed to the good, which is the starting point of the fourth argument. According as there is added a privation of a contrary form, and a contrary end, to a form and an end (which have the rational character of good and are true principles of action) the action that results from such a form and end is attributed to the privation and the evil. Yet, this attribution is accidental, for privation, as such, is not the principle of any action. Hence, Dionysius says, quite properly, in the fourth chapter of On the Divine Names, that “evil does not fight against good, except through the power of the good; in itself, indeed, it is powerless and weak,” the principle of no action, as it were. However, we say that evil corrupts the good, not only when it acts in virtue of the good, as has been explained, but also formally of itself. Thus, blindness is said to corrupt sight, for it is itself the corruption of sight; similarly, whiteness is said to color a wall, when it is the actual color of the wall. [5] We do indeed say that something is more or less evil than another thing, in reference to the good that it lacks. Thus, things which imply a privation admit of increase or decrease in degree, as do the unequal and the dissimilar. For we say that something is more unequal when it is more removed from equality and, likewise, that something is more dissimilar when it is farther away from similitude. Consequently, a thing that is more deprived of goodness is said to be more evil, as it were, more distant from the good. However, privations do not increase as do things that have an essence, such as qualities and forms, as the fifth argument assumes, but through increase of the depriving cause. Thus, just as the air is darker when more obstacles have been placed before the light, so does a thing become farther removed from participation in the light. [6] We also say that evil is in the world, not as possessing some essence, nor as a definitely existing thing, as the sixth argument suggested, but for the same reason that we may call something evil by virtue of its evil. For instance, blindness, or any other sort of privation, is said to exist because an animal is blinded by its blindness. Indeed, there are two ways of talking about being, as the Philosopher teaches in his Metaphysics [IV, 7: 1017a 8]. In one way, being means the essence of a thing, and thus it falls into the ten categories; so taken, no privation can be called a being. In another way, being means the truth in a judgment; in this meaning, privation is called a being, inasmuch as something is said to be deprived by virtue of a privation.

Chapter

THAT GOOD IS THE CAUSE OF EVIL

[1] The foregoing arguments enable us to conclude that evil is caused only by the good. [2] For, if an evil thing were the cause of a certain evil, then the evil thing would not act, except by virtue of the good, as has been proved. So, this good must be the primary cause of the evil. [3] Again, what does not exist is not the cause of anything. So, every cause must be a definite thing. But evil is not a definite being, as has been proved. Therefore, evil cannot be the cause of anything. if, then, evil be caused by anything, this cause must be the good. [4] Besides, whatever is properly and of itself the cause of something tends toward a proper effect. So, if evil were of itself the cause of anything, it would tend toward an effect proper to it; namely, evil. But this is false, for it has been shown that every agent tends toward the good. Therefore, evil is not the cause of anything through evil itself, but only accidentally. Now, every accidental cause reduces to a cause that works through itself. And only the good can be a cause through itself, for evil cannot be a cause through itself. Therefore, evil is caused by the good. [5] Moreover, every cause is either matter, or form, or agent, or end. Now, evil cannot be either matter or form, for it has been shown that both being in act and being in potency are good. Similarly, evil cannot be the agent, since anything that acts does so according as it is in act and has form. Nor, indeed, can it be an end, for it is apart from intention, as we have proved. So. evil cannot be the cause of anything. Therefore, if anything is the cause of evil, it must be caused by the good. [6] In fact, since evil and good are contraries, one of these contraries cannot be the cause of the other unless it be accidentally; as the cold heats, as is said in Physics VIII [1: 251a 33]. Consequently, the good could not be the active cause of evil, except accidentally. [7] Now, in the order of nature, this accidental aspect can be found either on the side of the agent or of the effect. It will be on the side of the agent when the agent suffers a defect in its power, the consequence of which is a defective action and a defective effect. Thus, when the power of an organ of digestion is weak, imperfect digestive functioning and undigested humor result; these are evils of nature. Now, it is accidental to the agent, as agent, for it to suffer a defect in its power; for it is not an agent by virtue of the fact that its power is deficient, but because it possesses some power. If it were completely lacking in power, it would not act at all. Thus, evil is caused accidentally on the part of the agent in so far as the agent is defective in its power. This is why we say that “evil has no efficient, but only a deficient, cause,” for evil does not result from an agent cause, unless because it is deficient in power, and to that extent it is not efficient.—And it reduces to the same thing if the defect in the action and in the effect arise from a defect of the instrument or of anything else required for the agent’s action; for example, when the motor capacity produces lameness because of a curvature of the tibia. For the agent acts both by means of its power and of its instrument. [8] On the side of the effect, evil is accidentally caused by the good, either by virtue of the matter of the effect, or by virtue of its form. For, if the matter is not well disposed to the reception of the agent’s action on it, there must result a defect in the product. Thus, the births of monsters are the result of lack of assimilation on the part of the matter. Nor may this be attributed to some defect in the agent, if it fail to convert poorly disposed matter into perfect act. There is a determinate power for each natural agent, in accord with its type of nature, and failure to go beyond this power will not be a deficiency in power; such deficiency is found only when it falls short of the measure of power naturally due it. [9] From the point of view of the form of the effect, evil occurs accidentally because the privation of another form is the necessary concomitant of the presence of a given form. Thus, simultaneously with the generation of one thing there necessarily results the corruption of another thing. But this evil is not an evil of the product intended by the agent, but of another thing, as was apparent in the preceding discussion. [10] Thus it is clear that, in the natural order, evil is only accidentally caused by the good. Now, it works in the same way in the realm of artifacts. “For art in its working imitates nature,” and bad results occur in both in the same way. [11] However, in the moral order, the situation seems to be different. It does not appear that moral vice results from a defect of power, since weakness either completely removes moral fault, or at least diminishes it. Indeed, weak ness does not merit moral punishment that is proper to guilt, but, rather, mercy and forgiveness. A moral fault must be voluntary, not necessitated. Yet, if we consider the matter carefully, we shall find the two orders similar from one point of view, and dissimilar from another. There is dis similarity on this point: moral fault is noticed in action only, and not in any effect that is produced; for the mora virtues are not concerned with making but with doing. The arts are concerned with making, and so it has been said tha in their sphere a bad result happens just as it does in nature Therefore, moral evil is not considered in relation to the matter or form of the effect, but only as a resultant from the agent. [12] Now, in moral actions we find four principles arranged in a definite order. One of these is the executive power, the moving force, whereby the parts of the body are moved to carry out the command of the will. Then this power is moved by the will, which is a second principle. Next, the will is moved by the judgment of the apprehensive power which judges that this object is good or bad, for the objects of the will are such that one moves toward attainment, another moves toward avoidance. This apprehensive power is moved, in turn, by the thing apprehended. So, the first active principle in moral actions is the thing that is cognitively apprehended, the second is the apprebensive power, the third is the will, and the fourth is the motive power which carries out the command of reason. [13] Now, the act of the power that carries out the action already presupposes the distinction of moral good or evil. For external acts of this kind do not belong in the moral area, unless they are voluntary. Hence, if the act of the will be good, then the external act is also deemed good, but if it be bad, the external act is bad. It would have nothing to do with moral evil if the external act were defective by virtue of a defect having no reference to the will. Lameness, for instance, is not a fault in the moral order, but in the natural order. Therefore, a defect of this type in the executive power either completely excludes moral fault, or diminishes it. So, too, the act whereby a thing moves the apprehensive power is free from moral fault, for the visible thing moves the power of sight in the natural order, and so, also, does any object move a passive potency. Then, too, this act of the apprehensive power, considered in itself, is without moral fault, for a defect in it either removes or diminishes moral fault, as is the case in a defect of the executive power. Likewise, weakness and ignorance excuse wrongdoing, or diminish it. The conclusion follows, then, that moral fault is found primarily and principally in the act of the will only, and so it is quite reasonable to say, as a result, that an act is moral because it is voluntary. Therefore the root and source of moral wrongdoing is to be sought in the act of the will. [14] However, a difficulty seems to result from this investigation. Since a defective act stems from a defect in the active principle, we must understand that there is a defect in the will preceding the moral fault. Of course, if this defect be natural, then it is always attached to the will, and so the will would always commit a morally bad action when it acts. But virtuous acts show that this conclusion is false. On the other hand, if the defect be voluntary, it is already a morally bad act, and we will have to look in turn for its cause. Thus, our rational investigation will never come to an end. Therefore, we must say that the defect pre-existing in the will is not natural, to avoid the conclusion that the will sins in everyone of its acts. Nor can we attribute the defect to chance or accident, for then there would be no moral fault in us, since chance events are not premeditated and are beyond the control of reason. So, the defect is voluntary. Yet, it is not a moral fault; otherwise, we should go on to infinity. How this is possible we must now explain. [15] As a matter of fact, the perfection of the power of every active principle depends on a higher active principle, since a secondary agent acts through the power of a primary agent. While, therefore, a secondary agent remains in a position of subordination to the first agent, it acts without any defect, but it becomes defective in its action if it happens to turn away from its subordination to the primary agent, as is illustrated in the case of an instrument, when it falls short of the motion of the agent. Now, it has been said that two principles precede the will in the order of moral actions: namely, the apprehensive power, and the object apprehended, which is the end. Since to each movable there corresponds a proper motive power, not merely any apprehensive power is the suitable motive power for any and every appetite; rather, one pertains to this appetite and another to a second appetite. Thus, just as the proper motive power for the sensory appetite is the sensory apprehensive power, so the reason itself is the proper motivator for the will. [16] Again, since reason is able to apprehend many goods and a multiplicity of ends, and since for each thing there is a proper end, there will be, then, for the will an end and a first motivating object which is not merely any good, but some determinate good. Hence, when the will inclines to act as moved by the apprehension of reason, presenting a proper good to it, the result is a fitting action. But when the will breaks forth into action, at the apprehension of sense cognition, or of reason itself presenting some other good at variance with its proper good, the result in the action of the will is a moral fault. [17] Hence, a defect of ordering to reason and to a proper end precedes a fault of action in the will: in regard to reason, in the case of the will inclining, on the occasion of a sudden sense apprehension, toward a good that is on the level of sensory pleasure; and in regard to a proper end, in the case when reason encounters in its deliberation some good which is not, at this time or under these conditions, really good, and yet the will inclines toward it, as if it were a proper good. Now, this defect in ordering is voluntary, for to will and not to will lie within the power of the will itself. And it is also within its power for reason to make an actual consideration, or to abstain from such a consideration, or further to consider this or that alternative. Yet, such a defect of ordering is not a moral evil, for, if reason considers nothing, or considers any good whatever, that is still not a sin until the will inclines to an unsuitable end. At this point, the act of will occurs. [18] Thus, it is,car, both in the natural order and in the moral order, that evil is only caused by good accidentally.

Chapter

THAT EVIL IS BASED ON THE GOOD

[1] It can also be shown from the preceding considerations that every evil is based on some good. [2] Indeed, evil cannot exist by itself, since it has no essence, as we have demonstrated. Therefore, evil must be in some subject. Now, every subject, because it is some sort of substance, is a good of some kind, as is clear from the foregoing. So, every evil is in a good thing. [3] Again, evil is a certain privation, as is evident from the foregoing. Now, privation and the form that is deprived are in the same subject. But the subject of form is being in potency to form, and such being is good, because potency and act belong in the same genus. Therefore, the privation which is evil is present in a good thing, as in a subject. [4] Besides, something is called evil due to the fact that it causes injury. But this is only so because it injures the good, for to injure the evil is a good thing, since the corruption of evil is good. Now, formally speaking, it would not injure the good unless it were in the good; thus, blindness injures a man to the extent that it is in him. So, evil must be in the good. [5] Moreover, evil is not caused, except by the good, and then only accidentally. But everything that occurs accidentally is reducible to that which is by itself. So, with a caused evil which is the accidental effect of the good, there must always be some good which is the direct effect of the good as such, and thus this good effect is the foundation of the evil. For what exists accidentally is based on that which exists by itself. [6] However, since good and evil are contraries, one of these contraries cannot be the subject for the other; rather, it excludes the other. It will seem to someone, at first glance, that it is improper to say that good is the subject of evil. [7] Yet it is not improper, provided the truth be investigated to its limit. Good is spoken of in just as general a way as being, since every being, as such, is good, as we have proved. Now, it is not improper for non-being to be present in being, as in a subject. Indeed, any instance of privation is a non-being, yet its subject is a substance which is a being. However, non-being is not present in a being contrary to it, as in a subject. For blindness is not universal non-being, but, rather, this particular non-being whereby sight is taken away. So, it is not present in the power of sight as its subject, but, rather, in the animal. Likewise, evil is not present in a good contrary to it, as in its subject; rather, this contrary good is taken away by the evil. For instance, moral evil is present in a natural good, while a natural evil, which is a privation of form, is present in matter which is a good, in the sense of a being in potency.

Chapter

THAT EVIL DOES NOT WHOLLY DESTROY GOOD

[1] It is evident from the foregoing explanation that, no matter how much evil be multiplied, it can never destroy the good wholly. [2] In fact, there must always continue to be a subject for evil, if evil is to endure. Of course, the subject of evil is the good, and so the good will always endure. [3] Yet, because it is possible for evil to increase without limit, and because good is always decreased as evil increases, it appears that the good may be infinitely decreased by evil. Now, the good that can be decreased by evil must be finite, for the infinite good does not admit of evil, as we showed in Book One [39]. So, it seems that eventually the good would be wholly destroyed by evil, for, if something be subtracted an infinite number of times from a finite thing, the latter must be destroyed eventually by the subtraction. [4] Now, it cannot be answered, as some people say, that if the subsequent subtraction be made in the same proportion as the preceding one, going on to infinity, it is not possible to destroy the good, as happens in the division of a continuum. For, if you subtract half of a line two cubits long, and then half of the remainder, and if you go on in this way to infinity, something will always remain to be divided. But, in this process of division, that which is subtracted later must always be quantitatively diminished. In fact, the half of the whole is quantitatively greater than half of the half, though the same proportion continues. This, however, cannot in any sense happen in the decreasing of good by evil, for the more the good would be decreased by evil the weaker would it become, and so, rnore open to diminution by subsequent evil. On the contrary, the later evil could be equal to, or greater than, the earlier evil; hence a proportionately smaller quantity of good would not always be subtracted by evil from the good in subsequent cases. [5] So, another sort of answer must be given. It is evident from what has been said that evil does take away completely the good which is its contrary, as blindness does with sight. Yet there must remain the good which is the subject of evil. This, in fact, inasmuch as it is a subject, has the essential character of goodness, in the sense that it is in potency to the act of goodness which is lacking due to the evil. So, the less it is in potency to this good, the less will it be a good. Now, a subject becomes less potential to a form, not simply by the subtraction of any of its parts, nor by the fact that any part of the potency is subtracted, but by the fact that the potency is impeded by a contrary act from being able to proceed to he actuality of the form. For example, a subject is less potential in regard to cold to the extent that heat is increased in it. Therefore, the good is diminished by evil more as a result of the addition of its contrary than by the subtraction of some of its goodness. This is also in agreement with the things that have been said about evil. Indeed, we said that evil occurs apart from the intention of the agent, and that he always intends a definite good, and that it consequently implies the exclusion of another good which is contrary to it. So, the more this intended good (which apart from the agent’s intention results in evil) is multiplied, the more is the potency to the contrary good diminished. And this is rather the way in which the good is said to be diminished by evil. [6] Now, in the natural order, this diminution of the good by evil cannot proceed to infinity. All natural forms and powers are limited, and they reach some limit beyond which they cannot extend. So, it is not possible for any contrary form, or any power of a contrary agent, to be increased to infinity, in such a way that the result would be an infinite diminution of good by evil. [7] However, in the moral order, this diminution can proceed to infinity. For the intellect and the will have no limits to their acts. The intellect is able to go on to infinity in its act of understanding; this is why the mathematical species of numbers and figures are called infinite. Likewise, the will proceeds to infinity in its act of willing: a man who wills to commit a theft can will again to commit it, and so on to infinity. Indeed, the more the will tends toward unworthy ends, the greater is its difficulty in returning to a proper and worthy end. This is evident in he case of people in whom vicious habits have developed already, as a result of their growing accustomed to sinning. Therefore, the good of natural aptitude can be infinitely decreased by moral evil. Yet, it will never be wholly destroyed; rather, it will always accompany the nature that endures.

Chapter

THAT EVIL HAS A CAUSE OF SOME SORT

[1] From what has been said above it can be shown that, though evil has no direct cause of itself, still there must be an accidental cause for every evil. [2] Whatever exists in another thing as in its subject must have some cause, for it is caused either by the principles of the subject or by some extrinsic cause. Now, evil is in the good as in a subject, as has been indicated, and so it is necessary for evil to have a cause. [3] Again, that which is in potency to either of two contraries is not advanced to actuality under one of them unless through some cause, for no potency makes itself be in act. Now, evil is a privation of something that is natural to a man, and which he ought to have. This is why anything whatever is called evil. So, evil is present in a subject that is in potency to evil and to its contrary. Therefore, it is necessary for evil to have some cause. [4] Besides, whatever is present in something and is not due to it from its nature comes to it from some other cause, for all things present in existing beings as natural components remain there unless something else prevents them. Thus, a stone is not moved upward unless by something else that impels it, nor is water heated unless by some heating agent. Now, evil is always present as something foreign to the nature of that in which it is, since it is a privation of what a thing has from its natural origin, and ouaht to have. Therefore evil must alwavs have some cause, either directly of itself, or accidentally. [5] Moreover, every evil is the consequence of a good, as corruption is the result of an act of generation. But every good has a cause, other than the first good in which there is no evil, as has been shown in Book One [39]. Therefore, every evil has a cause, in regard to which it is an accidental result.

Chapter

THAT EVIL IS AN ACCIDENTAL CAUSE

[1] It is plain, from the same consideration, that evil, though not a direct cause of anything by itself, is, however, an accidental cause. [2] For, if a thing is the direct cause of something, then that which is an accidental concomitant of this direct cause is the accidental cause of the resultant. Take, for instance, the fact that a builder happens to be white, then whiteness is the accidental cause of the house. Now, every evil is present in something good. And every good thing is the cause of something in some way, for matter is in one way the cause of form; in another way the converse is so. The same is true of the agent and the end. Hence, the result is not a process to infinity in causes if each thing is the cause of another thing, for there is a circle involved in causes and effects, depending on the different types of cause. So, evil is an accidental cause. [3] Again, evil is a privation, as we have seen before. Now, privation is an accidental principle in beings subject to motion, just as matter and form are essential principles. Therefore, evil is the accidental cause of something else. [4] Besides, from a defect in a cause there follows a defect in the effect. Now a defect in a cause is an evil. Yet, it cannot be a direct cause in itself, for a thing is not a cause by the fact that it is defective but rather by the fact that it is a being. Indeed, if it were entirely defective, it would not cause anything. So, evil is the cause of something, not as a direct cause by itself, but accidentally. [5] Moreover, evil is found to be an accidental cause in a discursive examination of all types of cause. This is so, in the kind of cause which is efficient, since a defect in the effect and in action results from a deficiency of power in the acting cause. Then, in the type of cause that is material, a defect in the effect is caused by the unsuitable character of the matter. Again, in the kind of cause which is formal, there is the fact that a privation of another form is always the adjunct of the presence of a given form. And, in the type of cause that is final, evil is connected with an improper end, inasmuch as the proper end is hindered by it. [6] Therefore, it is clear that evil is an accidental cause and cannot be a direct cause by itself.

Chapter

THAT THERE IS NO HIGHEST EVIL

[1] As a consequence, it is evident that there cannot be any highest evil which would be the first source of all evils. [2] The highest evil ought to be quite dissociated from any good; just as the highest good is that which is completely separate from evil. Now, no evil can exist in complete separation from the good, for we have shown that evil is based upon the good. Therefore, the highest evil is nothing. [3] Again, if the highest evil be anything, it must be evil in its own essence, just as the highest good is what is good in its own essence. Now, this is impossible, because evil has no essence, as we proved above. So, it is impossible to posit a highest evil which would be the source of evils. [4] Besides, that which is a first principle is not caused by anything. But every evil is caused by a good, as we have shown. Therefore, evil is not a first principle. [5] Moreover, evil acts only through the power of the good, as is clear from what has been established previously. But a first principle acts through its own power. Therefore, evil cannot be a first principle. [6] Furthermore, since “that which is accidental is posterior to that which is per se,” it is impossible for that which is first to be accidental. Now, evil arises only accidentally, and apart from intention, as has been demonstrated. So, it is impossible for evil to be a first principle. [7] Again, every evil has an accidental cause, as we have proved. Now, a first principle has no cause, whether direct or accidental. Therefore, evil cannot be a first principle in any genus. [8] Besides, a per sc cause is prior to one which is accidental. But evil is not a cause, except in the accidental sense, as we have shown.” So, evil cannot be a first principle. [9] By means of this conclusion, the error of the Manicheans is refuted, for they claimed that there is a highest evil which is the first principle of all evils.

Chapter

THAT THE END OF EVERYTHING IS A GOOD

[1] If every agent acts for the sake of a good, as was proved above, it follows further that the end of every being is a good. For every being is ordered to its end through its action. It must be, then, that the action itself is the end, or that the end of the action is also the end of the agent. And this is its good. [2] Again, the end of anything is that in which its appetite terminates. Now, the appetite of anything terminates in a good; this is how the philosophers define the good: “that which all things desire.” Therefore, the end for everything is a good. [3] Besides, that toward which a thing tends, while it is beyond the thing, and in which it rests, when it is possessed, is the end for the thing. Now, if anything lacks a proper perfection, it is moved toward it, in so far as lies within its capacity, but if it possess it the thing rests in it. Therefore, the end of each thing is its perfection. Now, the perfection of anything is its good. So, each thing is ordered to a good as an end. [4] Moreover, things that know their end are ordered to the end in the same way as things which do not know it, though the ones that do know their end are moved toward it through themselves, while those that do not know it incline to their end, as directed by another being. The example of the archer and the arrow shows this clearly. However, things that know their end are always ordered to the good as an end, for the will, which is the appetite for a foreknown end, inclines toward something only if it has the rational character of a good, which is its object. So, also, the things which do not know their end are ordered to a good as an end. Therefore, the end of all things is a good.

Chapter

THAT ALL THINGS ARE ORDERED TO ONE END WHO IS GOD

[1] It is, consequently, apparent that all things are ordered to one good, as to their ultimate end. [2] If, in fact, nothing tends toward a thing as an end, unless this thing is a good, it is therefore necessary that the good, as good, be the end. Therefore, that which is the highest good is, from the highest point of view, the end of all things. But there is only one highest good, and this is God, as has been demonstrated in Book One [42]. So, all things are ordered to one good, as their end, and this is God. [3] Again, that which is supreme in any genus is the cause of all the members that belong in that genus; thus, fire, which is the hottest of corporeal things, is the cause of the heat of other things. Therefore, the highest good which is God is the cause of the goodness in all good things. So, also, is He the cause of every end that is an end, since whatever is an end is such because it is a good. Now, “the cause of an attribute’s inherence in a subject always itself inheres in the subject more firmly than does the attribute.” Therefore, God is obviously the end of all things. [4] Besides, in any kind of causes, the first cause is more a cause than is the secondary cause, for a secondary cause is only a cause through the primary cause. Therefore, that which is the first cause in the order of final causes must be more the final cause of anything than is its proximate final cause. But God is the first cause in the order of final causes, since He is the highest in the order of goods. Therefore, He is more the end of everything than is any proximate end. [5] Moreover, in every ordered series of ends the ultimate end must be the end of all preceding ends. For instance, if a potion is mixed to be given a sick man, and it is given in order to purge him, and he is purged in order to make him thinner, and he is thinned down so that he may become healthy.—then health must be the end of the thinning process, and of the purging, and of the other actions which precede it. But all things are found, in their various degrees of goodness, to be subordinated to one highest good which is the cause of all goodness. Consequently, since the good has the essential character of an end, all things are subordinated to God, as preceding ends under an ultimate end. Therefore, God must be the end of all things. [6] Furthermore, a particular good is ordered to the common good as to an end; indeed, the being of a part depends on the being of the whole. So, also, the good of a nation is more godlike than the good of one man. Now, the highest good which is God is the common good, since the good of all things taken together depends on Him; and the good whereby each thing is good is its own particular good, and also is the good of the other things that depend on this thing. Therefore, all things are ordered to one good as their end, and that is God. [7] Again, order among ends is a consequence of order among agents, for, just as the supreme agent moves all secondary agents, so must all the ends of secondary agents be ordered to the end of the supreme agent, since whatever the supreme agent does, He does for the sake of His end. Now, the supreme agent does the actions of all inferior agents by moving them all to their actions and, consequently, to their ends. Hence, it follows that all the ends of secondary agents are ordered by the first agent to His own proper end. Of course, the first agent of all things is God, as we proved in Book Two [15]. There is no other end for His will than His goodness, which is Himself, as we proved in Book One [74]. Therefore, all things, whether made by Him. immediately, or by means of secondary causes, are ordered to God as to their end. Now, all things are of this kind, for, as we proved in Book Two [15], there can be nothing that does not take its being from Him. So, all things are ordered to God as an end. [8] Besides, the ultimate end of any maker, as a maker, is himself; we use things made by us for our own sakes, and, if sometimes a man makes a thing for some other purpose, this has reference to his own good, either as useful, delectable, or as a good for its own sake. Now, God is the productive cause of all things, of some immediately, of others by means of other causes, as is shown in the foregoing. Therefore, He Himself is the end of all things. [9] Moreover, the end holds first place over other types of cause, and to it all other causes owe the fact that they are causes in act: for the agent acts only for the sake of the end, as was pointed out.” Matter is brought to formal act by the agent, and thus matter actually becomes the matter of this particular thing, as form becomes the form of this thing: through the action of the agent, and consequently through the end. So, too, the posterior end is the cause of the preceding end being intended as an end, for a thing is not moved toward a proximate end unless for the sake of a last end. Therefore, the ultimate end is the first cause of all. Now, to be the first cause of all must be appropriate to the first being, that is, to God, as was shown above. So, God is the ultimate end of all things. [10] Thus it is said in Proverbs (16:4): “God made all things for Himself”; and in the Apocalypse (22:13): “I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last.”

Chapter

HOW GOD IS THE END OF ALL THINGS

[1] We must further investigate how God is the end of all. This will be made clear from the foregoing. [2] The ultimate end of all is such that He is, nonetheless, prior to all things in existing being. Now, there is a sort of end which, though it holds first place causally in the order of intention, is posterior in existing. This is the situation with an end which the agent sets up by his own action, as a physician sets up health in a sick man by his own action; this is, of course, the physician’s end. And then there is an end which takes precedence in existing being, just as it precedes in the causal order. For instance, we call that an end which one intends to obtain by his action or motion, as fire inclines upward by its motion, and a king intends to establish a city by fighting. Therefore, God is not the end of things in the sense of being something set up as an ideal, but as a pre-existing being Who is to be attained. [3] Again, God is at once the ultimate end of things and the first agent, as we have shown. But the end that is produced by the action of the agent cannot be the first agent; it is, rather, the effect of the agent. Therefore, God cannot be the end of things in this way, as something produced, but only as something pre-existing that is to be attained. [4] Besides, if something act for the sake of an already existing thing, and should then set up something by its action, then this something must be added by the action of the agent to the thing for the sake of which the action is done: thus, if soldiers fight for the sake of their leader, victory will come to the leader, and this is what the soldiers cause by their actions. Now, something cannot be added to God by the action of a thing, for His goodness is completely perfect, as we showed in Book One [37ff]. The conclusion stands, then, that God is the end of things, not in the sense of something set up, or produced, by things, nor in the sense that something is added to Him by things, but in this sense only, that He is attained by things. [5] Moreover, the effect must tend toward the end in the same way that the agent works for the end. Now, God, Who is the first agent of all things, does not act in such a way that something is attained by His action, but in such a way that something is enriched by His action. For He is not in potency to the possibility of obtaining something; rather, He is in perfect act simply, and as a result He is a source of enrichment. So, things are not ordered to God as to an end for which something may be obtained, but rather so that they may attain Himself from Himself, according to their measure, since He is their end.

Chapter

THAT ALL THINGS TEND TO BECOME LIKE GOD

[1] Created things are made like unto God by the fact that they attain to divine goodness. If then, all things tend toward God as an ultimate end, so that they may attain His goodness, it follows that the ultimate end of things is to become like God. [2] Again, the agent is said to be the end of the effect because the effect tends to become like the agent; hence, “the form of the generator is the end of the generating action.” But God is the end of things in such a way that He is also their first agent. Therefore, all things tend to become like God as to their ultimate end. [3] Besides, it is quite evident that things “naturally desire to be,” and if they can be corrupted by anything they naturally resist corrupting agents and tend toward a place where they may be preserved, as fire inclines upward and earth downward. Now, all things get their being from the fact that they are made like unto God, Who is subsisting being itself, for all things exist merely as participants in existing being. Therefore, all things desire as their ultimate end to be made like unto God. [4] Moreover,-all created things are, in a sense, images of the first agent, that is, of God, “for the agent makes a product to his own likeness. Now, the function of a perfect image is to represent its prototype by likeness to it; this is why an image is made. Therefore, all things exist in order to attain to the divine likeness, as to their ultimate end. [5] Furthermore, everything tends through its motion or action toward a good, as its end, which we showed above. Now, a thing participates in the good precisely to the same extent that it becomes like the first goodness, which is God. So, all things tend through their movements and actions toward the divine likeness, as toward their ultimate end.

Chapter

HOW THINGS IMITATE DIVINE GOODNESS

[1] From what has been said, then, it is clear that to become like God is the ultimate end of all. Now, that which possesses the formal character of an end, in the proper sense, is the good. Therefore, things tend t6ward this objective, of becoming like God, inasmuch as He is good. [2] Creatures do not attain goodness in the same measure that it is in God, though each thing imitates divine goodness according to its measure. For, divine goodness is simple, entirely gathered together, as it were, into one being. Indeed, this divine existing being includes the entire fullness of perfection, as we proved in Book One [28]. As a result, since anything is perfect to the extent that it is good, this divine being is His perfect goodness. In fact, for God it is the same thing to be, to live, to be wise, to be blessed, and to be whatever else seems to belong to perfection and goodness; the whole divine goodness is, as it were, His divine existing being. Again, this divine being is the substance of the existing God. Now, this cannot obtain in the case of other things. We have pointed out in Book Two [15] that no created substance is its own act of being. Hence, if anything is good by virtue of the fact that it exists, none of them is its own act of being; none of them is its own goodness. Rather, each of them is good by participation in goodness, just as it is being by participation in existing being itself. [3] Again, not all creatures are established on one level of goodness. For some of them, substance is their form and their act: this is so for the creature to whom, because of what it is essentially, it is appropriate to be, and to be good. For others, indeed, substance is composed of matter and form: to such a being it is appropriate to be, and to be good—but by virtue of some part of it, that is to say, by virtue of its form. Therefore, divine substance is its own goodness, but a simple substance participates goodness by virtue of what it is essentially, while composite substance does so by virtue of something that belongs to it as a part. [4] In this third grade of substance, in turn, there is found a diversity in regard to being itself. For some of them that are composed of matter and form, the form fulfills the entire potentiality of the matter, so that there remains in their matter no potentiality for another form. And consequently, there is no potentiality in other matter for the form of this type of substance. Beings of this type are celestial bodies, which actuate their entire matter when they exist. For other substances, the form does not exhaust the entire potentiality of their matter; consequently, there still remains a potentiality for another form, and in some other portion of matter there remains a potentiality for this sort of form, as is the case in the elements and in things composed of the elements. In fact, since privation is the negation in a substance of something which can be present in that substance, it is clear that the privation of a form is found combined with the type of form that does not exhaust the entire potentiality of matter. Indeed, privation cannot be associated with a substance whose form exhausts the entire potentiality of its matter; nor with one which is a form in its essence; still less with one whose essence is its very act of being. Now, since it is obvious that change cannot take place where there is no potentiality to something else, for motion is the “act of that which exists potentially,” and since it is also clear that evil is the very privation of the good, it is plain that, in this lowest order of substances, the good is mutable and mixed with its contrary evil. This cannot occur in the higher orders of substances. Therefore, this substance which we have said is on the lowest level holds the lowest rank in goodness, just as it has the lowest grade in being. [5] Still, among the parts of this sort of substance composed of matter and form, an order of goodness is found. In fact, since matter, considered in itself, is potential being and form is its act, and since composite substance is actually existent through form, the form will be good in itself; while the composite substance is so in so far as it actually possesses form; and the matter is good inasmuch as it is in potentiality to form. Besides, though anything is good in so far as it is a being, it is not, however, necessary for matter which is merely potential being to be good only in potency. For being is a term used absolutely, while good also includes a relation. In fact, a thing is not called good simply because it is an end, or because it has achieved the end; provided it be ordered to the end, it may be called good because of this relation. So, matter cannot be called a being without qualification, because it is potential being, in which a relation to existing being is implied, but it can be called good, without qualification, precisely because of this relation. It is apparent in this conclusion that good is, in a way, of wider scope than being. For this reason, Dionysius says, in the fourth chapter of On the Divine Names: “the good extends to existent beings and also to non-existent ones.” For, this non-existent thing—namely matter understood as subject to privation—desires a good, that is, to be. It is, consequently, evident that it is also good, for nothing except a good thing desires the good. [6] There is still another way in which the goodness of a creature is defective in comparison with divine goodness. For, as we said, God in His very act of being holds the highest perfection of goodness. On the other hand, a created thing does not possess its perfection in unity, but in many items, for what is unified in the highest instance is found to be manifold in the lowest things. Consequently, God is said to be virtuous, wise, and operative with reference to the same thing, but creatures are so described with reference to a diversity of things. And so, the more multiplicity the perfect goodness of any creature requires, the more removed is it from the first goodness. If it cannot attain perfect goodness, it will keep imperfect goodness in a few items. Hence it is that, though the first and highest good is altogether simple, and the substances that are nearer to it in goodness are likewise close to it in regard to simplicity, we find some among the lowest substances to be simpler than some of their superiors, as is the case with elements in relation to animals and men; yet these lower simple beings cannot achieve the perfection of knowledge and understanding which animals and men do attain. [7] So, it is evident from what has been said that, though God has His own perfect and complete goodness, in accord with His simple existing being, creatures do not attain the perfection of their goodness through their being alone, but through many things. Hence, although any one of them is good in so far as it exists, it cannot be called good, without qualification, if it lack any other things required for its goodness. Thus, a man who is destitute of virtue and host to vices is indeed called good, relatively speaking; that is, to the extent that be is a being, and a man. However, in the absolute sense, he is not good, but evil. So, it is not the same thing for any creature to be and to be good without qualification, although each of them is good in so far as it exists. In God, however, to be and to be good are simply the same thing. [8] So, if each thing tends toward a likeness of divine goodness as its end, and if each thing becomes like the divine goodness in respect of all the things that belong to its proper goodness, then the goodness of the thing consists not only in its mere being, but in all the things needed for its perfection, as we have shown. It is obvious, then, that things are ordered to God as an end, not merely according to their substantial act of being, but also according to those items which are added as pertinent to perfection, and even according to the proper operation which also belongs to the thing’s perfection.

Chapter

THAT THINGS NATURALLY TEND TO BECOME LIKE GOD INASMUCH AS HE IS A CAUSE

[1] As a result, it is evident that things also tend toward the divine likeness by the fact that they are the cause of other things. [2] In fact, a created thing tends toward the divine likeness through its operation. Now, through its operation, one thing becomes the cause of another. Therefore, in this way, also, do things tend toward the divine likeness, in that they are the causes of other things. [3] Again, things tend toward the divine likeness inasmuch as He is good, as we said above. Now, it is as a result of the goodness of God that He confers being on all things, for a being acts by virtue of the fact that it is actually perfect. So, things generally desire to become like God in this respect, by being the causes of other things. [4] Besides, an orderly relation toward the good has the formal character of a good thing, as is clear from what we have said. Now, by the fact that it is the cause of another, a thing is ordered toward the good, for only the good is directly caused in itself; evil is merely caused accidentally, as we have shown. Therefore, to be the cause of other things is good. Now, a thing tends toward the divine likeness according to each good to which it inclines, since any created thing is good through participation in divine goodness. And so, things tend toward the divine likeness by the fact that they are causes of others. [5] Moreover, it is for the same reason that the effect tends to the likeness of the agent, and that the agent makes the effect like to itself, for the effect tends toward the end to which it is directed by the agent. The agent tends to make the patient like the agent, not only in regard to its act of being, but also in regard to causality. For instance, just as the principles by which a natural agent subsists are conferred by the agent, so are the principles by which the effect is the cause of others. Thus, an animal receives from the generating agent, at the time of its generation, the nutritive power and also the generative power. So, the effect does tend to be like the agent, not only in its species, but also in this characteristic of being the cause of others. Now, things tend to the likeness of God in the same way that effects tend to the likeness of the agent, as we have shown. Therefore, things naturally tend to become like God by the fact that they are the causes of others. [6] Furthermore, everything is at its peak perfection when it is able to make another thing like itself; thus, a thing is a perfect source of light when it can enlighten other things. Now, everything tending to its own perfection tends toward the divine likeness. So, a thing tends to the divine likeness by tending to be the cause of other things. [7] And since a cause, as such, is superior”to the thing caused, it is evident that to tend toward the divine likeness in the manner of something that causes others is appropriate to higher types of beings. [8] Again, a thing must first be perfect in itself before it can cause another thing, as we have said already. So, this final perfection comes to a thing in order that it may exist as the cause of others. Therefore, since a created thing tends to the divine likeness in many ways, this one whereby it seeks the divine likeness by being the cause of others takes the ultimate place. Hence Dionysius says, in the third chapter of On the Celestial Hierarchy, that “of all things, it is more divine to become a co-worker with God”; in accord with the statement of the Apostle: “we are God’s coadjutors” (1 Cor, 3:9)

Chapter

HOW THINGS ARE ORDERED TO THEIR ENDS IN VARIOUS WAYS

[1] It can be shown from the foregoing that the last thing through which any real being is ordered to its end is its operation. Yet this is done in various ways, depending on the diversity of operations. [2] One kind of operation pertains to a thing as the mover of another, as in the actions of heating or sawing. Another is the operation of a thing that is moved by another, as in the case of being heated or being sawed. Still another operation is the perfection of an actually existing agent which does not tend to produce a change in another thing. And these last differ, first of all, from passion and motion, and secondly from action transitively productive of change in exterior matter. Examples of operations in this third sense are understanding, sensing, and willing. Hence, it is clear that the things which are moved, or passively worked on only, without actively moving or doing anything, tend to the divine likeness by being perfected within themselves; while the things that actively make and move, by virtue of their character, tend toward the divine likeness by being the causes of others. Finally, the things that move as a result of being moved tend toward the divine likeness in both ways. [3] Lower bodies, inasmuch as they are moved in their natural motions, are considered as moved things only, and not as movers, except in the accidental sense, for it may happen that a falling stone will put in motion a thing that gets in its way. And the same applies to alteration and the other kinds of change. Hence, the end of their motion is to achieve the divine likeness by being perfected in themselves; for instance, by possessing their proper form and being in their proper place. [4] On the other hand, celestial bodies move because they are moved. Hence, the end of their motion is to attain the divine likeness in both ways. In regard to the way which involves its own perfection, the celestial body comes to be in a certain place actually, to which place it was previously in potency. Nor does it achieve its perfection any less because it now stands in potency to the place in which it was previously. For, in the same way, prime matter tends toward its perfection by actually acquiring a form to which it was previously in. potency, even though it then ceases to have the other form which it actually possessed before, for this is the way that matter may receive in succession all the forms to which it is potential, so that its entire potentiality may be successively reduced to act, which could not be done all at once. Hence, since a celestial body is in potency to place in the same way that prime matter is to form, it achieves its perfection through the fact that its entire potency to place is successively reduced to act, which could not be done all at once. [5] In regard to the way which involves movers that actively move, the end of their motion is to attain the divine likeness by being the causes of others. Now, they are the causes of others by the fact that they cause generation and corruption and other changes in these lower things. So, the motions of the celestial bodies, as actively moving, are ordered to the generation and corruption which take Place in these lower bodies.-Nor is it unfitting that celestial bodies should move for the sake of the generation and corruption of these lower things, even though lower bodies are of less value than celestial bodies, while, of course, the end should be more important than what is for the sake of the end. Indeed, the generating agent acts for the sake of the form of the product of generation, yet this product is not more valuable than the agent; rather, in the case of univocal agents it is of the same species as the agent. In fact, the generating agent intends as its ultimate end, not the form of the product generated, which is the end of the process of generation, but the likeness of divine being in the perpetuation of the species and in the diffusion of its goodness, through the act of handing on its specific form to others, and of being the cause of others. Similarly, then, celestial bodies, although they are of greater value than lower bodies, tend toward the generation of these latter, and through their motions to the actual eduction of the forms of the products of generation, not as an ultimate end but as thereby intending the divine likeness as an ultimate end, inasmuch as they exist as the causes of other things. [6] Now, we should keep in mind that a thing participates in the likeness of the divine will, through which things are brought into being and preserved, to the extent that it participates in the likeness of divine goodness which is the object of His will. Higher things participate more simply and more universally in the likeness of divine goodness, while lower things do so more particularly and more in detail. Hence, between celestial and lower bodies the likeness is not observed according to complete equivalence, as it is in the case of things of one kind. Rather, it is like the similarity of a universal agent to a particular effect. Therefore, just as in the order of lower bodies the intention of a particular agent is focused on the good of this species or that, so is the intention of a celestial body directed to the common good of corporeal substance which is preserved, and multiplied, and increased through generation. [7] As we said, since any moved thing, inasmuch as it is moved, tends to the divine likeness so that it may be perfected in itself, and since a thing is perfect in so far as it is actualized, the intention of everything existing in potency must be to tend through motion toward actuality. And so, the more posterior and more perfect an act is, the more fundamentally is the inclination of matter directed toward it. Hence. in regard to the last and most perfect act that matter can attain, the inclination of matter whereby it desires form must be inclined as toward the ultimate end of generation. Now, among the acts pertaining to forms, certain gradations are found. Thus, prime matter is in potency, first of all, to the form of an element. When it is existing under the form of an element it is in potency to the form of a mixed body; that is why the elements are matter for the mixed body. Considered under the form of a mixed body, it is in potency to a vegetative soul, for this sort of soul is the act of a body. In turn, the vegetative soul is in potency to a sensitive soul, and a sensitive one to an intellectual one. This the process of generation shows: at the start of generation there is the embryo living with plant life, later with animal life, and finally with human life. After this last type of form, no later and more noble form is found in the order of generable and corruptible things. Therefore, the ultimate end of the whole process of generation is the human soul, and matter tends toward it as toward an ultimate form. So, elements exist for the sake of mixed bodies; these latter exist for the sake of living bodies, among which plants exist for animals, and animals for men. Therefore, man is the end of the whole order of generation. [8] And since a thing is generated and preserved in being by the same reality, there is also an order in the preservation of things, which parallels the foregoing order of generation. Thus we see that mixed bodies are sustained by the appropriate qualities of the elements; Plants, in turn, are nourished by mixed bodies; animals get their nourishment from plants: so, those that are more perfect and more powerful from those that are more imperfect and weaker. In fact, man uses all kinds of things for his own advantage: some for food, others for clothing. That is why handwas created nude by nature, since he is able to make clothes for, himself from other things; just as nature also provided him with no appropriate nourishment, except milk, because he can obtain food for himself from a variety of things. Other things handuses for transportation, since we find man the inferior of many animals in quickness of movement, and in the strength to do work; other animals being provided, as it were, for his assistance. And, in addition to this, man uses all sense objects for the perfection of intellectual knowledge. Hence it is said of man in the Psalms (8:8) in a statement directed to God: “Thou bast subjected all things under his feet,” And Aristotle says, in the Politics I [5: 1254b 9], that man has natural dominion over all animals. [9] So, if the motion of the heavens is ordered to generation, and if the whole of generation is ordered to man as a last end within this genus, it is clear that the end of celestial motion is ordered to man, as to an ultimate end in the genus of generable and mobile beings.

Chapter

THAT THE MOTION OF THE HEAVENS COMES FROM AN INTELLECTUAL PRINCIPLE

[1] From the preceding we can also show that the prime motive principle of the heavens is something intellectual. [2] Nothing that acts in function of its own species intends a form higher than its own form, for every agent tends toward its like. Now, a celestial body, acting under its own motion, tends toward the ultimate form, which is the human intellect; and which is, in fact, higher than any bodily form, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, a celestial body does not act for a generation according to its own species as a principal agent, but according to the species of a higher intellectual agent, to which the celestial body is related as an instrument to a principal agent. Now, the heavens act for the purpose of generation in accord with the way in which they are moved. So, a celestial body is moved by some intellectual substance. [3] Again, everything that is moved must be moved by another being, as we proved earlier. Therefore, a celestial body is moved by something else. So, this other thing is either completely separated from it, or is united with it in the sense that the composite of the celestial body and the mover may be said to move itself, in so far as one of its parts is the mover and another part is the thing moved. Now, if it works this way, since everything that moves itself is alive and animated, it would follow that the heavens are animated, and by no other soul than an intellectual one: not by a nutritive soul, for generation and corruption are not within its power; nor by a sensitive soul, for a celestial body has no diversity of organs. The conclusion is, then, that it is moved by an intellective soul.—On the other hand, if it is moved by an extrinsic mover, this latter will be either corporeal or incorporeal. Now, if it is corporeal, it will not move unless it is moved, for no body moves unless it is moved, as was evident previously. Therefore, it will also have to be moved by another. And since there should be no process to infinity in the order of bodies, we will have to come to an incorporeal first mover. Now, that which is utterly separate from body must be intellectual, as is evident from earlier considerations. Therefore, the motion of the heavens, that is of the first body, comes from an intellectual substance. [4] Besides, heavy and light bodies are moved by their generating agent, and by that which takes away any impediment to motion, as was proved in Physics VIII [4: 256a 1]. For it cannot be that the form in them is the mover, and the matter the thing moved, since nothing is moved unless it be a body. Now, just as the elemental bodies are simple and there is no composition in them, except of matter and form, so also are the celestial bodies simple. And so, if they are moved in the same way as heavy and light bodies, they must be moved directly by their generating agent, and accidentally by the agent which removes an impediment to motion. But this is impossible, for these bodies are not capable of generation: for they are not endowed with contrariety, and their motions cannot, be impeded. So, these bodies must be moved by movers that function through knowing; not through sensitive knowledge, as we showed, but through intellectual knowledge. [5] Moreover, if the principle of celestial motion is simply a nature lacking any type of apprehension, then the principle of celestial motion must be the form of a celestial body, just as is the case in the elements. For, although simple forms are not movers, they are nonetheless the principles of motions, since natural motions are resultant from them, as are all other natural properties. Now, it is impossible for celestial motion to result from the form of a celestial body, as from an active principle. A form is the principle of local motion in the same way that a certain place is proper to a body by virtue of its form; it is moved to this place by the force of its form tending to it, and, since the generating agent gives the form, it is said to be the mover. For instance, it is appropriate to fire, by virtue of its form, to be in a higher place. But one place is no more appropriate than another for a celestial body, according to its form. Therefore, the principle of celestial motion is not simply the nature of the body. So, the principle of its motion must be something that moves as a result of apprehension. [6] Furthermore, nature always tends toward one objective; hence, things which result from nature always occur in the same way, unless they are interfered with, and this happens to few of them. Indeed, that which has a deformity within its very definition cannot be an end to which a nature tends. Now, motion, by definition, is of this type, for whatever is moved, by virtue of that fact, is in a different condition before and after.” So, it is impossible for a nature to tend toward motion for the sake of motion. Therefore, it tends through motion toward rest, and the latter is related to motion as one to many. Indeed, a thing at rest is one which is in the same condition before and after. If then, the motion of the heavens were simply from a nature, it would be ordered to some condition of rest. But the contrary of this is apparent, for celestial motion is continuous. Therefore, the motion of the heavens does not arise from a nature, as its active principle, but rather from an intelligent substance. [7] Again, for every motion that is from a nature, as an active principle, if its approach to something be natural, then its removal from that objective must be unnatural and against nature. Thus, a heavy thing naturally moves downward, but for it to move in the opposite direction is against nature. Therefore, if the motion of the heavens were natural, since it tends westward naturally, it would return to the east in the manner of a thing that recedes from the west by a motion against nature. Now, this is impossible. In celestial motion there is nothing violent and against nature. So, it is impossible for the active principle of celestial motion to be a nature. Therefore, its active principle is some apprehensive power, and through understanding, as is clear from what was said earlier. So, a celestial body is moved by an intellectual substance. [8] Yet we must not deny that celestial motion is natural. In fact, a motion is called natural, not simply because of its active principle, but also because of its passive one. This is exemplified in the generation of simple bodies. Indeed, this generation cannot be called natural by reason of the active principle, for that is moved naturally by an active principle, which has its active principle within it; “a nature is a principle of motion in that to which it belongs.” But the active principle in the generation of a simple body is outside. So, it is not natural by reason of the active principle, but only by reason of the passive principle, which is the matter in which the natural appetite for a natural form is present. And so, the motion of a celestial body, as far as its active principle is concerned, is not natural, but voluntary and intellectual; however, in relation to its passive principle, the motion is natural, for a celestial body has a natural aptitude for such motion. [9] This becomes clearly evident when we consider the relation of a celestial body to its location. A thing is acted on passively, and is moved, in so far as it is in potency; while it acts and moves, in so far as it is in act. Now, a celestial body, considered in its substance, is found to be indifferently related to every place, just as prime matter is to every form, as we said before. Of course, it is a different situation in the case of a heavy or light body which, considered in its nature, is not indifferent to every place, but is determined by virtue of its form to a place of its own. So, the nature of a heavy or light body is the active principle of its motion, while the nature of a celestial body is the passive principle of its motion. Hence, no one should get the impression that the latter is moved violently, as is the case with heavy and light bodies that are moved by us through understanding. For there is present in heavy and light bodies a natural aptitude for motion contrary to that in which they are moved by us, and so they are moved by us through violence. However, the motion of an animated body, in which it is moved by a soul, is not violent for it as an animal, though it is violent for it as a heavy object. Celestial bodies have no aptitude for contrary motion, but only for that whereby they are moved by an intelligent substance. Consequently, it is at once voluntary, in relation to the active principle, and natural, in relation to the passive principle. [10] That the motion of the heavens is voluntary according to its active principle is not repugnant to the unity and uniformity of celestial motion because of the fact that the will is open to a plurality of actions and is not determined to one of them. In fact, just as a nature is determined to one objective by its power, so is the will determined to one objective by its wisdom, whereby the will is infallibly directed to one end. [11] It is also evident from the foregoing that in celestial motion neither the approach to a certain place, nor the regression from that place, is against nature. Such a thing does occur in the motion of heavy and light bodies for two reasons. First, because the natural tendency in heavy and light things is determined to one place; hence, just as such a body naturally tends to this place, so does it go against nature in receding from it. Second, because two motions, one approaching a term and the other receding from it, are contrary. But, if we take into consideration in this motion of heavy and light bodies, not the final place but an intermediate one, then just as an approach may naturally be made to it, so also may a recession be naturally made from it. For the whole motion comes under one natural tendency, and these motions are not contrary but one and continuous.—So, too, is the situation in the motion of celestial bodies, for the tendency of their nature is not toward some determinate place, as has been said already. Also, the motion whereby a body moves in a circle, away from a point of reference, is not contrary to the motion whereby it approaches the point, but it is one continuous motion. Hence, each place in the motion of the heavens is like a middle point, and not like a terminal point in straight-line motion. [12] Nor does it make any difference, as far as our present purpose is concerned, whether a heavenly body is moved by a conjoined intellectual substance which is its soul, or by a separate substance; nor whether each celestial body is moved immediately by God, or whether none is so moved, because all are moved through intermediary, created, intellectual substances; nor whether the first body alone is immediately moved by God, and the others through the mediation of created substances—provided it is granted that celestial motion comes from intellectual substance.

Chapter

HOW EVEN BEINGS DEVOID OF KNOWLEDGE SEEK THE GOOD

[1] Now, if a celestial body is moved by intellectual substance, as we have shown, and if the motion of a celestial body is ordered to generation in the realm of things here below, it must be that the processes of generation and the motions of these lower things start from the intention of an intelligent substance. For the intention of the principal agent and that of the instrument are directed toward the same thing. Now, the heavens is the cause of the movements of inferior bodies, by virtue of its own motion in which it is moved by an intellectual substance. It follows, then, that the heavenly body is like an instrument for intellectual substance. Therefore, the forms and movements of lower bodies are caused by intellectual substance which intends them as a principal agent, while the celestial body is like an instrument. [2] It must be, then, that the species of things caused and intended by the intellectual agent exist beforehand in his intellect, as the forms of artifacts pre-exist in the intellect of the artist and are projected from there into their products. So, all the forms that are in these lower substances, and all their motions, are derived from the intellectual forms which are in the intellect of some substance, or substances. Consequently, Boethius says in his book, The Trinity, that “forms which are in matter have come from forms which are without matter.” And on this point, Plato’s statement is verified, that forms separated from matter are the principles of forms that are in it. Although Plato claimed that they subsist in themselves and immediately cause the forms of sensible things, we assert that they exist in an intellect and cause lower forms through the motion of the heavens. [3] Since everything that is moved directly and not merely accidentally by another being is directed by that being to the end of its motion, and since the celestial body is moved by an intellectual substance, and, moreover, the celestial body causes, through its own motion, all the motions in these lower things, the celestial body must be directed to the end of its motion by an intellectual substance, and so must all lower bodies be directed to their own ends. [4] So, then, it is not difficult to see how natural bodies, devoid of knowledge, are moved and perform actions for an end. They tend to the end as things directed to that end by an intellectual substance, in the way that an arrow tends toward the target when it has been aimed by the archer. just as the arrow attains its inclination to a definite end from the archer’s act of shooting it, so do natural bodies attain their inclination to natural ends, from natural movers; from which movers they also receive their forms, powers, and motions. [5] Consequently, it is also evident that every working of nature is the work of an intelligent substance, because an effect is more fundamentally attributed to the prime mover, which aims at the end, than to the instruments which have been directed by it. And because of this we find that the workings of nature proceed toward their end in an orderly way, as do the actions of a wise man. [6] Hence, it becomes obvious that even things which lack knowledge can be made to work for an end, and to seek the good by a natural appetite, and to seek the divine likeness and their own perfection. And there is no difference between saying one of these things or the other. For, by the fact that they tend to their own perfection they tend to the good, since a thing is good to the extent that it is perfect. Moreover, by virtue of tending to be good it tends to the divine likeness, for a thing is made like unto God in so far as it is good. And this or that particular good thing becomes an object of desire according as it is a likeness of prime goodness. So, too, for this reason it tends to its own good, because it tends to the divine likeness, and not conversely. Hence, it is clear that all things desire the divine likeness as an ultimate end. [7] Now, the good that is proper to a thing may be received in many ways. One way depends on what is appropriate to the essential character of the individual. It is thus that an animal seeks his good, when he desires the food whereby he may be kept in existence. A second way depends on what is appropriate to the species. It is in this way that an animal desires his proper good, inasmuch as he desires the procreation of offspring and the nourishment of the same, or the performance of any other work that is for the preservation or protection of individuals belonging to his species. A third way depends on the essential character of his genus. It is in this way that an equivocal agent seeks its proper good by an act of causation, as in the case of the heavens. And a fourth way depends on the analogical likeness of things produced, in relation to their source. And it is in this way that God, Who is beyond genus, gives existing being to all, because of His own goodness. [8] It is evident, next, that the more perfect something is in its power, and the higher it is in the scale of goodness, the more does it have an appetite for a broader common good, and the more does it seek and become involved in the doing of good for beings far removed from itself. Indeed, imperfect beings tend only to the good proper to the individual, while perfect beings tend to the good of their species. But more perfect beings tend to the good of the genus, while God, Who is most perfect in goodness, tends toward the good of being as a whole. Hence it is said by some people, and not inappropriately, that “the good, as such, is diffusive,” because the better a thing is, the more does it diffuse its goodness to remote beings. And since, “in every genus, that which is most perfect is the archetype and measure of all things belonging in the genus,” God, Who is most perfect in goodness and Who diffuses His goodness in the broadest way, must be in His diffusion the archetype for all diffusers of goodness. Now, inasmuch as a thing diffuses goodness to other beings, it comes to be their cause. As a result, it is also clear that a thing which tends to become the cause of others tends toward the divine likeness, and nonetheless it tends toward its own good. [9] Therefore, it is not unfitting to say that the motions of the heavenly bodies and the actions of their movers are in some sense for the sake of these generable and corruptible bodies which are less worthy than they. They are not for the sake of these bodies, in the sense of an ultimate end; rather, by intending the generation of these bodies they intend their own good and the divine likeness as an ultimate end.

Chapter

THAT TO UNDERSTAND GOD IS THE END OF EVERY INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE

[1] Since all creatures, even those devoid of understanding, are ordered to God as to an ultimate end, all achieve this end to the extent that they participate somewhat in His likeness. Intellectual creatures attain it in a more special way, that is, through their proper operation of understanding Him. Hence, this must be the end of the intellectual creature, namely, to understand God. [2] The ultimate end of each thing is God, as we have shown. So, each thing intends, as its ultimate end, to be united with God as closely as is possible for it. Now, a thing is more closely united with God by the fact that it attains to His very substance in some manner, and this is accomplished when one knows something of the divine substance, rather than when one acquires some likeness of Him. Therefore, an intellectual substance tends to divine knowledge as an ultimate end. [3] Again, the proper operation of a thing is an end for it, for this is its secondary perfection. That is why whatever is fittingly related to its proper operation is said to be virtuous and good. But the act of understanding is the proper operation of an intellectual substance. Therefore, this act is its end. Ana that which is most perfect in this operation is the ultimate end, particularly in the case of operations that are not ordered to any products, such as the acts of understanding and sensing. Now, since operations of this type are specified by their objects, through which they are known also, any one of these operations must be more perfect when its object is more perfect. And so, to understand the most perfect intelligible object, which is God, is the most perfect thing in the genus of this operation of understanding. Therefore, to know God by an act of understanding is the ultimate end of every intellectual substance. [4] Of course, someone could say that the ultimate end of an intellectual substance consists, in fact, in understanding the best intelligible object—not that the best object of understanding for this or that particular intellectual substance is absolutely the best intelligible object, but that, the higher an intellectual substance is, the higher will its best object of understanding be. And so, perhaps the highest created intellectual substance may have what is absolutely best as its best intelligible object, and, consequently, its felicity will consist in understanding God, but the felicity of any lower intellectual substance will lie in the understanding of some lower intelligible object, which is, however, the highest thing understood by it. Particularly would it seem true of the human intellect that its function is not to understand absolutely the best intelligible object, because of its weakness; indeed, it stands in relation to the knowing of the greatest intelligible object, “as the owl’s eye is to the sunlight.” [5] But it seems obvious that the end of any intellectual substance, even the lowest, is to understand God. It has been shown above that the ultimate end of all things, to which they tend, is God. Though it is the lowest in the order of intellectual substances, the human intellect is, nevertheless, superior to all things that lack understanding. And so, since there should not be a less noble end for a more noble substance, the end for the human intellect will be God Himself. And an intelligent being attains his ultimate end by understanding Him, as was indicated. Therefore, the human intellect reaches God as its end, through an act of understanding. [6] Again, just as things devoid of understanding tend toward God as an end, by way of assimilation, so intellectual substances do so by way of cognition, as is evident from the foregoing. Now, although things devoid of understanding tend to the likeness of their proximate agents, their natural tendency does not, however, rest there, for this tendency has as its end assimilation to the highest good, as is apparent from what we have said, even though these things can only attain this likeness in a very imperfect way. Therefore, however small the amount of divine knowledge that the intellect may be able to grasp, that will be for the intellect, in regard to its ultimate end, much more than the perfect knowledge of lower objects of understanding. [7] Besides, a thing has the greatest desire for its ultimate end. Now, the human intellect has a greater desire, and love, and pleasure, in knowing divine matters than it has in the perfect knowledge of the lowest things, even though it can grasp but little concerning divine things. So, the ultimate end of man is to understand God, in some fashion. [8] Moreover, a thing inclines toward the divine likeness as to its own end. So, that whereby a thing chiefly becomes like God is its ultimate end. Now, an intellectual creature chiefly becomes like God by the fact that it is intellectual, for it has this sort of likeness over and above what other creatures have, and this likeness includes all others. In the genus of this sort of likeness a being becomes more like God by actually understanding than by habitually or potentially understanding, because God is always actually understanding, as we proved in Book One [56]. And, in this actual understanding, it becomes most like God by understanding God Himself, for God understands all things in the act of understanding Himself,’as we proved in Book One [49]. Therefore, to understand God is the ultimate end of every intellectual substance. [9] Furthermore, that which is capable of being loved only for the sake of some other object exists for the sake of that other thing which is lovable simply on its own account. In fact, there is no point in going on without end in the working of natural appetite, since natural desire would then be futile, because it is impossible to get to the end of an endless series. Now, all practical sciences, arts, and powers are objects of love only because they are means to something else, for their purpose is not knowledge but operation. But the speculative sciences are lovable for their own sake, since their end is knowledge itself. Nor do we find any action in human affairs, except speculative thought, that is not directed to some other end. Even sports activities, which appear to be carried on without any purpose, have a proper end, namely, so that after our minds have been somewhat relaxed through them we may be then better able to do serious jobs. Otherwise, if sport were an end in itself, the proper thing to do would be to play all the time, but that is not appropriate. So, the practical arts are ordered to the speculative ones, and likewise every human operation to intellectual speculation, as an end. Now, among all the sciences and arts which are thus subordinated, the ultimate end seems to belong to the one that is preceptive and architectonic in relation to the others. For instance, the art of navigation, to which the end, that is the use, of a ship pertains, is architectonic and preceptive in relation to the art of shipbuilding. In fact, this is the way that first philosophy is related to the other speculative sciences, for all the others depend on it, in the sense that they take their principles from it, and also the position to be assumed against those who deny the principles. And this first philosophy is wholly ordered to the knowing of God, as its ultimate end; that is why it is also called divine science. So, divine knowledge is the ultimate end of every act of human knowledge and every operation. [10] Again, in all agents and movers that are arranged in an order, the end of the first agent and mover must be the ultimate end of all. Thus, the end of the commander of an army is the end of all who serve as soldiers under him. Now, of all the parts of man, the intellect is found to be the superior mover, for the intellect moves the appetite, by presenting it with its object; then the intellectual appetite. that is the will, moves the sensory appetites, irascible and concupiscible, and that is why we do not obey concupiscence unless there be a command from the will; and finally, the sense appetite, with the advent of consent from the will, now moves the body. Therefore, the end of the intellect is the end of all human actions. “But the end and good of the intellect are the true;” consequently, the first truth is the ultimate end. So, the ultimate end of the whole man, and of all his operations and desires, is to know the first truth, which is God. [11] Besides, there is naturally present in all men the desire to know the causes of whatever things are observed. Hence, because of wondering about things that were seen but whose causes were hidden, men first began to think philosophically; when they found the cause, they were satisfied. But the search did not stop until it reached the first cause, for “then do we think that we know perfectly, when we know the first cause.” Therefore, man naturally desires, as his ultimate end, to know the first cause. But the first cause of all things is God. Therefore, the ultimate end of man is to know God. [12] Moreover, for each effect that he knows, man naturally desires to know the cause. Now, the human intellect knows universal being. So, he naturally desires to know its cause, which is God alone, as we proved in Book Two [15]. Now, a person has not attained his ultimate end until natural desire comes to rest. Therefore, for human happiness which is the ultimate end it is not enough to have merely any kind of intelligible knowledge; there must be divine knowledge, as an ultimate end, to terminate the natural desire. So, the ultimate end of man is the knowledge of God. [13] Furthermore, a body tending toward its proper place by natural appetite is moved more forcibly and swiftly as it approaches its end. Thus, Aristotle proves, in On the Heavens I [8: 27a 18], that natural motion in a straight line cannot go on to infinity, for then it would be no more moved later than earlier. So, a thing that tends more forcibly later than earlier, toward an objective, is not moved toward an indefinite objective, but tends toward some determinate thing. Now, we find this situation in the desire to know. The more a person knows, the more is be moved by the desire to know. Hence, man’s natural desire tends, in the process of knowing, toward some definite end. Now, this can be none other than the most noble object of knowledge, which is God. Therefore, divine knowledge is the ultimate end of man. [14] Now, the ultimate end of man, and of every intellectual substance, is called felicity or happiness, because this is what every intellectual substance desires as an ultimate end, and for its own sake alone. Therefore, the ultimate happiness and felicity of every intellectual substance is to, know God. [15] And so, it is said in Matthew (5:8): “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God”; and in John (17:3): “This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God.” [16] With this view, the judgment of Aristotle is also in agreement, in the last Book of his Ethics [X, 7: 1177a 18], where he says that the ultimate felicity of man is “speculative, in accord with the contemplation of the best object of speculation.”

Chapter

WHETHER FELICITY CONSISTS IN A WILL ACT

[1] Now, since an intellectual substance, through its own operation, attains to God, not only by understanding, but also through an act of will, by desiring and loving Him and by taking delight in Him, it may appear to someone that the ultimate end and the ultimate felicity of man do not lie in knowing, but in loving God, or in some other act of will relating to Him. [2] Especially so, since the object of the will is the good, and the good has the rational character of an end, while the true which is the object of the intellect does not have the rational character of an end, except inasmuch as it is also a good. Consequently, it does not seem that Man attains his ultimate end through an act of understanding, but rather, through an act of will. [3] Again, the ultimate perfection of operation is delight “which perfects activity as beauty perfects youth,” as the Philosopher says in Ethics X [4: 1174b 31]. So, if perfect operation is the ultimate end, it appears that the ultimate end is more in accord with an operation of the will than of the intellect. [4] Besides, delight seems to be so much an object of desire for its own sake that it is never desired for the sake of something else; indeed, it is foolish to ask a person why he wishes to be delighted. Now, this is characteristic of the ultimate end: it is sought for its own sake. Therefore, the ultimate end lies in an operation of the will rather than of the intellect, it would seem. [5] Moreover, all men agree to the fullest extent in their appetite for the ultimate end, for it is natural. Now, more men seek delight than knowledge. So, it would seem that the end is delight rather than knowledge. [6] Furthermore, the will seems to be a higher power than the intellect, for the will moves the intellect to its act; indeed, the intellect actually considers, whenever it wills to, what it retains habitually. Therefore, the action of the will seems to be nobler than the action of the intellect. And so, it seems that the ultimate end, which is happiness, consists rather in an act of will than in an act of intellect. [7] However, it can be shown that this view is quite impossible. [8] Since happiness is the proper good of an intellectual nature, happiness must pertain to an intellectual nature by reason of what is proper to that nature. Now, appetite is not peculiar to intellectual nature; instead, it is present in all things, though it is in different things in different ways. And this diversity arises from the fact that things are differently related to knowledge. ~For things lacking knowledge entirely have natural appetite only. And things endowed with sensory knowledge have, in addition, sense appetite, under which irascible and concupiscible powers are included. But things possessed of intellectual knowledge also have an appetite proportionate to this knowledge, that is, will. So, the will is not peculiar to intellectual nature by virtue of being an appetite, but only in so far as it depends on intellect. However, the intellect, in itself, is peculiar to an intellectual nature. Therefore, happiness, or felicity, consists substantially and principally in an act of the intellect rather than in an act of the will. [9] Again, in the case of all powers that are moved by their objects the objects are naturally prior to the acts of these powers, just as a mover is naturally prior to the moving of its passive object. Now, the will is such a power, for the object of appetition moves the appetite. So, the will’s object is naturally prior to its act. Hence, its first object precedes every one of its acts. Therefore, no act of the will can be the first thing that is willed. But that is what the ultimate end is, in the sense of happiness. So, it is impossible for happiness, or felicity, to be the very act of the will. [10] Besides, for all the powers capable of reflection on their own acts, the act of such a power must first be brought to bear on some other object, and then directed to its own act. If the intellect is to understand itself in the act of understanding, it must first be taken that it understands something, and then, as a result, that it understands that it is understanding. For, this act of understanding which the intellect understands pertains to some object. Hence, it is necessary either to proceed through an endless series, or, if we are to come to a first object of understanding, it will not be the act of understanding but rather some intelligible thing. Likewise, the first willed object must not be the will’s act but some other good thing. But, for an intellectual nature, the first thing that is willed is happiness itself, or felicity, since it is for the sake of this happiness that we will whatever we will. Therefore, it is impossible for felicity to consist essentially in an act of the will. [11] Moreover, each thing possesses its true nature by virtue of the components which make up its substance. Thus, a real man differs from a painting of a man by virtue of the things that constitute the substance of man. Now, in their relation to the will act, true happiness does not differ from false happiness. In fact, the will, when it desires, loves or enjoys, is related in just the same way to its object, whatever it may be that is presented to it as a highest good, whether truly or falsely. Of course, whether the object so presented is truly the highest good, or is false, this distinction is made on the part of the intellect. Therefore, happiness, or felicity, essentially consists in understanding rather than in an act of the will. [12] Furthermore, if any act of the will were this felicity, this act would be either one of desire, of love, or of delight. Now, it is impossible for the act of desiring to be the ultimate end. For it is by desire that the will tends toward what it does not yet possess, but this is contrary to the essential character of the ultimate end.—So, two, the act of loving cannot be the ultimate end. For a good is loved not only when possessed but also when not possessed. Indeed, it is as a result of love that what is not possessed is sought with desire, and if the love of something already possessed is more perfect, this results from the fact that the good which was loved is possessed. So, it is a different thing to possess a good which is the end, and to love it; for love, before possession, is imperfect, but after possession, perfect. —Similarly, delight is not the ultimate end. For the very possession of the good is the cause of delight: we either experience it while the good is presently possessed, or we remember it when it was formerly possessed, or we hope for it when it is to be possessed in the future. So, delight is not the ultimate end. Therefore, none of the acts of will can be this felicity substantially. [13] Again, if delight were the ultimate end, it would be desired for its own sake. But this is false. The value of desiring a certain delight arises from the thing which delight accompanies. For the delight that accompanies good and desirable operations is good and desirable, but that which accompanies evil deeds is evil and repulsive. So, it owes the fact that it is good and desirable to something else. Therefore, delight is not the ultimate end, in the sense of felicity. [14] Besides, the right order of things is in agreement with the order of nature, for natural things are ordered to their end without error. In the order of natural things, delight is for the sake of operation, and not conversely. In fact, we see that nature has associated pleasure with those operations of animals that are clearly ordered to necessary ends; such as to the eating of food, for this is ordered to the preservation of the individual; and to the use of sexual capacities, for this is ordered to the preservation of the species. Indeed, unless pleasure were associated with them, animals would refrain from these necessary activities that we have mentioned. Therefore, it is impossible for pleasure to be the ultimate end. [15] Moreover, pleasure seems to be simply the repose of the will in some appropriate good, as desire is the inclination of the will toward the attainment of some good. Now, just as a man is inclined through his will to the end and reposes in it, so do physical bodies in nature possess natural inclinations to proper ends, and these inclinations come to rest when the end has already been reached. However, it is riaicuious to say that the end of a heavy body’s motion is not to be in its proper place, but that the end is the resting of the inclination whereby it tends there. If nature bad intended this at the beginning, that the inclination would come to rest, it would not have given such an inclination; instead, it gives it so that, by this means, the thing may tend to a proper place. When this has been reached, as an end, the repose of the inclination follows. And so, such repose is not the end, but rather a concomitant of the end. Nor, indeed, is pleasure the ultimate end; it is its concomitant. And so, by an even greater reason, no other act of the will is felicity. [16] If one thing has another thing as its external end, then the operation whereby the first thing primarily attains the second will be called the ultimate end of the first thing. Thus, for those to whom money is an end, we say that to possess the money is their end, but not the loving of it, not the craving of it. Now, the ultimate end of an intellectual substance is God. So, that operation of man is substantially his happiness, or his felicity, whereby be primarily attains to God. This is the act pf understanding, for we cannot will what we do not understand. Therefore, the ultimate felicity of man lies substantially in knowing God through his intellect, and not in an act of the will. [17] At this point, then, the answer to the arguments against our view is clear from what we have said. For, if felicity is an object of the will because it has the rational character of a highest good, that does not make it substantially an act of the will, as the first argument implied. On the contrary, from the fact that it is a first object, the conclusion is that felicity is not its act, as is apparent in what we have said. [18] Nor, indeed, is it necessary that everything whereby a thing is in any way perfected be the end of that thing, as the second argument claimed. In fact, something may be the perfection of a thing in two ways: in one way, of a thing that already possesses its species; and in a second way, in order that the thing may acquire its species. For instance, the perfection of a house which already has its species is that to which the species of the house is ordered, namely, habitation. For a house is made for this purpose only, and so this must be included in the definition of a house if the definition is to be perfect. But the perfection for the sake of the species of the house is both that which is directed to the setting up of the species, such as its substantial principles, and also that which is ordered to the preservation of its species, such as the foundations made to hold up the house, and even those things that make the use of the house more agreeable, such as the beauty of the house. And then, that which is the perfection of the thing, in so far as it already possesses its species, is its end: as habitation is the end of the house. Likewise, the proper operation of anything, which is its use as it were, is its end. Now, the things that are perfections leading up to the species are not the end for the thing; on the contrary, the thing is their end, matter and form are for the sake of the species. Though form is the end of the generative act, it is not the end of the thing that is already generated and possessed of its species. Rather, the form is required so that the species may be complete. Similarly, factors which preserve a thing in its species, such as health and the nutritive power, though perfectants of the animal, are not the end of the animal; rather, the opposite is true. Also, items by which a thing is improved for the perfection of its proper operations, and for the more appropriate attainment of its proper end, are not the end for the thing; rather, the opposite is so. For instance, beauty is for the man, and strength is for the body, and so for other similar things which the Philosopher talks about in Ethics I [8-9: 1099b 2–1099b 28], saying that “they contribute to felicity instrumentally.” Pleasure, however, is a perfection of operation, not in such a way that operation is ordered to it as to its species; rather, pleasure is ordered to other ends, as eating is ordered specifically to the preservation of the individual. But pleasure is like the perfection that is conducive to the species of the thing, since because of pleasure we apply ourselves more carefully and suitably to the operation in which we take pleasure. Hence the Philosopher says in Ethics X [4: 1174b 31] that “pleasure perfects operation as beauty perfects youth.” For, of course, beauty is for the sake of him in whom youth is found, and not the converse. [19] Nor is the fact that men desire pleasure for its own sake, and not for the sake of something else, enough to indicate that pleasure is the ultimate end, as the third argument concluded. For, although pleasure is not the ultimate end, it is, of course, a concomitant of this end, since pleasure arises out of the attainment of the end. [20] Nor do more persons seek the pleasure that is associated with knowing rather than the knowledge. Rather, there are more people who seek sensual pleasures than intellectual knowledge and its accompanying pleasure, because things that are external stand out as better known, since human knowledge starts from sensible objects. [21] Now, what the fifth argument suggests, that the will is higher than the intellect, in the sense of moving it, is clearly false. For, primarily Ad directly, the intellect moves the will; indeed, the will, as such, is moved by its object which is the known good. But the will moves the intellect rather accidentally, that is, in so far as the act of understanding is itself apprehended as good, and so is desired by the will, with the result that the intellect actually understands. Even in this act, the intellect precedes the will, for the will would never desire the act of understanding unless, first of all, the intellect were to apprehend the act of understanding as a good.—And again, the will moves the intellect actually to perform its operation, in the way that an agent is said to move; while the intellect moves the will in the way that an end moves something, since the good that is understood is the end for the will. Now, the agent comes later, in the process of moving, than does the end, since the agent does not move except for the sake of the end. Hence, it is evident that the intellect is, without qualification, higher than the will. On the other hand, the will is higher than the intellect, accidentally and in a qualified sense.

Chapter

THAT HUMAN FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN PLEASURES OF THE FLESH

[1] Now, it is clear from what we have said that it is impossible for human felicity to consist in bodily pleasures, the chief of which are those of food and sex. [2] In fact, we have shown that in the order of nature pleasure depends on operation, and not the converse. So, if operations are not the ultimate end, the pleasures that result from them are not the ultimate end, either; nor are they concomitant with the ultimate end. It stands to reason that the operations which accompany the above-mentioned pleasures are not the ultimate end, for they are ordered to certain ends that are quite obvious: eating, for instance, to the preservation of the body, and sexual intercourse to the generation of offspring. Therefore, the aforementioned Pleasures are not the ultimate end, nor are they concomitants of the ultimate end. So, felicity is not to be located in these pleasures. [3] Again, the will is higher than sense appetite, for it moves itself, as we said above. Now, we have already shown that felicity does not lie in an act of the will. Still less will it consist in the aforementioned pleasures which are located in the sense appetite. [4] Besides, felicity is a certain kind of good, appropriate to man. Indeed, brute animals cannot be deemed happy, unless we stretch the meaning of the term. But these pleasures that we are talking about are common to men and brutes. So, felicity should not be attributed to them. [5] Moreover, the ultimate end is the noblest appurtenance of a thing; in fact, the term means the best. But these pleasures are not agreeable to man by virtue of what is noblest in him, namely, his understanding, but by virtue of his sense capacity. So, felicity should not be located in pleasures of this kind. [6] Furthermore, the highest perfection of man cannot lie in a union with things inferior to himself, but, rather, in a union with some reality of a higher character, for the end is better than that which is for the sake of the end. Now, the aforementioned pleasures consist in this fact: that man is, through his senses, united with some things that are his inferiors, that is, with certain. sensible objects. So, felicity is not to be located in pleasures of this sort. [7] Again, something which is not good unless it be moderated is not good of itself; rather, it receives goodness from the source of the moderation. Now, the enjoyment of the aforementioned pleasures is not good for man unless it be moderated; otherwise, these pleasures will interfere with each other. So, these pleasures are not of themselves the good for man. But that which is the highest good is good of itself, because what is good of itself is better than what depends on something else. Therefore, sach pleasures are not the highest good for man, that is, felicity. [8] Besides, in the case of all things that are predicated per se, an absolute variation is directly accompanied by a similar variation in the degree of intensification. Thus, if a hot thing heats, then a hotter thing heats more, and the hottest thing will heat the most. So, if the aforementioned pleasures were goods of themselves, the maximum enjoyment of them should be the best. But this is clearly false, for excessive enjoyment of them is considered vicious, and is also, harmful to the body, and it prevents the enjoyment of similar pleasures. Therefore, they are not of themselves the good for man. So, human felicity does not consist in them. [9] Moreover, virtuous acts are praiseworthy because they are ordered to felicity. So, if human felicity consisted in the aforementioned pleasures, a virtuous act would be more praiseworthy when it involved the enjoyment of these pleasures than when it required abstention from them. However, it is clear that this is false, for the act of temperance is given most praise when it involves abstaining from pleasures; as a result, it gets its name from this fact. Therefore, man’s felicity does not lie in the aforesaid pleasures. [10] Furthermore, the ultimate end of everything is God, as is clear from what has been indicated earlier. So, we should consider the ultimate end of man to be that whereby be most closely approaches God. But, through the aforesaid pleasures, man is kept away from a close approach to God, for this approach is effected through contemplation, and the aforementioned pleasures are the chief impediment to contemplation, since they plunge man very deep into sensible things, consequently distracting him from intelligible objects. Therefore, human felicity must not be located in bodily pleasures. [11] Through this conclusion we are refuting the error of the Epicureans, who placed man’s felicity in these enjoyments. Acting as their spokesman, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes (5:17): “This therefore seemed good to me, that a man should eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of his labor, and this is his portion”; and again in Wisdom (2:9): “let us everywhere leave tokens of joy, for this is our portion, and this our lot.” [12] Also refuted is the error of the Cerinthians, for they told a fabulous story about ultimate felicity, that after the resurrection there would be, in the reign of Christ, a thousand years of carnal pleasures of the belly. Hence, they were also called Chiliasts; that is, Millenarians. [13] Refuted, too, are the fables of the Jews and the Saracens, who identified the rewards for just men with these pleasures, for felicity is the reward for virtue.

Chapter

THAT FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN HONORS

[1] It is also clear from the foregoing that the highest good for man, that is felicity, does not lie in honors. [2] Indeed, the ultimate end of man, and his felicity, is his most perfect operation, as is evident in what has preceded. Now, a man’s honor is not identified with his operation, but with something done by another person who shows respect for him. Therefore, the felicity of man should not be identified with honors. [3] Again, that which is good and desirable on account of something else is not the ultimate end. But honor is of this sort. A person is not rightly honored unless it be because of some other good that is present in him. And this is why men seek to be honored, desiring, as it were, to have a witness to some good feature present in them. Hence, men take greater joy in being honored by important and wise people. So, man’s felicity is not to be identified with honors. [4] Besides, the attainment of felicity is accomplished through virtue. Now, virtuous operations are voluntary; otherwise, they would not merit praise. So, felicity ought to be some good which man may attain by his own will. But the gaining of honor is not within the power of any man; rather, it is in the power of the one who gives the honor. Therefore, human felicity is not to be identified with honors. [5] Moreover, to be worthy of honor can only be an attribute of good men. But it is possible for even evil men to be honored. So, it is better to become worthy of honor than to be honored. Therefore, honor is not the highest good for man. [6] Furthermore, the highest good is the perfect good. But the perfect good is completely exclusive of evil. Now, that in which there can be no evil cannot itself be evil. Therefore, that which is in possession of the highest good cannot be evil. But it is possible for a bad man to attain honor. So, honor is not the highest good for man.

Chapter

THAT MAN’S FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN GLORY

[1] From this it is also apparent that the highest good for man does not consist in glory, which means a widely recognized reputation. [2] Now, according to Tully, glory is “widespread repute accompanied by praise of a person.” And according to Ambrose, it is “an illustrious reputation accompanied by praise.” Now, men desire to become known in connection with some sort of praise and renown, for the purpose of being honored by those who know them. So, glory is sought for the sake of honor. Hence, if honor is not the highest good, much less is glory. [3] Again, praiseworthy goods are those whereby a person is shown to be well ordered to his end. Now, he who is well ordered to his end has not yet achieved the ultimate end. So, praise is not given to him who has already attained the ultimate end, but honor, as the Philosopher says in Ethics I [12: 1101b 24]. Therefore, glory cannot be the highest good, because it consists principally in praise. [4] Besides, to know is more noble than to be known; only the more noble things know, but the lowest things are known. So, the highest good for man cannot be glory, for it consists in the fact that a person is well known. [5] Moreover, a person desires to be known only for good things; where bad things are concerned, he seeks concealment. So, to be known is a good and desirable thing, because of the good things that are known about a person. And so, these good things are better than being widely known. Therefore, glory is not the highest good, for it consists in a person being widely known. [6] Furthermore, the highest good should be perfect, for it should satisfy the appetite. Now, the knowledge associated with fame, in which human glory consists, is imperfect, for it is possessed of the greatest uncertainty and error. Therefore, such glory cannot be the highest good. [7] Again, the highest good for man should be what is most enduring among human affairs, for an endless duration of the good is naturally desired. Now, glory, in the sense of fame, is the least permanent of things; in fact, nothing is more variable than opinion and human praise. Therefore, such glory is not the highest good for man.

Chapter

THAT MAN’S FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN RICHES

[1] From this, moreover, it is also clear that riches are not the highest good for man. [2] Indeed, riches are only desired for the sake of something else; they provide no good of themselves but only when we use them, either for the maintenance of the body or some such use. Now, that which is the highest good is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of something else. Therefore, riches are not the highest good for man. [3] Again, man’s highest good cannot lie in the possession or keeping of things that chiefly benefit man through being spent. Now, riches are chiefly valuable because they can be expended, for this is their use. So, the possession of riches cannot be the highest good for man. [4] Besides, an act of virtue is praiseworthy in so far as it comes closer to felicity. Now, acts of liberality and magnificence, which have to do with money, are more praiseworthy in a situation in which money is spent than in one in which it is saved. So, it is from this fact that the names of these virtues are derived. Therefore, the felicity of man does not consist in the possession of riches. [5] Moreover, that object in whose attainment man’s highest good lies must be better than man. But man is better than riches, for they are but things subordinated to man’s use. Therefore, the highest good for man does not lie in riches. [6] Furthermore, man’s highest good is not subject to fortune, for things subject to fortune come about independently of rational effort. But it must be through reason that man will achieve his proper end. Of course, fortune occupies an important place in the attainment of riches, Therefore, human felicity is not founded on riches. [7] Again, this becomes evident in the fact that riches are lost in an involuntary manner, and also that they may accrue to evil men who must fail to achieve the highest good, and also that riches are unstable-and for other reasons of this kind which may be gathered from the preceding arguments.

Chapter

THAT FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN WORLDLY POWER

[1] Similarly, neither can worldly power be man’s highest good, since in its attainment, also, fortune can play a most important part. It is also unstable; nor is it subject to man’s will; oftentimes it comes to bad men-and these characteristics are incompatible with the highest good, as was evident in the foregoing arguments. [2] Again, man is deemed good chiefly in terms of his attainment of the highest good. Now, he is not called good, or bad, simply because he has power, for not everyone who can do good things is a good man, nor is a person bad because he is able to do evil things. Therefore, the highest good does not consist in the fact of being powerful. [3] Besides, all power is relative to some other thing. But the highest good is not relative to something else. Therefore, power is not man’s highest good. [4] Moreover, a thing that one can use both for good and for evil cannot be man’s highest good, for that is better which no one can use in a bad way. Now, one can use power well or badly, “for rational powers are capable of contrary effects.” Therefore, man’s highest good does not consist in human power. [5] Furthermore, if any sort of power is the highest good, it ought to be the most perfect. But human power is most imperfect, since it is rooted in the wills and the opinions of men, in which there is the greatest inconstancy. And the more important the power is considered to be, the more does it depend on large numbers of people, which fact also contributes to its frailty, since what depends on many can be destroyed in many ways. Therefore, man’s highest good does not lie in worldly power. [6] Man’s felicity, then, consists in no exterior good, since all exterior goods, the ones that are called “goods of fortune,” are contained under the preceding headings.

Chapter

THAT FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN GOODS OF THE BODY

[1] Moreover, that man’s highest good does not lie in goods of the body, such as health, beauty, and strength, is clearly evident from similar considerations. For these things are possessed in common by both good and bad men; they are also unstable; moreover, they are not subject to the will. [2] Again, the soul is better than the body, which is not alive, and which does not possess the aforementioned goods except by means of the soul. So, a good of the soul, like understanding and that sort of thing, is better than a good of the body. Therefore, the good of the body is not man’s highest good. [3] Besides, these goods are common to men and other animals. But felicity is the proper good of man. Therefore, man’s felicity does not lie in the aforesaid goods. [4] Moreover, many animals are better endowed than men, as far as the goods of the body go; for some are faster than man, some are stronger, and so on. If, then, man’s highest good lay in these things, man would not be the most excellent of animals; which is obviously false. Therefore, human felicity does not consist in goods of the body.

Chapter

THAT HUMAN FELICITY DOES NOT LIE IN THE SENSES

[1] In the same way, it is also apparent that man’s highest good does not lie in the goods of his sensitive part. For these goods, too, are common to men and other animals. [2] Again, intellect is better than sense. So, the good of the intellect is better than the good of the senses. Therefore, man’s highest good does not lie in sense. [3] Besides, the greatest pleasures in the sense order have to do with food and sexual activities; and so, the highest good ought to lie in these areas, if it were in sense. But it is not found in these things. Therefore, man’s highest good does not lie in the senses. [4] Moreover, the senses are treasured because of their usefulness, and also because of their knowledge. Now, the entire utility of the senses has reference to the goods of the body. But sense cognition is subordinated to intellectual cognition; thus, animals devoid of understanding take no pleasure in sensing, except in regard to some benefit pertaining to the body, according as they obtain food or sexual satisfaction through sense knowledge. Therefore, man’s highest good, his felicity, does not lie in his sensitive part.

Chapter

THAT MAN’S ULTIMATE FELICITY DOES NOT LIE IN ACTS OF THE MORAL VIRTUES

[1] It is clear, too, that the ultimate felicity of man does not consist in moral actions. [2] In fact, human felicity is incapable of being ordered to a further end, if it is ultimate. But all moral operations can be ordered to something else. This is evident from the most important instances of these actions. The operations of fortitude, which are concerned with warlike activities, are ordered to victory and to peace. Indeed, it would be foolish to make war merely for its own sake. Likewise, the operations of justice are ordered to the preservation of peace among men, by means of each man having his own possessions undisturbed. And the same thing is evident for all the other virtues. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in moral operations. [3] Again, the moral virtues have this purpose: through them the mean is preserved in the internal passions and in regard to external things. Now, it is not possible for such a measuring of passions, or of external things, to be the ultimate end of human life, since these passions and exterior things are capable of being ordered to something else. Therefore, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to lie in acts of the moral virtues. [4] Besides, since man is man by virtue of his possession of reason, his proper good which is felicity should be in accord with what is appropriate to reason. Now, that is more appropriate to reason which reason has within itself than which it produces in another thing. So, since the good of moral virtue is something produced by reason in things other than itself, it could not be that which is best for man; namely, felicity. Rather would felicity seem to be a good situated in reason itself. [5] Moreover, it was shown above that the ultimate end of all things is to become like unto God. So, that whereby man is made most like God will be his felicity. Now, this is not a function of moral acts, since such acts cannot be attributed to God, except metaphorically. Indeed, it does not befit God to have passions, or the like, with which moral acts are concerned. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity, that is, his ultimate end, does not consist in moral actions. [6] Furthermore, felicity is the proper good for man. So, that which is most proper among all human goods, for man in contrast to the other animals, is the good in which his ultimate felicity is to be sought. Now, an act of moral virtue is not of this sort, for some animals share somewhat, either in liberality or in fortitude, but an animal does not participate at all in intellectual action. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in moral acts.

Chapter

THAT ULTIMATE FELICITY DOES NOT LIE IN THE ACT OF PRUDENCE

[1] From this it is also apparent that man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in an act of prudence. [2] For the act of prudence is only concerned with things that pertain to the moral virtues. Now, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in acts of the moral virtues, nor, then, in the act of prudence. [3] Again, man’s ultimate felicity consists in the best operation of man. Now, the best operation of man, according to what is proper to man, lies in a relationship to the most perfect object. But the operation of prudence is not concerned with the most perfect object of understanding or reason; indeed, it does not deal with necessary objects, but with contingent problems of action. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in this operation. [4] Besides, that which is ordered to another thing as an end is not the ultimate felicity for man. But the operation,of prudence is ordered to something else as an end: both because all practical knowledge, in which category prudence is included, is ordered to action, and because prudence makes a man well disposed in regard to things that are to be chosen for the sake of the end, as is clear from Aristotle, in Ethics VI [13: 1145a 6]. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in the operation of prudence. [5] Moreover, irrational animals do not participate in felicity, as Aristotle proves in Ethics I [9: 1099b 33]. However, some of them do participate somewhat in prudence, as appears in the same writer, in Metaphysics I [1: 980a 30]. Therefore, felicity does not consist in the operation of prudence.

Chapter

THAT FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE OPERATION OF ART

[1] It is also clear that it does not lie in the operation of art. [2] For the knowledge that pertains to art is also practical knowledge. And so, it is ordered to an end, and is not itself the ultimate end. [3] Again, the ends of art operations are artifacts. These cannot be the ultimate end of human life, for we ourselves are, rather, the ends for all artificial things. Indeed, they are all made for man’s use. Therefore, ultimate felicity cannot lie in the operation of art.

Chapter

THAT THE ULTIMATE FELICITY OF MAN CONSISTS IN THE CONTEMPLATION OF GOD

[1] So, if the ultimate felicity of man does not consist in external things which are called the goods of fortune, nor in the goods of the body, nor in the goods of the soul according to its sensitive part, nor as regards the intellective part according to the activity of the moral virtues, nor according to the intellectual virtues that are concerned with action, that is, art and prudence—we are left with the conclusion that the ultimate felicity of man lies in the contemplation of truth. [2] Indeed, this is the only operation of man which is proper to him, and in it he shares nothing in common with the other animals. [3] So, too, this is ordered to nothing else as an end, for the contemplation of truth is sought for its own sake. [4] Also, through this operation man is united by way of likeness with beings superior to him, since this alone of human operations is found also in God and in separate substances. [5] Indeed, in this operation handgets in touch with these higher beings by knowing them in some way. [6] Also, for this operation man is rather sufficient unto himself, in the sense that for it he needs little help from external things. [7] In fact, all other human operations seem to be ordered to this one, as to an end. For, there is needed for the perfection of contemplation a soundness of body, to which all the products of art that are necessary for life are directed. Also required are freedom from the disturbances of the passions—this is achieved through the moral virtues and prudence—and freedom from external disorders, to which the whole program of government in civil life is directed. And so, if they are rightly considered, all human functions may be seen to subserve the contemplation of truth. [8] However, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to consist in the contemplation which depends on the understanding of principles, for that is very imperfect, being most universal, including the potential cognition of things. Also, it is the beginning, not the end, of human enquiry, coming to us from nature and not because of our search for truth. Nor, indeed, does it lie in the area of the sciences which deal with lower things, because felicity should lie in the working of the intellect in relation to the noblest objects of understanding. So, the conclusion remains that man’s ultimate felicity consists in the contemplation of wisdom, based on the considering of divine matters. [9] From this, that is also clear by way of induction, which was proved above by rational arguments, namely, that man’s ultimate felicity consists only in the contemplation of God.

Chapter

THAT HUMAN FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD WHICH IS GENERALLY POSSESSED BY MOST MEN [1] It remains to investigate the kind of knowledge in which the ultimate felicity of an intellectual substance consists. For there is a common and confused knowledge of God which is found in practically all men; this is due either to the fact that it is self-evident that God exists, just as other principles of demonstration are—a view held by some people, as we said in Book One [25]—or, what seems indeed to be true, that man can immediately reach some sort of knowledge of God by natural reason. For, when men see that things in nature run according to a definite order, and that ordering does not occur without an orderer, they perceive in most cases that there is some orderer of the things that we sec. But who or what kind of being, or whether there is but one orderer of nature, is not yet grasped immediately in this general consideration, just as, when we see that a man is moved and performs other works, we perceive that there is present in him some cause of these operations which is not present in other things, and we call this cause the soul; yet we do not know at that point what the soul is, whether it is a body, or how it produces these operations which have been mentioned. [2] Of course, it is not possible for this knowledge of God to suffice for felicity. [3] In fact, the operation of the man enjoying felicity must be without defect. But this knowledge admits of a mixture of many errors. Some people have believed that there is no other orderer of worldly things than the celestial bodies, and so they said that the celestial bodies are gods. Other people pushed it farther, to the very elements and the things generated from them, thinking that motion and the natural functions which these elements have are not present in them as the effect of some other orderer, but that other things are ordered by them. Still other people, believing that human acts are not subject to any ordering, other than human, have said that men who order others are gods. And so, this knowledge of God is not enough for felicity. [4] Again, felicity is the end of human acts. But human acts are not ordered to the aforementioned knowledge, as to an end. Rather, it is found in all men, almost at once, from their beginning. So, felicity does not consist in this knowledge of God. [5] Besides, no man seems to be blameworthy because of the fact that he lacks felicity; in point of fact, those who lack it, but are tending toward it, are given praise. But the fact that a person lacks the aforesaid knowledge of God makes him appear very blameworthy. Indeed, a man’s dullness is chiefly indicated by this: he fails to perceive such evident signs of God, just as a person is judged to be dull who, while observing a man, does not grasp the fact that he has a soul. That is why it is said in the Psalms (13:1, 52:1): “The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God.” So, this is not the knowledge of God which suffices for felicity. [6] Moreover, the knowledge that one has of a thing, only in a general way and not according to something proper to it, is very imperfect, just like the knowledge one might have of a man when one knows simply that he is moved. For this is the kind of knowledge whereby a thing is known only in potency, since proper attributes are potentially included within common ones. But felicity is a perfect operation, and man’s highest good ought to be based on what is actual and not simply on what is potential, for potency perfected by act has the essential character of the good. Therefore, the aforementioned knowledge is not enough for our felicity.

Chapter

THAT HUMAN FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD GAINED THROUGH DEMONSTRATION

[1] On the other hand, there is another sort of knowledge of God, higher than the foregoing, and we may acquire it through demonstration. A closer approach to a proper knowledge of Him is effected through this kind, for many things are set apart from Him, through demonstration, whose removal enable Him to be understood in distinction from other beings. In fact, demonstration shows that God is immutable, eternal, incorporeal, altogether simple, one, and other such things which we have shown about God in Book One[15-38]. Now, we reach a proper knowledge of a thing not only through affirmations but also through negations; for instance, it is proper to a man to be a rational animal, and so it is proper to him not to be inanimate or irrational. But there is this difference between these two modes of proper knowledge: through affirmations, when we have a proper knowledge of a thing, we know what the thing is, and bow it is separated from others; but through negations, when we have a proper knowledge of a thing, we know that it is distinct from other things, yet what it is remains unknown. Now, such is the proper knowledge that we have of God through demonstrations. Of course, this is not sufficient for the ultimate felicity of man. [2] For, the things which pertain to a species extend to the end of that species, in most cases; in fact, things which are of natural origin are so always, or in most cases, though they may fail in a few instances because of some corruption. Now, felicity is the end of the human species, since all men naturally desire it. So, felicity is a definite common good, capable of accruing to all men, unless an impediment occurs by which some may be deprived of it. Now, few men attain the knowledge of God that we have just mentioned, acquired by way of demonstration, because of the obstacles to this knowledge which we touched on in the beginning of this work. Therefore, such knowledge of God is not essentially identical with human felicity. [3] Then, again, to be actual is the end of what is potential, as is clear from the foregoing. So, felicity which is the ultimate end is an act to which no potency for further actuality is attached. But this sort of knowledge of God, acquired by way of demonstration, still remains in potency to something further to be learned about God, or to the same knowledge possessed in a higher way, for later men have endeavored to add something pertinent to divine knowledge to the things which they found in the heritage of their predecessors. Therefore, such knowledge is not identical with ultimate felicity. [4] Moreover, felicity excludes all unhappiness, for no man can be at once unhappy and happy. Now, deception and error constitute a great part of unhappiness; in fact, that is what all men naturally avoid. But manifold error can accompany the aforesaid knowledge that is acquired about God, and this is evident in many men who learned some truths about God by way of demonstration, and who, following their own opinions in cases where demonstration fails them, have fallen into many errors. In fact, if there have been any men who have discovered the truth about divine things in such a way, by means of demonstration, that no falsity attached to their judgment, it is clear that there have been few such. This is not appropriate to felicity, which is a common end. So, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in this knowledge of God. [5] Besides, felicity consists in a perfect operation. Now, certainty is required for perfect knowledge; for this reason we are not said to know unless we learn something that cannot be otherwise, as is evident in the Posterior Analytics [I, 2: 72a17]. Now, the knowledge we have been talking about includes much uncertainty; the diversity of the sciences of divine matters among those who have tried to find out these things by way of demonstration shows this. Therefore, ultimate felicity is not found in such knowledge. [6] Moreover, the will rests its desire when it has attained the ultimate end. But the ultimate cud of all human knowledge is felicity. So, that knowledge of God which, when acquired, leaves no knowledge of a knowable object to be desired is essentially this felicity. But this is not the kind of knowledge about God that the philosophers were able to get through demonstrations, because, even when we acquire this knowledge, we still desire to know other things that are not known through this knowledge. Therefore, felicity is not found in such knowledge of God. [7] Furthermore, the end of every being which is in potency is to be brought into act, for it tends toward this through the motion by which it is moved to its end. Of course, every being in potency tends to become actual, in so far as that is possible. Now, there is one kind of being in potency whose entire potency can be reduced to act; hence, its end is to be completely reduced to act. Thus, a heavy body in some unusual position is in potency to its proper place. But there is another kind of thing whose entire potency cannot be reduced to act at the same time. This is the case with prime matter, and that is why, through its change, it seeks to be actuated successively under different forms which cannot be simultaneously present in it, because of their diversity. Now, our intellect is in potency to all intelligible objects, as was explained in Book Two [47]. But two intelligible objects can exist simultaneously in the possible intellect, by way of the first act which is science, though perhaps not by way of the second act which is consideration. It is evident from this that the entire potency of the possible intellect can be reduced to act at one time. So, this is required for its ultimate end which is felicity. But the aforesaid knowledge of God which can be acquired through demonstration does not do this, since, even when we possess it, We still remain ignorant of many things. Therefore, such knowledge of God is not sufficient for ultimate felicity.

Chapter

HUMAN FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD WHICH IS THROUGH FAITH

[1] Now, there is still another knowledge of God, in one sense superior to the aforementioned knowledge, and by this God is known to men through faith. In comparison with the knowledge that we have of God through demonstration, this knowledge through faith surpasses it, for we know some things about God through faith which, because of their sublimity, demonstrative reason cannot attain, as we said at the beginning of this work. Yet, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to consist in even this knowledge of God. [2] Felicity, indeed, is a perfect operation of the intellect as is clear from what we have said. But, in the knowledge of faith, there is found a most imperfect operation of the intellect, having regard to what is on the side of the intellect, though the greatest perfection is discovered on the side of the object. For the intellect does not grasp the object to which it gives assent in the act of believing. Therefore, neither does man’s ultimate felicity lie in this kind of knowledge of God. [3] Again, we showed above, that ultimate felicity does not consist primarily in an act of the will. But in the knowledge of faith the will takes priority; indeed, the intellect assents through faith to things resented to it, because of an act of will and not because it is necessarily moved by the very evidence of the truth. So, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in this knowledge. [4] Besides, one who believes gives assent to things that are proposed to him by another person, and which he himself does not see. Hence, faith has a knowledge that is more like hearing than vision. Now, a man would not believe in things that are unseen but proposed to him by another man unless he thought that this other man had more perfect knowledge of these proposed things than he himself who does not see them. So, either the believer’s judgment is false or else the proposer must have more perfect knowledge of the things proposed. And if the proposer only knows these things by hearing them from another man, this cannot go on indefinitely, for the assent of faith would be foolish and without certitude; indeed, we would discover no first thing certain in itself which would bring certainty to the faith of the believer. Now, it is not possible for the knowledge of faith to be false and empty, as is evident from what we have said in the opening Book [I, 7]. Yet, if it were false and empty, felicity could not consist in such knowledge. So, there is for man some knowledge of God which is higher than the knowledge of faith: either the man who proposes the faith sees the truth immediately, as is the case when we believe in Christ; or he takes it immediately from one who does see, as when we believe the Apostles and Prophets. So, since man’s felicity consists in the highest knowledge of God, it is impossible for it to consist in the knowledge of faith. [5] Moreover, through felicity, because it is the ultimate end, natural desire comes to rest. Now, the knowledge of faith does not bring rest to desire but rather sets it aflame, since every man desires to see what he believes. So, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in the knowledge of faith. [6] Furthermore, the knowledge of God has been called the end because it is joined to the ultimate end of things, that is, to God. But an item of belief is not made perfectly present to the intellect by the knowledge of faith, since faith is of things absent, not of things present. For this reason the Apostle says, in 2 Corinthians (5:6-7), that “while we are in the body we walk by faith and we are absent from the Lord.” Yet God is brought into the presence of love through faith, since the believer assents to God voluntarily, according to what is said in Ephesians (3:17): “that Christ may dwell by faith in our hearts.” Therefore, it is not possible for ultimate human felicity to consist in the knowledge of faith.

Chapter

WHETHER IN THIS LIFE MAN IS ABLE TO UNDERSTAND SEPARATE SUBSTANCES THROUGH THE STUDY AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SPECULATIVE SCIENCES [1] An intellectual substance has still another kind of knowledge of God. Indeed, it has been stated in Book Two [96ff] that a separate substance, in knowing its own essence, knows both what is above and what is below itself, in a manner proper to its substance. This is especially necessary if what is above it is its cause, since the likeness of the cause must be found in the effects. And so, since God is the cause of all created intellectual substances, as is evident from the foregoing, then separate intellectual substances, in knowing their own essence, must know God Himself by way of a vision of some kind. For a thing whose likeness exists in the intellect is known through the intellect by way of vision, just as the likeness of a thing which is seen corporeally is present in the sense of the viewer. So, whatever intellect understands a separate substance, by knowing what it is, sees God in a higher way than He is known by any of the previously treated types of knowledge. [2] Hence, since some men have claimed that man’s ultimate end is in this life, because they know separate substances, we must consider whether man can know separate substances in this life. Now, on this point there is some dispute. For, our intellect in our present state understands nothing without a phantasm, and the phantasm is related to the possible intellect, whereby we understand, as colors are related to vision, as is evident from what we have treated in Book Two. Therefore, if any of us could achieve the understanding of separate substances through the intellectual knowledge which is from phantasms, then it would be possible for a person in this life to understand separate substances themselves. Consequently, by seeing these separate substances one will participate in that mode of knowledge whereby the separate substance, while understanding itself, understands God. But, if one cannot in any way attain to the understanding of separate substances through the knowledge which depends on phantasms, then it will not be possible for man in the present state of life to achieve the aforesaid mode of divine knowledge. [3] Now, various people have claimed in different ways that we could reach an understanding of separate substances from the knowledge which is accomplished through phantasms. For instance, Avempace claimed that, through the study of the speculative sciences, we can, on the basis of things understood through phantasms, reach an understanding of separate substances. For we can by the action of the intellect abstract the quiddity of anything that has a quiddity, and which is not identical with its quiddity. Indeed, the intellect is naturally equipped to know any quiddity, in so far as it is quiddity, since the proper object of the intellect is what a thing is. But, if what is primarily understood by the possible intellect is something having a quiddity, we can abstract through the possible intellect the quiddity of that which is primarily understood. Moreover, if that quiddity also has a quiddity, it will in turn be possible to abstract the quiddity of this quiddity. And since an infinite process is impossible, it must stop somewhere. Therefore, our intellect is able to reach, by way of resolution, the knowledge of a quiddity which has no further quiddity. Now, this is the sort of quiddity proper to a separate substance. So, our intellect can, through the knowledge of those sensible things that is received from phantasms, reach an understanding of separate substances. [4] He proceeds, moreover, to show the same thing in another, similar way. For he maintains that the understanding of one thing, say a horse, is plurally present in me and in you, simply by means of a multiplication of spiritual species which are diversified in me and in you. So, then, it is necessary that an object of understanding, which is not based on any species of this kind, be identical in me and in you. But the quiddity of an object of understanding, which quiddity our intellect is naturally capable of abstracting, has no spiritual but individual species, as we have proved, because the quiddity of a thing that is understood is not the quiddity of an individual, either spiritual or corporeal, for a thing that is understood, as such, is universal. So, our intellect is by nature capable of understanding a quiddity for which the understanding is one among all men. Now, such is the quiddity of a separate substance. Hence, our understanding is naturally equipped to know separate substance. [5] However, if a careful consideration be made, these ways of arguing will be discovered to be frivolous. Since a thing that is understood, as such, is universal, the quiddity of the thing understood must be the quiddity of something universal; namely, of a genus or a species. Now, the quiddity of a genus or species pertaining to these sensible things, whose intellectual knowledge we get through phantasms, includes matter and form within itself. So, it is entirely unlike the quiddity of a separate substance, which latter is simple and immaterial. Therefore, it is not possible for the quiddity of a separate substance to be understood, simply because the quiddity of a sensible thing is understood through phantasms. [6] Besides, the form which in actual being cannot be separated from a subject is not of the same rational character as the form which is separated in its being from such a subject, even though both of them can be taken, in an act of consideration, without such a subject. Thus, there is not the same essential character for magnitude and for a separate substance, unless we claim that magnitudes are separate things midway between specific forms and sensible things, as some of the Platonists maintained. Of course, the quiddity of a genus or species of sensible things cannot be separate in actual being from a given material individual, unless, perhaps, we maintain with the Platonists separate forms of things, but this has been disproved by Aristotle. Therefore, the quiddity of the aforementioned separate substances, which in no way exist in matter, is utterly different. Therefore, separate substances cannot be understood simply by virtue of the fact that these quiddities are understood.

Chapter

THAT WE CANNOT IN THIS LIFE UNDERSTAND SEPARATE SUBSTANCES IN THE WAY THAT ALEXANDER CLAIMED [1] Because Alexander [of Aphrodisias] claimed that the possible intellect is capable of being generated and corrupted, in the sense that it is “a perfection of human nature resulting from a mixture of the elements,” as we saw in Book Two, and since it is not possible for such a power to transcend material conditions, he maintained that our possible intellect can never reach an understanding of separate substances. Yet he asserted that, in our present state of life, we are able to understand separate substances. [2] In fact, he tried to show this in the following way. Whenever anything has reached maturity in its process of generation and has come to the full perfection of its substance, the operation proper to it will be at its peak, whether as action or as passion. For, as operation is consequent upon substance, so also is the perfection of operation a result of the perfection of substance. Hence, an animal, when it has become wholly perfect, is able to walk by itself. Now, the habitual understanding which is simply “intelligible species made to exist in the possible intellect by the agent intellect” has a twofold operation: one, to make potentially understood things to be actually understood, and it owes this to the role of the agent intellect; and the second is actually to understand the objects of understanding. These two things, then, man can do through an intellectual habit. So, whenever the generating of the habitual understanding has reached completion, both of these stated operations will be at their peak in it. Now, it always approaches the peak perfection of its generation when it acquires new kinds of objects of understanding. And thus, its process of generation must be completed at some time, unless there be an impediment, because no process of generation tends to an indefinite termination. So, it will reach completion whenever both operations are habitually present in the intellect, by virtue of the fact that it makes all the potential objects of und6standing actual, which is the completion of the first operation, and because of the fact that it understands all intelligible objects, both separate and not separate. [3] Now, since according to his opinion the possible intellect cannot understand separate substances, as has already been said, he thought that we will understand separate substances through the habitual understanding, in so far as the agent intellect, which he supposes to be a separate substance, becomes the form of the habitual understanding, and a form for us ourselves. Thus, we will understand through it, as we now understand through the possible intellect; and since it is the function of the power of the agent intellect to make all things which are potentially intelligible to be actually understood, and to understand the separate substances, we will understand separate substances in this life, and also all non-separate intelligible things. [4] So, according to this theory, we reach the knowledge of separate substances through this knowledge which comes from the phantasms, not in the sense that these phantasms and the things understood through them are means for the knowing of separate substances (as is the case with the speculative sciences, according to the position advanced in the preceding chapter), but, rather, in so far as the intelligible species are certain dispositions within us to the kind of form that the agent intellect is. And this is the first point on which these two opinions differ. [5] Hence, when the habitual understanding will be perfected through the production in us by the agent intellect of these intelligible species, the agent intellect will itself become a form for us, as we have said. And he calls this the “acquired understanding,” which, according to their statement, Aristotle says comes from outside. And so, though the ultimate human perfection is not in the speculative sciences, as the preceding opinion claimed, man is disposed through these sciences to the attainment of the ultimate perfection. And this is the second point on which the first and second opinions differ. [6] However, they differ on a third point, because, according to the first opinion, our actual understanding of the agent intellect is the cause of its being united with us. Whereas, according to the second opinion, the converse is the case, for, since it is united with us as a form, we understand it and the other separate substances. [7] Now, these statements are unreasonable. Indeed, the habitual understanding, as also the possible understanding, is supposed by Alexander to be generable and corruptible. Now, the eternal cannot become the form of the generable and corruptible, according to him. For this reason, he claims that the possible intellect, which is united to us as a form, is generable and corruptible, while the agent intellect which is incorruptible is a separate substance. Hence, since the agent intellect, according to Alexander, is supposed to be an eternal separate substance, it will be impossible for the agent intellect to become the form of the habitual intellect. [8] Moreover, the form of the intellect, as intellect, is the intelligible object, just as the form of the sense is the sensible object; indeed, the intellect receives nothing, strictly speaking, except in an intellectual way, just as the sense power only receives sensitively. So, if the agent intellect cannot be an intelligible object through the habitual intellect, then it will be impossible for it to be its form. [9] Besides, we are said to understand something in three ways. First, as we understand by means of the intellect which is the power from which such an operation proceeds; hence, both the intellect itself is said to understand, and also the intellect’s act of understanding becomes our act of understanding. Second, we understand by means of an intelligible species; of course, we are not said to understand by it, in the sense that it understands, but because the intellective power is actually perfected by it, as the visual power is by the species of color. Third, we understand as by an intermediary through the knowing of which we come to the knowledge of something else. [10] So, if at some point man understands separate substances through the agent intellect, this must be explained by one of these ways that have been mentioned. Now, it is not explained by the third way, for Alexander did not admit that either the possible or the habitual intellect understands the agent intellect. Nor, indeed, is it in the second way, for to understand through an intelligible species is the attribute of the intellective power for which this intelligible species is the form. Now, Alexander did not grant that the possible intellect or the habitual intellect understands separate substances; hence, it is not possible for us to understand separate substances through the agent intellect in the same way that we understand other things through an intelligible species. But, if it is as through an intellective power, then the agent intellect’s act of understanding must be man’s act of understanding. Now, this cannot be so unless one actual being is made from the substance of the agent intellect and the substance of man; indeed, it is impossible if they are two substances with different acts of being, for the operation of the one to be the operation of the other. Therefore, the agent intellect will be one existing being with man, not one accidentally, for then the agent intellect would be not a substance but an accident, as is the case when a thing that is one being accidentally is made from color and a body. The conclusion remains, then, that the agent intellect is united with man in substantial being. It will be, then, either the human soul or a part of it, and not some separate substance as Alexander claimed. Therefore, it cannot be maintained, on the basis of Alexander’s opinion, that man understands separate substances. [11] Furthermore, if the agent intellect at any time becomes the form of one man, so that he is enabled to understand through it, by the same token it could become the form of another man similarly understanding through it. It will Mow, then, that two men will understand at the same time through the agent intellect as through their own form. This is so because the agent intellect’s own act of understanding is the act of understanding of ‘the man who understands through it, as was said already. Therefore, there will be the same act of understanding for two intelligent beings; and this is impossible. [12] As a matter of fact, his theory is entirely frivolous. First of all because, whenever the process of generation is perfected in any member of a genus its operation must be perfected, but, of course, according to the manner of its own genus and not according to the mode of a higher genus. For instance, when the generation of air is perfected it has a development and complete movement upward, but not such that it is moved to the place proper to fire. Similarly, when the development of the habitual intellect is completed its operation of understanding will be completed according to its own mode, but not according to the mode whereby separate substances understand, so that it may understand separate substances. Hence, from the generation of the habitual intellect one cannot conclude that man will understand separate substance at some time. [13] Secondly, it is frivolous because the perfection of an operation belongs to the same power to which the operation itself belongs. So, if to understand separate substances be a perfection of the operation of the habitual intellect, it follows that the habitual intellect understands separate substances at some point in time. Now, Alexander does not claim this, for it would follow that to understand separate substances would depend on the speculative sciences which are included under the notion of habitual understanding. [14] Thirdly, it is frivolous because the generation of things that begin to be generated is nearly always brought to completion, since all processes of generating things are due to determinate causes which achieve their effects, either always, or in the majority of cases. If, then, the perfection of action also follows upon the completion of generation, it must also be the case that perfect operation accompanies the generated things, either always, or in the majority of cases. Now, the actual understanding of separate substances is not achieved by those who apply themselves to the development of habitual understanding, either in most cases or always; on the contrary, no man has openly declared that be had achieved this perfection. Therefore, the perfection of the operation of habitual understanding does not consist in the actual understanding of separate substances.

Chapter

THAT WE CANNOT IN THIS LIFE UNDERSTAND SEPARATE SUBSTANCES IN THE WAY THAT AVERROES CLAIMED [1] Because there is very great difficulty in Alexander’s opinion, as a result of his supposition that the possible intellect in a condition of habituation is entirely corruptible, Averroes thought that be found an easier way to show that we sometimes understand separate substances. In fact, he asserted that the possible intellect is incorruptible and separate in being from us, as is also the agent intellect. [2] He showed, first of all, that it was necessary to hold that the agent intellect is related to principles naturally known to us, either as agent is to instrument, or as form to matter. For the habitual intellect, by which we understand, has not only this action of understanding, but also another, which is to make things actually understood; indeed, we know by experience that both actions stand within our power. Now, the action of making things actual objects of understanding is more properly indicative of the meaning of habitual intellect than is the act of understanding, for to make things actually intelligible precedes the act of understanding them. But there are some things within us which are rendered actually understood in a natural way, not as a result of our effort or of the action of our will: such are the first intelligible things. In fact, to make these actually understood does not depend on the habitual intellect, through which things that we know from study are made to be actually understood; rather, these first intelligibles are the starting point of the habitual intellect. And that is why the habit of these intelligibles is also called understanding by Aristotle, in Ethics VI [6: 1141a 7]. Now, they are made to be actually understood by the agent intellect alone. And by means of them other things are made to be actually understood: these are the things that we know from study. So, to make these subsequent things actually understood is the work both of the habitual intellect, as regards first principles, and of the agent intellect. Now, one action is not attributed to two things unless one of them is related to the other as agent to instrument or as form to matter. So, the agent intellect is necessarily related to the first principles of the habitual intellect either as agent to instrument or as form to matter. [3] In fact, he indicates how this is possible in the following way. Since the possible intellect, according to his theory, is a separate substance, it understands the agent intellect and the other separate substances, and also the first objects of speculative understanding. So, it is the subject for both types of objects. Now, whenever two things are united in one subject, one of them is like the form of the other. Thus, when color and light are present in a diaphanous body as their subject, one of them, namely, light, must be like the form of the other, namely, color. Now, this is necessary when they have an ordered relationship to each other, but not in the case of things accidentally associated in the same subject, like whiteness and musical ability. But speculatively understood things and the agent intellect do have an ordered relationship to each other, since the objects of speculative understanding are rendered actually understood by means of the agent intellect. So, the agent intellect is related to the objects of speculative understanding as form is to matter. Therefore, when the objects of speculative understanding are united with us through the phantasms, which are in a sense their subject, the agent intellect must also be connected with us, because it is the form of the objects of speculative understanding. Thus, when the objects of speculative understanding are only potentially present in us, the agent intellect is only potentially connected with us. But, when some objects of speculative understanding are actually in us, and some are potentially present, its connection with us is partly actual and partly potential. Then it is that we are said to be in motion toward the aforementioned connection, for, as more things are made to be actually understood within us, the agent intellect becomes more perfectly connected with us. This progress and movement toward the connection is accomplished through study in the speculative sciences, through which we acquire true objects of understanding, and also false opinions that are outside the orderly process of this movement are excluded, just as monstrosities are outside the order of natural operation. Hence, men may help each other in making this progress, as they are of mutual assistance in the speculative sciences. And so, when all potential objects of understanding have been made actual within us, the agent intellect is perfectly united with us as a form, and then we will understand perfectly through it, just as we now understand perfectly through the habitual intellect. Hence, since it is the function of the agent intellect to understand separate substances, we will then understand separate substances, as we now understand the objects of speculative understanding. And this will be the ultimate felicity of man, in which man will be “like some sort of God.” [4] Now, the refutation of this theory is sufficiently evident from the things that we have said earlier: in fact, it proceeds from the supposition of many points which are disproved in the foregoing sections. [5] First of all, we showed above that the possible intellect is not some substance separated from us in its being. Hence, it will not be necessary for it to be the subject of separate substances, especially since Aristotle says that the intellect is possible, “in that it is able to become all things.” From this we see that it is the subject only of those things that are made actually understood. [6] Again, we have shown above, concerning the agent intellect, that it is not a separate substance, but a part of the soul, to which Aristotle assigns this operation: “to make things actually understood” [ De anima III, 5: 430a 14], and this lies within our power. Hence, it will not be necessary for the act of understanding -through the agent intellect to be the cause, for us, of our,capacity to understand separate substances; otherwise, we would always understand them. [7] Furthermore, if the agent intellect is a separate substance, it cannot be joined to us except through species that have been made actually understood, according to this theory; and neither can the possible intellect, even though the possible intellect is related to these species as matter to form, while, conversely, the agent intellect is as form to matter. Now, species that have been made actually understood are joined with us, according to his theory, by means of the phantasms which are related to the possible intellect as colors to the visual power, but to the agent intellect as colors to light: as we see from the words of Aristotle in Book in of On the Soul [III, 5: 430a 15]. But to the stone in which color is present, neither the action of the power of sight as it sees nor the action of the sun as it enlightens can be attributed. Therefore, according to the aforesaid theory, it would be impossible to attribute to man either the action of the possible intellect as it understands or the action of the agent intellect as it understands separate substances or as it makes things actually understood. [8] Besides, according to this theory, the agent intellect is not asserted to be connected with us as a form except by the fact that it is the form of objects of speculative understanding; and it is claimed to be the form of these objects because the same action belongs to the agent intellect and to these objects of understanding, which action is to make things actually understood. So, it could not be a form for us, unless by virtue of the fact that the objects of speculative understanding share in its action. Now, these objects do not share in its operation which consists in understanding separate substances, for they are the species of sensible things, unless we go back to the opinion of Avempace that the quiddities of separate substances can be known through the things that we understand about sensible objects. Therefore, it would not be at all possible for us to understand separate substances in the aforesaid way. [9] Moreover, the agent intellect is related to the objects of speculative understanding, which it makes to be so, in a different way from its relation to separate substances, which it does not make, but only knows, according to this theory. So, there is no necessity for it to be joined to us in its function as knower of separate substances, even if it is joined to us in its function as maker of the objects of speculative understanding. Rather, there is clearly a fallacy of accident in reasoning such as his. [10] Again, if we know separate substances through the agent intellect, this is not accomplished because the agent intellect is the form of this or that object of speculative understanding, but because it becomes a form for us, for in this way we are enabled to understand through it. Now, it becomes a form for us even through the first objects of speculative understanding, according to his own statement. Therefore, immediately at the start, man can know separate substances through the agent intellect. [11] Of course, it might be answered that the agent intellect does not become a form for us, in a perfect way, by virtue of certain objects of speculative understanding, so that we might understand separate substances through it and the only reason for this is that these objects of speculative understanding are not sufficient for the perfecting of the agent intellect in the act of understanding separate substances. But not even all the objects of speculative understanding taken together are sufficient for that perfection of the agent intellect by which it understands separate substances. For all these objects are intelligible only in so far as they have been made to be understood, while those separate substances are intelligible by their own nature. So, not even the fact that we will know all the objects of speculative understanding will make it necessary for the agent intellect to become a form for us, in such a perfect way that we may understand separate substances through it. Or, if this is not required, then we will have to say that, in understanding any intelligible object, we understand separate substances.

Chapter

THAT MAN’S ULTIMATE FELICITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE KIND OF KNOWLEDGE OF SEPARATE SUBSTANCES THAT THE FOREGOING OPINIONS ASSUME [1] Of course, it is not possible to identify human felicity with such knowledge of separate substances, as the aforementioned philosophers have maintained. [2] Indeed, a thing is futile which exists for an end which it cannot attain. So, since the end of man is felicity, to which his natural desire tends, it is not possible for the felicity of man to be placed in something that man cannot achieve. Otherwise, it would follow that man is a futile being, and his natural desire would be incapable of fulfillment, which is impossible. Now, it is clear from what has been said that man cannot understand separate substances on the basis of the foregoing opinions. So, man’s felicity is not located in such knowledge of separate substances. [3] Again, in order that the agent intellect be united to us as a form, so that we may understand separate substances through it, it is required that the generation of the habitual intellect be complete, according to Alexander; or that all objects of speculative understanding be made actual within us, according to Averroes. And these two views reduce to the same thing, for in this explanation the habitual intellect is generated in us, in so far as the objects of speculative understanding are made actual within us. Now, all species from sensible things are potential objects of understanding. So, in order that the agent intellect be joined with any person, he must actually understand all the natures of sensible things, and all their powers, operations, and motions, through speculative understanding. This is not possible for any man to know through the principles of the speculative sciences, by which principles we are moved to a connection with the agent intellect, as they say. For, one could not attain all these objects of knowledge from the things that come under the scope of our senses, and from which the principles of the speculative sciences are drawn. So, it is impossible for a man to achieve this connection, in the manner suggested by them. Therefore, it is not possible for man’s felicity to consist in such a connection. [4] Besides, even granting that such a connection of man with the agent intellect were possible as they describe it, it is plain that such perfection comes to very few men; so much so that not even these men, nor any other men, however diligent and expert in speculative sciences, have dared to claim such perfection for themselves. On the contrary, they all state that many things are unknown to them, Thus, Aristotle speaks of the squaring of the circle, and he can give only probable arguments for his principles for the ordering of celestial bodies, as he admits himself, in Book II of On the Heavens [5: 288a 2], and what is necessary in regard to these bodies and their movers he keeps for others to explain, in Metaphysics XI [8: 1073b 2]. Now, felicity is a definite common good, which many people can attain, “unless they are defective,” as Aristotle puts it, in Ethics I [9: 1099b 19]. And this is also true of every natural end in any species, that the members of this species do attain it, in most cases. Therefore, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to consist in the aforesaid connection. [5] However, it is clear that Aristotle, whose view the aforementioned philosophers try to follow, did not think that man’s ultimate felicity is to be found in such a connection. For he proves, in Ethics I [13: 1102a 5], that man’s felicity is his operation according to perfect virtue. Hence, he had to develop his teaching on the virtues, which handdivided into the moral and the intellectual virtues. Now, handshows in Book X [7: 1177a 18], that the ultimate felicity of man lies in speculation. Hence, it clearly does not lie in the act of any moral virtue, nor of prudence or art, though these are intellectual virtues. It remains, then, that it is an operation in accord with wisdom, the chief of the three remaining intellectual virtues, which are wisdom, science, and understanding, as he points out in Ethics VI [6: 1141a 3]. Hence, in Ethics X [8: 1179a 32], he gives his judgment that the wise man is happy. Now, wisdom, for him, is one of the speculative knowledges, “the head of the others,” as he says in Ethics VI [6]. And at the beginning of the Metaphysics [I, 1: 981b 26], he calls the science which he intends to treat in this work, wisdom. Therefore, it is clear that Aristotle’s opinion was that the ultimate felicity which man can acquire in this life is the kind of knowledge of divine things which can be gained through the speculative sciences. But that later way of knowing divine things, not by means of the speculative sciences but by a process of generation in the natural order, was made up by some of his commentators.

Chapter

THAT IN THIS LIFE WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND SEPARATE SUBSTANCES

[1] Hence, since separate substances cannot be known by us in this life in the preceding ways, the question remains whether we may understand these separate substances in any way during this life. [2] Themistius tries to show that it is possible, by an argument from a less important case. Separate substances are indeed more intelligible than material ones; the latter are intelligible, in so far as they are made to be actually understood by the agent intellect, but the former are intelligible in themselves. Therefore, if our intellect comprehends these material substances, it is naturally much more capable of understanding separate substances. [3] Now, this argument must be judged in different ways, depending on the various opinions concerning the possible intellect. For, if the possible intellect is not a power which depends on matter, and again if it is separate in being from body, as Averroes supposes, then it follows that it has no necessary relation to material things. Consequently, things that are more intelligible in themselves will be more intelligible to it. But then it seems to follow that, since we understand from the start by means of the possible intellect, we therefore understand separate substances from the start: which is clearly false. [4] But Averroes tried to avoid this difficulty by the explanation which has been mentioned above, in connection with his opinion. And this is plainly false, on the basis of what we have established. [5] However, if the possible intellect is not separated in being from body, then by virtue of such a union in being with body it has a necessary relation to material things, so that it could not reach a knowledge of other things except by means of these material things. Hence, it does not follow that, if separate substances are more intelligible in themselves, they are for this reason more intelligible to our intellect. And the words of Aristotle in Metaphysics II [1: 993b 9] prove this. For he says there that “the difficulty of understanding these things comes from us not from them, for our intellect is to the most evident things, as the eye of the owl is to the light of the sun.” Hence, since separate substances cannot be understood through material things that are understood, as was shown above, it follows that our possible intellect can in no way understand separate substances. [6] This is also evident from the relation of the possible intellect to the agent intellect. A passive potency is only a potency in regard to those things that are within the power of its proper active principle; for, to every passive potency in nature there corresponds an active potency; otherwise, the passive potency would be useless, for it could not be reduced to act except through an active potency. Hence we see that the visual power is only receptive of colors which are illuminated by light. Now, the possible intellect, since it is a passive power in some sense, has its proper corresponding agent, namely, the agent intellect which is related to the possible intellect as light is to sight. So, the possible intellect is only in potency to those intelligible objects which are made by the agent intellect. Hence, Aristotle, describing both intellects in Book III of On the Soul [5: 430a 14], says that the possible intellect is “the capacity to become all things,” while the agent intellect is “the capacity to make all things”; so, each potency is understood to be referred to the same thing, but one is active and the other passive, Thus, since separate substances are not made to be actually intelligible by the agent intellect, but only material substances are, the possible intellect only includes the latter within its scope. Therefore, we cannot understand separate substances through it. [7] For this point Aristotle made use of an appropriate example, for the eye of an owl can never see the light of the sun; though Averroes tries to ruin this example by saying that the similarity between our intellect in relation to separate substances and the eye of the owl in relation to the light of the sun does not extend to impossibility, but only to difficulty. He gives a proof for this, in the same place, using the following argument: If those things which are understood in themselves, namely, separate substances, were not possible for us to understand, they would be for no purpose, just as if there were a visible object which could not be seen by any visual power. [8] How frivolous this argument is, is quite apparent. For, though these substances might never be understood by us, they are nonetheless understood by themselves. Hence, they are not intelligible in a purposeless way, as the sun (to pursue Aristotle’s example) is visible, yet not in a purposeless way, simply because the owl cannot see it. For man and other animals can see it. [9] And thus, the possible intellect, if it be granted that it is united with the body in being, cannot understand separate substances. However, it makes a difference how one thinks about its substance. For, if it is supposed to be a material power, capable of generation and corruption, as some have claimed, then it follows that it is limited by its own substance to the understanding of material things. Consequently, that it could in no way understand separate substances is quite necessary, since it could not be separate in its own being. On the other hand, if the possible intellect, though united with a body, is, however, incorruptible and not dependent on matter in its actual being, as we showed above,” it follows that the limitation to the understanding of material things accrues to it as a result of its union with the body. Consequently, when the soul will have been separated from this body, the possible intellect will be able to understand things that are intelligible in themselves, through the light of the agent intellect, which is the likeness in the intellectual soul of the light which is present in separate substances. [10] And this is the view of our faith, concerning the understanding of separate substances by us after death, and not in this life.

Chapter

THAT THE SOUL DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ITSELF THROUGH ITSELF IN THIS LIFE

[1] Now, it seems that some objection may be offered against what we have said, on the basis of a text of Augustine which requires careful interpretation. In fact, he says in Book IX of The Trinity: “Just as the mind gathers knowledge of bodily things through the bodily senses, so does it obtain knowledge of incorporeal things through itself. And so, it knows itself through itself, since it is incorporeal.” Indeed, it does appear from these words that our mind understands itself, through itself, and by understanding itself it understands separate substances. And this is in opposition to what was shown above. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how our soul understands itself through itself. [2] Now, it cannot be said that it understands what it is, through itself. For, a cognitive potency becomes an actual knower by the fact that there is present in it that whereby the knowing is accomplished. Of course, if it be present in a potential way in the potency, one knows potentially; but if it be there actually, one knows actually; and if it be there in an intermediate fashion, one knows habitually. But the soul is always actually present to itself, never merely potentially or habitually. So, if the soul knows itself through itself, in the sense of what it is, it will always actually understand what it is. And this is plainly false. [3] Again, if the soul understands what it is, through itself, and if every man has a soul, then every man knows what soul is. And this is plainly false. [4] Moreover, the knowledge which comes about through something naturally implanted in us is natural, as is the case with indemonstrable principles which are known through the light of the agent intellect. If, then, we know concerning the soul what it is, through the soul itself, then this will be something naturally known. Now, in the case of things that are naturally known no one can err; for instance, in the knowing of indemonstrable principles no one makes an error. So, no one would be in error concerning what the soul is, if the soul knew this through itself. And this is clearly false, for many men have held the opinion that the soul is this or that body, and some have thought it a number or a harmony. Therefore, the soul does not, through itself, know concerning itself what it is. [5] Besides, in any order, “that which exists through itself is prior to, and is the principle of, that which is through another.” So, that which is known through itself is known before all things that are known through another, and it is the principle of the knowing of them. Thus, the first propositions are prior to the conclusions. If, then, the soul knows through itself what it is in itself, this will be something known through itself, and, consequently, a first known thing and a principle for the knowing of other things. Now, this is clearly false. For, what the soul is no science takes as something known; rather, it is a topic proposed for investigation, starting from other items of knowledge. Therefore, the soul does not know concerning itself what it is, through itself. [6] Now, it appears that even Augustine himself did not intend that it does. For he says in Book X of The Trinity that “the soul, when seeking knowledge of itself, does not endeavor to see itself as something absent, but takes care to observe itself as present; not to learn about itself as if it were ignorant, but to distinguish itself from what it knows as another thing.” Thus, he makes us understand that the soul, through itself, does know itself as present, but not as distinct from other things. Consequently, he says that some people have erred on this point because they have not distinguished the soul from those things which are different from it. Now, because a thing is known from the point of view of what it is, that thing is also known in distinction from others; consequently, the definition which signifies what a thing is distinguishes the thing defined from all else. Therefore, Augustine did not wish to say that, through itself, the soul knows concerning itself what it is. [7] But neither did Aristotle intend this. Indeed, he says in Book III of On the Soul [4: 430a 2] that “the possible intellect understands itself as it does other things.” For it understands itself through an intelligible species, by which it is made actual in the genus of intelligible objects. Considered in itself, it is merely in potency in regard to intelligible being; nothing is known according to what it is potentially, but only as it is actually. Hence, separate substances, whose substances are like something actually existing in the genus of intelligible objects, do understand, concerning themselves, what they are, through their own substances; while our possible intellect does so, through an intelligible species, by which it is made an actual agent which understands. Hence, also, Aristotle, in Book III of On the Soul [4: 429a 2], demonstrates from the very act of understanding what is the nature of the possible intellect, namely, that it is “unmixed and incorruptible,” as is clear from what we have said earlier. [8] And so, according to Augustine’s meaning, our mind knows itself through itself, in so far as it knows concerning itself, that it is. Indeed, from the fact that it perceives that it acts it perceives that it is. Of course, it acts through itself, and so, through itself, it knows concerning itself that it is. [9] So, also, in regard to separate substances, the soul by knowing itself knows that they are, but not what they are, for to do the latter is to understand their substances. Indeed, when we know this about separate substances, either through demonstration or through faith, that there are certain intellectual substances, we would not be able to get this knowledge on either basis unless our soul knew on its own part this point: what it is to be intellectual. Consequently, the knowledge concerning the soul’s understanding must be used as a starting point for all that we learn about separate substances. [10] Nor is it a necessary conclusion that, if we succeed in knowing what the soul is through the speculative sciences, we must then be able to reach a knowledge of what separate substances are, through these same sciences. As a matter of fact, our act of understanding, whereby we attain to the knowledge of what our soul is, is very remote from the intelligence of a separate substance. Nevertheless, it is possible through knowing what our soul is to reach a knowledge of a remote genus for separate substances, but this does not mean an understanding of these substances. [11] just as we know, through itself, that the soul is, in so far as we perceive its act, and we seek to discover what it is, from a knowledge of its acts and objects, by means of the principles of the speculative sciences, so also do we ‘know concerning the things that are within our soul, such as powers and habits, that they indeed are, by virtue of our perception of their acts; but we discover what they are, from the qualitative character of their acts.

Chapter

THAT IN THIS LIFE WE CANNOT SEE GOD THROUGH HIS ESSENCE

[1] Now, if we are not able to understand other separate substances in this life, because of the natural affinity of our intellect for phantasms, still less are we able in this life to see the divine essence which transcends all separate substances. [2] An indication of this may also be taken from the fact that the higher our mind is elevated to the contemplation of spiritual beings, the more is it withdrawn from sensible things. Now, the final limit to which contemplation can reach is the divine substance. Hence, the mind which sees the divine substance must be completely cut off from the bodily senses, either by death or by ecstasy. Thus, it is said by one who speaks for God: “Man shall not see me and live” (Exod. 33:20). [3] But that some men are spoken of in Sacred Scripture as having seen God must be understood either in reference to an imaginary vision, or even a corporeal one: according as the presence of divine power was manifested through some corporeal species, whether appearing externally, or formed internally in the imagination; or even according as some men have perceived some intelligible knowledge of God through His spiritual effects. [4] However, certain words of Augustine do present a difficulty; for it appears from them that we can understand God Himself in this life. He says in Book IX of The Trinity that “we see with the vision of the mind, in the eternal truth, from which all temporal things have been made, the form in accord with which we exist, and in accord with which we perform any action by true and right reason, either within ourselves or in bodies, and as a result of this we have with us a conception and a true knowledge of things.” He also says in Book VII of the Confessions: “Suppose both of us see that what you say is true, and both of us see that what I say is true: where, I ask, do we see it? Certainly, I do not see it in you, nor you in me, but both in that immutable truth which is above our minds. Again, he says in the book On the True Religion that “we judge all things according to the divine truth.” And he says in the Soliloquies that “truth must be known first, and through it other things can be known.” And this seems to mean the divine truth. It appears, then, from his words, that we see God Himself, Who is His own truth, and thus we know other things through Him. [5] The same writer’s words seem to tend toward the same view, words which he puts in Book XII of The Trinity, saying the following: “It pertains to reason to judge concerning these bodily things in accord with the incorporeal and sempiternal reasons which, unless they were above the human mind, certainly would not be immutable.” Now, the immutable and sempiternal reasons cannot exist in any other location than in God, since only God, according to the teaching of our faith, is sempiternal. Therefore, it seems to follow that we are able to see God in this life, and because we see the reasons of things in Him we may judge concerning other things. [6] However, we must not believe that Augustine held this view, in the texts which have been quoted: that we are able in this life to understand God through His essence. So, we have to make a study of how we may see this immutable truth, or these eternal reasons, in this life, and thus judge other things in accord with this vision. [7] As a matter of fact, Augustine himself admits that truth is in the soul, in the Soliloquies, and as a result he proves the immortality of the soul from the eternity of truth. But truth is not in the soul simply in the way that God is said to be in all things by His essence, nor as He is in all things by His likeness, in the sense that each thing is called true to the extent that it approaches the likeness of God; for it is not on this basis that the soul is set above other things. Therefore, it is present in a special way in the soul, inasmuch as it knows truth. So, just as souls and other things are indeed said to be true in their own natures, because they have a likeness to the highest nature, which is Truth Itself, since it is its own actual being as understood—so also, what is known by the soul is true in so far as some likeness exists in it of that divine truth which God knows. Hence the Gloss on (Psalm 11:2): “Truths are decayed from among the children of men,” says that: “as from one face there may result many reflections in a mirror, so from one first truth there may result many truths in the minds of men. Now, although different things are known and believed to be true by different people, certain things are true on which all men agree, such as the first principles of understanding, both speculative and practical, according as an image of divine truth is reflected universally in the minds of all men. So, in so far as any mind knows anything whatever with certitude, the object is intuited in these principles, by means of which judgment is made concerning all things, by resolving them back into these principles; and so the mind is said to see all things in the divine truth, or in the eternal reasons, and is said to judge all things in accord with them. And this interpretation the words of Augustine confirm, in the Soliloquies, for handsays that the principles of the sciences are seen in the divine truth as these visible objects are seen in the light of the sun. Yet it is obvious that they are not seen in the actual body of the sun, but through its light, which is a likeness in the air of solar brilliance, transmitted to suitable bodies. [8] Therefore, we should not gather from these words of Augustine that God can be seen in His substance in this life, but only as in a mirror. And this is what the Apostle professes concerning the knowledge of this life, for he says: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner” (1 Cor. 13:l2). [9] Although this mirror, which is the human mind, reflects the likeness of God in a closer way than lower creatures do, the knowledge of God which can be taken in by the human mind does not go beyond the type of knowledge that is derived from sensible things, since even the soul itself knows what it is itself as a result of understanding the natures of sensible things, as we have said. Hence, throughout this life God can be known in no higher way than that whereby a cause is known through its effect.

Chapter

THAT MAN’S ULTIMATE FELICITY DOES NOT COME IN THIS LIFE

[1] If, then, ultimate human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God, whereby He is known in general by all, or most, men, by a sort of confused appraisal, and again, if it does not consist in the knowledge of God which is known by way of demonstration in the speculative sciences, nor in the cognition of God whereby He is known through faith, as has been shown in the foregoing; and if it is not possible in this life to reach a higher knowledge of God so as to know Him through His essence, or even in such a way that, when the other separate substances are known, God might be known through the knowledge of them, as if from a closer vantage point, as we showed; and if it is necessary to identify ultimate felicity with some sort of knowledge of God, as we proved above; then it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to come in this life. [2] Again, the ultimate end of man brings to a termination man’s natural appetite, in the sense that, once the end is acquired, nothing else will be sought. For, if he is still moved onward to something else, he does not yet have the end in which he may rest. Now, this termination cannot occur in this life. For, the more a person understands, the more is the desire to understand increased in him, and this is natural to man, unless, perchance, there be someone who understands all things. But in this life this does not happen to anyone who is a mere man, nor could it happen, since we are not able to know in this life the separate substances, and they are most intelligible, as has been shown. Therefore, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to be in this life. [3] Besides, everything that is moved toward an end naturally desires to be stationed at, and at rest in, that end; consequently, a body does not move away from the place to which it is moved naturally, unless by virtue of a violent movement which runs counter to its appetite. Now, felicity is the ultimate end which man naturally desires. So, there is a natural desire of man to be established in felicity. Therefore, unless along with felicity such an unmoving stability be attained, he is not yet happy, for his natural desire is not yet at rest. And so, when a person attains felicity he likewise attains stability and rest, and that is why this is the notion of all men concerning felicity, that it requires stability as part of its essential character. For this reason, the Philosopher says, in Ethics I [10: 1100b 5], that “we do not regard the happy man as a sort of chameleon.” Now, in this life there is no certain stability, for to any man, no matter how happy he is reputed to be, illnesses and misfortunes may possibly come, and by them he may be hindered in that operation, whatever it may be, with which felicity is identified. Therefore, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to be in this life. [4] Moreover, it appears inappropriate and irrational for the time of generation of a thing to be long, while the time of its maturity is short. For it would follow that a nature would be without its end, most of the time. Consequently, we see that animals which live but a short time also take but a short time to come to perfect maturity. Now, if felicity consists in perfect operation, in accord with perfect virtue, whether intellectual or moral, it is impossible for it to come to man until a long time has elapsed, And this is especially evident in speculative pursuits, in which man’s ultimate felicity is placed, as is clear from what we have said. For man is barely able to reach perfection in scientific speculation in the last stage of his life. But then, in most cases, only a little part of human life remains. So, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to be in this life. [5] Furthermore, all men admit that felicity is a perfect good; otherwise, it could not satisfy desire. Now, a perfect good is one which lacks any admixture of evil, just as a perfectly white thing is completely unmixed with black. Of course, it is not possible for man in the present state of life to be entirely free from evils, not only from corporeal ones, such as hunger, thirst, heat and cold, and other things of this kind, but also from evils of the soul. For we can find no one who is not disturbed at times by unruly passions, who does not at times overstep the mean in which virtue lies, either by excess or defect, who also is not mistaken in certain matters, or who at least is ignorant of things which he desires to know, or who also conceives with uncertain opinion things about which he would like to be certain. Therefore, no person is happy in this life. [6] Again, man naturally shrinks from death, and is sorrowful at its prospect, not only at the instant when he feels its threat and tries to avoid it, but even when he thinks back upon it. But freedom from death is something man cannot achieve in this life. Therefore, it is not possible for man in this life to be happy. [7] Besides, ultimate felicity does not consist in an habitual state, but in an operation, since habits are for the sake of acts. But it is impossible to perform any action continuously in this life. Therefore, it is impossible for man in this life to be entirely happy. [8] Furthermore, the more a thing is desired and loved, the more does its loss bring sorrow and sadness. Now, felicity is what is most desired and loved. Therefore, its loss holds the greatest prospect of sorrow. But, if ultimate felicity were possible in this life, it is certain that it would be lost, at least by death. And it is not certain whether it would last until death, since for any man in this life there is the possibility of sickness, by which he may be completely impeded from the work of virtue: such things as mental illness and the like, by which the use of reason is halted. So, such felicity always will have sorrow naturally associated with it. Therefore, it will not be perfect felicity. [9] However, someone may say that, since felicity is a good of intellectual nature, perfect and true felicity belongs to those beings in whom a perfect intellectual nature is found, that is, to separate substances, but that in man there is found an imperfect happiness, in the manner of some sort of participation. For, in regard to the full understanding of truth, men can attain it only through enquiry, and they are utterly deficient in regard to objects which are most intelligible in their nature, as is clear from what we have said. And so, felicity in its perfect character cannot be present in men, but they may participate somewhat in it, even in this life. And this seems to have been Aristotle’s view on felicity. Hence, in Ethics I, where he asks whether misfortunes take away happiness, having shown that felicity consists in the works of virtue which seem to be most enduring in this life, handconcludes that those men for whom such perfection in this life is possible are happy as men, as if they bad not attained felicity absolutely, but merely in human fashion. [10] Now, we have to show that the foregoing reply does not invalidate the arguments which we have given above. Indeed, though man is by nature inferior to separate substances, handis nonetheless superior to irrational creatures. So, handattains his ultimate end in a more perfect way than they do. They achieve their ultimate end with such perfection because they seek nothing else, for the heavy thing comes to rest when it has occupied its own place; and even in the case of animals, when they enjoy sensual pleasures their natural desire is at rest. So, it is much more necessary for man’s natural desire to come to rest when he has reached his ultimate end. But this cannot come about in this life. Therefore, man does not attain felicity, understood as his proper end, during this life, as we have shown. Therefore, he must attain it after this life. [11] Again, it is impossible for natural desire to be unfulfilled, since “nature does nothing in vain.”“ Now, natural desire would be in vain if it could never be fulfilled. Therefore, man’s natural desire is capable of fulfillment, but not in this life, as we have shown. So, it must be fulfilled after this life. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity comes after this life. [12] Besides, as long as anything is in motion toward perfection, it is not yet at the ultimate end. But all men, while learning the truth, are always disposed as beings in motion, and as tending toward perfection, because men who come later make other discoveries, over and above those found out by earlier men, as is also stated in Metaphysics II [1: 993a 31]. So, men in the process of learning the truth are not situated as if they were at the ultimate end. Thus, since man’s ultimate felicity in this life seems mainly to consist in speculation, whereby the knowledge of the truth is sought, as Aristotle himself proves in Ethics X [7: 1177a 18], it is impossible to say that man achieves his ultimate end in this life. [13] Moreover, everything that is in potency tends to proceed into act. So, as long as it is not made wholly actual, it is not at its ultimate end. Now, our intellect is in potency in regard to all the forms of things to be known, and it is reduced to act when it knows any one of them. So, it will not be wholly in act, nor at its ultimate end, until it knows all things, at least all these material things. But man cannot achieve this through the speculative sciences, through which he knows truth in this life. Therefore, it is not possible for man’s ultimate felicity to be in this life. [14] For these and like reasons, Alexander and Averroes claimed that man’s ultimate felicity does not consist in the human knowledge which comes through the speculative sciences, but through a connection with a separate substance, which they believed to be possible for man in this life. But, since Aristotle saw that there is no other knowledge for man in this life than through the speculative sciences, he maintained that man does not achieve perfect felicity, but only a limited kind. [15] On this point there is abundant evidence of how even the brilliant minds of these men suffered from the narrowness of their viewpoint. From which narrow attitudes we shall be freed if we grant in accord with the foregoing proofs that man can reach true felicity after this life, when man’s soul is existing immortally; in which state the soul will understand in the way that separate substances understand, as we showed in Book Two [81] of this work. [16] And so, man’s ultimate felicity will lie in the knowledge of God that the human mind has after this life, according to the way in which separate substances know Him. For which reason our Lord promises us “a reward in heaven” and says that the saints “shall be as the angels... who always see God in heaven,” as it is said (Matt- 5:12; 22:30; 18:10).

Chapter

THAT SEPARATE SUBSTANCES DO NOT SEE GOD IN HIS ESSENCE BY KNOWING HIM THROUGH THEIR ESSENCE [1] Moreover, we must inquire whether this knowledge er whereby the separate substances and the soul after death know God, through their own essences, suffices for their ultimate felicity. [2] The first thing to be done, in investigating the truth of this question, is to show that the divine essence is not known through such a type of knowledge. [3] In fact, it is possible to know a cause from its effect, in many ways. One way is to take the effect as a means of finding out, concerning the cause, that it exists and that it is of a certain kind. This occurs in the sciences which demonstrate the cause through the effect. Another way is to see the cause in the effect itself, according as the likeness of the cause is reflected in the effect; thus a man may be seen in a mirror, by virtue of his likeness. And this way is different from the first. In fact, in the first way there are two cognitions, one of the effect and one of the cause, and one is the cause of the other; for the knowledge of the effect is the cause of the knowing of its cause. But in the second way there is one vision of both, since at the same time that the effect is seen the cause is also seen in it. A third way is such that the very likeness of the cause, in its effect, is the form by which the effect knows its own cause. For instance, suppose a box had an intellect, and so knew through its form the skilled mind from which such a form proceeded as a likeness of that mind. Now, it is not possible in any of these ways to know from the effect what the cause is, unless the effect be adequate to the cause, one in which the entire virtuality of the cause is expressed. [4] Now, separate substances know God through their substances, as a cause is known through its effect; not, of course, in the first way, for then their knowledge would be discursive; but in the second way, according as one substance sees God in another; and also in the third way, according as any one of them sees God within itself. Now, none of them is an effect adequately representing the power of God, as we showed in Book Two [22ff]. So, it is impossible for them to see the divine essence itself by this kind of knowledge. [5] Besides, the intelligible likeness through which a thing is understood in its substance must be of the same species or, rather, of an identical species; as the form of the house which exists in the mind of the artisan is of the same species as the form of the house which exists in matter, or, rather, the species are identical; for one is not going to understand what a donkey or a horse is through the species of a man. But the nature of a separate substance is not the same in species as the divine nature, not even the same in genus, as we showed in Book One [25]. Therefore, it is not possible for a separate substance, through its own nature, to understand the divine substance. [6] Furthermore, every created thing is limited to some genus or species. But the divine essence is unlimited, comprehending within itself every perfection in the whole of existing being, as we showed in Book One [28, 43]. Therefore, it is impossible for the divine substance to be seen through any created being. [7] Moreover, every intelligible species whereby the quiddity or essence of any thing is understood comprehends that thing while representing it; consequently, we call words signifying what such a thing is terms and definitions. But it is impossible for a created likeness to represent God in this way, since every created likeness belongs to a definite genus, while God does not, as we explained in Book One [25]. Therefore, it is not possible for the divine substance to be understood through a created likeness. [8] Furthermore, divine substance is its own existing being, as we showed in Book One [22]. But the being of separate substance is other than its substance, as we proved in Book Two [52]. Therefore, the essence of a separate substance is not an adequate medium whereby God could be seen essentially. [9] However a separate substance does know through its own substance that God is, and that He is the cause of all things, that He is eminent above all and set apart from all, not only from things which exist, but also from things which can be conceived by the created mind. Even we are able to reach this knowledge of God, in some sense; for we know through His effects, that God is, and that He is the cause of other beings, that He is supereminent over other things and set apart from all. And this is the ultimate and most perfect limit of our knowledge in this life, as Dionysius says in Mystical Theology. “We are united with God as the Unknown.” Indeed, this is the situation, for, while we know of God what He is not, what He is remains quite unknown. Hence, to manifest his ignorance of this sublime knowledge, it is said of Moses that “he went to the dark cloud wherein God was” (Exod. 20:21). [10] Now, since a lower nature only touches with its highest part the lowest part of the next higher nature, this knowledge must be more eminent in separate substances than in us. This becomes evident in a detailed consideration. For, the more closely and definitely we know the effect of a cause, the more evident does it become that its cause exists. Now, separate substances, which know God through themselves, are nearer effects and more definite bearers of the likeness of God than the effects through which we know God. Therefore, the separate substances know more certainly and clearly than we that God is. Again, since it is possible to come in some way to the proper knowledge of a thing by means of negations, as we said above, the more a person can know that a large number of closely related things are set apart from an object, the more does one approach toward a proper knowledge of it. For instance, one approaches closer to a proper knowledge of man when he knows that he is neither an inanimate, nor an insensitive, being than when one merely knows that he is not inanimate; even though neither of them makes it known what man is. Now, separate substances know more things than we do, and things that are closer to God; consequently, in their understanding, they set apart from God more things, and more intimately related things, than we do. So, they approach more closely to a proper knowledge of Him than we do, although even these substances do not see the divine substance by means of their understanding of themselves. Also, the more one knows how a man is placed in authority over people in higher positions, the more does one know the high position of this man. Thus, though a rustic may know that the king occupies the highest office in the kingdom, since he is acquainted only with some of the lowest official positions in the kingdom with which he may have some business, he does not know the eminence of the king in the way that another man does who is acquainted with all the leading dignitaries of the kingdom and knows that the king holds authority over them; even though neither type of lower office comprehends the exalted position appropriate to the dignity of the king. Of course, we are in ignorance, except in regard to the lowest types of beings. So, although we may know that God is higher than all beings, we do not know the divine eminence as separate substances do, for the highest orders of beings are known to them, and they know that God is superior to all of them. Finally, it is obvious that the more the large number, and great importance, of the effects of a cause become known, the more does the causality of the cause, and its power, become known. As a result, it becomes manifest that separate substances know the causality of God, and His power, better than we do; even though we know that He is the cause of all beings.

Chapter

THAT THE NATURAL DESIRE OF SEPARATE SUBSTANCES DOES NOT COME TO REST IN THE NATURAL KNOWLEDGE WHICH THEY HAVE OF GOD [1] However, it is impossible for the natural desire in separate substances to come to rest in such a knowledge of God. [2] For everything that is an imperfect member of any species desires to attain the perfection of its species. For instance, a man who has an opinion regarding something, that is, an imperfect knowledge of the thing, is thereby aroused to desire knowledge of the thing. Now, the aforementioned knowledge which the separate substances have of God, without knowing His substance, is an imperfect species of knowledge. In fact, we do not think that we know a thing if we do not know its substance. Hence, it is most important, in knowing a thing, to know what it is. Therefore, natural desire does not come to rest as a result of this knowledge which separate substances have of God; rather, it further arouses the desire to see the divine substance. [3] Again, as a result of knowing the effects, the desire to know their cause is aroused; thus, men began to philosophize when they investigated the causes of things.” Therefore, the desire to know, which is naturally implanted in all intellectual substances, does not rest until, after they have come to know the substances of the effects, they also know the substance of the cause. The fact, then, that separate substances know that God is the cause of all things whose substances they see, does not mean that natural desire comes to rest in them, unless they also see the substance of God Himself. [4] Besides, the problem of why something is so is related to the problem of whether it is so, in the same way that an inquiry as to what something is stands in regard to an inquiry as to whether it exists. For the question why looks for a means to demonstrate that something is so, for instance, that there is an eclipse of the moon; likewise, the question what is it seeks a means to demonstrate that something exists, according to the traditional teaching in Posterior Analytics II [1: 89b 22]. Now, we observe that those who see that something is so naturally desire to know why. So, too, those acquainted with the fact that something exists naturally desire to know what this thing is, and this is to understand its substance. Therefore, the natural desire to know does not rest in that knowledge of God whereby we know merely that He is. [5] Furthermore, nothing finite can fully satisfy intellectual desire. This is shown from the fact that, whenever a finite object is presented, the intellect extends its interest to something more, so that, given any finite line, it strives to apprehend a longer one; and the same thing takes place in regard to numbers. This is the reason for infinite series in numbers and in mathematical lines. Now, the eminence and power of any created substance are finite. Therefore, the intellect of a separate substance does not come to rest simply because it knows created substances, however lofty they may be, but it still tends by natural desire toward the understanding of substance which is of infinite eminence, as we showed concerning divine substance in Book One [43]. [6] Moreover, just as the natural desire to know is present in all intellectual natures, so is there present in them the natural desire to put off ignorance and lack of knowledge. Now, the separate substances know, as we have said, by the aforesaid mode of knowledge, that the substance of God is above them and above everything understood by them; consequently, they know that the divine substance is unknown to them. Therefore, their natural desire tends toward the understanding of divine substance. [7] Besides, the nearer a thing comes to its end, the greater is the desire by which it tends to the end; thus, we observe that the natural motion of bodies is increased toward the end. Now, the intellects of separate substances are nearer to the knowledge of God than our intellects are. So, they desire the knowledge of God more intensely than we do. But, no matter how fully we know that God exists, and the other things mentioned above, we do not cease our desire, but still desire to know Him through His essence. Much more, then, do the separate substances desire this naturally. Therefore, their desire does not come to rest in the aforesaid knowledge of God., [8] The conclusion from these considerations is that the ultimate felicity of separate substances does not lie in the knowledge of God, in which they know Him through their substances, for their desire still leads them on toward God’s substance. [9] Also, quite apparent in this conclusion is the fact that ultimate felicity is to be sought in nothing other than an operation of the intellect, since no desire carries on to such sublime heights as the desire to understand the truth. Indeed, all our desires for pleasure, or other things of this sort that are craved by men, can be satisfied with other things, but the aforementioned desire does not rest until it reaches God, the highest point of reference for, and the maker of, things. This is why Wisdom appropriately states: “I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud” (Sirach 24:7). And Proverbs (9:3) says that Wisdom “by her maids invites to the tower.” Let those men be ashamed, then, who seek man’s felicity in the most inferior things, when it is so highly situated.

Chapter

HOW GOD MAY BE SEEN IN HIS ESSENCE

[1] Since it is impossible for a natural desire to be incapable of fulfillment, and since it would be so, if it were not possible to reach an understanding of divine substance such as all minds naturally desire, we must say that it is possible for the substance of God to be seen intellectually, both by separate intellectual substances and by our souls. [2] It is already sufficiently apparent from what we have said what should be the mode of this vision. For we showed above that the divine substance cannot be seen intellectually by means of any created species. Consequently, if the divine essence is seen, it must be done as His intellect sees the divine essence itself through itself, and in such a vision the divine essence must be both what is seen and that whereby it is seen. [3] Now, since the created intellect cannot understand any substance unless it becomes actual by means of some species, which is the likeness of the thing understood, informing it, a person might consider it impossible for a created intellect to be able to see, by means of the divine essence serving as a sort of intelligible species, the very substance of God. For the divine essence is a certain being subsisting through itself, and we showed in Book One [26] that God cannot be a form for any other being. [4] In order to understand the truth of this matter, we must consider that self-subsistent substance is either a form only, or a composite of matter and form. And a thing composed of matter and form cannot be the form of another being, because the form in it is already limited to this matter in such a way that it could not be the form of another thing. But a being which subsists in such a way that it is a form only can be the form of another, provided its being is such that it could be participated by that other thing, as we showed concerning the human soul, in Book Two [68]. However, if its being could not be participated by another, it could not be the form of any other thing, for then it would be determined within itself by its own being, just as material things are by their own matter. Now, this should be observed as obtaining in the same way in the order of intelligible being as it does in substantial or physical being. For, since the perfection of the intellect is what is true, in the order of intelligible objects, that object which is a purely formal intelligible will be truth itself. And this characteristic applies only to God, for, since the true is consequent on being, that alone is its own truth which is its own being. But this is proper to God only, as we showed in Book Two [15]. So, other intelligible subsistents do not exist as pure forms in the order of intelligible beings, but as possessors of a form in some subject. In fact, each of them is a true thing but not truth, just as each is a being but not the very act of being. So, it is manifest that the divine essence may be related to the created intellect as an intelligible species by which it understands, but this does not apply to the essence of any other separate substance. Yet, it cannot be the form of another thing in its natural being, for the result of this would be that, once joined to another thing, it would make up one nature. This could not be, since the divine essence is in itself perfect in its own nature. But an intelligible species,(united with an intellect, does not make up a nature; rather, it perfects the intellect for the act of understanding, and this is not incompatible with the perfection of the divine essence. [5] This immediate vision of God is promised us in Scripture: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). It is wrong to understand this in a corporeal way, picturing in our imagination a bodily face of the Divinity, since we have shown that God is incorporeal. Nor is it even possible for us to see God with our bodily face, for the power of corporeal vision, which is associated with our face, can only apply to corporeal things. Thus, then, shall we see God face to face, in the sense that we shall see Him without a medium, as is true when we see a man face to face. [6] In this vision, of course, we become most like unto God, and we are partakers in His happiness. For God Himself understands His own substance through His own essence; and this is His felicity. Hence it is said: “When He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). And the Lord says “I dispose to you, as My Father has disposed to me... my table, that you may eat and drink at my table, in my kingdom” (Luke 22:29-30). Of course, this can be understood not in reference to corporeal food or drink, but to Him who is received at the table of Wisdom, of whom Wisdom speaks: “Eat My bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you” (Proverbs 9:5). And so, may they who enjoy the same felicity whereby God is happy eat and drink at God’s table, seeing Him in the way that lie sees Himself.

Chapter

THAT NO CREATED SUBSTANCE CAN, BY ITS OWN NATURAL POWER, ATTAIN THE VISION OF GOD IN HIS ESSENCE [1] However, it is not possible for any created substance, by its own power, to be able to attain this manner of divine vision. [2] Indeed, a lower nature cannot acquire that which is proper to a higher nature except through the action of the higher nature to which the property belongs. For instance, water cannot be hot except through the action of fire. Now, to see God through His divine essence is proper to the divine nature, for it is the special prerogative of any agent to perform its operation through its own form. So, no intellectual substance can see God through His divine essence unless God is the agent of this operation. [3] Again, the form proper to any being does not come to be in another being unless the first being is the agent of this event, for an agent makes something like itself by communicating its form to another thing. Now, it is impossible to see the substance of God unless the divine essence itself is the form whereby the intellect understands, as we have proved. Therefore, it is not possible for a created substance to attain this vision, except through divine action. [4] Besides, if any two factors are to be mutually united, so that one of them is formal and the other material, their union must be completed through action coming from the side of the formal factor, and not through the action of the one that is material. In fact, form is the principle of action, while matter is the principle of passion. For the created intellect to see God’s substance, then, the divine essence itself must be joined as an intelligible form to the intellect, as we have proved. Therefore, it is not possible for the attainment of this vision to be accomplished by a created intellect except through divine action. [5] Furthermore, “that which is of itself is the cause of that which is through another being.” But the divine intellect sees the divine substance through itself, for the divine intellect is the divine essence itself whereby the substance of God is seen, as was proved in Book One [45]. However, the created intellect sees the divine substance through the essence of God, as through something other than itself. Therefore, this vision cannot come to the created intellect except through God’s action. [6] Moreover, whatever exceeds the limitations of a nature cannot accrue to it except through the action of another being. For instance, water does not tend upward unless it is moved by something else. Now, seeing God’s substance transcends the limitations of every created nature; indeed, it is proper for each created intellectual nature to understand according to the manner of its own substance. But divine substance cannot be understood in this way, as we showed above. Therefore, the attainment by a created intellect to the vision of divine substance is not possible except through the action of God, Who transcends all creatures. [7] Thus, it is said: “The grace of God is life everlasting” (Rom. 6:23). In fact, we have shown that man’s happiness, which is called life everlasting, consists in this divine vision, and we are said to attain it by God’s grace alone, because such a vision exceeds all the capacity of a creature and it is not possible to reach it without divine assistance. Now, when such things happen to a creature, they are attributed to God’s grace. And the Lord says: “I will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21).

Chapter

THAT THE CREATED INTELLECT NEEDS AN INFLUX OF DIVINE LIGHT IN ORDER TO SEE GOD THROUGH HIS ESSENCE [1] For such a noble vision, the created intellect must be elevated by means of an influx of divine goodness. [2] Indeed, it is not possible for what is the proper form of one thing to become the form of another unless the latter thing participates some likeness of the thing to which the form belongs. For instance, light can only become the act of a body if the body participates somewhat in the diaphanous. But the divine essence is the proper intelligible form for the divine intellect and is proportioned to it; in fact, these three are one in God: the intellect, that whereby understanding is accomplished, and the object which is understood. So, it is impossible for this essence to become the intelligible form of a created intellect unless by virtue of the fact that the created intellect participates in the divine likeness. Therefore, this participation in the divine likeness is necessary so that the substance of God may be seen. [3] Again, nothing is receptive of a more sublime form unless it be elevated by means of a disposition to the capacity for this form, for a proper act is produced in a proper potency. Now, the divine essence is a higher form than any created intellect. So, in order that the divine essence may become the intelligible species for a created intellect, which is needed in order that the divine substance may be seen, it is necessary for the created intellect to be elevated for this purpose by a more sublime disposition. [4] Besides, suppose that two things are not united at first, and then later they are united; this must be done by changing both of them, or at least one. Now, suppose that a created intellect starts for the first time to see God’s substance; then, necessarily, according to the preceding arguments, the divine essence must be united with it for the first time as an intelligible species. Of course, it is not possible for the divine essence to be changed, as we showed above. So, this union must start to exist by means of a change in the created intellect. In fact, this change can only come about by means of the created intellect acquiring some new disposition. Indeed, the same conclusion follows if it be granted that a created intellect is endowed with such a vision from the start of its creation. For, if this vision exceeds the capacity of a created nature, as we have proved, then any created intellect may be understood to enjoy complete existence in the species proper to its nature, without seeing the substance of God. Hence, whether it begins to see God at the start of its existence, or later, something must be added to its nature. [5] Furthermore, nothing can be elevated to a higher operation unless because its power is strengthened. But there are two possible ways in which a thing’s power may be strengthened. One way is by a simple intensification of the power itself; thus, the active power of a hot thing is increased by an intensification of the heat, so that it is able to perform a stronger action of the same species. A second way is by the imposition of a new form; thus, the power of a diaphanous object is increased so that it can shine with light, by virtue of its becoming actually luminous, through the form of light received for the first time within it. And in fact, this latter kind of increase of power is needed for the acquisition of an operation of another species. Now, the power of a created intellect is not sufficient to see the divine substance, as is clear from what we have said. So, its power must be increased in order that it may attain such a vision. But the increase through the intensification of a natural power does not suffice, since this vision is not of the same essential type as the vision proper to a natural created intellect. This is evident from the difference between the objects of these visions. Therefore, an increase of the intellectual power by means of the acquisition of a new disposition must be accomplished. [6] However, since we reach the knowledge of intelligible things from sensible things, we also take over the names proper to sense knowledge for intellectual knowledge, especially the ones which apply to sight, which, compared to the other senses, is more noble and more spiritual, and so more closely related to the intellect. Thus it is that this intellectual knowledge is called vision. And since corporeal vision is not accomplished without light, those things whereby intellectual vision is perfected take on the name fight. Hence, even Aristotle, in Book III of On the Soul [5: 430a 15], likens the agent intellect to light, because of the fact that the agent intellect makes things actually intelligible, just as light in a way makes things actually visible. Therefore, this disposition whereby the created intellect is raised to the intellectual vision of divine substance is fittingly called the light of glory; not because it makes some object actually intelligible, as does the light of the agent intellect, but because it makes the intellect actually powerful enough to understand. [7] Now, this is the light of which it is said in the Psalms (35:10): “In Thy light we shall see the light,” that is, of the divine substance. And it is said in the Apocalypse (22:5; see also 21:23): “The city,” that is, of the Blessed, “bath no need of the sun, nor of the moon... for the glory of God bath enlightened it.” And it is said in Isaiah (60:19): “You shall no more have the sun for your light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten you; but the Lord shall be an everlasting light for you, and your God for your glory.”—It is also so, because in God to be and to understand is the same thing; and because He is for all the cause of understanding, He is said to be the light (John 1:9): “That was the true light which enlightened every man that comes into this world” (John 1:9); and: “God is light” (1 John 1:5); and in the Psalms (103:7): “You... are clothed with light as with a garment.”And for this reason also, both God and the angels are described in Sacred Scripture in figures of fire (Exod. 24:17, (Acts 2:3); Ps- 103:4), because of the brilliance of fire.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS BY WHICH IT SEEMS TO BE PROVED THAT GOD CANNOT BE SEEN IN HIS ESSENCE, AND THE ANSWERS TO THEM [1] Now, someone will object against the preceding statements. No light that is added to the power of vision can elevate this power to a vision of things which exceed the capacity of bodily sight, for the power of sight is able to see colored objects only. But divine substance exceeds all the capacity of a created intellect, even more than understanding exceeds the capacity of sense. Therefore, the created intellect could not be elevated by any adventitious light so as to see the divine substance. [2] Again, the light which is received in a created intellect is something created. And so, it is infinitely removed from God. Therefore, the created intellect cannot be elevated to the vision of the divine substance by this kind of light. [3] Besides, if the aforesaid light can in fact do this because it is a likeness of the divine substance, then since every intellectual substance, by the fact of being intellectual, bears the divine likeness, the very nature of any intellectual substance whatever is adequate to the divine vision. [4] Furthermore, if this light is created, then nothing prevents it from being created connatural with some creature; hence, there could be a created intellect which, by its own connatural light, would see the divine substance. The contrary of this has been proved. [5] Moreover, “the infinite as such is unknown.” Now, we have shown in Book One [43] that God is infinite. Therefore, the divine substance cannot be seen by means of the aforesaid light. [6] Again, there must be a proportion between the understander and the thing understood. But there is no proportion between the created intellect, even when perfected by this light, and the divine substance, because their distance apart still remains infinite. Therefore, the created intellect cannot be elevated to the vision of the divine substance by any light. [7] For these and similar reasons some men have been moved to assert that the divine substance is never seen by any created intellect. Of course, this position both takes away true happiness from the rational creature, for it can consist in nothing other than a vision of divine substance, as we have shown; and it also contradicts the text of Sacred Scripture, as is evident from the preceding texts. Consequently, it is to be spurned as false and heretical. [8] Indeed, it is not difficult to answer these arguments. The divine substance is not beyond the capacity of the created intellect in such a way that it is altogether foreign to it, as sound is from the object of vision, or as immaterial substance is from sense power; in fact, the divine substance is the first intelligible object and the principle of all intellectual cognition. But it is beyond the capacity of the created intellect, in the sense that it exceeds its power; just as sensible objects of extreme character are beyond the capacity of sense power. Hence, the Philosopher says that “our intellect is to the most evident things, as the eye of the owl is to the light of the sun.” So, a created intellect needs to be strengthened by a divine light in order that it may be able to see the divine essence. By this, the first argument is answered. [9] Moreover, this sort of light raises the created intellect to the vision of God, not on the basis of a diminution of its distance from the divine substance, but by virtue of a power which it receives from -God in relation to such an effect; even though it remains far away from God in its being, as the second argument suggested. In fact, this light does not unite the created intellect with God in the act of being but only in the act of understanding. [10] Since, however, it is proper to God Himself to know His own substance perfectly, the aforesaid light is a likeness of God, inasmuch as it conduces to the seeing of God’s substance. But no intellectual substance can be a likeness of God in this sense. For, since the divine simplicity is not equaled by any created substance, it is not possible for a created substance to have its entire perfection in the same identity; indeed, this is proper to God, as we showed in Book One [28], for He is being, understanding and blessed, identically. So, in a created intellectual substance, the light whereby it is beatified in the divine vision is one thing, while the light whereby it is in any sense perfected within its natural species, and whereby it understands in a manner proportioned to its substance, is quite a different thing. From this the answer to the third argument is evident. [11] Now, the fourth is answered by the fact that the vision of the divine substance exceeds every natural power, as we have shown. Hence, the light whereby the created intellect is perfected for the vision of the divine substance must be supernatural. [12] Nor does the fact that God is called infinite hinder the vision of the divine substance, as the fifth argument suggested. For, He is not called infinite in the privative sense, as quantity is. This latter kind of infinity is rationally unknown, because it is like matter devoid of form, which is the principle of knowledge. Rather, He is called infinite in the negative sense, like a self-subsistent form, not limited by matter receiving it. Hence, a being which is infinite in this sense is most knowable in itself. [13] Now, the proportion of the created intellect to the understanding of God is not, in fact, based on a commensuration in an existing proportion, but on the fact that proportion means any relation of one thing to another, as of matter to form, or of cause to effect. In this sense, then, nothing prevents there being a proportion of creature to God on the basis of a relation of one who understands to the thing understood, just as on the basis of the relation of effect to cause. Hence the answer to the sixth objection is clear.

Chapter

THAT THE CREATED INTELLECT DOES NOT COMPREHEND THE DIVINE SUBSTANCE

[1] However, since the type of action appropriate to any agent depends on the efficacy of its active principle, and thus a thing whose heat is stronger performs the act of heating more intensely, then it must be that the manner of knowing depends on the efficacy of the principle of the act of knowing. [2] Now, the aforementioned light is a certain principle of divine knowledge, because the created intellect is elevated by it to the seeing of the divine substance. Therefore, the mode of the divine vision must be commensurate with the power of this light. Of course, the aforementioned light, in its power, falls far short of the clarity of the divine intellect. So, it is impossible for the divine substance to be seen as perfectly by means of this kind of light, as it is seen by the divine intellect itself. Indeed, the divine intellect sees its substance as perfectly as its perfect capacity to be seen permits. In fact, the truth of the divine substance and the clarity of the divine intellect are equal, or, better, they are but one. So, it is impossible for a created intellect, by means of the aforesaid light, to see the divine substance as perfectly as its perfect capacity to be seen permits. Now, everything that is comprehended by a knower is known by him in as perfect a way as the knowable object permits. For instance, a person who knows that a triangle has three angles equal to two right angles, but merely as a matter of opinion on the basis of probable reasoning, since it is said to be so by wise men, does not yet comprehend it; but only the man who knows this as a definite knowable object, by means of whatever is its cause. It is impossible, then, for the created intellect to comprehend the divine substance. [3] Again, a finite power in its operation cannot be on a par with an infinite object. But the divine substance is something infinite in relation to every created intellect, since every created intellect is limited under a definite species. So, it is impossible for any created intellect’s vision to be equal to the seeing of the divine substance; that is to say, to seeing it as perfectly as its capacity to be seen permits. Therefore, no created intellect may comprehend it. [4] Besides, every agent acts perfectly to the extent that it participates in the form which is the principle of its operation. Now, the intelligible form, by which the divine substance is seen, is the divine essence itself, and, though it becomes the intelligible form of the created intellect, the created intellect does not grasp it according to its entire capacity. So, it does not see it as perfectly as its capacity to be seen permits. Therefore, it is not comprehended by the created intellect. [5] Furthermore, no object of comprehension exceeds the limitations of the one who comprehends. Thus, if the created intellect were to comprehend the divine substance, the divine substance would not exceed the limits of the created intellect. But this is impossible. Therefore, it is not possible for a created intellect to comprehend the divine substance. [6] Now, this statement that the divine substance is seen by the created intellect, yet not comprehended, does not mean that part of it is seen and part not seen, because the divine substance is entirely simple. Rather, it means that it is not seen as perfectly by the created intellect as its visibility would permit. In the same way, a man who has an opinion regarding a demonstrative conclusion is said to know it but not to comprehend it, since handdoes not know it perfectly, that is, in a scientific way, though there is no part of it that he does not know.

Chapter

THAT NO CREATED INTELLECT WHILE SEEING GOD SEES ALL THAT CAN BE SEEN IN HIM [1] It is evident from this that, though the created intellect may see the divine substance, it does not know all that can be known through the divine substance. [2] For it is only in the case of the principle being comprehended by the intellect that, once the principle is known, all its effects are of necessity known through it. Indeed, in that case, when all its effects are known from itself, a principle is known in its entire capacity. Now, other things are known through the divine essence, as the effect is known from its cause. But, since the created intellect cannot know the divine substance in such a way that it comprehends it, the intellect does not have to see all things that can be known through this substance, when it sees it. [3] Again, the higher the nature of an intellect, the more does it know: either in the sense of a multitude of things, or even in the sense of a greater number of reasons for the same things. But the divine intellect surpasses every created intellect. So, it knows more than any created intellect does, and it does not know anything without seeing its essence, as we showed in Book One [49]. Therefore, more things are knowable through the divine essence than any created intellect can see, through the aforesaid essence. [4] Besides, the quantity of a power depends on the things that it can do. So, it is the same to know all the things that a power can do and to comprehend the power itself. But, since the divine power is infinite, no created intellect can comprehend it, just as its essence cannot be comprehended, as we have proved. Nor can the created intellect know all that the divine power can do. But all things that the divine power can do are knowable through the divine essence, for God knows all and in no other way than through His essence. Therefore, the created intellect, seeing the divine substance, does not see all that can be seen in God’s substance. [5] Moreover, no cognoscitive power knows a thing except under the rational character of its proper object. For instance, we do not know anything by sight except according as it is colored. Now, the proper object of the intellect is that which is, that is, the substance of a thing, as is stated in Book III of On the Soul [4: 429b 10]. Therefore, whatever the intellect knows about any thing, it knows through knowing the substance of the thing. Consequently, in any demonstration through which the proper accidents become known to us, we take as our principle that which is, as is stated in Posterior Analytics I [4: 73a 37]. Now, if the intellect knows the substance of a thing through its accidents, in accordance with what is said in Book I of On the Soul [1: 402b 21], that “the accidents contribute a good deal to the knowing of that which is,” this is accidental, inasmuch as the intellect must attain to substance through the knowledge of sensible accidents. For this reason, this procedure has no place in mathematics, but only in the area of physical things. Therefore, whatever is in a thing and cannot be known through a knowledge of its substance must be unknown to the intellect. However, what a volitional agent wills cannot be known through a knowledge of his substance, for the will does not incline to its object in a purely natural way; this is why the will and nature are said to be two active principles. So, an intellect cannot know what a volitional agent wills except, perhaps, through certain effects. For instance, when we see someone acting voluntarily we may know what he wishes: either through their cause, as God knows our will acts, just as He does His other effects, because He is for us a cause of our willing; or by means of one person indicating his wish to another, as when a man expresses his feeling in speech. And so, since many things are dependent on the simple will of God, as is partly clear from earlier considerations, and will later be more evident, though the created intellect may see God’s, substance, it does not know all that God sees through His substance. [6] Of course, someone can object against the foregoing that God’s substance is something greater than all the things which He can make, or understand, or will, apart from Himself; hence, if the created intellect can see God’s substance, it is much more possible for it to know all things which God understands, or wills, or makes, except for Himself. [7] But, if it is carefully considered, the fact that something is known in itself does not have the same meaning as that it is known in its cause. For some things easily known in themselves are not, however, easily known in their causes. So, it is true that it is a greater thing to understand the divine substance than anything whatever other than that substance which might be known in itself. However, to know the divine substance and to see its effects in it is a more perfect knowledge than to know the divine substance without seeing the effects in it. And this seeing of the divine substance can be done without comprehension of it. But for all things which can be understood through it to be known is something which cannot happen without comprehending this substance, as is evident from what we have said.

Chapter

THAT EVERY INTELLECT, WHATEVER ITS LEVEL, CAN BE A PARTICIPANT IN THE DIVINE VISION

[1] Since the created intellect is exalted to the vision of the divine substance by a certain supernatural light, as is evident from what has been said, there is no created intellect so low in its nature that it cannot be elevated to this vision. [2] It has been shown, in fact, that this light cannot be connatural with any creature, but, that it surpasses every created nature in its power. But what is done by supernatural power is not hindered by a diversity of nature, since divine power is infinite. And so, in the case of the healing of an afflicted person, accomplished miraculously, it makes no difference whether the person is much or little afflicted. Therefore, the varying level of the intellectual nature does not hinder the lowest member of such a nature from being able to be brought to this vision by the aforementioned light. [3] Again, the gap between the intellect, at its highest natural level, and God is infinite in perfection and goodness. But the distance from the highest to the lowest intellect is finite, for there cannot be an infinite distance between one finite being and another. So, the distance which lies between the lowest created intellect and the highest one is like nothing in comparison to the gap which lies between the highest created intellect and God. Now, that which is practically nothing cannot make a noticeable difference; thus, the distance between the center of the earth and our level of vision is like nothing in comparison with the distance that lies between our eye level and the eighth sphere, in regard to which sphere the whole earth takes the place of a point; this is why no noticeable variation results from the fact that astronomers in their demonstrations use our eye level of sight as the center of the earth. Therefore, it makes no difference what level of intellect it is that is elevated to the vision of God by the aforementioned light: it may be the highest, the lowest, or one in the middle. [4] Besides, it was proved above that every intellect naturally desires the vision of the divine substance, but natural desire cannot be incapable of fulfillment. Therefore, any created intellect whatever can attain to the vision of the divine substance, and the inferiority of its nature is no impediment. [5] Hence it is that the Lord promises men the glory of the angels: “They shall be,” He says, speaking of men, “like the angels of God in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). And also it is said that there is “the same measure for man and for angel” (Apoc. 21:3-7). For this reason, too, almost everywhere in Sacred Scripture angels are described in the shape of men: either wholly, as is evident of the angels who appeared to Abraham in the likeness of men (Gen. 18:2); or partially, as is the case of the animals of whom it is said that “they had the hands of a man under their wings” (Ez. 1:8). [6] By this conclusion we refute the error of those who have said that the human soul, no matter how much it be elevated, cannot attain equality with the higher intellects.

Chapter

THAT ONE BEING IS ABLE TO SEE GOD MORE PERFECTLY THAN ANOTHER

[1] Since the mode of operation results from the form which is the principle of operation, and since the principle of the vision in which the created intellect sees the divine substance is the aforementioned light, as is clear from what we have said, the mode of the divine vision must be in accord with the mode of this light. Now, it is possible for there to be different degrees of participation in this light, and so one intellect may be more perfectly illuminated than another. Therefore, it is possible that one of those who see God may see Him more perfectly than another, even though both see His substance. [2] Again, whenever there is a highest member which surpasses others in a genus, we also find that there are degrees of more and less, depending on the greater proximity to, or distance from, this highest member. For instance, certain things are more or less hot depending on whether they are more or less near to fire, which is the highest type of hot thing. But God sees His own substance most perfectly, being the only One Who comprehends it, as we showed above. And so, of those who see Him, one may see His substance more or less than another, depending on whether one is more or less near to Him. [3] Besides, the light of glory elevates to the divine vision due to the fact that it is a certain likeness of the divine intellect, as we have already stated. Now, it is possible for a thing to become more or less like God. Therefore, it is possible for one to see the divine substance more or less perfectly. [4] Furthermore, because the end is related in a proportional way to the things which are directed to the end, these things must participate in the end differently, depending on the different ways in which they are disposed toward the end. But the vision of the divine substance is the ultimate end of every intellectual substance, as is clear from what we have said. Now, not all intellectual substances are disposed with equal perfection to the end; some, in fact, are more virtuous and others less, and virtue is the road to felicity. So, there must be diversity within the divine vision: some seeing the divine substance more perfectly; others, less perfectly. [5] Thus it is that, in order to indicate the variation in this felicity, the Lord says: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions” (John 14:2). [6] On this basis, then, the error of those who say that all rewards are equal is refuted. [7] Moreover, just as the different degrees of glory among the blessed are evident from the mode of this vision, so from the side of the object that is seen the glory appears to be the same, for the felicity of each person is due to his seeing God’s substance, as we proved. Therefore, it is the same being that makes all blessed; yet they do not all grasp happiness therefrom in equal degree. [8] Hence, there is no contradiction between the foregoing and what our Lord teaches (Matt. 20:10), that to all who labor in the vineyard, though they may not do equal work, there is paid nevertheless the same reward, namely, a penny, because it is the same reward that is given to all, to be seen and enjoyed, namely, God. [9] On this point we must also take into consideration the fact that the order of corporeal movements is somewhat contrary to that of spiritual movements. For there is numerically the same first subject for all corporeal motions, but the ends are different. While there are, on the other hand, different first subjects for spiritual movements, that is to say, for acts of intellectual apprehension and of willing, their end is, however, numerically the same.

Chapter

HOW THOSE WHO SEE THE DIVINE SUBSTANCE MAY SEE ALL THINGS

[1] Since the vision of the divine substance is the ultimate end of every intellectual substance, as is evident from what we have said, and since the natural appetite of everything comes to rest when the thing reaches its ultimate end, the natural appetite of an intellectual substance must come to rest completely when it sees the divine substance. Now, the natural appetite of the intellect is to know the genera and species and powers of all things, and the whole order of the universe; human investigation of each of the aforementioned items indicates this. Therefore, each one who sees the divine substance knows all the things mentioned above. [2] Again, the intellect and the senses differ on this point as is clear from Book III of On the Soul [4: 429a 14], the power to sense is destroyed, or weakened, by the more striking sense objects, so that later it is unable to perceive weaker objects; but the intellect, not being corrupted or hindered by its object but only perfected, after understanding a greater object of the intellect, is not less able to understand other intelligibles but more able. Now, the highest object in the genus of intelligible objects is the divine substance. So, the intellect which is elevated by divine light in order to see God’s substance is much more perfected by this same light, so that it may understand all other objects which exist in the nature of things. [3] Besides, intelligible being is not of lesser scope than natural being, but perhaps it is more extensive; indeed, intellect is from its origin capable of understanding all things existing in reality, and it also understands things that have no natural being, such as negations and privations. So, whatever things are needed for the perfection of natural being are also needed for the perfection of intelligible being, and even more. But the perfection of intelligible being is present when the intellect reaches its ultimate end, just as the perfection of natural being consists in the very establishment of things in actual being. Therefore, God shows the intellect that is seeing Him all the things which He has produced for the perfection of the universe. [4] Moreover, although one of the intellects seeing God may see Him more perfectly than another, as we have shown, each one sees Him so perfectly that its whole natural capacity is fulfilled. Or, rather, this vision exceeds all natural capacity, as we have shown. So, each one seeing the divine substance knows in this divine substance all the things to which its natural capacity extends. But the natural capacity of every intellect extends to the knowing of all genera and species and orders of things. Therefore, each one who sees God will know these things in the divine substance. [5] Hence it is that the Lord replies to Moses, when he asks for the vision of the divine substance: “I will show thee all good” (Exod, 33:19). And Gregory says: “What do they not know, who know Him Who knows all things?” [6] Moreover, if the foregoing statements are carefully considered, it becomes clear that, in a way, those who see the divine substance do see all things; whereas, in another way, they do not. Indeed, if the word all means whatever things pertain to the perfection of the universe, it is obvious from what has been said that those who see the divine substance do see all things, as the arguments that have just been advanced show. For, since the intellect is in some way all things, whatever things belong to the perfection of nature belong also in their entirety to the perfection of intelligible being. For this reason, according to Augustine’s Literal Commentary on Genesis, whatever things have been made by the Word of God to subsist in their proper nature have also come to be in the angelic understanding, so that they might be understood by the angels. Now, within the perfection of natural being belong the nature of species and their properties and powers, for the inclination of nature is drawn to the natures of species, since individuals are for the sake of the species. So, it is pertinent to the perfection of intellectual substance to know the natures of all species and their powers and proper accidents. Therefore, this will be obtained in the final beatitude through the vision of the divine essence. Moreover, through the cognition of natural species the individuals existing under these species are known by the intellect that sees God, as can be made evident from what has been said above on the knowledge appropriate to God and the angels. [7] However, if the term all means all the things that God knows in seeing His own essence, then no created intellect sees all things in God’s substance, as we have showed above. [8] But this can be considered under several points. First, in regard to those things which God can make but has not made, nor will ever make. Indeed, all things of this kind cannot be known unless His power is comprehended, and this is not possible for any intellectual creature, as we showed above. Hence, the statement in Job 11 [7ff]: “Do you think you can understand the steps of God, and find out the Almighty perfectly? He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? He is deeper than hell, and how will you know? His measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.” Indeed, these things are not said as though God were great in quantitative dimensions, but because His power is not limited to all things which are seen to be great, for, on the contrary, He can make even greater things. [9] Secondly, let us consider it in regard to the reasons for the things that have been made: the intellect cannot know all of these unless it comprehend the divine goodness. For, the reason for everything that has been made is derived from the end which its maker intended. But the end of all things made by God is divine goodness. Therefore, the reason for the things that have been made is so that the divine goodness might be diffused among things. And so, one would know all the reasons for things created if he knew all the goods which could come about in created things in accord with the order of divine wisdom. This would be to comprehend divine goodness And wisdom, something no created intellect can do. Hence it is said: “I understand that man can find no reason of all those works of God” (Eccle. 8:17). [10] Thirdly, we may consider the point in regard to those things which depend on the will of God alone: for instance, predestination, election, justification, and other similar things which pertain to the sanctification of the creature. On this matter, it is said: “No man knows the things of a man, but the spirit of man that is in him. So the things also that are of God, no man knows, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11).

Chapter

THAT THOSE WHO SEE GOD SEE ALL THINGS IN HIM AT ONCE

[1] Now that we have shown that the created intellect, seeing the divine substance, understands all the species of things in God’s very substance, and that whatever things are seen by one species must be seen at once and by one vision, since a vision corresponds to the principle of the vision, it necessarily follows that the intellect which sees the divine substance contemplates all things at once and not in succession. [2] Again, the highest and perfect felicity of intellectual nature consists in the vision of God, as we showed above. But felicity is not a matter of habit but of act, since it is the ultimate perfection and the ultimate end. So, of the things that are seen through the vision of the divine substance, whereby we are made blessed, all are seen actually. Therefore, one is not first and then another later. [3] Besides, when each thing reaches its ultimate end it rests, for all motion is in order to attain an end. Now, the ultimate end of the intellect is the vision of the divine substance as we showed above. So, the intellect seeing the divine substance is not moved from one intelligible object to another. Therefore, it considers actually at once all the things that it knows through this vision. [4] Moreover, the intellect knows all the species of things in the divine substance, as is clear from what has been said. Now in some genera there are infinite species, for example, of numbers, figures, and proportions. So, the intellect sees an infinity of things in the divine substance. But it could not see all of these unless it saw them at once, for it is impossible to pass through an infinity of things. Therefore, all that the intellect sees in the divine substance must be seen at once. [5] Hence, what Augustine says, in Book XV of The Trinity: “Our thoughts will not then be fleeting, going to and fro from some things to others, but we shall see all our knowledge in one single glance.”

Chapter 61.

THAT THROUGH THE VISION OF GOD ONE BECOMES A PARTAKER OF ETERNAL LIFE

[1] From this consideration it is apparent that the created intellect becomes a partaker in the eternal life through this vision. [2] For, eternity differs from time in this way: time has its being in a sort of succession, whereas the being of eternity is entirely simultaneous. But we have shown that there is no succession in the aforesaid vision; instead, all things that are seen through it are seen at once, and in one view. So, this vision is perfected in a sort of participation in eternity. Moreover, this vision is a kind of life, for the action of the intellect is a kind of life. Therefore, the created intellect becomes a partaker in eternal life through this vision. [3] Again, acts are specified by their objects. But the object of the aforementioned vision is the divine substance in itself, and not in a created likeness of it, as we showed above. Now, the being of the divine substance is in eternity, or, rather, is eternity itself. Therefore, this vision also consists in a participation in eternity. [4] Besides, if a given action is done in time, this will be either because the principle of the action is in time-in this sense the actions of temporal things are temporal; or because of the terminus of the operation, as in the case of spiritual substances which are above time but perform their actions on things subject to time. Now, the aforementioned vision is not in time by virtue of what is seen, for this is the eternal substance; nor by virtue of that whereby the seeing is accomplished, for this also is the eternal substance; nor even by virtue of the agent who sees, that is the intellect, whose being does not come under time, since it is incorruptible, as we proved above. Therefore, this vision consists in a participation in eternity, as completely transcending time. [5] Furthermore, the intellective soul is created “on the border line between eternity and time,” as is stated in the Book on Causes, and as can be shown from our earlier statements. In fact, it is the lowest in the order of intellects, yet its substance is raised above corporeal matter, not depending on it. But its action, as joined to lower things which exist in time, is temporal. Therefore, its action, as joined to higher things which exist above time, participates in eternity. Especially so is the vision by which it sees the divine substance. And so, by this kind of vision it comes into the participation of eternity; and for the same reason, so does any other created intellect that sees God. [6] Hence, the Lord says: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God” (John 17:3).

Chapter

THAT THOSE WHO SEE GOD WILL SEE HIM PERPETUALLY

[1] Now, it is clear from this that those who obtain ultimate felicity as a result of the divine vision never depart from it. [2] For, “everything which at one time exists, and at another does not, is measured by time,” as is clear in Physics IV [12: 221b 28]. But the aforementioned vision, which makes intellectual creatures happy, is not in time but in eternity. So, it is impossible for a person to lose it, once he has become a partaker in it. [3] Again, the intellectual creature does not reach his ultimate end until his natural desire comes to rest. But, just as one naturally desires felicity, so also does he naturally desire everlasting felicity; for, since he is everlasting in his substance, he desires to possess forever that object which is desired for its own sake and not because of something else. Therefore, his felicity would not be the ultimate end unless it endured perpetually. [4] Besides, everything that is possessed with love may cause sorrow, provided it be recognized that such a thing may be lost. But the aforesaid vision which makes men happy is especially loved by its possessors, since it is the most lovable and desirable of objects. Therefore, it would not be possible for them to avoid sorrow if they knew that they would lose it at some time. Now, if it were not perpetual, they would know this, for we have shown already, that, while seeing the divine substance, they also know other things that are naturally so. Hence, they certainly know what kind of vision it is, whether perpetual or to stop at some future time. So, this vision would not be theirs without sorrow. And thus it will not be true felicity which should be made free from all evil, as we showed above. [5] Moreover, that which is naturally moved toward something, as to the end of its motion, may not be removed from it without violence, as in the case of a weight when it is thrown upward. But from what we have said, it is obvious that every intellectual substance tends by natural desire toward that vision. So, it cannot fail to continue that vision, unless because of violence. But nothing is taken away from a thing by violence unless the power removing it is greater than the power which causes it. Now, the cause of the divine vision is God, as we proved above. Therefore, since no power surpasses the divine power, it is impossible for this vision to be taken away by violence. Hence, it will endure forever. [6] Furthermore, if a person ceases to see what he formerly saw, this cessation will be either because the power of sight fails him, as when one dies or goes blind, or because handis impeded in some other way, or it will be because he does not wish to see any longer, as when a man turns away his glance from a thing that he formerly saw, or because the object is taken away. And this is true in general whether we are talking about sensory or intellectual vision. Now, in regard to the intellectual substance that sees God there cannot be a failure of the ability to see God: either because it might cease to exist, for it exists in perpetuity, as we showed above, or because of a failure of the light whereby it sees God, since the light is received incorruptibly both in regard to the condition of the receiver and of the giver. Nor can it lack the will to enjoy such a vision, because it perceives that its ultimate felicity lies in this vision, just as it cannot fail to will to be happy. Nor, indeed, may it cease to see because of a removal of the object, for the object, which is God, is always existing in the same way; nor is He far removed from us, unless by virtue of our removal from Him. So, it is impossible for the vision of God, which makes men happy, ever to fail. [7] Again, it is impossible for a person to will to abandon a good which he is enjoying, unless because of some evil which he perceives in the enjoyment of that good; even if it be simply that it is thought to stand in the way of a greater good. For, just as the appetite desires nothing except under the rational character of a good, so does it shun nothing except under the character of an evil But there can be no evil in the enjoyment of this vision, because it is the best to which the intellectual creature can attain. Nor, in fact, can it be that he who is enjoying this vision might think that there is some evil in it, or that there is something better than it. For the vision of the highest Truth excludes all falsity. Therefore, it is impossible for the intellectual substance that sees God ever to will to be without that vision. [8] Besides, dislike of an object which one formerly enjoyed with delight occurs because this thing produces some kind of real change, destroying or weakening one’s power. And this is why the sense powers, subject to fatigue in their actions because of the changing of the bodily organs by sense objects, are corrupted, even by the best of such objects. Indeed, after a period of enjoyment, they grow to dislike what they formerly perceived with delight. And for this reason we even suffer boredom in the use of our intellect, after a long or strenuous meditation, because our powers that make use of the bodily organs become tired, and intellectual thinking cannot be accomplished without these. But the divine substance does not corrupt; rather, it greatly perfects the intellect. Nor does any act exercised through bodily organs accompany this vision. Therefore, it is impossible for anyone who at one time took joy in the delight of this vision to grow weary of it. [9] Furthermore, nothing that is contemplated with wonder can be tiresome, since as long as the thing remains in wonder it continues to stimulate desire. But the divine substance is always viewed with wonder by any created intellect, since no created intellect comprehends it. So, it is impossible for an intellectual substance to become tired of this vision. And thus, it cannot, of its own will, desist from this vision. [10] Moreover, if any two things were formerly united and later come to be separated, this must be due to a change in one of them. For, just as a relation does not come into being for the first time without a change in one of the things related, so also it does not cease to be without a new change in one of them. Now, the created intellect sees God by virtue of being united to Him in some way, as is clear from what we have said. So, if this vision were to cease, bringing this union to an end, it would have to be done by a change in the divine substance, or in the intellect of the one who sees it. Both of these changes are impossible: for the divine substance is immutable, as we showed in Book One [13], and, also, the intellectual substance is raised above all change when it sees God’s substance. Therefore, it is impossible for anyone to depart from the felicity in which he sees God’s substance. [11] Besides, the nearer a thing is to God, Who is entirely immutable, the less mutable is it and the more lasting. Consequently, certain bodies, because “they are far removed from God,” as is stated in On Generation II [10: 336b 30], cannot endure forever. But no creature can come closer to God than the one who sees His substance. So, the intellectual creature that sees God’s substance attains the highest immutability. Therefore, it is not possible for it ever to lapse from this vision. [12] Hence it is said in the Psalm (83:5): "Blessed are they who dwell in Your house, O Lord: they shall praise You for ever and ever." And in another text: "He shall not be moved for ever that dwells in Jerusalem" (Ps. 124: 1) And again: "Your eyes shall see Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that cannot be removed; neither shall the nails thereof be taken away for ever; neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken, because only there our Lord is magnificent" (Is. 33:20-21). And again: "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God: and he shall go out no more" (Rev. 3:12) [13] By these considerations, then, the error of the Platonists is refuted, for they said that separated souls, after having attained ultimate felicity, would begin to desire to return to their bodies, and having brought to an end the felicity of that life they would again become enmeshed in the troubles of this life; and also the error of Origen, who said that souls and angels, after beatitude, could again return to unhappiness.

Chapter

HOW MAN'S EVERY DESIRE IS FULFILLED IN THAT ULTIMATE FELICITY

[1] From the foregoing it is quite apparent that, in the felicity that comes from the divine vision, every human desire is fulfilled, according to the text of the Psalm (10-2:5): "Who satisfies your desire with good things." And every human effort attains its completion in it. This, in fact, becomes clear to anyone who thinks over particular instances. [2] For there is in man, in so far as he is intellectual, one type of desire, concerned with the knowledge of truth; indeed, men seek to fulfill this desire by the effort of the contemplative life. And this will clearly be fulfilled in that vision, when, through the vision of the First Truth, all that the intellect naturally desires to know becomes known to it, as is evident from what was said above. [3] There is also a certain desire in man, based on his possession of reason, whereby he is enabled to manage lower things; this, men seek to fulfill by the work of the active and civic life. Indeed, this desire is chiefly for this end, that the entire life of man may be arranged in accord with reason, for this is to live in accord with virtue. For the end of the activity of every virtuous man is the good appropriate to his virtue, just as, for the brave man, it is to act bravely. Now, this desire will then be completely fulfilled, since reason will be at its peak strength, having been enlightened by the divine light, so that it cannot swerve away from what is right. [4] Going along, then, with the civic life are certain goods which man needs for civic activities. For instance, there is a high position of honor, which makes men proud and ambitious, if they desire it inordinately. But men are raised through this vision to the highest peak of honor, because they are in a sense united with God, as we pointed out above. For this reason, just as God Himself is the "King of ages" (1 Tim. 1:17), so are the blessed united with Him called kings: "They shall reign with Christ" (Apoc. 20:6). [5] Another object of desire associated with civic life is popular renown; by an inordinate desire for this men are deemed lovers of vainglory. Now, the blessed are made men of renown by this vision, not according to the opinion of men, who can deceive and be deceived, but in accord with the truest knowledge, both of God and of all the blessed. Therefore, this blessedness is frequently termed glory in Sacred Scripture; for instance, it is said in the Psalm (149:5): "The saints shall rejoice in glory." [6] There is, indeed, another object of desire in civic life; namely, wealth. By the inordinate desire and love of this, men become illiberal and unjust. But in this beatitude there is a plenitude of all goods, inasmuch as the blessed come to enjoy Him Who contains the perfection of all good things. For this reason it is said in Wisdom (7:11): “All good things came to me together with her.” Hence it is also said in the Psalm (111:3): “Glory and wealth shall be in His house.” [7] There is even a third desire of man, which is common to him and the other animals, to enjoy pleasures. Men chiefly seek after this in the voluptuous life, and they become intemperate and incontinent through immoderation in regard to it. However, the most perfect delight is found in this felicity: as much more perfect than the delight of the sense, which even brute animals can enjoy, as the intellect is superior to sense power; and also as that good in which we shall take delight is greater than any sensible good, and more intimate, and more continually delightful; and also as that delight is freer from all admixture of sorrow, or concern about trouble. Of this it is said in the Psalm (35:9): “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of your house, and you shall make them drink of the torrent of your pleasure.” [8] There is, moreover, a natural desire common to all things by which they desire their own preservation, to the extent that this is possible: men are made fearful and excessively chary of work that is bard for them by immoderation in this desire. But this desire will then be completely satisfied when the blessed attain perfect sempiternity and are safe from all harm; according to the text of Isaiah (49:10) and Apocalypse 21 [see 7:16]: “They shall no more hunger or thirst, neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat.” [9] And so, it is evident that through the divine vision intellectual substances obtain true felicity, in which their desires are completely brought to rest and in which is the full sufficiency of all the goods which, according to Aristotle,” are required for happiness. Hence, Boethius also says that “happiness is a state of life made perfect by the accumulation of all goods” [ De consolatione philosophiae III, 2]. [10] Now, there is nothing in this life so like this ultimate and perfect felicity as the life of those who contemplate truth, to the extent that it is possible in this life. And so, the philosophers who were not able to get full knowledge of this ultimate happiness identified man’s ultimate happiness with the contemplation which is possible in this life. On this account, too, of all other lives the contemplative is more approved in divine Scripture, when our Lord says: “Mary has chosen the better part,” namely, the contemplation of truth, “which shall not be taken from her” (Luke 10:42). In fact, the contemplation of truth begins in this life, but reaches its climax in the future; whereas the active and civic life does not go beyond the limits of this life.

Chapter

THAT GOD GOVERNS THINGS BY HIS PROVIDENCE

[1] From the points that have been set forth we have adequately established that God is the end of all things. The next possible conclusion from this is that He governs, or rules, the whole of things by His providence. [2] Whenever certain things are ordered to a definite end they all come under the control of the one to whom the end primarily belongs. This is evident in an army: all divisions of an army and their functions are ordered to the commander’s good as an ultimate end, and this is victory. And for this reason it is the function of t he commander to govern the whole army. Likewise, an art which is concerned with the end commands and makes the laws for an art I concerned with means to the end. Thus, the art of civil government commands that of the military; the military commands the equestrian; and the art of navigation commands that of shipbuilding. So, since all things are ordered to divine goodness as an end, as we showed, it follows that God, to Whom this goodness primarily belongs, as something substantially possessed and known and loved, must be the governor of all things. [3] Again, whoever makes a thing for the sake of an end may use the thing for that end. Now, we showed above that all things possessing being in any way whatever are God’s products, and also that God makes all things for an end which is Himself. Therefore, He uses all things by directing them to their end. Now, this is to govern. So, God is the governor of all things through His providence. [4] Besides, we have shown that God is the first unmoved mover. The first mover does not move fewer things, but more, than the secondary movers, for the latter do not move other things without the first. Now, all things that are moved are so moved because of the end, as we showed above. So, God moves all things to their ends, and He does so through His understanding, for we have shown above that He does not act through a necessity of His nature, but through understanding and will. Now, to rule or govern by providence is simply to move things toward an end through understanding. Therefore, God by His providence governs and rules all things that are moved toward their end, whether they be moved corporeally, or spiritually as one who desires is moved by an object of desire. [5] Moreover, that natural bodies are moved and made to operate for an end, even though they do not know their end, was proved by the fact that what happens to them is always, or often, for the best; and, if their workings resulted from art, they would not be done differently. But it is impossible for things that do not know their end to work for that end, and to reach that end in an orderly way, unless they are moved by someone possessing knowledge of the end, as in the case of the arrow directed to the target by the archer. So, the whole working of nature must be ordered by some sort of knowledge. And this, in fact, must lead back to God, either mediately or immediately, since every lower art and type of knowledge must get its principles from a higher one, as we also see in the speculative and operative sciences. Therefore, God governs the world by His providence. [6] Furthermore, things that are different in their natures do not come together into one order unless they are gathered into a unit by one ordering agent. But in the whole of reality things are distinct and possessed of contrary natures; yet all come together in one order, and while some things make use of the actions of others, some are also helped or commanded by others. Therefore, there must be one orderer and governor of the whole of things. [7] Moreover, it is not possible to give an explanation, based on natural necessity, for the apparent motions of celestial bodies, since some of them have more motions than others, and altogether incompatible ones. So, there must be an ordering of their motions by some providence, and, consequently, of the motions and workings of all lower things that are controlled by their motions. [8] Besides, the nearer a thing is to its cause, the more does it participate in its influence. Hence, if some perfection is more perfectly participated by a group of things the more they approach a certain object, then this is an indication that this object is the cause of the perfection which is participated in various degrees. For instance, if certain things become hotter as they come nearer to fire, this is an indication that fire is the cause of beat. Now, things are found to be more perfectly ordered the nearer they are to God. For, in the lower types of bodies, which are very far away from God in the dissimilarity of their natures, there is sometimes found to be a falling away from the regular course of nature, as in the case of monstrosities and other chance events; but this never happens in the case of the celestial bodies, though they are somewhat mutable, and it does not occur among separate intellectual substances. Therefore, it is plain that God is the cause of the whole order of things. So, He is the governor of the whole universe of reality through His providence. [9] Furthermore, as we proved above, God brings all things into being, not from the necessity of His nature, but by understanding and will. Now, there can be no other ultimate end for His understanding and will than His goodness, that is, to communicate it to things, as is clear from what has been established. But things participate in the divine goodness to the extent that they are good, by way of likeness. Now, that which is the greatest good in caused things is the good of the order of the universe; for it is most perfect, as the Philosopher says.” With this, divine Scripture is also in agreement, for it is said in Genesis (1:31): “God saw all the things He had made, and they were very good,” while He simply said of the individual works, that “they were good.” So, the good of the order of things caused by God is what is chiefly willed and caused by God. Now, to govern things is nothing but to impose order on them. Therefore, God Himself governs all things by His understanding and will. [10] Moreover, any agent intending an end is more concerned about what is nearer to the ultimate end, because this nearer thing is also an end for other things. Now, the ultimate end of the divine will is His goodness, and the nearest thing to this latter, among created things, is the good of the order of the whole universe, since every particular good of this or that thing is ordered to it as to an end (just as the less perfect is ordered to what is more perfect); and so, each part is found to be for the sake of its whole. Thus, among created things, what God cares for most is the order of the universe. Therefore, He is its governor. [11] Again, every created thing attains its ultimate perfection through its proper operation, for the ultimate end and the perfection of a thing must be either its operation or the term or product of its operation. Of course, the form, by virtue of which the thing exists, is its first perfection, as is evident from Book II of On the Soul [1: 412a 28]. But the order of caused things, according to the distinction of their natures and levels, proceeds from divine Wisdom, as we showed in Book Two. So also does the order of their operations, whereby caused things draw nearer to their ultimate end. Now, to order the actions of certain things toward their end is to govern them. Therefore, God provides governance and regulation for things by the providence of His wisdom. [12] Hence it is that Sacred Scripture proclaims God as Lord and King, according to the text of the Psalm (99:2): “The Lord, He is God”; and again: “God is the King of all the earth” (Ps. 46:8); for it is the function of the king and lord to rule and govern those subject to their command. And so, Sacred Scripture attributes the course of things to divine decree: “Who commands the sun, and it rises not, and shuts up the stars, as it were under a seal” (Job 9:7); and also in the Psalm (10:6): “He has made a decree and it shall not pass away.” [13] Now, by this conclusion the error of the ancient philosophers of nature is refuted, for they said that all things come about as a result of material necessity, the consequence of which would be that all things happen by chance and not from the order of providence.

Chapter

THAT GOD PRESERVES THINGS IN BEING

[1] Now, from the fact that God rules things by His providence it follows that He preserves them in being. [2] Indeed, everything whereby things attain their end pertains to the governance of these things. For things are said to be ruled or governed by virtue of their being ordered to their end. Now, things are ordered to the ultimate end which God intends, that is, divine goodness, not only by the fact that they perform their operations, but also by the fact that they exist, since, to the extent that they exist, they bear the likeness of divine goodness which is the end for things, as we showed above. Therefore, it pertains to divine providence that things are preserved in being. [3] Again, the same principle must be the cause of a thing and of its preservation, for the preservation of a thing is nothing but the continuation of its being. Now, we showed above that God, through His understanding, and will, is the cause of being for all things. Therefore, He preserves all things in being through His intellect and will. [4] Besides, no particular univocal agent can be the unqualified cause of its species; for instance, this individual man cannot be the cause of the human species, for handwould then be the cause of every man, and, consequently, of himself—which is impossible. But this individual man is the cause, properly speaking, of that individual man. Now, this man exists because human nature is present in this matter, which is the principle of individuation. So, this man is not the cause of a man, except in the sense that he is the cause of a human form coming to be in this matter. This is to be the principle of the generation of an individual man. So, it is apparent that neither this man, nor any other univocal agent in nature, is the cause of anything except the generation of this or that individual thing. Now, there must be some proper agent cause of the human species itself; its composition shows this, and also the ordering of its parts, which is uniform in all cases unless it be accidentally impeded. And the same reasoning applies to all the other species of natural things. Now, this cause is God, either mediately or immediately. For we have shown that He is the first cause of all things. So, He must stand in regard to the species of things as the individual generating agent in nature does to generation, of which he is the direct cause. But generation ceases as soon as the operation of the generative agent ceases. Therefore, all the species of things would also cease as soon as the divine operation ceased. So, He preserves things in being through His operation. [5] Moreover, though motion may occur for any existing thing, motion is apart from the being of the thing. Now, nothing. corporeal, unless it be moved, is the cause of anything, for no body acts unless by motion, as Aristotle proves. Therefore, no body is the cause of the being of anything, in so far as it is being, but it is the cause of its being moved toward being, that is, of the thing’s becoming. Now, the being of any thing is participated being, since no thing is its own act of being, except God, as we proved above. And thus, God Himself, Who is His own act of being, must be primarily and essentially the cause of every being. So, divine operation is related to the being of things as the motion of a corporeal mover is to the becoming and passive movement of the things that are made or moved. Now, it is impossible for the becoming and passive movement of a thing to continue if the motion of the mover cease. Therefore, it is impossible for the being of a thing to continue except through divine operation. [6] Furthermore, just as art work presupposes a work of nature, so does a work of nature presuppose the work of God the creator. In fact, the material for art products comes from nature, while that of natural products comes through creation by God. Moreover, art objects are preserved in being by the power of natural things; a home, for instance, by the solidity of its stories. Therefore, all natural things are preserved in being by nothing other than the power of God. [7] Again, the impression of an agent does not continue in the product, if the agent’s action ceases, unless the impression be converted into the nature of the product. Indeed, the forms of things generated, and their properties, remain in them after generation until the end, since they become natural to them. And likewise, habits are difficult to change because they are turned into a nature. But dispositions and passions, whether of the body or soul, endure for a little while after the action of the agent, but not forever, since they are present in a state transitional to nature. Now, whatever belongs to the nature of a higher type of being does not last at all after the action of the agent; light, for instance, does not continue in a diaphanous body when the source of light has gone away. Now, to be is not the nature or essence of any created thing, but only of God, as we showed in Book One [22]. Therefore, no thing can remain in being if divine operation cease. [8] Furthermore, there are two positions regarding the origin of things: one, from faith, holding that things have been brought into being by God, at the beginning; and the position of certain philosophers, that things have emanated from God eternally. Now, in either position one has to say that things are preserved in being by God. For, if things are brought into being by God, after they were not existing, then the being of things, and similarly their non-being, must result from the divine will; for He has permitted things not to be, when He so willed; and He made things to be, when He so willed. Hence, they exist just as long as He wills them to be. Therefore, His will is the preserver of things. But, if things have eternally emanated from God, we cannot give a time or instant at which they first flowed forth from God. So, either they never were produced by God, or their being is always flowing forth from God as long as they exist. Therefore, He preserves things in being by His operation. [9] Hence it is said: “Upholding all things by the word of His Power” (Heb. 1:3). And Augustine says: “The power of the Creator, and the strength of the Omnipotent and All-sustaining is the cause of the subsistence of every creature. And, if this power were ever to cease its ruling of the things which have been created, their species would at once come to an end, and all nature would collapse. For the situation is not like that of a man who has built a house and has then gone away, and, while he is not working and is absent, his work stands. For, if God were to withdraw His rule from it, the world could not stand, even for the flick of an eye.” [10] Now, by this conclusion the position of the exponents of the Law of the Moors is refuted, for, in order to be able to maintain that the world needs God’s preservation, they took the view that all forms are accidents, and that no accident endures through two instants. So that, in this view, the informing of things would be in continuous process, as if a thing would not need an agent cause except while in the process of becoming. Hence, also, some of these people are said to claim that indivisible bodies (out of which, they say, all substances are composed and which alone, according to them, possess stability) could last for about an hour if God were to withdraw His governance from things. Also, some of them say that a thing could not even cease to be unless God caused in it the accident of “cessation.”—Now, all these views are clearly absurd.

Chapter

THAT NOTHING GIVES BEING EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS IT ACTS BY DIVINE POWER

[1] From this it is manifest that no lower agents give being except in so far as they act by divine power. [2] Indeed, a thing does not give being except in so far as it is an actual being. But God preserves things in being by His providence, as we showed. Therefore, it is as a result of divine power that a thing gives being. [3] Again, when several different agents are subordinated to one agent, the effect that is produced by their common action must be attributed to them as they are united in their participation in the motion and power of this agent. For several agents do not produce one result unless they are as one. It is clear, for example, that all the men in an army work to bring about victory, and they do this by virtue of being subordinated to the leader, whose proper product is victory. Now, we showed in Book One [13] that the first agent is God. So, since being is the common product of all agents, because every agent produces actual being, they must produce this effect because they are subordinated to the first agent and act through His power. [4] Besides, in the case of all agent causes that are ordered, that which is last in the process of generation and first in intention is the proper product of the primary agent. For instance, the form of a house, which is the proper product of the builder, appears later than the preparation of the cement, stones, and timbers, which are made by the lower workmen who come under the builder. Now, in every action, actual being is primarily intended, but is last in the process of generation. In fact, as soon as it is achieved, the agent’s action and the patient’s motion come to rest. Therefore, being is the proper product of the primary agent, that is, of God; and all things that give being do so because they act by God’s power. [5] Moreover, the ultimate in goodness and perfection among the things to which the power of a secondary agent extends is that which it can do by the power of the primary agent, for the perfection of the power of the secondary agent is due to the primary agent. Now, that which is most perfect of all effects is the act of being, for every nature or form is perfected by the fact that it is actual, and it is related to actual being as potency is to act. Therefore, the act of being is what secondary agents produce through the power of the primary agent. [6] Besides, the order of the effects follows the order of the causes. But the first among all effects is the act of being, since all other things are certain determinations of it. Therefore, being is the proper effect of the primary agent, and all other things produce being because they act through the power of the primary agent. Now, secondary agents, which are like particularizers and determinants of the primary agent’s action, produce as their proper effects other perfections which determine being. [7] Furthermore, that which is of a certain kind through its essence is the proper cause of what is of such a kind by participation. Thus, fire is the cause of all things that are afire. Now, God alone is actual being through His own essence, while other beings are actual beings through participation, since in God alone is actual being identical with His essence. Therefore, the being of every existing thing is His proper effect. And so, everything that brings something into actual being does so because it acts through God’s power. [8] Hence it is said: “God created, that all things might be” (Wis. 1:14). And in several texts of Scripture it is stated that God makes all things. Moreover, it is said in the Book on Causes that not even an intelligence gives being “unless in so far as it is divine,” that is; in so far as it acts through divine power.

Chapter

THAT GOD IS THE CAUSE OF OPERATION FOR ALL THINGS THAT OPERATE

[1] It is evident, next, that God is the cause enabling all operating agents to operate. In fact, every operating agent is a cause of being in some way, either of substantial or of accidental being. Now, nothing is a cause of being unless by virtue of its acting through the power of God, as we showed. Therefore, every operating agent acts through God’s power. [2] Again, every operation that results from a certain power is attributed causally to the thing which has given the power. For instance, the natural motion of heavy and light things results from their form, depending on whether they are heavy or light, and so the cause of their motion is said to be the generating agent that has given them the form. Now, every power in any agent is from God, as from a first principle of all perfection. Therefore, since every operation results from a power, the cause of every operation must be God. [3] Besides, it is obvious that every action which cannot continue after the influence of a certain agent has ceased results from that agent. For instance, the manifestation of colors could not continue if the sun’s action of illuminating the air were to cease, so there is no doubt that the sun is the cause of the manifestation of colors. And the same thing appears in connection with violent motion, for it stops with the cessation of violence on the part of the impelling agent. But just as God has not only given being to things when they first began to exist, and also causes being in them as long as they exist, conserving things in being, as we have shown, so also has He not merely granted operative powers to them when they were originally created, but He always causes these powers in things. Hence, if this divine influence were to cease, every operation would cease. Therefore, every operation of a thing is traced back to Him as to its cause. [4] Moreover, whatever agent applies active power to the doing of something, it is said to be the cause of that action. Thus, an artisan who applies the power of a natural thing to some action is said to be the cause of the action; for instance, a cook of the cooking which is done by means of fire. But every application of power to operation is originally and primarily made by God. For operative powers are applied to their proper operations by some movement of body or of soul. Now, the first principle of both types of movement is God. Indeed, He is the first mover and is altogether incapable of being moved, as we shown above. Similarly, also, every movement of a will whereby Powers are applied to operation is reduced to God, as a first object of appetite and a first agent of willing. Therefore; every operation should be attributed to God, as to a first and principal agent. [5] Furthermore, in all agent causes arranged in an orderly way the subsequent causes must act through the power of the first cause. For instance, in the natural order of things, lower bodies act through the power of the celestial bodies; and, again, in the order of voluntary things, all lower artisans work in accord with the direction of the top craftsman. Now, in the order of agent causes, God il&e first cause, as we showed in Book One [64]. And so, all lower agent causes act through His power. But the cause of an action is the one by whose power the action is done rather than the one who acts: the principal agent, for instance, rather than the instrument. Therefore, God is more especially the cause of every action than are the secondary agent causes. [6] Again, every agent is ordered through his operation to an ultimate end, for either the operation itself is the end, or the thing that is made, that is, the product of the operation. Now, to order things to their end is the prerogative of God Himself, as we showed above. So, we have to say that every agent acts by the divine power. Therefore, He is the One Who is the cause of action for all things. [7] Hence it is said: “Lord, Thou hast wrought all our works in us” (Is. 26:12); and: “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5); and: “It is God Who works in us both to will and to accomplish according to His good will” (Phil. 2: 13). And for this reason, the products of nature are often attributed, in Scripture, to divine working, because it is He Who works in every agent operating naturally or voluntarily, as the text has it: “Have you not milked me as milk, and curdled me like cheese? You have clothed me with skin; You havet put me together with bones and sinews” (Job 10:10-11); and in the Psalm (17:14): “The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Highest gave His voice: hail and coals of fire.”

Chapter

THAT GOD IS EVERYWHERE

[1] As a consequence, it is clear that God must be everywhere and in all things. [2] For, the mover and the thing moved must be simultaneous, as the Philosopher proves. But God moves all things to their operations, as we have shown. Therefore, He is in all things. [3] Again, everything that is in a place, or in something, is in some way in contact with it. For instance, a bodily thing is in place in something according to the contact of dimensive quantity; while an incorporeal thing is said to be in something according to the contact of power, since it lacks dimensive quantity. And so, an incorporeal thing is related to its presence in something by its power, in the same way that a corporeal thing is related to its presence in something by dimensive quantity. Now, if there were any body possessed of infinite dimensive quantity, it would have to be everywhere. So, if there be an incorporeal being possessed of infinite power, it must be everywhere. But we showed in Book One [43] that God is of infinite power. Therefore, He is everywhere. [4] Besides, as a Particular cause is to a particular effect, so is a universal cause to a universal effect. Now, a particular cause must be simultaneous with its proper particular effect. Thus, fire heats through its essence, and the soul confers life on the body through its essence. Therefore, since God is the universal cause of the whole of being, as we showed in Book Two [15], it must be that wherever being is found, the divine presence is also there. [5] Moreover, whenever an agent is present only to one of its effects, its action cannot be transferred to another, unless by using the first effect as an intermediary, because the agent and the patient must be simultaneous. For instance, the organic motive power does not 4ve a member of the body except through the heart as an intermediary. So, if God were present to but one of His effects—for instance, to the first moved sphere which would be moved immediately by Him—it would follow that His action could not be transferred to another thing except through the mediation of this sphere. Now, this is not appropriate. Indeed, if the action of any agent cannot be transferred to other things except through the mediation of a first effect, then this effect must correspond proportionally with the agent according to its entire power; otherwise, the agent could not use his entire power. We see an instance of this in the fact that all the motions that the motive power can cause can be carried out through the heart. But there is no creature that can serve as a medium for the carrying out of whatever the divine power can do, for divine power infinitely surpasses every created thing, as is evident from the things shown in Book One [43]. Therefore, it is not appropriate to say that divine action does not extend to other effects except through the mediation of a first one. So, He is not merely present in one of His effects, but in all of them. The same reasoning will be used if a person says that He is present in some and not in others, because, no matter how many divine effects are taken, they could not be sufficient to carry out the execution of the divine power. [6] Furthermore, an agent cause must be simultaneous with its proximate and immediate effect. But there is in everything a proximate and immediate effect of God Himself. For we showed in Book Two [21] that God alone can create. Now, there is in everything something caused by creation: prime matter in the case of corporeal things, in incorporeal things their simple essences, as is evident from the things that we determined in Book Two [15ff]. Therefore, God must be simultaneously present in all things, particularly since He continually and always preserves in being those things which He has brought into being from nonbeing, as has been shown. [7] Hence it is said: “I fill heaven and earth” (Jer. 23:24); and in the Psalm (138:8): “If I ascend into heaven, You art there; if I descend into hell, You art present.” [8] Through this conclusion, moreover, the error is set aside of those who say that God is in some definite part of the world (for instance, in the first heaven and in the eastern section) and that He is consequently the principle of heavenly motion.—Of course, this statement of theirs could be supported, if soundly interpreted: not, for instance, that we may understand God as being confined to some determinate part of the world, but that the source of all corporeal motions, according to the order of nature, takes its start from a determinate part, being moved by God. Because of this He is spoken of in Sacred Scripture also as being in the heavens in a particular way; in the text of Isaiah toward the end (66:1): “Heaven is My throne,” and in the Psalm (113: 16): “The heaven of heaven is the Lord’s,” and so on.—But from the fact that, apart from the order of nature, God performs some operation in even the lowest of bodies which cannot be, caused by the power of a celestial body it is clearly shown that God is immediately present, not only in the celestial body, but also in the lowest things. [9] But we must not think that God is everywhere in such a way that He is divided in various areas of place, as if one part of Him were here and another part there. Rather, His entire being is everywhere. For God, as a completely simple being, has no parts. [10] Nor is His simplicity something like that of a point, which is the terminus of a continuous line and thus has a definite position on this line, with the consequence that one point is impossible unless it A at one, indivisible place. In fact, God is indivisible, in the sense of existing entirely outside the genus of continuous things. And so, He is not determined in regard to place, either large or small, by any necessity of His essence requiring Him to be in a certain place, for Ile has been from eternity prior to all place. But by the immensity of His power He touches upon all things that are in place, for He is the universal cause of being, as we said. Thus, He is present in His entirety wherever He is, since He touches upon all things by His simple power. [11] Yet, we must not think that He is present in things, in the sense of being combined with them as one of their parts. For it was shown in Book One [17, 27] that He is neither the matter nor the form of anything. Instead, He is in all things in the fashion of an agent cause.

Chapter

ON THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO TAKE AWAY PROPER ACTIONS FROM NATURAL THINGS

[1] From this conclusion some men have taken the opportunity to fall into error, thinking that no creature has an active role in the production of natural effects. So, for instance, fire does not give heat, but God causes heat in the presence of fire, and they said like things about all other natural effects. [2] Now, they tried to support this error by arguments pointing out that no form, substantial or accidental, can be brought into being except by way of creation. Indeed, forms and accidents cannot come into being from matter, since they do not have matter as one of their parts. Hence, if they are made, they must be made from nothing, and this is to be created. And because creation is an act of God alone, as we showed in Book Two [21], it would seem to follow that God alone produces both substantial and accidental forms in nature. [3] Of course, the opinion of some philosophers is partly in agreement with this position. In fact, since everything that does not exist through itself is found to be derived from that which does exist through itself, it appears that the forms of things, which are not existing through themselves but in matter, come from forms which are existent through themselves without matter. It is as if forms existing in matter were certain participations in those forms which exist without matter. And because of this, Plato claimed that the species of sensible things are certain forms separate from matter, which are the causes of being for these sensible things, according as these things participate in them. [4] On the other hand, Avicenna maintained that all substantial forms flow forth from the agent Intelligence. But he claimed that accidental forms are dispositions of matter which have arisen from the action of lower agents disposing matter. In this way he avoided the foolish aspects of the preceding erroneous view. [5] Now, an indication of this seemed to lie in the fact that no active power is found to exist in these bodies, except accidental form; for instance, the active and passive qualities, which do not appear to be adequate in their power to cause substantial forms. [6] Moreover, certain things are found, among things here below, which are not generated as like from like; for instance, animals generated as a result of putrefaction. Hence, it seems that the forms of these beings come from higher principles; by the same reasoning, so do other forms, some of which are much more noble. [7] In fact, some people derive an argument for this from the weakness of natural bodies in regard to acting. For every bodily form is combined with quantity, but quantity hinders action and motion. As an indication of this, they assert that the more that is added to the quantity of a body, the heavier it becomes and the more its motion is slowed down. So, from this they conclude that no body is active but only passive. [8] They also try to show this by the fact that every patient is a subject for an agent, and every agent, apart from the first which creates, needs a subject lower than itself. But no substance is lower than corporeal substance. Hence, it appears that no body is active. [9] They also add, in regard to this point, that corporeal substance is at the greatest distance from the first agent; hence, it does not seem to them that active power could reach the whole way to corporeal substance. Instead, just as God is an agent only, so is corporeal substance passive only, for it is the lowest in the genus of things. [10] So, because of these arguments, Avicebron maintained in the book, The Source of Life, that no body is active, but that the power of spiritual substance, passing through bodies, does the actions which seem to be done by bodies. [11] Moreover, certain exponents of the Law of the Moors are reported to adduce in support of this argument the point that even accidents do not come from the action of bodies, because an accident does not pass from subject to subject. Hence, they regard it as impossible for heat to pass over from a hot body into another body heated by it. They say, rather, that all accidents like this are created by God. [12] Now, many inappropriate conclusions follow from the foregoing theories. For, if no lower cause, and especially no bodily one, performs any operation, but, instead, God operates alone in all things, and if God is not changed by the fact that He operates in different things, then different effects would not follow from the diversity of things in which God operates. Now, this appears false to the senses, for cooling does not result from putting something near a hot object, but only heating; nor does the generation of anything except a man result from the semen of man. Therefore, the causality of the lower type of effects is not to be attributed to divine power in such a way as to take away the causality of lower agents. [13] Again, it is contrary to the rational character of wisdom for there to be anything useless in the activities of the possessor of wisdom. But, if created things could in no way operate to produce their effects, and if God alone worked all operations immediately, these other things would be employed in a useless way by Him, for the production of these effects. Therefore, the preceding position is incompatible with divine wisdom. [14] Besides, the giver of some principal part to a thing gives the thing all the items that result from that part. For instance, the cause that gives weight to an elemental body also gives it downward motion. But the ability to make an actual thing results from being actually existent, as is evident in the case of God, for He is pure act and is also the first cause of being for all things, as we showed above. Therefore, if He has communicated His likeness, as far as actual being is concerned, to other things, by virtue of the fact that He has brought things into being, it follows that He has communicated to them His likeness, as far as acting is concerned, so that created things may also have their own actions. [15] Furthermore, the perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause, for a greater power brings about a more perfect effect. But God is the most perfect agent. Therefore, things created by Him obtain perfection from Him. So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power. But, if no creature has any active role in the production of any effect, much is detracted from the perfection of the creature. Indeed, it is part of the fullness of perfection to be able to communicate to another being the perfection which one possesses. Therefore, this position detracts from the divine power. [16] Moreover, as it is the function of the good to make what is good, so it is the prerogative of the highest good to make what is best. But God is the highest good, as we showed in Book One. So, it is His function to make all things best. Now, it is better for a good that is conferred on a thing to be common to many than for it to be exclusive, for “the common good is always found to be more divine than the good of one alone.” But the good of one being becomes common to many if it can pass from one to the other; this cannot occur unless it can diffuse this good to others through its own action. On the other hand, if it lacks the power to transfer this good to others, it continues to keep it exclusively. Therefore, God so communicates His goodness to created beings that one thing which receives it can transfer it to another. Therefore, to take away their proper actions from things is to disparage the divine goodness. [17] Again, to take away order from created things is to deprive them of their best possession, for individual things are good in themselves, but all things together are best because of the order of the whole. Indeed, the whole is always better than its parts, and is their end. Now, if actions be taken away from things, the mutual order among things is removed, for, in regard to things that are different in their natures, there can be no gathering together into a unity of order uniless by the fact that some of them act and others undergo action. Therefore, it is inappropriate to say that things do not have their own actions. [18] Besides, if effects are not produced by the action of created things, but only by the action of God, it is impossible for the power of any created cause to be manifested through its effects. Of course, an effect does not show the power of a cause unless by virtue of the action which proceeding from the power terminates in the effect. Now, the nature of a cause is not known through the effect unless its power is known through this effect, for the power results from the nature. So, if created things have no actions productive of effects, it follows that no nature of anything would ever be known through the effect. And thus, all the knowledge of natural science is taken away from us, for the demonstrations in it are chiefly derived from the effect. [19] Furthermore, it is inductively evident in all cases that like produces like. But what is generated in lower things is not merely the form, but the thing composed of matter and form, since every process of generation is from something, namely from matter, and to something, namely form. Therefore, the generating agent cannot be merely a form, but is, rather, the composite of matter and form. Therefore, it is not the separate species of things, as the Platonists claimed, nor the agent Intelligence, as Avicenna held, that is, the cause of the forms which exist in matter; Rather, it is the individual composed of matter and form. [20] Moreover, if to act is the result of a being which is in act, it is inappropriate for a more perfect act to be deprived of action. But the substantial form is a more perfect act than accidental form. So, if accidental forms in corporeal things have their proper actions, by all the greater reason the substantial form has its proper action. But to dispose matter is not a proper action for it, since this is done by alteration, for which accidental forms are sufficient. Therefore, the substantial form of the generating agent is the source of the action, as a substantial form is put into the product of generation. [21] Now, it is easy to break down the arguments which they bring forward. In fact, since a thing is made so that it will exist, and since a form is not called a being in the sense that it possesses being but because the composite exists by means of it, so also the form is not made, in the proper sense, but it begins to be by the fact that the composite is reduced from potency to act, which is the form. [22] Nor, indeed, is it necessary that everything which has a form by participation should receive it immediately from that which is form essentially; rather, it may receive it immediately from another being that has a similar form, participated in the same way, and, of course, this being may act by the power of the separate form, if there be any such. So, it is in this way that an agent produces an effect like itself. [23] Likewise, it is not necessary, because every action of lower bodies is done by active and passive qualities which are accidents, that only an accident be produced by their actions. For, just as they are caused by the substantial form which, together with matter, is the cause of all the proper accidents, these accidental forms also act by the power of the substantial form. Now, that which acts by the power of another produces an effect similar not only to itself but more especially to that by whose power it acts. For instance, from the action of an instrument there is produced in the artifact a likeness of the form in the mind of the artist. Consequently, it follows that substantial forms are produced from the action of accidental forms, as they act instrumentally through the power of the substantial forms. [24] In the case of animals generated from putrefaction, the substantial form is caused by a corporeal agent, namely, the celestial body which is the first agent of alteration; and so all things that produce a change of form in these lower bodies do so by its power. And for this reason the celestial power is enough, without a univocal agent, to produce some imperfect forms. But to produce perfect forms, like the souls of perfect animals, there is also required a univocal agent together with the celestial agent. In fact, such animals are not generated except from semen. And that is why Aristotle says that “man and the sun generate man” [ Physics II, 2: 194b 14]. [25] Moreover, it is not true that quantity impedes the action of a form, except accidentally; that is to say, in so far as all continuous quantity is in matter, and form existing in matter, having lesser actuality, is consequently less powerful in acting. Hence, a body that has less matter and more form, for instance, fire, is more active. But, if we consider a kind of action which a form existing in matter may have, then quantity helps to increase rather than to diminish the action. For instance, the larger a hot body is, granting equal intensity of heat, the more is it able to give off heat; and granting equal degree of weight, the bigger a heavy body is, the more rapidly will it be moved by natural motion; that is why it is moved more slowly by unnatural motion. Therefore, the fact that heavy bodies have slower unnatural motion when they have larger quantity does not show that quantity impedes action, but that it helps to increase it. [26] Nor, indeed, is it necessary for every body to lack action because bodily substance is generically the lowest in the order of things. For, even among bodies, one is higher than another, and more formal, and more active: as fire is in regard to lower bodies. Nor, in fact, is even the lowest body prevented from. acting. For it is clear that a body cannot act in its entirety, since it is composed of matter which is potential being, and of form which is act. Indeed, each thing acts according as it is in act. And because of this, every body acts in accord with its form; and related to it is another body, namely, the patient, which is a subject by virtue of its matter, because its matter is in potency to the form of the agent. But, conversely, if the matter of the agent’s body be in potency to the form of the patient’s body, they will be mutually related as agent to patient. This happens, for instance, between two elemental bodies. But, on the other hand, one may be only an agent and the other only a patient in relation to the first, as is the relation between a celestial body and an elemental body. And so, a body that is an agent acts on a subject, not by virtue of its entire body, but of the form through which it acts. [27] Nor is it even true that bodies are at the greatest distance from God. For, since God is pure act, things are more or less distant from Him on this basis: that they are more or less in act or in potency. So, among beings that is most distant from God which is merely potential; namely, prime matter. Hence, its function is solely to undergo, and not to perform, action. But bodies, as composed of matter and form, approach the divine likeness because they possess form, which Aristotle calls a divine thing [ Physics I, 9: 192a 16]. And because of this, they act in so far as they possess form, but they undergo action in so far as they possess matter. [28] Again, it is laughable to say that a body does not act because an accident does not pass from subject to subject. For a hot body is not said to give off heat in this sense, that numerically the same heat which is in the heating body passes over into the heated body. Rather, by the power of the heat which is in the heating body, a numerically different heat is made actual in the heated body, a heat which was previously in it in potency. For a natural agent does not hand over its own form to another subject, but it reduces the passive subject from potency to act. [29] Therefore, we do not take away their proper actions from created things, though we attribute all the effects of created things to God, as an agent working in all things.

Chapter

HOW THE SAME EFFECT IS FROM GOD AND FROM A NATURAL AGENT

[1] Now, it seems difficult for some people to understand how natural effects are attributed to God and to a natural agent. [2] For it does not seem possible for one action to proceed from two agents. So, if the action whereby a natural effect is produced proceeds from a natural body, it does not proceed from God. [3] Again, when a thing can be done adequately by one agent, it is superfluous for it to be done by many; in fact, we see that nature does not do with two instruments what it can do with one. So, since the divine power is sufficient to produce natural effects, it is superfluous to use natural powers, too, for the production of the same effects. Or, if the natural power adequately produces the proper effect, it is superfluous for the divine power to act for the same effect. [4] Besides, if God produces the entire natural effect, then nothing is left of the effect for the natural agent to produce. So, it does not seem to be possible to say that God produces the same effects that natural agents produce. [5] However, these points present no difficulty, provided the things previously established be considered. In every agent, in fact, there are two things to consider: namely, the thing itself that acts, and the power by which it acts. Fire, for instance, heats by means of heat. But the power of a lower agent depends on the power of the superior agent, according as the superior agent gives this power to the lower agent whereby it may act; or preserves it; or even applies it to the action, as the artisan applies an instrument to its proper effect, though he neither gives the form whereby the instrument works, nor preserves it, but simply gives it motion. So, it is necessary for the action of a lower agent to result not only from the agent by its own power, but also from the power of all higher agents; it acts, thus, through the power of all. And just as the lowest agent is found immediately active, so also is the power of the primary agent found immediate in the production of the effect. For the power of the lower agent is not adequate to produce this effect of itself, but from the power of the next higher agent; and the power of the next one gets this ability from the power of the next higher one; and thus the power of the highest agent is discovered to be of itself productive of the effect, as an immediate cause. This is evident in the case of the principles of demonstration, the first of which is immediate. So, just as it is not unfitting for one action to be produced by an agent and its power, so it is not inappropriate for the same effect to be produced by a lower agent and God: by both immediately, though in different ways. [6] It is also evident that, though a natural thing produces its proper effect, it is not superfluous for God to produce it, since the natural thing does not produce it except by divine power. [7] Nor is it superfluous, even if God can by Himself produce all natural effects, for them to be produced by certain other causes. For this is not a result of the inadequacy of divine power, but of the immensity of His goodness, whereby He has willed to communicate His likeness to things, not only so that they might exist, but also that they might be causes for other things. Indeed, all creatures generally attain the divine likeness in these two ways, as we showed above. By this, in fact, the beauty of order in created things is evident. [8] It is also apparent that the same effect is not attributed to a natural cause and to divine power in such a way that it is partly done by God, and partly by the natural agent; rather, it is wholly done by both, according to a different way, just as the same effect is wholly attributed to the instrument and also wholly to the principal agent.

Chapter

THAT DIVINE PROVIDENCE DOES NOT ENTIRELY EXCLUDE EVIL FROM THINGS

[1] Now, from these conclusions it becomes evident that divine providence, whereby He governs things, does not prevent corruption, deficiency, and evil from being found in things. [2] Indeed, divine governance, whereby God works in things, does not exclude the working of secondary causes, as we have already shown. Now, it is possible for a defect to happen in an effect, because of a defect in the secondary agent cause, without there being a defect in the primary agent. For example, in the case of the product of a perfectly skilled artisan, some defect may occur because of a defect in his instrument. And again, in the case of a man whose motive power is strong, he may limp as a result of no defect in his bodily power to move, but because of a twist in his leg bone. So, it is possible, in the case of things made and governed by God, for some defect and evil to be found, because of a defect of the secondary agents, even though there be no defect in God Himself. [3] Moreover, perfect goodness would not be found in created things unless. there were an order of goodness in them, in the sense that some of them are better than others. Otherwise, all possible grades of goodness would not be realized, nor would any creature be like God by virtue of holding a higher place than another. The highest beauty would be taken away from things, too, if the order of distinct and unequal things were removed. And what is more, multiplicity would be taken away from things if inequality of goodness were removed, since through the differences by which things are distinguished from each other one thing stands out as better than another; for instance, the animate in relation to the inanimate, and the rational in regard to the irrational. And so, if complete equality were present in things, there would be but one created good, which clearly disparages the perfection of the creature. Now, it is a higher grade of goodness for a thing to be good because it cannot fall from goodness; lower than that is the thing which can fall from goodness. So, the perfection of the universe requires both grades of goodness. But it pertains to the providence of the governor to preserve perfection in the things governed, and not to decrease it. Therefore, it does not pertain to divine goodness, entirely to exclude from things the power of falling from the good. But evil is the consequence of this power, because what is able to fall does fall at times. And this defection of the good is evil, as we showed above. Therefore, it does not pertain to divine providence to prohibit evil entirely from things. [4] Again, the best thing in any government is to provide for the things governed according to their own mode, for the justice of a regime consists in this. Therefore, as it would be contrary to the rational character of a human regime for men to be prevented by the governor from acting in accord with their own duties—except, perhaps, on occasion, due to the need of the moment-so, too, would it be contrary to the rational character of the divine regime to refuse permission for created things to act according to the mode of their nature. Now, as a result of this fact, that creatures do act in this way, corruption and evil result in things, because, due to the contrariety and incompatibility present in things, one may be a source of corruption for another. Therefore, it does not pertain to divine providence to exclude evil entirely from the things that are governed. [5] Besides, it is impossible for an agent to do something evil, unless by virtue of the fact that the agent intends something good, as is evident from the foregoing. But to prohibit universally the intending of the good for the individual on the part of created things is not the function of the providence of Him Who is the cause of every good thing. For, in that way, many goods would be taken away from the whole of things. For example, if the inclination to generate its like were taken away from fire (from which inclination there results this particular evil which is the burning up of combustible things), there would also be taken away this particular good which is the generation of fire and the preservation of the same according to its species. Therefore, it is not the function of divine providence totally to exclude evil from things. [6] Furthermore, many goods are present in things which would not occur unless there were evils. For instance, there would not be the patience of the just if there were not the malice of their persecutors; there would not be a place for the justice of vindication if there were no offenses; and in the order of nature, there would not be the generation of one thing unless there were the corruption of another. So, if evil were totally excluded from the whole of things by divine providence, a multitude of good things would have to be, sacrificed. And this is as it should be, for the good is stronger in its goodness than evil is in its malice, as is clear from earlier sections. Therefore, evil should not be totally excluded from things by divine providence. [7] Moreover, the good of the whole takes precedence over the good of a part. it is proper for a governor with foresight to neglect some lack of goodness in a part, so that there may be an increase of goodness in the whole. Thus, an artisan bides the foundations beneath earth, so that the whole house may have stability. But, if evil were removed from some parts of the universe, much perfection would perish from the ‘universe, whose beauty arises from an ordered unification of evil and good things. In fact, while evil things originate from good things that are defective, still, certain good things also result from them, as a consequence of the providence of the governor. Thus, even a silent pause makes a hymn appealing. Therefore, evil should not have been excluded from things by divine providence. [8] Again, other things, particularly lower ones, are ordered to man’s good as an end. Now, if no evils were present in things, much of man’s good would be diminished, both in regard to knowledge and in regard to the desire or love of the good. In fact, the good is better known from its comparison with evil, and while we continue to suffer certain evils our desire for goods grows more ardent. For instance, how great a good health is, is best known by the sick; and they also crave it more than do the healthy. Therefore, it is not the function of divine providence totally to exclude evils from things. [9] For this reason, it is said: “I make peace and create evil” (Is. 45:7); and again: “There is no evil in a city which God will not do” (Amos 3:6). [10] Now, with these considerations we dispose of the error of those who, because they noticed that evils occur in the world, said that there is no God. Thus, Boethius introduces a certain philosopher who asks: “If God exists, whence comes evil?” [ De consolatione philosophiae I, 4]. But it could be argued to the contrary: “If evil exists, God exists.” For, there would be no evil if the order of good were taken away, since its privation is evil. But this order would not exist if there were no God. [11] Moreover, by the foregoing arguments, even the occasion of error is removed from those who denied that divine providence is extended to these corruptible things, because they saw that many evils occur in them; they said, moreover, that only incorruptible things are subject to divine providence, things in which no defect or evil part is found. [12] By these considerations, the occasion of erring is also taken away from the Manicheans who maintained two first agent principles, good and evil, as though evil could have no place under the providence of a good God. [13] So, too, the difficulty of some people is solved; namely, whether evil actions are from God. Indeed, since it has been sbown that every agent produces its action by acting through the divine power, and, consequently that God is the cause both of all effects and all actions, and since it was also shown that evil and defects occur in things ruled by divine providence as a result of the establishment of secondary causes in which there can be deficiency, it is evident that bad actions, according as they are defective, are not from God but from defective proximate causes; but, in so far as they possess something of action and entity, they must be from God. Thus limping arises from the motive power, in so far as it possesses something of motion, but in regard to what it has by way of defect it is due to the crookedness of the leg.

Chapter

THAT DIVINE PROVIDENCE DOES NOT EXCLUDE CONTINGENCY FROM THINGS

[1] just as divine providence does not wholly exclude evil from things, so also it does not exclude contingency, or impose necessity on things. [2] It has already been shown that the operation of providence, whereby God works in things, does not exclude secondary causes, but, rather, is fulfilled by them, in so far as they act by God’s power. Now certain effects are called necessary or contingent in regard to proximate causes, but not in regard to remote causes. Indeed, the fact that a plant bears fruit is a fact contingent on a proximate cause, which is the germinative power which can be impeded and can fail, even though the remote cause, the sun, be a cause acting from necessity. So, since there are many things among proximate causes that may be defective, not all effects subject to providence will be necessary, but a good many are contingent. [3] Again, it pertains to divine providence that the grades of being which are possible be fulfilled, as is evident from what was said above. But being is divided into the contingent and the necessary, and this is an essential division of being. So, if divine providence excluded all contingency, not all grades of beings would be preserved. [4] Besides, the nearer certain things are to God, the more they participate in His likeness; and the farther they are away, the more defective are they in regard to His likeness. Now, those that are nearest to God are quite immobile; namely, the separate substances which most closely approach the likeness of God, Who is completely immutable. But the ones which are next to these, and which are moved immediately by those which always exist in the same way, retain a certain type of immobility by the fact that they are always moved in the same way, which is true of the celestial bodies. It follows, then, that those things which come after them and are moved by them are far distant from the immutability of God, so that they are not always moved in the same way. And beauty is evident in this order. Now, every necessary thing, as such, always exists in the same wav. It would be incompatible, then, with divine providence. to which the establishment and preservation of order in things belongs, if all things came about as a result of necessity. [5] Furthermore, that which is necessary is always. Now, no corruptible thing always exists. So, if divine providence required this, that all things be necessary, it would follow that nothing corruptible exists among things, and, consequently, nothing generable. Thus, the whole area of generable and corruptible things would be removed from reality. This detracts from the perfection of the universe. [6] Moreover, in every motion there is some generation and corruption, for, in a thing that is moved, something begins and something ceases to be. So, if all generation and corruption were removed as a result of taking away the contingency of things, as we showed, the consequence would be that even motion would be taken away from things, and so would all movable things. [7] Besides, the weakening of the power of any substance, and the hindering of it by a contrary agent, are due to some change in it. So, if divine providence does not prevent motion from going on in things, neither will the weakening of their power be prevented, nor the blocking of their power by the resistance of another thing. Now, the result of the weakness in power, and the impeding of it, is that a thing in nature does not always work uniformly, but sometimes fails in regard to what is appropriate for it naturally; and so, natural effects do not occur by necessity. Therefore, it is not the function of divine providence to impose necessity on things ruled by it. [8] Furthermore, among things that are properly regulated by providence there should be none incapable of fulfillment. So, if it be manifest that some causes are contingent, because they can be prevented from producing their effects, it would evidently be against the character of providence for all things to happen out of necessity. Therefore, divine providence does not impose necessity on things by entirely excluding contingency from things.

Chapter

THAT DIVINE PROVIDENCE DOES NOT EXCLUDE FREEDOM OF CHOICE

[1] From this it is also evident that providence is not incompatible with freedom of will. [2] Indeed, the governance of every provident ruler is ordered either to the attainment, or the increase, or the preservation of the perfection of the things governed. Therefore, whatever pertains to perfection is to be preserved by providence rather than what pertains to imperfection and deficiency. Now, among inanimate things the contingency of causes is due to imperfection and deficiency, for by their nature they are determined to one result which they always achieve, unless there be some impediment arising either from a weakness of their power, or on the part of an external agent, or because of the unsuitability of the matter. And for this reason, natural agent causes are not capable of varied results; rather, in most cases, they produce their effect in the same way, failing to do so but rarely. Now, the fact that the will is a contingent cause arises from its perfection, for it does not have power limited to one outcome but rather has the ability to produce this effect or that; for which reason it is contingent in regard to either one or the other. Therefore, it is more pertinent to divine providence to preserve liberty of will than contingency in natural causes. [3] Moreover, it is proper to divine Providence to use things according to their own mode. Now, the mode of acting p6culiar to each thing results from its form, which is the source of action. Now, the form whereby an agent acts voluntarily is not determined, for the will acts through a form apprehended by the intellect, since the apprehended good moves the will as its object. Now, the intellect does not have one form determined to an effect; rather, it is characteristic of it to comprehend a multitude of forms. And because of this the will can produce effects according to many forms. Therefore, it does not pertain to the character of providence to exclude liberty of will. [4] Besides, by the governance of every provident agent the things governed are led to a suitable end; hence, Gregory of Nyssa says of divine providence that it is the “will of God through which all things that exist receive a suitable end.” But the ultimate end of every creature is to attain the divine likeness, as we showed above. Therefore, it would be incompatible with providence for that whereby a thing attains the divine likeness to be taken away from it. Now, the voluntary agent attains the divine likeness because it acts freely, for we showed in Book One [88] that there is free choice in God. Therefore, freedom of will is not taken away by divine providence. [5] Again, providence tends to multiply goods among the things that are governed. So, that whereby many goods are removed from things does not pertain to providence. But, if freedom of will were taken away, many goods would be removed. Taken away, indeed, would be the praise of human virtue which is nothing, if man does not act freely. Taken away, also, would be justice which rewards and punishes, if man could not freely do good or evil. Even the careful consideration of circumstances in processes of deliberation would cease, for it is useless to dwell upon things that are done of necessity. Therefore, it would be against the very character of providence if liberty of will were removed. [6] Hence it is said: “God made man from the beginning and left him in the hand of his own counsel”; and again: “Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him” (Sirach 15:14, 18). [7] Now, by these considerations the opinion of the Stoics is set aside, for they said that all things come about by necessity, according to an irrevocable order of causes, which the Greeks called ειμαρμενη.

Chapter

THAT DIVINE PROVIDENCE DOES NOT EXCLUDE FORTUNE AND CHANCE

[1] It is also apparent from the foregoing that divine providence does not take away fortune and chance from things. [2] For it is in the case of things that happen rarely that fortune and chance are said to be present. Now, if some things did not occur in rare instances, all things would happen by necessity. Indeed, things that are contingent in most cases differ from necessary things only in this: they can fail to happen, in a few cases. But it would be contrary to the essential character of divine providence if all things occurred by necessity, as we showed. Therefore, it would also be contrary to the character of divine providence if nothing were to be fortuitous and a matter of chance in things. [3] Again, it would be contrary to the very meaning of providence if things subject to providence did not act for an end, since it is the function of providence to order all things to their end. Moreover, it would be against the perfection of the universe if no corruptible thing existed, and no power could fail, as is evident from what was said above. Now, due to the fact that an agent fails in regard to an end that is intended, it follows that some things occur by chance. So, it would be contrary to the meaning of providence, and to the perfection of things, if there were no chance events. [4] Besides, the large number and variety of causes stem from the order of divine providence and control. But, granted this variety of causes, one of them must at times run into another cause and be impeded, or assisted, by it in the production of its effect. Now, from the concurrence of two or more causes it is possible for some chance event to occur, and thus an unintended end comes about due to this causal concurrence. For example, the discovery of a debtor, by a man who has gone to market to sell something, happens because the debtor also went to market. Therefore, it is not contrary to divine providence that there are some fortuitous and chance events among things. [5] Moreover, what does not exist cannot be the cause of anything. Hence, each thing must stand in the same relation to the fact that it is a cause, as it does to the fact that it is a being. So, depending on the diversity of order in beings, there must also be a diversity of order among causes. Now, it is necessary for the perfection of things that there be among things not only substantial beings but also accidental beings. Indeed, things that do not possess ultimate perfection in their substance must obtain such perfection through accidents, and the more of these there are, the farther are they from the simplicity of God. From the fact, then, that a certain subject has many accidents it follows that it is a being accidentally, because a subject and an accident, and even two accidents of one substance, are a unit and a being accidentally; as in the example of a white man, and of a musical, white being. So, it is necessary to the perfection of things that there should also be some accidental causes. Now, things which result accidentally from any causes are said to happen by chance or fortune. Therefore, it is not contrary to the rational character of providence, which preserves the perfection of things, for certain things to come about as a result of chance or fortune. [6] Furthermore, that there be order and a gradation of causes is important to the order of divine providence. But the higher a cause is, the greater is its power; and so, its causality applies to a greater number of things. Now, the natural intention of a cause cannot extend beyond its power, for that would be useless. So, the particular intention of a cause cannot extend to all things that can happen. Now, it is due to the fact that some things happen apart from the intention of their agents that there is a possibility of chance or fortuitous occurrence. Therefore, the order of divine providence requires that there be chance and fortune in reality. [7] Hence it is said: “I saw that the race is not to the swift... but time and chance in all” (Sirach 9:11), that is, among things here below.

Chapter

THAT GOD’S PROVIDENCE APPLIES TO CONTINGENT SINGULARS

[1] It is obvious from what we have shown that divine providence reaches out to singulars that are generable and corruptible. [2] Except for the fact of their contingency, and the fact that many of them come about by chance and fortune, it does not seem that providence is inapplicable to them. For it is only on this basis that they differ from incorruptible things, and the universal natures of corruptible things, to which providence does apply, as people say. But contingency is not incompatible with providence, nor are chance or fortune or voluntary action, as we have shown. Therefore, nothing prohibits providence from also applying to these things, just as it does to incorruptible and universal things. [3] Again, if God does not exercise providence over these singulars, this is either because He does not know them, or because He is not able to do so, or because He does not wish to take care of them. Now, it cannot be said that God does not know singulars; we showed above that God does possess knowledge of them. Nor can it be said that God is unable to take care of them, for His power is infinite, as we proved above. Nor, indeed, are these singulars incapable of being governed, since we see them governed by the use of reason in the case of men, and by means of natural instinct in the case of bees and many brute animals that are governed by some sort of natural instinct. Nor, in fact, can it be said that God does not wish to govern them, since His will is universally concerned with every good thing, and the good of things that are governed lies chiefly in the order of governance. Therefore, it cannot be said that God takes no care of these singulars. [4] Besides, all secondary causes, by the fact of being causes, attain the divine likeness, as is evident from what we said above. Now, we find one thing in common among causes that produce something: they take care of their products. Thus, animals naturally nourish their young. So, God takes care of the things of which He is the cause. Now, He is the cause even of these particular things, as is obvious from our previous statements.” So, He does take care of them. [5] Moreover, we showed above that God does not act in regard to created things by a necessity of His nature, but through His will and intellect. Now, things done by intellect and will are subject to the care of a provident agent, for that is what such care seems to consist in: the fact that certain things are managed through understanding. And so, the things that result from His action are subject to divine providence. But we showed before that God works through all secondary causes, and that all their products may be traced back to God as their cause; so it must be that the things that are done among singulars are His works. Therefore, these singulars, and also their motions and operations, come under the scope of divine providence. [6] Furthermore, foolish is the providence of a person who does not take care of the things needed by the things for which he does care. But it is obvious that, if all particular things vanished, their universals could not endure. So, if God be only concerned with universals, and if He be entirely negligent of these singulars, then His providence will be foolish and imperfect. [7] However, suppose someone says that God takes care of these singulars to the extent of preserving them in being, but not in regard to anything else; this is utterly impossible. In fact, all other events that occur in connection with singulars are related to their preservation or corruption. So, if God takes care of singulars as far as their preservation is concerned, He takes care of every contingent event connected with them. [8] Of course, a person could say that the mere care of the universals is enough for the preservation of particulars in being, for in each species there are provided the means whereby any individual of the species may be preserved in being. For example, organs for the taking in and digestion of food have been given to animals, and also horns with which to protect themselves. Moreover, good uses of these cannot fail to be made, except in rare instances, because things that are from nature produce their effects in all cases, or frequently. Thus, it is not possible for all individuals to fall, even though a particular one may do so. [9] But according to this argument all events that occur in connection with individuals will be subject to providence, in the same way that their preservation in being is, because nothing can happen in connection with the singular members of any species that cannot be reduced in some way to the sources of that species. And so, singulars come no more under the scope of divine providence in regard to their preservation in being than they do in regard to their other aspects. [10] Furthermore, in the relation of things to their end, an order appears, such that accidents exist for the sake of substances, in order that substances may be perfected by them; on the other hand, within substances matter is for the sake of form, for it participates in divine goodness through form, and that is why all things were made, as we showed above. Consequently, it is clear that singulars exist for the sake of the universal nature. The sign of this is the fact that, in the case of beings whose universal nature can be preserved by one individual, there are not plural individuals of one species, as is instanced by the sun and the moon. But, since providence has the function of ordering things to their end, both the ends and the things that are related to an end must be a matter of concern to providence. Therefore, not only universals, but also singulars, come under the scope of providence. [11] Again, this is the difference between speculative and practical knowledge: speculative knowledge and the functions that pertain to it reach their perfection in the universal, while the things that belong to practical knowledge reach their perfection in the particular. In fact, the end of speculative cognition is truth, which consists primarily and essentially in immaterial and universal things; but the end of practical cognition is operation, which is concerned with singulars. So, the physician does not heal man as a universal, but, rather, this individual man, and the whole science of medicine is ordered to this result. Now, it is obvious that providence belongs to the area of practical knowledge, for its function is to order things to their end. Therefore, God’s providence would be most imperfect if it were to confine itself to universals and not extend as far as singulars. [12] Besides, speculative knowledge is perfected in the universal rather than in the particular, because universals are better known than particulars. Because of this, the knowledge of the most universal principles is common. However, that man who has not only universal, but also a proper, knowledge of things is more perfect in speculative science, for, the man who knows only universally merely knows a thing potentially. This is why a student is led from a universal knowledge of principles to a proper knowledge of conclusions, by his teacher who possesses knowledge of both -just as a thing is brought from potency to act by an actual being. So, in practical science, he is much more perfect who directs things to act, not only universally, but also in the particular case. Therefore, divine providence, being most perfect, extends to singulars. [13] Moreover, since God is the cause of actual being because He is being, as was shown above, He must be the agent of providence for being, because He is being. Indeed, He does provide for things, because He is their cause. So, whatever a thing is, and whatever its mode of existing, it falls under His providence. Now, singulars are beings, and more so than universals, for universals do not subsist of themselves, but are only in singulars. Therefore, divine providence also applies to singulars. [14] Furthermore, created things are subject to divine providence inasmuch as they are ordered by it to their ultimate end, which is divine goodness. Therefore, the participation-of divine goodness by created things is accomplished by divine providence. But even contingent singulars participate in divine goodness. So, divine providence must extend even to them. [15] Hence it is said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing: and not one of them shall fall on the ground without My Father” (Matt. 10:29; see 6:26). And again: “She reaches from end to end mightily” (Wis. 8:1), that is, from the noblest creatures down to the lowest of them. So, also, we oppose the view of those who said: “The Lord has forsaken the earth, and the Lord does not see” (Ez. 9:9); and again: “He walks about the poles of heaven, and He does not consider our things” (Job 22:14). [16] By this conclusion we set aside the opinion of those who said that divine providence does not extend as far as these singular things. In fact, some attribute this opinion to Aristotle, even though it cannot be gathered from his own words.

Chapter

THAT GOD’S PROVIDENCE APPLIES IMMEDIATELY TO ALL SINGULARS

[1] Now, some have conceded that divine providence extends to singulars, but through certain intermediary causes. Indeed, Plato asserted a threefold providence, according to Gregory of Nyssa [Nemesius, De natura hominis, 44]. The first of these is that of the highest God, Who primarily and above all provides for His own things, that is, for all things spiritual and intellectual, but subsequently for the whole world, as far as genera and species go, and the universal causes which are the celestial bodies. Then the second type of providence is that by which provision is made for individual animals and plants, and for other generable and corruptible individuals, in respect to their generation and corruption, and other changes. Now, Plato attributes this kind of providence to the “gods that circulate about the heavens.” Aristotle, on the other hand, attributes their causality to the “oblique circle. Finally, handassigns a third kind of providence to things that pertain to human life. So, he attributes this function to certain “daemons living in the region of the earth” who are caretakers for human actions, according to him. But still, according to Plato, the second and third types of providence depend on the first, for the highest God has established the ones on the second and third levels as provident agents. [2] Now, this theory is in agreement with the Catholic faith, in so far as it traces the providence of all things back to God as its first author. But it seems incompatible with the view of the faith, in regard to this: it says that not all particulars are immediately subject to divine providence. Now, we can show from the foregoing that they are. [3] In point of fact, God has immediate knowledge of singulars, not merely in the sense that He knows them in their causes, but even in themselves, as we showed in Book One [65ff]of this work. But it would appear inappropriate for Him to know singulars and yet not to will their order, in which their chief good consists, for His will is the source of goodness in its entirety. Therefore, just as He knows singulars immediately, He must also establish order for them immediately. [4] Again, the order that is established by providence among things that are governed arises from the order which the provident agent decides on within his own mind. For example, the artistic form that is produced in matter proceeds from the form that is in the mind of the artist. Now, where there are many overseers, arranged one under the next, the order that is conceived by the higher one must be handed down to the lower one; just as a lower type of an receives its principles from a higher one. If, then, the second and third provident agents are claimed to be under the first provident agent, Who is the highest God, they must receive the order that is to be established in things from the highest God. Now, it is not possible for this order to be more perfect in them than in the highest God; on the contrary, all perfections come to other things from Him by way of descent, as appears from things said earlier. The order of things must, then, be present in the secondary agents of providence, not merely universally, but also in respect to singulars; otherwise, they could not establish, order in singulars by their providence. Therefore, the ordering of singulars is much more under the control of divine providence. [5] Besides, in the case of things regulated by human providence we find that a certain higher overseer thinks out the way in which some of the big and universal matters are to be ordered, but he does not himself think out the ordering of the smallest details; rather, handleaves these to be planned by agents on a lower level. But, as a matter of fact, this is so because of his own deficiency, either because handdoes not know the circumstances for the individual details, or because handis not able to think out the order for all, by virtue of the effort and length of time that might be needed. Now, deficiencies of this kind are far removed from God, because He knows all singular things, and He does not make an effort to understand, or require any time for it; since, by understanding Himself He knows all other things, as we showed above. Therefore, He plans even the order for all singular things. So, His providence applies to all singulars immediately. [6] Moreover, in human affairs the lower overseers, through their own efforts, plan the order for those things whose direction has been given them by the chief executive. Of course, they do not get this ability from the man who is in charge, or even its use. Indeed, if they did get it from him, the ordering would already be accomplished by the higher executive, and they would not be the agents responsible for this ordering, but simply the ones who carry it out. Now, it is obvious from things said above that all wisdom and understanding are caused in intelligent beings by the highest God, and that no intellect can understand anything unless by divine power; just as no agent can perform any operation unless be act by this divine power. Therefore, God Himself is the disposer of all things immediately by His providence, and whatever beings are called agents of providence under Him are executors of His providence. [7] Furthermore, a higher providence gives regulations to a lower providence, just as a statesman gives regulations and laws to the leader of an army, who gives laws and regulations to the heads of larger or smaller military units. If, then, there be other providences under the first providence of the supreme God, God must give these secondary or tertiary overseers the regulations for their commands. So, He gives them either universal regulations and laws or particular ones. But, if He gives them universal regulations for their commands, since universal regulations cannot be applied in all cases, to particulars, especially in the case of variable things that do not always remain the same, these secondary or tertiary overseers would have to give orders at times that are contrary to the regulations given them for the things subject to their control. So, they would be able to pass judgment on the regulations that they have received, as to when action should accord with these regulations and when one should overlook them. Now, this could not be, for such judgment belongs to a superior. Indeed, it is the prerogative of the one who establishes the laws to interpret them and issue dispensations from them. So, this judgment over universally given regulations must be carried out by the supreme overseer. Of course, He could not do this if He refused to involve Himself immediately in the ordering of these singular things. So, according to this, He must be the immediate overseer of these things. On the other hand, if the secondary and tertiary overseers receive particular regulations and laws from the highest overseer, then it is quite obvious that the ordering of these singulars is done immediately by divine providence. [8] Again, the superior overseer always holds the power of judgment over the orders issued by inferior overseers, as to whether the orders are properly given or not. If, then, the secondary or tertiary overseers are under God as the first overseer, God must hold the power of judgment over the things ordered by them. In fact, He could not do this if He did not consider the order of these singulars. Therefore He Himself takes care by Himself of these singulars. [9] Besides, if God does not immediately by Himself take care of these inferior singular things, this can only be either because He despises them or because His dignity might be lowered by them, as some people say. But this is unreasonable. It is indeed a matter of greater dignity to oversee the planning of the order for certain things than for it to be produced in them. So, if God works in all things, as we showed above, and if His dignity is not diminished thereby, and if this belongs rather to His universal and supreme power, it is in no sense something to be despised by Him, or something that might besmirch His dignity, if He exercises His providence immediately over these singulars. [10] Moreover, every wise being who uses his power providently sets limits on the use of his power, when he acts, by ordering the objective and the extent to which it goes; otherwise, his power would not keep pace with his wisdom in such action. But it is obvious from the foregoing that the divine power, in operating, reaches to the lowest things. So, the divine wisdom is in control of ordering what, bow many, and what kind of effects proceed from His power, even down to the lowest things. Therefore, He is Himself planning the order for all things immediately by His providence. [11] Hence it is said: “The things that are from God are well ordered” (Rom. 13:1). And again: “You have done the things of old, and have devised one thing after another; and what You have willed has been done” (Judith 9:4).

Chapter

THAT THE EXECUTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS ACCOMPLISHED BY MEANS OF SECONDARY CAUSES

[1] We should attend to the fact that two things are required for providence: the ordering and the execution of the order. The first of these is accomplished by the cognitive power; as a consequence, those who have more perfect knowledge are called orderers of the others. “For it is the function of the wise man to order.” But the second is done by the operative power. Now, the situations in these two functions are contrary to each other. For, the more perfect an ordering is, the more does it descend to small details; but the execution of small details is appropriate to a lower power, proportionate to such an effect. Now, in God the highest perfection in regard to both functions is found; in fact, there is in Him the most perfect wisdom for ordering and the most perfect power for operating. So, He Himself through His wisdom must arrange the orders for all things, even the least; on the other hand, He may execute the small details by means of other lower powers, through which He Himself works, as does a universal and higher power through a lower and particular power. It is appropriate, then, that there be inferior agents as executors of divine providence. [2] Again, we showed above that divine operation does not exclude the operations of secondary causes. But the resultants of the operations of secondary causes are within the scope of divine providence, since God orders all singulars by Himself, as we showed. Therefore, secondary causes are the executors of divine providence. [3] Besides, the stronger the power of an agent is, the farther does its operation extend to more remote effects. For instance, the bigger a fire is, the farther away are the things it heats. But this does not occur in the case of an agent that acts without a medium, for whatever it acts on is adjacent to it. Therefore, since the power of divine providence is the greatest, it must extend its operation to its most distant effects through some intermediaries. [4] Moreover, it belongs to the dignity of a ruler to have many ministers and a variety of executors of his rule, for, the more subjects he has, on different levels, the higher and greater is his dominion shown to be. But no ruler’s dignity is comparable to the dignity of the divine rule. So, it is appropriate that the execution of divine providence be carried out by diverse levels of agents. [5] Furthermore, the propriety of its order manifests the perfection of providence, since order is the proper effect of providence. Now, it is pertinent to the propriety of order that nothing be left in disorder. So, the perfection of divine providence requires that the excess of certain things over others lit reduced to a suitable order. Now, this is done when one makes available some good for those that have less, from the abundance of those that have more. So, since the perfection of the universe requires that certain things participate in divine goodness more abundantly than others, as we showed above, the perfection of divine providence demands that the execution of the divine rule be accomplished by those that participate more fully in divine goodness. [6] Besides, the order of causes is more noble than the order of effects, just as a cause is better than an effect. So, the perfection of providence is better manifested by the first order. But, if there were no intermediary causes carrying out divine providence, there would not be an order of causes in reality but only an order of effects, Therefore, the perfection of divine providence demands that there be intermediary causes as executors of it. [7] Hence it is said in the Psalm (102:21): “Bless the Lord, all His hosts; you ministers of His who do His will”; and elsewhere: “Fire, hail, snow, stormy winds, which fulfill His word” (Ps. 148:8).

Chapter

THAT OTHER CREATURES ARE RULED BY GOD BY MEANS OF INTELLECTUAL CREATURES

[1] Since it is the function of divine providence to maintain order in things, and since a suitable order is such that there is a proportional descent from the highest things to the lowest it must be that divine providence reaches the farthest things by some sort of proportion. Now, the proportion is like this: as the highest creatures are under God and are governed by Him, so the lower creatures are under the higher ones and are ruled by them. But of all creatures the highest are the intellectual ones, as is evident from what we said earlier. Therefore, the rational plan of divine providence demands that the other creatures be ruled by rational creatures. [2] Again, whatever type of creature carries out the order of divine providence, it is able to do so because it participates in something of the power of the first providential being; just as an instrument does not move unless, through being moved, it participates somewhat in the power of the principal agent. So, the beings that participate more fully in the power of the divine providence are executive agents of divine providence in regard to those that participate less. But intellectual creatures participate more than others in it, because an ability to establish order which is done by cognitive power, and an ability to execute it which is clone by operative power, are both -required for providence, and rational creatures share in both types of power, while the rest of creatures have operative powers only. Therefore, all other creatures are ruled by means of rational creatures under divine providence. [3] Besides, to whomever any power is given by God, the recipient is given the power together with an ordination toward the effect of that power. For in that way all things are arranged for the best, inasmuch as each thing is ordered to all the goods that can naturally come from it. Now, the intellectual power by itself is capable of ordering and ruling; hence, we see that the operative power follows the direction of the intellective power, when they are combined in the same subject. In man, for instance, we observe that the bodily members are moved at the command of the will. The same is evident even if they are in different subjects; for instance, those men who excel in operative power must be directed by those who excel in intellectual power. Therefore, the rational plan of divine providence demands that other creatures be ruled by intellectual creatures. [4] Moreover, particular powers are naturally adapted to be moved by universal powers; this is evident quite as much in the artistic as in the natural sphere. Now, it is obvious that intellectual power is more universal than any operative power, for the intellectual power contains universal forms, while each power is operative only because of some form proper to the agent. Therefore, all other creatures must be moved and regulated by means of intellectual powers. [5] Furthermore, in all powers arranged in an order, one is directive in relation to the next, and it knows the rational plan best. Thus, we see in the case of the arts that one art, which is concerned with the end from which the plan for the entire artistic production is derived, directs and commands another art which makes the product, as the ‘art of navigation does in regard to shipbuilding. So, the one that introduces the form commands the one that prepares the matter. Instruments, on the other hand, which do not know the plan at all, are simply ruled. Since only intellectual creatures can know the rational plans for the ordering of creatures, it will therefore be their function to rule and govern all other creatures. [6] Again, that which is of itself is the cause of that which is through another. But only intellectual creatures operate by themselves, in the sense that they are masters of their operations through free choice of their will. On the other hand, other creatures are involved in operation resulting from the necessity of nature, since they are moved by something else. Therefore, intellectual creatures by their operation are motivating and regulative of other creatures.

Chapter

THAT LOWER INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCES ARE RULED BY HIGHER ONES

[1] Since certain intellectual creatures are higher than others, as is clear from the foregoing, the lower ones of an intellectual nature must be governed by the higher ones. [2] Again, more universal powers are able to move particular powers, as we said. But the higher intellectual natures have more universal forms, as was shown above. Therefore, they are capable of ruling the lower intellectual natures. [3] Besides, an intellectual potency that is nearer to the principle is always capable of ruling an intellectual power that is more removed from the principle. This is evident in both speculative and active sciences; for a speculative science which derives its principles of demonstration from another science is said to be subalternated to that other; and an active science which is nearer the end, which is the principle in matters of operation, is architectonic in regard to a more distant one. Therefore, since some intellectual substances are nearer the first principle, namely God, as was shown in Book Two [95], they will be capable of ruling others. [4] Moreover, superior intellectual substances receive the influence of divine wisdom into themselves more perfectly, because each being receives something according to the being’s own mode. Now, all things are governed by divine wisdom. And so, things that participate more in divine wisdom must be capable of governing those that participate less. Therefore, the lower intellectual substances are governed by the higher ones. [5] Thus, the higher spirits are also called angels, because they direct the lower spirits, as it were, by bringing messages to them; in fact, angels are spoken of as messengers. And they are also called ministers, because they carry out by their operation the order of divine providence even in the area of bodily things. Indeed, a minister is “like a living instrument,” according to the Philosopher [ Politics I, 4: 1253b 29]. So this is what is said in the Psalm (103:4): “You make your angels spirits, and your ministers a burning fire.”

Chapter

ON THE ORDERING OF THE ANGELS AMONG THEMSELVES

[1] Since bodily things are ruled by spiritual things, as we showed, and since there is an order of bodily things, the higher bodies must be ruled by the higher intellectual substances, while the lower bodies are ruled by the lower ones. Moreover, since the higher a substance is the more universal is its power, but the power of an intellectual substance is more universal than the power of a body, the higher intellectual substances, then, have powers incapable of functioning through bodily power, and so they are not united with bodies. But the lower ones have particular powers that are capable of functioning through certain bodily organs, and so they must be united with bodies. [2] Now, as the higher intellectual substances are more universal in their power, they are also more perfectly receptive of divine control from Him, in the sense that they know the plan of this order down to its singular details because they receive it from God. However, this manifesting of the divine ordering stretches down by divine action to the last of the intellectual substances; as it is stated: “Is there any numbering of His soldiers? And upon whom shall not His light arise?” (Job 25:3). But the lower understandings do not receive it with such perfection that they are able to know through it the individual details which pertain to the order of providence, and which they are to execute. Rather, they know them in a general sort of way. The lower they are, the fewer details of the divine order do they receive through the first illumination which they get from the divine source. So much so, that the human understanding, which is the lowest according to natural knowledge, gets a knowledge of certain most universal items only. [3] And thus, the higher intellectual substances obtain immediately from God a perfect knowledge of the aforementioned order; and then, other lower substances must obtain this perfect knowledge through them, just as we said above that the student’s universal knowledge is brought to perfection by the knowledge of the teacher who knows in detail. Hence, Dionysius, speaking of the highest intellectual substances whom he calls the first hierarchy, that is, the sacred sovereignty, says: “they are not sanctified by other substances but they are immediately ranged about Himself by the Godhead and are conducted to the immaterial and invisible beauty, in so far as it is permitted, and to the knowable reasons for the divine workings.” And thus, through them, handsays, “those placed below in the ranks of the celestial essences are instructed.” In this way, then, the higher understandings receive a perfect knowledge from a higher source of knowledge. [4] Moreover, in every arrangement of providence this ordering of effects is derived from the form of the agent, because the effect must proceed from the cause by virtue of a certain likeness. Now, the fact that an agent communicates a likeness of his form to his effects is due to some end. So, the first principle in providential arrangement is the end; the second is the form of the agent; and the third is the arrangement of the order of the effects. Therefore, the highest function in the order of understanding is for the rational nature of the order to be considered in relation to the end; and the second most important thing is to observe it in relation to the form; while the third thing is to know the arrangement of this order in itself, and not in a higher source. Thus, the art which considers the end is architectonic in relation to the one which considers the form, as the art of navigating a ship is to the art of making one; but the art which considers the form is architectonic in relation to the art which merely considers the orders of the motions that are ordered in terms of the form, as the art of shipbuilding orders the skill of the workmen. [5] So, there is a definite order in those understandings which grasp immediately in God Himself a perfect knowledge of the order of divine providence. For the highest and first intellects perceive the plan of the providential order in the ultimate end itself, which is the divine goodness, and some of them do so more clearly than others. These are called Seraphim, meaning the “ardent” or “burning” ones, because the intensity of love or desire, which are functions concerned with the end, is customarily symbolized by fire. Thus Dionysius says that, as a result of this name of theirs, there is a suggestion of “their mobility in relation to the divine, a fervent and flexible mobility, and of their leading of lower things to God,” as to their end. [6] The second type of understandings know the plan of providence perfectly in the divine form itself. These are called Cherubim, which means “fullness of knowledge.” Indeed, knowledge is made perfect through the form of the knowable object. Hence, Dionysius says that this way of naming them suggests that they are “capable of contemplating the first operative power of divine beauty. [7] Then, the third type of understandings consider the very arrangement of the divine judgments in themselves. These are called Thrones; for, by thrones the judiciary power is symbolized, according to this text: “You sit on the throne and judge justice” (Ps. 9:5). And so Dionysius says that this designation suggests that they are “bearers of God, immediately available for all divine undertakings. [8] Now, the preceding statements are not to be understood in the sense that there is a difference between divine goodness, divine essence, and divine knowledge as it contains the arrangement of things; rather, there is a different way of considering each one. [9] So, also, among the lower spirits who attain, through the higher spirits, a perfect knowledge of the divine order which they are to carry out there must be some order. In fact, the superior ones among them have a more universal power of knowing; hence, they obtain knowledge of the order of providence through principles and causes that are more universal, whereas the lower ones acquire it in more particular causes. For instance, the man who could consider the order of all natural things in the celestial bodies would be possessed of higher understanding than the man who is obliged, for the sake of perfect knowledge, to direct his gaze upon the lower bodies. So, those who can perfectly know the order of providence in the universal causes, which are intermediaries between God, Who is the most universal cause, and particular causes are intermediate between the ones who are able to consider the plan of this order in God Himself and the ones who must consider it in particular causes. These are placed by Dionysius in the middle hierarchy, for, just as it is directed by the highest, so also does it direct the lowest one, as he says in On the Celestial Hierarchy VIII. [10] Moreover, there must be a definite order among these intellectual substances. In fact, the very arrangement in general, according to providence, is assigned first to many executors. This is accomplished through the order of Dominations, for it is the function of those who hold dominion to prescribe what the others execute. Hence, Dionysius says that the word Domination suggests “a certain freedom from control, placed above all servitude and superior to all subjection.” [11] Then, secondly, there is a distribution and multiplication in the form of diverse effects on the part of the agent and executor. In fact, this is done by the order of Virtues, whose name, as Dionysius says in the same place, suggests “a strong forcefulness in regard to all Godlike operations, one which does not abandon its Godlike movement because of any weakening in itself.” It is evident from this that the source of universal operation belongs to this order. Hence it appears that pertinent to this order is the motion of the celestial bodies, from which bodies as universal causes, the particular effects in nature follow. So, they are called “the powers of the heavens” where it is said: “the powers of the heavens shall be moved” (Luke 21:26). Also pertinent to these spirits is the execution of divine works which are done outside the order of nature, for these are most sublime among the divine ministrations. For which reason, Gregory says, “those spirits are called Virtues through which miracles are frequently wrought” [ In Evangelium, homil. 34]. And if there be anything else that is universal and primary in the carrying out of divine ministrations, it is proper to assign it to this order. [12] And, thirdly, the universal order of providence, already established in the effects, is guarded from all confusion, provided those things which might disturb this order are kept in check. Now, this pertains to the order of Powers. Hence, Dionysius says, in the same place, that the word Powers means “a well-ordered and unconfused ordering in regard to divine undertakings.” And Gregory says that pertinent to this order “is to check contrary powers.” [13] Now, the lowest of the superior intellectual substances are those who receive the order of divine providence from a divine source, as it is knowable in particular causes. These are put immediately in charge of human affairs. Hence, Dionysius says of them: “this third order of spirits commands, in turn, the human hierarchies.” By human affairs we must understand all lower natures and particular causes which are related to man and which fall to the use of man, as is clear from the foregoing. [14] Of course, there is a certain order among these. For in human affairs there is a common good which is, in fact, the good of a state or a people, and this seems to belong to the order of Principalities. Hence, Dionysius says, in the same chapter, that the name Principality suggests “a certain leadership along with sacred order.” For this reason, mention is made of “Michael the Prince of the Jews,” and of “a Prince of the Persians and a Prince of the Greeks” (Dan. 10:13, 20). And so, the arrangement of kingdoms and the changing of domination from one people to another ought to belong to the ministry of this order. Also, the instruction of those who occupy the position of leaders among men concerning matters pertinent to the administration of their rule seems to be the concern of this order. [15] There is also a type of human good which does not lie in the community, but pertains to one. person as such; whose profit is not confined to one but is available to many. Examples are the things to be believed and practiced by all and sundry, such as items of faith, of divine worship, and the like. This pertains to the Archangels, of whom Gregory says: “they announce the most important things.” For instance, we call Gabriel an Archangel, because he announced the Incarnation of the Word to the Virgin, for the belief of all. [16] Still another human good is pertinent to each person individually. This type of good belongs to the Angels; of whom Gregory says: “they announce less important things.” So, they are said to be “guardians of men,” according to the Psalm (90:11): “He gave His angels charge over you, to keep you in all thy ways.” Hence, Dionysius says that the Archangels are intermediate between the Principalities and the Angels, having something in common with both: with the Principalities, “in so far as they have charge of leading the lower angels,” and this is as it should be, for in human affairs private goods should be allotted on the basis of the things that are common; and in common with the Angels, because “they make announcements to the Angels and through the Angels to us,” and the function of the Angels is to make known to men “the things that pertain to them, in accord with what is proper to each man.” For this reason, too, the last order takes the common name for its own special one; that is to say, because it has the duty of making announcements immediately to us. That is also why the name Archangel is composed of both names, for Archangels are called, as it were, Principal Angels. [17] However, Gregory assigns a different ordering to the celestial spirits; for he numbers the Principalities among the intermediate spirits, immediately after the Dominations, while he puts the Virtues among the lowest, before the Archangels. But to people who consider the matter carefully the two ways of ordering them differ but slightly. In fact, according to Gregory, Principalities are called, not those put in charge of peoples, but “who are given leadership even over good spirits,” as if they held first position in the execution of the divine ministrations. He says, indeed, that “to be put in the position of leader is to stand out as first among the rest.” Now, we said that this characteristic, in the previously given arrangement, belongs to the order of Virtues. But, according to Gregory, the Virtues are those related to certain particular operations, when in some special case outside the general order something has to be done miraculously. On the basis of this meaning, they are quite appropriately put in the same order with the lowest ones. [18] Moreover, both ways of ordering them can find support in the words of the Apostle. For handsays: “Sitting Him,” that is, Christ, “on His right hand in heavenly places, above all principality, and power, and virtue, and dominion” (Eph. 3:20-21). It is clear that in the ascending order of this list he placed Powers above Principalities, and the Virtues above these, and the Dominations over these. Now, this is the order that Dionysius kept. However, to the Colossians, in speaking of Christ, handsays: “whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him and in Him” (Col. 1:16). In this text it appears that, starting with Thrones and going downward, he placed under them the Dominations, under them the Principalities, and under these the Powers. Now, this is the order that Gregory retained. [19] Mention is made of the Seraphim in Isaiah (6:2, 6); of the Cherubim in Ezekiel 1 (3ff); of the ‘Archangels in the canonical Epistle of Jude (9): “When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, etc.”; and of the Angels in the Psalms, as we have said. [20] There is also this common feature in all ordered powers, that all lower ones act by virtue of the higher power. Hence, what we explained as pertaining to the order of Seraphim all the lower orders carry out through the power of the Seraphim. And the same conclusion should be applied to the other orders, too.

Chapter

ON THE ORDERING OF MEN AMONG THEMSELVES AND TO OTHER THINGS

[1] As a matter of fact, human souls bold the lowest rank in relation to the other intellectual substances, because, as we said above,” at the start of their existence they receive a knowledge of divine providence, wherein they know it only in a general sort of way. But the soul must be brought to a perfect knowledge of this order, in regard to individual details, by starting from the things themselves in which the order of divine providence has already been established in detail. So, the soul had to have bodily organs by which it might draw knowledge from corporeal things. Yet, even with such equipment, because of the feebleness of its intellectual light, man’s soul is not able to acquire a perfect knowledge of the things that are important to man unless it be helped by higher spirits, for the divine disposition requires this, that lower spirits acquire perfection through the higher ones, as we showed above. Nevertheless, since man does participate somewhat in intellectual light, brute animals are subject to him by the order of divine providence, for they participate in no way in understanding. Hence it is said: “Let us make man to our own image and likeness,” namely, according as he has understanding, “and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth” (Gen. 1:26). [2] Even brute animals, though devoid of understanding, have some knowledge; and so, in accord with the order of divine providence, they are set above plants and other things that lack knowledge. Hence it is said: “Behold I give you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat, and to all the beasts of the earth” (Gen. 1:29-30). [3] Moreover, among things utterly devoid of knowledge one thing comes under another, depending on whether the one is more powerful in acting than the other. Indeed, they do not participate in anything of the disposition of providence, but only in its execution. [4] Now, since man possesses intellect, sense, and bodily power, these are interrelated within him by a mutual order, according to the disposition of divine providence, in a likeness to the order which is found in the universe. In fact, corporeal power is subject to sense and intellectual power, as carrying out their command, and the sensitive power is subject to the intellectual and is included under its command. [5] On the same basis, there is also found an order among men themselves. Indeed, those who excel in understanding naturally gain control, whereas those who have defective understanding, but a strong body, seem to be naturally fitted for service, as Aristotle says in his Politics [I, 5: 1254b 25]. The view of Solomon is also in accord with this, for he says: “The fool shall serve the wise” (Prov. 11:29); and again: “Provide out of all the people wise men such as fear God... who may judge the people at all times” (Exod. 18:21-22). [6] Now, just as in the activities of one man disorder arises from the fact that understanding follows the lead of sensual power, while the sensual power is dragged down to the movement of the body by virtue of some disorder of the body, as is evident in the case of men who limp, so also does disorder arise in a human government, as a result of a man getting control, not because of the eminence of his understanding, but either because he usurps dominion for himself by bodily strength or because someone is set up as a ruler on the basis of sensual affection. Nor is Solomon silent on this kind of disorder, for he says: “There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were by an error proceeding from the face of the prince: a fool set in high dignity” (Eccles. 10:5-6). But disorder of this kind does not exclude divine providence; it comes about, indeed, with divine permission, as a result of the deficiency of lower agents, just as we explained in connection with other evils. Nor is the natural order entirely perverted by such disorder, for the dominion of fools is weak unless strengthened by the counsel of the wise. Hence it is said in Proverbs (20:16): “Designs are strengthened by counsels, and wars are to be arranged by governments”; and again: “a wise man is strong, and a knowing man stout and valiant: because war is managed by due ordering, and there shall be safety when there are many counsels” (Prov. 24:5-6). And since he who gives counsel rules the man who takes counsel, and in a sense governs him, it is said in Proverbs (17:2): “a wise servant shall rule over foolish sons.” [7] So, it is evident that divine providence imposes order on all things; thus, what the Apostle says is certainly true: “the things which are of God are well ordered” (Rom. 13:1).

Chapter

THAT LOWER BODIES ARE RULED BY GOD THROUGH CELESTIAL BODIES

[1] Now, just as there is a difference between higher and lower intellectual substances, so also is there such a difference between corporeal substances. But intellectual substances are ruled by the higher ones, since the disposition of divine providence descends proportionally to the lowest, as we have said already. Therefore, on a like basis, the lower bodies are ordered through the higher ones. [2] Again, the higher a body is in place, the more formal is it found to be. And even the place of a lower body reasonably follows this rule, since it is the function of form to limit, just as it is of place. In fact, water is more formal than earth, air than water, fire than air. But the celestial bodies are superior in place to all bodies. So, they are more formal than all the others, and, therefore, more active. So, they act on the lower bodies; thus, the lower ones are disposed by them. [3] Besides, that which is in its nature perfected without contrariety is more universal than that which is not perfected in its nature without contrariety. Indeed, contrariety arises from the various things that determine and contract a genus; hence, in the realm of understanding, because it is universal the species of contraries are not contraries, for they may co-exist. But celestial bodies are perfected without any contrariety in their natures, for they are neither light nor heavy, neither hot nor cold. However, lower bodies are not perfected in their natures without some contrariety. Their motions also demonstrate this, for there is nothing contrary to the circular motion of the celestial bodies, and, consequently, there can be no violence in regard to them; but there are contraries to the motion of lower bodies, namely, downward motion as opposed to upward motion. So, celestial bodies are possessed of more universal power than lower bodies. But universal powers move particular ones, as is evident from what we have said. Therefore, celestial bodies move and dispose lower bodies. [4] Moreover, it was shown above that all things are ruled through intellectual substances. But celestial bodies are more like intellectual substances than are other bodies because the former are incorruptible. They are also nearer to them, inasmuch as they are moved immediately by them, as we showed above. Therefore, the lower bodies are ruled by them. [5] Furthermore, the first source of motion must be something immutable. So, the things that are nearest to immutability should be movers of the rest. But celestial bodies approach more closely to the immutability of the first source than do lower bodies, for they are not moved except by one kind of motion, namely, local motion; while other bodies are moved by all the species of motion. Therefore, the celestial bodies move and govern the lower bodies. [6] Again, the first in any genus is the cause of members which are posterior. Now, in regard to all other motions, the first is the motion of the heavens; first of all, of course, because local motion is first among all motions, This is so in regard to time, for it alone can be perpetual, as is proved in the Physics VIII [7: 260b 29]. It is also so in regard to nature, for without it there cannot be any other kind of motion, In fact, a thing is not increased unless there be a preceding alteration by which what was formerly unlike is changed and becomes like; nor can alteration be accomplished unless there be a preceding local change, since for alteration to be achieved the agent of alteration must now be brought closer to the thing altered than it was before. It is also prior in perfection, because local motion does not change the thing in regard to any inherent factor but only according to something extrinsic; for this reason it belongs to an already perfected thing. Secondly, even among local motions the circular is prior. And again, in regard to time: because it alone can be perpetual, as is proved in the Physics [VIII, 8: 261b 27]. And in regard to nature: for it is more simple and unified, since it is not divided into beginning, middle, and end; rather, the whole motion is like a middle. And even in perfection: because it is brought back to its origin. Thirdly, because only the motion of the heavens is found always to be regular and uniform, for in the case of the natural motions of heavy and light things there is an increase in velocity toward the end; in the case of violent motion, there is an increase in retardation. So, the motion of the heavens must be the cause of all other motions. [7] Besides, as the absolutely immobile is to unqualified motion, so is the immobile, that is qualified by a given motion, related to that motion. Now, that which is absolutely immobile is the source of all motion, as we proved above. So, what is immobile in regard to alteration is the source of all alteration. Now, the celestial bodies, alone among bodily things, are inalterable; their condition shows this, for it is always the same. So, the celestial body is the cause of all alteration in things that are changed by alteration. Now, in these lower bodies alteration is the source of all motion, for through alteration a thing achieves increase and generation, whereas the agent of generation is a self-mover in the local motion of heavy and light things. Therefore, the heavens must be the cause of all motion in these lower bodies. [8] Thus, it is evident that lower bodies are ruled by God through the celestial bodies.

Chapter

EPILOGUE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS

[1] Now, from all the things that have been pointed out we may gather that, as far as the planning of the order to be imposed on things is concerned, God disposes everything by Himself. And so, in his commentary on the text of (Job 34:13) (“What other did He appoint over the earth?”) Gregory says: “Indeed, He Who created the world by Himself rules it by Himself” [ Moralia XXIV, 20]. And Boethius says, in Consolation of Philosophy III: “God disposes all things of Himself alone.” [2] But, in regard t o the execution, He orders the lower things through the higher ones, and the bodily things through the spiritual ones. Hence, Gregory says, in his fourth Dialogue: “in this visible world nothing can be ordered except through an invisible creature.” And the lower spirits are ordered through the higher ones. Hence, Dionysius says that “the heavenly intellectual essences first give divine illumination to themselves, and then bring us manifestations which are above us.” Also, the lower bodies are ordered by the higher ones. Hence, Dionysius says that “the sun brings generation to visible bodies, and stimulates them to life itself, and nourishes, increases and perfects, cleanses and renews.” [3] Moreover, Augustine speaks on all these points together, in the Book III of The Trinity: “As the grosser and lower bodies are ruled in a certain order by means of the subtler and more powerful ones, so are all bodies by means of the rational spirit of life, and also the sinful rational spirit of the sinner by the righteous rational spirit.”

CONTRA GENTILES

BOOK THREE: PROVIDENCE

Part II: Chapters 84-163

translated by

Vernon J. Bourke

CONTENTS

That the celestial bodies make no impression on our intellects

That the celestial bodies are not the causes of our acts of will and choice

That the corporeal effects in things here below do not necessarily result from the celestial bodies

That the motion of a celestial body is not the cause of our acts of choice by the power of its soul moving us, as some say

That separate created substances cannot be directly the cause of our acts of choice and will, but only God

That the movement of the will is caused by God and not only the power. of the will

That human acts of choice and of will are subject to divine providence

How human events may be traced back to higher causes

How a person is favored by fortune and how man is assisted by higher causes

On fate: whether and what it is

On the certainty of divine providence

That the immutability of divine providence does not suppress the value of prayer

That some prayers are not granted by God

How the disposition of providence has a rational plan

How God can act apart from the order of His providence, and how not

That God can work apart from the order implanted in things, by producing effects without proximate causes

That things which God does apart from the order of nature are not contrary to nature

On miracles

That God alone works miracles

How spiritual substances do certain wonderful things which, however, are not truly miracles

That the works of magicians are not solely due to the influence of celestial bodies

Where the performances of the magicians get their efficacy

That the intellectual substance which provides the efficacy for magic works is not morally good

That the intellectual substance whose help the arts of magic use is not evil in its own nature

Arguments whereby it seems to be proved that there can be no sin in demons

That sin can occur in demons, and in what way

Answer to the previous arguments

That rational creatures are subject to divine providence in a special way

That rational creatures are governed for their own sakes, while others are governed in subordination to them

That the rational creature is directed by God to his actions not only by an ordering of the species, but also according to what befits the individual

That laws are divinely given to man

That the divine law principally orders man toward God

That the end of divine law is the love of God

That we are ordered by divine law to the love of neighbor

That through divine law men are bound to the right faith

That our mind is directed to God by certain sense objects

That the cult proper to latria is to be offered to God alone

That divine law orders man according to reason in regard to corporeal and sensible things

The reason why simple fornication is a sin according to divine law, and that matrimony is natural

That matrimony should be indivisible

That matrimony should be between one man and one woman

That matrimony should not take place between close relatives

That not all sexual intercourse is sinful

That the use of food is not a sin in itself

How man is ordered by the law of God in regard to his neighbor

That some human acts are right according to nature and not merely because they are prescribed by law

On the counsels that are given in divine law

On the error of the attackers of voluntary poverty

On the ways of life of those who practice voluntary poverty

In what way poverty is good

Answers to the arguments brought forward above against poverty

Answer to the objections against the different ways of life of those who embrace voluntary poverty

On the error of those who attack perpetual continence

Another error concerning perpetual continence

Against those who attack vows

That neither meritorious acts nor sins are equal

That a man’s acts are punished or rewarded by God

On the diversity and order of punishments

That not all rewards and punishments are equal

On the punishment due to mortal and venial sin in relation to the ultimate end

That by mortal sin a man is eternally deprived of his ultimate end

That sins are punished also by the experience of something painful

That it is lawful for judges to inflict punishments

That man needs divine help to attain happiness

That by the help of divine grace man is not forced toward virtue

That man cannot merit divine help in advance

That the aforesaid divine help is called grace, and what sanctifying grace is

That sanctifying grace causes the love of God in us

That divine grace causes faith in us

That divine grace causes hope in us

On the gifts of gratuitous grace, including a consideration of the divinations of demons

That man needs the help of grace to persevere in the good

That he who falls from grace through sin may again be restored through grace

That man cannot be freed from sin except through grace

How man is freed from sin

That it is reasonable to hold a man responsible if he does not turn toward God, even though he cannot do this without grace

That man in the state of sin, without grace, cannot avoid sin

That God frees some men from sin and leaves others in sin

That God is not the cause of sin for any person

On predestination, reprobation, and divine election

Chapter

THAT THE CELESTIAL BODIES MAKE NO IMPRESSION ON OUR INTELLECTS

[1] From the things set forth earlier it is immediately evident that celestial bodies cannot be causes of events which go on in the understanding. Indeed, we have already shown that the order of divine providence requires the lower things to be ruled and moved by the higher ones. But the understanding surpasses all bodies in the order of nature, as is also clear from what we have said before. So, it is impossible for celestial bodies to act directly on the intellect. Therefore, they cannot be the direct cause of things that pertain to understanding. [2] Again, no body acts except through motion, as is proved in Physics VIII [6]. But things that are immovable are not caused by motion, for nothing is caused by the motion of an agent, unless the agent moves a passive subject during the motion. So, things that are utterly apart from motion cannot be caused by the celestial bodies. But things that are in the area of understanding are entirely apart from motion, properly speaking, as is evident from the Philosopher, in Physics VII [3]. On the contrary, “through being undisturbed by motions, the soul becomes prudent and knowing” as is stated in the same place. Therefore, it is impossible for celestial bodies to be the direct cause of things that pertain to understanding. [3] Besides, if nothing is caused by a body unless the body is moved while the motion is going on, it is necessary for everything that receives an impression from a body to be moved. Now, nothing is so moved except a body, as is proved in Physics VI [4]. So, everything that receives an impression from a body must be a body, or some power of a body. Now, we showed in Book Two that the intellect is neither a body nor a bodily power. Therefore, it is impossible for the celestial bodies directly to make an impression on the intellect. [4] Moreover, everything that is moved by another thing is reduced by it from potency to act. But nothing is reduced by a thing from potency to act unless that thing is actual. So, every agent and mover must be in some way actual, in regard to the effects to which the passive and movable subject is in potency. Now, the celestial bodies are not actually intelligible, for they are certain individual, sensible things. And so, since our intellect is not in potency to anything except actual intelligibles, it is impossible for celestial substances directly to act on the intellect. [5] Furthermore, the proper operation of a thing depends on its nature, which, in things that are generated, is acquired, along with the proper operation, through the process of generation. This is clear in the case of heavy and light things, which immediately at the end of the process that generates them possess their proper motion unless there be some impediment. Because of this the generating agent is called a mover. So, that which in regard to the beginning of its nature is not subject to the actions of celestial bodies cannot be subject to them in regard to its operation. Now, man’s intellectual nature is not caused by any corporeal principles, but is of completely extrinsic origin, as we proved above. Therefore, the operation of the intellect does not come directly under the celestial bodies. [6] Again, effects caused by celestial motions are subject to time, which is “the measure of the first celestial motion.” And so, events that abstract from time entirely are not subject to celestial motions. But the intellect in its operation does abstract from time, as it does also from place; in fact, it considers the universal which is abstracted from the here and now. Therefore, intellectual operation is not subject to celestial motions. [7] Besides, nothing acts beyond the capacity of its species. But the act of understanding transcends the species and form of every sort of bodily agent, since every corporeal form is material and individuated, whereas the act of understanding is specified by its object which is universal and immaterial. As a consequence, no body can understand through its corporeal form. Still less, then, can any body cause understanding in another being. [8] Moreover, a being cannot be subject to its inferiors by the same part whereby it is united to its superiors. But our soul is united to the intellectual substances, which are superior to the celestial bodies in the order of nature, by virtue of the part which is the understanding. In fact, our soul cannot understand unless it receives intellectual light from those substances. Therefore, it is impossible for intellectual operation directly to be subject to the celestial motions. [9] Furthermore, our confidence in this view will be increased if we consider the statements of the philosophers on the point. As a matter of fact, the ancient natural philosophers, like Democritus, Empedocles, and those of similar persuasion, claimed that understanding does not differ from sense perception, as is evident from Metaphysics IV [5] and from Book III of On the Soul [3]. And so, the conclusion was made that, since sensation is a bodily power depending on changes in bodies, the same thing is also true of understanding. For this reason, they said that intellectual operation results from the motion of the celestial bodies, because change in lower bodies results from change in the higher bodies. According to a passage in Homer: “So understanding in gods and in earthly men is like the daylight which the father of men and gods brings down”; the reference is to the sun, or, better, to Jupiter, whom they called the highest god, understanding him to be the whole heavens, as is clear from Augustine in his City of God [IV, 11]. [10] Next came the opinion of the Stoics, who said that intellectual knowledge is caused by the fact that the images of bodies are impressed on our minds, as a sort of mirror or as a page receives the letters imprinted on it without its doing anything; as Boethius reports in Book V of the Consolation. According to their view, it followed that intellectual notions are impressed on us chiefly by an impression from the celestial bodies. Hence, the Stoics were the ones who especially asserted that the life of man is directed by a fatal necessity. However, this theory appeared false, as time went on, as Boethius says in the same place, for the understanding combines and separates, compares the highest things with the lowest, and knows universals and simple forms that are not found in bodies. So, it is obvious that the understanding is not simply receptive of bodily images, but has a power higher than bodies, since external sensation which is only receptive of bodily images does not encompass the actions mentioned above. [11] Now, all the philosophers who followed distinguished understanding from sense perception and attributed the cause of our knowledge not to bodies, but to immaterial things. Thus, Plato claimed that the cause of our knowledge is the Ideal Forms; while Aristotle said that it is the agent intellect. [12] From all these views we may gather that the assertion that the celestial bodies are the cause of our act of understanding is a consequence of the opinion of those who claimed that understanding does not differ from sensation, as is clear from Aristotle in his book On the Soul [III, 3]. Now, it has been shown that this opinion is false. So, it is also obvious that the opinion which asserts that celestial bodies are directly the cause of our act of understanding is false. [13] Hence, Sacred Scripture also ascribes the cause of our understanding, not to any body but to God: “Where is God, Who made me, Who gives songs in the night; Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and instructs us more than the fowls of the air?” (Job 35:10-11). Again, in the Psalm (93:10): “He who teaches man knowledge.” [14] However, we should note that, though celestial bodies cannot be directly the causes of our understanding, they may do something indirectly in regard to it. For, although the understanding is not a corporeal power, the operation of understanding cannot be accomplished in us without the operation of corporeal powers: that is, the imagination, the power of memory, and the cogitative power, as is evident from preceding explanations. And as a result, if the operations of these powers are blocked by some indisposition of the body, the operation of the intellect is impeded, as is evident in demented and sleeping persons, and in others similarly affected. And that is why even the good disposition of the human body makes one able to understand well, for, as a result of this, the aforesaid powers are in a stronger condition. Thus it is stated in Book II of On the Soul [9] that we observe that “men with soft flesh are well endowed mentally.” Now, the condition of the human body does come under the influence of celestial motions. In fact, Augustine says, in the City of God V, that “it is not utterly absurd to say that certain influences of the stars are able to produce differences in bodies only.” And Damascene says, in Book II [ De fide orthodoxa ], that “different planets establish in us diverse temperaments, habits and dispositions.”“So, the celestial bodies work indirectly on the good condition of understanding. Thus, just as physicians may judge the goodness of an intellect from the condition of its body, as from a proximate disposition, so also may an astronomer judge from the celestial motions, as the remote cause of such dispositions. In this way, then, it is possible that there is some truth in what Ptolemy says in his Centiloquium: “When, at the time of a man’s birth, Mercury is in conjunction with Saturn and is itself in a strong condition, it gives inwardly to things the goodness of understanding.”

Chapter

THAT THE CELESTIAL BODIES ARE NOT THE CAUSES OF OUR ACTS OF WILL AND CHOICE [1] It further appears from this that the celestial bodies are not the causes of our acts of will or of our choices. [2] Indeed, the will belongs in the intellectual part of the soul, as is evident from the Philosopher in Book III of On the Soul. So, if celestial bodies cannot directly make an impression on our intellect, as we showed, then neither will they be able to make an impression directly on the will. [3] Again, every choice and act of will is caused immediately in us from an intelligible apprehension, for the intellectual good is the object of the will, as is clear from Book III of On the Soul [10]. For this reason, perversity cannot result in the act of choice, unless the intellectual judgment is defective in regard to the particular object of choice, as is evident from the Philosopher in Ethics VII [3]. But the celestial bodies are not the cause of our act of understanding. Therefore, they cannot be the cause of our act of choice. [4] Besides, whatever events occur in these lower bodies as a result of the influence of celestial bodies happen naturally, because these lower bodies are naturally subordinated to them. So, if our choices do occur as a result of the impression of celestial bodies, they will have to occur naturally; that is to say, a man might choose naturally to have his operations go on, just as brutes are involved in operations by natural instinct, and as inanimate bodies are moved naturally. In that case, there would not be choice and nature, as two active principles, but only one, and that is nature. The contrary of this view is evident from Aristotle, in Physics II [5]. Therefore, it is not true that our choices originate from the influence of the celestial bodies. [5] Moreover, things that are done naturally are brought to their end by determinate means, and so they always happen in the same way, for nature is determined to one result. But human choices tend to their end in various ways, both in moral actions and in artistic productions. Therefore, human choices are not accomplished by nature. [6] Furthermore, things that are done naturally are done rightly in most cases, for nature does not fail, except in rare cases. So, if man were to choose naturally, his choices would be right in most cases. Now, this is evidently false. Therefore, man does not choose naturally. But he would have to ff he chose as a result of the impulsion of celestial bodies. [7] Again, things that belong to the same species do not differ in their natural operations which result from the nature of their species. Thus, every swallow builds its nest in the same way, and every man understands naturally known first principles in the same way. Now, choice is an operation resulting from the species of man. So, if man were to choose. naturally, then all men would have to choose in the same way. This is clearly false, both in moral and in artistic actions. [8] Besides, virtues and vices are the proper principles for acts of choice, for virtues and vices differ in the fact that they choose contraries. Now, the political virtues and vices are not present in us from nature but come from custom, as the Philosopher proves, in Ethics II [1], from the fact that whatever kind of operations we have become accustomed to, and especially from boyhood, we acquire habits of the same kind. And so, our acts of choice are not in us from nature. Therefore, they are not caused from the influence of celestial bodies, according to which things occur naturally. [9] Moreover, celestial bodies make no direct impression, except on bodies, as we showed. So, if they are the cause of our acts of choice, this will be either because they influence our bodies, or because they influence external things. But in neither way can they be an adequate cause of our act of choice. In fact, it is not an adequate cause of our choice, for some corporeal things to be externally presented to us; for it is clear that on encountering some pleasurable object, say an item of food or a woman, the temperate man is not moved to choose it, but the intemperate man is moved. Likewise, whatever change might take place in our body as a result of the influence of a celestial body, it would not suffice to cause our choice, because there are no other results from this in us than certain passions, more or less strong. But passions, whatever their strength, are not an adequate cause for choice, since by the same passions an incontinent man is led to follow them by choice, while a continent man is not so induced. Therefore, it cannot be said that celestial bodies are the causes of our acts of choice. [10] Furthermore, no power is given anything unless it has a use. But man has the power of judging and deliberating on all the things that may be done by him, whether in the use of external things or in the entertaining or repelling of internal passions. Of course, this would be useless if our choice were caused by celestial bodies which do not come under our control. Therefore, celestial bodies are not the cause of our act of choice. [11] Again, man is naturally a political animal, or a social one. This is apparent, indeed, from the fact that one man is not sufficient unto himself if he lives alone, because nature provides but few things that are sufficient for man. Instead, it gives him reason whereby he may make ready all the things needed for life, such as food, clothing, and the like; one man is not sufficient to do all these things. So, to live in society is naturally implanted in man. But the order of providence does not take away from a thing what is natural to it, but provides for each thing in accord with its nature, as is evident from what we have said. Therefore, man is not so ordered by the order of providence that his social life is taken away. Now, it would be removed if our acts of choice arose from impressions due to the celestial bodies, as do the natural instincts of other animals. [12] Besides, it would be useless for laws and rules of living to be promulgated if man were not master of his own choices. Useless, too, would be the employment of punishments and rewards for good or evil deeds, in regard to which it is not in our power to choose one or the other. In fact, if these things disappear, social life is at once corrupted. Therefore, man is not so established by the order of providence that his choices originate from the motions of the celestial bodies. [13] Moreover, men’s choices are made in regard to goods and evils. So, if our choices originated from the motions of the stars, it would follow that the stars would be the direct cause of evil choices. But an evil thing has no cause in nature, since evil results from a defect of a cause and has no direct cause, as we showed above. Therefore, it is not possible for our choices to originate directly and of themselves from celestial bodies as causes. [14] Now, someone might be able to oppose this argument by saying that every bad choice arises from a good that is desired, as we showed above. For instance, the choice of an adulterer arises from the desire for a pleasurable good associated with sexual activity, and some star moves him toward this universal good. As a matter of fact, this is necessary for the accomplishment of the generating of animals, and this common good should not be set aside because of the particular evil of this person who makes a bad choice as a result of such prompting. [15] But this argument is not adequate if celestial bodies are claimed to be the direct cause of our choices, in the sense that they make direct impressions on the intellect and will. For the impression of a universal cause is received in any being according to the mode of that being. So, the influence of a star, that impels toward the pleasure associated with the generative act will be received in any being according to its own mode. Thus we observe that different animals have different times and various ways of reproducing, according to what befits their nature, as Aristotle says in his treatise on the History of Animals [V, 8]. So, intellect and will are going to receive the influence of this star according to their own mode. But, when an object is desired in accordance with the mode of intellect and reason, there is no sin in the choice; in fact, a choice is bad, always because it is not in accord with right reason. Therefore, if celestial bodies were the cause of our choices, there would never be a bad choice for us. [16] Moreover, no active power extends to effects that are beyond the species and nature of the agent, for every agent acts by virtue of its form. But the act of willing surpasses every bodily species, as does the act of understanding. Indeed, just as we understand universals, so also is our will attracted to the universal object; for example, “we hate every kind of thief,” as the Philosopher says in his Rhetoric [II, 4]. Therefore our will-act is not caused by a celestial body. [17] Furthermore, things that are related to an end are proportioned to that end. But human choices are ordered to felicity as their ultimate end. Of course, it does not consist in any corporeal goods but in the union of the soul with divine things by way of understanding, as we showed above, both according to the view of faith and according to the opinions of the philosophers. Therefore, celestial bodies cannot be the cause of our acts of choice. [18] Hence it is said: “Be not afraid of the signs of heaven which the heathens fear; for the laws of people are vain” (Jer. 10:2-3). [19] By this conclusion the theory of the Stoics is also refuted, for they claimed that all our acts, and even our choices, are ordered by the celestial bodies. This is also said to have been the position of the ancient Pharisees among the Jews. The Priscillianists, too, shared this error, as is stated in the book On Heresies [Augustine, 70]. [20] It was also the opinion of the old natural philosophers who claimed that sensation and understanding did not differ. Thus, Empedocles said that “the will is increased in men, as in other animals, in respect to what is present”; that is, according to the present instant resulting from the celestial motion that causes time, as Aristotle reports it in his book On the Soul [III, 3]. [21] Yet we should note that, though celestial bodies are not directly the cause of our choices, in the sense of directly making impressions on our wills, some occasion for our choices may be indirectly offered by them, because they do make an impression on bodies, and in a twofold sense. In one way, the impressions of the celestial bodies on external bodies are for us the occasion of a certain act of choice; for instance, when the atmosphere is disposed to severe cold by the celestial bodies, we choose to get warmed near a fire or to do other such acts which suit the weather. In a second way, they make an impression on our bodies; when a change occurs in them, certain movements of the passions arise in us; or we are made prone by their impressions to certain passions, as the bilious are prone to anger; or again, some bodily disposition that is an occasion for an act of choice may be caused in us by their impression, as when, resulting from our illness, we choose to take medicine. At times, too, a human act may be caused by the celestial bodies, in the sense that some people become demented as a result of a bodily indisposition and are deprived of the use of reason. Strictly speaking, there is no act of choice for such people, but they are moved by a natural instinct, as are brutes. [22] Moreover, it is plain and well known by experience that such occasions, whether they are external or internal, are not the necessary cause of choice, since man is able, on the basis of reason, either to resist or obey them. But there are many who follow natural impulses, while but few, the wise only, do not take these occasions of acting badly and of following their natural impulses. This is why Ptolemy says, in his Centiloquium: “the wise soul assists the work of the stars”; and that “the astronomer could not give a judgment based on the stars, unless he knew well the power of the soul and the natural temperament”; and that “the astronomer should not speak in detail on a matter, but in general.” That is to say, the impression from the stars produces its result in most people who do not resist the tendency that comes from their body, but it is not always effective, for, in one case or another a man may resist, perhaps, the natural inclination by means of reason.

Chapter

THAT THE CORPOREAL EFFECTS IN THINGS HERE BELOW DO NOT NECESSARILY RESULT FROM THE CELESTIAL BODIES [1] Not only is it impossible for the celestial bodies to impose necessity on human choice; in fact, not even corporeal effects in things here below necessarily result from them. [2] For the impressions of universal causes are received in their effects according to the mode of the recipients. Now, these lower things are fluctuating and do not always maintain the same condition: because of matter which is in potency to many forms and because of the contrariety of forms and powers. Therefore, the impressions of celestial bodies are not received in these lower things by way of necessity. [3] Again, an effect does not result from a remote cause unless there be also a necessary intermediate cause; just as in syllogisms, from a necessary major and a contingent minor, a necessary conclusion does not follow. But celestial bodies are remote causes, whereas the proximate causes of lower effects are the active and passive powers in these lower things, which are not necessary causes, but contingent, for they may fail in a few instances. So, effects in these lower bodies do not follow of necessity from the motions of the celestial bodies. [4] Besides, the motion of the celestial bodies always is in the same mode. So, if the effect of the celestial bodies on these lower ones came about from necessity, the events in lower bodies would always happen in the same way. Yet they do not always occur in the same way, but in most cases. So, they do not come about by necessity. [5] Moreover, it is not possible for one necessary thing to come to be out of many contingent things, because, just as any contingent thing of itself can fall short of its effect, so, too, all of them may together. Now, it is obvious that the individual effects that are accomplished in these lower things, as a result of the impression of celestial bodies, are contingent. Therefore, the combination of these events that occur in lower things as a result of the impression of celestial bodies is not a necessary one, for it is plain that any one of them may be prevented from happening. [6] Moreover, the celestial bodies are agents in the order of nature; they need matter on which to act. So, the need for matter is not removed as a result of the action of celestial bodies. Now, the matter on which the celestial bodies act consists of the lower bodies which, being corruptible in their nature, may be just as able to fail in their operations as they are able to fail in their being. Thus, their nature has this characteristic: they do not produce their effects by necessity. Therefore, the effects of the celestial bodies do not come about by necessity, even in the lower bodies. [7] But someone will say, perhaps, that the effects of the celestial bodies must be accomplished. Yet, possibility is not removed from the lower bodies by this fact, because each effect is in potency before it comes about. So, it is then called possible, but when it now becomes actual, it passes from possibility to necessity. All of this comes under the control of the celestial bodies; and so, the fact that the effect is at one time possible is not removed in this way, even though it is necessary that this effect be produced at another time. Indeed, this is the way that Albumasar, in his book, Introduction to Astronomy, tries to defend the possible. [8] But one cannot defend this meaning of the possible. For there is a sort of possibility that depends on what is necessary. Indeed, what is necessary in regard to actual being must be possible in regard to being; and what is not possible in relation to being is impossible in regard to being; and what is impossible in regard to being is necessarily nonbeing. Therefore, what is necessary in relation to being is necessary in relation to non-being. But this is impossible. So, it is impossible for something to be necessary in relation to being, yet not possible in regard to this being. Therefore, possible being follows from necessary being. [9] As a matter of fact, we do not have to defend this meaning of possible against the statement that effects are caused by necessity, but, rather, the possible that is opposed to the necessary, in the sense that the possible is called that which can be, and also not be. Now, a thing is not called possible, or contingent, in this way from the sole fact that it is at one time in potency and at another time in act, as the preceding answer takes it. In fact, in that preceding sense there is possibility and contingency even in celestial motions, for there is not always an actual conjunction or opposition of the sun or moon. Rather, it is sometimes actually so, sometimes potentially so; yet these events are necessary, for demonstrations of such events may be given. But the possible, or contingent, that is opposed to the necessary has this characteristic: it is not necessary for it to happen when it is not. This is indeed so, because it does not follow of necessity from its cause. Thus, we say that Socrates will sit is a contingent fact, but that he. will die is necessary, because the second of these facts follows necessarily from its cause, whereas the first does not. So, if it follows necessarily from the celestial motions that their effects will occur at some time in the future, then the possible and contingent that is opposed to the necessary is thereby excluded. [10] Moreover, we should note that, in order to prove that the effects of the celestial bodies come about by necessity, Avicenna uses an argument like this in his Metaphysics [X, 1]. If any effect of the celestial bodies is blocked, this must be due to some voluntary or natural cause. But every voluntary or natural cause is reducible to some celestial source. Therefore, even the blocking of the effects of the celestial bodies results from some celestial sources. So, if the entire order of celestial things be taken together, it is impossible for its effect ever to fail to come about. Hence he concludes that the celestial bodies produce necessarily the effects which must occur in these lower bodies, both the voluntary and the natural ones. [11] But this way of arguing, as Aristotle says in Physics [II, 4], was used by some of the ancients who denied chance and fortune on the basis of the view that there is a definite cause for every effect. If the cause be granted, then the effect must be granted. Thus, since everything occurs by necessity, there is nothing fortuitous or by chance. [12] He answers this argument, in Metaphysics VI [2-3], by denying two propositions which the argument uses. One of these is: “if any cause be granted, it is necessary to grant its effect.” Indeed, this is not necessary in the case of all causes, for a certain cause, though it may be the direct, proper and sufficient cause of a given effect, may be hindered by the interference of another cause so that the effect does not result. The second proposition that he denies is: “not everything that exists in any way at all has a direct cause, but only those things that exist of themselves; on the other hand, things that exist accidentally have no cause.” For instance, there is a cause within a man for the fact that he is musical, but there is no cause for the fact that he is at once white and musical. As a matter of fact, whenever plural things occur together because of some cause they are related to each other as a result of that cause, but whenever they occur by accident they are not so related to each other. So, they do not occur as a result of a cause acting directly; their occurrence is only accidental. For instance, it is an accident to the teacher of music that he teaches a white man; indeed, it is quite apart from his intention; rather, he intends to teach someone who is capable of learning the subject. [13] And thus, given a certain effect, we will say that it had a cause from which it did not necessarily follow, since it could have been hindered by some other accidentally conflicting cause. And even though it be possible to trace this conflicting cause back to a higher cause, it is not possible to trace this conflict, which is a hindrance, back to any cause. Thus, it cannot be said that the hindrance of this or that effect proceeds from a celestial source. Hence, we should not say that the effects of celestial bodies come about in these lower bodies as a result of necessity. [14] Hence, Damascene says, in Book II [ De fide orthodoxa ], that “the celestial bodies are not the cause of any process of generating things that come into being, or of the process of corrupting things that are corrupted”; that is to say, these effects do not come about of necessity from them. [15] Aristotle also says, in On Sleep II, that “of those signs which occur in bodies, and even of the celestial signs, such as movements of water and wind, many of their results do not come about. For, if another movement occurs, stronger than the one which is a sign of the future, then the event does not happen; just as many of our well laid plans, which were suitable to be accomplished, come to no result, because of the interference of higher powers.” [16] Ptolemy, too, in his Fourfold Work, says: “Again, we should not think that higher events proceed inevitably, like things that happen under divine control and which can in no way be avoided, nor as things which come about truly and of necessity. He also says in the Centiloquium: “These prognostications that I give you are midway between the necessary and the possible.”

Chapter

THAT THE MOTION OF A CELESTIAL BODY IS NOT THE CAUSE OF OUR ACTS OF CHOICE BY THE POWER OF ITS SOUL MOVING US, AS SOME SAY [1] However, we should note that Avicenna maintains that the motions of the celestial bodies are also the causes of our acts of choice, not simply as occasions, as was said above, but directly. For he claims that the celestial bodies are animated. Hence, since celestial motion is from a soul and is the motion of a body, therefore, just as it is a bodily motion with the power of causing change in bodies, so as a motion from the soul it must have the power to make an impression on our souls. And thus, the celestial motion is the cause of our acts of will and choice. On this point also he seems to return to the theory of Albumasar, in his Introduction I. [2] But this theory is not reasonable. Every effect proceeding through an instrument from an efficient cause must be proportionate to the instrument, as also to the agent, for we cannot use just any instrument for any effect. Hence, a result cannot be accomplished by means of an instrument if the action of the instrument in no way covers the result. Now, the action of a body in no way extends to the production of a change of understanding and will, as we showed, unless, perchance, by accident, through a change in the body, as we said before. So, it is impossible for the soul of a celestial body, if it be animated, to make an impression on the intellect and will by means of the motion of a celestial body. [3] Again, a particular agent cause, when acting, bears a likeness to the universal agent cause and is patterned on it. But, if a human soul were to impress another human soul through a corporeal operation, as when it reveals its thought by means of meaningful speech, the bodily action initiated by one soul does not reach the other soul without the mediation of its body. In fact, the spoken word moves the auditory organ, and then, having been so perceived by the sense power, it extends its message to the understanding. So, if the celestial soul makes an impression on our souls through bodily movement, that action will not reach our soul without making a change in our body. Now, this is not a cause of our acts of choice, but simply an occasion, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, celestial motion will not be a cause of our act of choice, except as a mere occasion. [4] Besides, since the mover and the thing moved must be simultaneous, as is proved in Physics VII the motion must extend in a definite order, from the first mover to the last thing that is moved; that is, such that the mover moves what is far away from it by means of what is near to it. Now, our body is nearer than our soul is to the celestial body which is asserted to be moved by a soul joined to it, for our soul has no relation to a celestial body except through our body. This is evident from the fact that separate intelligences have no relation to a celestial body, unless, perhaps, that of a mover to a thing moved. So, a change in a celestial body, initiated by its soul, does not reach our soul except through the mediation of our body. But our soul is not moved when our body is moved, except accidentally; nor does choice result from a change in our body, except by way of occasion, as we said. Therefore, celestial motion, by virtue of the fact that it is from a soul, cannot be the cause of our act of choice. [5] Moreover, according to the theory of Avicenna and some other philosophers, the agent intellect is a separate substance that acts on our souls by making potentially understood things to be actually understood. Now, this is done by abstraction from all material conditions, as is evident from our explanations in Book Two. So, that which acts directly on the soul does not act on it through corporeal motion, but, rather, through abstraction from everything corporeal. Therefore, the soul of the heavens, if it be animated, cannot be the cause of our acts of choice or understanding through the motion of the heavens. [6] It is also possible to prove by the same arguments that the motion of the heavens is not the cause of our acts of choice by means of separate substances, if someone claims that the heavens are not animated, but moved by a separate substance.

Chapter

THAT SEPARATE CREATED SUBSTANCES CANNOT BE DIRECTLY THE CAUSE OF OUR ACTS OF CHOICE AND WILL, BUT ONLY GOD [1] Now, we must not think that the souls of the heavens, if there be such, or any other created, separate, intellectual substances can directly insert a will-act into us or cause our act of choice to occur. [2] For the actions of all creatures are embraced under the order of divine providence, so they cannot operate outside its laws. But it is the law of providence that everything be moved immediately by its proximate cause. So, unless such an order were obeyed, a superior created cause could neither move nor do anything. Now, the proximate mover of the will is the good as apprehended, which is its object, and it is moved by it, just as sight is by color. So, no created substance can move the will except by means of a good which is understood. Now, this is done by showing it that something is a good thing to do: this is the act of persuading. Therefore, no created substance can act on the will, or be the cause of our act of choice, except in the way of a persuading agent. [3] Again, a thing is by nature capable of being moved by, and of undergoing a passion from, an agent with a form by which the thing can be reduced to act, for every agent acts through its form. But the will is reduced to act by the desirable object which gives rest to its desire. Now, the will’s desire finds rest in the divine good only, as in its ultimate end, as is evident from what we said above. Therefore, God alone can move the will in the fashion of an agent. [4] Besides, as natural inclination in an inanimate thing, which is also called natural appetite, is related to its proper end, so also is the will, which is also called intellectual appetite, in an intellectual substance. Now, to give natural inclinations is the sole prerogative of Him Who has established the nature. So also, to incline the will to anything, is the sole prerogative of Him Who is the cause of the intellectual nature. Now, this is proper to God alone, as is evident from our earlier explanations. Therefore, He alone can incline our will to something. [5] Moreover, the violent, as is said in Ethics III [1], is “that whose principle is outside; the patient making no contribution of force.” So, if the will is moved by some external principle, the motion will be violent. Now, I am talking about being moved by some external principle which moves in the way of an agent, and not in the way of an end. But the violent is incompatible with the voluntary. So, it is impossible for the will to be moved by an extrinsic principle as by an agent; rather, every movement of the will must proceed from within. Now, no created substance is joined to the intellectual soul in regard to its inner parts, but only God, Who is alone the cause of its being and Who sustains it in being. Therefore, by God alone can voluntary movement be caused. [6] Furthermore, violent movement is opposed to natural and voluntary movement, because both of the latter must arise from an intrinsic source. The only way in which an external agent moves a thing naturally is by causing an intrinsic principle of motion within the movable thing. Thus, a generating agent, which gives the form of weight to a heavy generated body, moves it downward in a natural way. No other extrinsic being can move a natural body without violence, except perhaps accidentally, by removing an impediment, and this uses a natural motion, or action, rather than causes it. So, the only agent that can cause a movement of the will, without violence, is that which causes an intrinsic principle of this movement, and such a principle is the very power of the will. Now, this agent is God, Who alone creates a soul, as we showed in Book Two. Therefore, God alone can move the will in the fashion of an agent, without violence. [7] Hence it is said in Proverbs (21:1): “The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; wherever He wishes, He turns it.” And again in Philippians (2:13): “It is God Who works in us, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will.”

Chapter

THAT THE MOVEMENT OF THE WILL IS CAUSED BY GOD AND NOT ONLY THE POWER OF THE WILL [1] Some people, as a matter of fact, not understanding how God could cause a movement of the will in us without prejudice to freedom of will, have tried to explain these textsin a wrong way. That is, they would say that God causes willing and accomplishing within us in the sense that He causes in us the power of willing, but not in such a way that He makes us will this or that. Thus does Origen, in his Principles, explain free choice, defending it against the texts above. [2] So, it seems that there developed from this view the opinion of certain people who said that providence does not apply to things subject to free choice, that is, to acts of choice, but, instead, that providence is applied to external events. For he who chooses to attain or accomplish something, such as to make a building or to become rich, is not always able to reach this end; thus, the results of our actions are not subject to free choice, but are controlled by providence. [3] To these people, of course, opposition is offered quite plainly by the texts from Sacred Scripture. For it is stated in Isaiah (26:2): “O Lord, Thou hast wrought all our works in us.” So, we receive not only the power of willing from God, but also the operation. [4] Again, this statement of Solomon, “wherever He wishes, He turns it” shows that divine causality is not only extended to the power of the will but also to its act. [5] Besides, God not only gives powers to things but, beyond that, no thing can act by its own power unless it acts through His power, as we showed above. So, man cannot use the power of will that has been given him except in so far as he acts through the power of God. Now, the being through whose power the agent acts is the cause not only of the power, but also of the act. This is apparent in the case of an artist through whose power an instrument works, even though it does not get its own form from this artist, but is merely applied to action by this man. Therefore, God is for us the cause not only of our will, but also of our act of willing. [6] Moreover, a more perfect order is found in spiritual things than in corporeal ones. Among bodies, however, every motion is caused by the first motion. Therefore, among spiritual things, also, every movement of the will must be caused by the first will, which is the will of God. [7] Furthermore, we showed somewhat earlier that God is the cause of every action and that He operates in every agent. Therefore, He is the cause of the movements of the will. [8] Besides, an argument that is pertinent is offered by Aristotle, in Book VIII of the Eudemian Ethics, as follows. There must be a cause for the fact that a person understands, deliberates, chooses, and wills, for every new event must have some cause. But, if its cause is another act of deliberation, and another act of will preceding it, then, since one cannot go on to infinity in these acts, one must reach something that is first. Now, a first of this type must be something that is better than reason. But nothing is better than intellect and reason except God. Therefore, God is the first principle of our acts of counsel and of will.

Chapter

THAT HUMAN ACTS OF CHOICE AND OF WILL ARE SUBJECT TO DIVINE PROVIDENCE

[1] It is clear, next, that even acts of human willing and choosing must be subject to divine providence. [2] For, everything that God does He does as a result of the order of His providence. So, since He is the cause of our act of choice and volition, our choices and will-acts are subject to divine providence. [3] Again, all corporeal things are governed through spiritual beings, as we showed above.But spiritual beings act on corporeal things through the will. Therefore, if choices and movements of the wills of intellectual substances do not belong to God’s providence, it follows that even corporeal things are withdrawn from His providence. And thus, there will be no providence at all. [4] Besides, the more noble things are in the universe, the more must they participate in the order in which the good of the universe consists. So, in Physics II [4], Aristotle accuses the ancient philosophers of putting chance and fortune in the make-up of the celestial bodies, but not in things below. Now, the intellectual substances are more noble than bodily substances. Therefore, if bodily substances, in their substances and actions, fall under the order of providence, so do intellectual substances, for a greater reason. [5] Moreover, things that are nearer the end fall more definitely under the order which is for the end, for by their mediation other things also are ordered to the end. But the actions of intellectual substances are more closely ordered to God as end than are the actions of other things, as we showed above. So, the actions of intellectual substances, by which God orders all things to Himself, more definitely fall under the order of providence than the actions of other things. [6] Furthermore, the governance of providence stems from the divine love whereby God loves the things created by Him; in fact, love consists especially in this, “that the lover wills the good for his loved one.” So, the more that God loves things, the more do they fall under His providence. Moreover, Sacred Scripture also teaches this in the Psalm (144:20) when it states: “The Lord keeps all those who love Him.” And the Philosopher, also, supports this view, in Ethics X [8], when he says that God takes greatest care of those who love understanding, as He does of His friends. It may, then, be gathered from this, that He loves intellectual substances best. Therefore, their acts of will and choice fall under His providence. [7] Again, man’s internal goods, which are dependent on will and action, are more proper to man than things that are outside him, like the acquisition of wealth or anything else of that kind. Hence, man is deemed good by virtue of the former and not of the latter. So, if acts of human choice and movements of will do not fall under divine providence, but only their external results, it will be truer that human affairs are outside providence than that they come under providence. But this view is suggested by the words of blasphemers: “He walks about the poles of heaven, and He does not consider our things” (Job 22:14); and again: “The Lord has forsaken the earth, and the Lord does not see” (Ez. 9:9); and also: “Who is he who will command a thing to be done, when the Lord does not command it?” (Lam. 3:37). [8] However, certain passages in Sacred Scripture appear to be consonant with the aforementioned view. It is said in fact (Sirach 15:14): “God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel”; and later: “He has set water and fire before you; stretch forth your hand to whichever you wish. Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he chooses shall be given him” (Sirach 15:14, 17-18). And also: “Consider that I have set before thee this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil” (Deut. 30:15). But these words are brought forward to show that man is possessed of free choice, not that his choices are placed outside divine providence. [9] Likewise, Gregory of Nyssa states in his book On Man: “Providence is concerned with the things that are not in our power, but not with those that are in our power”; and, following him, Damascene states in Book II, that “God foreknows the things that are within our power, but He does not predetermine them.” These texts should be explained as meaning that things in our power are not subject to determination by divine providence in the sense that they receive necessity from it.

Chapter

HOW HUMAN EVENTS MAY BE TRACED BACK TO HIGHER CAUSES

[1] From the things shown above we can gather how human actions may be traced back to higher causes and are not performed fortuitously. [2] Of course, acts of choice and movements of the will are controlled immediately by God. And human intellectual knowledge is ordered by God through the mediation of the angels. Whereas matters pertinent to bodily things, whether they are internal or external, when they come within the use of man, are governed by God by means of the angels and the celestial bodies. [3] Now, in general, there is one reason for this. Everything that is multiform, mutable, and capable of defect must be reducible to a source in something that is uniform, immutable, and capable of no defect. But all things that are within our power are found to be multiple, variable, and defectible. [4] It is clear that our acts of choice have the character of multiplicity, since choices are made of different things, by different people, in different ways. They are also mutable, both because of the instability of the mind, which is not firmly fixed on the ultimate end, and also because of the fluctuating character of the things which provide our circumstantial environment. That they are defectible, of course the sins of men testify. But the divine will is uniform, because by willing one object it wills all else, and it is immutable and without defect, as we showed in Book One. So, the movement of all wills and choices must be traced back to the divine will, and not to any other cause, for God alone is the cause of our acts of will and choice. [5] Likewise, our understanding has the quality of multiplicity, since we gather, as it were, intelligible truth from many sense objects. It is also mutable, for it advances by discursive movement from one thing to another, proceeding from known things to unknown ones. It is, moreover, defectible, because of the admixture of imagination with sensation, as the errors of mankind show. On the other hand, the cognitive acts of the angels are uniform: for they receive the knowledge of truth from one fount of truth; namely, God. Their cognition is also immutable, because they see directly the pure truth about things by a simple intuition, not by a discursive movement from effects to their causes or the reverse. It is even incapable of defect, since they directly intuit the very natures, or quiddities, of things, and understanding cannot err in regard to such objects, just as sense cannot err in regard to proper sensibles. We, however, make guesses as to the quiddities of things from their accidents and effects. Therefore, our intellectual knowledge must be regulated by means of the angelsknowledge. [6] Again, in regard to human bodies and the external things that men use, it is obvious that there is in them a multiplicity of admixture and contrariety; and that they are not moved uniformly, since their motions cannot be continuous; and that they are defectible through alteration and corruption. In contrast, the celestial bodies are uniform in the way of simple beings with no contrariety in their constitution. Their motions are also uniform, continuous, and always in the same condition. Nor can there be corruption or alteration in them. Hence, it is necessary for our bodies, and the others which come under our use, to be regulated by means of the motions of the celestial bodies.

Chapter

HOW A PERSON IS FAVORED BY FORTUNE AND HOW MAN IS ASSISTED BY HIGHER CAUSES [1] Next, we can show how a person might be said to be favored by fortune. [2] In fact, we say that some good fortune has befallen a man “when something good happens to him, without his having intended it.” For example, a man digging in a field may find a treasure for which he was not looking. Now, something may happen to a certain agent which is not intended by him as he is doing his job, but which is not unintended by the superior under whom he is working. Suppose, for instance, a master orders a servant to go to a certain place to which the master has already sent another servant, unknown to the first one; the encounter with his fellow servant is not intended by the servant who has been sent, but it is not unintended by the master who sent him. And so, though the meeting is fortuitous and a matter of chance to this servant, it is not so to the master, but has been a planned event. So, since man is ordered in regard to his body under the celestial bodies, in regard to his intellect under the angels, and in regard to his will under God—it is quite possible for something apart from man’s intention to happen, which is, however, in accord with the ordering of the celestial bodies, or with the control of the angels, or even of God. For, though God alone directly works on the choice made by man, the action of an angel does have some effect on man’s choice by way of persuasion, and the action of a celestial body by way of disposition, in the sense that the corporeal impressions of celestial bodies on our bodies give a disposition to certain choices. So, when as a result of the influence of higher causes in the foregoing way a man is inclined toward certain choices that are beneficial to him, but whose benefit he does not know by his own reasoning, and when besides this his intellect is illuminated by the light of intellectual substances so that he may do these things, and when his will is inclined by divine working to choose something beneficial to him while he is ignorant of its nature, he is said to be favored by fortune. And, on the contrary, he is said to be subject to misfortune when his choice is inclined to contrary results by higher causes, as is said of a certain man: “Write this man barren, a man that shall not prosper in his days” (Jer. 22:30). [3] But, on this point, a difference is to be noted. The impressions of celestial bodies on our bodies cause natural dispositions of our bodies within us. Thus, as a result of a disposition left by a celestial body in our body, a man is called not merely fortunate or unfortunate, but also wen or ill favored by nature, and it is in this way that the Philosopher says, in his Magna Moralia, that a man favored by fortune is also favored by nature. Indeed, this fact, that one man chooses things beneficial to him, whereas another man chooses things harmful to him, apart from their proper reasoning, cannot be understood as resulting from differences of intellectual nature, because the nature of intellect and will is one in all men. In fact, a formal diversity would lead to a difference according to species, whereas a material diversity leads to a numerical difference. Hence, in so far as man’s intellect is enlightened for the performance of some action, or as his will is prompted by God, the man is not said to be favored by birth, but, rather, well guarded or well governed. [4] Again, another difference on this matter is to be observed. As a matter of fact, the operation of an angel and of a celestial body is merely like something disposing toward choice; while God’s operation is like something perfecting. Now, since a disposition which results from a quality of the body, or from an intellectual persuasion, does not bring necessity to the act of choice, a man does not always choose what his guardian angel intends, or that toward which a celestial body gives inclination. But a man does choose in all cases the object in accord with God’s operation within his will. Consequently, the guardianship of the angels is sometimes frustrated, according to this text: “We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed” (Jer. 51:9); and still more is this true of the inclination of the celestial bodies, but divine providence is always steadfast. [5] Moreover, there is still another difference to be considered. Since a celestial body does not dispose to a choice, unless it makes an impression on our body by which man is stimulated to choose in the way that passions induce one to choose, every disposition to choice which results from the celestial bodies works by means of some passion, as when a person is led to choose something by means of hatred, or love, or anger, or some similar passion. But a person is disposed to an act of choice by an angel, by means of an intellectual consideration, without passion. In fact, this happens in two ways. Sometimes, a man’s understanding is enlightened by an angel to know only that something is a good thing to be done, but it is not instructed as to the reason why it is a good, since this reason is derived from the end. Thus, at times, a man thinks that something is a good thing to be done, “but, if he be asked why, he would answer that he does not know. Hence, when he reaches a beneficial end, to which he has given no thought before, it will be fortuitous for him. But sometimes he is instructed by angelic illumination, both that this act is good and as to the reason why it is good, which depends on the end. And if this be so, when he reaches the end which he has thought about before, it will not be fortuitous. We should also note that, just as the active power of a spiritual nature is higher than a corporeal one, so also is it more universal. Consequently, the disposition resulting from a celestial body does not extend to all the objects which human choice covers. [6] Still another point: the power of the human soul, or also of an angel, is particularized in comparison with divine power which, in fact, is universal in regard to all beings. Thus, then, some good thing may happen to a man which is apart from his own intention, and apart from the inclination given by celestial bodies, and apart from the enlightenment coming from the angels—but not apart from divine providence, which is regulative, just as it is productive, of being as such, and, consequently, which must include all things under it. Thus, some good or evil may happen to man that is fortuitous in relation to himself, and in relation to the celestial bodies, and in relation to the angels, but not in relation to God. Indeed, in relation to Him, nothing can be a matter of chance and unforeseen, either in the sphere of human affairs or in any matter. [7] But, since fortuitous events are those apart from intention, and since moral goods cannot be apart from intention, because they are based on choice, in their case no one can be called well or ill favored by fortune. However, in regard to them, a person can be called well or ill favored by birth; when, as a result of the natural disposition of his body, he is prone to virtuous, or vicious, acts of choice. But in regard to external goods, which can accrue to a man apart from his intention, a man may be said to be both favored by birth and by fortune, and also governed by God and guarded by the angels. [8] Moreover, man may obtain from higher causes still another help in regard to the outcome of his actions. For, since a man has both the ability to choose and to carry out what he chooses, he may at times be assisted by higher causes in regard to both or he may also be hindered. In regard to choice, of course, as we said, man is either disposed by the celestial bodies to choose something, or he is enlightened by the guardianship of the angels, or even he is inclined by divine operation. But in regard to the carrying out of the choice man may obtain from a higher cause the strength and efficacy needed to accomplish what he has chosen. Now, this can come not only from God and the angels, but also from the celestial bodies, to the extent that such efficacy is located in his body. For it is obvious that inanimate bodies also obtain certain powers and abilities from the celestial bodies, even beyond those which go along with the active and passive qualities of the elements, which, doubtless, are also subject to the celestial bodies. Thus, the fact that a magnet attracts iron is due to the power of a celestial body, and so have certain stones and herbs other hidden powers. So, nothing prevents a man, too, from getting, as a result of the influence of a celestial body, a certain special efficiency in doing some bodily actions, which another man does not possess: for instance, a physician in regard to healing, a farmer in regard to planting,’and a soldier in regard to fighting. [9] Now, in a much more perfect way, God lavishes on man this special efficiency in the carrying out of His works efficaciously. So, in regard to the first kind of help, which applies to the act of choosing, God is said to direct man, whereas in regard to the second kind of help He is said to strengthen man. And these two forms of help are touched on together in the Psalms (26:1), where it is said in regard to the first: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” and in regard to the second: “The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” [10] But there are two differences between these two helps. First, man is assisted by the first kind of help, both in regard to things subject to the power of man, and also in regard to other things. But the second sort of help extends only to things of which man’s power is capable. Indeed, the fact that a man digging a grave discovers a treasure results from no power of man; so, in regard to such an outcome, man may be helped by the fact that be is prompted to look in the place where the treasure is, not, however, in the sense that he is given any power to find treasure. But, in the case of the physician healing, or the soldier winning a fight, he may be helped in regard to the end, and also in the sense that he may carry out the choice efficaciously, by means of a power acquired from a higher cause. Hence, the first kind of help is more universal. The second difference is that the second help is given to carry out efficaciously what he intends. Consequently, since fortuitous events are apart from one’s intention, man cannot, properly speaking, be called fortunate as a result of such help, as he can be from the first, as we showed above. [11] Now, it is possible for a man to be well or ill favored by fortune, in some cases, when he is the sole agent, as for instance, when he is digging in the earth, he finds a treasure lying there. In other cases, it may result from the action of another concurrent cause, as when the man going to market to buy something encounters a debtor whom he did not think he would find. Now, in the first case, the man is helped so that something good happens to him, only in the fact that he is directed to the choosing of an object to which something advantageous is attached, and this comes about apart from his intention. But in the second case, both agents must be directed to choose the action, or movement, which is the occasion for their meeting. [12] We must consider another thing in regard to what was said above. For we said that, in order for something favorable or unfavorable to happen to a man on the basis of fortune, the help can come from God, and it can also come from a celestial body: in so far as a man is inclined by God to choose something with which there is combined an advantageous, or disadvantageous, result which the chooser has not thought of before, and in so far as he is disposed by a celestial body to choose such an object. Now, this advantage, or disadvantage, is fortuitous in regard to man’s choice; in regard to God, it loses the character of the fortuitous, but not in regard to the celestial body. This becomes evident, as follows. In fact, an event does not lose its fortuitous character unless it may be referred back to a direct cause. But the power of a celestial body is an agent cause, not by way of understanding and choice, but as a nature. Now, it is proper for a nature to tend to one objective. So, if an effect is not simply one result, then its direct cause cannot be a natural power. But, when two things are combined with each other accidentally, they are not truly one, but only accidentally so. Hence, there can be no direct, natural cause for this union. Let us suppose, then, that a certain man is prompted to dig a grave by the influence of a celestial body, working by way of a passion as we said. Now, the grave and the location of the treasure are one only accidentally, for they have no relation to each other. Hence, the power of the celestial body cannot directly give an inclination toward this entire result: that this man should dig this grave and that it should be done at the place where the treasure is. But an agent working through understanding can be the cause of an inclination to this entire result, for it is proper to an intelligent being to order many things into one. It is clear, indeed, that even a man who knew where the treasure was might send another man who did not know to dig a grave in that same place and thus to find a treasure unintentionally. So, in this way, fortuitous events of this kind, when referred to their divine cause, lose their fortuitous character, but when referred to a celestial cause, they do not. [13] It is also apparent by the same reasoning that a man cannot be universally favored by fortune through the power of a celestial body, but only in regard to this or that incident. I say universally, meaning that a man might have the ability in his nature, resulting from the influence of a celestial body, to choose always, or in most cases, objects to which certain advantages or disadvantages are accidentally connected. For nature is ordered to one result only. But these factors, in terms of which good or bad fortune befalls a man, are not reducible to any one thing; rather, they are indeterminate and indefinite, as the Philosopher teaches in Physics II, and as is clear to our senses. So, it is not possible for a man to have the ability in his nature to choose always those objects from which advantageous results accidentally follow. But it is possible that, by celestial influence, he may be inclined to choose one thing to which an advantage is accidentally attached; then, from another inclination to another advantage; and from a third to a third advantage; but not in such a way that all such advantages would follow from one inclination. However, from one divine disposition a man can be directed to all results.

Chapter

ON FATE: WHETHER AND WHAT IT IS

[1] It is evident from the points set forth above what view we should take regarding fate. [2] Indeed, men observe that many things happen by accident in this world if their particular causes be considered, and some men have maintained that they are not even ordered by higher causes. To these people it has appeared that there is no fate at all. [3] But others have attempted to reduce these events to certain higher causes from which they result in an orderly way, in accord with a definite plan. These people have asserted that there is fate in the sense that things observed to happen by chance are “pre-fated,” that is, foretold and pre-ordained to happen. [4] Some of these people, then, have tried to reduce all contingent events which occur by chance, here below, to causes among the celestial bodies, and even human acts of choice to the controlling power of the stars; to which power all things are subject, they claimed, with a certain necessity which they called fate. Of course, this theory is impossible and foreign to the faith, as is clear from our preceding considerations. [5] On the other hand, some men have desired to reduce to the control of divine providence all things whatsoever that appear to happen by chance in these lower beings. Hence, they said that all things are done by fate, meaning by fate the ordering which is found in things as a result of divine providence. Thus, Boethius says [ De consol. phil. IV, 6]: “fate is a disposition inherent in mutable things, whereby providence connects each thing with His orders.” In this description of fate, “disposition” is used for ordering; while the phrase “inherent in things” is used to distinguish fate from providence; since the ordering, as present in the divine mind and not yet impressed on things, is providence, but, as already unfolded in things, it is called fate. Moreover, he speaks of “mutable things” to show that the order of providence does not take away contingency and mobility from things, as some men have claimed. [6] So, according to this meaning, to deny fate is to deny providence. But, since we should not even have names in common with unbelievers, lest occasion for error could be taken from the association of names, the name fate is not to be used by the faithful lest we appear to agree with those who have held a wrong opinion about fate, by subjecting all things to the necessitation of the stars. Consequently, Augustine says, in Book V of the City of God: “If any man calls the will, or power, of God by the name, fate, let him hold his view, but correct his way of speaking.” And also Gregory, in accord with the same understanding of it, says: “Far be it from the minds of the faithful to say that there is any fate.”

Chapter

ON THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

[1] Now, there is a difficulty that arises out of the foregoing. If all things that are done here below, even contingent events, are subject to divine providence, then, seemingly, either providence cannot be certain or else all things happen by necessity. [2] In fact, the Philosopher shows in the Metaphysics [V, 3] that, if we assert that every effect has a direct cause, and again that, given any direct cause we must necessarily grant its effect, it follows that all future events come about by necessity. For, if each effect has a direct cause, then any future effect will be reducible to a present or past cause. Thus, if we ask whether a certain man is to be killed by robbers, the cause preceding this effect is his encounter with the robbers; and, in turn, another cause precedes this effect, namely, the fact that he went out of his home; still another precedes this, that he wished to look for water; and a cause precedes this, namely, his thirst; and this was caused by the eating of salted foods; and this eating is going on now, or was done in the past. Therefore, if it be so, that, granted the cause, the effect must be granted, then necessarily, if he cats salt foods, he must get thirsty; and if he is thirsty, he must desire to get water; and if he desires to get water, he must go out of his home; and if he leaves his home, the robbers must encounter him; and if they encounter him, he must be killed. So, from the first to the last, it is necessary for this eater of salty foods to be killed by robbers. Therefore, the Philosopher concludes that it is not true that, granted the cause, the effect must be granted; since there are some causes which can fail. Again, it is not true that every effect has a direct cause, for something that comes about accidentally, for instance, that this man who wishes to look for water encounters the robbers, has no cause. [3] Now, by this reasoning it appears that all effects that may be reduced to some direct cause, present or past, which when granted requires that the effect be granted must of necessity happen. Either, then, we must say that not all effects are subject to divine providence and, thus, that providence does not apply to all—but we showed earlier that it does; or else it is not necessarily so, that, granted providence, its effect must be granted, and thus providence is not certain; or, finally, it is necessary for all things to happen by necessity. For providence is not only in present or past time, but in eternity, since nothing can be in God that is not eternal. [4] Again, if divine providence is certain, then this conditional proposition must be true: If God foresees this, then this will happen. Now, the antecedent of this conditional proposition is necessary, for He is eternal. Therefore, the consequent is necessary, for every consequent in a conditional proposition must be necessary when the antecedent is necessary. So, the consequent is like the conclusion of the antecedent, and whatever follows from a necessary proposition must be necessary. Therefore, it follows that, if divine providence is certain, all things must occur by necessity. [5] Besides, suppose that something is foreseen by God; for example, that a certain man will become a ruler. Now, it is either possible that be will not rule, or it is not. But, if it is not possible that be will not rule, then it is impossible for him not to rule; therefore, it is necessary for him to rule. However, if it is possible that he will not rule, and if, given the possible something impossible does not follow, then it does follow that divine providence will fail; hence, it is not impossible for divine providence to fail. Therefore, it is either necessary, if all things are foreseen by God, that divine providence be not certain or else that all things happen by necessity. [6] Moreover, Tully argues as follows, in his book On Divination [II, 7]: if all things are foreseen by God, the order of causes is certain. But, if this is true, all things are done by fate. And if all things are done by fate, nothing is within our power, there is no volitional choice. Therefore, it follows that free choice is taken away if divine providence be certain. And in the same way it will follow that all contingent causes are taken away. [7] Furthermore, divine providence does not exclude intermediate causes, as we showed above, But, among causes, some are contingent and capable of failing. So, it is possible for an effect of providence to fail. Therefore, God’s providence is not certain. [8] However, for the purpose of answering these arguments, we must repeat some of the observations put down before, so that it may be made clear that nothing escapes divine providence; also, that the order of divine providence cannot possibly be changed; and yet that it is not necessary for all things to happen of necessity simply because they come about as a result of divine providence. [9] First, then, we must consider the fact that, since God is the cause of all existing things, giving being to all, the order of His providence must embrace all things. Indeed, on the things on which He has lavished being He must also lavish preservation and guide them toward perfection in their ultimate end. [10] Now, two things must be considered in the case of any provident agent—namely, premeditation of the order, and the establishment of the premeditated order—in the things that are subject to providence. The first of these pertains to the cognitive power, while the second belongs to the operative. Between the two there is this difference: in the act of premeditating the order, the more perfect that providence is, the more can the order of providence be extended to the smallest details. The fact that we are not able to think out, ahead of time, the order of all particular events in regard to matters to be arranged by us stems from the deficiency of our knowledge, which cannot embrace all singular things. However, the more a person is able to think ahead about a plurality of singular things, the more adroit does he become in his foresight, while the man whose foresight is restricted to universals only participates but little in prudence. Now, a similar consideration can be made in regard to all the operative arts. But, in regard to imposing the premeditated order on things, the providence of a governing agent is more noble and perfect the more universal it is and the more it accomplished his premeditated plan by means of a plurality of ministers, because this controlling of ministers occupies an important place -in the order that pertains to foresight. Moreover, divine providence must consist in the highest pe tion, since He is absolutely and universally perfect, as we showed in Book One. So, in the function of providential foresight, by means of the sempiternal meditative act of His wisdom, He orders all things, no matter how detailed they may appear; and whatever things perform any action, they act instrumentally, as moved by Him. And they obediently serve as His ministers in order to unfold in things the order of providence, which has been thought out, as I might say, from eternity. But, if all things able to act must serve as ministers to Him in their actions, it is impossible for any agent to block the execution of divine providence by acting in opposition to it. Nor is it possible for divine providence to be hindered by the defect of any agent or patient, since every active and passive power is caused in things in accord with divine disposition. It is also impossible for the execution of divine providence to be impeded by a change in the provident Agent, since God is altogether immutable, as we showed above. The conclusion remains, then, that divine foresight is utterly incapable of being frustrated. [11] Next, we must consider that every agent intends the good and the better, in so far as he can, as we showed above. But the good and the better are not considered in the same way, in the whole and in the parts. For, in the whole, the good is integrity, which is the result of the order and composition of its parts. Consequently, it is better for there to be an inequality among the parts of the whole, without which the order and perfection of the whole cannot be, than for all its parts to be equal, even if each of them were to exist on the level of the most important part. However, if the parts are considered in themselves, each part of a lower grade would be better if it were on the level of the higher part. This is exemplified in the human body: in fact, the foot would be a more worthy part if it possessed the beauty and power of the eye, but the whole body would be more imperfect if it lacked the functioning of the foot. Therefore, the intention of a particular agent tends toward a different objective from that of the universal agent. Indeed, the particular agent tends to the good of the part without qualification, and makes it the best that it can, but the universal agent tends to the good of the whole. As a result, a defect which is in accord with the intention of the universal agent may be apart from the intention of the particular agent. Thus, it is clear that the generation of a female is apart from the intention of a particular nature, that is, of the power which is in this semen which, as much as possible, tends to a perfect result of conception; but it is in accord with the intention of the universal nature, that is, of the power of the universal agent for the generation of inferior beings, that a female be generated; for without a female the generation of a number of animals could not be accomplished. Similarly, corruption, decrease, and every defect pertain to the intention of the universal nature, but not of the particular nature, for each thing avoids defect, and tends to perfection, to the extent that it can. So, it is evident that the intention of the particular agent is that its effect become as perfect as is possible in its kind, but the intention of the universal nature is that this individual effect become perfect in a certain type of perfection, say in male perfection, while another would become so in female perfection. Now the primary perfection among the parts of the whole universe appears on the basis of the contingent and the necessary. For the higher beings are necessary and incorruptible and immobile, and the more they fall short of this condition, the lower the level on which they are established. Thus, the lowest things may be corrupted even in regard to their being, whereas they are changed in regard to their dispositions, and they produce their effects not necessarily but contingently. So, any agent that is a part of the universe intends as much as possible to persevere in its actual being and natural disposition, and to make its effect stable. However, God, Who is the governor of the universe, intends some of His effects to be established by way of necessity, and others contingently. On this basis, He adapts different causes to them; for one group of effects there are necessary causes, but for another, contingent causes. So, it falls under the order of divine providence not only that this effect is to be, but also that this effect is to be contingently, while another is to be necessarily. Because of this, some of the things that are subject to providence are necessary, whereas others are contingent and not at all necessary. [17] So, it is obvious that, though divine providence is the direct cause of an individual future effect, and though it is so in the present, or in the past, indeed from eternity, it does not follow, as the first argument implies, that this individual effect will come about of necessity. For divine providence is the direct cause why this effect occurs contingently. And this cannot be prevented. [13] From this it is also evident that this conditional proposition is true: If God foresees that this event will be, it will happen, just as the second argument suggested. But it will occur in the way that God foresaw that it would be. Now, He foresaw that it would occur contingently. So, it follows that, without fail, it will occur contingently and not necessarily. [14] It is also clear that, if this thing which, we grant, is foreseen by God as to occur in the future belongs in the genus of contingent beings, it will be possible for it, considered in itself, not to be; for thus is it foreseen, as something that is contingent, as able not to be. Yet it is not possible for the order of providence to fail in regard to its coming into being contingently. Thus the third argument is answered. Consequently, it can be maintained that this man may not become a ruler if he be considered in himself, but not if he be considered as an object of divine foresight. [15] Also, the objection that Tully offers seems frivolous, in view of the foregoing. Indeed, since not only effects are subject to divine providence, but also causes and ways of being, as is obvious from what we have asserted before, it does not follow that, if everything be done by divine providence, nothing is within our power. For the effects are foreseen by God, as they are freely produced by us. [16] Nor can the possibility of failure on the part of secondary causes, by means of which the effects of providence are produced, take away the certainty of divine providence, as the fifth argument implied. For God Himself operates in all things, and in accord with the decision of His will, as we showed above. Hence, it is appropriate to His providence sometimes to permit defectible causes to fail, and at other times to preserve them from failure. [17] Finally, those arguments in favor of the necessity of effects foreseen by God, which might be drawn from the certainty of knowledge, are solved above, where we treated of God’s knowledge.

Chapter

THAT THE IMMUTABILITY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE DOES NOT SUPPRESS THE VALUE OF PRAYER

[1] We should also keep in mind the fact that, just as the immutability of providence does not impose necessity on things that are foreseen, so also it does not suppress the value of prayer. For prayer is not established for the purpose of changing the eternal disposition of providence, since this is impossible, but so that a person may obtain from God the object which he desires. [2] Indeed, it is appropriate for God to consent to the holy desires of a rational creature, not in the sense that our desires may move the immutable God, but that He, in His goodness, takes steps to accomplish these desired effects in a fitting way. For, since all things naturally desire the good, as we proved above, and since it pertains to the supereminence of divine goodness to assign being, and well-being, to all in accord with a definite order, the result is that, in accord with His goodness, He fulfills the holy desires which are brought to completion by means of prayer. [3] Again, it is proper for a mover to bring the object that is moved to its end; hence, a thing is moved toward its end, and attains its end, and finds rest in it, by means of the same nature. Now, every desire is a certain movement toward the good, and indeed it cannot be present in things unless it be from God, Who is good essentially and the source of goodness. In fact, every mover moves toward something like itself. So, it is proper for God, in accord with His goodness, to bring to a fitting conclusion the proper desires that are expressed by our prayers. [4] Besides, the nearer certain things are to the mover, the more efficaciously do they follow the influence of the mover; for instance, things that are nearer to a fire become hotter from it. Now, intellectual substances are nearer to God than are inanimate natural substances. Therefore, the influence of divine motion is more efficacious on intellectual substances than on other natural substances. But natural bodies participate in divine motion to the extent that they receive from Him a natural appetite for the good, and even in the appetite for fulfillment which is realized when they attain their appropriate ends. Therefore, there is much more reason for intellectual substances attaining the fulfillment of their desires which are presented to God by prayer. [5] Moreover, it pertains to the essential meaning of friendship for the lover to will the fulfillment of the desire of the beloved, because he wishes the good and the perfect for the beloved. This is the reason for the statement that “it is characteristic of friends that they will the same thing. Now, we showed above that God loves His creature, and the more that any one of them participates in His goodness which is the first and chief object of His love, the more does He love it. So, He wills the desires of a rational creature to be satisfied, for, compared to other creatures, it participates most perfectly in divine providence. But His will is perfective in regard to things; indeed, He is the cause of things through His will, as we showed above. Therefore, it is appropriate to divine providence for Him to fulfill the desires of a rational creature when they are presented to Him through prayer. [6] Furthermore, a creature’s good is transmitted by the divine goodness in accord with a certain likeness. But this characteristic seems most approvable among men: that they should not refuse consent to those who ask for favors in a just manner. Because of this, men are called liberal, clement, merciful, and upright. Therefore, this characteristic, of granting upright prayers, especially belongs to divine goodness. [7] Hence, it is said in the Psalm (144:19): “He will do the will of those who fear Him, and He will hear their prayers and save them”; and again the Lord says: “Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened” (Mat. 7:8).

Chapter

THAT SOME PRAYERS ARE NOT GRANTED BY GOD

[1] Now, it is not inappropriate if also, at times, the requests of some who pray are not granted by God. [2] For we showed by reasoning that God fulfills the desires of a rational creature, to the extent that he desires the good. Now, it sometimes happens that what is sought in prayer is not a true, but an apparent, good; speaking absolutely, it is an evil. Therefore, such a prayer is not capable of being granted by God. Hence, it is said in James (4:3): “You ask and you receive not, because you ask amiss.” [3] Likewise, because God moves us to the act of desiring, we showed that it is appropriate for Him to fulfill our desires. Now, the thing that is moved is not brought to its end by the mover unless the motion be continued. So, if the movement of desire is not continued by constant prayer, it is not inappropriate for the prayer to fail to receive its expected result. Hence, the Lord says in Luke (18:1) “that we ought always to pray and not to faint”; also, the Apostle says, in 1 Thessalonians (5:17): “Pray without ceasing.” [4] Again, we showed that God fulfills in a suitable way the desire of a rational creature, depending on its nearness to Him. But one becomes near to Him through contemplation, devout affection, and humble but firm intention. So, the prayer which does not approach God in this way is not capable of being heard by God. Hence, it is said in the Psalm (101:18): “He has had regard to the prayer of the humble”; and in James (1:6): “Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” [5] Besides, we showed that on the basis of friendship God grants the wishes of those who are holy. Therefore, he who turns away from God’s friendship is not worthy of having his prayer granted. Hence, it is said in Proverbs (28:9): “He who turns away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination.” And again in Isaiah (1:15): “When you multiply prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood.” [6] For the same reason it happens sometimes that a friend of God is not beard when he prays for those who are not God’s friends, according to the passage in Jeremiah (7:16): “Therefore, do not You pray for this people, nor take to You praise and supplication for them, and do not withstand me: for I will not hear You.” [7] However, it happens at times that a person is refused because of friendship a petition which he asks of a friend, since he knows that it is harmful to him, or that the opposite is more helpful to him. Thus, a physician may deny sometimes the request of a sick person, having in mind that it is not beneficial to him in the recovery of his health. Consequently, since we showed that God, because of the love which He has for the rational creature, satisfies his desires when they are presented to Him through prayer, it is no cause for astonishment if at times He does not grant the petition, even of those whom He especially loves, in order to provide something that is more helpful for the salvation of the petitioner. For this reason, He did not withdraw the sting of the flesh from Paul, though he asked it thrice, for God foresaw that it was helpful to him for the preservation of humility, as is related in 2 Corinthians (12:7-9). Hence, the Lord says to certain people, in Matthew (20:22): “You do not know what you ask”; and it is said in Romans (8:26): “For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.” For this reason, Augustine says in his letter to Paulinus and Therasia: “The Lord is good, for He often does not grant what we desire, so that He may give us what we desire even more.” [8] It is apparent, then, from the foregoing that the cause of some things that are done by God is prayers and holy desires. But we showed above that divine providence does not exclude other causes; rather, it orders them so that the order which providence has determined within itself may be imposed on things. And thus, secondary causes are not incompatible with providence; instead, they carry out the effect of providence. In this way, then, prayers are efficacious before God, yet they do not destroy the immutable order of divine providence, because this individual request that is granted to a certain petitioner falls under the order of divine providence. So, it is the same thing to say that we should not pray in order to obtain something from God, because the order of His providence is immutable, as to say that we should not walk in order to get to a place, or eat in order to be nourished; all of which are clearly absurd. [9] So, a double error concerning prayer is set aside as a result of the foregoing. Some people have said that prayer is not fruitful. In fact, this has been stated both by those who denied divine providence altogether, like the Epicueans, and by those who set human affairs apart from divine providence, as some Peripatetics do, and also by those who thought that all things subject to providence occur of necessity, as the Stoics did. From all these views, it follows that prayer is fruitless and, consequently, that all worship of the Deity is offered in vain. Indeed, this error is mentioned in Malachi (3:14), where it states: “You have said: He labors in vain who serves God. And what profit is it that we have kept His ordinances, and that we have walked sorrowful before the Lord of hosts?” [10] Contrariwise, others have in fact said that the divine disposition is capable of being changed by prayers; thus, the Egyptians said that fate was subject to change by prayers and by means of certain idols, incensings, or incantations. [11] Indeed, certain statements in the divine Scriptures seem, according to their superficial appearance, to favor this view. For it is said that Isaiah, at the command of the Lord, said to King Hezekiah: “Thus says the Lord: Take order with Your house, for You shall die, and shall not live”; and that, after the prayer of Hezekiah, “the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying: Go and say to Hezekiah... I have heard Your prayer... behold I will add to Your days fifteen years” (Is. 38:1-5). And again, it is said in the name of the Lord: “I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken shall repent of their evil, I will also repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them” (Jer. 18:7-8). And in Joel (2:13-14): “Turn to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful... Who knows whether God will return and forgive?” [12] Now, these texts, if understood superficially, lead to an unsuitable conclusion. For it follows, first of all, that God’s will is mutable; also, that something accrues to God in the course of time; and further, that certain things that occur in time to creatures are the cause of something occurring in God. Obviously, these things are impossible, as is evident from earlier explanations. [13] They are opposed, too, by texts of Sacred Scripture which contain the infallible truth clearly expressed. Indeed, it is said in Numbers (23:19): “God is not as a man that He should lie, nor as the son of man that He should be changed. Did He say then, and will not do it? Has he spoken, and will He not fulfill?” And in 1 Sam (15:29): “The triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance; for He is not a man that He should repent.” And in Malachi (3:6): “I am the Lord and I do not change.” [14] Now, if a person carefully considers these statements, he will find that every error that occurs on these points arises from the fact that thought is not given to the difference between universal and particular order. For, since all effects are mutually ordered, in the sense that they come together in one cause, it must be that, the more universal the cause is, the more general is the order. Hence, the order stemming from the universal cause which is God must embrace all things. So, nothing prevents some particular order from being changed, either by prayer, or by some other means, for there is something outside that order which could change it. For this reason, it is not astonishing for the Egyptians who reduce the order of human affairs to the celestial bodies, to claim that fate, which depends on the stars, can be changed by certain prayers and ceremonies. Indeed, apart from the celestial bodies and above them is God, Who is able to impede the celestial bodieseffect which was supposed to follow in things here below as a result of their influence. But, outside the order that embraces all things, it is not possible for anything to be indicated by means of which the order depending on a universal cause might be changed. That is why the Stoics, who considered the reduction of the order of things to God to be to a universal cause of all things, claimed that the order established by God could not be changed for any reason. But, again on this point, they departed from the consideration of a universal order, because they claimed that prayers were of no use, as if they thought that the wills of men and their desires, from which prayers arise, are not included under that universal order. For, when they say that, whether prayers are offered or not, in any case the same effect in things follows from the universal order of things, they clearly isolate from that universal order the wishes of those who pray. For, if these prayers be included under that order, then certain effects will result by divine ordination by means of these prayers, just as they do by means of other causes. So, it will be the same thing to exclude the effect of prayer as to exclude the effect of all other causes. Because, if the immutability of the divine order does not take away their effects from other causes, neither does it remove the efficacy of prayers. Therefore, prayers retain their power; not that they can change the order of eternal control, but rather as they themselves exist under such order. [15] But nothing prevents some particular order, due to an inferior cause, from being changed through the efficacy of prayers, under the operation of God Who transcends all causes, and thus is not confined under the necessity of any order of cause; on the contrary, all the necessity of the order of an inferior cause is confined under Him as being brought into being by Him. So, in so far as something in the order of inferior causes established by God is changed through prayer, God is said to turn or to repent; not in the sense that His eternal disposition is changed, but that some effect of His is changed. Hence, Gregory says that “God does not change His plan, though at times He may change His judgment”; not, I say, the judgment which expresses His eternal disposition, but the judgment which expresses the order of inferior causes, in accord with which Hezekiah was to have died, or a certain people were to have been punished for their sins. Now, such a change of judgment is called God’s repentance, using a metaphorical way of speaking, in the sense that God is disposed like one who repents, for whom it is proper to change what he had been doing. In the same way, He is also said, metaphorically, to become angry, in the sense that, by punishing, He produces the same effect as an angry person.

Chapter

HOW THE DISPOSITION OF PROVIDENCE HAS A RATIONAL PLAN

[1] From the points set forth above it may be seen clearly that the things which are disposed by divine providence follow a rational plan. [2] Indeed, we showed that God, through His providence, orders all things to the divine goodness, as to an end;not, of course, in such a way that something adds to His goodness by means of things that are made, but, rather, that the likeness of His goodness, as much as possible, is impressed on things. However, since every created substance must fall short of the perfection of divine goodness, in order that the likeness of divine goodness might be more perfectly communicated to things, it was necessary for there to be a diversity of things, so that what could not be perfectly represented by one thing might be, in more perfect fashion, represented by a variety of things in different ways. For instance, when a man sees that his mental conception cannot be expressed adequately by one spoken word, he multiplies his words in various ways, to express his mental conception through a variety of means. And the eminence of divine perfection may be observed in this fact, that perfect goodness which is present in God in a unified and simple manner cannot be in creatures except in a diversified manner and through a plurality of things. Now, things are differentiated by their possession of different forms from which they receive their species. And thus, the reason for the diversity of forms in things is derived from this end. [3] Moreover, the reason for the order of things is derived from the diversity of forms. Indeed, since it is in accord with its form that a thing has being, and since anything, in so far as it has being, approaches the likeness of God Who is His own simple being, it must be that form is nothing else than a divine likeness that is participated in things. Hence, Aristotle, where he speaks about form in Physics I [9], quite appropriately says that it is “something godlike and desirable.” But a likeness that is viewed in relation to one simple thing cannot be diversified unless by virtue of the likeness being more or less close or remote. Now, the nearer a thing comes to divine likeness, the more perfect it is. Consequently, there cannot be a difference among forms unless because one thing exists more perfectly than another. That is why Aristotle, in Metaphysics VIII [3], likens definitions, through which the natures of things and forms are signified, to numbers, in which species are varied by the addition or subtraction of unity; so, from this, we are made to understand that the diversity of forms requires different grades of perfection. This is quite clear to one who observes the natures of things. He will find, in fact, if he makes a careful consideration, that the diversity of things is accomplished by means of gradations. Indeed, he will find plants above inanimate bodies, and above plants irrational animals, and above these intellectual substances. And among individuals of these types he will find a diversity based on the fact that some are more perfect than others, inasmuch as the highest members of a lower genus seem quite close to the next higher genus; and the converse is also true; thus, immovable animals are like plants. Consequently, Dionysius says [ De div. nom. VII, 3] “Divine wisdom draws together the last members of things in a first class, with the first members of things in a second class.” Hence, it is apparent that the diversity of things requires that not all be equal, but that there be an order and gradation among things. [4] Now, from the diversity of forms by which the species of things are differentiated there also results a difference of operations. For, since everything acts in so far as it is actual (because things that are potential are found by that very fact to be devoid of action), and since every being is actual through form, it is necessary for the operation of a thing to follow its form. Therefore, if there are different forms, they must have different operations. [5] But, since each thing attains its proper end through its own action, various proper ends must be distinguished in things, even though the ultimate end is common to all. [6] From the diversity of forms there also follows a diverse relationship of matter to things. In fact, since forms differ because some are more perfect than others, there are some of them so perfect that they are self-subsistent and self-complete, requiring no sub-structure of matter. But other forms cannot perfectly subsist by themselves, and do require matter as a foundation, so that what does subsist is not simply form, nor yet merely matter, but a thing composed of both. [7] Now, matter and form could not combine to make up one thing unless there were some proportion between them. But, if they must be proportionally related, then different matters must correspond to different forms. Hence, it develops that some forms need simple matter, while others need composite matter; and also, depending on the various forms, there must be a different composition of parts, adapted to the species of the form and to its operation. [8] Moreover, as a result of the diversified relationship to matter, there follows a diversity of agents and patients. For, since each thing acts by reason of its form, but suffers passion and is moved by reason of its matter, those things whose forms are more perfect and less material must act on those that are more material and whose forms are more imperfect. [9] Again, from the diversity of forms and matters and agents there follows a diversity of properties and accidents. Indeed, since substance is the cause of accident, as the perfect is of the imperfect, different proper accidents must result from different substantial principles. In turn, since from different agents there result different impressions on the patients, there must be, depending on the different agents, different accidents that are impressed by agents. [10] So, it is evident from what we have said that, when various accidents, actions, passions, and arrangements are allotted things by divine providence, this distribution does not come about without a rational plan. Hence, Sacred Scripture ascribes the production and governance of things to divine wisdom and prudence. Indeed, it is stated in Proverbs (3:19-20): “The Lord by wisdom bath founded the earth; He has established the heavens by prudence. By His wisdom the depths have broken out, and the clouds grow thick with dew.” And in Wisdom (8:1) it is said of the wisdom of God that “it reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly.” Again, it is said in the same book: “You have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight” (Wis. 11:21). Thus, we I may understand by measure: the amount, or the mode, or degree, of perfection pertaining to each thing; but by number: the plurality and diversity of species resulting from the different degrees of perfection; and by weight: the different inclinations to proper ends and operations, and also the agents, patients, and accidents which result from the distinction of species. [11] Now, in the aforesaid order, in which the rational Plan of divine providence is observed, we have said that first place is occupied by divine goodness as the ultimate end, which is the first principle in matters of action. Next comes the numerical plurality of things, for the constitution of which there must be different degrees in forms and matters, and in agents and patients, and in actions and accidents. Therefore, just as the first rational principle of divine providence is simply the divine goodness, so the first rational principle in creatures is their numerical plurality, to the establishment and conservation of which all other things seem to be ordered. Thus, on this basis it seems to have been reasonably stated by Boethius, at the beginning of his Arithmetic, that: “All things whatever that have been established, at the original coming into being of things, seem to have been formed in dependence on the rational character of numbers. [12] Moreover, we should consider the fact that operative and speculative reason partly agree and partly disagree. They agree, indeed, on this point: just as speculative reason starts from some principle and proceeds through intermediaries to the intended conclusion, so does operative reason start from something that is first, and go through certain intermediaries to the operation, or to the product of the operation, which is intended. But the principle in speculative matters is the form and that which is; while in operative matters it is the end, which at times is the form, at other times something else. Also, the principle in speculative matters must always be necessary, but in operative matters it is sometimes necessary and sometimes not. Indeed, it is necessary for a man to will felicity as his end, but it is not necessary to will to build a house. Likewise, in matters of demonstration the posterior propositions always follow of necessity from the prior ones, but it is not always so in operative reasoning; rather, it is only so when there can be only this single way of reaching the end. For instance, it is necessary for a man who wishes to build a house to get some lumber, but the fact that he tries to get lumber made of fir depends solely on his own will, and not at all on the reason for building the house. [13] And so, the fact that God loves His goodness is necessary, but the fact that it is represented by means of creatures is not necessary, because divine goodness is perfect without them. Hence, the fact that creatures are brought into existence, though it takes its origin from the rational character of divine goodness, nevertheless depends solely on God’s will. But, if it be granted that God wills to communicate, in so far as is possible, His goodness to creatures by way of likeness, then one finds in this the reason why there are different creatures, but it does not necessarily follow that they are differentiated on the basis of this or that measure of perfection, or according to this or that number of things. On the other hand, if we grant that, as a result of an act of divine will, He wills to establish this particular number of things, and this definite measure of perfection for each thing, then as a result one finds the reason why each thing has a certain form and a certain kind of matter. And the same conclusion is obvious in regard to the things that follow. [14] So, it becomes apparent that providence disposes things according to a rational plan; yet this plan is taken as something based on the divine will. [15] Thus, a double error is set aside by the foregoing points. There is the mistake of those who believe that all things follow, without any rational plan, from God’s pure will. This is the error of the exponents of the Law of the Moors, as Rabbi Moses says; according to them, it makes no difference whether fire heats or cools, unless God wills it so. Also refuted is the error of those who say that the order of causes comes forth from divine providence by way of necessity. It is evident from what we have said that both of these views are false. [16] However, there are some texts of Scripture that seem to attribute all things to the pure divine will. These are not expressed in order that reason may be removed from the dispensation of providence, but to show that the will of God is the first principle of all things, as we have already said above. Such a text is that of the Psalm (134:6): “All things whatsoever the Lord hath willed, He hath done”; again in Job (9:12): “Who can say to Him: Why dost You so?” Also in Romans (9:19): “Who resists His will?” And Augustine says: “Nothing but the will of God is the first cause of health and sickness, of rewards and punishments, of graces and retributions.” [17] And so, when we ask the reason why,” in regard to a natural effect, we can give a reason based on a proximate cause; provided, of course, that we trace back all things to the divine will as a first cause. Thus, if the question is asked: “Why is wood heated in the presence of fire?” it is answered: “Because heating is the natural action, of fire”; and this is so “because beat is its proper accident.” But this is the result of its proper form, and so on, until we come to the divine will. Hence, if a person answers someone who asks why wood is heated: “Because God willed it,” he is answering it appropriately, provided he intends to take the question back to a first cause; but not appropriately, if he means to exclude all other causes.

Chapter

HOW GOD CAN ACT APART FROM THE ORDER OF HIS PROVIDENCE, AND HOW NOT

[1] Moreover, from the foregoing, consideration can be made of a twofold order: one depends on the first cause of all, and consequently takes in all things; while the other is particular, since it depends on a created cause and includes the things that are subject to it. The second is also of many types, depending on the diversity of causes that are found among creatures. Yet, one order is included under another, just as one cause stands under another. Consequently, all particular orders are contained under the universal order, and they come down from that order which is present in things by virtue of their dependence on the first cause. An illustration of this may be observed in the political area. As a matter of fact, all the members of a family, with one male head of the household, have a definite order to each other, depending on their being subject to him. Then, in turn, both this bead of the family and all other fathers who belong to his state have a certain order in regard to each other, and to the governor of the state; and again, the latter, together with all other governors who belong in the kingdom, have an order in relation to the king. [2] However, we can consider the universal order in two ways, in accord with which all things are ordered by divine providence: that is to say, in regard to the things subject to the order, and in regard to the plan of the order which depends on the principle of order. Now, we showed in Book Two’. that these things which are subordinated to God do not come forth from Him, as from one who acts by natural necessity, or any other kind of necessity, but from His simple will, especially as regards the original establishment of things. The conclusion remains, then, that apart from the things that fall under the order of divine providence God can make other things, for His power is not tied down to these things. [3] But, if we were to consider the foregoing order in relation to the rational plan which depends on the principle, then God cannot do what is apart from that order. For that order derives, as we showed, from the knowledge and will of God, ordering all things to His goodness as an end. Of course, it is not possible for God to do anything that is not willed by Him, since creatures do not come forth from Him by nature but by will, as has been shown. Nor, again, is it possible that something be done by Him which is not comprehended in His knowledge, since it is impossible for anything to be willed unless it be known. Nor, further, is it possible for Him to do anything in regard to creatures which is not ordered to His goodness as an end, since His goodness is the proper object of His will. In the same way, since God is utterly immutable, it is impossible for Him to will something which He has previously rejected with His will; or for Him to begin to know something new; or to order it to His goodness in a new way. Therefore, God can do nothing that does not fall under the order of His providence, just as He can do nothing that is not subject to His operation. Nevertheless, if His power be considered without qualification, He can do other things than those which are subject to His providence or operation, but, because of the fact that He cannot be mutable, He cannot do things that have not been eternally under the order of His providence. [4] Now, certain people who have not kept this distinction in mind have fallen into various errors. Thus, some have tried to stretch the immutability of divine order to the things themselves that are subject to the order, asserting that all things must be as they are, with the result that some have said that God can do no things other than what He does. Against this view is what is found in Matthew (26:53): “Cannot I ask my Father, and He will give me more than twelve legions of angels?” [5] Certain others, conversely, have transferred the mutability of things subject to divine providence to a mutability of divine providence, thinking in their carnal wisdom that God, in the fashion of a carnal man, is mutable in His will. Against this it is stated in Numbers (23:19): “God is not as a man that He should lie, nor as the son of man that He should be changed.” [6] Others still have removed contingent events from divine providence. Against them it is said in Lamentations (3:37): “Who can command a thing to be done, when the Lord commands it not?”

Chapter

THAT GOD CAN WORK APART FROM THE ORDER IMPLANTED IN THINGS, BY PRODUCING EFFECTS WITHOUT PROXIMATE CAUSES [1] It remains to show now that He can act apart from the order implanted by Him in things. [2] Indeed, there is an order divinely instituted in things to the effect that lower things are moved through higher ones by God, as we said above. Now, God can act apart from this order; for instance, He may Himself produce an effect in lower things, with nothing being done, in this case, by a higher agent. In fact, there is a difference on this point between an agent that acts by natural necessity and one that acts according to will; an effect cannot result from one that acts by natural necessity except according to the mode of the active power—so, an agent that has very great power cannot directly produce a small effect, but it produces an effect in proportion to its power. But, in this effect, there is sometimes less power than in the cause, and so, by means of many intermediaries, there finally comes to be a small effect from the highest cause. However, the situation is not the same in the case of an agent working through will. For one who acts through will is able at once to produce without an intermediary any effect that does not exceed its power. For instance, the very perfect artisan can produce any kind of work that the less perfect artisan could make. Now, God operates through will, and not through natural necessity, as we showed above. Therefore, He can produce immediately, without special causes, the smaller effects that are produced by lower causes. [3] Again, the divine power is related to all active powers as a universal power in regard to particular powers, as is evident from our earlier statements. Now, universal active power can be limited in two ways for the purpose of producing a particular effect. One way is by means of a particular intermediate cause: thus, the active power of a celestial body is limited to the effect of generating human beings, by the particular power which is in the semen; so, too, in syllogisms, the force of the universal proposition is limited to a particular conclusion, by the inclusion of a particular premise. Another way is by means of understanding, which apprehends a definite form and produces it in the effect. But the divine understanding is capable of knowing not only the divine essence which is like a universal active power, and also not only of knowing universal and first causes, but all particular ones, as is clear from the things said above. Therefore, it is able to produce immediately every effect that any particular agent can bring about. [4] Besides, since accidents result from the substantial principles of a thing, the agent who immediately produces the substance of a thing must be able immediately to cause, in relation to this thing, anything whatever that results from the thing’s substance. For instance, the generating agent, because it gives the form, gives all the properties and resultant motions. Now, we showed above that God, at the first establishment of things, brought all things immediately into being by creation. Therefore, He is able immediately to move anything to any effect without intermediate causes. [5] Moreover, the order of things flows forth from God into things, according as it is foreknown in His intellect. We observe, for example, in human affairs that the head of a state imposes on the citizens an order that is preconceived within himself. But the divine understanding is not determined by necessity to this particular order, in the sense that He can understand no other order; because even we can apprehend intellectually another order. For instance, it can be understood by us that God may form a man from the earth without the use of semen. Therefore, God can bring about the proper effect of these causes without lower causes. [6] Furthermore, although the order implanted in things by divine providence represents in its own way divine goodness, it does not represent it perfectly, because the goodness of a creature does not attain to equality with divine goodness. But that which is not perfectly represented by a given copy may again be represented in another way besides this one. Now, the representation in things of the divine goodness is the end for the production of things by God, as we showed above. Therefore, the divine will is not limited to this particular order of causes and effects in such a manner that it is unable to will to produce immediately an effect in things here below without using any other causes. [7] Again, the whole of creation is more subject to God than the human body is to its soul, for the soul is in proportion to its body, as its form, but God surpasses all proportion to creation. Now, as a result of the soul imagining something and being moved by strong emotion in regard to it, there follows at times a change in the body toward good health or sickness, independent of the action of the bodily principles that are present from birth in the body, in order to affect sickness or health. Therefore, by all the greater reason, as a result of divine will, an effect can be produced in creatures without using the causes that are naturally brought into being for the purpose of producing such an effect. [8] Besides, according to the order of nature, the active powers of the elements are subordinated to the active powers of the celestial bodies. But, at times, celestial power brings about the proper effect of the elemental powers without the action of the element. An example is the sun heating, independently of the action of fire. Therefore, the divine power, for a much greater reason, can produce the proper effects of. created causes without the action of these causes. [9] Now, if someone says that, since God did implant this order in things, the production in things of an effect independently of its proper causes, and apart from the order established by Him, could not be done without a change in this order, this objection can be refuted by the very nature of things. For the order imposed on things by God is based on what usually occurs, in most cases, in things, but not on what is always so. In fact, many natural causes produce their effects in the same way, but not always. Sometimes, indeed, though rarely, an event occurs in a different way, either due to a defect in the power of an agent, or to the unsuitable condition of the matter, or to an agent with greater strength-as when nature gives rise to a sixth finger on a man. But the order of providence does not fail, or suffer change, because of such an event. Indeed, the very fact that the natural order, which is based on things that happen in most cases, does fail at times is subject to divine providence. So, if by means of a created power it can happen that the natural order is changed from what is usually so to what occurs rarely—without any change of divine providence—then it is more certain that divine power can sometimes produce an effect, without prejudice to its providence, apart from the order implanted in natural things by God. In fact, He does this at times to manifest His power. For it can be manifested in no better way, that the whole of nature is subject to the divine will, than by the fact that sometimes He does something outside the order of nature. Indeed, this makes it evident that the order of things has proceeded from Him, not by natural necessity, but by free will. [10] Nor should this argument, that God does a thing in nature in order to manifest Himself to the minds of men, be regarded as of slight importance, because we showed above that all corporeal creatures are, in a sense, ordered to intellectual nature as an end; moreover, the end of this intellectual nature is divine knowledge, as we showed in earlier remarks. So, it is not astonishing that some change is made in corporeal substance in order to make provision for the knowing of God by intellectual nature.

Chapter

THAT THINGS WHICH GOD DOES APART FROM THE ORDER OF NATURE ARE NOT CONTRARY TO NATURE [1] However, it seems that we should keep in mind that, though God at times does something apart from the order implanted in things, He does nothing contrary to nature. [2] In fact, since God is pure act, whereas all other things have some admixture of potency, God must be related to all else as a mover is to what is moved, and as the active is to what is in potency. Now, considering a thing that is in potency in the natural order to a certain agent, if some impression is made on it by that agent, this is not contrary to nature in an absolute sense, though it may be at times contrary to the particular form which is corrupted by this action. Thus, when fire is generated and air is corrupted by the fiery agent, natural generation and corruption take place. So, whatever is done by God in created things is not contrary to nature, even though it may seem to be opposed to the proper order of a particular nature. [3] Again, since God is the primary agent as we showed above, all things that come after Him are like instruments for Him. But instruments are made for the purpose of subserving the action of the principal agent, while being moved by him. Consequently, the matter and form of an instrument should be such that they are suitable for the action which the principal agent intends. This is why it is not contrary to the nature of an instrument for it to be moved by a principal agent, but, rather, is most fitting for it. Therefore, it is not contrary to nature when created things are moved in any way by God; indeed, they were so made that they might serve Him. [4] Besides, even among corporeal agents it may be observed that the motions that go on in lower bodies, as a result of the action of higher ones, are not violent or contrary to naturethough they may not seem to be in agreement with the natural motion which the lower body has in accord with the particular character of its form, For instance, we do not say that the tidal ebb and flow of the sea is a violent motion, because it results from the influence of a celestial body; even though the natural motion of water is only in one direction, toward the center. Therefore, it is much more impossible to say that whatever is done in any creature by God is violent or contrary to nature. [5] Moreover, the primary measure of the essence and nature of each thing is God; just as He is the first being, which is the cause of being in all things. Now, since a judgment concerning anything is based on its measure, what is natural for anything must be deemed what is in conformity with its measure. So, what is implanted by God in a thing will be natural to it. Therefore, even if something else is impressed on the same thing by God, that is not contrary to nature. [6] Furthermore, all creatures are related to God as art products are to an artist, as is clear from the foregoing. Consequently, the whole of nature is like an artifact of the divine artistic mind. But it is not contrary to the essential character of an artist if he should work in a different wat on his product, even after he has given it its first form. Neither, then, is it against nature if God does something to natural things in a different way from that to which the course of nature is accustomed. [7] Hence, Augustine says: “God, the creator and founder of all natures, does nothing contrary to nature; for what the source of all measure, number and order in nature does, is natural to each thing” [ Contra Faustum, XXVI, 3].

Chapter

ON MIRACLES

[1] Things that are at times divinely accomplished, apart from the generally established order in things, are customarily called miracles; for we admire with some astonishment a certain event when we observe the effect but do not know its cause. And since one and the same cause is at times known to some people and unknown to others, the result is that of several who see an effect at the same time, some are moved to admiring astonishment, while others are not. For instance, the astronomer is not astonished when he sees an eclipse of the sun, for he knows its cause, but the person who is ignorant of this science must be amazed, for he ignores the cause. And so, a certain event is wondrous to one person, but not so to another. So, a thing that has a completely hidden cause is wondrous in an unqualified way, and this the name, miracle, suggests; namely, what is of itself filled with admirable wonder, not simply in relation to one person or another. Now, absolutely speaking, the cause hidden from every man is God. In fact, we proved above that no man in the present state of life can grasp His essence intellectually. Therefore, those things must properly be called miraculous which are done by divine power apart from the order generally followed in things. [2] Now, there are various degrees and orders of these miracles. Indeed, the highest rank among miracles is held by those events in which something is done by God which nature never could do. For example, that two bodies should be coincident; that the sun reverse its course, or stand still; that the sea open up and offer a way through which people may pass. And even among these an order may be observed. For the greater the things that God does are, and the more they are removed from the capacity of nature, the greater the miracle is. Thus, it is more miraculous for the sun to reverse its course than for the sea to be divided. [3] Then, the second degree among miracles is held by those events in which God does something which nature can do, but not in this order. It is a work of nature for an animal to live, to see, and to walk; but for it to live after death, to see after becoming blind, to walk after paralysis of the limbs, this nature cannot do—but God at times does such works miraculously. Even among this degree of miracles a gradation is evident, according as what is done is more removed from the capacity of nature. [4] Now, the third degree of miracles occurs when God does what is usually done by the working of nature, but without the operation of the principles of nature. For example, a person may be cured by divine power from a fever which could be cured naturally, and it may rain independently of the working of the principles of nature.

Chapter

THAT GOD ALONE, WORKS MIRACLES

[1] It can be shown from the foregoing that God alone can work miracles. [2] In fact, whatever is completely confined under a certain order cannot work above that order. But every creature is established under the order which God has put in things. So, no creature can operate above this order; but that is what it means to work miracles. [3] Again, when any finite power produces the proper effect to which it is determined, this is not a miracle, though it may be a matter of wonder for some person who does not understand that power. For example, it may seem astonishing to ignorant people that a magnet attracts iron or that some little fish might hold back a ship. But the potency of every creature is limited to some definite effect or to certain effects. So, whatever is done by the power of any creature cannot be called a miracle properly, even though it may be astonishing to one who does not comprehend the power of this creature. But what is done by divine power, which, being infinite, is incomprehensible in itself, is truly miraculous. [4] Besides, every creature needs for its action some subject on which to act, for it is the prerogative of God alone to make something out of nothing, as we showed above. Now, nothing that requires a subject for its action can do anything other than that to which the subject is in potency, for the agent acts on the subject in order to bring it from potency to act. So, just as no creature can create, so no creature can produce any effect in a thing except what is within the potency of that thing. But many miracles are divinely accomplished, when something is done in a thing, which is not within the potency of that thing; for instance, that a dead person be revived, that the sun move backwards, that two bodies be coincident. Therefore, these miracles cannot be done by any created power. [5] Moreover, the subject in which an action goes on has a relation both to the agent that reduces it from potency to act and to the act to which it is reduced. Hence, just as a certain subject is in potency to some definite act, and not to merely any act, so also is it impossible for it to be reduced from potency to some definite act except by means of some definite agent. Indeed, a different kind of agent is required to reduce to different types of act. For instance, since air is potentially either fire or water, it is actually made into fire by one agent and into water by a different one. Likewise, it is clear that corporeal matter is not brought to the condition of perfect actuality by the sole power of a universal agent; rather, there must be a particular agent by which the influence of the universal power is limited to a definite effect. Of course, corporeal matter may be brought to less perfect actuality by universal power alone, without a particular agent. For example, perfect animals are not generated by celestial power alone, but require a definite kind of semen; however, for the generation of certain imperfect animals, celestial power by itself is enough, without semen. So, if the effects that are accomplished in these lower bodies are naturally capable of being done by superior universal causes without the working of particular lower causes, such accomplishment is not miraculous. Thus, it is not miraculous for animals to be originated from putrefaction, independently of semen. But, if they do not naturally come about through superior causes alone, then particular lower causes are needed for their development. Now, when some effect is produced by a higher cause through the mediation of proper principles, there is no miracle. Therefore, no miracles can be worked in any way by the power of the higher creatures. [6] Furthermore, it seems to pertain to the same rational principle for a thing to be produced from a subject; for that to which the subject is in potency to be produced; and for an orderly action to be produced through definite intermediate stages. Indeed, a subject is not advanced to proximate potency unless it has become actual in regard to the intermediate stages; thus, food is not immediately potential flesh, but only when it has been changed into blood. Now, every creature must have a subject, in order to make something, nor can it make anything to which the subject is not in potency, as we showed. So, it cannot make anything unless the subject is brought to actuality through definite intermediate stages. Miracles, then, which result from the fact that an effect is produced, but not according to the order in which it can be accomplished naturally, cannot be worked by the power of a creature. [7] Again, a certain order may be observed in the types of motion. The primary motion is local movement, and so it is the cause of the other kinds, since the first in any genus is the cause of the subsequent items in that genus. Now, every effect that is produced in these lower things must be produced by some generation or alteration. So, this must occur by means of something that is moved locally if it be accomplished by an incorporeal agent, which, strictly speaking, cannot be moved locally. Now, the effects that are produced by incorporeal substances through corporeal instruments are not miraculous, since bodies only work naturally. Therefore, created incorporeal substances cannot work any miracles by their own power, and much less can corporeal substances whose every action is natural. [8] So, it is the prerogative of God alone to work miracles. Indeed, He is superior to the order in which the whole of things are contained, just as from His providence this entire order flows. Moreover, His power, being utterly infinite, is not limited to any special effect or to the production of a particular effect in any limited way, or order. [9] Hence it is said about God in the Psalm (135:4): “Who alone does great wonders.”

Chapter

HOW SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCES DO CERTAIN WONDERFUL THINGS WHICH, HOWEVER, ARE NOT TRULY MIRACLES

[1] It was Avicenna’s position that matter is much more obedient to separate substances, in the production of a certain effect, than it is to the contrary agencies within matter. Consequently, he claimed that, when there is an act of apprehension in the aforesaid substances, there results at times an effect in these things here below—for instance, rain, or the healing of a sick person—without the mediation of a corporeal agent. [2] He took an indication of this from our soul. For, when it is possessed of a strong imagination, its body may be changed by an act of cognition alone. For example, when a man is walking over a beam placed at some height, he falls quite easily because, through fear, he imagines his fall. But he would not fall if the beam were placed on the earth, where there would be no possibility of fearing a fall. It is also obvious that, simply as a result of the cognitive act of the soul, the body becomes hot, as happens in those who are prone to concupiscence, or anger; or it may also grow cold, as happens in those subject to fear. Sometimes, too, it is moved by a strong cognitive act toward some illness, such as fever, or even leprosy. And on this basis, he says that, if the soul be pure, not subject to bodily passions, and strong in its cognitive functioning, then not only its own body, but even external bodies, obey its act of apprehension. So much so, that on the occurrence of its act of apprehension a sick person may be cured, or some similar result may occur. And he claims that this is the explanation of the casting of a spell by fascination; namely, that the soul of a person strongly moved by malevolence has the power to inflict an injury on someone, particularly a child, who is quite susceptible to impressions, because of the tender condition of his body. Consequently, Avicenna favored the notion that it is much more likely that the cognitive functions of separate substances, which he regarded as the souls or movers of the spheres, result in certain effects in lower bodies, without the action of any corporeal agent. [3] Now, this theory is in agreement with his other views. For he asserts that all substantial forms flow down to these lower bodies from separate substances, and that corporeal agents are merely to prepare matter to receive the impression of a separate agent. Of course, this is not true, according to the teaching of Aristotle, who proves, in the Metaphysics [VI, 8], that the forms which are in matter do not come from separate forms, but from forms which are in matter; in this way, in fact, the likeness between the maker and the thing made is discovered. [4] Moreover, the example that he takes from the influence of the soul on the body does not help his contention much. For no change in the body results from an act of apprehension unless there be attached to the apprehension some sort of emotion, such as joy or fear, or lust, or some other passion. Now, passions of this kind occur along with a definite motion of the heart, from which there results later a change of the whole body, either in the way of local motion or of alteration. Consequently, it still remains true that the act of apprehension in a spiritual substance does not alter the body except through the mediation of local motion. [5] Again, what he suggests in regard to fascination does not happen as a result of the apprehension of one person immediately changing the body of another, but because, by means of the motion of the heart, it causes a change in the body that is united with the soul; and its change reaches the eye, from which it is possible to affect something external, particularly if it is easily changed. Thus, for instance, the eye of a menstruating woman may affect a mirror. [6] So, with the exception of the use of the local motion of some body, a created spiritual substance cannot by its, own power produce any form in bodily matter, in the sense that matter would be directly subject to it in order to become actual in terms of a form. Of course, there is this capacity within the power of a spiritual substance: a body is obedient to it in regard to local motion. But, to move any body locally, it makes use of any naturally active power in order to produce its effects, just as the art of metal working makes use of fire in order to soften the metal. Now, this is not miraculous, properly speaking. So, the conclusion stands, that created spiritual substances do not work miracles by their own power. [7] Now, I say by their own power, since nothing prevents these substances from working miracles provided they act through divine power. This may be seen from the fact that one order of angels is specially assigned, as Gregory says, to the working of miracles. He even says that some of the saints “work miracles by their power,” and not merely through intercession. [8] However, we should bear in mind the fact that, when either angels or demons make use of natural things in order to produce definite effects, they use them as instruments, just as a physician uses certain herbs as instruments of healing. Now, there proceeds from an instrument not merely an effect corresponding to the power of the instrument, but also an effect beyond its power, in so far as it acts through the power of the principal agent. For instance, a saw or an axe could not make a bed unless they worked as things moved by the art adapted to such a product. Nor could natural heat generate flesh without the power of the vegetative soul which uses it as a sort of instrument. So, it is appropriate that certain higher effects result from these natural things, due to the fact that spiritual substances use them as instruments. [9] So, then, although such effects cannot be called miracles without qualification, since they do result from natural causes, they remain wonderful to us, in two senses. In one way, this is ‘because such causes are applied by spiritual substances to the Production of their effects, in a fashion that is strange to us. As a consequence, the works of clever artisans appear wondrous because it is not evident to other people how they are produced. In a second way, this is due to the fact that natural causes which are applied to the production of certain effects receive a particular power as a result of their being instruments of spiritual substances. This latter way comes rather close to the notion of a miracle.

Chapter

THAT THE WORKS OF MAGICIANS ARE NOT SOLELY DUE TO THE INFLUENCE OF CELESTIAL BODIES [1] There have been some who say that works of this kind, which are astonishing to us when accomplished by the arts of magic, are not performed by spiritual substances but by the power of celestial bodies.And indication of this is seen in the fact that the precise position of the stars is carefully noted by those who perform these works. Moreover, they make use of certain herbs, and other corporeal things, as aids in the preparation, as it were, of low-grade matter for the reception of the influence of celestial power. [2] But this view is clearly opposed by the apparitions. Indeed, since it is not possible for understanding to be caused by corporeal principles, as we proved above, it is impossible for effects peculiar to intellectual nature to be caused by the power of a celestial body. Now, among these workings of the magicians some events appear which are the proper functions of a rational nature. For instance, answers are given concerning things removed by theft, and concerning other such matters, and this could be done only through understanding. So, it is not true that all effects of this kind are caused solely by the power of celestial bodies. [3] Again, speech is itself an act peculiar to a rational nature. Now, certain agents that speak to men appear in these performances, and they reason discursively about various matters. Therefore, it is not possible for things like this to be done solely by the power of celestial bodies. [4] Now, if someone says that apparitions of this kind do not work through external sensation, but only through the imagination, then, first of all, this does not seem true. In fact, imaginary forms do not look like true things to an observer unless there be a loss of discriminatory power in the external senses. For it is impossible for a person to be made to regard images as things unless the natural power of sense discrimination has been overcome. But these vocal messages and apparitions are made to men who exercise their external senses freely. So, it is not possible for these visions and auditory responses to be solely a matter of imagination. [5] Then, too, from imaginary forms it is not possible for intellectual knowledge beyond the natural or acquired ability of the intellect to come to a person. This is clear even in the case of dreams, in which, though there may be some premonition of future events, not everyone who experiences dreams is able to understand their meaning. But, through these visions or auditory messages which appear in the performances of magicians, intellectual knowledge of things which surpass the capacity of his understanding often comes to a person. Examples are the revealing of hidden treasures, the showing of future events, and sometimes true answers are given concerning scientific demonstrations. So, it must be that either these apparitions and vocal messages are not grasped through the imagination only, or, at least, that this case of a man being brought to a knowledge of such matters through imaginary presentations of this kind is done by the power of a higher understanding, and is not done solely by the power of celestial bodies. [6] Again, what is done by the power of celestial bodies is a natural effect, for the forms that are caused in lower bodies by the power of celestial bodies are natural. So, that which cannot be natural for anything cannot be done by the power of celestial bodies. But some such things are said to be done during the aforementioned performances; for instance, in the presence of a certain man, the bolt of any door is opened for him, a certain person can become invisible, and many other such things are reported. Therefore, it is not possible for this to be done by the power of celestial bodies. [7] Besides, whenever a subsequent perfection is conferred on a subject by the power of the celestial bodies, what is prior to this perfection is also conferred. Now, the power of self-movement is subsequent to the possession of a soul, for it is proper to animated beings for them to move themselves. So, it is impossible for something inanimate to be made able to move itself by the power of celestial bodies. But it is said that this can be done by the arts of magic; that a statue, for instance, can move itself, or even speak. So, it is not possible for the effect of the arts of magic to be done by celestial power. [8] Now, if it is suggested that this statue receives a principle of life from the power of celestial bodies, this is impossible. In fact, the principle of life in all living things is the substantial form, “for living beings, to live is to be,” as the Philosopher says in Book II [4] of On the Soul. But it is impossible for a thing to receive a new substantial form without losing the form which it previously possessed, “for the generation of one thing is the corruption of another thing.” Now, in the process of making a statue no substantial form is ejected; rather, what is accomplished is a change of shape only, and this is accidental; the form of copper, or other material, remains. So, it is not possible for these statues to receive a principle of life. [9] Again, if anything is moved by a principle of life, it must have sense power: the mover is, in fact, sense or understanding. Now, understanding is not present in things subject to generation and corruption, without sensation. But sensation cannot be present where there is no touch, nor can touch be without an organ that has a balanced mixture of sensory qualities. Now, such a balanced mixture is not found in stone, or wax, or metal, from which a statue is made. Therefore, it is not possible for these statues to be moved by a principle of life. [10] Besides, perfect living things are not generated by the celestial power alone, but also from semen, “for man, together with the sun, generates a man.” On the other hand, things generated without semen, by the celestial power alone, are animals generated from putrefaction, and they are the lower type of animals. So, if these statues receive a principle of life, whereby to move themselves, through the celestial power alone, they must be the lowest grade of animals. Yet this would be false if they work through an internal principle of life, for noble operations appear among their activities, since they give answers about hidden things. [11] Moreover, it is possible for a natural effect produced by the power of celestial bodies to be accomplished without the operation of an art. For, though a man might work by means of some artful device for the purpose of generating frogs, yet it happens that frogs are generated without any artificial device. So, if these statues that are made by the art of necromancy receive their principle of life from the power of celestial bodies, there should be a possibility of finding a case of the generation of such statues apart from art of this kind. But such a case is not found. It is obvious, then, that these statues do not have a principle of life, nor are they moved by the power of a celestial body. [12] The position of Hermes is disposed of by these considerations, for he spoke as follows, as Augustine reports it in the City of God [VIII, 23]: “Just as God is the maker of the celestial gods, so man is the maker of the gods who are in the temples, content in their nearness to man. I mean the animated statues, endowed with sense and spirit, that do such great and unusual things; statues that foresee future events, predicting them from dreams and from many other things, that cause weaknesses in men and also cure them, that give sorrow and joy, in accord with one’s merits. [13] This view is also refuted by divine authority, for it is said in the Psalm (134:15-17): “The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of men’s hands. They have a mouth and they do not speak... neither is there any breath in their mouths.” [14] However, it does not seem necessary to deny altogether that some power may be present in the aforementioned objects, resulting from the power of the celestial bodies—only it will be for those effects, of course, which any lower bodies are able to produce by the power of celestial bodies.

Chapter

WHERE THE PERFORMANCES OF THE MAGICIANS GET THEIR EFFICACY

[1] Now, it remains to investigate where the arts of magic get their efficacy. Indeed, this can easily be thought out if attention is paid to their method of operation. [2] As a matter of fact, in their performances they use certain significant words in order to produce given effects. But a word, as endowed with meaning, has no force except as derived from some understanding: either from the understanding of the speaker or from the understanding of the one to whom it is spoken. As an example of such dependence on the understanding of the speaker, suppose an intellect is of such great power that a thing can be caused by its act of conception, and that the function of the spoken word is to present, in some way, this conception to the effects that are produced. As an example of dependence on the understanding of the person to whom the speech is directed, take the case of a listener who is induced to do something, through the reception in his intellect of the meaning of the word. Now, it cannot be claimed that these meaningful words spoken by magicians get their efficacy from the understanding of the speaker. Indeed, since power results from essence, a diversity of power manifests a diversity of essential principles. But the intellect of men in general is so disposed that its knowledge is caused by things, instead of it being able to cause things by its act of conception. So, if there be any men who, by their own power, can change things by the words which express their intellectual thought, they will belong to a different species and will be called men in an equivocal sense. [3] Moreover, the power to do something is not acquired by study, but only the knowledge of what to do. Now, some men acquire through study the ability to produce these magical performances. So, there is no special power in them to produce effects of this kind, but only knowledge. [4] Now, if someone says that men like this, in distinction from other men, receive the aforesaid power from birth, due to the power of the stars, so that, no matter how much instruction is given to other men, if they do not possess this from birth, they cannot be successful in works of this kind, our first answer must be that the celestial bodies are not able to make an impression on the understanding, as we showed above. Therefore, no intellect can receive from the power of the stars such a power that the expression of its thought through speech is capable of producing something. [5] But, if it be said that even the imagination produces something when it utters meaningful words, and that the celestial bodies can make an impression on this utterance since this action is performed by means of a bodily organ, this cannot be true in regard to all the effects produced by these arts. It has been shown that not all of these effects can be produced by the power of the stars. Neither, then, can a man receive from the power of the stars this power to produce such effects. [6] So, we are left with the conclusion that effects of this kind are accomplished by some understanding to which the speech of the person uttering these words is addressed. An indication of this fact is that meaningful words such as the magicians use are called invocations, supplications, adjurations, or even commands, implying that one person is speaking to another. [7] Again, in the practices of this art they use certain symbols and specially shaped figures. Now, shape is the principle of neither action nor passion; if it were, mathematical bodies would be active and passive. Hence, it is not possible to dispose matter by special figures so that it will be receptive to a natural effect. So, the magicians do not use figures as dispositions. The conclusion remains, then, that they may use them only as signs, for there is no third possibility. Now, we do not use signs except in regard to other intelligent beings. Therefore, the arts of magic get their efficacy from another intelligent being to whom the speech of the magician is addressed. [8] Now, if someone says that some figures are proper to certain celestial bodies, and so lower bodies are marked by certain figures for the reception of the influences of the celestial bodies, this does not seem a reasonable answer. In fact, a patient is not ordered to the reception of the influence of an agent, unless it be because it is in potency. So, only those things whereby a thing becomes potential, in some way, determine it to receive a special impression. But matter is not disposed by figures so that it is in potency to any form, because figure, according to its rational meaning, abstracts from all sensible matter and form, for it is a mathematical object. Therefore, a body is not determined by figures or symbols for the reception of any influence from a celestial body. [9] Moreover, certain figures are assigned as proper to celestial bodies, as their effects; for the shapes of lower bodies are caused by the celestial bodies. But the aforesaid arts do not use characters or figures like the effects of celestial bodies. Rather, they are the productions of man, working by means of art. So, the assigning of certain figures as proper to celestial bodies seems to contribute nothing to the discussion. [10] Furthermore, as we have shown, natural matter is not in any way disposed toward form by figures. So, the bodies on which these figures are put have the same readiness to receive the celestial influence as any other bodies of the same species. Now, the fact that a thing acts on one of a group of things equally disposed, because of something specially assigned to that agent which is to be found on that object and not on another, is not indicative of an agent which acts by natural necessity, but, rather, of one which acts through will. It is clear, then, that arts of this sort which use figures to produce certain effects do not get their efficacy from a natural agent, but from some intellectual substance that acts through understanding. [11] Indeed, the very name that they give to such figures demonstrates this point, for they call them characters. As a matter of fact, a character is a sign. By this usage we are given to understand that they do not use these figures except as signs addressed to some intellectual nature. [12] However, since figures are like specific forms for art objects, some person could say that nothing prevents the construction of a figure, which specifies an image, as result of some power due to celestial influence, not as a figure, but as it specifies the artifact which obtains its power from the stars. However, concerning the letters with which something is written on an image, and the other characters, nothing else can be said than that they are signs. Hence, they are directed only to some intellect. This is also shown by the offerings, prostrations, and other similar practices which they use, for they can be nothing but signs of reverence addressed to some intellectual nature.

Chapter

THAT THE INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE WHICH PROVIDES THE EFFICACY FOR MAGIC WORKS IS NOT MORALLY GOOD [1] We must further inquire what this intellectual nature is, by whose power such operations are done. [2] First of all, it appears not to be good and praiseworthy. To offer patronage to things that are contrary to virtue is not the act of a well-disposed understanding. But this is done in these arts, for they are often used for purposes of adultery, theft, homicide, and other kinds of wrongdoing. As a result, the practitioners of these arts are called malefics. So, the intellectual nature on whose assistance these arts depend is not well disposed in relation to virtue. [3] Again, a morally well-disposed intellect should not be the associate of, and provide protection for, scoundrels, while having nothing to do with the best men. Now, evil men often make use of these arts. Therefore, the intellectual nature from whose help these arts get their efficacy is not well disposed in relation to virtue. [4] Besides, it pertains to a well-disposed intellect to bring men back to things that are proper goods for men, namely, the goods of reason. Consequently, to lead them away from these goods, by diverting them to the least important goods, is the mark of an improperly disposed intellect. Men do not make any progress by means of these arts in the goods of reason which are the sciences and the virtues, but, rather, in certain least important things, such as the finding of stolen goods and the catching of thieves, and such things. Therefore, the intellectual substances with whose aid these arts are exercised are not well disposed in relation to virtue. [5] Moreover, some deception and irrationality are observable in the practices of these arts. In fact, arts of this kind need a man who is not engrossed in sexual matters, yet they often are used to arrange illicit affairs. But, in the workings of a well-disposed intellect nothing unreasonable or out of keeping with its nature is apparent. Therefore, these arts do not employ the patronage of an intellect that is well disposed in relation to virtue. [6] Furthermore, he who feels called upon to help another by the committing of a crime is not well disposed in his intellect. But this is done in these arts, for we read about some people who, in their practice, have killed innocent children. Therefore, those by whose help such things are done are not good intellects. [7] Again, the proper good of an intellect is truth. So, since to attract to the good is proper to a good being, it seems to be the function of every well-disposed intellect to bring others to the truth. But in the practices of the magicians many things are done whereby men are made sport of and are deceived. So, the intellect whose help they use is not well disposed morally. [8] Besides, a well-disposed intellect is attracted by truth, takes pleasure in it and not in lies. But the magicians use certain lies in their invocations, by which they entice those whose help they employ. They also make certain impossible threats, such as, unless he who is being invoked provides help, the magician who is asking it will shatter the sky, or displace the stars, as Porphyry relates in his Letter to Anebontes. Therefore, these intellectual substances with whose help the works of the magicians are accomplished do not seem to be well disposed in their intellect. [9] Moreover, it does not seem the attribute of a possessor of a well-disposed intellect for it, if it be superior, to submit like an inferior to the one who commands it, or, if it is inferior, to permit itself to be invoked as if it were a superior. But the magicians humbly invoke as their superiors those whose assistance they employ, but when they appear the magicians command them like inferiors. So, in no way do they seem well disposed in relation to intellect. [10] By these considerations the error of the pagans is set aside, for they attributed such works to the gods.

Chapter

THAT THE INTELLECTUAL SUBSTANCE WHOSE HELP THE ARTS OF MAGIC USE IS NOT EVIL IN ITS OWN NATURE [1] Now, it is not possible for there to be natural malice in the intelligent substances with whose help the arts of magic work. [2] A thing does not tend accidentally, but essentially, to the objective to which it inclines by its nature, as, for instance, a heavy body tends downward. But, if intellectual substances of this kind are evil in their nature, they tend to evil naturally. Therefore, they do not tend accidentally, but essentially, to evil. But this is impossible, for we showed above that all things essentially tend to the good, and that nothing tends to evil, except accidentally. Therefore, these intellectual substances are not evil in their nature. [3] Again, whatever is present in things must be either a cause or a thing caused; otherwise, it would have no relation to other things. So, these substances are either causes only or they are also caused. Now, if they are causes, and if evil cannot be the cause of anything, except accidentally, as we showed above, but if everything that is accidental must be traced back to what is essential, then there must be something in them prior to their malice, something by which they may be causes. Now, first in each thing is its nature and essence. Therefore, substances of this kind are not evil in their nature. [4] Moreover, the same thing follows, if they are caused. For no agent acts unless it intends the good. So, evil cannot be the effect of any cause, except accidentally. Now, that which is only caused accidentally cannot be according to nature, since every nature has a definite way of coming into being. Therefore, it is impossible for substances of this kind to be evil in their nature. [5] Furthermore, each thing has its proper act of being in accord with the mode of its nature. Now, to be, as such, is good: the mark of this is that all things desire to be. Therefore, if substances of this kind were evil in their nature, they would have no act of being. [6] Again, we showed above that nothing can be unless it gets its act of being from the first being, and that the first being is the highest good. Now, since every agent, as such, produces something like itself, the things that come from the first being must be good. Therefore, the aforesaid substances, in so far as they exist and have a nature, cannot be evil. [7] Besides, it is impossible for anything to be which is wholly deprived of participation in the good. For, since the desirable and the good are the same thing, if something were utterly devoid of goodness it would have nothing desirable in it; but to each thing its own being is desirable. Therefore, it is necessary that, if anything is called evil in its nature, then this is not evil in the absolute sense, but evil in relation to a particular thing or in some particular way. Thus, poison is not an unqualified evil, but only to this individual for whom it is harmful. Hence, “what is one man’s poison is another man’s meat.” Now, this happens because the particular good that is proper to this individual is contrary to the particular good that is proper to another individual. Thus, heat, which is good for fire, is the contrary to and is destructive of cold, which is good for water. Now, something which is by its nature ordered to the good that is not particular, but absolute, cannot be called evil naturally, even in this sense. But every intellect is such, for its good is found in its proper operation, which is concerned with universals and with things that exist without qualification. So, it is impossible for any intellect to be evil in its own nature, either absolutely or relatively so. [8] Moreover, in each thing that possesses understanding the intellect moves the appetite according to the natural order, for the proper object of the will is the good that is understood. But the good of the will consists in the fact that it follows the understanding; in our case, for instance, the good is what is in accord with reason, but what is apart from reason is evil. So, in the natural order, an intellectual substance wills the good. It is impossible, then, for these intellectual substances, whose help the arts of magic use, to be naturally evil. [9] Furthermore, since the will tends naturally toward the good that is understood as to its proper object and end, it is impossible for an intellectual substance to have a will evil in its nature unless its intellect naturally errs in regard to the judgment of the good. But no intellect can be like that, for false judgments in the area of intellectual operations are like monsters among natural things; they are not in accord with nature, but apart from nature. In fact, the good of the intellect, and its natural end, is the knowledge of truth. Therefore, it is impossible for any intellect to exist which is naturally deceived in its judgment of the true. And so, neither is it possible for there to be an intellectual substance naturally possessing a bad will. [10] Again, no cognitive potency fails in the knowing of its object unless because of some defect or corruption in itself, since it is ordered according to its own rational character to the knowledge of this object. Thus, sight does not fail in the knowing of color unless there be some corruption present in sight itself. But all defect and corruption are apart from nature, because nature intends the being and perfection of the thing. So, it is impossible that there be any cognitive power which naturally falls short of the right judgment of its object. But the proper object of the intellect is the true. It is impossible, then, for there to be an intellect naturally tending to err in regard to the knowledge of the true. Therefore, neither can any will naturally fall short of the good. [11] This is also solidly supported by the text of Scripture. Indeed, it is said in 1 Timothy (4:4): “Every creature of God is good”; and in Genesis (1:31): “God saw all things that He had made, and they were very good.” [12] By this, then, we refute the error of the Manicheans, who asserted that intellectual substances of this kind, whom we call by the customary name of demons or devils, are naturally evil. [13] Also disposed of is the view which Porphyry reports, in his Letter to Anebontes, where he says: “Some people are of the opinion that there is a kind of spirits whose function is to hear the requests of the magicians, spirits who are false by nature, having every form, taking on the appearance of gods and demons and the souls of the dead. And this is the kind that produces all these apparitions, whether good or bad. Moreover, as regards the things that are truly good, no help is given by them; or, better, they do not even know them. Instead, they advise evil things, and blame and frequently binder zealous followers of virtue; and they are full of boldness and pride; they take pleasure in frothy exhalations and are overcome by false praises.” Indeed, these words of Porphyry quite plainly express the evil character of the demons whose help the magic arts employ. The only point in which his words are objectionable is his statement that this evil is naturally present in them.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS WHEREBY IT SEEMS TO BE PROVED THAT THERE CAN BE NO SIN IN DEMONS [1] Now, if malice is not natural in the demons, and if it has been shown that they are evil, it must follow that they are had voluntarily. So, we must ask how this can be, for it seems to be altogether impossible. [2] Indeed, it was shown in Book Twos that no intellectual substance is naturally united to a body except the human soul, or also, according to some thinkers, the souls of celestial bodies. But, in regard to the latter, it is not appropriate to think that they are evil, since the motion of the celestial bodies is most orderly, and in a way is the source of the entire order of nature. Now, every other cognitive potency besides the intellect uses animated bodily organs. So, it is not possible for there to be in substances of this kind any cognitive power other than understanding. Hence, whatever they know, they understand. Now, one does not err in regard to the object which one understands, since all error arises from a failure to understand. Therefore, there can be no error in such substancesknowledge. Moreover, no sin can occur in the will without error, since the will always tends toward the good as apprehended. Consequently, unless there is an error in the apprehension of the good, there cannot be a sin in the will. Therefore, it seems that there can be no sin in the will of these substances. [3] Again, in our case, as regards the things of which we possess universal knowledge, sin occurs in our will because the judgment of reason is impeded on a particular point by some passion which shackles the reason. But these passions cannot occur in demons, because such passions belong to the sensitive part of the soul, which cannot operate without a bodily organ. So, if separate substances of this kind have right knowledge on the universal level, it is impossible for their will to incline to evil because of a defect of knowledge on the particular level. [4] Besides, no cognitive power is deceived in regard to its proper object, but only in regard to something foreign to it. For instance, sight is not deceived in judging color, but, when a man judges by sight concerning the taste or species of a thing, deception may occur in that case. But the proper object of understanding is the quiddity of a thing. Hence, in the cognitive act of an intellect, provided it apprehend pure quiddities, deception cannot occur. Rather, all intellectual deception seems to happen because it apprehends the forms of things mixed together with phantasms, as happens in our case. But such a mode of knowing is not found in intellectual substances that are not united with a body, since phantasms cannot be without a body. Tlerefore, it is not possible for cognitive error to occur in separate substances; neither, then, can sin be in their will. [5] Moreover, falsity occurs in our case in the intellectual operation of composing and dividing, as a result of the fact that it does not apprehend the quiddity of a thing simply, but, rather, combines something with the thing that is apprehended. Of course, in the operation of the intellect, whereby it apprehends that which is, no falsity occurs except accidentally, by virtue of mixing, even in this operation, some part of the operation of the intellect composing and dividing. Indeed, this happens because our intellect does not immediately attain the knowledge of the quiddity of a thing, but with a certain order in the process of inquiry. For example, we first apprehend animal, then we divide it into the opposed differences, and, leaving one aside, we put the other with the genus, until we come to the definition of the species. Now, falsity may occur in this process if something is taken as a difference in the genus which is not a difference in the genus. Of course, to proceed in this way to the quidditative knowledge of something pertains to an intellect reasoning discursively from one thing to another. This is not proper to separate intellectual substances, as we showed above. Hence, it does not seem that any error can occur in the knowledge of these substances. Consequently, neither can sin occur in their will. [6] Furthermore, since in no case does the appetite of a thing tend to anything other than its proper good, it seems impossible for that for which there is uniquely but one sole good to err in its appetite. For this reason, though something wrong may happen in natural things because of a contingent defect in the working of the appetite, such wrong never occurs in natural appetite; thus, a stone always tends downward, whether it achieves its goal or is stopped. But sin does occur in our act of appetition, because, since our nature is composed of the spiritual and the corporeal, there are several goods for us. Our good in regard to understanding is indeed different from what it is according to sensation, or even according to the body. Now, there is a certain order of these various things that are man’s goods, based on the fact that what is less primary is subordinated to what is more primary. Hence, a sin occurs in our will when, failing to observe this order, we desire what is only relatively good for us, in opposition to what is absolutely good. However, such a complexity and diversity of goods is not found in the separate substances; on the contrary, every good for them is according to the understanding. Therefore, it is not possible for there to be a sin in the will for them, as it would seem. [7] Again, in us sin occurs in the will, as a result of excess or defect, and virtue consists in the mean between these. So, in things which do not admit of excess or defect, but only of the mean, it is not possible for the will to sin. For instance, no one can sin by desiring justice, for justice is itself a certain mean. Now, separate intellectual substances cannot desire anything except intellectual goods; indeed, it is ridiculous to say that those who are incorporeal in their nature desire corporeal goods, or that those without sense power desire sensible goods. But among intellectual goods one can find no excess, for these goods are in themselves means between excess and defect; just as the true is a mean between two errors, one of which goes too far, the other not far enough. Consequently, both sensible and corporeal goods achieve the mean, to the extent that they are in accord with reason. So, it does not seem that separate intellectual substances can sin by their will. [8] Besides, incorporeal substance seems farther removed from defects than is corporeal substance. But, in the case of corporeal substances that are without contrariety, no defect can occur; for instance, in the celestial bodies. Much less possible, then, is it for any sin to occur in separate substances, which are removed both from contrariety, from matter, and from motion, from which sources any possible defect would seem to come.

Chapter

THAT SIN CAN OCCUR IN DEMONS, AND IN WHAT WAY

[1] However, that there is sin of the will in demons is obvious from the text of Sacred Scripture. In fact, it is said in 1 John (3:8) that “the devil sins from the beginning”; and in John (8:44) it is said that “the devil is a liar and the father of lies” and that “he was a murderer from the beginning.” And in Wisdom (2:24) it is said that “by the envy of the devil, death came into the world.” [2] Moreover, if anyone wished to follow the views of the Platonists, that would be an easy way to answer the arguments stated above. For they say that demons are animals with an aerial body; and so, since they have bodies united to them, there can also be in them a sensitive part. Hence, they also attribute passions to them, which are for us a cause of sin; namely, anger, hate, and others of like kind. This is why Apuleius says that they are passive in their mind. [3] Also, apart from this contention that they are united to bodies according to the views of Plato, it might perhaps be possible to claim another kind of knowledge in them, other than that of the intellect. For, according to Plato, the sensitive soul is also incorruptible. Hence, it must have an operation in which the body does not share. Thus, nothing is to prevent the operation of the sensitive soul and, consequently, passions from taking place in any intellectual substance, even though it is not united with a body. And so, there remains in them the same source of sinful action that is found in us. [4] However, both of these foregoing views are impossible. As a matter of fact, we showed above that there are no other intellectual substances united to bodies besides human souls. Moreover, that the operations of the sensitive soul cannot go on without the body is apparent from the fact that, with the corruption of any organ of sensation, the operation of one sense is corrupted. For instance, if the eye be destroyed, vision fails. For this reason, when the organ of touch is corrupted, without which an animal cannot exist, the animal must die. [5] So, for the clarification of the aforesaid difficulty, we must give some consideration to the fact that, as there is an order in agent causes, so also is there one in final causes, so that, for instance, a secondary end depends on a principal one, just as a secondary agent depends on a principal one. Now, something wrong happens in the case of agent causes when a secondary agent departs from the order of the principal agent. For example, when the leg bone fails because of its crookedness in the carrying out of the motion which the appetitive power has commanded, limping ensues. So, too, in the case of final causes, when a secondary end is not included under the order of the principal end, there results a sin of the will, whose object is the good and the end. [6] Now, every will naturally wishes what is a proper good for the volitional agent, namely, perfect being itself, and it cannot will the contrary of this. So, in the case of a volitional agent whose proper good is the ultimate end, no sin of the will can occur, for the ultimate end is not included under the order of another end; instead, all other ends are contained under its order. Now, this kind of volitional agent is God, Whose being is the highest goodness, which is the ultimate end. Hence, in God there can be no sin of the will. [7] But in any other kind of volitional agent, whose proper good must be included under the order of another good, it is possible for sin of the will to occur, if it be considered in its own nature. Indeed, although natural inclination of the will is present in every volitional agent to will and to love its own perfection so that it cannot will the contrary of this, yet it is not so naturally implanted in the agent to so order its perfection to another end, that it cannot fail in regard to it, for the higher end is not proper to its nature, but to a higher nature. It is left, then, to the agent’s choice, to order his own proper perfection to a higher end. In fact, this is the difference between those agents who have a will, and those things which are devoid of will: the possessors of will order themselves and their actions to the end, and so they are said to be free in their choice; whereas those devoid of will do not order themselves to their end, but are ordered by a higher agent, being moved by another being to the end, not by themselves. [8] Therefore, it was possible for sin to occur in the will of a separate substance, because it did not order its proper good and perfection to its ultimate end, but stuck to its own good as an end. And because the rules of action must be derived from the end, the consequence is that this separate substance tried to arrange for the regulation of other beings from himself wherein he had established his end, and thus his will was not regulated by another, higher one. But this function belongs to God alone. In terms of this, we should understand that “he desired to be equal to God” (Is. 14:14). Not, indeed, that his good would be equal to the divine good, for this thought could not have occurred in his understanding, and in desiring such a thing he would have desired not to exist, since the distinction of species arises from the different grades of things, as is clear from previous statements. However, to will to rule others, and not to have his will ruled by a higher one, is to will to take first place and, in a sense, not to be submissive; this is the sin of pride. Hence, it may appropriately be said that the first sin of the demon was pride. But since a diversified and pluralized error results from one error concerning the starting point, multiple sin followed in his will as a result of the first disorder of the will which took place in the demon: sins both of hatred toward God, as One Who resists his pride and punishes his fault most justly, and of envy toward man, and many other similar sins. [9] We should also consider that, when an agent’s proper good is related to several higher goods, the volitional agent is free to depart from the order of one superior and free not to abandon the order of another, whether it be higher or lower. Thus, a soldier who is subordinate to the king and to the leader of the army can order his will to the leader’s good and not to the king’s, or vice versa. But, if the leader departs from the order of the king, the will of the soldier who abandons the will of the leader and directs his will to the king is going to be good, whereas the will of the soldier who follows the will of the leader against the will of the king is going to be bad, for the order of a lower principle depends on the order of a higher one. Now, separate substances are not only subordinated to God, but one of them is subordinated to another, from the first to the last, as we showed in Book Two. And since in each volitional agent under God there can be a sin of the will, if he were considered in his own nature, it was possible for some of the higher ones, or even the highest of all, to sin in his will. And, in fact, this is probably what happened, for he would not have been satisfied with his own good as an end unless his good were quite perfect. So, it possibly happened in this way: some of the lower ones, through their own will, ordered their good to his, and departing from the divine order they sinned in like fashion; others, however, observing in the movement of their will the divine order, rightly departed from the order of the sinful one, even though he was a superior in the order of nature. But how the will of both kinds perseveres immutably in goodness, or in evil, will be shown in Book Four, for this has to do with the punishments and rewards of the good and the evil. [10] But there is this difference between man and a separate substance: in one man there are several appetitive powers, one subordinated to the other. Now, this is not the case in separate substances, though one of these substances stands under another. Now, sin occurs in the will when in any way the lower appetite rebels. So, just as sin could occur in the separate substances, either by being turned away from the divine order, or by one of the lower ones being turned aside from the order of a superior one which continues under the divine order, so also, in one man, sin may occur in two ways. One way is due to the fact that the human will does not order its proper good to God; in fact, this kind of sin is common both to man himself and to the separate substance. Another way is due to the good of the lower appetite not being ruled in accord with the higher appetite; for example, we may desire the pleasures of the flesh to which the concupiscible appetite inclines, in discord with the order of reason. Now, this latter kind of sin cannot occur in separate substances.

Chapter

ANSWER TO THE PREVIOUS ARGUMENTS

[1] So, then, it is not difficult to answer the arguments that have been presented. [2] As a matter of fact, we are not forced to say that there was error in the understanding of a separate substance, in judging a good not to be a good. Instead, it was in not considering the higher good to which its proper good should have been directed. Now, the reason for this lack of consideration could have been that the will was vehemently turned toward its own good, for to turn to this or that object is a characteristic of free will. [3] It is evident, also, that he desired only one good, that is, his own; but there was sin in this, because he set aside the higher good to which he should have been ordered. just as sin in us is due to the fact that we desire lower goods, that is, those of the body, in discord with the order of reason, so in the devil there was sin, because he did not relate his own good to the divine good. [4] Moreover, it is clear that he overlooked the mean of virtue, in so far as he did not subject himself to the order of a superior; thus, he gave himself more importance than was proper, while giving less to God than was due Him to Whom all should be subject as to the Orderer of the primary rule. So, it is evident that, in this sin, the mean was not abandoned because of an excess of passion, but simply because of inequity under justice, which is concerned with actions. In fact, actions are possible in the case of separate substances, but passions are in no way possible. [5] Nor, indeed, is it a necessary conclusion that, if no defect can be present in higher bodies, for this reason sin cannot occur in separate substances. For bodies and all things devoid of reason are only moved to action; they do not act of themselves, for they do not have control over their acts. Consequently, they cannot depart from the primary rule which actuates and moves them, except in the sense that they cannot adequately receive the regulation of the primary rule. Of course, this is so due to the indisposition of matter. For this reason, the higher bodies, in which this indisposition of matter has no place, never can fall short of the rightness of the primary rule. But rational substances, or intellectual ones, are not merely acted upon; rather, they also move themselves to their proper acts. Indeed, the more perfect their nature is, the more evident is this characteristic in them, for, the more perfect their nature is, the more perfect is their power to act. Consequently, perfection of nature does not preclude the possibility of sin occurring in them in the aforesaid way: namely, because they fasten upon themselves, and pay no attention to the order of a higher agent.

Chapter

THAT RATIONAL CREATURES ARE SUBJECT TO DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN A SPECIAL WAY

[1] From the points which have been determined above,it is manifest that divine providence extends to all things. Yet we must note that there is a special meaning for providence in reference to intellectual and rational creatures, over and above its meaning for other creatures. For they do stand out above other creatures, both in natural perfection and in the dignity of their end. In the order of natural perfection, only the rational creature holds dominion over his acts, moving himself freely in order to perform his actions. Other creatures, in fact, are moved to their proper workings rather than being the active agents of these operations, as is clear from what has been said. And in the dignity of their end, for only the intellectual creature reaches the very ultimate end of the whole of things through his own operation, which is the knowing and loving of God; whereas other creatures cannot attain the ultimate end except by a participation in its likeness. Now, the formal character of every work differs according to the diversity of the end and of the things which are subject to the operation; thus, the method of working in art differs according to the diversity of the end and of the subject matter. For instance, a physician works in one way to get rid of illness and in another way to maintain health, and he uses different methods for bodies differently constituted. Likewise, in the government of a state, a different plan of ordering must be followed, depending on the varying conditions of the persons subject to this government and on the different purposes to which they are directed. For soldiers are controlled in one way, so that they may be ready to fight; while artisans will be managed in another way, so that they may successfully carry out their activities. So, also, there is one orderly plan in accord with which rational creatures are subjected to divine providence, and another by means of which the rest of creatures are ordered.

Chapter

THAT RATIONAL CREATURES ARE GOVERNED FOR THEIR OWN SAKES, WHILE OTHERS ARE GOVERNED IN SUBORDINATION TO THEM [1] First of all, then, the very way in which the intellectual creature was made, according as it is master of its acts, demands providential care whereby this creature may provide for itself, on its own behalf; while the way in which other things were created, things which have no dominion over their acts, shows this fact, that they are cared for, not for their own sake, but as subordinated to others. That which is moved only by another being has the formal character of an instrument, but that which acts of itself has the essential character of a principal agent. Now, an instrument is not valued for its own sake, but as useful to a principal agent. Hence it must be that all the careful work that is devoted to instruments is actually done for the sake of the agent, as for an end, but what is done for the principal agent, either by himself or by another, is for his own sake, because he is the principal agent. Therefore, intellectual creatures are so controlled by God, as objects of care for their own sakes; while other creatures are subordinated, as it were, to the rational creatures. [2] Again, one who holds dominion over his own acts is free in his activity, “for the free man is he who acts for his own sake.” But one who is acted upon by another, under necessity, is subject to slavery. So, every other creature is naturally subject to slavery; only the intellectual creature is by nature free. Now, under every sort of government, provision is made for free men for their own sakes, but for slaves in such a way that they may be at the disposal of free men. And so, through divine providence provision is made for intellectual creatures on their own account, but for the remaining creatures for the sake of the intellectual ones. [3] Besides, whenever things are ordered to any end, and some of these things cannot attain the end through their own efforts, they must be subordinated to things which do achieve the end and which are ordered to the end for their own sakes. Thus, for instance, the end of an army is victory, and this the soldiers may achieve through their own act of fighting; that is why only soldiers are needed for their own sake in an army. All others, who are assigned to different tasks—for instance, caring for the horses and supplying the weapons—are needed for the sake of the soldiers in the army. Now, from what has been seen earlier, it is established that God is the ultimate end of the whole of things; that an intellectual nature alone attains to Him in Himself, that is, by knowing and loving Him, as is evident from what has been said. Therefore, the intellectual nature is the only one that is required in the universe, for its own sake, while all others are for its sake. [4] Moreover, in any whole the principal parts are needed in themselves in order to constitute the whole, but the other parts are for the preservation or for some betterment of the principal ones. Now, of all the parts of the universe the more noble are intellectual creatures, since they come closer to the divine likeness. Therefore, intellectual creatures are governed by divine providence for their own sakes, while all others are for the intellectual ones. [5] Furthermore, it is evident that all parts are ordered to the perfection of the whole, since a whole does not exist for the sake of its parts, but, rather, the parts are for the whole. Now, intellectual natures have a closer relationship to a whole than do other natures; indeed, each intellectual substance is, in a way, all things. For it may comprehend the entirety of being through its intellect; on the other hand, every other substance has only a particular share in being. Therefore, other substances may fittingly be providentially cared for by God for the sake of intellectual substances. [6] Again, as a thing is acted upon in the course of nature, so is it disposed to action by its natural origin. Now, we see that things do go on in the course of nature in such a way that intellectual substance uses all others for itself: either for the perfecting of its understanding, since it contemplates the truth in them; or for the exercise of its power and the development of its knowledge, in the fashion of an artist who develops his artistic conception in bodily matter; or even for the support of his body which is united with the intellectual soul, as we see in the case of men. Therefore, it is clear that all things are divinely ruled by providence for the sake of intellectual substances. [7] Besides, what a man desires for its own sake is something which he always desires, for that which is, because of itself, always is. On the other hand, what a man desires for the sake of something else is not necessarily always desired; rather, the duration of the desire depends on that for which it is sought. Now, the being of things flows forth from the divine will, as is shown in our earlier considerations. Therefore, those things which always exist among beings are willed by God for their own sake, while things which do not always exist are not for their own sake, but for the sake of something else. Now, intellectual substances come closest to existing always, for they are incorruptible. They are also immutable, excepting only their act of choice. Therefore, intellectual substances are governed for their own sake, in a sense, while others are for them. [8] Nor is what was shown in earlier arguments opposed to this, namely, that all parts of the universe are ordered to the perfection of the whole. For all parts are ordered to the perfection of the whole, inasmuch as one is made to serve another. Thus, in the human body it is apparent that the lungs contribute to the perfection of the body by rendering service to the heart; hence, it is not contradictory for the lungs to be for the sake of the heart, and also for the sake of the whole organism. Likewise, it is not contradictory for some natures to be for the sake of the intellectual ones, and also for the sake of the perfection of the universe. For, in fact, if the things needed for the perfection of intellectual substance were lacking, the universe would not be complete. [9] Similarly, too, the foregoing is not opposed by the fact that individuals are for the sake of their proper species. Because they are ordered to their species, they possess a further ordination to intellectual nature. For a corruptible thing is not ordered to man for the sake of one individual man only, but for the sake of the whole human species. A corruptible thing could not be of use to the whole human species except by virtue of the thing’s entire species. Therefore, the order whereby corruptible things are ordered to man requires the subordination of individuals to their species. [10] However, we do not understand this statement, that intellectual substances are ordered for their own sake by divine providence, to mean that they are not more ultimately referred to God and to the perfection of the universe. In fact, they are said to be providentially managed for their own sake, and other things for their sake, in the sense that the goods which they receive through divine goodness are not given them for the advantage of another being, but the things given to other beings must be turned over to the use of intellectual substances in accord with divine providence. [11] Hence it is said in Deuteronomy (4:19): “Lest you see the sun and the moon and the other stars, and being deceived by error, you adore and serve them, which the Lord Your God created for the service of all the nations that are under heaven”; and again in the Psalm (8:8): “You subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, moreover the beasts of the field”; and in Wisdom (12:18) it is said: “You, being Master of power, judge with tranquillity, and with great favor dispose of us.” [12] Through these considerations we refute the error of those who claim that it is a sin for man to kill brute animals. For animals are ordered to man’s use in the natural course of things, according to divine providence. Consequently, man uses them without any injustice, either by killing them or by employing them in any other way. For this reason, God said to Noah: “As the green herbs, I have delivered all flesh to you” (Gen. 9:3). [13] Indeed, if any statements are found in Sacred Scripture prohibiting the commission of an act of cruelty against brute animals, for instance, that one should not kill a bird accompanied by her young (Deut. 22:6), this is said either to turn the mind of man away from cruelty which might be used on other men, lest a person through practicing cruelty on brutes might go on to do the same to men; or because an injurious act committed on animals may lead to a temporal loss for some man, either for the agent or for another man; or there may be another interpretation of the text, as the Apostle (1 Cor. 9:9) explains it, in terms of “not muzzling the ox that treads the corn” (Deut. 25:4).

Chapter

THAT THE RATIONAL CREATURE IS DIRECTED BY GOD TO HIS ACTIONS NOT ONLY BY AN ORDERING OF THE SPECIES, BUT ALSO ACCORDING TO WHAT BEFITS THE INDIVIDUAL [1] It is evident, as a result, that only the rational creature is directed by God to his actions, not only in accord with what is suitable to the species, but also in accord with what is suitable to the individual. Each thing appears to exist for the sake of its operation; indeed, operation is the ultimate perfection of a thing. Therefore, each thing is ordered to its action by God according to the way in which it is subordinated to divine providence. Now, a rational creature exists under divine providence as a being governed and provided for in himself, and not simply for the sake of his species, as is the case with other corruptible creatures. For the individual that is governed only for the sake of the species is not governed for its own sake, but the rational creature is governed for his own sake, as is clear from what we have said.And so, only rational creatures receive direction from God in their acts, not only for the species, but for the individual. [2] Again, whenever beings are directed in their acts, solely on the basis of what pertains to the species, the capacity to act or not to act is not present in them. For things that are associated with the species are common and natural to all individuals contained in the species. Now, natural functions are not within our power to control. So, if man were able to direct his acts only in accord with what is suitable to the species, he would not have within him the capacity to act or not to act. Rather, he would have to follow the natural inclination common to the whole species, as is the case with all irrational creatures. Therefore, it is obvious that a rational creature has the ability to direct his acts, not only in accord with the species, but also in accord with the individual. [3] Besides, as we showed above, divine providence extends to all singular things, even to the least. In the case of those beings, then, whose actions take place apart from the inclination appropriate to their species, it is necessary for them to be regulated in their acts by divine providence, over and above the direction which pertains to the species. But many actions are evident, in the case of the rational creature, for which the inclination of the species is not enough. The mark of this is that such actions are not alike in all, but differ in various cases. Therefore, the rational creature must be directed by God in his acts, not only specifically, but also individually. [4] Moreover, God takes care of each nature according to its capacity; indeed, He created singular creatures of such kinds that He knew were suited to achieving the end under His governance. Now, only the rational creature is capable of this direction, whereby his actions are guided, not only specifically, but also individually. For he possesses understanding and reason, and consequently he can grasp in what different ways a thing may be good or bad, depending on its suitability for various individuals, times, and places. Therefore, only the rational creature is directed in his acts by God, individually as well as specifically. [5] Furthermore, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in such a way that he is not only governed thereby, but is also able to know the rational plan of providence in some way. Hence, it is appropriate for him to exercise providence and government over other things. This is not the case with other creatures, for they participate in providence only to the extent of being subordinated to it. Through this possession of the capacity to exercise providence one may also direct and govern his own acts. So, the rational creature participates in divine providence, not only by being governed passively, but also by governing actively, for he governs himself in his personal acts, and even others. Now, all lower types of providence are subordinated, as it were, to divine providence. Therefore, the governing of the acts of a rational creature, in so far as they are personal acts, pertains to divine providence. [6] Again, the personal acts of a rational creature are properly the acts that stem from the rational soul. Now, the rational soul is capable of perpetual existence, not only in function of the species, as is the case with other creatures, but also in an individual sense. Therefore, the acts of a rational creature are directed by divine providence not only for the reason that they are important to the species, but also inasmuch as they are personal acts. [7] This is why, though all things are subject to divine providence, the care of man is especially attributed to it in Sacred Scripture, in the text of the Psalm (8:5): “What is man that You art mindful of him?” and of 1 Corinthians (9:9): “Does God take care of oxen?” Indeed, these statements have been so expressed because God takes care of human acts, not only as they pertain to the species, but also inasmuch as they are personal acts.

Chapter

THAT LAWS ARE DIVINELY GIVEN TO MAN

[1] It is apparent, next, that it was necessary for law to be divinely given to man. just as the acts of irrational creatures are directed by God through a rational plan which pertains to their species, so are the acts of men directed by God inasmuch as they pertain to the individual, as we have shown.But the acts of irrational creatures, as pertaining to the species, are directed by God through natural inclination, which goes along with the nature of the species. Therefore, over and above this, something must be given to men whereby they may be directed in their own personal acts. And this we call law. [2] Again, the rational creature, as we have said, is so subjected to divine providence that he even participates in a certain likeness of divine providence, in so far as he is able to govern himself in his own acts, and also others. Now, that whereby the acts of such agents are governed is called law. Quite appropriately, then, law was given to men by God. [3] Besides, since law is simply a certain rational plan and rule of operation, it is fitting that law be given only to those beings who know the rational character of their work. Now, this is proper only to a rational creature. Therefore, it was appropriate that law was given to the rational creature only. [4] Moreover, law should be given to those having the ability to act and not to act. Now, this is true of the rational creature only. Therefore, only the rational creature is capable of receiving law. [5] Furthermore, since law is nothing but a rational plan of operation, and since the rational plan of any kind of work is derived from the end, anyone capable of receiving the law receives it from him who shows the way to the end. Thus does the lower artisan depend on the architect, and the soldier on the leader of the army. But the rational creature attains his ultimate end in God, and from God, as we have seen in the foregoing. Therefore, it is appropriate for law to be given men by God. [6] Hence it is said in Jeremiah (31:33): “I will give my law in their bowels”; and in Hosea (8:12; Douay modified): “I shall write my manifold laws for them.”

Chapter

THAT THE DIVINE LAW PRINCIPALLY ORDERS MAN TOWARD GOD

[1] From this conclusion we may gather what it is to which the divinely given law principally tends. [2] It is evident that every lawmaker intends to direct men by means of laws toward his own end, principally. Thus, the leader of an army intends victory and the ruler of a state intends peace. But the end which God intends is God Himself. Therefore, the divine law principally looks to the ordering of man toward God. [3] Again, as we have said, law is a rational plan of divine providence, in its governing capacity, proposed to the rational creature. But the governance of God, as providence, conducts individual beings to their own ends. Therefore, man is chiefly ordered to his end by the divinely given law. Now, the end for the human creature is to cling to God, for his felicity consists in this, as we have shown above. So, the divine law primarily directs man to this end: that he may cling to God. [4] Besides, the intention of every legislator is to make those to whom he gives the law good; as a consequence, the precepts of law should be concerned with acts of virtue. So, those acts which are best are chiefly intended by divine law. But of all human acts, those whereby man clings to God are best, in the sense that they are nearer to the end. Therefore, the divine law primarily orders men in regard to those acts. [5] Moreover, that from which the law derives its efficacy should be the most important thing in the law. But the divinely given law derives its efficacy among men from the fact that man is subject to God, for no one is bound by the law of a ruler if he is not subject to him. Therefore, this should be of primary importance in divine law: that the human mind must cling to God. [6] Hence it is said in Deuteronomy (10:3.2): “And now, Israel, what does the Lord Your God require of You: but that You fear the Lord Your God, and walk in His ways, and love Him, and serve the Lord Your God, with all your heart and with all your soul?”

Chapter

THAT THE END OF DIVINE LAW IS THE LOVE OF GOD

[1] Since the intention of divine law is primarily to this purpose, that man may cling to God, and since man is best able to cling to God through love, it must be that the intention of divine law is primarily ordered to an act of love. [2] Now, it is quite clear that man chiefly clings to God through love. For there are two things in man by which he is enabled to cling to God, namely, intellect and will. For by means of the lower parts of his soul he cannot cling to God, but only to inferior things. Now, the union which is effected through the intellect is completed by the union which pertains to the will, because through his will man in some way rests in that which the intellect apprehends. But the will adheres to a thing, either because of love or because of fear, but not in the same way. For, if one clings to something because of fear, he clings because of something else, for instance, to avoid an evil which threatens unless he clings to that thing. But, if one clings to a thing because of love, he does so for the sake of that thing. Now, what is valued for its own sake is of greater importance than what is for the sake of something else. Therefore, the adherence to God in love is the best possible way of clinging to Him. So, this is what is chiefly intended in the divine law. [3] Again, the end of every law, and above all of divine law, is to make men good. But a man is deemed good from his possession of a good will, through which he may put into act whatever good there is in him. Now, the will is good because it wills a good object, and especially the greatest good, which is the end. So, the more the will desires such a good, the more does a man advance in goodness. But a man has more desire for what he wills because of love than for what he wills because of fear only, for what he loves only from a motive of fear is called an object of mixed involuntariness. Such is the case of the man who wills to throw his merchandise into the sea because of fear.Therefore, the love of the highest good, namely, God, above all else makes men good, and is chiefly intended in the divine law. [4] Besides, man’s goodness stems from virtue, “for virtue is what makes its possessor good.” Hence, law also intends to make men virtuous, and the precepts of law are concerned with acts of the virtues. But it is a condition of virtue that the virtuous man must act with firmness and joy. But love is the chief producer of this result, for we do a thing firmly, and with joy, as a result of love. Therefore, love of the good is the ultimate object. intended in divine law. [5] Moreover, legislators move those to whom the law is given by means of a command pertaining to the law as it is promulgated. In the case of all who are moved by a first mover, any one of them is moved more perfectly when he participates more fully in the motion of the prime mover, and in his likeness. Now, God, Who is the giver of divine law, makes all things because of His love. So, he who tends toward God in this way, namely, by loving Him, is most perfectly moved toward Him. Now, every agent intends perfection in the object of his action. Therefore, this is the end of all legislation: to make man love God. [6] Hence it is said in 1 Timothy (1:5): “The end of the commandment is charity”; and in Matthew (22:37-38) it is said that “the first and greatest commandment of the law is: Love the Lord Your God.” [7] As a further consequence, the New Law, as the more perfect, is called the law of love; while the Old Law, as less perfect, is the law of fear.

Chapter

THAT WE ARE ORDERED BY DIVINE LAW TO THE LOVE OF NEIGHBOR

[1] The next point after this is that divine law intends the love of neighbor. [2] For there should be a union in affection among those for whom there is one common end. Now, men share in common the one ultimate end which is happiness, to which they are divinely ordered. So, men should be united with each other by a mutual love. [3] Again, whoever loves a person must, as a consequence, also love those loved by that person and those related to him. Now, men are loved by God, for He has prearranged for them, as an ultimate end, the enjoyment of Himself. Therefore, it should be that, as a person becomes a lover of God, he also becomes a lover of his neighbor. [4] Besides, since “man is naturally a social animal,” he needs to be helped by other men in order to attain his own end. This is most fittingly accomplished by mutual love which obtains among men. Therefore, by the law of God, which directs men to their ultimate end, mutual love is prescribed for us. [5] Moreover, so that man may devote his time to divine matters, he needs tranquillity and peace. Now, things that are potential disturbances to peace are removed principally by mutual love. So, since the divine law orders men in order that they may devote themselves to divine matters, it is necessary for mutual love to be engendered among men by divine law. [6] Furthermore, divine law is offered to man as an aid to natural law. Now, it is natural to all men to love each other. The mark of this is the fact that a man, by some natural prompting, comes to the aid of any man in need, even if he does not know him. For instance, he may call him back from the wrong road, help him up from a fall, and other actions like that: “as if every man were naturally the familiar and friend of every man. Therefore, mutual love is prescribed for men by the divine law. [7] Hence it is said in John (15:12): “This is my commandment: that you love one another”; and in 1 John (4:21): “This commandment we have from God, that he who loves God love also his brother”; and in Matthew (22:39) it is said that the second commandment is: “Love Your neighbor.”

Chapter

THAT THROUGH DIVINE LAW MEN ARE BOUND TO THE RIGHT FAITH

[1] From this it becomes clear that men are bound to the right faith through divine law. [2] Indeed, just as the origin of bodily love lies in the vision accomplished through the bodily eye, so also the beginning of spiritual love ought to lie in the intellectual vision of an object of spiritual love. Now, we cannot possess the vision of God, as an object of spiritual vision, in this life except through faith, because it exceeds the power of natural reason, and particularly because our happiness consists in the enjoyment of Him. Therefore, we must be led to the right faith by the divine law. [3] Again, the divine law orders man for this purpose, that he may be entirely subject to God. But, just as man is subject to God as far as will is concerned, through loving, so is he subject to God as far as intellect is concerned, through believing; not, of course, by believing anything that is false, for no falsity can be proposed to man by God Who is truth. Consequently, he who believes something false does not believe in God. Therefore, men are ordered to the right faith by the divine law. [4] Besides, whoever is in error regarding something that is of the essence of a thing does not know that thing. Thus, if someone understood irrational animal with the notion that it is a man, he would not know man. Now, it would be a different matter if he erred concerning one of man’s accidents. However, in the case of composite beings, the person who is in error concerning one of their essential principles does know the thing, in a relative way, though he does not know it in an unqualified sense. For instance, he who thinks that man is an irrational animal knows him according to his genus. But this cannot happen in reference to simple beings; instead, any error at all completely excludes knowledge of the being. Now, God is most simple. So, whoever is in error concerning God does not know God, just as the man who thinks that God is a body does not know God at all, but grasps something else in place of God. However, the way in which a thing is known determines the way in which it is loved and desired. Therefore, he who is in error about God can neither love God nor desire Him as an end. So, since the divine law intends this result, that man love and desire God, man must be bound by divine law to bold a right faith concerning God. [5] Moreover, false opinion holds the same place in regard to objects of the intellect that vice opposed to virtue has in regard to moral matters, “for truth is the good of the intellect.” But it is the function of divine law to prohibit vices. Therefore, it also pertains to it to exclude false opinions about God and matters concerned with God. [6] Thus it is said in Hebrews (11:6): “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” And in Exodus (20:2) before the other precepts of the law are given, right faith concerning God is put in first place; moreover, it is said: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord Your God is one” (Deut. 6:4). [7] Through this consideration we exclude the error of those who say that it makes no difference to the salvation of man whatever be the faith with which he serves God.

Chapter

THAT OUR MIND IS DIRECTED TO GOD BY CERTAIN SENSE OBJECTS

[1] Since it is connatural for man to receive knowledge through his senses, and since it is very difficult to transcend sensible objects, divine provision has been made for man so that a reminder of divine things might be made for him, even in the order of sensible things. The purpose of this is that the intention of man might be better recalled to divine matters, even in the case of the man whose mind is not strong enough to contemplate divine things in themselves. [2] And it was for this reason that sensible sacrifices were instituted: man offers these to God, not because God needs them, but so that man may be reminded that he ought to refer both his own being and all his possessions to God as end, and thus to the Creator, Governor, and Lord of all. [3] In fact, certain blessings using sensible things are provided for man, whereby man is washed, or anointed, or fed, or given drink, along with the expression of sensible words, so that man may be reminded through sensible things that intelligible gifts come to him from without, and from God, Whose name is expressed in sensible words. [4] So, certain sensible works are performed by man, not to stimulate God by such things, but to awaken man himself to divine matters by these actions, such as prostrations, genuflections, vocal ejaculations, and hymns. These things are done not because God needs them, for He knows all things, and His will is immutable, and the disposition of His mind does not admit of movement from a body for His own sake; rather, we do these things for our sakes, so that our attention may be directed to God by these sensible deeds and that our love may be aroused. At the same time, then, we confess by these actions that God is the author of soul and body, to Whom we offer both spiritual and bodily acts of homage. [5] For this reason, it is not astonishing if heretics who deny that God is the author of our body condemn such manifestations. This condemnation shows that they have not remembered that they are men when they judge that the representation of sensible objects to themselves is not necessary for inner knowledge and for love. For it is evident from experience that the soul is stimulated to an act of knowledge or of love by bodily acts. Hence, it is obvious that we may quite appropriately use even bodily things to elevate our mind to God. [6] Now, the cult of God is said to consist in these bodily manifestations to God. For we are said to cultivate those things to which we devote effort through our works. Indeed, we show our zeal in regard to God by our activity, not, of course, to benefit Him (as we are said to do, when we cultivate other things by our actions), but because we approach more closely to God by such acts. And since we directly tend toward God through interior acts, we therefore properly give cult to God by interior acts. Yet exterior acts also pertain to the cult of God, according as our mind is lifted up to God by such acts, as we have said. [7] Also, this cult of God is called religion, because in some way man binds' himself by such acts, so that he will not wander away from God, and also because man feels that he is obligated by some sort of natural prompting to pay, in his own way, reverence to God, from Whom comes the beginning of man's being and of all good. [8] As a consequence, too, religion takes the name piety. For piety is the means whereby we pay due honor to our parents. Hence, the fact that honor is rendered to God, the Parent of all beings, seems appropriately to be attributed to piety. And for this reason, those who are opposed to these things concerned with the cult of God are called impious. [9] And because God is not only the cause and source of our being, but also because our entire existence is within His power, and because we owe Him everything that is present in us, and as a consequence He is truly our Lord, what we offer Him in homage is called service. [10] Of course, God is not a lord in the accidental sense, as one man is over another; He is so through nature. And so, service is owed to God in one way, and to man in another, for we are accidentally subject to a man whose lordship over things is limited and also derivative from God. Hence, the service which is owed to God is technically called latria among the Greeks.

Chapter

THAT THE CULT PROPER TO LATRIA IS TO BE OFFERED TO GOD ALONE

[1] There have been some who have thought that the cult of latria should be offered not only to the first principle of things, but even to all creatures which exist above man. Hence, some, though of the opinion that God is the one, first, and universal principle of things, have nevertheless thought that latria should be offered, first of all, after the highest God, to celestial intellectual substances whom they called gods, whether they were substances completely separated from bodies or whether they were the souls of the spheres or the stars. [2] Secondly, they thought that it should be offered also to certain intellectual substances united, as they believed, to aerial bodies; and these they called daemons. Yet, because they believed them to be above men, as an aerial body is above a terrestrial body, they claimed that even these substances are to be honored with divine cult by men. And in relation to men they said that those substances are gods, being intermediaries between men and the gods. Moreover, because the souls of good men, through their separation from the body, have passed over into a state higher than that of the present life, they held the opinion in their belief that divine cult should be offered to the souls of the dead, whom they called heroes, or manes. [3] In fact, some people, holding the view that God is the World Sou1, have believed that the cult of divinity is to be offered to the entire world and to each of its parts; not, of course, for the sake of the bodily part, but for the sake of the “Soul,” which they said was God, just as honor is rendered to a wise man, not because of his body, but because of his soul. [4] Indeed, some men said that even things below man’s level in nature are to be honored with divine cult because some power of a higher nature is participated by them. Hence, since they believed that certain idols made by men receive a supernatural power, either from the influence of celestial bodies or from the presence of certain spirits, they said that divine cult should be offered to images of this kind. And they even called these idols gods. For which reason they are also said to be idolaters, since they offer the cult of latria to idols, that is, to images. [5] Now, it is unreasonable for people who maintain only one, separate, first principle to offer divine cult to another being. For we render cult to God, as we have said, not because He needs it, but so that a true opinion concerning God may be strengthened in us, even by means of sensible things. But an opinion on the point that God is one, exalted above all things, cannot be established in us through sensible things unless we honor Him with something unique, which we call divine cult. So, it is evident that a true opinion concerning the one principle is weakened if divine cult is offered to several beings. [6] Again, as we said above, this kind of exterior worship is necessary to man so that man’s mind may be aroused to a spiritual reverence for God. Now, for the mind of man to be moved toward something custom plays a great part, since we are easily moved toward objectives that have become customary. Of course, human custom supports this practice, in that the honor which is offered to the person holding the highest office in the state, for example, the king or emperor, should be offered to no other person. Therefore, man’s mind ought to be stimulated so that he will think that there is but one highest principle of things by means of his offering something to this principle which is offered to none other. This we call the cult of latria. [7] Besides, if the cult of latria were owed to any person because of his superiority and not because he is the highest being, then since one man may be superior to another, and there is the same possibility among angels, it would follow that one man ought to offer ]atria to another, and one angel to another angel. And since, among men, he who is superior in one way may be inferior in another way, it would follow that men should mutually offer latria to each other. This is not appropriate. [8] Moreover, by human custom, special repayment should be made for special benefit. Now, there is a special benefit which man receives from the highest God, namely, man’s own creation, for it has been shown in Book Two that God alone is the Creator. Therefore, man ought to return something special to God in acknowledgment of this special benefit. This is the cult of latria. [9] Furthermore, latria implies service. But service is owed to a lord. Now, a lord is properly and truly one who gives precepts of action to others and who takes his own rule of action from no one else. On the other hand, one who carries out what has been ordered by a superior is more a minister than a lord. But God, Who is the highest principle of reality, disposes all things to their proper actions through His providence, as we showed above. Hence, in Sacred Scripture both angels and celestial bodies are said to minister to God, Whose order they carry out; and also to us, for it is to our advantage that their actions accrue (Ps. 13.2:21; Heb. 1:14). Therefore, the cult of latria which is owed to the highest Lord is not to be offered except to the highest principle of things. [10] Again, among other items which pertain to latria, sacrifice may be seen to have a special place, for genuflections, prostrations, and other manifestations of this kind of honor may also be shown to men, though with a different intention than in regard to God. But it is agreed by any man that sacrifice should be offered to no person unless he is thought to be God or unless one pretends to think so. Now, external sacrifice is representative of true, interior sacrifice, by which the human mind offers itself to God. Indeed, our mind offers itself to God as the principle of its creation, the author of its actions, the end of its happiness. These attributes are, in fact, appropriate to the highest principle of things only. For we have showed above that the creative cause of the rational soul is the highest God alone; moreover, He alone is able to incline the will of man to whatever He wishes, as was shown above; so also it is evident from our preceding considerations” that man’s ultimate felicity consists solely in the enjoyment of Him. Therefore, man ought to offer sacrifice and the cult of latria only to the highest God, and not to any other kind of spiritual substances. [11] Now, though the theory which claims that God is nothing but the world soul is a departure from the truth, as we showed above, while the other position is true which maintains that God is a separate being and that all other intellectual substances depend on Him for their existence, whether separated from, or joined to, a body—still, the first theory provides a more rational basis for offering the cult of latria to different things. For, in offering the cult of latria to a variety of things one appears to be offering it to the one highest God, since, according to their theory, the different parts of the world are related to Him as the different members of the human body are to the human soul. But reason is also opposed to this view. For they say that the cult of latria should not be offered to the world by reason of its body, but because of its soul, which they assert to be God. Thus, though the bodily part of the world is divisible into different parts, the world soul is, however, indivisible. So, the cult of divinity ought not be offered to a variety of things, but to one only. [12] Besides, if the world be supposed to have a soul which animates the whole and all its parts, this cannot be understood as a nutritive or sensitive soul, because the operations of these parts of the soul are not suitable to all parts of the universe. And even granting that the world might have a sensitive or nutritive soul, the cult of latria would not be due it because of such souls, for this cult is not due to brute animals or to plants. The conclusion remains, then, that their assertion that God, to Whom latria is owed, is the world soul must be understood of the intellectual soul. In fact, this soul is not the perfection of individually distinct parts of the body, but in some way has reference to the whole. This is even evident in the case of our soul which is less noble, for the intellect has no corporeal organ, as is proved in Book III of On the Soul [4]. Therefore, even on the basis of their theory, the cult of divinity should not be offered to the various parts of the world, but to the entire world because of its soul. [13] Moreover, if in their theory there be but one soul which animates the whole world and all its parts, and if the world is not termed God except on account of the soul, then there will be but one God. And thus the cult of divinity will be owed to one being only. On the other hand, if there be but one soul for the whole, and if the different parts, in turn, have different souls, they have to say that the souls of the parts are subordinated to the soul of the whole; for the same proportion holds between perfections as between perfectible things. Now, supposing that a number of intellectual substances exist in an ordered hierarchy, the cult of latria will be due only to the one which holds the highest rank among them, as we showed in opposing the previous theory. Therefore, the cult of latria should not be offered to the parts of the world, but only to the whole. [14] Furthermore, it is evident that some parts of the world have no soul of their own. Therefore, this cult should not be offered to them. Yet these men had the practice of honoring all the elements of the world, namely, earth, water, fire, and other inanimate bodies of like kind. [15] Again, it is obvious that a superior does not owe the cult of latria to an inferior. Now, man is superior in the order of nature, at least in regard to all lower bodies, to the extent that be has a more perfect form. Therefore, the cult of latria should not be offered by man to lower bodies, even if some cult were owed them on the supposition that they possessed souls of their own. [16] The same inappropriate conclusion must follow if someone were to say that the individual parts of the world have their own souls but the whole does not possess one common soul. For it will still remain necessary for the highest part of the world to have a more noble soul, to which alone, according to the premises, the cult of latria will be owed. [17] But more unreasonable than these theories is the one which states that the cult of latria should be offered to images. For, if images of this sort have power or worth of any kind derived from celestial bodies, then the cult of latria is not due them on this basis, because such worship is not even due to those celestial bodies, unless, perchance, because of their souls, as some have claimed. But these images are claimed to have received some power from celestial bodies through the physical power of these bodies. [18] Again, it is evident that they do not obtain from celestial bodies any perfection which is as noble as is the rational soul. So, they are inferior in degree of worth to any man. Therefore, no cult is owed them by man. [19] Besides, a cause is more powerful than its effect. Now, the makers of these images are men. So, man owes no cult to them. [20] But, if it be said that these images have some virtue or worth due to the fact that certain spiritual substances are connected with them, even this will not suffice, because the cult of latria is owed to no spiritual substance except the highest. [21] Moreover, the rational soul is combined with man’s body in a more noble way than that whereby a spiritual substance might be attached to the aforesaid images. So, man will still remain on a higher level of dignity than the aforesaid images. [22] Furthermore, since these images at times admit of harmful effects, it is evident that, if they derive their result from some spiritual substances, then those spiritual substances are vicious. This can also be clearly proved from this fact: they are deceptive in their answers and they demand certain actions contrary to virtue from their devotees. And so, they are inferior to good men. Therefore, the cult of latria is not owed to them. [23] Therefore, it is clear from what we have said that the cult of latria is due to the one, highest God only. Thus it is said in Exodus (22:20): “He who sacrifices to the gods shall be put to death, save only to the Lord”; and in Deuteronomy (6:13): “You shall fear the Lord Your God, and shall serve Him only.” And in Romans (1:72-73) it is said of the Gentiles: “For, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts and of creeping things”; and later (verse 25): “Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is God above all blessed for ever.” [24] So, since it is unfitting for the cult of latria to be offered to any other being than the first principle of things, and since to incite to unworthy deeds can only be the work of a badly disposed rational creature, it is evident that men have been solicited by the urging of demons to develop the aforesaid unworthy cults, and these demons have been presented in place of God as objects of men’s worship because they craved divine honor. Hence it is said in the Psalm (95:5): “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils”; and in 1 Corinthians (10:20): “the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God.” [25] Therefore, since this is the chief intent of divine law: that man be subject to God and that he should offer special reverence to Him, not merely in his heart, but also orally and by bodily works, so first of all, in Exodus 20, where the divine law is promulgated, the cult of many gods is forbidden when it is said: “You shall not have strange gods before me” and “You shall not make to Yourself a graven thing, nor any likeness” (20:3-4). Secondly, it is forbidden man to pronounce vocally the divine name without reverence, that is, in order to lend support to anything false; and this is what is said: “You shall not take the name of God in vain” (20:7). Thirdly, rest is prescribed at certain times from outward works, so that the mind may be devoted to divine contemplation; and thus it is stated: “Remember that You keep holy the sabbath day” (20:8).

Chapter

THAT DIVINE LAW ORDERS MAN ACCORDING TO REASON IN REGARD TO CORPOREAL AND SENSIBLE THINGS [1] Now, just as man’s mind may be raised up to God by means of corporeal and sensible things, if one use them in a proper way to revere God, so, too, the improper use of them either completely distracts the mind from God, and so the end of the will is fixed in inferior things, or such abuse slows down the inclination of the mind toward God so that we become attached to things of this kind to an extent greater than is necessary. But the divine law was given for this chief purpose: so that man might cling to God. Therefore, it does pertain to the divine law to order man in regard to his love and use of bodily and sensible things. [2] Again, as man’s mind is subordinated to God, so is the body subordinated to the soul, and the lower powers to reason. But it pertains to divine providence, of which divine law is but a rational plan proposed by God to man, to see that individual things keep their proper order. Therefore, man must be so ordered by divine law that his lower powers may be subject to reason, and his body to his soul, and so that external things may subserve the needs of man. [3] Besides, any law that is rightly established promotes virtue. Now, virtue consists in this: that both the inner feelings and the use of corporeal things be regulated by reason. So, this is something to be provided for by divine law. [4] Moreover, it is the function of every lawmaker to determine by law the things without which observation of the law is impossible. Now, since law is proposed to reason, man would not follow the law unless all the other things which belong to man were subject to reason. So, it is the function of divine law to command the submission to reason of all the other factors proper to man. [5] Thus it is said: “Let your service be reasonable” (Rom. 12:1); and again: “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thes. 4:3). [6] Now, by this conclusion we refute the error of some who say that those acts only are sinful whereby one’s neighbor is offended or scandalized.

Chapter

THE REASON WHY SIMPLE FORNICATION IS A SIN ACCORDING TO DIVINE LAW, AND THAT MATRIMONY IS NATURAL [1] From the foregoing we can see the futility of the argument of certain people who say that simple fornication is not a sin. For they say: Suppose there is a woman who is not married, or under the control of any man, either her father or another man. Now, if a man performs the sexual act with her, and she is willing, he does not injure her, because she favors the action and she has control over her own body. Nor does he injure any other person, because she is understood to be under no other person’s control. So, this does not seem to be a sin. [2] Now, to say that he injures God would not seem to be an adequate answer. For we do not offend God except by doing something contrary to our own good, as has been said. But this does not appear contrary to man’s good. Hence, on this basis, no injury seems to be done to God. [3] Likewise, it also would seem an inadequate answer to say that some injury is done to one’s neighbor by this action, inasmuch as he may be scandalized. Indeed, it is possible for him to be scandalized by something which is not in itself a sin. In this event, the act would be accidentally sinful. But our problem is not whether simple fornication is accidentally a sin, but whether it is so essentially. [4] Hence, we must look for a solution in our earlier considerations. We have said that God exercises care over every person on the basis of what is good for him. Now, it is good for each person to attain his end, whereas it is bad for him to swerve away from his proper end. Now, this should be considered applicable to the parts, just as it is to the whole being; for instance, each and every part of man, and every one of his acts, should attain the proper end. Now, though the male semen is superfluous in regard to the preservation of the individual, it is nevertheless necessary in regard to the propagation of the species. Other superfluous things, such as excrement, urine, sweat, and such things, are not at all necessary; hence, their emission contributes to man’s good. Now, this is not what is sought in the case of semen, but, rather, to emit it for the purpose of generation, to which purpose the sexual act is directed. But man’s generative process would be frustrated unless it were followed by proper nutrition, because the offspring would not survive if proper nutrition were withheld. Therefore, the emission of semen ought to be so ordered that it will result in both the production of the proper offspring and in the upbringing of this offspring. [5] It is evident from this that every emission of semen, in such a way that generation cannot follow, is contrary to the good for man. And if this be done deliberately, it must be a sin. Now, I am speaking of a way from which, in itself, generation could not result: such would be any emission of semen apart from the natural union of male and female. For which reason, sins of this type are called contrary to nature. But, if by accident generation cannot result from the emission of semen, then this is not a reason for it being against nature, or a sin; as for instance, if the woman happens to be sterile. [6] Likewise, it must also be contrary to the good for man if the semen be emitted under conditions such that generation could result but the proper upbringing would be prevented. We should take into consideration the fact that, among some animals where the female is able to take care of the upbringing of offspring, male and female do not remain together for any time after the act of generation. This is obviously the case with dogs. But in the case of animals of which the female is not able to provide for the upbringing of offspring, the male and female do stay together after the act of generation as long as is necessary for the upbringing and instruction of the offspring. Examples are found among certain species of birds whose young are not able to seek out food for themselves immediately after batching. In fact, since a bird does not nourish its young with milk, made available by nature as it were, as occurs in the case of quadrupeds, but the bird must look elsewhere for food for its young, and since besides this it must protect them by sitting on them, the female is not able to do this by herself. So, as a result of divine providence, there is naturally implanted in the male of these animals a tendency to remain with the female in order to bring up the young. Now, it is abundantly evident that the female in the human species is not at all able to take care of the upbringing of offspring by herself, since the needs of human life demand many things which cannot be provided by one person alone. Therefore, it is appropriate to human nature that a man remain together with a woman after the generative act, and not leave her immediately to have such relations with another woman, as is the practice with fornicators. [7] Nor, indeed, is the fact that a woman may be able by means of her own wealth to care for the child by herself an obstacle to this argument. For natural rectitude in human acts is not dependent on things accidentally possible in the case of one individual, but, rather, on those conditions which accompany the entire species. [8] Again, we must consider that in the human species offspring require not only nourishment for the body, as in the case of other animals, but also education for the soul. For other animals naturally possess their own kinds of prudence whereby they are enabled to take care of themselves. But a man lives by reason, which he must develop by lengthy temporal experience so that he may achieve prudence. Hence, children must be instructed by parents who are already experienced people. Nor are they able to receive such instruction as soon as they are born, but after a long time, and especially after they have reached the age of discretion. Moreover, a long time is needed for this instruction. Then, too, because of the impulsion of the passions, through which prudent judgment is vitiated, they require not merely instruction but correction. Now, a woman alone is not adequate to this task; rather, this demands the work of a husband, in whom reason is more developed for giving instruction and strength is more available for giving punishment. Therefore, in the human species, it is not enough, as in the case of birds, to devote a small amount of time to bringing up offspring, for a long period of life is required. Hence, since among all animals it is necessary for male and female to remain together as long as the work of the father is needed by the offspring, it is natural to the human being for the man to establish a lasting association with a designated woman, over no short period of time. Now, we call this society matrimony. Therefore, matrimony is natural for man, and promiscuous performance of the sexual act, outside matrimony, is contrary to man’s good. For this reason, it must be a sin. [9] Nor, in fact, should it be deemed a slight sin for a man to arrange for the emission of semen apart from the proper purpose of generating and bringing up children, on the argument that it is either a slight sin, or none at all, for a person to use a part of the body for a different use than that to which it is directed by nature (say, for instance, one chose to walk on his hands, or to use his feet for something usually done with the hands) because man’s good is not much opposed by such inordinate use. However, the inordinate emission of semen is incompatible with the natural good; namely, the preservation of the species. Hence, after the sin of homicide whereby a human nature already in existence is destroyed, this type of sin appears to take next place, for by it the generation of human nature is precluded. [10] Moreover, these views which have just been given have a solid basis in divine authority. That the emission of semen under conditions in which offspring cannot follow is illicit is quite clear. There is the text of Leviticus (18:27-23): “You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind... and You shall not copulate with any beast.” And in 1 Corinthians (6:10): “Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind... shall possess the kingdom of God. [11] Also, that fornication and every performance of the act of reproduction with a person other than one’s wife are illicit is evident. For it is said: “There shall be no whore among the daughters of Israel, nor whoremonger among the sons of Israel” (Deut. 23:17); and in Tobit (4:13): “Take heed to keep Yourself from all fornication, and beside Your wife never endure to know a crime”; and in 1 Corinthians (6:18): “Fly fornication.” [12] By this conclusion we refute the error of those who say that there is no more sin in the emission of semen than in the emission of any other superfluous matter, and also of those who state that fornication is not a sin.

Chapter

THAT MATRIMONY SHOULD BE INDIVISIBLE

[1] If one will make a proper consideration, the preceding reasoning will be seen to lead to the conclusion not only that the society of man and woman of the human species, which we call matrimony, should be long lasting, but even that it should endure throughout an entire life. [2] Indeed, possessions are ordered to the preservation of natural life, and since natural life, which cannot be preserved perpetually in the father, is by a sort of succession preserved in the son in its specific likeness, it is naturally fitting for the son to succeed also to the things which belong to the father. So, it is natural that the father’s solicitude for his son should endure until the end of the father’s life. Therefore, if even in the case of birds the solicitude of the father gives rise to the cohabitation of male and female, the natural order demands that father and mother in the human species remain together until the end of life. [3] It also seems to be against equity if the aforesaid society be dissolved. For the female needs the male, not merely for the sake of generation, as in the case of other animals, but also for the sake of government, since the male is both more perfect in reasoning and stronger in his powers. In fact, a woman is taken into man’s society for the needs of generation; then, with the disappearance of a woman’s fecundity and beauty, she is prevented from association with another man. So, if any man took a woman in the time of her youth, when beauty and fecundity were hers, and then sent her away after she had reached an advanced age, he would damage that woman contrary to natural equity. [4] Again, it seems obviously inappropriate for a woman to be able to put away her husband, because a wife is naturally subject to her husband as governor, and it is not within the power of a person subject to another to depart from his rule. So, it would be against the natural order if a wife were able to abandon her husband. Therefore, if a husband were permitted to abandon his wife, the society of husband and wife would not be an association of equals, but, instead, a sort of slavery on the part of the wife. [5] Besides, there is in men a certain natural solicitude to know their offspring. This is necessary for this reason: the child requires the father’s direction for a long time. So, whenever there are obstacles to the ascertaining of offspring they are opposed to the natural instinct of the human species. But, if a husband could put away his wife, or a wife her husband, and have sexual relations with another person, certitude as to offspring would be precluded, for the wife would be united first with one man and later with another. So, it is contrary to the natural instinct of the human species for a wife to be separated from her husband. And thus, the union of male and female in the human species must be not only lasting, but also unbroken. [6] Furthermore, the greater that friendship is, the more solid and long-lasting will it be. Now, there seems to be the greatest friendship between husband and wife, for they are united not only in the act of fleshly union, which produces a certain gentle association even among beasts, but also in the partnership of the whole range of domestic activity. Consequently, as an indication of this, man must even “leave his father and mother” for the sake of his wife, as is said in Genesis (2:24). Therefore, it is fitting for matrimony to be completely indissoluble. [7] It should be considered, further, that generation is the only natural act that is ordered to the common good, for eating and the emission of waste matters pertain to the individual good, but generation to the preservation off the species. As a result, since law is established for the common good, those matters which pertain to generation must, above all others, be ordered by laws, both divine and human. Now, laws that are established should stem from the prompting of nature, if they are human; just as in the demonstrative sciences, also, every human discovery takes its origin from naturally known principles. But, if they are divine laws, they not only develop the prompting of nature but also supplement the deficiency of natural instinct, as things that are divinely revealed surpass the capacity of human reason. So, since there is a natural prompting within the human species, to the end that the union of man and wife be undivided, and that it be between one man and one woman, it was necessary for this to be ordered by human law. But divine law supplies a supernatural reason, drawn from the symbolism of the inseparable union between Christ and the Church, which is a union of one spouse with another (Eph. 5:24-32). And thus, disorders connected with the act of generation are not only opposed to natural instinct, but are also transgressions of divine and human laws. Hence, a greater sin results from a disorder in this area than in regard to the use of food or other things of that kind. [8] Moreover, since it is necessary for all other things to be ordered to what is best in man, the union of man and wife is not only ordered in this way because it is important to the generating of offspring, as it is in the case of other animals, but also because it is in agreement with good behavior, which right reason directs either in reference to the individual man in himself, or in regard to man as a member of a family, or of civil society. In fact, the undivided union of husband and wife is pertinent to good behavior. For thus, when they know that they are indivisibly united, the love of one spouse for the other will be more faithful. Also, both will be more solicitous in their care for domestic possessions when they keep in mind that they will remain continually in possession of these same things. As a result of this, the sources of disagreements which would have to come up between a man and his wife’s relatives, if he could put away his wife, are removed, and a more solid affection is established among the relatives. Removed, also, are the occasions for adultery which are presented when a man is permitted to send away his wife, or the converse. In fact, by this practice an easier way of arranging marriage with those outside the family circle is provided. [9] Hence it is said in Matthew (5:31) and in 1 Corinthians (7:10): “But I say to you... that the wife depart not from her husband.” [10] By this conclusion, moreover, we oppose the custom of those who put away their wives, though this was permitted the Jews in the old Law, “by reason of the hardness of their hearts” (Mat. 19:8); that is, because they were ready to kill their wives. So, the lesser evil was permitted them in order to prevent a greater evil.

Chapter

THAT MATRIMONY SHOULD BE BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN

[1] It seems, too, that we should consider bow it is inborn in the minds of all animals accustomed to sexual reproduction to allow no promiscuity; hence, fights occur among animals over the matter of sexual reproduction. And, in fact, among all animals there is one common reason, for every animal desires to enjoy freely the pleasure of the sexual act, as he also does the pleasure of food; but this liberty is restricted by the fact that several males may have access to one female, or the converse. The same situation obtains in the freedom of enjoying food, for one animal is obstructed if the food which he desires to eat is taken over by another animal. And so, animals fight over food and sexual relations in the same way. But among men there is a special reason, for, as we said, man naturally desires to know his offspring, and this knowledge would be completely destroyed if there were several males for one female. Therefore, that one female is for one male is a consequence of natural instinct. [2] But a difference should be noted on this point. As far as the view that one woman should not have sexual relations with several men is concerned, both the aforementioned reasons apply. But, in regard to the conclusion that one man should not have relations with several females, the second argument does not work, since certainty as to offspring is not precluded if one male has relations with several women. But the first reason works against this practice, for, just as the freedom of associating with a woman at will is taken away from the husband, when the woman has another husband, so, too, the same freedom is taken away from a woman when her husband has several wives. Therefore, since certainty as to offspring is the principal good which is sought in matrimony, no law or human custom has permitted one woman to be a wife for several husbands. This was even deemed unfitting among the ancient Romans, of whom Maximus Valerius reports that they believed that the conjugal bond should not be broken even on account of sterility. [3] Again, in every species of animal in which the father has some concern for offspring, one male has only one female; this is the case with all birds that feed their young together, for one male would not be able to offer enough assistance to bring up the offspring of several females. But in the case of animals among whom there is no concern on the part of the males for their offspring, the male has promiscuous relations with several females and the female with plural males. This is so among dogs, chickens, and the like. But since, of all animals, the male in the human species has the greatest concern for offspring, it is obviously natural for man that one male should have but one wife, and conversely. [4] Besides, friendship consists in an equality. So, if it is not lawful for the wife to have several husbands, since this is contrary to certainty as to offspring, it would not be lawful, on the other hand, for a man to have several wives, for the friendship of wife for husband would not be free, but somewhat servile. And this argument is corroborated by experience, for among husbands having plural wives the wives have a status like that of servants. [5] Furthermore, strong friendship is not possible in regard to many people, as is evident from the Philosopher in Ethics VIII [5]. Therefore, if a wife has but one husband, but the husband has several wives, the friendship will not be equal on both sides. So, the friendship will not be free, but servile in some way. [6] Moreover, as we said, matrimony among humans should be ordered so as to be in keeping with good moral customs. Now, it is contrary to good behavior for one man to have several wives, for the result of this is discord in domestic society, as is evident from experience. So, it is not fitting for one man to have several wives. [7] Hence it is said: “They shall be two in one flesh” (Gen. 7.: 24). [8] By this, the custom of those having several wives is set aside, and also the opinion of Plato who maintained that wives should be common. And in the Christian period he was followed by Nicolaus, one of the seven deacons.

Chapter

THAT MATRIMONY SHOULD NOT TAKE PLACE BETWEEN CLOSE RELATIVES

[1] Moreover, because of reasonable considerations of this kind it has been ordered by the laws that certain persons, related by their origin, are excluded from matrimony. [2] In fact, since there is in matrimony a union of diverse persons, those persons who should already regard themselves as one because of having the same origin are properly excluded from matrimony, so that in recognizing themselves as one in this way they may love each other with greater fervor. [3] Again, because the acts performed by husband and wife are associated with a certain natural shame, it is necessary that those persons to whom respect is due because of the bond of blood should be prohibited from performing such actions with each other. Indeed, this reason seems to have been suggested in the Old Testament law, in the text which states: “You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister” (Lev. 18:9), and also in other texts. [4] Besides, for man to be much given to sexual pleasures contributes to the dissolution of good moral behavior; because, since this pleasure greatly occupies the mind, reason is withdrawn from things which should be done rightly. Now, if a man were permitted sexual relations with those persons with whom he must live, such as sisters and other relatives, excessive indulgence in this pleasure would result, for the occasion for sexual relations with such persons could not be removed. Therefore, it was suitable to good moral behavior for such union to be prohibited by laws. [5] Furthermore, the enjoyment of sexual relations “greatly corrupts the judgment of prudence.” So, the multiplication of such pleasure is opposed to good behavior. Now, such enjoyment is increased through the love of the persons who are thus united. Therefore, intermarriage between relatives would be contrary to good behavior, for, in their case, the love which springs from community of origin and upbringing would be added to the love of concupiscence, and, with such an increase of love, the soul would necessarily become more dominated by these pleasures. [6] Moreover, in human society it is most necessary that there be friendship among many people. But friendship is increased among men when unrelated persons are bound together by matrimony. Therefore, it was proper for it to be prescribed by laws that matrimony should be contracted with persons outside one’s family and not with relatives. [7] Besides, it is unfitting for one to be conjugally united with persons to whom one should naturally be subject. But it is natural to be subject to one’s parents. Therefore, it would not be fitting to contract matrimony with one’s parents, since in matrimony there is a conjugal union. [8] Hence it is said: “No man shall approach to her that is near of kin to him” (Lev. 18:6). [9] By these arguments the custom of those who practice carnal relations with their relatives is refuted. [10] Moreover, we should note that just as natural inclination tends toward things which happen in most cases, so also positive law depends on what happens in most cases. It is not contrary to the foregoing arguments if in a particular case the outcome might be otherwise, for the good of many should not be sacrificed for the sake of one person’s good, because “the good of many is always more divine than the good of one person.” However, lest the disadvantage which could occur in the individual case be altogether without remedy, there remains with lawmakers and others of similar function the authority to grant a dispensation from what is generally required by law, in view of what is necessary in any particular case. For, if the law be a human one, it can be dispensed by men who have such power. But, if the law be divinely given, dispensation can be granted by divine authority; as, in the Old Law, permission seems to have been granted by dispensation to have several wives and concubines and to put away one’s wife.

Chapter

THAT NOT ALL SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IS SINFUL

[1] Now, just as it is contrary to reason for a man to perform the act of carnal union contrary to what befits the generation and upbringing of offspring, so also is it in keeping with reason for a man to exercise the act of carnal union in a manner which is suited to the generation and upbringing of offspring. But only those things that are opposed to reason are prohibited by divine law, as is evident from what we said above. So, it is not right to say that every act of carnal union is a sin. [2] Again, since bodily organs are the instruments of the soul, the end of each organ is its use, as is the case with any other instrument. Now, the use of certain bodily organs is carnal union. So, carnal union is the end of certain bodily organs. But that which is the end of certain natural things cannot be evil in itself, because things that exist naturally are ordered to their end by divine providence, as is plain from what was said above. Therefore, it is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself. [3] Besides, natural inclinations are present in things from God, Who moves all things. So, it is impossible for the natural inclination of a species to be toward what is evil in itself. But there is in all perfect animals a natural inclination toward carnal union. Therefore, it is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself. [4] Moreover, that without which a thing cannot be what is good and best is not evil in itself. But the perpetuation of the species can only be preserved in animals by generation, which is the result of carnal union. So, it is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself. [5] Hence it is said in 1 Corinthians (7:28): “if a virgin marry, she has not sinned.” [6] Now, this disposes of the error of those who say that every act of carnal union is illicit, as a consequence of which view they entirely condemn matrimony and marriage arrangements. In fact, some of these people say this because they believe that bodily things arise, not from a good, but from an evil, source.

Chapter

THAT THE USE OF FOOD IS NOT A SIN IN ITSELF

[1] just as the exercise of sexual capacities is without sin, provided it be carried on with reason, so also in the case of the use of food. Now, any action is performed in accord with reason when it is ordered in keeping with what befits its proper end. But the proper end of taking food is the preservation of the body by nutrition. So, whatever food can contribute to this end may be taken without sin. Therefore, the taking of food is not in itself a sin. [2] Again, no use of a thing is evil in itself unless the thing itself is evil in itself. Now, no food is by nature evil, for everything is good in its own nature, as we showed above.But a certain article of food may be bad for a certain person because it is incompatible with his bodily state of health. So, no taking of food is a sin in itself, by virtue of the type of thing that it is; but it can be a sin if in opposition to reason a person uses it in a manner contrary to his health. [3] Besides, to use things for the purpose for which they exist is not evil in itself. But plants exist for the sake of animals; indeed, some animals exist for the sake of others, and all exist for the sake of man, as is evident from earlier considerations. Therefore, to use either plants or the flesh of animals for eating or for whatever other utility they may have for man is not a sin in itself. [4] Moreover, a sinful defect may be transferred from the soul to the body, but not conversely, for we call something sinful according as there is a deordination of the will. Now, food pertains immediately to the body, not to the soul. So, the taking of food cannot be a sin in itself unless, of course, it be incompatible with rectitude. It could be so, in one way, by virtue of incompatibility with the proper end of food: thus, for the sake of the pleasure associated with eating food a man might eat food which works against the health of his body, either because of the kind of food or the quantity. This could be so in another way, because it is opposed to the situation of the person who uses the food or of those with whom he lives; for instance, a man might eat finer foods than his circumstances could well provide and in a manner different from the customs of the people with whom he lives. It is possible in a third way, by virtue of food being prohibited by law for some special reason: thus, in the Old Law, certain kinds of food were prohibited for a symbolic reason; and in Egypt the eating of the flesh of the ox was prohibited in olden times so that agriculture would not be hindered; or even because certain rules prohibit the use of certain foods, with a view to the restraint of concupiscence. [5] Hence, the Lord says: “What goes into the mouth does not defile a man” (Mat. 15:11). And in 1 Corinthians (10:25) it is said: “Whatever is sold in the meat market, eat; asking no question for conscience’ sake.” And in 1 Timothy (4:4) it is said: "Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving.” [6] By this conclusion we refute the error of some people who say that the use of certain foods is illicit in itself. Of these the Apostle speaks in the same place (1 Tim. 4:1-3): “in the last times some shall depart from the faith forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats which God created to be received with thanksgiving.” [7] Now, since the use of food and sexual capacities is not illicit in itself, but can only be illicit when it departs from the order of reason, and since external possessions are necessary for the taking of food, for the upbringing of offspring and the support of a family, and for other needs of the body, it follows also that the possession of wealth is not in itself illicit, provided the order of reason be respected. That is to say, a man must justly possess what he has; he must not set the end of his will in these things, and he must use them in a fitting way for his own and others’ benefit. Hence, the Apostle does not condemn the rich, but he gives them a definite regulation for the use of their wealth, when he says: “Charge the rich of this world not to be highminded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but... to be rich in good works, to give easily, to communicate to others” (1 Tim. 6:17-18); and in Ecclesiasticus (31:8): “Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish, and that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasure.” [8] By this we also set aside the error of those who, as Augustine says in his book On Heresies, “most arrogantly call themselves Apostolics, because they refuse to accept into their communion those who practice marriage, and who possess goods of their own (practices which the Catholic Church has), and also many monks and clerics. But these men are thereby heretics, for, in separating themselves from the Church, they think that there is no hope for those who use these things which they do without.”

Chapter

HOW MAN IS ORDERED BY THE LAW OF GOD IN REGARD TO HIS NEIGHBOR

[1] From the things that we have said it is clear that man is directed by the divine law to observe the order of reason in regard to all things that can come to his use. Among all those things which come within the use of man, the most important are other men. “For man is by nature a social animal,” because he needs many things which cannot be provided by one man alone. Therefore, it is necessary for man to be instructed by divine law, so that he may five in relation to other men, according to the order of reason. [2] Again, the end of divine law is for man to cling to God. But one man may be aided to this end by another man, both in regard to knowledge and to love. For men are of mutual assistance to each other in the knowing of truth, and one man may stimulate another toward the good, and also restrain him from evil. Hence it is said: “Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend” (Prov. 27:17). And it is said in Ecclesiastes (4:9-12): “It is better therefore that two should be together than one, for they have the advantage of their society; if one fall, he shall be supported by the other. Woe to him who is alone; for, when he falls, he has no one to lift him up. And if two lie together, they shall warm one another. How shall one alone be warmed? And if a man prevails against one, the two shall withstand him.” Therefore, it was necessary for the society of men, in their mutual interrelations, to be ordered by divine law. [3] Besides, divine law is a certain plan of divine providence for the purpose of governing men. Now, it is the function of divine providence to maintain the individuals subject to it under proper order, in such a way that each may take its proper place and level. Therefore, divine law so orders men in regard to each other that each man may keep his order. This is for men to be at peace with each other, for “peace among men is nothing but ordered concord,” as Augustine says. [4] Moreover, whenever certain things are subordinated to another, they must be ordered in a manner concordant to each other; otherwise, they might hinder each other in the attaining of their common end. This is clear in the case of an army which is concordantly ordered to victory, the end of the commander. Now, each man is ordered to God by divine law, so there must be among men, according to divine law, an ordered concord, peace that is, so that they may not hinder each other. [5] Hence it is said in the Psalm (147:14): “Who hath placed peace in Your borders.” And the Lord said: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace” (John 16:33). [6] Now, an ordered concord is preserved among men when each man is given his due, for this is justice. And so, it is said in Isaiah (32:17): “the work of justice shall be peace.” Therefore, by divine law precepts had to be given, so that each man would give his neighbor his due and would abstain from doing injuries to him. [7] Moreover, among men a person is most in debt to his parents. And so, among the precepts of the law ordering us in regard to our neighbor, Exodus (20:12-17) Puts first: “Honor Your father and Your mother.” In this text it is understood to be commanded that each man must render what he owes, both to his parents and to other persons, in accord with another text: “Render to all men their dues” (Rom. 13:7). Next to be put down are the precepts commanding abstinence from causing various sorts of harm to one’s neighbor. For instance, that we must not offend him by any deeds against his person; thus it was said: “You shall not kill”; nor against a person associated with him, for it was written: “You shall not commit adultery”; nor against his external goods, for it was written: “You shall not steal.” We are also prohibited from offending our neighbor by words that are contrary to justice, for it was written: “You shall not bear false witness against Your neighbor.” And since God is the judge, even of our hearts, we are prohibited from offending our neighbor in our heart, “by desiring his wife” or any of his goods. [8] Now, that he may observe this kind of justice which is prescribed by divine law man is impelled in two ways: in one, from within; in the other way, from without. From within, of course, man is voluntary in regard to observing what divine law prescribes. In fact, this is accomplished by man’s love of God and his neighbor, for he who loves a person gives him his due spontaneously and joyfully, and he even adds something in excess by way of liberality. So, the complete fulfillment of the law depends on love, according to the text of the Apostle: “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). And the Lord says that, “on these two commandments,” that is, on the love of God and of neighbor, “depends the whole law” (Mat. 22:40). But since some people are not so disposed internally that they will do spontaneously what the law orders, they must be forced from without to fulfill the justice of the law. Of course, since this is done only from fear of punishments, they do not fulfill the law in freedom, but in servility. Hence it is said in Isaiah (26:9): "When You make Your judgments on the earth," that is, by punishing the wicked, "all the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice." [9] The first, then, "are a law unto themselves" (Rom. 2:14), for they have charity which impels them in place of law and makes them act with liberality. So, it was not necessary to promulgate an external law for their sake, but for the sake of those who are not inclined of themselves toward the good. Hence it is said in 1 Timothy (1:9): "The law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust." This should not be understood as if the just were not obliged to obey the law, as some have badly understood it, but that these people are inclined of themselves to do what is just, even without a law.

Chapter

THAT SOME HUMAN ACTS ARE RIGHT ACCORDING TO NATURE AND NOT MERELY BECAUSE THEY ARE PRESCRIBED BY LAW [1] From the foregoing it is apparent that things prescribed by divine law are right, not only because they are put forth by law, but also because they are in accord with nature. [2] Indeed, as a result of the precepts of divine law, man's mind is subordinated to God, and all other things that are in man's power are ordered under reason. Now, the natural order requires that lower things be subject to higher things. Therefore, the things prescribed by divine law are naturally right in themselves. [3] Again, men receive from divine providence a natural capacity for rational judgment, as a principle for their proper operations. Now, natural principles are ordered to natural results. So, there are certain operations that are naturally suitable for man, and they are right in themselves, not merely because they are prescribed by law. [4] Besides, there must be definite kinds of operations which are appropriate to a definite nature, whenever things have such a definite nature. In fact, the operation appropriate to a given being is a consequent of that nature. Now, it is obvious that there is a determinate kind of nature for man. Therefore, there must be some operations that are in themselves appropriate for man. [5] Moreover, whenever a certain thing is natural to any being, that without which this certain thing cannot be possessed must also be natural, "for nature is not defective in regard to necessary things." But it is natural for man to be a social animal, and this is shown by the fact that one man alone does not suffice for all the things necessary to human life. So, the things without which human society cannot be maintained are naturally appropriate to man. Examples of such things are: to preserve for each man what is his own and to refrain from injuries. Therefore, there are some things among human acts that are naturally right. [6] Furthermore, we showed above that man has this natural endowment, he may use lower things for the needs of his life. Now, there is a definite measure according to which the use of the aforesaid things is proper to human life, and if this measure is set aside the result is harmful to man, as is evident in the immoderate eating of food. Therefore, there are some human acts that are naturally fitting and others that are naturally unfitting. [7] Again, according to the natural order, the body of man is for the sake of his soul and the lower powers of the soul are for the sake of reason, just as in other things matter is for the sake of form and instruments are for the sake of the principal agent. But, because of one thing being ordered to another, it ought to furnish help to that other, and not offer it any hindrance. So, it is naturally right for the body and the lower powers of the soul to be so managed by man that thereby his activity of reason, and his good, are least hindered and are, instead, helped. But, if it happens otherwise, the result will naturally be sinful. Therefore, drinking bouts and feastings, and inordinate sexual activities through which rational activity is hindered, and domination by the passions which do not permit free judgment of reason—these are naturally evil things. [8] Besides, those acts by which he inclines toward his natural end are naturally appropriate to an agent, but those that have the contrary effect are naturally inappropriate to the agent. Now, we showed above that man is naturally ordered to God as his end. Therefore, the things by which man is brought to the knowledge and love of God are naturally right, but whatever things have the contrary effect are naturally evil for man. [9] Therefore, it is clear that good and evil in human activities are based not only on the prescription of law, but also on the natural order. [10] Hence it is said in the Psalm (18:10): “the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves.” [11] By this conclusion we set aside the position of those who say that things are just and right only because they are prescribed by law.

Chapter

ON THE COUNSELS THAT ARE GIVEN IN DIVINE LAW

[1] Since the best thing for man is to become attached in his mind to God and divine things, and since it is impossible for man intensively to busy himself with a variety of things in order that man’s mind may be applied to God with greater liberty, counsels are given in the divine law whereby men are withdrawn from the busy concerns of the present life as far as is possible for one who is living an earthly life. Now, this detachment is not so necessary to man for justice that its absence makes justice impossible; indeed, virtue and justice are not removed if man uses bodily and earthly things in accord with the order of reason. And so, divine law admonitions of this kind are called counsels, not precepts, inasmuch as man is urged to renounce lesser goods for the sake of better goods. [2] Moreover, in the general mode of human life, human concern is devoted to three items: first, to one’s own person, what he should do, or where he should spend his time; second, to the persons of those connected with him, chiefly his wife and children; and third, to the acquisition of external things, which a man needs for the maintenance of life. So, to cut off solicitude for external things the counsel of poverty is given in the divine law, that is to say, so that one may cast off the things of this world with which his mind could be involved with some concern. Hence, the Lord says: “If You would be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor... and come, follow me” (Mat. 19:21). And to cut off concern for wife and children there is given man the counsel of virginity or continence. Hence, it is said in 1 Corinthians (7:25): “Now, concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel.” And giving the reason for this counsel, he adds: “He who is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord: how he may please God. But he who is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world: how he may please his wife, and he is divided” (1 Cor. 7:32-33). Finally, to cut off man’s solicitude even for himself there is given the counsel of obedience, through which man hands over the control of his own acts to a superior. Concerning which it is said: “Obey your prelates and be subject to them. For they watch as being ready to render an account of your souls” (Heb. 13:17). [3] But, since the highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God, and since the three counsels mentioned above seem most definitely to prepare one for this detachment, they appear to belong quite appropriately to the state of perfection; not as if they were perfections themselves, but that they are dispositions to perfection, which consists in being detached from care, for the sake of God. And the words of our Lord, when He advises poverty, definitely show this, for He says: “If you would be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor... and follow me” (Mat. 19:21), thus putting the perfection of life in the following of Him. 14] They may also be called the effects and signs of perfection. When the mind becomes attached to a thing with intense love and desire, the result is that it sets aside other things. So, from the fact that man’s mind is fervently inclined by love and desire to divine matters, in which it is obvious that perfection is located, it follows that he casts aside everything that might hold him back from this inclination to God: not only concern for things, for wife, and the love of offspring, but even for himself. And the words of Scripture suggest this, for it is said in the Canticle of Canticles (8:7): “if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he will account it as nothing”; and in Matthew (13:45): “the kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls, who, when he found one pearl of great price, went his way and sold all that he had and bought it”; and also in Philippians (3:7-8): “the things that were gain to me... I counted as dung, that I might gain Christ.” [5] So, since the aforesaid three counsels are dispositions to perfection, and are the effects and signs of perfection, it is fitting that those who pledge themselves to these three by a vow to God should be said to be in the state of perfection. [6] Now, the perfection to which these three counsels give a disposition consists in detachment of the mind for God. Hence, those who profess the aforesaid vows are called religious, in the sense that they offer themselves and their goods to God, as a special kind of sacrifice: as far as goods are concerned, by poverty; in regard to their body, by continence; and in regard to their will, by obedience. For religion consists in a divine cult, as was said above.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF THE ATTACKERS OF VOLUNTARY POVERTY

[1] There have been some people who, in opposition to the teaching of the Gospel, have disapproved the practice of voluntary poverty. The first of these to be found is Vigilantius, whom, however, some others have followed later, calling themselves teachers of the law, understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm” (1 Tim. 1:7). They were led to this view by these and similar arguments. [2] Natural appetite requires every animal to provide for itself in regard to the necessities of its life; thus, animals that are not able to find the necessities of life during every period of the year, by a certain natural instinct gather the things needed for life during the season when they can be found, and they keep them; this practice is evident in the case of bees and ants. But men need many things for the preservation of life which cannot be found in every season. So, there is a natural tendency in man to gather and keep things necessary to him. Therefore, it is contrary to natural law to throw away, under the guise of poverty, all that one has gathered together. [3] Again, all have a natural predilection for the things whereby their being may be preserved, because all things desire to be. But man’s life is preserved by means of the substance of external goods. So, just as each man is obliged by natural law to preserve his life, so is he obliged to preserve external substance. Therefore, as it is contrary to the law of nature for a man to injure himself, so, too, is it for a man to deprive himself by voluntary poverty of the necessities of life. 14] Besides, “man is by nature a social animal,” as we said above. But society could not be maintained among men unless one man helped another. So, it is natural to men for one to help another in need. But those who discard external substance, whereby most help can be given others, render themselves by this practice unable to give help. Therefore, it is against natural instinct, and against the good of mercy and charity, for a man to discard all worldly substance by voluntary poverty. [5] Moreover, if it be evil to possess the substance of this world, but if it be good to deliver one’s neighbors from evil and bad to lead them into evil, the conclusion is that to give the substance of this world to a needy person is an evil and to take from an owner is a good. Now, this is not right. So, it is a good thing to possess the substance of this world. Therefore, to throw it away entirely is an evil thing. [6] Furthermore, occasions of evil are to be avoided. But poverty is an occasion of evil, since some are induced, as a result of it, to acts of theft, of false praise and perjury, and the like. Therefore, poverty should not be embraced voluntarily; rather, should care be taken to avoid its advent. [7] Again, since virtue lies in a middle way, corruption comes from both extremes. Now, there is a virtue of liberality, which gives what should be given and retains what should be retained. But the vice of defect is illiberality, which retains both the things that should and should not be retained. So, too, it is a vice of excess, for all things to be given away. This is what the people do who assume poverty voluntarily. Therefore, this is vicious, and similar to prodigality. [8] Moreover, these arguments seem to be confirmed by the text of Scripture. For it is said: “Give me neither beggary nor riches; give me only the necessaries of life, lest perhaps being filled, I should be tempted to deny, and say: Who is the Lord? Or being compelled by poverty, I should steal, and forswear the name of my God” (Prov. 30:8-9).

Chapter

ON THE WAYS OF LIFE OF THOSE WHO PRACTICE VOLUNTARY POVERTY

[1] Now, it seems that this problem may be better treated if we examine in greater detail the ways in which those who practice voluntary poverty must live. [2] The first way of so living is for each person to sell his possessions, and for all to live in common on the proceeds. This appears to have been the practice under the Apostles in Jerusalem, for it is said: “As many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the price of the things they sold, and laid it down before the feet of the Apostles. And distribution was made to every one as he had need” (Acts 4:34-35). But it does not seem that effective provision is made for human life, according to this way. [3] First, because it is not easy to get a number of persons who have large possessions to adopt this life. So, if distribution is made among many of the proceeds derived from a few rich people, the amount will not be sufficient for any length of time. [4] Next, because it is possible and easy for such a fund to disappear, either through fraud on the part of the managers or by theft or robbery. So, those who follow this kind of poverty will be left without support for life. [5] Again, many things happen whereby men are forced to change their location. It will not be easy, then, to provide from the common fund gathered from such sale of possessions for those who will perhaps be scattered in various places. [6] Then, there is a second way of so living: this is to hold common possessions, from which provision is made for individual persons, according to their needs, as is the practice in many monasteries. But even this way of living does not seem appropriate. [7] In fact, earthly possessions are the source of worry, both in regard to taking care of their revenues and in regard to their protection against frauds and attacks. Moreover, the larger they are, the more people are required to take care of them, and, so, the larger must these possessions be to give adequate support to all these people. And thus, in this way, the very purpose of voluntary poverty vanishes, at least in regard to the many men who must concern themselves with the management of the possessions. [8] Again, common possession is usually a cause of disagreement. People who hold nothing in common, such as the Spaniards and Persians, do not seem to get into legal disputes, but, rather, those who do bold something in common. This is why there are disagreements even among brothers. Now, discord is the greatest impediment to giving over one’s mind to divine matters, as we said above. So, it seems that this way of living obstructs the end of voluntary poverty. [9] There is still a third way of living: that is for those who practice voluntary poverty to live from the labor of their hands. Indeed, this was the way of life followed by the Apostle Paul, and he recommended his practice to others by his example and by his teaching. For it is stated in 2 Thessalonians (3:8-10): “Neither did we eat any man’s bread for nothing, but in labor and toil we worked night and day, lest we should be chargeable to any of you. Not as if we had not power, but that we might give ourselves a pattern unto you, to imitate us. For also, when we were with you, this we declared to you, that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat.” But even this way of living does not seem to be appropriate. [10] As a matter of fact, manual labor is necessary for the support of life, because by it anything may be acquired. Now, it seems foolish for a man to give away what is needed and then to work to get it again. If, then, it is necessary after the adoption of voluntary poverty again to acquire by manual labor that by which a man may support himself, it was useless to give up all that he had for the support of life. [11] Again, voluntary poverty is counseled, so that a person may be disposed by it to follow Christ in a better way, because be is freed by it from worldly concerns. But it seems to require greater concern for a person to get his food by his own labor than for him to use what he possesses for the support of his life, and especially if he has possessions of modest size, or that are capable of being moved, from which something would be available to provide for the needs of life. Therefore, to live by the labor of one’s hands does not seem to be suitable to the intention of those embracing voluntary poverty. [12] Added to this is the fact that even our Lord, while taking away from his disciples solicitude for earthly things, in the parable of the birds and the lilies of the field seems to forbid them manual labor. For He says: “Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap nor gather into barns”; and again: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin” [Mat. 6:26-28]. [13] Moreover, this way of life seems inadequate. In fact, there are many who desire perfection of life, for whom neither the ability nor the skill is available to enable them to spend their lives in manual labor, because they are neither brought up, nor informed, in such pursuits. Indeed, in this case, country people and workmen would be in a better position to embrace perfection of life than those who have devoted themselves to the pursuit of wisdom, but who have been reared in wealth and comfort, which they have left behind for the sake of Christ. It is also possible for some who embrace voluntary poverty to become disabled or to be otherwise prevented from the possibility of working. So, in such a case, they would become destitute of the necessities of life. [14] Again, the labor of no small amount of time is requisite for gaining the necessities of life; this is obvious in the case of many who devote all their time to it, yet hardly manage to make an adequate living. Now, if it were necessary for followers of voluntary poverty to make their living by manual labor, the result would be that they might take up the greater part of their lives in this kind of work; consequently, they would be kept away from other, more necessary activities, such as the pursuit of wisdom, and teaching, and other such spiritual exercises. In this way, voluntary poverty would be an impediment to perfection of life rather than a disposition helpful to it. [5] Moreover, if someone says that manual labor is necessary in order to avoid idleness, this is not an adequate objection to the argument. For it would be better to avoid idleness by occupations under the moral virtues, in which riches serve an instrumental role, for instance, in giving alms and things like that, rather than by manual labor. Besides, it would be futile to counsel poverty simply because men who have become poor would refrain from idleness and devote their lives to manual labors, unless it were done in such a way that they could devote themselves to more noble activities than those which are customary in the ordinary lives of men. [16] But, if someone says that manual labor is necessary for the mastering of fleshly concupiscences, this is not a pertinent objection. Our question is: whether it is necessary for followers of voluntary poverty to make their living by manual labor. Besides, it is possible to control the concupiscences of the flesh in many other ways, namely, by fasting, vigils, and other such practices. Moreover, they could use manual labor for this purpose even if they were rich and did not need to work to gain a living. [17] Then, there is still a fourth way of living: that is, the followers of voluntary poverty may live on the goods which are offered them by others, who, while keeping their own wealth, wish to make a contribution to this perfection of voluntary poverty. And it seems that our Lord and His disciples practiced this way of life, for we read in Luke (8:2-3) that certain women followed Christ and “ministered to Him out of their substance.” However, even this way of life does not seem proper. [18] For it does not seem reasonable for a person to part with his own goods and then live off another man. [19] Besides, it seems improper for a person to take from another and make no repayment to him, for, in giving and receiving, the equality of justice should be observed. But it can be maintained that some of those recipients who live on the bounty of others may render some sort of service to these others. This is why ministers of the altar, and preachers who supply the people with teaching and other divine services, are observed accepting, not inappropriately, the means of livelihood from them. “For the workman is worthy of his meat,” as the Lord says in Matthew (10:10). For which reason, the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians (9:13-14) that “the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel... just as they who work in the holy place eat the things that are of the holy place.” So, it seems improper for those who serve the people in no special function to take the necessities of life from the people. [20] Again, this way of living seems to be a source of loss to others. For there are people who, of necessity, must be supported by the benefactions of others and who cannot provide for themselves because of poverty and sickness. The alms received by them must be decreased if those who embrace poverty voluntarily have to be supported on the gifts of others, because there are not enough men, nor are men much inclined, to support a great number of poor people. Consequently, the Apostle commands in 1 Timothy (5:16) that, if anyone have a widow related to him, “let him minister to her, that the Church may be sufficient for them that are widows indeed.” So, it is improper for men who choose poverty to take over this way of living. [21] Besides, freedom of mind is absolutely necessary for perfection in virtue, for, when it is taken away, men easily become “partakers of other men’s sins” (see 1 Tim. 5:22), either by evident consent, or by flattering praise, or at least by pretended approval. But much that is prejudicial to this freedom of mind arises from the aforesaid way of life; indeed, it is not possible for a man not to shrink from offending a person on whose bounty be lives. Therefore, the way of life under discussion is a hindrance to perfection of virtue, which is the purpose of voluntary poverty. Thus, it does not seem to suit those who are voluntarily paupers. [22] Moreover, we do not control what depends on the will of another person. But what a giver gives of his own goods depends on his will. So, insufficient provision is made for the control of their means of livelihood by voluntary paupers living in this way. [23] Furthermore, paupers who are supported by the gifts of others have to reveal their needs to others and beg for necessities. Now, this kind of begging makes mendicants objects of contempt, and even nuisances. In fact, men think themselves superior to those who have to be supported by them, and many give with reluctance. But those who embrace perfection of life should be held in reverence and love, so that men may more readily imitate them and emulate their state of life. Now, if the opposite happens, even virtue itself may be held in contempt. Therefore, to live by begging is a harmful way of life for those who embrace poverty voluntarily for the sake of perfect virtue. [24] Besides, for perfect men, not only evils must be avoided, but even things that have an appearance of evil, for the Apostle says in (Romans 12:17) (1 Thes. 5:22): “From all appearance of evil refrain yourselves.” And the Philosopher says [ Ethics IV, 9] that the virtuous man should not only avoid disgraceful actions, but also those which appear disgraceful. Now, mendicancy has the appearance of an evil, since many people beg because of greed. Therefore, this way of life should not be adopted by perfect men. [25] Moreover, the counsel of voluntary poverty was given in order that man’s mind might be withdrawn from solicitude for earthly things and more freely devoted to God. But this way of living by begging requires a great deal of solicitude; in fact, there seems to be greater solicitude involved in getting things from others than in using what is one’s own. So, this way of living does not seem appropriate for those taking on voluntary poverty. [26] Now, if anyone wants to praise mendicancy because of its humility, he would seem to be speaking quite unreasonably. For humility is praised because earthly exaltation is held in contempt, and it consists in riches, honors, renown, and things like that; but it is not praised for contemning the loftiness of virtue, in regard to which we should be magnanimous. So, it would contribute to the bad repute of humility if anyone in the name of humility did anything derogatory to the higher character of virtue. But mendicancy is derogatory to it: both because “it is better to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35) and because it has the appearance of something disgraceful, as we said. Therefore, mendicancy should not be praised because of its humility. [27] There have been some, finally, who asserted that followers of perfection in life should have no concern at all, either to beg, or to work, or to keep anything for themselves, but that they should look to God alone for the support of life-because of what is said in Matthew (6:25): “Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat or drink, nor for your body, what you shall put on”; and later: “Be not solicitous for tomorrow” (Mat. 6:24). Now, this seems completely unreasonable. [28] Indeed, it is foolish to wish for an end, and then to neglect the things that are related to the end. But human solicitude is related to the end of eating, for by it one obtains food for oneself. So, those who cannot live without eating ought to have some concern about obtaining food. [29] Besides, solicitude for earthly things need not be avoided, unless it hinders the contemplation of eternal matters. But a man endowed with mortal flesh cannot live unless he does many things whereby contemplation is interrupted, things like sleeping, eating, and other such actions. Therefore, solicitude for the necessities of life is not to be set aside on this basis, that it is an impediment to contemplation. [30] Moreover, there is a marvelously absurd consequence. For, on the same reasoning, one could say that he does not wish to walk, or to open his mouth to eat, or to avoid a falling stone or a Plunging sword, but would rather wait for God to do something. This is to tempt God. Therefore, solicitude for the means of living is not to be rejected entirely.

Chapter

IN WHAT WAY POVERTY IS GOOD

[1] So, then, in order to show the truth in regard to the foregoing arguments, and what view we should take regarding poverty, we shall make a consideration of riches. As a matter of fact, external riches are necessary for the good of virtue; since by them we support our body and give assistance to other people. Now, things that are means to an end must derive their goodness from the end. So, external riches must be a good for man; not, of course, the principal one, but as a secondary good. For the end is the principal good, while other things are good because they are ordered to the end. This is why it has seemed to some people that the virtues are the greatest goods for man, while external riches are his least important goods. Now, things that are means to an end must be measured in accord with the requirements of the end. Therefore, riches are good, to the extent that they advance the practice of virtue, but if this measure is departed from, so that the practice of virtue is hindered by them, then they are not to be numbered among goods, but among evils. Hence, it happens to be a good thing for some people to possess riches, for they use them for the sake of virtue, but for others it is a bad thing to have them, for these people are taken away from virtue by them, either through too much solicitude or affection for them, or also because of mental pride resulting from them. [2] However, since there are virtues of the active and the contemplative life, both types have a different need for external riches. For the contemplative virtues need them only for the support of nature, but the active virtues need them for this, and also for the helping of others with whom one must live. Hence, the contemplative life is more perfect, even on this point, for it needs fewer things. Now, it seems proper to this kind of life for a man to devote himself entirely to divine things, which perfection the teaching of Christ urges on man. Hence, for followers of this type of perfection a very small amount of external riches suffices, that is, just the amount needed to support nature. And so, the Apostle says, in 1 Timothy (6:8): “Having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content.” [3] So, poverty is praiseworthy according as it frees man from the vices in which some are involved through riches. Moreover, in so far as it removes the solicitude which arises from riches, it is useful to some, namely, those disposed to busy themselves with better things. However, it is harmful to others, who, being freed from this solicitude, fall into worse occupations. Hence, Gregory says: “Often, those who have lived a life of human activities have been well occupied, but have been killed by the sword of their own retirement.” However, in so far as poverty takes away the good which results from riches, namely, the assisting of others and the support of oneself, it is purely an evil; except in the case where the temporal help that is offered to neighbors can be compensated for by a greater good, that is, by the fact that a man who lacks riches can more freely devote himself to divine and spiritual matters. But the good of supporting oneself is so necessary that it can be compensated for by no other good, since no man should take away from himself the support of life, under the pretext of obtaining another good. [4] And so, such poverty is praiseworthy when a man is freed by it from earthly concerns and devotes himself more freely to divine and spiritual things, provided, of course, that the ability remains along with it in man to support himself in a lawful manner, for which support not many things are needed. Thus, the less one’s way of living in poverty requires of solicitude, the more praiseworthy it is. For poverty in itself is not good, but only in so far as it liberates from those things whereby a man is hindered from intending spiritual things. Hence, the measure of its goodness depends on the manner in which man is freed by means of it from the aforementioned obstacles. And this is generally true of all external things: they are good to the extent that they contribute to virtue, but not in themselves.

Chapter

ANSWERS TO THE ARGUMENTS BROUGHT FORWARD ABOVE AGAINST POVERTY

[1] Now that these things have been seen, it is not difficult to answer the foregoing arguments by which poverty is attacked. [2] Although there is naturally present in man a desire to gather the things necessary for life, as the first argument suggested, it is not, however, such that every man must be occupied with this work. Indeed, not even among the bees do all have the same function; rather, some gather honey, others build their homes out of wax, while the rulers are not occupied with these works. And the same should hold in the case of man. In fact, since many things are needed for man’s life, for which one man could not suffice of himself, it is necessary for different jobs to be done by different people. For some should be farmers, some caretakers of animals, some builders, and so on for the other tasks. And since the life of man requires not only corporeal but, even more, spiritual goods, it is also necessary for some men to devote their time to spiritual things, for the betterment of others; and these must be freed from concern over temporal matters. Now, this division of various tasks among different persons is done by divine providence, inasmuch as some people are more inclined to one kind of work than to another. [3] In this way, then, it is clear that those who abandon temporal things do not take away from themselves their life support, as the second argument implies. For there remains with them a good expectation of supporting their lives, either from their own labors, or from the benefactions of others, whether they take them as common possessions or for daily need. Thus, indeed, “what we can do through our friends, we do by ourselves, in a sense,” as the Philosopher says [ Ethics III, 3], and so, what is possessed by friends is possessed by us, in a way. [4] Moreover, there should be mutual friendship among men, in accord with which they assist each other either in spiritual or in earthly functions. Of course, it is a greater thing to help another in spiritual matters than in temporal affairs, as much greater as spiritual things are more important than temporal ones, and more necessary for the attainment of the end which is beatitude. Hence, he who gives up, through voluntary poverty, the possibility of succoring others in temporal things, so that he may acquire spiritual goods whereby he may more beneficially help others, he does not work against the good of human society, as the third argument concludes. [5] It is clear from things said earlier that riches are a definite good for man, when they are ordered to the good of reason, though not in themselves. Hence, nothing prevents poverty from being a greater good, provided one is ordered to a more perfect good by it. And thus, the fourth argument is answered. [6] And since neither riches, nor poverty, nor any external thing is in itself man's good, but they are only so as they are ordered to the good of reason, nothing prevents a vice from arising out of any of them, when they do not come within man's use in accord with the rule of reason. Yet they are not to be judged evil in themselves; rather, the use of them may be evil. And so, neither is poverty to be cast aside because of certain vices which may be at times occasioned by it, as the fifth argument tried to show. [7] Hence, we must consider that the mean of virtue is not taken according to the amount of exterior goods that come into use, but according to the rule of reason. So, it sometimes happens that what is excessive in relation to the quantity of an external thing may be moderate in relation to the rule of reason. For no one inclines to greater things than does the magnanimous man; nor is there anyone who surpasses in greatness of expenditures the magnificent man. So, they adhere to a mean that does not consist in the amount of expense, or anything like that, but in so far as they neither exceed the rule of reason, nor fall short of it. Indeed, this rule measures not only the size of a thing that is used, but also the circumstances of the person, and his intention, the fitness of place and time, and other such things that are necessary in acts of virtue. So, no one runs counter to virtue through voluntary poverty, even if he abandons everything. Nor does he do this wastefully, since he does it with a proper end, and with due attention to other circumstances. For it is a greater thing to risk one's life, which, of course, a person may do under the virtue of fortitude if he observes the proper circumstances, than to abandon all his goods for a due end. And so, the sixth argument is answered. [8] What is suggested on the basis of the words of Solomon is not to the contrary. For it is evident that he speaks of forced poverty, which is often the occasion for thievery.

Chapter

ANSWER TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF LIFE OF THOSE WHO EMBRACE VOLUNTARY POVERTY [1] After these answers, we must make a consideration of the ways in which devotees of voluntary poverty must live. [2] Now, the first way, that is, for all to live in common on the proceeds of possessions that are sold, is one which will work, but not for a long time. So, the Apostles instituted this way of living for the faithful in Jerusalem, because they foresaw through the Holy Spirit that they would not remain together for long in Jerusalem, both because of the persecutions to come from the Jews, and because of the imminent destruction of the city and its people. As a result, it was not necessary to provide for the faithful, except for a short time. Consequently, when they went out to other peoples, among whom the Church was to be established and to continue to endure, there is no account of their establishing this mode of living. [3] But the fraud which can be committed by the distributors is no argument against this way of life. For, this is common to all modes of living in which people dwell together—less so, in this way, since it seems more difficult for followers of perfection in life to commit fraud. Also, a remedy is provided against this, in the prudent selection of trustworthy distributors. Thus, under the Apostles, Stephen and others were chosen who were deemed worthy of this office (Acts 6:3ff). [4] Then, the second way is also suitable for those who embrace voluntary poverty: that is, for them to live on common possessions. [5] Nor is any of the perfection to which devotees of voluntary poverty tend lost by this way. For it is possible for it to be arranged that possessions be obtained in a proper manner through the effort of one of them, or of a small number of men, and so the others who remain without solicitude for temporal things may freely give their time to spiritual matters, which is the fruit of voluntary poverty. Nor, in fact, do those who take over this solicitude for the others lose anything of their perfection of life, because what they appear to lose by a lack of free time they gain in the service of charity, in which perfection of life also consists. [6] Nor, indeed, in this way of life, is concord taken away as a result of common possessions. People should embrace voluntary poverty who are of the type that hold temporal things in contempt, and such people cannot disagree about temporal goods that are common, especially since they ought to look for nothing from these temporal things except the necessities of life, and, besides, the distributors ought to be trustworthy. Nor can this way of life be disapproved because certain people abuse it, for bad men use even good things badly, just as good men use bad things in a good way. [7] Moreover, the third way of living is appropriate to those who embrace voluntary poverty; namely, they may live by the labor of their hands. [8] Indeed, it is not foolish to give away temporal things so that they may again be acquired by manual labor, as the first argument to the contrary suggested, because the possession of riches required solicitude in getting them, or even in keeping them, and they attracted the love of man to them; and this does not happen when a person applies himself to the gaining of his daily bread by manual labor. [9] Besides, it is clear that but a little time is enough for the acquisition of food sufficient for the support of nature by means of manual labor, and not much solicitude is needed. However, to amass riches or to acquire a large amount of supplies, as worldly workmen propose, requires the spending of much time and the application of great care. In this, the answer to the second argument is evident. [10] However, we should bear in mind that the Lord in the Gospel did not prohibit labor, but only mental solicitude for the necessities of life. For He did not say: “Do not work,” but, rather: “Be not solicitous.” This He proves from a weaker case. For, if birds and lilies are sustained by divine providence, things which are of lower estate and unable to labor at those tasks whereby men gain their living, it is much more likely that He will provide for men who are of more worthy estate and to whom He has given the capacity to seek their livelihood through their own labors. Thus, it is not necessary to be afflicted by anxious concern for the needs of this life. Hence, it is evident that there is nothing derogatory to this way of life in the words of the Lord which were cited. [11] Nor, in fact, can this way of living be rejected because it is inadequate. The fact that in a few cases a man may be unable to gain what suffices for the needs of life by manual labor alone is due either to sickness or some like disability. However, an arrangement is not to be rejected because of a defect which occurs rarely, for such things happen in nature and in the order of voluntary acts. Nor is there any way of living whereby things may be so arranged that failure cannot occur at times, for even riches can be taken away by theft or robbery; so, also, the man who lives from the work of his hands can grow feeble. Yet there is a remedy in connection with the way of life that we are talking about; namely, that help be given him whose labor is not enough to provide his living, either by other men in the same society who can do more work than is necessary for them or else by those who have riches. This is in accord with the law of charity and natural friendship whereby one man comes to the assistance of another who is in need. Hence, while the Apostle said, in 2 Thessalonians (3:10): “if any man will not work, neither let him eat”—for the sake of those who are not able to gain a living by their own labor—he adds a warning to others, saying: “But you, brethren, be not weary in well doing” (2 Thes. 3:13). [12] Moreover, since a few things suffice for the needs of life, those who are satisfied with little need not spend a great deal of time in gaining what is necessary by manual labor. So, they are not much hindered from the spiritual works on account of which they embraced voluntary poverty, especially since, while working with their hands, they may think about God and praise Him and do other practices like this which people living alone should do. However, so that they may not altogether be precluded from spiritual works, they can also be helped by the benefactions of the rest of the faithful. [13] Now, although voluntary poverty is not adopted for the purpose of getting rid of idleness or controlling the flesh by manual work, since this even possessors of riches could do, there is no doubt that manual labor is useful for that purpose, even without the need of gaining a living. However, idleness can be avoided by other more useful occupations, and concupiscence of the flesh conquered by stronger remedies. Hence, the need to work does not apply, for these reasons, to people who have, or can have, other means on which they may properly live. For, only the necessity of livelihood forces one to work with his hands, and thus the Apostle says, in II Thessalonians (3:10): “if any man will not work, neither let him eat.” [34] The fourth way of living, from those things that are offered by others, is also suitable for those who embrace voluntary poverty. [15] For, it is not inappropriate that he who has given away his own goods for the sake of an objective which contributes to the benefit of others should be supported by the gifts of these others. Indeed, unless this were so, human society could not endure, because, if every man took care of his own possessions only, there would be no one to serve the common welfare. So, it is quite fitting to human society that those who have set aside concern for their own goods, and who serve the common welfare, should be supported by those whose welfare they serve. Indeed, it is for this same reason that soldiers live on stipends paid by others and that the rulers of a republic are provided for from the common funds. As a matter of fact, those who adopt voluntary poverty in order to follow Christ renounce all things so that they may serve the common welfare, enlightening the people by their wisdom, learning, and examples, or strengthening them by prayer and intercession. [16] As a result, it is clear that there is nothing disgraceful in their living on the gifts of others, because they make a greater return: on their part, receiving temporal support; but in regard to others, contributing to progress in spiritual matters. Hence, the Apostle says, in 2 Corinthians (8:14): “Let your abundance,” that is, in temporal things, “supply their want,” of the same things, “that their abundance,” that is, in spiritual goods, “also may supply your want.” For he who helps another shares in his work, both in its good and in its evil. [17] Now, by their examples they incite others to virtue, for it develops that those who profit by their examples become less attached to riches when they observe other people completely abandoning their wealth for the sake of perfection in life. But the less a man loves riches, and the more intent on virtue he is, the more readily, also, does he distribute his wealth for the needs of others. As a result, those who embrace voluntary poverty and live on the gifts of others, rather than causing loss to the poor by taking the benefactions which would support the lives of others, become more beneficial to other poor people, because they by words and examples stimulate other men to works of mercy. [18] Moreover, it is clear that men of perfect virtue, such as they must be who adopt voluntary poverty, since they hold riches in contempt, do not lose their freedom of mind because of the petty amount that they accept from others for the maintenance of life. As a matter of fact, a man does not lose his independence of mind unless it be because of things which are dominant in his affections. Hence, a man does not lose his independence because of things he despises, even if they are given to him. [19] Now, although the maintenance of those who live on the gifts of others depends on the will of the givers, this is not, for that reason, an inadequate way of supporting the life of Christ’s poor. For it does not depend on the will of one man but on the will of many. Hence, it is not probable that, among the vast number of the faithful, there would not be many people who would readily supply the needs of those whom they hold in reverence because of the perfection of their virtue. [20] Nor is it unfitting for them to declare their needs and ask for what is necessary, whether for others or for themselves. Indeed, we read that even the Apostles did this: not only did they receive what was necessary from those to whom they preached, which was rather a matter of rightful authority than of mendicancy, because of the rule of the Lord that they who serve, “the gospel should live by the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:13-14), but they also did it for the poor who were in Jerusalem (Acts 9:27ff.; 2 Cor. 8 and 9) and who, having given up their possessions, were living in poverty, yet were not preaching to the Gentiles; rather, their spiritual manner of living entitled them to such support. Hence, the Apostle urges, not as a matter of obligation but of good will on the part of the givers (2 Cor. 9:7), the aiding of such people by means of alms; and this is nothing but begging. Now, this begging does not make men objects of contempt, provided it is done with moderation, for need and not to excess, and without undue insistence, with consideration for the circumstances of the persons from whom the request is made, and for the place and time—all of which must be observed by those devoted to perfection in life. [21] As a result, it is clear that such begging has no appearance of the disgraceful. It would have, if it were done with insistence and lack of discretion for the sake of pleasure or superfluity. [22] Of course, it is evident that mendicancy is associated with a certain humiliation. For, as to suffer an action is less noble than to do it, so to receive is less noble than to give, and to be ruled and obedient is less noble than to govern and command, although by virtue of some added circumstance this evaluation may be reversed. [23] However, it is the mark of humility to accept humiliations without hesitation; not in all cases, of course, but when it is necessary. For, since humility is a virtue, it does not work without discretion. So, it is not proper to humility, but to stupidity, for a man to accept every kind of humiliation, but what must be done for the sake of virtue a person does not reject because of humiliation. For example, if charity demands that some humiliating duty be performed for a neighbor, one will not refuse it through humility. Therefore, if it is necessary for the adoption of the perfection of the life of poverty that a man beg, then to suffer this humiliation is proper to humility. Sometimes, too, it is virtuous to accept humiliations even though our job does not require it, in order by our example to encourage others who have such a burden, so that they may bear it readily. For, a general may at times serve like an ordinary soldier, in order to spur on others. Sometimes, mo reover, we use humiliations virtuously for their medicinal value. For instance, if a man’s mind is prone to undue pride, he may make beneficial use, in due moderation, of humiliations, either self-imposed or caused by others, in order to restrain this tendency to pride, provided that through bearing these things he puts himself on a level, as it were, with even the lowliest men who perform low-grade tasks. [24] Now, the error of those who regard all solicitude for the gaining of a living for oneself as forbidden by God is altogether unreasonable. Indeed, every act requires solicitude. So, if a man ought to have no concern for corporeal things, then it follows that he ought not to be engaged in corporeal action, but this is neither possible nor reasonable. In fact, God has ordained activity for each thing in accord with the proper perfection of its nature. Now, man was made with a spiritual and bodily nature. So, he must by divine disposition both perform bodily actions and keep his mind on spiritual things. However, this way of human perfection is not such that one may perform no bodily actions, because, since bodily actions are directed to things needed for the preservation of life, if a man fail to perform them he neglects his life which every man is obliged to preserve. Now, to look to God for help in those matters in which a man can help himself by his own action, and to omit one’s own action, is the attitude of a fool and a tempter of God. Indeed, this is an aspect of divine goodness, to provide things not by doing them directly, but by moving others to perform their own actions, as we showed above. So. one should not look to God in the hope that, without performing any action by which one might help oneself, God will come to one’s aid, for this is opposed to the divine order and to divine goodness. [25] But since, in spite of our having the power to act, we do not have the power to guarantee the success of our actions in attaining their proper end, because of impediments which may occur, this success that may come to each man from his action lies within the disposition of divine providence. Therefore, the Lord commands us not to be solicitous concerning what pertains to God, namely, the outcome of our actions. But He has not forbidden us to be concerned about what pertains to us, namely, our own work. So, he who is solicitous about things that he can do does not act against the Lord’s precept. Rather, he does who is solicitous concerning the things which can result, even if he carries out his own actions, so that he omits the actions that are required to avoid these eventualities, against which we must rather place our hope in God’s providence, by which even the birds and the flowers are supported. To have solicitude of this kind seems to pertain to the error of the Gentiles who deny divine providence. This is why the Lord concludes that we must not be “solicitous for tomorrow.” He did not forbid us, by this injunction, from taking care in time of the things necessary for the future, but, rather, from being concerned about future events in despair of divine help. Or, perhaps, He forbade preoccupation today with the solicitude which one should have tomorrow, for each day has its own concerns; hence, He adds: “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” (Mat. 6:34). [26] And thus, it is clear that those who adopt voluntary poverty can live in various appropriate ways. Among these ways, that is more praiseworthy which makes man’s mind free, to a greater degree, from solicitude about temporal matters and from activity in connection with them.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF THOSE WHO ATTACK PERPETUAL CONTINENCE

[1] Now, just as in the case of the opposition to the perfection of poverty, so also have some perverse-minded men spoken against the good of continence. Some of them try to destroy the good of continence by these and like arguments. [2] In fact, the union of husband and wife is directed to the good of the species. For the good of the species is more godlike than the good of the individual. Therefore, he who completely abstains from the act whereby the species is preserved commits a greater sin than he would if he abstained from an act by which the individual is preserved, such as eating and drinking and the like. [3] Again, by the divine order, organs are given man that are suited for procreation, and so are the concupiscible power that stimulates him and also other similar endowments related to it. Hence, he who completely abstains from the act of generation seems to act against the divine ordinance. [4] Besides, if it is a good thing for one man to be continent, it is better for many, and best for all to do so. But the conclusion of this would be the extinction of the human race. So, it is not good for any man to be completely continent. [5] Moreover, chastity, like the other virtues, lies in a mean. Therefore, just as a man acts against virtue and is intemperate if he devotes himself entirely to matters of concupiscence, so also does he act against virtue and is he without feeling who totally abstains from matters of concupiscence. [6] Furthermore, it is impossible for some feelings of sexual concupiscence to fail to arise in a man, for they are natural. Now, to resist these feelings of concupiscence fully and, as it were, to wage a continuous fight against them produces more disturbance than if a man indulges moderately in concupiscent activities. Therefore, since mental disturbance is most incompatible with perfection of virtue, it appears to be opposed to virtue for a man to observe perpetual continence. [7] Such, then, seem to be the objections against perpetual continence. It is also possible to add to them the command of the Lord which, we read, was given to our first parents in Genesis (1:28; 9:1): “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” This was not revoked, but seems rather to have been confirmed by the Lord in the Gospel, where it is said: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mat. 19:6), when He speaks of the matrimonial union. But those who observe perpetual continence clearly act against this precept. So, it seems to be illicit to observe perpetual continence. [8] However, it is not difficult to answer these objections in terms of the things that were established above. [9] For we should keep in mind that one type of rational explanation is to be used for things which belong to the needs of the individual man, while a different one applies to the things that pertain to the needs of the group. In regard to things pertinent to the needs of the individual man, it is necessary to make provision for each person. Now, of this type are food and drink, and other goods having to do with the maintenance of the individual. Hence, each man must make use of food and drink. But, in the case of things that are necessary for the group, it is not necessary for the assignment to be given to each person in the group; indeed, this is not even possible. For it is clear that many things are needed by a group of men, such as food, drink, clothing, housing and the like, which cannot all be procured by one man. And so, different tasks must be given to different persons, just as different organs of the body are directed to different functions. So, since procreation is not a matter of the need of the individual but of the need of the whole species, it is not necessary for all men to devote themselves to acts of generation; instead, certain men, refraining from these acts, undertake other functions, such as the military life or contemplation. [10] From this the answer to the second argument is clear. Indeed, the things that are necessary for the entire species are given man by divine providence, but it is not necessary for each man to use every one of them. For man has been given skill in building and strength for fighting, however, this does not mean that all men must be builders or soldiers. Likewise, though the generative power and things related to its act have been divinely provided, it is not necessary for each man to direct his intention to the generative act. [11] Asa result, the answer to the third objection is also evident. Though it is better for some individuals to abstain from the things that are necessary for the group, it is not good for all to abstain. The same situation is apparent in the order of the universe, for, although spiritual substance is better than the corporeal, that universe in which there are spiritual substances only would not be better but more imperfect. And even though an eye is better than a foot in the body of an animal, the animal would not be perfect unless it had both eye and foot. So, too, the community of mankind would not be in a perfect state unless there were some people who direct their intention to generative acts and others who refrain from these acts and devote themselves to contemplation. [12] Moreover, what is objected fourthly, that virtue must lie in the mean, is answered by what was said above in regard to poverty. For the mean of virtue is not always taken according to the quantity of the thing that is ordered by reason, but, rather, according to the rule of reason which takes in the proper end and measures the appropriate circumstances. And so, to abstain from all sexual pleasures, without a reason, is called the vice of insensibility. But, if it be done in accord with reason, it is a virtue which surpasses man’s ordinary way of life, for it makes men share somewhat in the divine likeness; hence, virginity is said to be related to the angels (Mat. 22:30). [13] In regard to the fifth argument, it should be said that the solicitude and occupation which encumber those who are married, concerning their wives, children and the procuring of the necessities of life, are continuous. But the disturbance which a man suffers in the fight against concupiscent tendencies is for a limited time. For this decreases as a result of a man refusing to consent to it; in fact, the more a person indulges in pleasures, the more does the desire for pleasure grow in him. Thus, concupiscent feelings are weakened by acts of abstinence and other corporeal practices suitable to those who have the vow of continence. Moreover, the enjoyment of corporeal delights distracts the mind from its peak activity and hinders it in the contemplation of spiritual things much more than the disturbance that results from resisting the concupiscent desires for these pleasures, because the mind becomes very strongly attached to carnal things through the enjoyment of such pleasures, especially those of sex. For enjoyment makes the appetite become fixed on the thing that is enjoyed. And so, for those people who devote their attention to the contemplation of divine things and of every kind of truth, it is especially harmful to have been addicted to sexual pleasures and particularly beneficial to abstain from them. Now, this is not to suggest that, although it is generally better for the individual man to observe continence than to engage in matrimony, the latter may not be better in a particular case. Hence, the Lord, having mentioned continence, says: “All men take not this word, but they to whom it is given” (Mat. 19:11). [14] To what is asserted in the last objection, on the ground of the precept given to our first parents, the reply is evident from what has been said. Indeed, that precept is concerned with the natural inclination in man to preserve the species by the act of generation; however, this need not be carried out by all men, but by some, as we said. [15] Now, just as it is not expedient for every man to abstain from matrimony, so also it is not a good thing to do so at all times, if the increase of the race requires matrimony: whether because of a lack of men, as in the beginning when the human race began to multiply; or because of the small number of the faithful, in which situation they should multiply by carnal generation, as was the case in the Old Testament. Thus, the counsel of practicing perpetual continence was reserved to the New Testament, when the faithful are multiplied by a spiritual generation.

Chapter

ANOTHER ERROR CONCERNING PERPETUAL CONTINENCE

[1] Moreover, there have been some others who, though not disapproving perpetual continence, have, however, put the state of matrimony on the same level with it. This is the heresy of the Jovinians. But the falsity of this error is quite apparent from the foregoing, since by continence man is made more skillful in raising his mind to spiritual and divine matters, and so he is placed, in a way, above the level of a man and in a certain likeness to the angels. [2] Nor is it any objection that some men of most perfect virtue have practiced matrimony, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for, the stronger the power of the mind is, the less likely is it to be cast down from its heights by any things whatsoever. So, though they were married, they did not love the contemplation of truth and divine things any less. Rather, as the state of their times demanded, they embraced matrimony for the sake of increasing the numbers of the faithful. [3] Nor, in fact, is the perfection of one person a sufficient argument for the perfection of a state of life, since. one man can use a minor good with a more perfect intention than another man could use a greater good. Therefore, the fact that Abraham or Moses was more perfect than many men who observe continence does not mean that the state of matrimony is more perfect than the state of continence, or even equal to it.

Chapter

AGAINST THOSE WHO ATTACK VOWS

[1] It has seemed foolish to some people to bind oneself by a vow to obey anyone, or to any kind of practice. In fact, the more freely any good action is done, the more virtuous it seems to be. On the other hand, the more and the greater the necessity whereby a man is constrained to a certain practice, the less freely does it seem to be performed. So, it appears derogatory to the praiseworthy character of virtuous acts for them to be done under the necessity of obedience or a vow. [2] Now, these men seem to ignore the meaning of necessity. In fact, there are two kinds of necessity. One is that of coaction. This kind decreases the value of virtuous acts, because it is contrary to the voluntary, for what is done under coaction is what is against the will. But there is another necessity that results from interior inclination. This does not diminish the value of a virtuous act, but increases it, for it makes the will incline more intensely toward an act of virtue. Indeed, it is evident that the more perfect a habit of virtue is, I the more forcefully does it make the will tend to the good of virtue, and less likely to fall short of it. So that, if it reaches the end of perfection, it confers a certain necessity of acting well, as in the case of the blessed who are not able to sin, as will appear later. Yet, because of this, neither is any freedom of will lost, nor goodness of the act. [3] However, there is still another necessity resulting from the end, as when we say that someone must have a ship in order to cross the sea. Again it is evident that this necessity does not decrease freedom of will or the goodness of the acts. Rather, the fact that a man does something that is necessary for an end is praiseworthy in itself; and the better the end, the more praiseworthy it is. [4] Now, it is clear that the necessity of practicing what one has vowed to do, or of obeying a person to whom one has subjected himself, is not the necessity of coaction or even that resulting from interior inclination, but it is from a relation to the end. For it is necessary for a person who takes a vow to do this or that thing if he is to fulfill the vow or practice obedience. So, since these ends are praiseworthy, inasmuch as by them man subjects himself to God, the aforesaid necessity in no way diminishes the value of virtue. [5] We should further consider that the carrying out of things which a person has vowed, or the fulfilling of the orders of a man to whom the person has subjected himself for God’s sake, are actions worthy of greater praise and reward. It is possible, of course, for one act to pertain to two vices, provided the act of one vice be directed to the end of another vice. For instance, when a man steals so that he may fornicate, the act is specifically one of avarice, but by its intention it belongs to lust. In the same way, it also happens in the case of virtues that the act of one virtue is ordered to another virtue. Thus, when one gives away his possessions so that he may enjoy the friendship of charity with another man, this act specifically belongs to liberality, but from its end it pertains to charity. Now, acts of this kind acquire greater value from the greater virtue, that is, from charity rather than from liberality. Hence, though it loses its character as an exclusive act of liberality by virtue of its ordination to charity, it will be more praiseworthy and worthy of greater reward than if it were done liberally, with no relation to charity. [6] So, let us suppose a man performing some work of a definite virtue, say a man who is fasting or restraining himself continently from sexual pleasure—now, if he does this without a vow it will be an act of chastity or of abstinence, but if he does it as a result of a vow it is referred further to another virtue whose scope includes the vowing of something to God; that is, to the virtue of religion which is better than chastity or abstinence, inasmuch as it makes us rightly disposed in relation to God. So, the act of abstinence or continence will be more praiseworthy in the case of the man who performs it under a vow, even though he does not take so much delight in abstinence or continence due to the fact that he is taking his delight in a higher virtue, that is, religion. [7] Again, what is most important in virtue is a proper end, for the rational character of a good act stems chiefly from the end. So, if the end is more eminent, then, even if one is somewhat less than perfect in the act, it will be for him a more virtuous act. For example, take the case of a man who proposes to make a long journey for a virtuous purpose, while another man undertakes a short one; he who proposes to do more for the sake of virtue will be more praiseworthy, even though he makes slower progress on the trip. But suppose a man does something for God’s sake, offering this act to God: if he does this under a vow he offers God not only the act, but also his power. Thus, it is evident that his intention is to offer something greater to God. So, his act will be more virtuous by reason of his intention for a greater good, even if, in the execution of it, another man might appear more fervent. [8] Besides, the act of will which precedes an act continues in its power through the whole performance of the act, and renders it worthy of praise, even when the agent is not thinking during the execution of the work of the commitment of will from which the act began. In fact, it is not necessary for a man who undertakes a journey for God’s sake actually to think about God during every part of the trip. Now, it is clear that the man who vows that he will do a certain thing wills it more intensely than one who simply decides to do it, for the first man not only wills to do it, but he wills to strengthen himself so that he will not fail to act. So, by this act of voluntary intention there is produced a praiseworthy execution of the vow accompanied by a certain fervor, even when the will-act is not actually continued during the operation, or is continued in a slack way. [9] And so, what is done as a result of a vow becomes more praiseworthy than what is done without a vow, provided other conditions are equal.

Chapter

THAT NEITHER MERITORIOUS ACTS NOR SINS ARE EQUAL

[1] Next, it is plain that neither all good works, nor all sins, are equal. Indeed, counsel is given only in regard to the better good.Now, counsels are given in the divine law concerning poverty, continence, and other like things, as we said above. So, these are better than the practice of matrimony and the possession of temporal things, but it is possible to act virtuously according to these latter, provided the order of reason be observed, as we showed above. Therefore, not all acts of the virtues are equal. [2] Again, acts get their species from their objects. So, the better the object is, the more virtuous the act will be in its species. Now, the end is better than the means to the end; and of the means, the closer one is to the end, the better it is. Hence, among human acts, that one is best which is directed immediately to the ultimate end, namely, God. After that, an act is better in its species the closer its object is to God. [3] Besides, the good in human acts is dependent on their being regulated by reason. But it happens that some acts come nearer to reason than others. The more definitely these acts pertain to reason itself, the more they share in the good of reason, in comparison with the acts of the lower powers which reason commands. Therefore, there are some human acts that are better than others. [4] Moreover, the precepts of the law are best fulfilled as a result of love, as we said above. But it happens that one man does what is prescribed for him to do with greater love than another man. So, one virtuous act will be better than another. [5] Furthermore, while man’s acts are rendered good as a result of virtue, it is possible for the same virtue to be more intensified in one man than in another. So, one human act must be better than another. [6] Again, if human acts are made good by the virtues, then that act must be better which belongs to the better virtue. But it is possible for one virtue to be better than another; for instance, magnificence than liberality, and magnanimity than moderation. So, one human act will be better than another. [7] Hence, it is said, 1 Cor. (7:38): “He who gives his virgins in marriage does well: and he does not give them does better.” [8] Moreover, it is apparent for the same reason that not all sins are equal, since one gets farther away from the end through one sin than through another, and the order of reason may be more perverted, and more harm may be done one’s neighbor. [9] Hence, it is said, in Ezekiel (16:47): “You have done almost more wicked things than they in all your ways.” [10] Now, by this consideration we refute the error of those who say that all meritorious acts and all sins are equal. [11] As a matter of fact, the view that all virtuous acts are equal seems to have a certain reasonableness, since every act is virtuous as a result of the goodness of its end. Hence, if there is some end of goodness for all good acts, then all must be equally good. [12] However, although there is but one ultimate end for the good, the acts that derive their goodness from it receive different degrees of goodness. For, there is in the goods that are ordered to the ultimate end a difference of degree, in so far as some are better and nearer to the ultimate end than others. Hence, there will be degrees of goodness both in the will and in its acts, depending on the diversity of goods in which the will and its act terminate, even though the ultimate end be the same. [13] Similarly, also, the notion that all sins are equal seems to have some reasonableness, since sin occurs in human acts solely because a person overlooks the rule of reason. But a man who departs a little from reason overlooks its rule, just as one who misses it by a wide margin. So, it would seem that a sin is equal whether the wrong done was small or great. [14] Now, support for this argument seems to come from the practice in human courts of law. In fact, if a boundary line is set up which a certain man is not to cross, it makes no difference to the judge whether he trespassed for a large distance or a small one; just as it is unimportant, when a fighter goes over the ropes, whether he goes very far. So, in the case of a man overstepping the rule of reason, it makes no difference whether he bypasses it a little or a great deal. [15] However, if one takes a more careful look at it, in all matters in which the perfect and the good consists in some sort of commensuration, the greater the departure from the proper measurement, the worse will it be. Thus, health consists in a properly measured amount of humors, and beauty in a due proportion of bodily members, while truth lies in a measured relation of the understanding, or of speech, to the thing. Now, clearly, the more inequality there is in the humors, the greater the sickness; and the greater the disorder in the members of the body, the greater is the ugliness; and the farther one departs from the truth, the greater is the falsity. For instance, the man who thinks that three is five is not as wrong as the one who thinks three is a hundred. Now, the good pertaining to virtue consists in a certain commensuration, for there is a mean that is set up between opposed vices according to a proper judgment of the limiting circumstances. Therefore, the more it departs from this harmonious balance, the greater the evil is. [16] Moreover, it is not the same thing to transgress virtue and to trespass over boundaries set up by a judge. Virtue is, in fact, good in itself, and so to depart from virtue is an evil in itself. Hence, to go farther away from virtue is a greater evil. But to pass over a boundary line set up by a judge is not essentially evil, but accidentally so—to the extent, that is, that it is prohibited. But in the case of events that are accidental, it is not necessary that “if one event taken without qualification follows another event without qualification, then an increase in the first event is followed by an increase in the second.” This only follows in things which exist of themselves. For instance, it does not follow that, if a white man is musical, then a whiter man will be more musical, but it does follow that, if a white thing is a distinctive object of sight, a whiter thing is a more distinctive object for sight. [17] Yet there is this point to be noted regarding the differences among sins: that one kind is mortal and another venial. Now, the mortal is that which deprives the soul of spiritual life. The meaning of this life may be taken from two points in the comparison with natural life. In fact, a body is naturally alive because it is united to a soul which is the source of life for it. Moreover, a body that is made alive by a soul moves by itself, but a dead body either remains without movement or is only moved from outside. So, too, the will of man, when united by a right intention to its ultimate end, which is its object and, in a sense, its form, is also enlivened. And when it adheres to God and neighbor through love, it moves from an interior principle to do the right things. But when the intention and love of the ultimate end are removed, the soul becomes, as it were, dead, since it does not move of itself to do right actions, but either entirely ceases to do them or is led to do them solely by something external, namely, the fear of punishments. So, whatever sins are opposed to the intending and loving of the ultimate end are mortal. But, if a man is properly disposed in regard to them, yet falls somewhat short of the right order of reason, his sin will not be mortal but venial.

Chapter

THAT A MAN’S ACTS ARE PUNISHED OR REWARDED BY GOD

[1] It is apparent from the foregoing that man’s acts are punished or rewarded by God. [2] For the function of punishing and rewarding belongs to him whose office it is to impose the law; indeed, lawmakers enforce observance of the law by means of rewards and punishments. But it belongs to divine providence to lay down the law for men, as is clear from the previous statements. Therefore, it belongs to God to punish and reward men. [3] Again, wherever there is a proper order to an end, this order must lead to the end, while a departure from this order prevents the attainment of the end. For things which depend on the end derive their necessity from the end; that is to say, this means is necessary if the end is to be attained—and under these conditions, if there be no impediment, the end is achieved. Now, God has imposed on men’s acts a certain order in relation to the final good, as is evident from preceding statements. So, it must be, if this order is rightly laid down, that those who proceed according to this order will attain the final good, and this is to be rewarded; but those who depart from this order by means of sin must be cut off from the final good, and this is to be punished. [4] Besides, as things in nature are subject to the order of divine providence, so are human acts, as is clear from what was said earlier. In both cases, however, it is possible for the proper order to be observed or overlooked. Yet there is this difference: the observance or transgression of the due order is put within the control of the human will, but it is not within the power of things in nature to fall short of or to follow the proper order. Now, effects must correspond in an appropriate way with their causes. Hence, just as when natural things adhere to a due order in their natural principles and actions, the preservation of their nature and the good in them necessarily follows, while corruption and evil result when there is a departure from the proper and natural order-so also, in human affairs, when a man voluntarily observes the order of divinely imposed law, good must result, not as if by necessity, but by the management of the governor, and this is to be rewarded. On the contrary, evil follows when the order of the law has been neglected, and this is to be punished. [5] Moreover, to leave nothing unordered among things pertains to the perfect goodness of God; as a result, we observe that every evil in things of nature is included under the order of something good. So, the corruption of air is the generation of fire and the killing of a sheep is the feeding of a wolf. Hence, since human acts are subject to divine providence, just as things in nature are, the evil which occurs in human acts must be contained under the order of some good. Now, this is most suitably accomplished by the fact that sins are punished. For in that way those acts which exceed the due measure are embraced under the order of justice which reduces to equality. But man exceeds the due degree of his measure when he prefers his own will to the divine will by satisfying it contrary to God’s ordering. Now, this inequity is removed when, against his will, man is forced to suffer something in accord with divine ordering. Therefore, it is necessary that human sins be given punishment of divine origin and, for the same reason, that good deeds receive their reward. [6] Furthermore, divine providence not only arranges the order of things, it also moves all things to the execution of the order thus arranged, as we showed above. Now, the will is moved by its object, which is a good or bad thing. Therefore, it is the function of divine providence to offer men good things as a reward, so that their will may be moved to make right progress, and to set forth evil things as punishment, so that their will may avoid disorder. [7] Besides, divine providence has so ordered things that one will be useful to another. But it is most appropriate for man to derive profit for his final good, both from another man’s good and another man’s evil, in the sense that he may be stimulated to good action by seeing that others who do good are rewarded, and that he may be turned back from evil action by observing that those who do evil are punished. So, it is proper to divine providence that evil men be punished and good men rewarded. [8] Hence, it is said, in Exodus (20:5-6): “I am Your God... visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children... and showing mercy... to them who love me and keep my commandments.” And again, in the Psalm (61:13): “For You will render to every man according to his works.” And in Romans (2:6-8): “Who will render to every man according to his works; to those indeed who, according to patience in good work, glory and honor... but to those... who do not obey the truth but give credit to iniquity, wrath and indignation.” [9] Now, by this we set aside the error of some people who assert that God does not punish. In fact, Marcion and Valentine said that there is one good God, and another God of justice Who punishes.

Chapter

ON THE DIVERSITY AND ORDER OF PUNISHMENTS

[1] As we have just seen, since a reward is what is set before the will as an end whereby one is stimulated to good action, punishment, on the contrary, in the guise of some evil that is to be avoided, is set before the will to restrain it from evil. So, just as it is essential to a reward that it be a good that is agreeable to the will, so is it essential to punishment that it be an evil and contrary to will. Now, evil is a privation of the good. Hence, the diversity and order of punishments must depend on the diversity and order of goods. [2] Now, felicity is the highest good for man, for it is his ultimate end, and the nearer anything is to this end, the higher the place that it occupies among man’s goods. But the nearest thing to it is virtue, and any other thing, if there be such, which helps man in good action whereby he attains happiness. Next comes the proper disposition of his reason and of the powers subject to it. After this comes soundness of body, which is needed for ready action. In final place are external things which we use as aids to virtue. [3] So, the greatest punishment will be for man to be cut off from happiness. After this ranks deprivation of virtue and of any perfection of the natural powers of the soul that is related to good action. Next comes the disorder of the natural powers of the soul; then, bodily injury; and finally, the taking away of exterior goods. [4] However, because it is essential not only that punishment by a privation of the good, but also that it be contrary to the will, for not every man’s will regards good things as they really are, it happens at times that what deprives one of the greater good is less repugnant to the will and thus seems to be less punishing. Hence it is that a good many men who think better of and know more about sensible and corporeal things than they do about intellectual and spiritual goods have a greater fear of bodily punishments than of spiritual ones. In the opinion of these people the order of punishments seems the reverse of the abovementioned ranking. With them, injuries of the body are deemed the greatest punishment, together with the loss of external things; whereas they regard disorder of soul, loss of virtue, and the deprivation of the divine enjoyment, in which man’s ultimate felicity consists, as of slight or no importance. [5] Now, the result of this is that they do not think that men’s sins are punished by God, for they see many sinners enjoying bodily vigor, highly favored by external good fortune, of which goods virtuous men are sometimes deprived. [6] To people who consider the matter rightly this should not seem astonishing. For, since external goods are subordinated to internal goods, and body to soul, external and bodily goods are good for man to the extent that they contribute to the good of reason, but to the extent that they hinder the rational good they turn into evils for man. Now, God, the disposer of things, knows the measure of human virtue. Hence, He at times provides corporeal and external goods for the virtuous man as an aid to his virtue, and in this He confers a benefit on him. At other times, however, He takes away these things from man, because He considers such things to be for him a hindrance to virtue and divine enjoyment. Indeed, from the fact that external goods may turn into evils for man, as we said, their loss may consequently become, by the same reasoning, a good thing for man. So, if every punishment is an evil, and if it is not a bad thing for a man to be deprived of external and corporeal goods in accord with what is helpful to progress in virtue, then it will not be a punishment for a virtuous man if he be deprived of external goods as an aid to virtue. On the contrary, however, it will be for the punishment of evil men if external goods are granted them, for by them they are incited to evil. Hence it is said in Wisdom (14:11) that “the creatures of God are turned to an abomination, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise.” However, since it is essential to punishment that it be not only an evil but that it be against the will, the loss of corporeal and external things, even when it helps man toward virtue and not toward evil, is called a punishment, in an improper sense, because it is contrary to will. [7] Still, as a result of the disorder in man, it happens that a man may not judge things as they are, but may set corporeal things above spiritual ones. Now, such a disorder is either a fault or it stems from some preceding fault. Consequently, it is evident that there is no punishment for man, even in the sense of being contrary to will, without a prior fault. [8] This is also clear from another fact: these things that are good in themselves would not turn into evils for man, because of their abuse, unless some disorder were present within man. [9] Besides, the fact that the things which the will favors because they are naturally good must be taken away from man for the advancement of virtue arises from a disorder in man which is either a fault or the result of a fault. Indeed, it is obvious that some disorder in the affections of man is caused by a previous sin, and so afterwards he is more easily inclined to sin. So, man is not without fault, also, in the fact that he must be helped to the good of virtue by what is for him something of a punishment, inasmuch as it is absolutely against his will, even though it be desired sometimes, in a relative way, because reason looks to the end. But, we shall talk later about this disorder in human nature which results from original sin. However, it is now evident to what extent God punishes men for their sins, and that He does not punish unless there be some fault.

Chapter

THAT NOT ALL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS ARE EQUAL

[1] Since divine justice requires, for the preservation of equality in things, that punishments be assigned for faults and rewards for good acts, then, if there are degrees in virtuous acts and in sins, as we showed, there must also be degrees among rewards and punishments. Otherwise, equality would not be preserved, that is, if a greater punishment were not given to one who sins more, or a greater reward to one who acts better. Indeed, the same reasoning seems to require different retribution on the basis of the diversity of good and evil, and on the basis of the difference between the good and the better, or between the bad and the worse. [2] Again, the equality proper to distributive justice is such that unequal things are assigned to unequal persons. Therefore, there would not be a just compensation by punishments and rewards if all rewards and all punishments were equal. [3] Besides, rewards and punishments are set up by a lawmaker so that men may be drawn away from evil things and toward good things, as is evident from what was said above. But it is not only necessary for men to be attracted to goods and drawn away from evils, but also good men must be encouraged to better things and evil men discouraged from worse things. This could not be done if rewards and punishments were equal. Therefore, punishments and rewards must be unequal. [4] Moreover, just as a thing is disposed toward a form by natural dispositions, so is a man disposed toward punishments and rewards by good and bad works. But the order which divine providence has established in things has this feature: things that are better disposed obtain a more perfect form. Therefore, depending on the diversity of good or bad works, there must be a diversity of punishments and rewards. [5] Furthermore, it is possible for variations of degree to apply to good and bad works in two ways: in one way, numerically, in the sense that one man has more good or bad works than another; in a second way, qualitatively, in the sense that one man accomplishes a better or worse work than another. Now, to the increase which depends on the number of works there must be a corresponding increase in rewards and punishments; otherwise, there would not be a compensation under divine justice for all the things that a person does, if some evils remained unpunished and some goods unrewarded. So, by equivalent reasoning, for the increase which depends on the different quality of the works there must be a corresponding inequality of rewards and punishments. [6] Hence, it is said in Deuteronomy (25:7): “According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be.” And in Isaiah (27:8): “In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, I shall judge it.” [7] By this we dispose of the error of those who say that in the future all rewards and punishments will be equal.

Chapter

ON THE PUNISHMENT DUE TO MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN IN RELATION TO THE ULTIMATE END [1] Now, it is obvious from the foregoing that it is possible to sin in two ways. One way is such that the mental intention is entirely broken away from the order to God, Who is called the ultimate end of all good people; and this is mortal sin. The second way is such that, while the ordering of the human mind to the ultimate end remains, some impediment is brought in whereby one is held back from freely tending toward the end; and this is called venial sin. So, if there must be a difference of punishments depending on a difference of sins, it follows that he who commits a mortal sin must be punished in such a way that he may be cut off from the end of man, but he who sins venially must not be punished so that he is cut off but so that he is retarded or made to suffer difficulty in acquiring the end. For, thus is the equality of justice preserved: in whatever way man voluntarily turns away from his end by sinning, in the same way in the order of punishment, involuntarily, he is impeded in regard to the attainment of his end. [2] Again, as will is in men, so is natural inclination in the things of nature. Now, if the inclination toward its end be taken away from a natural thing, it becomes altogether unable to reach its end. For example, when a heavy body loses its weight through corruption and becomes light, it will not reach its proper place. But, if there be an impediment to its motion, while its inclination to the end remains, then, when the obstacle is removed, it will reach its end. Now, in the man who commits a mortal sin, the intention of his will is completely turned away from his ultimate end; while in the man who commits a venial sin, his intention continues to be fixed on the end, but he is somewhat hindered in that he improperly fixes his intention on the means to the end. Therefore, for the one who sins mortally, this is the proper punishment: to be completely cut off from the attainment of the end. But for the one who sins venially, he must suffer some difficulty before he reaches the end. [3] Besides, when a person obtains some good that he did not intend, this is due to fortune and chance. So, if he whose intention is turned away from the ultimate end is to attain the ultimate end, this will be due to fortune and chance. But this is not right. In fact, the ultimate end is a good of the understanding. Now, fortune is repugnant to understanding, since fortuitous events occur apart from the ordering of understanding. Moreover, it is not appropriate for the understanding to attain its end in an unintelligent manner. Therefore, he will not attain his ultimate end who, by sinning mortally, has his intention turned away from the ultimate end. [4] Moreover, matter does not get its form from the agent unless it be disposed to the form. Now, the end or the good is a perfection of the will, just as form is for matter. Hence, the will is not going to obtain its ultimate end unless it be appropriately disposed. But the will is disposed toward its end by the intention and desire for the end. Therefore, he whose intention is averted from the end will not obtain that end. [5] Furthermore, in the case of things ordered to an end, the relationship is such that, if the end occurs or will occur, then the means to the end must also be available, but if the means to the end are not available, then the end will not occur. For, if the end can occur even without the presence of the means to the end, it is futile to seek the end by such means. But it is admitted by all men that man, through works of virtue, among which the chief one is the intention of the proper end, may attain his ultimate end which is felicity. So, if a person acts against virtue, with his intention turned away from the ultimate end, it is fitting that he be deprived of his ultimate end. [6] Hence, it is said, Matthew (7:23): “Depart from me, all you who work iniquity.”

Chapter

THAT BY MORTAL SIN A MAN IS ETERNALLY DEPRIVED OF HIS ULTIMATE END

[1] This punishment by which a person is deprived of the ultimate end should be interminable. [2] For there is no privation of a thing unless one is born to possess that thing; in fact, a newborn puppy is not said to be deprived of sight. But man is not born with a natural aptitude to attain his end in this life, as we have proved. So, the privation of this kind of end must be a punishment after this life. But after this life there remains in man no capacity to acquire the ultimate end. The soul needs a body for the obtaining of its end, in so far as it acquires perfection through the body, both in knowledge and in virtue. But the soul, after it has been separated from its body, will not again return to this state in which it receives perfection through the body, as the reincarnationists claimed. We have argued against them above. Therefore, he who is punished by this punishment, so that he is deprived of the ultimate end, must remain deprived of it throughout eternity. [3] Again, if there is a privation of something which is naturally required, it is impossible for this to be restored unless there be a breaking down of the subject to the underlying matter, so that another subject may again be generated anew, as is the case when an animal loses the power of sight or any other sense power. Now, it is impossible for what has been already generated to be again generated, unless it is first corrupted. In that case, from the same matter it is possible for another whole being to be generated, not the same numerically but in species. But spiritual things, such as a soul or an angel, cannot be broken down by corruption into an underlying matter so that another member of the same species may in turn be generated. So, if such a being is deprived of what it must have in its nature, then such a privation has to continue perpetually. But there is in the nature of a soul and of an angel an ordering toward the ultimate end Who is God. So, if it departs from this order by virtue of some punishment, this punishment will endure perpetually. [4] Besides, natural equity seems to demand that each person be deprived of the good against which he acts, for by this action he renders himself unworthy of such a good. So it is that, according to civil justice, he who offends against the state is deprived completely of association with the state, either by death or by perpetual exile. Nor is any attention paid to the extent of time involved in his wrongdoing, but only to what he sinned against. There is the same relation between the entirety of our present life and an earthly state that there is between the whole of eternity and the society of the blessed who, as we showed above,share in the ultimate end eternally. So, he who sins against the ultimate end and against charity, whereby the society of the blessed exists and also that of those on the way toward happiness, should be punished eternally, even though he sinned for but a short space of time. [5] Moreover, “before the divine seat of judgment the will is counted for the deed,” since, “just as man sees those things that are done outwardly, so does God see the heart of men” (1 Sam. 16:7). Now, he who has turned aside from his ultimate end for the sake of a temporal good, when he might have possessed his end throughout eternity, has put the temporal enjoyment of this temporal good above the eternal enjoyment of the ultimate end. Hence, it is evident that he much preferred to enjoy this temporal good throughout eternity. Therefore, according to divine judgment, he should be punished in the same way as if he had sinned eternally. But there is no doubt that an eternal punishment is due an eternal sin. So, eternal punishment is due to him who turns away from his ultimate end. [6] Furthermore, by the same principle of justice, punishments are assigned to wrongdoings and rewards to good acts. “Now, the reward for virtue is happiness.” And this is, of course, eternal, as we showed above. Therefore, the punishment whereby one is cut off from happiness should be eternal. [7] Hence, it is said, in Matthew (25:46): “And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just, into life everlasting.” [8] Now, by this conclusion we set aside the error of those who say that the punishments of the wicked are to be ended at some time. In fact, this view seems to have originated from the theory of certain philosophers who said that all punishments are for purposes of purification and so are to terminate at some time. [9] This view seemed persuasive on the basis of human custom. Indeed, the punishments under human law are applied for the remedy of vices, and so they are like medicines. On the basis of reason, also, if a punishment were assigned by a punishing agent, not for the sake of something else, but for its own sake alone, it would follow that the agent takes pleasure in punishments for their own sake, which is not in keeping with divine goodness. So, punishments must be inflicted for the sake of something else. And there seems to be no other more suitable end than the correction of vices. So, it seems that all punishments may fittingly be said to be purgatorial and, consequently, requiring termination at some time, since what can be purged out is accidental to a rational creature and may be removed without consuming the substance. [10] Now, we have to concede that punishments are not inflicted by God for their own sake, as if God delighted in them, but they are for something else; namely, for the imposing of order on creatures, in which order the good of the universe consists. Now, this order of things demands that all things be divinely arranged in a proportionate way. This is why it is said in the Book of Wisdom (11:21) that God made all things, “in weight, number and measure.” Now, just as rewards are in proportional correspondence with the acts of the virtues, so are punishments with sins. And to some sins are proportioned eternal punishments, as we showed. So, God inflicts eternal punishments for certain sins so that due order may be observed in things, which order manifests His wisdom. [11] However, if one concede that all punishments are applied for the correction of behavior and not for anything else, one is still not forced by this admission to assert that all punishments are purgatorial and terminable. For even according to human laws some people are punished with death, not, of course, for their own improvement, but for that of others. Hence, it is said in Proverbs (19:75): “the wicked man being scourged, the fool shall be wiser.” Then, too, some people, in accord with human laws, are perpetually exiled from their country, so that, with them removed, the state may be purer. Hence, it is said in Proverbs (22:10): “Cast out the scoffer, and contention shall go with him, and quarrels and reproaches shall cease.” So, even if punishments are used only for the correction of behavior, nothing prevents some people, according to divine judgment, from having to be separated perpetually from the society of good men and to be punished eternally, so that men may refrain from sinning, as a result of their fear of perpetual punishment, and thus the society of good men may be made purer by their removal. As it is said in the Apocalypse (21:27): “There shall not enter it,” that is, into the heavenly Jerusalem, by which the society of good men is designated, “anything defiled or that works abomination or falsehood.”

Chapter

THAT SINS ARE PUNISHED ALSO BY THE EXPERIENCE OF SOMETHING PAINFUL

[1] Those who sin against God are not only to be punished by their exclusion from perpetual happiness, but also by the experience of something painful. Punishment should proportionally correspond to the fault, as we said above. In the fault, however, the mind is not only turned away from the ultimate end, but is also improperly turned toward other things as ends. So, the sinner is not only to be punished by being excluded from his end, but also by feeling injury from other things. [2] Again, punishments are inflicted for faults so that men may be restrained from sins by the fear of these punishments, as we said above. But no one fears to lose what he does not desire to obtain. So, those who have their will turned away from the ultimate end do not fear to be cut off from it. Thus, they cannot be restrained from sinning simply by exclusion from the ultimate end. Therefore, another punishment must also be used for sinners, which they may fear while they are sinners. [3] Besides, if a man makes inordinate use of a means to the end, he may not only be deprived of the end, but may also incur some other injury. This is exemplified in the inordinate eating of food, which not only fails to maintain strength, but also leads to sickness. Now, the man who puts his end among created things does not use them as he should, namely, by relating them to his ultimate end. So, he should not only be punished by losing happiness, but also by experiencing some injury from them. [4] Moreover, as good things are owed to those who act rightly, so bad things are due to those who act perversely. But those who act rightly, at the end intended by them, receive perfection and joy. So, on the contrary, this punishment is due to sinners, that from those things in which they set their end they receive affliction and injury. [5] Hence, divine Scripture not only threatens sinners with exclusion from glory, but also with affliction from other things. For it is said, in Matthew (25:41): “Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.” And in the Psalm (10:7), “He shall rain snares upon sinners, fire and brimstone and storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup.” [6] By this we refute the error of Al-Ghazali, who claimed that this punishment only is applied to sinners, that they are afflicted with the loss of their ultimate end.

Chapter

THAT IT IS LAWFUL FOR JUDGES TO INFLICT PUNISHMENTS

[1] Since some people pay little attention to the punishments inflicted by God, because they are devoted to the objects of sense and care only for the things that are seen, it has been ordered accordingly by divine providence that there be men in various countries whose duty it is to compel these people, by means of sensible and present punishments, to respect justice. It is obvious that these men do not sin when they punish the wicked, for no one sins by working for justice. Now, it is just for the wicked to be punished, since by punishment the fault is restored to order, as is clear from our statements above. Therefore, judges do no wrong in punishing the wicked. [2] Again, in various countries, the men who are put in positions over other men are like executors of divine providence; indeed, God through the order of His providence directs lower beings by means of higher ones, as is evident from what we said before. But no one sins by the fact that he follows the order of divine providence. Now, this order of divine providence requires the good to be rewarded and the evil to be punished, as is shown by our earlier remarks. Therefore, men who are in authority over others do no wrong when they reward the good and punish the evil. [3] Besides, the good has no need of evil, but, rather, the converse. So, what is needed to preserve the good cannot be evil in itself. Now, for the preservation of concord among men it is necessary that punishments be inflicted on the wicked. Therefore, to punish the wicked is not in itself evil. [4] Moreover, the common good is better than the particular good of one person. So, the particular good should be removed in order to preserve the common good. But the life of certain pestiferous men is an impediment to the common good which is the concord of human society. Therefore, certain men must be removed by death from the society of men. [5] Furthermore, just as a physician looks to health as the end in his work, and health consists in the orderly concord of humors, so, too, the ruler of a state intends peace in his work, and peace consists in “the ordered concord of citizens.” Now, the physician quite properly and beneficially cuts off a diseased organ if the corruption of the body is threatened because of it. Therefore, the ruler of a state executes pestiferous men justly and sinlessly in order that the peace of the state may not be disrupted. [6] Hence, the Apostle says, in 1 Corinthians (5:6): “Know you not that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump?” And a little later he adds: “Put away the evil one from among yourselves” (1 Cor. 5:13). And in Romans (13:4) it is said of earthly power that “he does not carry the sword in vain: for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him who does evil.” And in 1 Peter (2:13-14) it is said: “Be subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good.” [7] Now, by this we set aside the error of some who say that corporeal punishments are illicit to use. These people adduce as a basis for their error the text of Exodus (20:13): “You shall not kill,” which is mentioned again in Matthew (5:21). They also bring up what is said in Matthew (13:30), that the Lord replied to the stewards who wanted to gather up the cockle from amidst the wheat: “Let both grow until the harvest.” By the cockle we understand the children of the wicked one, whereas by the harvest we understand the end of the world, as is explained in the same place (Mat. 13:38-40). So, the wicked are not to be removed from among the good by killing them. [8] They also allege that so long as a man is existing in this world he can be changed for the better. So, he should not be removed from the world by execution, but kept for punishment. [9] Now, these arguments are frivolous. Indeed, in the law which says “You shall not kill” there is the later statement: “You shall not allow wrongdoers to live” (Exod. 22: 18). From this we are given to understand that the unjust execution of men is prohibited. This is also apparent from the Lord’s words in Matthew 5. For, after He said: “You have heard that it was said to them of old: You shall not kill” (Mat. 5:21), He added: “But I say to you that whosoever is angry with his brother,” etc. From this He makes us understand that the killing which results from anger is prohibited, but not that which stems from a zeal for justice. Moreover, how the Lord’s statement, “Let both grow until the harvest,” should be understood is apparent through what follows: “lest perhaps, gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it” (Mat. 13: 29). So, the execution of the wicked is forbidden wherever cannot be done without danger to the good. Of course, this often happens when the wicked are not clearly distinguished from the good by their sins, or when the danger of the evil involving many good men in their ruin is feared. [10] Finally, the fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement. They also have at the critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgment that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers.

Chapter

THAT MAN NEEDS DIVINE HELP TO ATTAIN HAPPINESS

[1] Since it is plain from earlier chaptersthat divine providence controls rational creatures in a different way from other things, because they differ from other things in the way that their own nature was established, it remains to be shown that, by virtue of the dignity of their end, a higher mode of governance is used by divine providence in their case. [2] Now, it is obvious that, according to what befits their nature, they achieve a higher participation in the end. In fact, since they have an intellectual nature, they are able by its operation to attain to intelligible truth, and this is not possible for other things that are devoid of understanding. And, of course, because they can reach intelligible truth by their natural operation, it is clear that divine provision is made for them in a different way than for other things. Inasmuch as man is given understanding and reason, by which he can both discern and investigate the truth; as he is also given sensory powers, both internal and external, whereby he is helped to seek the truth; as he is also given the use of speech, by the functioning of which he is enabled to convey to another person the truth that he conceives in his mind—thus constituted, men may help themselves in the process of knowing the truth, just as they may in regard to the other needs of life for man is “a naturally social animal.” [3] But, beyond this, man’s ultimate end is fixed in a certain knowledge of truth which surpasses his natural capacity: that is, he may see the very First Truth in Itself, as we showed above. Now, this is not granted to lower creatures, that is, the possibility of their reaching an end which exceeds their natural capacity. So, the different mode of governance in regard to men and in regard to other, lower creatures must be noted as a result of this end. For, the things that are related to an end must be proportionate to that end. So, if man is ordered to an end which exceeds his natural capacity, some help must be divinely provided for him, in a supernatural way, by which he may tend toward his end. [4] Again, a thing of an inferior nature cannot be brought to what is proper to a higher nature except by the power of that higher nature. For example, the moon, which does not shine by its own light, becomes luminous by the power and action of the sun, and water, which is not hot of itself, becomes hot by the power and action of fire. Now, to see the very First Truth in Itself so transcends the capacity of human nature that it is proper to God alone, as we showed above. Therefore, man needs divine help so that he may reach this end. [5] Besides, each thing attains its ultimate end by its own operation. Now, operation gets its power from the operating principle; thus, by the action of the semen there is generated a being in a definite species, whose power preexists in the semen. Therefore, man is not able by his own operation to reach his ultimate end, which transcends the capacity of his natural powers, unless his operation acquires from divine power the efficacy to reach the aforesaid end. [6] Moreover, no instrument can achieve its ultimate perfection by the power of its own form, but only by the power of the principal agent, although by its own power it can provide a certain disposition to the ultimate perfection. Indeed, the cutting of the lumber results from the saw according to the essential character of its own form, but the form of the bench comes from the skilled mind which uses the tool. Likewise, the breaking down and consumption of food in the animal body is due to the heat of fire, but the generation of flesh, and controlled growth and similar actions, stem from the vegetative soul which uses the heat of fire as an instrument. Now, all intellects and wills are subordinated as instruments under a principal agent to God, Who is the first intellect and will. So, their operations must have no efficacy in regard to the ultimate perfection which is the attainment of final happiness, except through the divine power. Therefore, a rational nature needs divine help to obtain the ultimate end. [7] Furthermore, there are many impediments presented to man in the attaining of his end. For he is hindered by the weakness of his reason, which is easily drawn into error by which he is cut off from the right way of reaching his end. He is also hindered by the passions of his sensory nature, and by the feelings whereby he is attracted to sensible and lower things; and the more he attaches himself to these, the farther he is removed from his ultimate end, for these things are below man, whereas man’s end is above him. He is further hindered by frequent bodily illness from the carrying out of his virtuous activities whereby he may tend toward happiness. Therefore, man needs divine help, but he may fall completely short of the ultimate end as a result of these obstacles. [8] Hence, it is said, in John (6:44): “No man can come to Me, except the Father, Who hath sent Me, draw him,” and again: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4). [9] By this we set aside the error of the Pelagians, who said that man could merit the glory of God by his free choice alone.”

Chapter

THAT BY THE HELP OF DIVINE GRACE MAN IS NOT FORCED TOWARD VIRTUE

[1] Now, it might seem to someone that by divine help some external compulsion to good action is exercised on man, because it has been said: “No man can come to Me, except the Father, Who hath sent Me, draw him” (John 6:44); and because of the statement in Romans (8:14): “Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”; and in 2 Corinthians (5:14): “the charity of Christ presses us.” Indeed, to be drawn, to be led, and to be pressed seem to imply coaction. [2] But that this is not true is clearly shown. For divine providence provides for all things according to their measure, as we have shown above.But it is proper to man, and to every rational nature, to act voluntarily and to control his own acts, as it is clear from what we have said before. But coaction is contrary to this. Therefore, God by His help does not force men to right action. [3] Again, that divine help is provided man so that he may act well is to be understood in this way: it performs our works in us, as the primary cause performs the operations of secondary causes, and as a principal agent performs the action of an instrument. Hence, it is said in Isaiah (26:1213): “You have wrought all our works for us, O Lord.” Now, the first cause causes the operation of the secondary cause according to the measure of the latter. So, God also causes our works in us in accord with our measure, which means that we act voluntarily and not as forced. Therefore, no one is forced to right action by the divine help. [4] Besides, man is ordered to his end by his will, for the object of the will is the good and the end. Now, divine help is chiefly afforded us so that we may obtain our end. So, this help does not exclude from us the act of our will, but, rather, in a special way, produces this act in us. Hence, the Apostle says, in Philippians (2:13): “it is God Who works in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to good will.” But coaction excludes the act of the will in us, since we do under force that whose contrary we will. Therefore, God does not force us by His help to act rightly. [5] Moreover, man reaches his ultimate end by acts of the virtues, for felicity is assigned as a reward for virtue. Now, forced acts are not acts of the virtues, since the main thing in virtue is choice, which cannot be present without voluntariness to which violence is opposed. Therefore, man is not divinely compelled to act rightly. [6] Furthermore, the means to the end should be in proportion to the end. But the ultimate end which is felicity is appropriate only to voluntary agents, who are masters of their acts. Hence, we call neither inanimate things nor brute animals, happy, just as they are neither fortunate nor unfortunate, except metaphorically. Therefore, the help that is divinely given men to attain felicity is not coercive. [7] Hence, it is said in Deuteronomy (30:15-18): “Consider that the Lord has set before you this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil; that you may love the Lord your God, and walk in His ways... But if your heart turns away so that you will not hear... I foretell you this day that you shall perish.” And in Sirach (15-18): “Before man is life and death, good and evil; what he chooses shall be given him.”

Chapter

THAT MAN CANNOT MERIT DIVINE HELP IN ADVANCE

[1] From what has been said it is quite manifest that man cannot merit divine help in advance. For everything is related as matter to what is above it. Now, matter does not move itself to its own perfection; rather, it must be moved by something else. So, man does not move himself so as to obtain divine help which is above him; rather, he is moved by God to obtain it.” Now, the movement of the mover precedes the movement of the movable thing in reason and causally. Therefore, divine help is not given to us by virtue of the fact that we initially move ourselves toward it by good works; instead, we make such progress by good works because we are preceded by divine help. [2] Again, an instrumental agent is not disposed to he brought to perfection by the principal agent, unless it acts by the power of the principal agent. Thus, the heat of fire no more prepares matter for the form of flesh than for any other form, except in so far as the heat acts through the power of the soul. But our soul acts under God, as an instrumental agent under a principal agent. So, the soul cannot prepare itself to receive the influence of divine help except in so far as it acts from divine power. Therefore, it is preceded by divine help toward good action, rather than preceding the divine help and meriting it, as it were, or preparing itself for it. [3] Besides, no particular agent can universally precede the action of the first universal agent, because the action of a particular agent takes its origin from the universal agent, just as in things here below, all motion is preceded by celestial motion. But the human soul is subordinated to God as a particular agent under a universal one. So, it is impossible for there to be any right movement in it which divine action does not precede. Hence, the Lord says, in John (15:5): “without Me you can do nothing.” [4] Moreover, compensation is in proportion to merit, because in the repaying of compensation the equality of justice is practiced. Now, the influence of divine help which surpasses the capacity of nature is not proportionate to the acts that man performs by his natural ability. Therefore, man cannot merit the aforesaid help by acts of that kind. [5] Furthermore, knowledge precedes the movement of the will. But the knowledge of the supernatural end comes to man from God, since man could not attain it by natural reason because it exceeds his natural capacity. So, divine help must precede the movements of our will toward the ultimate end. [6] Hence, it is said in Titus (3:5): “Not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us.” And in Romans (9: 16) the action of willing is “not his who wills,” nor is the action of running “his who runs,” but both are “of God who shows mercy.” For, to perform a good act of willing and of doing, man must be preceded by divine help. For instance, it is customary to attribute an effect not to the proximate agent of. operation, but to the first mover; thus, the victory is ascribed to the general even though it is accomplished by the work of the soldiers. Not that free choice of the will is excluded by these words, as some have wrongly understood them, as if man were not the master of his own internal and external acts; the text shows that man is subject to God. And it is said in Lamentations (5:21): “Convert us, O Lord, to You, and we shall be converted.” From which it is clear that our conversion to God is preceded by God’s help which converts us. [7] However, we read in Zechariah (3:3) a statement made in the name of God: “Turn to me... and we shall turn to you.” Not, of course, that the working of God fails to precede our conversion, as we said, but that He subsequently assists our conversion, whereby we turn to Him, by strengthening it so that it may reach its result and by confirming it so that it may obtain its proper end. [8] Now, by this we set aside the error of the Pelagians, who said that this kind of help is given us because of our merits, and that the beginning of our justification is from ourselves, though the completion of it is from God.

Chapter

THAT THE AFORESAID DIVINE HELP IS CALLED GRACE, AND WHAT SANCTIFYING GRACE IS

[1] Since what is given a person, without any preceding merit on his part, is said to be given to him gratis, and because the divine help that is offered to man precedes all human merit, as we showed,it follows that this help is accorded gratis to man, and as a result it quite fittingly took the name grace. Hence, the Apostle says, in Romans (11:6): “And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace.” [2] But there is another reason why the aforesaid help of God has taken the name grace. In fact, a person is said to be in the “good graces” of another because he is well liked by the other. Consequently, he who is loved by another is said to enjoy his grace. Now, it is of the essence of love that the ]over wishes good and does what is good for the object of his love. Of course, God wishes and does good things in regard to every creature, for the very being of the creature and all his perfection result from God’s willing and doing, as we showed above. Hence, it is said in Wisdom (11:25): “For You love all things that are, and hate none of the things which You have made.” But a special mark of divine love is observable in the case of those to whom He offers help so that they may attain a good which surpasses the order of their nature, namely, the perfect enjoyment, not of some created good, but of Himself. So, this help is appropriately called grace, not only because it is given gratis, as we showed, but also because by this help man is, through a special prerogative, brought into the good graces of God. Hence, the Apostle says, in Ephesians (1:5-6): “Who predestinated us to the adoption of children... according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son.” [3] Now, this grace, within the man who is graced by it, must be something, a sort of form and perfection for that man. For, a thing that is directed toward an end must have a continual relation to it, because the mover continually moves the moved object, until the object comes to its end as a result of the motion. Therefore, since man is directed to the ultimate end by the help of divine grace, as we showed, man must continually enjoy this help until he reaches his end. Now, this would not be if man participated in the aforesaid help as a motion or passion and not as an enduring form which is, as it were, at rest in him. In fact, a motion and a passion would not be present in man except when he was actually converted to the end, and this act is not continually performed by man, as is especially evident in the case of sleeping man. Therefore, sanctifying grace is a form and perfection remaining in man even when he is not acting. [4] Again, God’s love is causative of the good which is in us, just as a man’s love is called forth and caused by some good thing which is in the object of his love. But man is aroused to love someone in a special way because of some special good which pre-exists in the person loved. Therefore, wherever there is found a special love of God for man, there must consequently be found some special good conferred on man by God. Hence, since in accord with the preceding explanation sanctifying grace marks a special love of God for man, it must be that a special goodness and perfection is marked, as being present in man, by this term. [5] Besides, everything is ordered to an end suitable to it by the rational character of its form, for there are different ends for different species. But the end to which man is directed by the help of divine grace is above human nature. Therefore, some supernatural form and perfection must be superadded to man whereby he may be ordered suitably to the aforesaid end. [6] Moreover, man must reach his ultimate end by his own operations. Now, everything operates in accord with its own form. So in order that man may be brought to his ultimate end by his own operations, a form must be superadded to him from which his operations may get a certain efficacy in meriting his ultimate end. [7] Furthermore, divine providence makes provision for all things in accord with the measure of their nature, as is evident from preceding statements. Now, this is the measure proper for man: for the perfection of their operations there must be present in them, above their natural potencies, certain perfections and habits whereby they may operate well and do the good, connaturally, easily and enjoyably, as it were. Therefore, the help of grace which man obtains from God in order to reach the ultimate end designates a form and perfection present in man. [8] Hence, in Scripture, the grace of God is signified by some sort of light, for the Apostle says in Ephesians (5:8): “ you were heretofore darkness, but now, light in the Lord.” Properly enough, then, the perfection whereby man is initially moved to his ultimate end, which consists in the vision of God, is called light, for this is the principle of the act of seeing. [9] By this we set aside the opinion of certain men who say that the grace of God places nothing within man, just as something is not put into a person as a result of the statement that he has the good graces of a king, but only in the king who likes him. It is clear, then, that they were deceived by their failure to note the difference between divine and human love. For divine love is causative of the good which He loves in anything, but human love is not always so.

Chapter

THAT SANCTIFYING GRACE CAUSES THE LOVE OF GOD IN US

[1] From the foregoing it becomes evident that man achieves this result through the help of divine sanctifying grace: the fact that he loves God. [2] For sanctifying grace is an effect in man of divine love. But the proper effect in man of divine love seems to be the fact that he loves God. Indeed, this is the principal thing in the lover’s intention: to be loved in turn by the object of his love. To this, then, the lover’s main effort inclines, to attract his beloved to the love of himself; unless this occurs, his love must come to naught. So, this fact that he loves Cod is the result in man of sanctifying grace. [3] Again, there must be some union of things for which there is one end, as a result of their being ordered to this end. Thus, in a state men are unified by a certain concord, so that they may be able to attain the public good, and soldiers in combat must be united and act with one accord, so that victory, the common end, may be achieved. Now, the ultimate end, to which man is brought with the help of divine grace, is the vision of God in Hisessence, which is proper to God Himself. Thus, this final good is shared with man by God. So, man cannot be brought to this end unless he be united with God by the conformation of his will. And this is the proper effect of love, for “it is proper to friends to approve and disapprove the same things, and to be delighted in and to be pained by the same things.”Hence, by sanctifying grace man is established as a lover of God, since man is directed by it to the end that has been shared with him by God. [4] Besides, since the end and the good are the proper object of the appetite or affection, man’s affections must be chiefly perfected by sanctifying grace, which directs man to his ultimate end. But the chief perfection of the affections is love. The mark of this is that every movement of feeling is derived from love, for no one desires, hopes, or rejoices except because of a good which is loved. Likewise, neither does anyone experience repugnance, fear, sorrow, or anger except because of what is opposed to the good that is loved. Therefore, the principal effect of sanctifying grace is for man to love God. [5] Moreover, the form whereby a thing is ordered to an end makes the thing somewhat like the end. For instance, a body acquires through the form of weight a likeness and conformity to the place toward which it is moved naturally. But we showed that sanctifying grace is a certain form in man whereby he is ordered to his ultimate end, Who is God. So, man achieves the likeness to God through grace. Now, likeness is the cause of love, for everything loves its like (See Sirach 13:19). Therefore, by grace man is made a lover of God. [6] Furthermore, it is required for perfection of operation that a person act steadily and promptly. Now, love produces this result especially; because of it, even difficult things are lightly regarded. So, since man’s operations must become perfect as a result of sanctifying grace, as appears from what we have said, it is necessary for the love of God to be established in us through this grace. [7] Hence, the Apostle says, in Romans (5:5): “the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.” Moreover, the Lord has promised His vision to those who love Him, saying in John (14:21): “he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father; and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.” [8] Thus, it is clear that grace, which directs us to the final divine vision, causes the love of God in us.

Chapter

THAT DIVINE GRACE CAUSES FAITH IN US

[1] Now, as a result of divine grace causing charity in us, it is also necessary for faith to be caused in us by grace. [2] Indeed, the movement whereby we are directed by grace to our ultimate end is voluntary, not violent, as we showed above. Now, there cannot be a voluntary movement toward something unless it is known. So, the knowledge of the ultimate end must be accorded us by grace, so that we may be voluntarily directed to it. But this knowledge cannot be by means of open vision in this life, as we showed above. Therefore, this knowledge must be through faith. [3] Again, in every knowing being the mode of knowledge depends on the mode of its proper nature; hence, the mode of knowing is different for an angel, a man, and a brute animal, inasmuch as their natures are different, as is clear from things said earlier. But to man, in order that he may attain his ultimate end, there is added a perfection higher than his own nature, namely, grace, as we have shown. Therefore, it is necessary that, above man’s natural knowledge, there also be added to him a knowledge which surpasses natural reason. And this is the knowledge of faith, which is of the things that are not seen by natural reason. [4] Besides, whenever something is moved by an agent to what is proper to the agent, the thing moved must be, at the start, imperfectly subject to the impulsions of the agent, impulsions that remain somewhat foreign and improper to it, until at the end of the movement they do become proper to it. For example, wood is first heated by fire, and that heat does not belong to the wood but is apart from its nature; at the end, however, when the wood is now ignited, the heat becomes proper and connatural to it. Likewise, when a person is being taught by a teacher, he must at the start accept the teacher’s conceptions, not as one who understands them by himself, but by way of belief, as things which are beyond his capacity; but at the end, when he has become learned, he can understand them. Now, as is clear from what we have said, we are directed by the help of divine grace to our ultimate end. But the ultimate end is an open vision of the First Truth in Itself, as we showed above. Therefore, before it comes to this end, man’s intellect must be subject to God by way of belief, under the influence of divine grace which accomplishes this. [5] Moreover, at the beginning of this work we indicated the advantages which made it necessary for divine truth to be offered to men by way of belief. It is also possible to conclude from these reasons that it was necessary for faith to be a product in us of divine grace. [6] Hence, the Apostle says to the Ephesians (2:8): “by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God.” [7] By this conclusion we set aside the error of the Pelagians, who said that the beginning of faith in us was not from God but from ourselves.

Chapter

THAT DIVINE GRACE CAUSES HOPE IN US

[1] On the same premises it can be shown that the hope of future happiness must be caused in us by grace. [2] In fact, the love that a man has for others arises in man from the love that he has for himself, for a man stands in relation to a friend as he does to himself. But a person loves himself inasmuch as he wishes the good for himself, just as he loves another person by wishing him good. So, by the fact that a man is interested in his own good he is led to develop an interest in another person’s good. Hence, because a person hopes for good from some other person, a way develops for man to love that other person in himself, from whom he hopes to attain the good. Indeed, a person is loved in himself when the lover wishes the good for him, even if the lover may receive nothing from him. Now, since by sanctifying grace there is produced in man an act of loving God for Himself,the result was that man obtained hope from God by means of grace. However, though it is not for one’s own benefit, friendship, whereby one loves another for himself, has of course many resulting benefits, in the sense that one friend helps another as he helps himself. Hence, when one person loves another, and knows that he is loved by that other, he must get hope from him. Now, by grace man is so established as a lover of God, through the love of charity, that he is also instructed by faith that he is first loved by God: according to the passage found in 1 John (4:10): “In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us.” It follows, then, from the gift of grace that man gets hope from God. It is also clear from this that just as hope is a preparation of man for the true love of God, so also man is conversely strengthened in hope by charity. [3] Again, in every lover there is caused a desire to be united with his beloved, in so far as that is possible; as a result, it is most enjoyable to live with friends. So, if by grace man is made a lover of God, there must be produced in him a desire for union with God, according as that is possible. But faith, which is caused by grace, makes it clear that the union of man with God in the perfect enjoyment in which happiness consists is possible. Therefore, the desire for this fruition results in man from the love of God. But the desire for anything bothers the soul of the desirer, unless there be present some hope of attainment. So, it was appropriate that in man, in whom God’s love and faith are caused by grace, there should also be caused a hope of acquiring future happiness. [4] Besides, if some difficulty should emerge among things ordered to a desired end, hope of attaining the end provides solace. For instance, a person suffers but slightly from the bitterness of medicine because of his hope for good health. But in our process of working toward happiness, which is the end of all our desires, many difficulties present burdens to be borne, because virtue, by which one advances toward happiness, “is concerned with difficulties.” Therefore, in order that man may tend toward happiness smoothly and readily, it was necessary to provide him with the hope of obtaining happiness. [5] Moreover, no one is moved toward an end that he judges impossible to attain. So, in order that a person may push forward toward the end, he must have a feeling toward the end as toward something possible of attainment, and this is the feeling of hope. Therefore, since man is directed toward his ultimate end of happiness by grace, it was necessary for the hope of attaining happiness to be impressed on man’s power of feeling by means of grace. [6] Hence, it is said in 1 Peter (1:3-4): “He hath regenerated us unto a lively hope... unto an inheritance incorruptible, reserved for heaven.” And again in Romans (8:24) it is said: “we are saved by hope.”

Chapter

ON THE GIFTS OF GRATUITOUS GRACE, INCLUDING A CONSIDERATION OF THE DIVINATIONS OF DEMONS

[1] Since man can only know the things that he does not see himself by taking them from another who does see them, and since faith is among the things we do not see, the knowledge of the objects of faith must be handed on by one who sees them himself. Now, this one is God, Who perfectly comprehends Himself, and naturally sees His essence. Indeed, we get faith from God. So, the things that we hold by faith must come to us from God. But, since the things that come from God are enacted in a definite order, as we showed above, a certain order had to be observed in the manifestation of the objects of faith. That is to say, some persons had to receive them directly from God, then others from them, and so on in an orderly way down to the lowest persons. [2] Now, wherever there is an order among things, it is necessary that, the nearer one thing is to the first principle, the stronger it must be. This is apparent in the order of divine manifestation. For invisible things whose vision is beatifying, and to which faith applies, are first revealed by God to the blessed angels through open vision, as is clear from our previous statements. [3] In turn, by the intermediary ministry of the angels they are manifested to certain men; not, of course, through open vision, but through a kind of certitude resulting from divine revelation. [4] This revelation, then, is accomplished by means of a certain interior and intelligible light, elevating the mind to the perception of things that the understanding cannot reach by its natural light. For, just as the understanding by its natural light is made certain concerning things that it knows by that light (for instance, concerning first principles), so also does it acquire certitude concerning things which it apprehends by supernatural light. Now, this latter certitude is needed so that the things that are grasped by divine revelation may be offered to others, for we cannot present things to others with assurance if we have not certain knowledge of them. Now, accompanying this light that we have mentioned, which illumines the mind from within, there are at times in divine revelation other external or internal aids to knowledge; for instance, a spoken message, or something heard by the external senses which is produced by divine power, or something perceived internally through imagination due to God's action, or also some things produced by God that are seen by bodily vision, or that are internally pictured in the imagination. From these presentations, by the light internally impressed on the mind, man receives a knowledge of divine things. Consequently, without the interior light, these aids do not suffice for a knowledge of divine things, but the interior light does suffice without them. [5] However, this revelation of the invisible things of God belongs to wisdom, which is properly the knowledge of divine things. 'nus, it is said in Wisdom (7:27-28) that the wisdom of God “conveys herself through nations into holy souls... for God loves no one but him who dwells with wisdom.” And again in Sirach (15:5) it is said: “the Lord has filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding.” [6] But, since “the invisible things of God... are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,” not only divine things are revealed to men by divine grace, but also some created things, and this seems to pertain to knowledge. Hence, it is said in Wisdom (7:17): "For He has given me the true knowledge of the things that are: to know the disposition of the whole world, and the virtues of the elements.” And in 2 Chronicles (1:12) the Lord said to Solomon: “Knowledge and wisdom are granted to you.” [7] But the things that man knows he cannot properly convey to the knowledge of another man, except by speech. So, since those who receive a revelation from God, according to the divinely established order, should instruct others, it was necessary for them also to be given the grace of speech, in keeping with what the benefit of those who were to be instructed demanded. Hence, it is said in Isaiah (50:4): “The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary.” And the Lord says to the disciples, in Luke (21:15): “I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay.” And also for this reason, when it was necessary for the truth of the faith to be preached by a few men to different peoples, some were divinely instructed to “speak with divers tongues,” as is said in Acts (2:4): “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit: and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Spirit gave them to speak.” [8] But because oral teaching that is offered requires confirmation so that it may be accepted, unless it be evident in itself, and because things that are of faith are not evident to human reason, it was necessary for some means to be provided whereby the words of the preachers of the faith might be confirmed. Now, they could not be confirmed by any rational principles in the way of demonstration, since the objects of faith surpass reason. So, it was necessary for the oral teaching of the preachers to be confirmed by certain signs, whereby it might be plainly shown that this oral teaching came from God; so, the preachers did such things as healing the sick, and the performance of other difficult deeds, which only God could do. Hence, the Lord, sending forth His disciples to preach, said in Matthew (10:8): “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.” And it is said at the end of Mark (16:20): “But they going forth preached everywhere: the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed.” [9] But there was still another way of confirmation, in so far as the preachers of truth were found to speak true things about hidden events which could be made evident later, so that credit was given them as speakers of truths about matters which men were not able to experience. Hence, the a gift of prophecy was necessary, whereby they might know and reveal to others, through God’s revelation, future events and things generally concealed from men. Thus, in this way, when they were discovered to tell about true events, belief would be accorded them in regard to matters of faith. Hence, the Apostle says, in 1 Corinthians (14:24-25): “If all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an unlearned person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart are made manifest; and so, falling down on his face, he will adore God, affirming that God is among you indeed.” [10] However, an adequate testimony to the faith is not supplied by this gift of prophecy unless it were concerned with things that can be known by God alone, just as miracles are of such nature that God alone can work them. Now, these things are especially, in the affairs of this world, the secrets of our hearts, which God alone can know, as we showed above, and contingent future events which also come only under divine cognition, for He sees them in themselves because they are present to Him by reason of His eternity, as we showed above. [11] Of course, some contingent future events can also be foreknown by men; not, indeed, according as they are future, but inasmuch as they pre-exist in their causes. When these latter are known, either in themselves or through some of their evident effects, which are called signs, a foreknowledge of some future effects may be acquired by man. Thus, a physician foreknows future death or good health,from the condition of natural strength, which he knows from the pulse, the urine, and signs of this kind. Now, this kind of knowledge of future matters is partly certain, but partly uncertain. In fact, there are some pre-existing causes from which future events follow of necessity; for instance, if there be a pre-existing composition of contraries in an animal, death results necessarily. But, from some pre-existing causes future effects do not follow necessarily, but usually. For instance, in most cases a perfect human being results from the insemination of a mother by a man’s semen; sometimes, however, monsters are generated, because of some obstruction which overcomes the operation of the natural capacity. So, there is certain foreknowledge of the first kind of effects, but of those mentioned in the second case there is no infallibly certain foreknowledge. However, the foreknowledge that is acquired concerning future events from divine revelation, according to prophetic grace, is altogether certain, just as divine foreknowledge is also certain. Indeed, God does not merely foreknow future events as they are in their causes, but infallibly, as they are in themselves, as we showed earlier. And so, prophetic knowledge of future things is given man in the same way, with perfect certitude. Nor is this certitude opposed to the contingency of future events, any more than the certitude of divine knowledge is, as we showed above. [12] However, some future events are at times revealed to prophets, not as they are in themselves, but as they are in their causes. In that case, if the causes are obstructed from achieving their effects, nothing prevents the prophetic forecast from being modified. Thus, Isaiah foretold to the ailing Hezekiah: “take order with Your house, for You shall die, and not live” (Is. 38:1), but be was restored to health; and Jonah the Prophet foretold that “after forty days, Nineveh shall be destroyed” (Jonah 3:4), Yet it was not overturned. Hence, Isaiah made his prophecy of the coming death of Hezekiah according to the order of his bodily condition and of the lower causes in relation to this result, and Jonah prophesied the disruption of Nineveh according to the demands of its merits; however, in both cases, it turned out differently, in accord with the working of a free and health-giving God. [13] And so, prophetic prediction of future events is an adequate argument for the faith, since, though men do know some things in advance about future matters, their knowledge of future contingencies is not accompanied by certitude, as is the foreknowledge of prophecy. For, though prophetic revelation is sometimes accomplished on the basis of the order of causes to a given effect, yet at the same time, or later, a revelation may be made to the same prophet concerning the outcome of the future event, as to how it is to be modified. For example, the healing of Hezekiah was revealed to Isaiah (Isa. 38:5), and the saving of the Ninevites to Jonah (Jonah 4:5ff.). [14] But malign spirits strive to corrupt the truth of the faith, just as they make bad use of the working of wonders, in order to lead to error and weaken the proof of the true faith, even though they do not perform miracles in the proper sense, but things that appear wonderful to men, as we showed above—so also they abuse prophetic prediction, not, of course, prophesying, but foretelling certain things according to the order of causes hidden to man, so that they seem to know in advance future events in themselves. Now, though contingent effects come from natural causes, these spirits, as a result of the subtlety of their understanding, can know more than men as to when and bow the effects of natural causes may be obstructed. So, in foretelling future things, they appear to be more astonishing and more truthful than men, no matter how learned the latter may be. Of course, among natural causes, the highest and farthest removed from our knowledge are the powers of,the celestial bodies. That these are known to the spirits under discussion, in accord with what is proper to their nature, is evident from earlier explanations. Therefore, since all lower bodies are controlled through the powers and motions of the higher bodies, these spirits are far more able than any astronomer to foretell future winds and storms, changing conditions of the atmosphere, and other such things which occur in the changing of lower bodies as a result of the motion of the higher bodies. Also, though celestial bodies can make no impression directly on the intellectual part of the soul, as we showed above, a good many men follow the impulse of their bodily passions and tendencies, on which we have shown that the celestial bodies do have an influence. In fact, it is only possible for wise men, of whom the number is small, to resist this kind of passion by using their reason. So, the result is that many predictions can be made concerning man’s acts, although even these spirits fail at times in their predictions because of freedom of choice. [15] However, they do not make their predictions of what they foreknow by enlightening the mind, as is done in the case of divine revelation. Indeed, it is not their intention that the human mind be perfected in order to know the truth, but, rather, that it be turned away from the truth. Now, they sometimes predict, indeed, by impressing the imagination, either during sleep, as when they show the signs of certain future events through dreams, or while one is awake, as is apparent in the case of people in a trance or frenzy who foretell future events. At other times, too, they do it through external signs, for instance, by the movement and chirping of birds, and by means of the appearances of the inner parts of animals, and by the drawing of certain kinds of mathematical figures, and in other like ways which seem to work by some kind of lot. At still other times, they do it by visual apparitions and by predicting future events in speech that can be heard. [16] Although the last of these ways is obviously the work of evil spirits, some people have made efforts to explain the other ways in terms of natural causes. They say, in fact, that when a celestial body moves toward definite effects in these things here below, some signs of the result of the influence of the same body appear, because different things receive the celestial influence in different ways. On this basis, then, they say that the change that is produced in a thing by the celestial body can be taken as a sign of the change in another thing. Hence, they say that movements that are apart from rational deliberation, such as visions in people who are dreaming and in those who are out of their mind, and the flight and crying of birds, and the drawing of figures, when a person does not deliberate on how many points he should draw, are all the results of the influence of a celestial body. So, they say that things like these can be the signs of future effects that are caused by the motion of the heavens. [17] However, since this has little reason, it is better to think that the predictions that are made from signs of this kind take their origin from some intellectual substance, by whose power the aforesaid motions occurring without deliberation are controlled, in accord with what befits the observation of future events. And while these movements are sometimes controlled by the divine will, through the ministry of good spirits, since many things are revealed by God through dreams-as to Pharaoh (Gen. 41:25), and to Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:28), and “lots that are cast into the lap, that are also at times disposed of by the Lord,” as Solomon says (Prov. 16:33).Yet most of the time they happen as a result of the working of evil spirits, as the holy Doctors say, and as even the Gentiles themselves agree. For Maximus Valerius says that the practice of auguries and dreams, and that sort of thing, belongs to the religion in which idols were worshiped. And so, in the Old Law, along with idolatry, all these practices were prohibited. Indeed, it is said in Deuteronomy (18:9-11): “beware lest you have a mind to imitate the abominations of those nations,” that is, those that serve idols; “neither let there be found among you anyone who expiates his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire; or who consults soothsayers, or observes dreams and omens; neither let there be any wizard nor charmer, nor anyone who consults pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or who seeks the truth from the dead.” [18] Moreover, prophecy attests to the preaching of the faith in another way, namely, in so far as some tenets of the faith are preached which took place in time, such as the birth of Christ, His passion and resurrection, and events of that kind. And lest these be thought fictions made by the preachers, or to have come about by chance, they are shown to have been preached long beforehand by the Prophets. Consequently, the Apostle says in Romans (1:1): “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised before, by His prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning His Son, Who was made to Him of the seed of David, according to the flesh.” [19] Following the degree of those who receive revelation directly from God, another degree of grace is necessary. In fact, since men receive revelation from God not only for their own time, but also for the instruction of all men that are to come, it was necessary that the things revealed to them not only be recounted orally to their contemporaries, but also that they be written down for the instruction of men to come. Consequently, there had to be some who would interpret this kind of writings. Now, this should be a divine grace, just as revelation was accomplished by the grace of God. Hence, it is said in Genesis (40:8): “Does not interpretation belong to God?” [20] Then there follows the last degree: of those, namely, who faithfully believe the things that are revealed to others, and interpreted by still others. But that this is a gift of God was shown earlier. [21] But, since some things are done by evil spirits similar to the things whereby the faith is confirmed, both in the working of wonders and in the revelation of future events, as we said above, lest men that have been deceived by such things believe in a lie, it is necessary that they be instructed by the help of divine grace concerning the discernment of this kind of spirits, in accord with what is said in 1 John (4:1): “do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits if they are of God.” [22] Now, the Apostle enumerates these effects of grace, that are directed to the instruction and confirmation of the faith, in 1 Corinthians (12:8-10), saying: “To one indeed, by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom; and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another, faith in the same Spirit; to another, the grace of healing in one Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of speeches.” [23] By this conclusion we set aside the error of certain Manicheans, who say that corporeal miracles are not performed by God. At the same time we exclude the error of those men, in so far as they assert that the Prophets did not speak by the Spirit of God. We also dispose of the error of Prisca and Montanus, who said that the Prophets, like epileptics, did not understand what they spoke about. For this does not agree with divine revelation, whose chief effect is the illumination of the mind. [24] Among the effects of grace that have been noted above there is a difference which must be observed. Though the name grace is suitable to all, since it is conferred gratis, without preceding merit, only the effect of love is further entitled to the name grace by virtue of the fact that it makes one in the good graces of God. For it is said in Proverbs (8:17): “I love them that love me.” Thus, faith and hope, and other things related to faith, can be present in sinners who are not in the good graces of God. But love alone is the special gift of the just, for “he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him,” as is said in 1 John (4:16). [25] Moreover, there is still another difference to be considered in the preceding effects of grace. Some of them are necessary during the whole life of man, for without them he cannot be saved: for example, to believe, hope, love, and obey the commandments of God. So, in regard to these effects, there must be certain habitual perfections present in men, so that they may perform these acts when the occasion demands. But other effects are necessary, not for a whole life, but for definite times and places; for example, to work miracles, to foretell future events, and such actions. So, for these actions habitual perfections are not given, but certain impressions are made by God, which cease to exist as soon as the act stops, and these impressions have to be repeated when the act is again to be repeated. Thus, the mind of the Prophet is illumined for each revelation by a new light, and in each case of the working of miracles there must be a new influence of divine power.

Chapter

THAT MAN NEEDS THE HELP OF GRACE TO PERSEVERE IN THE GOOD

[1] Man also needs the help of divine grace so that he may persevere in the good. [2] Indeed, everything that is variable in itself needs the help of an immovable mover so that it may be fixed on one objective. But man is subject to variation, both from evil to good and from good to evil. So, in order that he may immovably continue in the good, which is to persevere, he needs divine help. [3] Again, for that which surpasses the powers of free choice, man needs the help of divine grace. But the power of free choice does not extend to the effect of final perseverance in the good. This is evident as follows. In fact, the power of free choice applies to those things which fall within the scope of election. Now, what is chosen is some particular operation that can be performed. But such a particular operation is what is here and now present. Hence, that which falls under the power of free choice is something that is to be done now. But to persevere does not mean something as now operable, but the continuation of an operation throughout time. Now, this effect, of persevering in the good, is beyond the power of free choice. Therefore, man needs the help of divine grace to persevere in the good. [4] Besides, though man is the master of his action through will and free choice, he is not the master of his natural powers. So, while he is free to will or not to will something, he cannot by willing produce such a result that his will, by the very fact of willing, would be immovably fixed on what be wills or chooses. But this is what is required for perseverance; that is, the will must endure immovably in the good. So, perseverance is not within the scope of free choice. Therefore, the help of divine grace must be available to man so that he may persevere. [5] Moreover, suppose that there are several agents in succession, such that one of them acts after the action of another: the continuation of the action of these agents cannot be caused by any one of them, for no one of them acts forever; nor can it be caused by all of them, since they do not act together. Consequently, the continuity must be caused by some higher agent that always acts, just as the Philosopher proves, in Physics vin, that the continuity of the generative process in animals is caused by some higher, external agent. Now, let us suppose the case of someone who is persevering in the good. There are, then, in his case many movements of free choice tending toward the good, successively following each other up to the end. So, for this continuation in the good, which is perseverance, no one of these movements can be the cause, since none of them lasts forever. Nor can all of them together, for they are not together, and so they cannot cause something together. It remains, then, that this continuation is caused by some higher being. Therefore, man needs the help of higher grace to persevere in the good. [6] Furthermore, if many things are ordered to one end, their entire order until they reach the end comes from the first agent directing them to the end. Now, in the case of a man who perseveres in the good there are many movements and many actions reaching to the end. So, the entire order of these movements and actions must be caused by the first agent directing them to the end. But we showed that they are directed by the help of divine grace to the ultimate end. Therefore, the entire order and continuity of good works, in him who perseveres in the good, is due to the help of divine grace. [7] Hence, it is said to the Philippians (1:6): “He who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus”; and in 1 Peter (5:10): “the God of all grace, Who has called us to His eternal glory... after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you and confirm you and establish you.” [8] There are also found in Sacred Scripture many prayers in which perseverance is sought from God: thus, in the Psalm (16:5): “Perfect You my goings in Your paths, that my footsteps be not moved”; and in 2 Thessalonians (2:15-16): “May God, our Father, exhort your hearts and confirm you in every work and word.” This is also what is asked in the Lord’s Prayer, especially when one says, “Your kingdom come”; indeed, the kingdom of God will not come for us unless we have persevered in the good. Now it would be ridiculous to ask something from God if He were not the giver of it. So, man’s perseverance is from God. [9] By this we set aside the error of the Pelagians, who said that free choice is sufficient for man to persevere in the good, and that he does not need the help of grace for this purpose. [10] However, we should note that even he who possesses grace asks God that he may persevere in the good. just as free choice is not sufficient without the external help of God, for this effect of persevering in the good, so neither is a habit infused in us enough for this purpose. For habits that are divinely infused in us during the present state of life do not take away entirely from free choice the possibility of being moved toward evil, even though free choice is somewhat fixed in the good by means of them. And so, when we say that man needs the help of grace to persevere unto the end, we do not understand that, in addition to habitual grace previously infused to assure good operation, another must further be infused for persevering; what we do understand is that, once possessed of all the gratuitous habits, a man still needs the help of divine providence externally governing him.

Chapter

THAT HE WHO FALLS FROM GRACE THROUGH SIN MAY AGAIN BE RESTORED THROUGH GRACE

[1] From these considerations it is apparent that man, even if he does not persevere but falls into sin, may be restored to the good by the help of grace. [2] Indeed, it pertains to the same power to maintain the continued salvation of a person and to restore it when it has been interrupted, just as health is continually maintained by natural power in the body, and an interruption of health is repaired by that same natural power. Now, man perseveres in the good by means of divine grace, as we showed. Therefore, if one has fallen as a result of sin, he may be restored by means of the same grace. [3] Again, an agent that does not require a disposition in its subject can impress its effect on the subject, no matter how the subject be disposed. For this reason, God, Who does not require a subject that is disposed for His action, can produce a natural form without a disposition of the subject; for example, when He enlightens the blind, revives the dead, and so on for similar cases. But, just as He requires no natural disposition in a corporeal subject, He does not need merit in the will in order to grant grace, for it is given without there being any merits, as we showed. Therefore, God can grant a person sanctifying grace, through which sins are removed, even after he has fallen from grace by sin. [4] Besides, the only things that man cannot recover when they are lost are those which come to him through generation, such as his natural potencies and organs, and the reason for this is that man cannot be generated a second time. Now, the help of grace is not given man through generation, but after he already exists. Therefore, he can again be restored in order to destroy sin after the loss of grace. [5] Moreover, grace is a habitual disposition in the soul, as we showed. But habits that are acquired by activity, if lost, can again be acquired through the acts suitable for their acquisition. So, it is much more likely that, if it be lost, grace uniting one to God and freeing one from sin can be restored by divine working. [6] Furthermore, among the works of God, none is futile, as none is futile among the works of nature, for nature gets this characteristic from God. Now, it would be futile for something to be moved if it could not reach the end of its motion. It must be, then, that what is naturally moved toward an end is able to come to that end. But, after man has fallen into sin, for as long as he continues in the present state of life, there remains in him an aptitude to be moved toward the good. The signs of this are the desire for the good and sorrow for evil which still continue in man after sin. So, it is possible for man to again return after sin to the good which grace works in man. [7] Again, no passive Potency is found in the nature of things which cannot be reduced to act by some natural active potency. Much less, then, is it possible for there to be a potency in the human soul which is not reducible to act by divine active potency. But there remains in the human soul, even after sin, a potency toward the good; for the natural potencies are not removed by sin, and by means of them the soul is directed toward its good. So, it can be restored to the good by divine potency. Thus, man can obtain the remission of sins by means of grace. [8] Hence, it is said in Isaiah (1:18): “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow”; and in Proverbs (10:12): “charity covers all sins.” This, too, we ask daily of the Lord, and not in vain, for we say: “Forgive us our trespasses.” [9] By this we set aside the error of the Novatians, who said that man could not obtain pardon for sins which he commits after baptism.

Chapter

THAT MAN CANNOT BE FREED FROM SIN EXCEPT THROUGH GRACE

[1] On the same basis, it can be shown that man cannot revive from mortal sin except through grace. [2] For by mortal sin man is turned away from his ultimate end. But man is not ordered to his ultimate end except by grace. Therefore, by grace alone can man revive from sin. [3] Again, an offense can be removed only by love. But through mortal sin man offends God, for it is said that “God hates sinners” (see (Wis. 14:9), (Sirach 12:3), 7), inasmuch as He wills to deprive them of the ultimate end which He makes ready for those whom He loves. So, man cannot revive from mortal sin except through grace, whereby a certain friendship is developed between God and man. [4] For this purpose, also, all the arguments given abovefor the necessity of grace could be brought forward. [5] Hence, it is said in Isaiah (43:25): “I am He who blots out your iniquities for My own sake”; and in the Psalm (84:3): “You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sins.” [6] By this we set aside the error of the Pelagians, who said that man can rise from sin by his free will.

Chapter

HOW MAN IS FREED FROM SIN

[1] Since man cannot return to one member of a pair of contraries without moving away from the other extreme, he must, in order to return to the state of rectitude by means of grace, move away from the sin whereby he had swerved from rectitude. And because man is chiefly directed toward the ultimate end, and also turned away from it, through his will, it is not only necessary for man to abandon sin in the external act, but also to renounce it in his will, for the purpose of rising again from sin. Now, man renounces sin in his will provided he repents his past sin and forms the intention of avoiding it in the future. So, it is necessary that a man who is rising again from sin both repent for past sin and intend to avoid future sin. Indeed, if he would not make up his mind to refrain from sin, then sin in itself would not be against his will. But, if he did will to refrain from sin, but was not sorry for past sin, then this sin that he had committed would not be against his will. Now, the movement whereby one moves away from something is contrary to the movement whereby one approaches it; thus, whitening is contrary to blackening. Consequently, the will must abandon sin by moving in a contrary direction from those movements whereby it was inclined toward sin. Now, it was inclined toward sin by appetition and enjoyment in regard to lower things. Therefore, it must move away from sin by means of certain penances whereby it suffers some injury because of the sin that it has committed. For, just as the will was drawn toward consent to the sin by means of pleasure, so is it strengthened in the detestation of sin by means of penances. [2] Again, we observe that even brute animals may be drawn back from the greatest pleasures by means of painful blows. But he who rises again from sin must not only detest past sin, but also avoid future sin. So, it is fitting that he suffer some affliction for his sin so that in this way he may be strengthened in his resolution to avoid sins. [3] Besides, the things that we gain as a result of labor and suffering we love more and preserve more carefully. Thus, those who amass wealth by their own labor spend less money than those who get it without work—say, from their parents or in any other way. But for the man who is rising again from sin, it is most necessary that he maintain the state of grace and the love of God carefully, for he lost them by sinning through negligence. Therefore, it is proper for him to endure labor and suffering for the sins that he has committed. [4] Moreover, the order of justice demands that a punishment be assigned for a sin. Now, the wisdom of the governance of God becomes evident from the fact that order is preserved in things. So, it belongs to the manifestation of the divine goodness, and of the glory of God, for punishment to be the payment for sin. But the sinner, by sinning, acts against the order that is divinely established, thus trespassing against the laws of God. So, it is fitting that he should pay for this action by punishing himself because he had formerly sinned; indeed, in this way, he dissociates himself entirely from disorder. [5] By this, then, it becomes evident that, after a man has secured remission of his sin by grace and has been brought back to the state of grace, he remains under an obligation, as a result of God’s justice, to some penalty for the sin that he has committed. Now, if he imposes this penalty on himself by his own will, he is said to make satisfaction to God by this: inasmuch as he attains with labor and punishment the divinely established order by punishing himself for the sin, which order he had transgressed by sinning through following his own will. But, if he does not exact this penalty of himself, then, since things subject to divine providence cannot remain disordered, this penalty will be inflicted on him by God. Such a punishment is not called one of satisfaction, since it is not due to the choice of the one who suffers it; but it will be called purificatory, because through being punished by another he will be cleansed, as it were, until whatever disorder there was in him is brought back to proper order. Hence, there is this statement of the Apostle in 1 Corinthians (11:31-32): “if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged, but whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world.” [6] It should be kept in mind, however, that when the mind is turned away from sin the displeasure with sin can be so forceful, and the attachment of the mind to God so strong, that no obligation to punishment will remain. For, as may be gathered from things said earlier, the punishment that a person suffers after the remission of sin is necessary so that the mind may adhere more firmly to the good; since man is chastised by punishments, these punishments are, then, like remedies. It is also necessary so that the order of justice may be observed, in the sense that he who has sinned must stand the penalty. But love for God is enough to set the mind of man firmly in the direction of the good, especially if this love be strong; and displeasure for a past fault, when intense, brings great sorrow. Consequently, through the strength of one’s love for God, and of one’s hatred of past sin, there is removed the need for punishments of satisfaction or of purification. Moreover, if this strength be not great enough to set aside punishments entirely, nevertheless, the stronger it is, the smaller will be the punishment that suffices. [7] “But the things that we can accomplish through the efforts of our friends we seem to do ourselves,”for friendship makes two persons one in love, and especially in the love of charity. And so, just as a person can make satisfaction to God by himself, so also can he do it through another person, especially in case of necessity. Indeed, the punishment that a friend suffers for oneself one regards as if it were suffered by oneself. Thus, one does not escape punishment provided one suffer along with a suffering friend—and all the more so, the more one is the cause of his suffering. Besides, the love of charity in the person who suffers for a friend makes his satisfaction more acceptable to God than if he suffered for himself, for in the one case it is prompted by charity; in the other, by necessity. It may be taken from this that one person can make satisfaction for another provided both abide in charity. Hence, the Apostle says in Galatians (6:2): “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ.”

Chapter

THAT IT IS REASONABLE TO HOLD A MAN RESPONSIBLE IF HE DOES NOT TURN TOWARD GOD, EVEN THOUGH HE CANNOT DO THIS WITHOUT GRACE [1]I As we gather from the foregoing,since one cannot be directed to the ultimate end except by means of divine grace, without which no one can possess the things needed to work toward the ultimate end, such as faith, hope, love, and perseverance, it might seem to some person that man should not be held responsible for the lack of such aids. Especially so, since he cannot merit the help of divine grace, nor turn toward God unless God convert him, for no one is held responsible for what depends on another. Now, if this is granted, many inappropriate conclusions appear. In fact, it follows that he who has neither faith, hope, nor love of God, nor perseverance in the good, is not deserving of punishment; whereas, it is clearly stated in John (3:36): “He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” And since no one reaches final happiness without the aids that we have mentioned, it follows that there are certain men who neither attain happiness nor suffer punishment from God. The contrary of this is shown from the statement in Matthew (25:34, 41) that to all who are present at the divine judgment, it will be said: “Come... possess you the kingdom prepared for you” or “Depart... into everlasting fire.” [2] To settle this difficulty, we ought to consider that, although one may neither merit in advance nor call forth divine grace by a movement of his free choice, he is able to prevent himself from receiving this grace: Indeed, it is said in Job(21:34): “Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Your ways”; and in Job (24:13): “They have been rebellious to the light.” And since this ability to impede or not to impede the reception of divine grace is within the scope of free choice, not undeservedly is responsibility for the fault imputed to him who offers an impediment to the reception of grace. In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4).But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsible for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun.

Chapter

THAT MAN IN THE STATE OF SIN, WITHOUT GRACE, CANNOT AVOID SIN

[1] Now, this statement of ours, that it is within the power of free choice not to offer an impediment to grace,is applicable to those persons in whom natural potency is integrally present. But if, through a preceding disorder, one swerves toward evil, it will not at all be within his power to offer no impediment to grace. For, though at any definite instant he may be able to refrain from a particular act of sin by his own power, however, if long left to himself, he will fall into sin, whereby an impediment is offered to grace. Indeed, whenever man’s mind swerves away from the state of rectitude it is evident that he has departed from the order of his proper end. So, what should be the most important thing in his affection, the ultimate end, becomes a less important object of love than that object to which his mind is inordinately turned, as if to an ultimate end. So, whenever anything comes up that is in agreement with the inordinate end but incompatible with his proper end, it will be chosen, unless he is brought back to his proper end, so that be favors the proper end above all things, and this is the effect of grace. However, in so far as he chooses something that is incompatible with his ultimate end, he offers an impediment to grace, for grace gives the direction to the end. It is consequently obvious that after sin a man cannot refrain from all sin during the period preceding his being brought back to the proper order by grace. [2] Besides, when the mind is inclined toward some object it does not stand in a relation of impartiality toward contrary alternatives, but, instead, is more favorable to the object to which it is inclined. But unless it be drawn away from it by a certain concern arising from rational examination, the mind chooses the object to which it is more favorable; hence, in sudden actions, an indication of one’s inner state of character may be especially found. But it is not possible for a man’s mind continually to maintain such vigilance that it can make a rational investigation of whatever he ought to will or do. Thus, it follows that the mind at times chooses what it is inclined to, provided the inclination be undisturbed, And so, if it be inclined toward sin, it will not long stay without sinning, thus offering an impediment to grace, unless it is brought back to the state of rectitude. [3] The impulsion of the bodily passions also works toward this result, as also do the things that are attractive on the sense level, and most occasions for bad action whereby man is easily stimulated to sin, unless one be drawn back by means of a firm attachment to the ultimate end, which grace produces. [4] Consequently, the opinion of the Pelagians is evidently stupid, for they said that man in the state of sin is able to avoid sin, without grace. The contrary to this is apparent from the petition in the Psalm (70:9): “When my strength shall fail, do not forsake me.” And the Lord teaches us to pray: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” [5] However, although those who are in sin cannot avoid by their own power putting an impediment in the way of grace, as we showed, unless they be helped in advance by grace, nevertheless, this is regarded as their fault, because this defect is left in them as a result of a previous fault. Thus, for example, an intoxicated man is not excused from homicide committed in the state of intoxication which he got into through his own fault. [6] Besides, although he who is in sin does not have, of his own power, the ability entirely to avoid sin, he has it in his power at present to avoid this or that sin, as we said. Hence, whatever one he does commit, he does so voluntarily. And so, not undeservedly, he is held responsible for his fault.

Chapter

THAT GOD FREES SOME MEN FROM SIN AND LEAVES OTHERS IN SIN

[1] Now, although the man who sins puts an impediment in the way of grace, and as far as the order of things requires he ought not to receive grace, yet, since God can act apart from the order implanted in things,as He does when He gives sight to the blind or life to the dead-at times, out of the abundance of His goodness, He offers His help in advance, even to those who put an impediment in the way of grace, turning them away from evil and toward the good. And just as He does not enlighten all the blind, or heal all who are infirm, in order that the working of His power may be evident in the case of those whom He heals, and in the case of the others the order of nature may be observed, so also, He does not assist with His help all who impede grace, so that they may be turned away from evil and toward the good, but only some, in whom He desires His mercy to appear, so that the order of justice may be manifested in the other cases. Hence, the Apostle says, in Romans (9:22-23): “What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, that He might show the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has prepared unto glory?” [2] However, while God does indeed, in regard to men who are held back by the same sins, come to the assistance of and convert some, while He suffers others or permits them to go ahead in accord with the order of things—there is no reason to ask why He converts the former and not the latter. For this depends on His will alone; just as it resulted from His simple will that, while all things were made from nothing, some were made of higher degree than others; and also, just as it depends on the simple will of the artisan that, from the same material uniformly disposed, he forms some vessels for noble uses and others for ignoble purposes. Hence, the Apostle says, in Romans (9:21): “Or does not the potter have power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?” [3] By this we set aside the error of Origen, who said that certain men are converted to God, and not others, because of some works that their souls had done before being united to their bodies. In fact, this view has been carefully disproved in our Book Two.

Chapter

THAT GOD IS NOT THE CAUSE OF SIN FOR ANY PERSON

[1] Although God does not convert certain sinners to Himself, but leaves them in their sins according to their merits, He does not lead them into sinful action. [2] In fact, men sin because they turn away from Him Who is their ultimate end, as is evident from our earlier statements.But, when every agent acts for an end that is proper and suitable to it, it is impossible by the action of God for any of them to be turned away from the ultimate end, Who is God. So, it is impossible for God to cause any persons to sin. [3] Again, good cannot be the cause of evil. But sin is an evil for man, since it is opposed to man’s proper good which is to live in accord with reason. Therefore, it is impossible for God to be the cause of sinful action for anyone. [4] Besides, all wisdom and goodness in man are derived from the wisdom and goodness of God, as a certain likeness of Him. But it is incompatible with human wisdom and goodness to cause anyone to sin; much more, then, is it incompatible with these divine qualities. [5] Moreover, every sin stems from a defect in the proximate agent, and not from the influence of the primary agent: as the defect of limping results from the condition of the leg bone and not from the motor power, for, in fact, whatever perfection of motion is apparent in the act of limping, it is due to this power. But the proximate agent of human sin is the will. Therefore, the defect of sin comes from the will of man and not from God Who is the primary agent; from Him, however, comes whatever pertains to perfection of action in the sinful act. [6] Hence, it is said in Sirach (15:12): “Say not: He caused me to err. For He has no need of wicked men.” And later: “He commanded no man to act wickedly, and He has given no man license to sin” (Sirach 15:,21). And in James (1:13) it is said: “Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God: for God is not a tempter of evils.” [7] However, some passages are found in Scripture, from which it seems that God is the cause of sinning for certain men. Indeed, it is said in Exodus (10:1): “I have hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and the heart of his servants”; and in Isaiah (6:10): “Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy... lest they see with their eyes... and be converted, and I heal them”; and in Isaiah (63:17): “You made us err from Your ways; You have hardened our heart, lest we fear You.” Again, in Romans (1:28) it is said: “God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient.” All these texts are to be understood in this way: God does not grant to some people His help in avoiding sin, while to others He does grant it. [8] Moreover, this help is not only the infusing of grace, but also external guardianship, whereby the occasions of sinning are taken away from man by divine providence and whereby provocations to sin are suppressed. God also helps man in opposing sin by the natural light of reason and by the other natural goods which He accords man. So, when He takes away these aids from some, according to the merit of their action, as His justice demands, He is said to harden or to blind them, or to do any of the other things mentioned.

Chapter

ON PREDESTINATION, REPROBATION, AND DIVINE ELECTION

[1] So, since we have shownthat some men are directed by divine working to their ultimate end as aided by grace, while others who are deprived of the same help of grace fall short of their ultimate end, and since all things that are done by God are foreseen and ordered from eternity by His wisdom, as we showed above, the aforementioned differentiation of men must be ordered by God from eternity. According, then, as He has preordained some men from eternity, so that they are directed to their ultimate end, He is said to have predestined them. Hence, the Apostle says, in Ephesians (1:5): “Who predestinated us unto the adoption of children... according to the purpose of His will.” On the other hand, those to whom He has decided from eternity not to give His grace He is said to have reprobated or to have hated, in accord with what we find in Malachi (1:2-3): “I have loved Jacob, but have hated Esau.” By reason of this distinction, according to which He has reprobated some and predestined others, we take note of divine election, which is mentioned in Ephesians (1:4): “He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world.” [2] Thus, it appears that predestination, election, and reprobation constitute a certain section of divine providence, according as men are ordered to their ultimate end by divine providence. Hence, it is possible to show that predestination and election impose no necessity, by the same reasoning whereby we showed above that divine providence does not take away contingency from things. [3] Moreover, that predestination and election do not find their cause in any human merits can be made clear, not only from the fact that God’s grace which is the effect of predestination is not preceded by merits but rather precedes all human merits, as we showed, but it can also be shown from this, that the divine will and providence is the first cause of things that are done, but that there can be no cause of the divine will and providence, although, among the effects of providence, and likewise of predestination, one may be the cause of another. “For who,” as the Apostle says (Rom. 11:35-36), “has first given to Him, and who shall make recompense to Him? For of Him, and in Him, and by Him, are all things. To Him be honor and glory for ever. Amen.”

CONTRA GENTILES

BOOK FOUR: SALVATION

translated by

Charles J. O’Neil

CONTENTS

Foreword

That there is generation, paternity, and sonship in the Divinity

That the Son of God is God

The opinion of Photinus on the Son of God, and its refutation

The opinion of Sabellius on the Son of God, and its refutation

The opinion of Arius about the Son of God

Refutation of the opinion of Arius on the Son of God

Solution of the authorities which Arius proposed for himself

Solution of the authorities of Photinus and of Sabellins

Arguments against divine generation and procession

How generation is to be understood in divinity, and what is said of the Son of God in Scripture

How the Son of God may be called the wisdom bf God

That there is but one Son in the Divinity

Solution of the arguments against divine generation previously introduced

On the Holy Spirit, that He is in divinity

Arguments which made some think the Holy Spirit a creature

That the Holy Spirit is true God

That the Holy Spirit is a subsistent Person

How one must understand what is said about the Holy Spirit

On the effects attributed to the Holy Spirit in Scripture regarding the whole creation

On the effects attributed to the Holy Spirit in Scripture regarding the rational creature, so far as God’s gifts to us are concerned

On the effects attributed to the Holy Spirit in that He moves the creature to God

An answer to the arguments given above against the divinity of the Holy Spirit

That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son

Arguments of those who want to show that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son and the answers

That there are but three Persons in divinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

On the Incarnation of the Word according to the tradition of Scripture

On the error of Photinus about the Incarnation

On the error of the Manicheans about the Incarnation

On the error of Valentine about the Incarnation

On the error of Apollinaris about the body of Christ

On the error of Arius and Apollinaris about the soul of Christ

On the error of Apollinaris, who says there was no rational soul in Christ; and the error of Origen, who says the soul of Christ was created before the world

On the error of Theodore of Mopsueste and Nestorius on the union of the Word to man

Against the error of Eutyches

On the error of Macarius of Antioch, who holds there is but one will in Christ

Against those who said that the soul and body do not constitute a unity in Christ

Against those who put two supposits or hypostases in the one Person of Christ

What the Catholic faith holds about the Incarnation of Christ

Objections against faith in the Incarnation

How one should understand the Incarnation of the Son of God

That the assumption of human nature was most suited to the Word of God

That the human nature assumed by the Word did not pre-exist its assumption, but was assumed in the conception itself

That the human nature assumed by the Word in the conception itself was perfect in soul and body

That it became Christ to be born of a virgin

That Christ was born of the Holy Spirit

That Christ was not the son of the Holy Spirit in the flesh

That Christ must not be called a creature

Solution of the arguments against the Incarnation given above

That original sin is transmitted from the first parent to his descendants

Objections against original sin

Solution of the objections proposed

Arguments which seem to prove that God’s Incarnation was not suitable

That it was suitable for God to be made flesh

Answer to the arguments previously set down against the suitability of the Incarnation

On the necessity of the sacraments

The distinction of the sacraments of the Old and the New Law

On the number of the sacraments of the New Law

On baptism

On confirmation

On the Eucharist

On the error of the infidels about the sacrament of the Eucharist

Solution of the difficulties set down: first, about the conversion of the bread into the body of Christ

Solution of the objections made regarding place

Solution of the objections regarding accidents

Solution of the objections regarding action and passion

Solution of the objections regarding fraction

Solution of the authority introduced

On the kind of bread and wine that are to be used in this sacrament

On the sacrament of penance, and, first, that men after receiving sacramental grace are able to sin

That a man sinning after the grace of the sacraments can be converted by grace

On the necessity of penance and of its parts

On the sacrament of extreme unction

On the sacrament of orders

On the distinction of orders

On the episcopal power and that therein one is the highest

That the sacraments can be dispensed by evil ministers

On the sacrament of matrimony

That through Christ the resurrection of bodies is to come

Objections against the resurrection

Solution of the objections mentioned

That men will rise immortal

That among the risen there will be no use of food or sexual love

That the bodies of those who rise will be the same in nature

That the bodies of the risen will have another disposition

On the quality of glorified bodies

On the place of the glorified bodies

On the sex and age of the risen

On the quality of the risen bodies among the damned

How incorporeal substances may suffer from bodily fire

That immediately after their separation from the body the souls will receive punishment or reward

That the souls of the saints have after death an unchangeable will in the good

That after death the souls of the wicked have a will unchangeable in evil

On the immutability of will in souls detained in purgatory

On the immutability of wills commonly in all souls after their separation from the body

On the last judgment

On the state of the world after the judgment

Chapter

FOREWORD

Lo, these things are only outlines of His ways: and how small a whisper we hear of Him. The thunder of his power who can understand? (Job 26:14). [Douay, altered:] Lo, these things are said in part of His ways: and seeing we have heard scarce a little drop of His word, who shall be able to behold the thunder of His greatness? [1] The human intellect, to which it is connatural to derive its knowledge from sensible things, is not able through itself to reach the vision of the divine substance in itself, which is above all sensible things and, indeed, improportionately above all other things. Yet, because man’s perfect good is that he somehow know God, lest such a noble creature might seem to be created to no purpose, as being unable to reach its own end, there is given to man a certain way through which he can rise to the knowledge of God: so that, since the perfections of things descend in a certain order from the highest summit of things—God—man may progress in the knowledge of God by beginning with lower things and gradually ascending. Now, even in bodily movements, the way of descending is the same as the way of ascending, distinguished by beginning and end. [2] There is a twofold account of the descent of perfections from God just mentioned. One account looks to the first origin of things: for divine Wisdom, to put perfection in things, produced them in such order that the universe of creatures should embrace the highest of things and the lowest. The other account comes from the things themselves. For, since causes are more noble than their effects, the very first caused things are lower than the First Cause, which is God, and still stand out above their effects. And so it goes until one arrives at the lowest of things. And because in the highest summit of things, God, one finds the most perfect unity—and because everything, the more it is one, is the more powerful and more worthy—it follows that the farther one gets from the first principle, the greater is the diversity and variation one finds in things. The process of emanation from God must, then, be unified in the principle itself, but multiplied in the lower things which are its terms. In this way, according to the diversity of things, there appears the diversity of the ways, as though these ways began in one principle and terminated in various ends. [3] Through these ways our intellect can rise to the knowledge of God. But because of the weakness of the intellect we are not able to know perfectly even the ways themselves. For the sense, from which our knowledge begins, is occupied with external accidents, which are the proper sensibles—for example, color, odor, and the like. As a result, through such external accidents the intellect can scarcely reach the perfect knowledge of a lower nature, even in the case of those natures whose accidents it comprehends perfectly through the sense. Much less will the intellect arrive at comprehending the natures of those things of which we grasp few accidents by sense; and it will do so even less in the case of those things whose accidents cannot be grasped by the senses, though they may be perceived through certain deficient effects. But, even though the natures of things themselves were known to us, we can have only a little knowledge of their order, according as divine Providence disposes them in relation to one another and directs them to the end, since we do not come to know the plan of divine Providence. If, then, we imperfectly know the ways themselves, how shall we be able to arrive at a perfect knowledge of the source of these ways? And because that source transcends the above-mentioned ways beyond proportion, even if we knew the ways themselves perfectly we would yet not have within our grasp a perfect knowledge of the source. [4] Therefore, since it was a feeble knowledge of God that man could reach in the ways mentioned—by a kind of intellectual glimpse, so to say—out of a superabundant goodness, therefore, so that man might have a firmer knowledge of Him, God revealed certain things about Himself that transcend the human intellect. In this revelation, in harmony with man, a certain order is preserved, so that little by little he comes from the imperfect to the perfect—just as happens in the rest of changeable things. First, therefore, these things are so revealed to man as, for all that, not to be understood, but only to be believed as heard, for the human intellect in this state in which it is connected with things sensible cannot be elevated entirely to gaze upon things which exceed every proportion of sense. But, when it shall have been freed from the connection with sensibles, then it will be elevated to gaze upon the things which are revealed. [5] There is, then, in man a threefold knowledge of things divine. Of these, the first is that in which man, by the natural light of reason, ascends to a knowledge of God through creatures. The second is that by which the divine truth—exceeding the human intellect—descends on us in the manner of revelation, not, however, as something made clear to be seen, but as something spoken in words to be believed. The third is that by which the human mind will be elevated to gaze perfectly upon the things revealed. [6] It is this threefold cognition which Job suggests in the words set down. The words, “Lo, these things are said in part of His ways,” refer to that knowledge by which our intellect ascends to a knowledge of God by the ways of creatures. And because we know these ways imperfectly, he rightly added: “in part.” “For we know in part,” as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 23:9). [7] What is added, however, “and seeing we have heard scarce a little drop of His word,” refers to the second knowledge, in that the divine things we are to believe are revealed to us in, speech; “faith then,” as Romans (10:17) says, “comes by hearing; and hearing by the word of God.” Of this John (17:17) also says: “sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth.” Thus, then, since the revealed truth is proposed not about divine things to he seen, but to be believed, Job rightly says: “we have heard.” But, since this imperfect knowledge flows down from that perfect knowledge wherein the divine Truth is seen in itself, while God reveals it to us through the ministry of angels who “see the face of the Father” (Mat. 18:10), Job rightly names it “a drop.” Hence, Joel (3:18) also says: “In that day the mountains shall drop down sweetness.” Since not all the mysteries known in the vision of the First Truth by the angels and the other blessed, but a certain few are revealed to us, Job adds significantly: “a little.” For Sirach (43:35-36) says: “Who shall magnify Him as He is from the beginning? There are many things hidden from us that are greater than these: for we have seen but a few of His words” And our Lord says to the disciples in John (11:12): “I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot hear them now.” The few things also which are revealed to us are set forth in similitudes and the obscurities of words—as a result, only the studious arrive at any sort of grasp of them at all. Others, however, venerate them as things hidden, and unbelievers cannot attack them; hence, the Apostle says: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner” (1 Cor. 13:12). Significantly, then, does Job add “scarce” to bring out the difficulty. [8] But this addition, “Who shall be able to behold the thunder of His greatness,” refers to the third kind of knowledge, in which the First Truth will be known, not as believed, but as seen; “We shall see Him as He is,” we read (1 John 3:2). So Job adds: “to behold.” Nor will one perceive some measure of the divine mysteries: the divine majesty itself will be seen and all the perfection of goods; hence, the Lord said to Moses: “I will shew you all good” (Ex. 33:19). Rightly, then, does Job say “greatness.” Nor will the truth be set before man hidden under any veils, but will be entirely manifest; hence, our Lord says to His disciples: “The hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs; but will shew you plainly of the Father” (John 16:25). Significantly, therefore, does Job speak of “the thunder” to suggest the manifestation. [9] Now, the words set down fit our purpose. In what has preceded we have dealt with divine things according as the natural reason can arrive at the knowledge of divine things through creatures. This way is imperfect, nevertheless, and in keeping with the reason’s native capacity. That is why we can say with Job (26:14): “These things are said in part of His ways.” We must now deal with those divine things that have been divinely revealed to us to be believed, since they transcend the human intellect. [10] And the manner of proceeding in such matters the words set down do teach us. For, since we have hardly heard the truth of this kind in sacred Scripture as a little drop descending upon us, and since one cannot in the state of this life behold the thunder of the greatness, this will be the method to follow: What has been passed on to us in the words of sacred Scripture may be taken as principles, so to say; thus, the things in those writings passed on to us in a hidden fashion we may endeavor to grasp mentally in some way or other, defending them from the attacks of the infidels. Nonetheless, that no presumption of knowing perfectly may be present, points of this kind must be proved from sacred Scripture, but not from natural reason. For all that, one must show that such things are not opposed to natural reason, in order to defend them from infidel attack. This was also the method fixed upon in the beginning of this work. [11] But, since natural reason ascends to a knowledge of God through creatures and, conversely, the knowledge of faith descends from God to us by a divine revelation—since the way of ascent and descent is still the same-we must proceed in the same way in the things above reason which are believed as we proceeded in the foregoing with the investigation of God by reason. First, to be specific, we must treat of the things about God Himself which surpass reason and are proposed for belief: such is the confession of the Trinity; second, of course, the things which surpass reason that have been done by God, such as the work of the Incarnation and what follows thereon; third, however, the things surpassing reason which are looked for in the ultimate end of man, such as the resurrection and glorification of bodies, the everlasting beatitude of souls, and matters related to these.

Chapter

THAT THERE IS GENERATION, PATERNITY, AND SONSHIP IN THE DIVINITY

[1] Let us take the beginning of our study from the secret of the divine generation, and first set down what one must hold about it according to the testimonies of sacred Scripture. Then we may set out the arguments against the truth of the faith which unbelief has invented; by achieving the solution of these we will be pursuing the purpose of this study. [2] Sacred Scripture, then, hands on to us the names of “paternity” and “sonship” in the divinity, insisting that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. One finds this most frequently in the books of the New Testament. Thus, Matthew (1: 27): “No one knows the Son but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father but the Son.” With this Mark begins his Gospel, saying: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” John the Evangelist also frequently points to this, for he says: “The Father loves the Son and He hath given all things into His hand” (3:35) and “As the Father raises up the dead, and gives life: so the Son also gives life to whom He will” (5:21). Paul the Apostle also frequently inserts these words, for he calls himself in Romans (1:1-3) “separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy scriptures concerning His Son”; and says in Hebrews (1:1): “God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son.” [3] This is also. given us, although more rarely, in the books of the Old Testament. Thus, Proverbs (30:4) says: “What is His name, and what is the name of His Son, if you know?” One reads it also in the Psalms (2:7; 88:27): “The Lord said to me: You are My Son”; and again: “He shall cry out to Me: You are My Father.” [4] To be sure, some would like to twist these last two sayings into another sense, so as to refer “The Lord hath said to Me: You are My Son” to David; and so as to ascribe “He shall cry out to Me: You are My Father” to Solomon. Nevertheless, the additions in each instance show that this cannot be quite the case. For David cannot be fitted into this addition: “This day have I begotten You” (Ps. 2:7); nor into this one: “I will give You the Gentiles for your inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for your possession” (2:8); since David’s kingdom was not extended to the utmost parts of the earth, as the history of the Book of Kings shows. No more is the saying: “He shall cry out to Me: You are My Father” fitting to Solomon, since there follows: “I will make His rule to endure for evermore: and His throne as the days of heaven” (Ps. 88:30). Hence, one is given to understand that because some of the things joined to the texts mentioned are suitable to David and Solomon, some absolutely unsuitable, what is said of David and Solomon in these words is said, as customarily in Scripture, figuratively of that other in whom the whole is fulfilled. [5] However, since the names of “Father” and “Son” follow on a generation, Scripture has not been silent about the very name of “divine generation.” For in the Psalm (2:7), as was said, one reads: “This day have I begotten You.” And Proverbs (8:24-2.5): “The depths were not as yet and I was already conceived: before the hills I was brought forth”; or, according to another reading: “Before all the hills did the Lord beget me.” And Isaiah (66:9, 8) also says: “Shall not I that make others to bring forth... Myself bring forth, saith the Lord? Shall I that give generation to others be barren, says the Lord your God?” We grant that one can say that this text must be related to the multiplication of the children of Israel returning from captivity into their own country, because earlier this is said: “Zion has been in labour and has brought forth her children.” But this does not defeat our purpose. For, however the essence of it be adapted, the essence of it which is given from the voice of God remains fixed and stable thus: If He Himself grants generation to others, He is not sterile. Nor would it become Him who makes others generate truly to generate Himself not truly but by a likeness. For a thing must he more nobly in its cause than in that which is caused, as was shown. Again, it says in John (1:14): “We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father”; and later: “The only-begotten Son ho is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared him” (1:18). And Paul says: “And again when He brings his first-begotten into the world He says: ‘And let all the angels of God adore Him’” (Heb. 1:6).

Chapter

THAT THE SON OF GOD IS GOD

[1] Consideration must, of course, be given to the fact that the names mentioned are used by the divine Scripture in its exposition of the creation of things, for in Job (38:28-29) it says: “Who is the father of rain? Or who begot the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice; and the frost from heaven who engendered it!” Therefore, lest nothing more be understood by the words for “paternity,” “sonship,” and “generation” than the efficacy of creation, the authority of Scripture added something: When it was naming Him “Son” and “begotten”, it was not silent about His being God, so that the generation mentioned might be understood as something more than creation. For John (1:1) says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That by the name “Word” one should understand Son is made plain in the sequel, for he adds: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father” (1:14). And Paul says: “The goodness and kindness of God our Savior appeared” (Titus 3:4). [2] Neither was the writing in the Old Testament silent about this; it named Christ God. For a Psalm (44:7-8) says: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of your kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness. You loved justice, and hated iniquity.”—That this is spoken to Christ is clear from what follows: “Therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” And Isaiah (9:6) says: “A Child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of peace.” [3] Thus, then, are we taught from sacred Scripture that the Son of God, begotten of God, is God. And Peter confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He said: “You are Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mat. 16:16). He Himself, therefore, is both the Only-begotten and God.

Chapter

THE OPINION OF PROTINUS ON THE SON OF GOD, AND ITS REFUTATION

[1] Now, certain men, who perversely presumed to measure the truth of this doctrine by their own comprehension of it, conceived on the points just mentioned opinions both vain and various. [2] Some among these took into consideration Scripture’s custom of calling those who are justified by divine grace “sons of God,”, as in John (1:12): “He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name.” And Romans (8:16) says: “The Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.” And 1 John (3: 1): “Behold what manner of charity the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God.” And Scripture does not hesitate to call these “begotten of God,” for it says in James (1:18): “For of His own will bath He begotten us by the word of truth”; and 1 John (3:9) says: “Whosoever is born of God commits not sin: for His seed abides in him.” Also, to the same men, which is more marvelous, the name of “divinity” is applied. For the Lord said to Moses: “I have appointed you the God of Pharaoh” (Ex. 7:1); and the Psalmist says: “I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the most High” (Ps. 81:6); and, as our Lmd ms: “He called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken” (John 10:35). [3] After this fashion, therefore, they formed the opinion that Jesus Christ was pure man, that He had had a beginning from the Virgin Mary, that by the merit of His blessed life He had received the honor of divinity above all others; and they thought that He was, like other men, a son of God by the spirit of adoption, begotten of God by grace, and by a kind of likens to God called God in Scripture not by nature, but by partaking in the divine goodness, just as it says of the saints in 2 Peter (1:4): “That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.” [4] Such was the position they were trying to establish by the authority of sacred Scripture. [5] For our Lord says in Matthew (28:18): “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth.” But, if He were God before all times, He would not have received power in time. [6] Again, Romans (1:34) says of the Son: “Who was made to Him,” to God, namely, “of the seed of David according to the flesh”; and says that He was “predestinated the Son of God in power.” But what was predestinated and was made seems not to be eternal. [7] The Apostle also says (Phil. 2:8): “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also bath exalted Him, and bath given Him a name which is above all names.” From this it appears clear that by the merit of His obedience and passion He was given divine honor and was exalted above all things. [8] Peter also says: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God bath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Therefore, it seems that He was made God in time, not born before time. [9] They also bring in to shore up their opinion whatever Scripture says which seems to imply a defect in Christ: that He was carried in a woman’s womb, that He progressed in age, that He suffered hunger, was wearied with fatigue, and was subject to death; that He advanced in wisdom, confessed He did not know the day of judgment; that He was stricken with the fear of death; and other things of this sort which could not be in agreement with a God existing by His nature. Hence their conclusion: that by merit Christ acquired divine honor through grace and that He was not by nature divine. [10] Now, this position was first invented by certain ancient heretics, Cerinthus and Ebion. later, Paul of Samosata renewed it; and later it was strengthened by Photinus, so that those who dogmatize thus are called Photinian. [11] However, those who diligently examine the words of sacred Scripture do not find in them the meaning which these men have by their own opinion constructed. For, when Solomon says: “The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived,” (Prov. 8:24), he makes it clear enough that this generation existed before all bodily things. Hence, it follows that the Son begotten by God received no beginning of being from Mary. To be sure, they endeavored to debase these and other like testimonies by their perverse exposition. These, they said, should be understood after the manner of predestination: that before the foundation of the world it was arranged that a Son of God should be born of the Virgin Mary, not that the Son of God had been before the world. But they are refuted by this: Not only in predestination, but in reality as well, He had been before Mary. For after the words of Solomon just quoted this is added: “When He balanced the foundations of the earth: I was with Him forming all things” (Prov. 8:29-30); but if He had been present in predestination only, He would have been able to do nothing. One gets this also from the words of John the Evangelist, for, when he had first set down: “In the beginning was the Word” (by which name the Son is understood as was shown) to keep anyone from taking this as predestination, he adds: “All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing” (1:1, 3); and this could not be true if He had not really existed before the world. Again, the Son of God says in John (3:13): “No man has ascended to heave except He who descended fro heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven”; again in John (6:38): “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” Clearly, therefore, he was before He descended from heaven. [12] There is more. According to the position described above, a man by the merit of his life advanced to being God. The Apostle shows, on the contrary, that when He was God He became man. For he says: ‘Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (Phil. 2:6). Therefore, the position described is in conflict with apostolic teaching. [13] Furthermore, among all the rest of those who had the grace of God, Moses had it in abundance; it says of him in Exodus (33:11): “The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” If, therefore, Jesus Christ is not said to be a son of God except by the grace of adoption, like other saints, on the same grounds Moses should be called son and Christ, even though Christ was endowed with more abundant grace: among the other saints, also, one is endowed with greater grace than another, but all are called sons of God on the same ground. But Moses is not called son on the same ground that Christ is so called, for the Apostle distinguishes Christ from Moses as the Son from the servant. He says in Hebrews (3:5-6): “Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be said: But Christ as the Son in His own house.” Manifestly, then, Christ is not called the Son of God by the grace of adoption, as other saints are. [14] One can gather a similar understanding from several other places in Scripture, in which Christ is named in some singular way and prior to others as the Son of God. Sometimes singularly and without others He is named “Son”: as the voice of the Father thundered at the baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mat. 3:17). Sometimes He is named “Only-begotten” as in John: “We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father”; and again: “The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (1:14, 18). If He were to be called son in some common fashion like others, He could not be called the Only-begotten. Sometimes, also, He is named “First-begotten” to show an overflowing of sonship from Him to others: as in Romans (8:29): ‘Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren7; and Galatians (4:4-5) says: “God sent His Son that we might receive the adoption of sons. On another ground, therefore, is He a Son, through likeness to whose sonship others are called sons. [15] In sacred Scripture, moreover, certain works are properly attributed to God, and in such wise that they cannot be assigned to another: such are the sanctification of souls and the remission of sins; for it is said in Leviticus (20:8): “I am the Lord that sanctify you”; and in Isaiah (45:25): “I am He that blot out your iniquities for My own sake.” Yet Scripture attributes each of these to Christ, for we read in Hebrews (2:11; 13:12): “Both he that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified, are all of one”; and again: “Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own blood, suffered without the gate.” Our Lord Himself insisted that He had the “power to forgive sins,” and confirmed this by a miracle as is told in Matthew (9:16). This is also what the angel foretold of Him when he said: “He shall save His people from their sins” (Mat. 1:21). Christ, therefore, who both sanctifies and forgives sins, is not called God as they are called gods who are sanctified, and whose sins are forgiven, but as one who has the power and the nature of divinity. [16] The Scriptural testimonies by which they tried to show that Christ was not God by nature are useless for establishing their proposition. For it is our confession that in Christ the Son of God, after the mystery of the Incarnation, there were two natures; namely, human and divine. And so, things are said of Him which are proper to God by reason of the divine nature, and things are also said which seem to involve deficiency by reason of the human nature, as will be more fully explained later. But now, for the present consideration of the divine generation, let it suffice to have pointed out in accord with the Scriptures that Christ the Son of God is also called God, not only as a pure man is by the grace of adoption, but by reason Of the nature of divinity.

Chapter

THE OPINION OF SABELLIUS ON THE SON OF GOD, AND ITS REFUTATION

[1] Since, of course, the fixed mental conception of all who think rightly about God is this: There can be but one God—certain men, conceiving from the Scriptures that Christ is truly and naturally God and the Son of God, have confessed that the one God is Christ the Son of God and God the Father; and that God, nevertheless, is not called Son in His nature or from eternity, but that He then received the name of sonship when He was born of the Virgin Mary in the mystery of the Incarnation. Thus, all the things which Christ bore in the flesh they used to attribute to God the Father: for example, that He was the son of the Virgin, conceived and born of her, that He suffered, died and rose again, and all else which the Scriptures say of Christ in the flesh. [2] They attempted to strengthen their position by Scriptural authorities. For it says in Exodus (i.e., Deut. 6:41): “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord”; and in Deuteronomy (32:39): “I alone am and there is no other God besides Me”; and John (14:10, 9, 11): “The Father who abides in Me, He doth the works”; and again: “He that sees Me, sees the Father also... I am in the Father and the Father in Me.” From all these they used to conceive that God the Father was being called the very Son incarnate of the Virgin. [3] This was, of course, the opinion of the Sabellians, who were also called Patripassionists because they confess that the Father suffered, holding that the Father Himself was Christ. [4] Now, the latter position differs from the one just de scribed with respect to Christ’s divinity (for the latter confesses that Christ is true and natural God which the first denied); nevertheless, with respect to generation and sonship, each of the two opinions conforms with the other: for, as the first holds that there was no sonship and generation by which Christ is said to be Son before Mary, so the latter also maintains. Therefore, neither of these positions relates the generation and sonship to the divine nature, but to the human nature only. The second position has this special feature: that when one says “Son of God” one designates not a subsisting person but a kind of additional property of a pre-existing person, for the Father Himself, in that He assumed flesh from the Virgin, received the name of Son; it is not as though the Son is a subsisting Person distinct from the Person of the Father. [5] The authority of Scripture makes the falsity of this position quite manifest. For Scripture does not call Christ merely the Virgin’s son, but also the Son of God. We made this clear before. But it cannot be that one be his own son, for, since a son is begotten by a father, and he who begets gives being to the begotten, it would follow that he who gives is identified with him who receives being-and this is entirely impossible. Therefore, God the Father is not Himself the Son, but the Son is other than He, and the Father is other than the Son. [6] Then, too, our Lord says: “I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me”; and: “Glorify Me, O Father with Yourself” (John 6:38; 17:5). From all, of these and similar sayings the Son is shown to be other than the Father. [7] Of course, it can be said within this position that Christ is called the Son of God the Father in His human nature only; namely, because God the Father Himself created and sanctified the human nature which He assumed. Thus, then, the same one is in His divinity called His own Father in His humanity. Thus, there is also no objection to saying that the same one in His humanity is distinct from Himself in His divinity. But in this fashion it will follow that Christ is called a son of God as are other men, whether by reason of creation, or by reason of sanctification. It has, however, already been shown that Christ is called the Son of God for another reason than other holy men are. It cannot, therefore, be understood that the Father Himself is Christ and His very own son. [8] There is more. Where there is one subsisting supposit, it does not receive a plural predication. But Christ speaks of Himself and the Father in the plural; He says: “I and the Father are one (John 10:30). The Son, therefore, is not the Father Himself. [9] Furthermore, if it is by the mystery of the Incarnation alone that the Son is distinguished from the Father, there was no distinction whatever before the Incarnation. In the sacred Scripture, however, the Son is found to have been distinct from the Father even before the Incarnation. For it says in John (1:1): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So, the Word who was with God had some distinction from Him. This is our usual manner of speaking: one is said “to be with” another. In the same way in Proverbs (8:30) the Begotten says: “I was with Him forming all things.” Here, again, an association and some distinction is designated. It says also in Hosea (1:7): “I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God,” where God the Father is speaking of saving the people in God the Son, as of a person distinct from Himself, who is held worthy of the name of God. We read, also, in Genesis (1:26): “Let us make man to our image and likeness”; and in this the plurality and distinction of those who make man is expressly designated. Yet Scripture teaches that man was made by God alone. Thus, there was a plurality and distinction of God the Father and God the Son even before the Incarnation of Christ. Therefore, the Father Himself is not called the Son by reason of the mystery of the Incarnation. [10] Furthermore, true sonship relates to the supposit of the one called son, for it is not a man’s hand or foot which receives the name of sonship properly speaking, but the man himself whose parts they are. But the names of “paternity” and of “sonship” require a distinction in those to whom they are applied, just as “begetting” and “begotten” do. Necessarily, then, if one is truly called son he must be distinguished in supposit from his father. But Christ is truly the Son of God, for we read in 1 John (5:20): “That we may be in His true Son, Jesus Christ.” Necessarily, then, Christ is distinct in supposit from the Father. Therefore, the Father Himself is not the Son. Furthermore, after the mystery of the Incarnation the Father proclaims of the Son: “This is My beloved Son” (Mat. 3:17). Such a designation is a reference to a supposit. Christ is, therefore, as a supposit other than the Father. [11] The points by which Sabellius attempts to strengthen his position do not prove what he intends to prove. We will make this clear more fully later on. For, by reason of the truth that “God is one,” or that “the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father,” one does not bold that the Father and the Son are one in supposit; there can be a unity of two who are distinct in supposit.

Chapter

THE OPINION OF ARIUS ABOUT THE SON OF GOD

[1] Now, sacred doctrine does not agree that the Son of God took His beginning from Mary, as Photinus used to say, nor that He who was God from eternity and is the Father began to be the Son by taking flesh, as Sabellius had said. And so, there were others who developed this opinion about the divine generation of which Scripture treats: that the Son of God existed before the mystery of the Incarnation and even before the foundation of the world; and, because that Son of God is other than God the Father, they judged He was not of the same nature with God the Father, for they could not understand and did not wish to believe that any two who are distinct as persons have one essence and nature. And because in the faith’s teaching only the nature of God the Father is believed to be eternal, they believed that the nature of the Son did not exist from eternity, although the Son was before other creatures. And since whatever is not eternal is made from nothing and created by God, they used to preach that the Son of God was made from nothing and was a creature. But, since the authority of Scripture forced them to name the Son also, as was brought out in the foregoing they used to say that He was one with God the Father—not to be sure, by nature, but by a kind of union of consent, and by a participation in the divine likeness above all other creatures. Now, the highest creatures whom we call angels are named “gods” and “sons of God” in Scripture, as in Job (58:4, 7): “Where were you when the morning stars praised Me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody?” and in a Psalm (81:1): “God has stood in the congregation of gods: Accordingly, this one should be called Son of God and God more than the others, to show that He is more noble than any other creature in that through Him God the Father established all the rest of creation. [2] They used to try to strengthen this position by the testimonies of sacred Scripture. [3] For the Son says, speaking to the Father in John (17:3): “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God.” The Father alone, therefore, is true God. Since, therefore, the Son is not the Father, the Son cannot be true God. [4] The Apostle also says: “Keep the commandment without spot, blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His times He shall shew who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality, and inhabits light inaccessible” (1 Tim. 6:14-16). These words make a distinction between the Father who shows and Christ who is shown. Therefore, only the Father who shows is the King of kings and Lord of lords; He alone is immortal and dwells in inaccessible light. Therefore, the Father alone is true God. Therefore, the Son is not. [5] Furthermore, our Lord says: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:z8); and the Apostle says: “When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him,” namely, to the Father, “that put all things under Him” (1 Cor. 15:28). But if the nature of the Father and Son were one, their greatness and majesty would also be one. For then the Son would not be less than the Father, or subject to the Father. It follows, then, from Scripture that the Son is not of the same nature as the Father, so they believed. [6] The nature of the Father, furthermore, suffers no need. But one finds need in the Son, for it is shown from Scripture that He receives from the Father—and he who receives is in need. For Matthew (13:27) says: “All things are delivered to Me by My Father”; and John (3:35): “The Father loves the Son: and He has given all things into His hand.” The Son, therefore, seems not to be of the same nature with the Father. [7] He is in need, moreover, who is taught and is helped. But the Son is taught and is helped by the Father. For John (5:19-20; 14:15) says: “The Son cannot do any thing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing”; and later: “The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all that he is doing”; and the Son says to the disciples: “What I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.” Therefore, the Son appears not to be of the same nature as the Father. [8] There is more. To receive a command, to obey, to be sent seem proper to an inferior. But these we read about the Son. For the Son says in John (14:31): “As the Father has given Me commandment, so do I”; and the Apostle: “Becoming obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:8). And John (1436): “I shall ask the Father, and He will give you another paraclete!” And the Apostle also says: “When the fulness of the time was come God sent His Son” (Gal. 4:4). Therefore, the Son is less than the Father and is subject to Him. [9] Furthermore, the Son is glorified by the Father, as He Himself says in John (13:28): “Father, glorify your name”; and thereafter: “A voice, therefore, came from heaven: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The Apostle also says that God “raised up Jesus Christ from the dead” (Rom. 8:11). And Peter says that He “was exalted by the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33). And from these it seems that the Son is inferior to the Father. [10]] In the Father’s nature, furthermore, there can be no failure. But one finds a failure in power in the Son, for He says in Matthew (20:23): “To sit on My right or left hand is not Mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is pre pared by My Father.” There is a failure also in knowledge; for He Himself says: “That day or hour no man knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:22). There is also a failure in stability of love, since Scripture asserts that there was sadness in the Son and anger and other changes of this sort. Therefore, the Son does not appear to be of the same nature as the Father. [11] It is, furthermore, found expressly in Scripture that the Son of God is a creature. For Sirach (24:12, 14) says: “The creator of all things said to Me: and He that made Me rested in My tabernacle”; and again: “From the beginning, and before the world, was I created.” Therefore, the Son is a creature. [12] What is more, the Son is numbered among creatures. For it says in the person of Wisdom: “I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures” (Sirach 24:5). And the Apostle says of the Son that He is “the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15). The Son, then, seems to belong to the order of creatures as one who holds the first rank therein. [13] The Son, moreover, says in John (17:22), praying for the disciples to the Father: “The glory which You hast given Me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as We also are one.” Therefore, the Father and Son are one as He wished the disciples to be one. But He did not wish the disciples to be essentially one. Therefore, the Father and Son are not essentially one. Thus it follows that He is a creature and subject to the Father. [14] Now, this is the position of Arius and Eunomius. And it seems to have arisen from the sayings of the Platonists, who used to hold that there was a supreme God, the Father and Creator of all things, and from Him there emanated a certain “Mind” in which were the forms of all things, and it was superior to all things; and they named this the “paternal intellect”; after this they put the soul of the world, and then the other creatures. Therefore, what is said in sacred Scripture of the Son of God they used to understand of the mind just mentioned; and the more so because sacred Scripture names the Son of God “the Wisdom of God” and “the Word of God.” And with this opinion the position of Avicenna agrees; he holds that above the soul of the first heaven there is a first intelligence moving the first heaven, and further beyond this he placed God at the summit. [15] In this way, then, the Arians were inclined to think that the Son of God was a kind of creature, pre-eminent over all other creatures, the medium by which God had created all things; they were all the more so inclined by the fact that certain philosophers also held that things proceeded from their first source in an order, resulting in the creation of all things through one first creature.

Chapter

REFUTATION OF THE OPINION OF ARIUS ON THE SON OF GOD

[1] That this opinion is manifestly repugnant to divine Scripture anyone can see who considers diligently what sacred Scripture says. [2] For, when divine Scripture names Christ the Son of God and angels the sons of God it does so for different reasons. Hence, the Apostle says: “To which of the angels has He said at any time, ‘You are My Son, today have I begotten You” (Heb. 1:5). And it was to Christ that this was said, he asserts. But, according to the aforesaid position, angels are called sons for the same reason as Christ, for the name of sonship is fitting to each according to a kind of sublimity of nature in which they were created by God. [3] Neither is this objection met if Christ is of a nature more excellent than other angels. For, even among the angels diverse orders are discovered, which became clear above, and for all that, to all of them the same notion of sonship is suitable. Therefore, Christ is not called the Son of God in the way the position described maintains. [4] Again, since by reason of creation the name of divine sonship is suitable to many-for it belongs to all the angels and saints—if Christ also were called Son on the same ground, He would not be “only-begotten; although by reason of the excellence of His nature over all others He could be called “firstborn.” However, Scripture asserts that He is only-begotten: “We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). It is not, therefore, by reason of creation that He is called the Son of God. [5] Moreover, the name of sonship properly and truly follows on the generation of living things in which the begotten proceeds from the substance of the one begetting; otherwise, the name of sonship is taken not in truth but in similitude, as when we call either students or others who are in our charge our sons. If, then, Christ were not called Son except by reason of creation, since that which is created by God is not derived from the substance of God, Christ could not be called Son truly. But He is called the true Son in 1 John (5:20): “that we may be; he says, “in His true Son, Jesus Christ.” Therefore, He is not called the Son of God as created by God in an excellence of nature, however great, but as one begotten of God’s substance. [6] What is more, if Christ is called Son by reason of creation, He will not be truly God. For nothing created can be called God unless by some similitude to God. But this same Jesus Christ is true God, for, when John had said: “that we may be in His true Son,” he added: “This is the true God and life eternal.” Therefore, Christ is not called the Son of God by reason of creation. [7] Furthermore, the Apostle says: “Of whom is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:5); and in Titus (2:13): “Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” And Jeremiah (23:5-6) says: “I will raise up to David a just branch”; and adds below: “and this is the name that they shall call Him: The Lord our just one.” There in Hebrew the name is the tetragrammaton, which certainly is said of God alone. From these sayings it is clear that the Son of God is true God. [8] Moreover, if Christ be the true Son, of necessity it follows that He is true God. For, that cannot truly be called son which is begotten of another, even if the thing be born of the substance of the one begetting unless it comes forth in species like the one begetting; the son of a man must be a man. If, therefore, Christ be the true Son of God, He must be true God. Therefore, He is not anything created. [9] Again, no creature receives the complete fullness of divine goodness, because, as was made clear above, perfections proceed from God to creatures in a kind of descent. But Christ has in Himself the complete fullness of the divine goodness, for the Apostle says: “In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9). Therefore, Christ is not a creature. [10] Grant, furthermore, that the intellect of an angel has a more perfect knowledge than the intellect of man; it is still in great want from the divine intellect. But the intellect of Christ is not in want of knowledge from the divine intellect, for the Apostle says that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Therefore, Christ the Son of God is not a creature. [11] Furthermore, whatever God has in Himself is His essence, as was shown in Book I. But, all things the Father has are the Son’s. For the Son Himself says: “All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine” (John 16:15); and in John (17:10), speaking to the Father, he says: “All My things are Yours, and Yours are Mine.” The essence and nature, then, of the Father and Son is the very same. Therefore, the Son is not. a creature. [12] What is more, the Apostle says that the Son, before He emptied himself taking the form of a servant, was “in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6-7). By the form of God, however, nothing is understood but the divine nature, just as by the form of the servant human nature is understood. The Son, then, is in the divine nature. Therefore, He is not a creature. [13] Furthermore, nothing created can be equal to God. The Son, however, is equal to the Father. For John (5:18) says: “The Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He did not only break the Sabbath, but also said God was His Father, making Himself equal to God.” And this is the narrative of the Evangelist whose “testimony is true” (John 19:13; 21:74): that Christ said He was the Son of God and the equal of God, and that for these things the Jews were persecuting Him. Nor is there doubt for any Christian that what Christ said of Himself is true, when the Apostle also says that He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:6). The Son, therefore, is equal to the Father. He is not, then, a creature. [14] Moreover, in the Psalms (88:7; 82:1) we read that there is no likeness of anyone to God even among the angels who are called the sons of God. “Who,” it says, “among the sons of God shall be like God?” And elsewhere: “O God, who shall be like to You?” This should be understood of perfect likeness; which is clear from the things treated in Book I. But Christ showed his perfect likeness to the Father even in living, for John (5:26) says: “As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself.” Therefore, Christ is not to be counted among the created sons of God. [15] Furthermore, no created substance represents God in His substance, for, whatever be the perfection of any creature whatever that appears, it is less than that which God is; hence, there is no creature through whom we can know what-He-is about God. But the Son does represent the Father, for of Him the Apostle says that He “is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). And lest He be judged a deficient image, one not representing the essence of God, one through which what-He-is could not be known of God (thus is man called the “image of God” in 1 Cor. 11:7); He is shown to be the perfect image, representing the very substance of God, when the Apostle says: “Who being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance” (Heb. 1:3). Therefore, the Son is not a creature. [16] There is more. Nothing which is in a genus is the universal cause of those things which are in that genus. So, the universal cause of men is not a man for nothing is the cause of itself, but the sun which is outside the human genus is the universal cause of human generation, and beyond it God is. But, the Son is the universal cause of creatures, for John (1:3) says: “All things were made by Him”; and in Proverbs (8:30) the begotten Wisdom says: “I was with Him forming all things”; and the Apostle says: “In Him were all things created in heaven and on earth” (Col. 1:16). Therefore, He Himself is not in the genus of creatures. [17] Similarly, it is clear from what was shown in Book II that the incorporeal substances that we call angels cannot be made except by creation, and it was also shown that no substance can create but God alone. But the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the cause of the angels, bringing them into being, for the Apostle says: “whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and in Him” (Col. 1:16)., Therefore, the Son Himself, is not a creature. [18] Furthermore, since the proper action of anything at all follows its very nature, a thing’s proper action is fitting to nothing to which the nature of that thing is not fitting; thus, what does not have the human species does not have the human action. Now, the proper actions of God belong to the Son: to create (as already shown), to contain and conserve all things in being; and to wipe away sins. That these are proper to God is clear from the foregoing. But of the Son it is said that “by Him all things consist” (Col. 1: 3-7); and that He upholds “all things by the word of His power, making purgation of sins” (Heb. 1:3). The Son of God, then, is of the divine nature, and is not a creature. [19] But because an Arian might say that the Son does these things not as a principal agent, but as an instrument of the principal agent which acts not by its own power but by the power of the principal agent, our Lord excluded this argument, saying in John (5:19): “what things soever the Father doth, these the Son also doth in like manner.” Then, just as the Father operates of Himself and by His proper power, so also does the Son. [20] A still further conclusion from this saying is that virtue and power are identified in the Son and the Father. For He says that the Son works not only like the Father but the same things “in like manner.” But the same operation cannot be performed by two agents unless in dissimilarity: as the same thing done by a principal agent and its instrument; or, if in similarity, it must be that the agents come together in one power. Now, this power is sometimes collected from diverse powers in diverse agents, as when many men draw up a boat, for they all draw it up in the same way, and because the power of each is imperfect and insufficient for that effect, from the diverse powers is collected one power of them all which is sufficient for drawing up the boat. But, one cannot say this in the case of the Father and the Son, for the power of the Father is not imperfect but infinite, as was shown in Book I. There must, then, be numerical identity in the power of the Father and the Son. And since power follows nature, there must be numerical identity in the nature and essence of the Father and the Son. This also can be concluded from the things that were said earlier. For, if in the Son there is the divine nature (as has been shown in many ways), and if the divine nature cannot be multiplied as was shown in Book I, it follows necessarily that there is numerical identity of nature and essence in the Father and the Son. [21] Again, our beatitude is ultimately in God alone, in whom alone also the hope of man must be placed, to whom alone also the honor of adoration must be given, as was shown in Book III. But our beatitude is in the Son of God. For He says in John (17:3): “This is eternal life: that they may know You,” namely, the Father, “and Jesus Christ whom You hast sent.” And 1 John (5:20) says of the Son that He is “true God and life eternal,” Now, it is certain that by the name “life eternal” the sacred Scripture signifies ultimate beatitude. Isaiah also says of the Son, as the Apostle brings out: “‘there shall be a root of Jesse, and He that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles shall hope” (Rom. 15:12, Isa. 11:10). It is said also in a Psalm (71:11): “And all the kings of the earth shall adore Him; all nations shall serve Him.” And John (5:23): “That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father.” And again a Psalm (96:7) says: “Adore Him, all you His angels.” That this is said of the Son the Apostle sets forth in Hebrews (1:6). Manifestly, therefore, the Son of God is true God. [22] The arguments are also valid for establishing this point which were previously used against Photinus to show that Christ is not made God but true God. [23] Taught, therefore, by those mentioned and very similar testimonies of sacred Scripture, the Catholic Church maintains that Christ is the true and natural Son of God, eternal, equal to the Father, true God, identical in essence and nature with the Father, begotten, not created, and not made. [24] Wherefore it is clear that only in the Catholic Church does faith truly confess generation in God, when it relates the very generation of the Son to this: the Son has received the divine nature from the Father. But others who are heretics relate this generation to some extraneous nature: Photinus and Sabellius to human nature, indeed; Arius, however, to some created nature more worthy than all other creatures. Arius also differs from Sabellius and Photinus in this: the former asserts that such generation was before the world was; the latter two deny that it was before the birth from the Virgin. Sabellius nevertheless differs from Photinus in this: Sabellius confesses that Christ is true and natural God, but Photinus does not; neither does Arius. Photinus holds that He is pure man; Arius, that He is a kind of mixture of a certain very excellent creature both divine and human. The latter two, however, confess that the Person of the Father is other than the Person of the Son; this Sabellius denies. [25] Therefore, the Catholic faith, keeping to the middle road, holds with Arius and Pbotinus against Sabellius that the Person of the Father is other than the Person of the Son, that the Son is begotten, but the Father entirely unbegotten; but with Sabellius against Photinus and Arius that Christ is true and natural God, the same in nature as the Father, although not the same in person. And from this, also, an indication of the Catholic truth can be gathered. For, as the Philosopher says, [ Prior Analytics II, 2] even falsehoods give witness, for falsehoods stand apart not only from the truth but from one another.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE AUTHORITIES WHICH ARIUS PROPOSED FOR HIMSELF

[1] Since, however, truth cannot be truth’s contrary, it is obvious that the points of Scriptural truth introduced by the Arians to confirm their error cannot be helpful to their teaching. For, since it was shown from divine Scripture that the essence and divine nature of the Father and Son are numerically identical, and according to this each is called true God, it must be that the Father and Son cannot be two gods, but one God. For, if there were many gods, a necessary consequence would be the partition in each of the essence of divinity, just as in two men the humanity differs in number from one to the other; and the more so because the divine nature is not one thing and God Himself another. This was shown above. From this it follows necessarily that, since there exists one divine nature in the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son are one God. Therefore, although we confess that the Father is God and the Son God, we are not withdrawing from the teaching which sets down that there is one only God, which we established both by reasonings and by authorities in Book I. Hence, although there is one only true God, we confess that this is predicated of the Father and of the Son. [2] When our Lord, therefore, speaking to the Father, says “that they may know You the only true God,” it is not so to be understood that the Father alone is true God, as though the Son is not true God (the contrary is proved clearly by Scriptural testimony); but it must be understood that the one sole true deity belongs to the Father, in such wise, nonetheless, that the Son is not excluded therefrom. Hence, it is significant that our Lord does not say: “that they may know the one only true God,” as though He alone be God, but said: “that they may know You,” and added “the only true God” to show that the Father, whose Son He insisted He was, is the God in whom one finds that only true divinity. And because a true son must be of the same nature as his father, it follows that the only true divinity belongs to the Son, rather than that the Son is excluded from it. Wherefore John, also, at the end of his first canonical Epistle (5:20)—expounding, as it were, these words of our Lord—attributes to the true Son each of the things which our Lord here says of the Father; namely, that He is true God and that in Him is eternal life. John says (5:20): “That we may know the true God, and may be in His true Son. He is the true God and life eternal.” If the Son had nevertheless confessed that the Father alone is true God, one would not for this reason need to understand that the Son is excluded from true divinity. For, since the Father and Son are one God, as was shown, whatever is said of the Father by reason of divinity is the same as if it were said of the Son, and conversely. For, by reason of the fact that our Lord says: “No one knows the Son but the Father: neither does any one know the Father but the Son” (Mat. 11:27), it is not understood that the Father is excluded from knowledge of Himself, or that the Son is. [3] It is also clear from this that the true divinity of the Son is not excluded by the words of the Apostle: “Which in His times He shall show who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” In these words the Father is not named, but that which is common to the Father and the Son. That the Son is the King of kings and Lord of lords is manifestly shown in the Apocalypse (19:13), which says: “He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood; and His name is called THE WORD OF GOD”; and adds below: “And He has on His garment and on His thigh written: KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (19:i6). Nor is the Son excluded from that which is added: “Who only has immortality,” since He also bestows immortality on those who believe in Him. Thus, John (11: 26) says: “Who believes in Me shall not die for ever.” But what is added,” “Whom no man has seen, nor can see,” certainly is also suitable to the Son, since our Lord says: “No one knows the Son but the Father” (Mat. 11:27). To this it is not an objection that He appeared visibly, for this was according to the flesh. However, He is invisible in His deity just as the Father is; wherefore the Apostle says in the same Epistle (1 Tim. 3:16): “Evidently great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh.” Nor are we forced to understand these sayings of the Father alone because it is said that there must be one who shows and another who is shown. The Son also shows Himself, for He says: “He that loves Me shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21.). Accordingly, we also say to Him: “Shew us your face, and we shall be saved” (Ps. 79:4). [4] But how the saying of our Lord, “The Father is greater than I” must be understood we are taught by the”Apostle. Since “greater” is referred to ‘lesser,” one must understand that this is said of the Son so far as He is lessened. Now, the Apostle shows that He is lessened by taking on the servile form—in such wise, however, that in the divine form He exists the equal of God the Father, for he says: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7). Nor is it wondrous if for this reason the Father be said to be greater than He, since He was even made lesser than the angels; the Apostle says: “We see Jesus, who was made a little lesser than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour” (Heb. 2:9). From this it is also clear that in the same way the Son is said to be “subject to the Father”; namely, in His human nature. This is to be gathered from the very context of the expression. For the Apostle had already said: “For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead”; and afterwards he had subjoined: “Everyone shall rise in his own order: the firstfruits Christ, then they that are of Christ”; and later he added: “Afterwards the end, when He shall have de, livered up the kingdom to God and the Father”; and when he has shown what sort of kingdom this is, namely, that things must be subject to it, he consequently subjoins: “When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him that put all things under Him” (1 Cor. 15:23-28). The very context of the expression, therefore, shows that this ought to be understood of Christ so far as He is man, for thus did He die and rise again. Now, in His divinity, since “whatever He does the Father does,” as was shown, He Himself also subjects all things to Himself; wherefore the Apostle says: “We look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). [5] From the fact that the Father is said in the Scriptures “to give!” to the Son—from which it follows that He “receives”—one cannot show any indigence in Him.” But this is required by His being the Son, for He could not be called Son if He were not begotten by the Father. For everything which is generated receives from the generator the nature of the generator. Therefore, by this giving of the Father to the Son is understood nothing but the generation of the Son in which the Father gave the Son His nature. This very thing can be understood from that which is given. For our Lord says: “That which My Father has given Me is greater than all” (John 10:29). But that which is greater than all is the divine nature, in which the Son is equal to the Father. And this our Lord’s very words show, for He had said before that no man should pluck His sheep from His hand (John 10:28-30). For proof of this He introduces the word stated; namely, that which is given to Him by the Father is greater than all, and that “out of the hand of My Father”—as He adds—nothing can be plucked.” From this it follows that neither can it be plucked from the hand of the Son. But this would not follow unless through that which is given to Him by the Father He were equal to the Father. And so, to explain this more clearly, He adds: “I and the Father are one.” Similarly, the Apostle also says that God “has given Him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2:9-10). But the name higher than all names which every creature venerates is none other than the name of divinity. By this giving, therefore, the generation itself is understood in which the Father gave the Son true divinity. The same thing is shown by His saying that “all things are delivered to Me by My Father” (Mat. 11:27). But all things would not be given to Him unless “all the fullness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9) which is in the Father were in the Son. [6] Thus, by asserting that the Father has given to Him He therefore confesses that He is the true Son-against Sabellius. Yet, from the greatness of that which is given He confesses that He is equal to the Father—so Arius is confounded. Clearly, therefore, such gift-giving does not indicate indigence in the Son. He was not the Son before He was given to Himself, since His generation is the very gift-giving. Nor does the fullness of the given allow that He can be in need to whom this gift was clearly made. [7] Nor is this an obstacle to what has been said: that one reads in Scripture that the Father has given to the Son at a point in time; our Lord after the Resurrection, for example, says to the disciples: “All power has been given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mat. 28:18); and the Apostle speaks of the cause for which God “exalted” Christ and “gave Him a name which is above all names” (Phil. 2:8-9), that is, He had become “obedient unto death,” as though He has not had this name from eternity. For it is usual of Scripture to say that some things are or are made when they begin to be known. Now, the fact that the Son has from eternity received all power and the divine name was made known to the world after the Resurrection by the preaching of the disciples. And this, too, the words of our Lord reveal. For our Lord says: “Glorify Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was” (John 17:5). For He asks that His glory which eternally He has received from the Father as God be declared to be in Him now made man. [8] Now, from this it is manifest how the Son is taught, although He is not ignorant. For it was shown in Book II that in God to understand and to be are identical. Wherefore, communication of the divine nature is also the communication of understanding. Now, the communication of understanding can be called “showing” or “speech” or “teaching.” By reason of the fact, then, that the Son received the divine nature in His birth from the Father, it is said that He has “heard something from the Father,” or that the Father “has shown Him something,” or one reads something else like this in the Scriptures; but not that first the Son was ignorant or did not know and afterward the Father taught Him. For the Apostle confesses: “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). Now, it is not possible that wisdom be ignorant, nor that power be feeble. [9] The saying also, then, “the Son cannot do anything of Himself,’” does not point to any Weakness of action in the Son. But, because for God to act is not other than to be, and His action is not other than His essence, as was proved above, so one says that the Son cannot act from Himself but only from the Father, just as He is not able to be from Himself but only from the Father. For, if He were from Himself, He would no longer be the Son. Therefore, just as the Son cannot not be the Son, so neither can He act of Himself. However, because the Son receives the same nature as the Father and, consequently, the same power, although the Son neither is of Himself nor operates of Himself, He nevertheless is through Himself and operates through Himself, since just as He is through His own nature received from the Father, so He operates through His own nature received from the Father. Hence, after our Lord had said: “the Son cannot do anything of Himself,” to show that, although the Son does not operate of Himself, He does operate through Himself, He adds: “Whatever He does”—namely, the Father—“these the Son does likewise.” [10] From the foregoing it also is clear how “the Father commands the Son” or “the Son obeys the Father” or “the Son prays to the Father” or “is sent by the Father.” For, all these things are suitable to the Son inasmuch as He is subject to the Father. And this is only according to the humanity He has assumed, as was shown. The Father, therefore, commands the Son as subject to Him in His human nature. The very words of our Lord make this clear. For, when our Lord says “that the world may know that I love the Father: and as the Father has given Me commandment, so do I,” (John 24:31), what the commandment is is shown by what is added: “Arise, let us go hence.” He said this approaching His passion. But the commandment to suffer clearly pertains to the Son only in His human nature. In the same way, where He says: “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love,” (John 15:10), these precepts clearly pertain to the Son as He is loved by the Father as man; just as He loved His disciples as men. That the Father’s commandments to the Son must be understood as pertaining to the human nature assumed by the Son is shown by the Apostle. He calls the Son obedient to the Father in the things which belong to His human nature, for he says: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). The Apostle also shows that praying belongs to the Son in His human nature, for he says: “Who in the days of His flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to Him that was able to save Him from death, was heard for His reverence” (Heb. 5:7). The way in which He “was sent” by the Father is also shown by the Apostle. “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). He is, therefore, said to be sent in that He was made of a woman, and certainly this belongs to Him in the flesh He has assumed. Clearly, then, in none of these can it be shown that the Son is subject to the Father except in His human nature. For all that, one should recognize that the Son is said to be sent by the Father invisibly and as divine, without prejudice to His equality to the Father, as will he shown below when we deal with the sending of the Holy Spirit. [11] It is clear, and in the same way, that from the fact that “the Son is glorified by the Father” or “raised up” or “exalted” one cannot show that the Son is less than the Father except in His human nature. For, the Son needs no glory as one who receives new glory, since He professes that He had it “before the world was” (John 17:5). But His glory, hidden under the weakness of the flesh, necessarily had to be manifested by the glorification of the flesh, and the working of miracles, in the faith of peoples believing. Hence, of His glory being hidden, Isaiah (53:3) says: “His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.” And the way in which Christ was raised up is like the way He s ere and died, that is, in the flesh. For it says in 1 Peter (4:1): “Christ having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought.” To be exalted also became Him in the way in which He was humiliated, for the Apostle says: “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death.... For which cause God also has exalted Him” (Phil. 2:8-9). [12] Thus, then, the fact that the Father glorifies, raises up, and exalts the Son does not show that the Son is less than the Father, except in His human nature. For, in the divine nature by which He is equal to the Father, the power of the Father and the Son is the same and their operation is the same. Hence, the Son Himself exalts Himself by His own power, as the Psalmist says: “Be Thou. exalted, O Lord, in your own strength” (Ps. 70:14). He Himself raises Himself up, because He says of Himself: “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again!” (John 10:18). He also glorifies not Himself alone, but the Father as well, for in John (17:1) He says: “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify You.” This is not because the Father is hidden by the veil of flesh He has assumed, but by the invisibility of His nature. In this way the Son also is hidden according to the divine nature, for common to both Father and Son is the saying of Isaiah (45:35): “Verily You are a bidden God, the God of Israel, the savior.” The Son, of course, glorifies the Father, not by giving Him glory, but by manifesting Him to the world; for He Himself says in the same place: “I have manifested your name to men” (John 17:6). [13] One must not, however, believe that in the Son of God there is any failure of power, since He Himself says: “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mat. 28:18). Hence, His own saying, “To sit on My right or left hand is not Mine to give to you, but to those for whom it is prepared by My Father” (cf. Mat. 20:23), does not show that the Son lacks the power of distribution over the seats of heaven, since by seating of this kind one understands participation in eternal life, and that its bestowal belongs to Him He shows when He says: “My sheep hear My voice: and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting” (John 10: 27). One reads also: “The Father has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22); and it does belong to judgment that some are to be established in heavenly glory according to their merits. Hence, we read that the Son of Man “shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left” (Mat. 25:33). It does, then, belong to the Son’s power to set someone on His. right hand or His left. This is true if each of these acts refers to differing participation in glory, or if the one refers to glory and the other to punishment. Therefore, one must take the meaning of the sentence proposed (Mat. 20: 23) from what went before it Now, this is what went before it (Mat. 20:20-21): The mother of the sons of Zebedee had approached Jesus to ask Him that one of her sons should sit at His right hand and the other at His left. She seems to have been stimulated to this request by a certain confidence in her close blood relationship to the man, Christ. Our Lord, then, in His answer did not say that it did not belong to His power to give what was asked, but that it did not belong to Him to give it to those for whom it was asked. For He did not say: “To sit on My right hand or My left is not Mine to give anyone.” Indeed, He shows rather that it is His to give to “those for whom it is prepared” by His Father. For to give this was not proper to Him as the Son of the Virgin, but as the Son of God. Accordingly, this favor was not His to give to some just because they belonged to Him in so far as He was the Virgin’s Son, that is, in close blood relationship. It was His to give to those who belonged to Him as the Son of God; namely, to those for whom it had been prepared by the Father through eternal predestination. But, that this very preparation is included in the power of the Son, our Lord Himself indicates, saying: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). The many mansions are the different grades of participation in beatitude, which in predestination God has eternally prepared. When, therefore, our Lord says: “If not,” that is, if there were a deficiency of mansions prepared for the men who are to enter into beatitude, and adds: “I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you,” He is showing that preparation of this sort belongs to His power. [14] Nor, again, can it be understood that the Son is ignorant of the hour of His coming, since in Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 7:3), as the Apostle says, and since He knows perfectly that which is greater; namely, the Father (Mat. 11:27). But one must understand here that the Son, set as a man among men, considered Himself as ignoring something so long as He did not reveal it to His disciples. For it is usual in Scripture to say that God knows something if He makes someone know it; so we find in Genesis (22:12): “Now I know that you feart God,” that is, “now I have made men begin to know it.” Thus, conversely, the Son is said not to know that which He does not make us know. [15] Sorrow, of course, and fear, and other things of this sort manifestly belong to Christ so far as He is man. Hence, one cannot apprehend in this fact any lessening of the divinity of the Son. [16] Consider, now, the saying that wisdom “is created.” First of all, one can understand it not of the Wisdom which is the Son of God, but of the wisdom which God bestowed on creatures. For one reads in Sirach (1:9-10): “He created her,” namely, wisdom, “in the Holy Spirit.... and He poured her out upon all His works.” One can also refer this to the created nature assumed by the Son. Then the meaning is: “From the beginning, and before the world, was I created” (Sirach 24:14); that is, “I was foreseen in union with a creature.” Or it may be that Wisdom is named (cf. Prov. 8:24-25), since both “created” and “begotten” suggest to us the mode of divine generation. For in generation the begotten receives the nature of him who begets, and this is a mark of perfection. But, in the generations which take place among us, he who begets is himself changed, and this is a mark of imperfection. In creation, on the other hand, the creator is not changed, but the created does not receive the nature of the creator. Therefore, the Son is called “created” and “begotten” at the very same time, that from creation one may gather the immutability of the Father, and from generation the unity of nature in the Father and the Son. It was thus that the Synod expounded the meaning of this sort of Scriptural expression. Hilary makes this clear [ De synodis, 17-18]. [17] However, that the Son is called the “first-born of every creature” is not because the Son is in the order of creatures, but because the Son both is from the Father and receives from the Father, from whom creatures both are and receive. But the Son receives from the Father the very same nature; creatures do not. Hence, the Son is not called merely “first begotten,” but “only-begotten” as well (John 1:18), by reason of His unique manner of receiving from the Father. [18] Now, our Lord says to the Father about the disciples: “that they may be one, as We also are one” (John 17:22). This only shows that the Father and Son are one in the way in which the disciples should be one, namely, through love. Nevertheless, this mode of union does not exclude unity of essence; rather, it points to it, for John (3:35) says. “The Father loves the Son: and He has given all things into His hand.” By this is the fullness of divinity shown to be in the Son, as was said. [19] Thus, then, it is clear that the testimonies of the Scriptures which the Arians were taking for themselves are not hostile to the truth which the Catholic faith maintains.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE AUTHORITIES OF PHOTINUS AND OF SABELLIUS

[1] From these considerations, of course, it appears that the points from Scripture which both Photinus and Sabellius used to bring up in support of their opinions cannot confirm their errors. [2] For what our Lord says after the resurrection, “All power has been given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mat. 2-8: 18), is not said for this reason: that at that time He had newly received this power; but for this reason: that the power which the Son of God had eternally received had—because of the victory He had had over death by resurrection—begun to appear in the same Son made man. [3] Now, as to the Apostle’s word concerning the Son, “Who was made to Him of the seed of David” (Rom. 1:3), one sees clearly how it should be understood from the addition: “according to the flesh.” For he did not say that the Son of God had been made simply, but that He had been made of the seed of David, according to the flesh,” by the assumption of human nature as John (1:14) puts it: “The Word was made flesh.” Hence, also, the following phrase—“Who was predestinated the Son of God in power”—clearly refers to the Son in His human nature. For, that a human nature he united to the Son of God, that thus a man could be called the Son of God, was not a matter of human merit. It was by the grace of God’s predestination. [4] In a, similar fashion, what the Apostle says in Philippians, “God exalted Christ through the merit of His passion,” must be referred to the human nature; the humility of the passion was in this human nature. Hence, also, what follows—“He has given Him a name which is above all names”— must be referred to this: the name belonging to the Son in His eternal birth had to be manifested in the peoples’ faith as belonging to the incarnate Son. [5] In this way it also is plain that what Peter says, “God has made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus,” (Acts 2:36), must be referred to the Son in His human nature; in which He began to have temporally what He had in the nature of divinity eternally. [6] The point which Sabellius introduces on the unity of the Deity—“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord” and “See that I alone am, and there is no other God besides Me”—is not hostile to the teaching of the Catholic faith, which holds that the Father and the Son are not two gods, but one God, as we said before. [7] In the same way, the sayings, “ne Father who abides in Me, He doth the works,” and “I am in the Father and the Father in Me,” do not show a unity of person, as Sabellius chose to understand, but that unity of essence which Arius denied. For, if there were one person of the Father and the Son, one could not say suitably that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, since properly the same supposit is not said to be in its very self; this is said only with reference to its parts. For, seeing that parts are in a whole, and that what is proper to parts can be attributed to a whole, sometimes a whole is said to he in itself. But this manner of speech does not suit speech about divinity, in which there can be no parts, as was shown in Book I. It remains true, then, that, when the Father is said to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, the Father and Son are not identical in supposit. One can see from this that the essence of the Father and the Son is one. For, once this is given, it is very clear in what way the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. For, since the Father is His essence, because in God essence is not other than what has essence, as we showed in Book I, it follows that in anything in which the essence of the Father is the Father is; and by the same reasoning in anything in which the essence of the Son is the Son is. Hence, since the essence of the Father is in the Son and the essence of the Son in the Father, because the essence of each of the two is one essence (as the Catholic faith teaches), it clearly follows that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. Thus, the selfsame saying (John 14:11) confutes the error of Sabellius as well as that of Arius.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS AGAINST DIVINE GENERATION AND PROCESSION

[1] When all things are carefully considered, it is clear and manifest that sacred Scripture proposes this for belief about the divine generation: that the Father and Son, although distinguished as persons, are nevertheless one God and have one essence or nature. But one finds this far removed from the nature of creatures: that any two be distinguished in supposit, yet one in their essence; so, human reason, proceeding from the properties of things, experiences difficulties in a great variety of ways in this secret of divine generation. [2.] Since the generation known to us is a certain mutation to which corruption is opposed, it seems hard to put generation in God, who is immutable, incorruptible, and eternal, as is clear from the foregoing. [3] If generation, moreover, is a change, whatever is generated must be changeable. But what is changed goes from potency to act, for “change is the act of the potential as such.” If, therefore, the Son of God is begotten, He is not eternal, it seems, as one going from potency to act; nor is He true God, since He is not pure act, but something which has potentiality. [4] The begotten, furthermore, receives its nature from the generator. If, then, the Son is begotten by the Father, it follows that He has received the nature which He has from the Father. But it is not possible that He has received from the Father a nature numerically other than the Father has, but the same in species, as happens in univocal generations, when man generates man, or fire, fire. For we showed above the impossibility of a numerical plurality of deities. It seems equally impossible that He has received nature numerically the same as the Father has. For, if He receives a part of it, it follows that the divine nature is divisible; but, if the whole is transfused into the Son, it ceases to be in the Father; and so, in generation, the Father is corrupted. Nor, again, can it be said that by a kind of exuberance the divine nature flows from the Father to the Son, as the water of a spring flows into a stream and the spring is not emptied, for the divine nature cannot be divided, just as it cannot be increased. It seems, therefore, to remain that the Son has received from the Father a nature which is neither in number nor in species the same as the Father’s, but of another genus altogether. This is what happens in equivocal generation when animals born of putrefaction are generated by the power of the sun, but do not belong to its species. It follows, then, that the Son of God is neither a true Son, since the Father’s species is not His; nor true God, since He does not receive the divine nature. [5] If the Son, again, receives a nature from God the Father, the recipient in Him must be other than the nature received, for nothing receives itself. The Son, then, is not His own essence or nature. Therefore, He is not true God. [6] Moreover, let the Son be not other than the divine essence; let the divine essence be something subsistent, as was proved in Book I; clearly, the Father, also, is the divine essence. The conclusion appears to be that the Father and Son coincide in the very same subsisting thing. Now, “the subsistent thing in intellectual natures is called a person.” It follows, then, that if the Son is Himself the divine essence the Father and the Son coincide in person. But if the Son is not the very divine essence He is not true God. For we proved this about God in Book I. It seems, therefore, either that the Son was not true God, as Arius used to say, or that personally He is not other than the Father, as Sabellius asserted. [7] Furthermore, that in a thing which is the principle of its individuation cannot possibly be in a second thing distinguished as a supposit from the first. For what is in many is not a principle of individuation. But the essence of God is that by which God is individuated, for the essence of God is not a form in matter so that God could be individuated by matter. There is, therefore, nothing in God the Father by which He might be individuated except His essence. Therefore, His essence cannot be in any other supposit. His essence, therefore, is not in the Son, and so the Son is not true God, following Arius; or the Son is not other in supposit than the Father, and so the Person of each is the same, following Sabellius. [8] Again, if the Father and Son are two supposits or two Persons, yet are one in essence, there must be in them something other than the essence by which they are distinguished, for a common essence is ascribed to each and what is common cannot be a distinguishing principle. Therefore, that which distinguishes the Father from the Son must be other than the divine essence. The Person of the Son, then, is a composite of two, and so is the Person of the Father a composite of two: the common essence and the distinguishing principle. Therefore, each of the two is a composite and neither of the two is true God. [9] But one may say that they are distinguished by a relation only, inasmuch as one is the Father, the other the Son. What is predicated relatively, however, seems not to predicate a something in that of which it is said, but rather a to something. Thus, by such predication no composition is brought in. But this answer appears not adequate for avoiding the awkward results just mentioned. [10] For there can be no relation without something absolute. In whatever is relative there must be understood that which is said of itself (ad se) and, additionally, that which is said referring to another (ad aliud). Thus is something said absolutely of “servant” and, additionally, something is said referring “to the master.” Therefore, that relation by which the Father and the Son are distinguished must have something absolute on which it is founded. Now, then, either that absolute is one only, or there are two absolutes. If it is one only, a twofold relation cannot be founded upon it, unless, of course, it be a relation of identity which can produce no distinction-as when one says that the same is the same as the same. Therefore, if the relation be such that it calls for a distinction, there must be a prior understanding of a distinction of absolutes. Accordingly, it does not seem possible that the Persons of the Father and the Son are distinguished by relations only. [11] One ought, along the same line, to say that the relation which distinguishes the Son from the Father either is a thing or is in the intellect alone. Let it, then, be a thing, and it seems not to be that thing which is the divine essence, since the divine essence is common to the Father and the Son. Therefore, in the Son there will be something which is not His essence. Thus, He is not true God, for we showed in Book I that there is nothing in God which is not His essence. But let that relation be in the intellect only, and it cannot, then, distinguish the Son from the Father personally, for things which are personally distinguished must be really distinguished. [12] Again, every relative depends on its correlative. But what depends on another is not true God. If, then, the persons of the Father and the Son are distinguished by relations, neither of them is true God. [13] If the Father, moreover, is God and the Son is God, this name “God” ought to be predicated substantially of the Father and the Son, since divinity cannot be an accident.” But a substantial predicate is truly that of which it is predicated. For, when one says “Man is animal,” what is truly man is animal; in the same way, when one says “Socrates is man,” what is truly Socrates is man. And from this there seems to follow the impossibility of discovering a plurality on the part of the subjects when there is unity on the part of the substantial predicate: Socrates and Plato are not one man, although they are one in humanity. Nor are man and ass one animal, although they are one in animal. Therefore, if the Father and the Son are two Persons, it seems impossible that they are one God. [14] Opposed predicates, furthermore, show a plurality in that of which they are predicated. But opposites are predicated of God the Father and of God the Son. The Father is God unbegotten and generating, but the Son is God begotten. Therefore, it does not seem possible that the Father and Son are one God. [15] These, then, and others like these are the arguments by which some whose will it is to measure divine mysteries by their own reason strive to attack divine generation. But, because truth is strong in itself and is overcome by no attack, it must be our intention to show that the truth of faith cannot he overcome by reason.

Chapter

HOW GENERATION IS TO 13E UNDERSTOOD IN DIVINITY, AND WHAT IS SAID OF THE SON OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE [1] As starting point for this intention, one must take this: Following a diversity of natures, one finds a diverse manner of emanation in things, and, the higher a nature is, the more intimate to the nature is that which flows from it. [2] For, in all things, inanimate bodies have the lowest place. There can be no emanations in these except by the action of some one upon another one. For this is the way in which fire is generated by fire, when an extraneous body is changed by the fire and is brought to the quality and species of fire. [3] Among animate bodies the next place is held by the plants, and in these the emanation does proceed somewhat from what is within: to the extent, namely, that the internal humor of the plant is converted into seed and that the seed committed to the soil grows into a plant. Here, then, one has already found the first grade of life, for living things are those which move themselves to action, but those which can move only things external to them are entirely devoid of life. And in plants this is the mark of life: that which is within, them moves toward some form. The life of plants is nevertheless imperfect; this is because, although the emanation in plants proceeds from what is within, what comes forth little by little in the emanation is, at the end, found to be entirely external. For the humor first emerging from the tree becomes a blossom, and at length a fruit distinct from the tree’s bark, yet still fastened to it. But, when the fruit is perfected, it is separated from the tree altogether; it falls to the ground and its seeding power produces another plant. If one also considers this carefully, he will see that originally this emanation comes from what is external, for the internal humor of the tree is taken through the roots from the soil from which the plant receives nourishment. [4] Beyond the life of plants one finds a higher grade of life: that of the sensitive soul. Its emanation may have an external beginning, but has an internal termination, and, the more fully the emanation proceeds, the more it reaches what is within. For the exterior sensible impresses its form on the exterior senses; from these it proceeds to the imagination and, further, to the storehouse of the memory. Nevertheless, in each step of this emanation the principle and the term refer to different things; no sensitive power reflects upon itself. This grade of life, then, is higher than the life of plants—higher to the extent that its operation takes place within the principles which are within; it is, nevertheless, not an entirely perfect life, since the emanation is always from some first to some second. [5] That, then, is the supreme and perfect grade of life which is in the intellect, for the intellect reflects upon itself and the intellect can understand itself. But even in the intellectual life one finds diverse grades. For the human intellect, although it can know itself, does indeed take the first beginning of its knowledge from without, because it cannot understand without a phantasm, as is clear from the things said before. There is, therefore, a more perfect intellectual life in the angels. In them the intellect does not proceed to self-knowledge from anything exterior, but knows itself through itself. Nonetheless, it is not the ultimate perfection to which their life belongs. The reason is this: Although the intention understood is entirely intrinsic to them, the very intention understood is not their substance, for in them understanding is not identified with being (as is clear from the foregoing). Therefore, the ultimate perfection of life belongs to God, in whom understanding is not other than being, as has been shown; accordingly, the intention understood in God must be the divine essence itself. [6] Now, I mean by the “intention understood” what the intellect conceives in itself of the thing understood. To be sure, in us this is neither the thing which is understood nor is it the very substance of the intellect. But it is a certain likeness of the thing understood conceived in the intellect, and which the exterior words signify. So, the intention itself is named the “interior word” which is signified by the exterior word. Indeed, that the intention aforesaid is not within us the thing understood is clear from this: It is one thing to understand a thing, and another to understand the intention itself, yet the intellect does so when it reflects on its own work; accordingly, some sciences are about things, and others are about intentions understood. Now, that the intention understood is not the very intellect within us is clear from this: The act of being of the intention understood consists in its very being understood; the being of our intellect does not so consist; its being is not its act of understanding. [7] Since in God, therefore, being and understanding are identical, the intention understood in Him is His very intellect. And because understanding in Him is the thing understood (for by understanding Himself He understands all other things, as was shown in Book I), it follows that in God, because He understands Himself, the intellect, the thing understood, and the intention understood are all identical. [8] From these considerations, then, we can somehow conceive how divine generation is to be taken. For, it is clearly impossible that divine generation is to be taken as one finds generation in inanimate things wherein the generating thing impresses its species on an exterior matter. For, as the faith sets down, the Son begotten by the Father must have true deity and be true God. But deity is not a form inhering in matter, nor is God a form existing out of matter, as was proved in Book I. In the same way, divine generation cannot be taken in the mode of the generation one finds in plants, and even in animals which have nutritive and generative powers in common with plants. For something which was in the plant or the animal is separated from it for the generation of one like it in species, and this, at the term of generation, is entirely outside the generator. But, since God is indivisible, nothing can be separated from Him. The very Son begotten by the Father is not outside the Father, but in Him (which is clear from the authorities cited above). Neither can one understand divine generation in the manner of emanation found in the sensitive soul. For, God does not receive from something exterior so as to able to influence some second thing, He would not then be the primary agent. Nor are the operations of the sensitive soul completed without bodily instruments. But, God is manifestly incorporeal. We are, therefore, left to understand the divine generation according to an intellectual emanation. [9] This should be made clear in the following way. It is manifest, on the basis of Book I, that God understands Himself. Now, whatever is understood should, as understood, be in him who understands, for the significance of the very act of understanding is this: the grasping of that which is understood by an intellect; hence, even our intellect understanding itself is within itself, not only as identified with itself by its essence, but also as grasped by itself in the act of understanding. God, therefore, must be in Himself as the thing understood in him who understands. But, the thing understood is in him who understands the intention understood and the word. There is, therefore, in God understanding Himself the Word of God, as it were, God understood; so the intellect’s word of the stone is the stone understood. And to this point is the saying in John (1:1): “The Word was with God.” [10] The divine intellect, of course, since it does not pass from potency to act, but is always actually existent (which was proved in Book I), must necessarily have always understood itself. And from its understanding of itself it follows that the Word of that intellect is in it; this has been shown. Therefore, His Word necessarily always existed in God. His Word, then, is co-eternal with God, and is not acquired by Him in time, as our intellect acquires in time its interiorly conceived word which is the intention understood. Hence is the saying in John (1:1): “In the beginning was the Word.” [11] Now, since the divine intellect is not only always in act, but is itself pure act, as we proved in Book I, the substance of the divine intellect must be its very act of understanding, and this is the act of the intellect. But the being of the Word interiorly conceived, or intention understood, is the very act of being understood. Therefore, the being of the divine Word is identical with that of the divine intellect and, consequently, with that of God, who is His own intellect. The being of God, of course, is His essence or nature, which is the same as God Himself, as was shown in Book I. The Word of God, therefore, is the divine being and His essence, and is true God Himself. Of course, such is not the case with the word of the human intellect. For, when our intellect understands itself, the being of the intellect is one being, and that of its act of understanding another, for the substance of the intellect was in potency to understanding before it actually understood. Consequently, the being of the intention understood is one being and that of the intellect itself is another being, since the being of the intention understood is the very being understood. Necessarily, then, in a man understanding himself, the word interiorly conceived is not a true man having the natural being of man, but is only man understood, a kind of likeness, as it were, of the true man which the intellect grasps. But the Word of God, precisely because He is God understood, is true God, having the divine being naturally, because the natural being of God is not one being and that of His understanding another, as was said. This is why it says in John (1:1): “God was the Word.” The fact that this is said absolutely shows that the Word of God must be understood to be true God. For the word of man could not be called “man” simply and absolutely, but relatively: namely, “man understood”; hence, this would be false: “ man is a word”; but this can be true: “man understood is a word.” When, therefore, this is said: “God was the Word,” this is shown: The divine Word is not merely an intention understood, as our word is, but it is also a thing existing and subsisting in nature. For God is a true subsistent thing, since His is substantial being in the highest degree. [12] But the nature of God is not in the Word of God thus: it is one in species and differs in number. The way in which the Word has the nature of God is the way in which God’s act of understanding is His very being, as was said. Now, the act of understanding is the divine being itself. The Word, therefore, has the divine essence itself; has it with an identity not only of species but of number. A nature, again, which is one in species, is not divided into a numerical many except by reason of matter. But the divine nature is entirely immaterial. It is, therefore, impossible that the divine nature be specifically one and numerically different. The Word of God, therefore, has a nature in common with God and has it with numerical identity. For this reason the Word of God and the God whose Word He is are not two gods, but one God. For the fact that among us two who have human nature are two men hinges on the fact that human nature is numerically divided in those two. But we showed in Book II that things which are divided in creatures are in God simply one being; thus, in creatures the essence is one thing and the act of being another; and in some creatures even what subsists in the essence is one thing, and its essence or nature another; for this man is neither his humanity nor his act of being. But God is both His essence and His act of being. [13] And although in God these are most truly one, there is still in God whatever belongs to the notion of a subsistent, or of essence, or of being itself: for it is suitable to Him that He should not be in something, in that He is subsistent; that He be what He is, in that He is essence; and that He be in act, by reason of His act of being. Therefore, since in God the one understanding, the act of understanding, and the intention understood are the same as His own Word, there must most truly be in God that which belongs to the notion of the one understanding, that which belongs to the notion of the act of understanding, and that which belongs to the notion of the intention understood, or word. But in the essence of interior word which is the intention understood there is this: that it proceeds from the one understanding in accord with his act of understanding, since it is, so to say, the intellectual term of the operation. For, in the act of understanding, the intellect conceives and forms the intention or the essence understood, and this is the interior word. From God, therefore, in His very act of understanding must His Word proceed. The Word of God is, therefore, compared to God understanding (whose Word He is) as to Him from whom He is, for this is essential to a word. Therefore, although in God the one understanding, the act of understanding and the intention understood, or Word, are by essence one, and although for this reason each is necessarily God, there remains the distinction of relation alone, in so far as the Word is related to the one who conceives as to Him from whom He is. This is why the Evangelist, seeing that he had said: “God was the Word,” to keep one from understanding that all distinction between the Word and God speaking or conceiving the Word was taken away, added this: “This was in the beginning with God”; as though to say: “This Word, whom I have called God, is in a way distinct from God speaking, and so it can be said that He was with God.” [14] Of course, the word interiorly conceived is a kind of account and likeness of the thing understood. Now, a likeness of one thing existing in another is essentially an exemplar if it stands to the other as principle, or it is essentially an image if it is related to that whose likeness it is as to a principle. Now, in our intellect one sees an example of each of these situations. For, since the likeness of the artefact existing in the mind of the artist is the principle of the operation which constitutes the artefact, the likeness is related to the artefact as an exemplar to that exemplified; but the likeness of a natural thing conceived in our intellect is related to the thing whose likeness it is as to its beginning, for our act of understanding takes its beginning from the senses which are changed by natural things. Since, of course, God understands both Himself and other things, as was shown in Book I, His act of understanding is the principle of things understood by Him, since they are caused by His intellect and will; but His act of understanding is referred to the intelligible which He Himself is as to a beginning, for this intelligible is identified with the intellect understanding, whose emanation, so to say, is the Word conceived. Therefore, the Word of God must be referred to the other things understood by God as exemplar, and must be referred to God Himself whose Word He is as image. Hence, one reads of the Word of God in Colossians (1:15) that He is “the image of the invisible God.” [15] Now, there is a difference between intellect and sense, for sense grasps a thing in its exterior accidents, which are color, taste, quantity and others of this kind, but intellect enters into what is interior to the thing. And, since every knowledge is perfected by the likeness between the knower and the known, there must be in the sense a likeness of the thing in its sensible accidents, but in the intellect there must be a likeness of the thing understood in its essence. Therefore, the word conceived in the intellect is the image or the exemplar of the substance of the thing understood. Since, then, the Word of God is the image of God (as we have shown), it is necessarily the image of God in His essence. Hence, we have what the Apostle says, that He is “the figure of the substance of God” (Heb. 1:3). [16] However, things have images of two kinds. For there is an image which does not share the nature with that whose image it is: whether it be its image in respect to the exterior accidents (a bronze statue is the image of a man, yet is not, for all that, a man); or if it be an image in respect of the thing’s substance, for the essence of man in the intellect is not a man. The reason, as the Philosopher says, is that “it is not the stone which is present in the soul, but the species of the stone.” But the image of a thing which has the same nature with that whose image it is is like the son of a king: in him the image of his father appears and he is the same in nature as his father. Now, it was shown that the Word of God is the image of the speaker in respect of His very essence and that the Word has the very nature in common with the speaker. The conclusion, therefore, is that the Word of God is not only the image, but also the Son. For so to be one’s image as to be of the same nature with him is not discovered in one who cannot be called a son-so long as we are speaking of living things. For that which proceeds from a living thing in the likeness of species is called son. Hence, we read in a Psalm (2:7): “The Lord bath said to Me: You are My Son.” [17] Consideration must, furthermore, be given to this: Since in any nature the procession of the son from the father is natural, from the fact that the Word of God is called the Son of God He must proceed naturally from the Father. This is in agreement with the things said above, as one can perceive from what takes place in our intellect. For our intellect knows some things naturally; thus the first principles of the intelligibles, whose intelligible conceptions—called interior words—naturally exist in the intellect and proceed from it. There are also certain intelligibles which our intellect does not know naturally; rather, it arrives at the knowledge of these by reasoning. The conceptions of these last do not exist in our intellect naturally, but are sought after by study. Manifestly, however, God understands Himself naturally just as He is naturally. For His act of understanding is His being (as was proved in Book I). Therefore, the Word of God understanding Himself naturally proceeds from Him. And, since the Word of God is of the same nature as God speaking and His likeness, this follows: This natural proceeding is unto a likeness of Him from whom He does proceed with identity of nature. But, this is the essential of true generation in living things: that which is generated proceeds from him who generates as his likeness, and as identified with him in nature. Therefore, the Word of God is truly begotten by God speaking the Word; and His proceeding can be called “generation” or “birth.” This is why the Psalmist says: “This day have I begotten You” (Ps. 7:7); that is, in eternity which always is present and in which essentially there is neither past nor future. In this way the falsity of what the Arians maintained is clear, that the Father generated the Son by His will. For things which are by will are not natural things. [18] One must also consider that what is generated, so long as it remains in the generator, is said to be “conceived.” But the Word of God is begotten by God in such wise that it does not withdraw from Him, but abides in Him. (This is clear from the above.) Rightly, therefore, the Word of God can be called “conceived” by God. Hence, the Wisdom of God says in Proverbs (8:24): “The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived.” But there is a difference between the conception of the Word of God and the material conception discovered by us in animals. For the offspring, so long as it is conceived and is inclosed in the womb, does not have its final perfection so as to subsist of itself in a place distinct from the one generating; hence, in the corporeal generation of animals, the conception of the offspring begotten is necessarily one thing and the delivery another; in the latter the offspring begotten is even spatially separated from the generator when it proceeds from the womb. Now, the Word of God existing in God Himself speaking the Word is perfect, subsists in Himself, and is distinct from God speaking: for one does not look for a local distinction there, but they are distinguished only by a relation as was said. Therefore, in the generation of the Word of God conception and delivery are identified. Therefore, after this saying from the mouth of Wisdom, “I was already conceived,” there is shortly added: “Before the hills I was brought forth” (Prov. 8:24-25). However, since in corporeal things conception and bearing involve motion, in these things there must be a certain succession: the term of conception is the being of the conceived in the one conceiving, the term of bearing is the being of the one born apart from the parent. Thus, in corporeal things, that which is conceived is necessarily not yet in being and that which is brought forth is in the bearing not distinct from the parent. Now, the conception and birth of an intelligible word involves neither motion nor succession. Hence, at once it is conceived and it is; at once it is bom and is distinct; just as that which is illuminated, at the moment of being illuminated, is illuminated because in illumination there is no succession. Since one discovers this situation in our intelligible word, by so much the more is it proper to the Word of God—not only because the intelligible conception is also birth, but because each of the two exists in eternity in which there can be neither before nor after. Accordingly, after the saying of Wisdom: “Before the hills I was brought forth,” to keep us from thinking that while He was being brought forth He was not, this is added: “While He was preparing the heavens I was present” (Prov. 8:27). In this way-although in the fleshly generation of animals first a thing is conceived, then it is brought forth, and finally it acquires a presence to the parent at once associated with and distinct from the parent—we can understand that in divine generation all these are simultaneous. For the Word of God is at once conceived, brought forth, and present. And since what is born proceeds from a womb, just as the generation of the Word of God to convey His perfect distinction from the generator is called birth, it is called for a like reason “generation from the womb”; so we read in a Psalm (109:3): “From the womb before the day star I begot You.” Nevertheless, since the distinction of the Word from the speaker is not the kind which prevents the Word from being in the speaker (as the things said make clear)—just as the distinctness of the Word is conveyed by calling Him “brought forth” or “begotten from the womb”—so, to show that this kind of distinction does not keep the Word from being in the speaker, John (1:8) says that He is “in the bosom of the Father.” [19] One should, of course, note carefully that the fleshly generation of animals is perfected by an active power and by a passive power; and it is from the active power that one is named “father,” and from the passive power that one is named “mother.” Hence, in what is required for the generation of offspring, some things belong to the father, some things belong to the mother: to give the nature and species to the offspring belong to the father, and to conceive and bring forth belong to the mother as patient and recipient. Since, however, the procession of the Word has been said to be in this: that God understands Himself; and the divine act of understanding is not through a passive power, but, so to say, an active one; because the divine intellect is not in potency but is only actual; in the generation of the Word of God the notion of mother does not enter, but only that of father. Hence, the things which belong distinctly to the father or to the mother in fleshly generation, in the generation of the Word are all attributed to the Father by sacred Scripture; for the Father is said not only “to give life to the Son” (cf. John 5:26), but also “to conceive” and to “bring forth.”

Chapter

HOW THE SON OF GOD MAY BE CALLED THE WISDOM OF GOD

[1] However, since what is said of the divine Wisdom~bas been brought to bear on the generation of the Word, one should in consequence show that by the divine Wisdom—from whose person the words adduced came forth—the Word of God can be understood. [2] And in order to arrive at a knowledge of divine things from things human, this must be considered: One calls wisdom in a man a kind of habit by which our mind is perfected in knowledge of the highest matters, and the divine are of this kind. But, when in accord with the habit of wisdom a conception of divinity is formed in our intellect, that same conception of the intellect which is its interior word usually receives the name of wisdom. This follows that manner of speaking in which acts and effects are named by the names of the habits from which they proceed, for what is done justly is sometimes called justice, and what is done courageously is called courage, and, generally speaking, what is done virtuously is called virtue. And in this manner, that which is wisely thought out is called someone’s wisdom. [3] Now, that there is wisdom in God must certainly be said by reason of the fact that God knows Himself; but, since He does not know Himself by any species except His own essence—in fact, His very act of understanding is His essence—the wisdom of God cannot be a habit, but is God’s very essence. But from what has been said, this is clear: The Son of God is the Word and conception of God understanding Himself. It follows, then, that the same Word of God, as wisely conceived by the divine mind, is properly said to be “conceived or begotten Wisdom”; and so the Apostle calls Christ: “the Wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). [4] But the very word of wisdom conceived in the mind is a kind of manifestation of the wisdom of the one who understands, just as in our case all habits are manifested by their acts. Since, then, the divine Wisdom is called light (for it consists in the pure act of cognition, and the manifestation of light is the brightness proceeding therefrom) the Word of divine Wisdom is named “the brightness of light.” Thus the Apostle speaks of the Son of God: “Who being the brightness of His glory” (Heb. 1:3). Hence, also, the Son ascribes to Himself the manifestation of the Father. He says in John (17:6): “Father, I have manifested your name to men.” [5] But note: Although the Son who is the Word of God is properly called “conceived Wisdom,” the name of “wisdom” must, nonetheless, when taken absolutely, be common to the Father and the Son; since the wisdom resplendent by the Word is the Father’s essence, as was said; but the Father’s essence is common to Him and to the Son.

Chapter

THAT THERE IS BUT ONE SON IN THE DIVINITY

[1] However, since God by understanding Himself understands all else, as Book I showed, but understands Himself by a single simple inward look, since His act of understanding is His act of being, necessarily the Word of God is unique. Since, of course, in divinity the generation of the Son is not other than the conception of the Word. it follows that there is one sole generation in divinity and that a unique Son is alone, begotten by the Father. Hence, John says: “We saw Him, as it were the only-begotten of the Father”; and again: “The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (1:14, 18). [2] For all that, it seems to follow from the foregoing both that the divine Word has another word and the divine Son another son. For it was shown that the Word of God is true God. Whatever, therefore, belongs to God must belong also to the Word of God. But God necessarily understands Himself. Therefore, the Word of God also understands Himself. If, then, one says that because He understands Himself there is in God a Word begotten by Him, it seems to follow that in the Word so far as He understands Himself one must allow another word. And thus there will be a word of the Word and a son of the Son. And that word, if he be God, will again understand himself and will have another word. In this way, the divine generation will proceed to infinity. [3] Now, the solution of this difficulty can be gathered from the foregoing. For, when it was shown that the Word of God is God, it was nevertheless shown that He is not a god other than that God whose Word He is, but a God entirely one. In this alone is He distinct from Him: He is the Word proceeding from Him. But, just as the Word is not another god, so neither is He another intellect; consequently, not another act of understanding; hence, not another word. Neither does it follow from this that there is a word of the Word Himself because the Word understands Himself. For, in this alone is the Word distinguished from the speaker (as we said): that it is from Him. Everything else, therefore, must be attributed commonly to God speaking, who is the Father, and to the Word, who is the Son, precisely because the Word also is God. But this alone: that the Word is from Him must be ascribed properly to the Father; and this alone: being from God speaking must be attributed properly to the Son. [4] From this it is also clear that the Son is not impotent, although He cannot generate a Son, whereas the Father does generate a Son. For the very same power is the Father’s and the Son’s as is the very same divinity. And, since generation in divinity is the intelligible Word’s conception, namely, in that God understands Himself, it must be that the power to generate in God is like the power to understand Himself. And, since the act of understanding Himself is in God one and simple, the power of understanding Himself, which is not other than His act, must be only one power. Therefore, it is from the same power that the Word is conceived and that the speaker conceives the Word. Hence, it is from the same power that the Father generates and that the Son is generated. Therefore, the Father has no power which the Son does not have, but the Father has the generative power to beget, the Son has it to be begotten; that these are different only in relation is clear from what has been said. [5] However, since the Apostle says that the Son of God has a word from which it seems to follow that there is a son of the Son and a word of the Word, one must weigh the fashion in which the words of the Apostle as he says this are to be understood. He says in Hebrews (1:2-3): “In these days He has spoken to us by His Son,” and, later: “Who being the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power,” etc. Now, our understanding of this must be taken from the things already said, for it was said that the conception of wisdom, which is a word, deserves the name of wisdom for itself. Now, if one-goes further, it is apparent that even the exterior effect which comes from the conception of wisdom can be called wisdom in the way in which an effect takes for itself the name of its cause. One’s wisdom is not only that which he thinks out wisely, but also that which be does wisely. Thus it happens that even the unfolding of divine wisdom by His work in things created is called God’s wisdom; for example, Sirach (1:9-10): “He created her” (wisdom) “in the Holy Spirit”; and later: “And He poured her out upon all His works.” Thus, also, then, what is effected by the Word gets the name of word. Even in our case the expression of the interior word by the voice is called a word, as though it were the “word’s word,” because it tends to manifest the interior word. Thus, then, not only is the conception of the divine intellect called a Word, which is the Son, but even the unfolding of the divinely conceived in exterior works is named the word of the Word. And thus must one understand that the Son upholds all things “by the word of His power,” and thus what one reads in the Psalmist: “Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds which fulfill His word” (Ps. 148:8); and that is this: by the powers of creatures the effects of the divine conception are unfolded in things, [6] However, since God by understanding Himself understands all other things—as was said—the Word conceived in God by His understanding of Himself must also be the Word of all things. Nevertheless, He is not in the very same way the Word of God and of other things. For He is God’s Word as proceeding from Him; and He is the Word of other things, but not as proceeding from them. For God does not gather knowledge from things; rather, by His knowledge He produces things in being, as was shown above. Therefore, the Word of God must for all the things which are made be the perfect existing intelligibility. But how He can be the intelligibility Of things taken singly is manifest from the points treated in Book I. There it was shown that God has a proper knowledge of all things. [7] Whoever, of course, makes anything by understanding does his work through the account of the things made which be has in himself, for the house which is material is made by the builder according to the account of the house which he has in his mind. Now, it was shown above that God produced, things in being not by a natural necessity, but as an intellectual and voluntary agent. Therefore, God made all things by His Word, which is the intelligibility of things made by Him. Hence, we read in John (1:3): “All things were made by Him.” In agreement with this, Moses, describing the origin of the universe, uses such a manner of speech for the single works: “God said: Be light made and light was made... God said: Let there be a firmament made” (Gen. 1:1-3), and so of the rest, All of which the Psalmist includes, saying: “He spoke and they were made (Ps. 148:5), for to speak is to produce a word. Thus, therefore, one must understand that God spoke and they were made because He produced the Word by which He produced things in being as by their perfect intelligibility. [8] But, since there is identity between the cause of the conservation of things and of their production as all things were made by the Word, so by the Word of God all things are conserved in being. Hence, the Psalmist says: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established,” (Ps. 32:6), and the Apostle speaks of the Son “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). How this is to be taken was explained above. [9] One nevertheless ought to know that the Word of God differs from an account in the mind of an artist in this: The Word of God is subsistent God; the account of the artefact in the mind of the artist is not a subsistent thing, but only an intelligible form. But, if a form is not subsistent, it does not properly belong to it to act, for action belongs to a finished and subsistent thing; but the latter acts by the form, for form is the principle by which an agent acts. Therefore, the plan of the house in the mind of the architect does not build the house; the architect builds it according to the plan. However, the Word of God, which is a plan of things made by God, does—since He is subsistent—act, there is not merely an action through Him. For this reason, the Wisdom of God says: I was with Him forming all things” (Prov. 8:30); and in John (5:17) our Lord says: “My Father works, and I work.” [10] Consideration should also be given to this: A thing made by an understanding pre-exists in the plan understood even before it is in itself, for the house exists in the understanding of the architect before it is brought to actuality. Now, the Word of God is the knowledge of all those things which are made by God—as was shown. Necessarily, then, all those things which are made by God have pre-existed in the Word of God even before they are in their own proper nature. Now, what is in something is in it in the way proper to that in which it is; it is not in that thing in its own proper manner, for the building in the mind of the architect exists intelligibly and immaterially. Things must, therefore, be understood to have pre-existed in the Word of God in the manner of the Word Himself. The manner of the Word Himself is this: He is one, simple, immaterial, and not only living but even life, since He is His own being. Necessarily, then, the things made by God have pre-existed in the Word of God from eternity, immaterially, without any composition. Moreover, they can be nothing else in Him but the Word Himself who is life. For this reason, we read: “that which was made in Him,” that is, in the Word, “was life” (John 1:3-4). [11] Now, just as an intellectual agent, because of the account he has in himself, produces things in being, so also a teacher, because of the account he has in himself, causes science in another, since the science of the learner is drawn from the science of the teacher, as a kind of image of the latter. God is not only the cause by His intellect of all things which naturally subsist, but even every intellectual cognition is derived from the divine intellect, as is clear from the foregoing.” Necessarily, then, it is by the Word of God, which is the knowledge of the divine intellect, that every intellectual cognition is caused. Accordingly, we read in John (1:4): “The life was the light of men,” that is, because the Word Himself who is life and in whom all things are life does, as a kind of light, make the truth manifest to the minds of men. Nor is it a failure of the Word that not all men arrive at a knowledge of the truth, but that some exist in darkness. This comes, rather, from a failure of men who are not converted to the Word and cannot fully grasp Him. Hence, there still remains darkness among men greater or less, as men are more or less converted to the Word and cleave to Him. Hence, John, to exclude every defect from the clarifying power of the Word when he had said that the “life was the light of men,” adds that it “shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it” (1:5). The darkness is not because the Word does not shine, but because some do not grasp the light of the Word, just as with the light of the bodily sun diffused through the world there is darkness for him whose eyes are closed or weak. [12] Such, then, are the points on divine generation and the power of the only-begotten Son which—taught by holy Scripture—we can in some way comprehend.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST DIVINE GENERATION PREVIOUSLY INTRODUCED

[1] The truth, of course, excludes every falsehood and dissolves every doubt therefore it is now time to dispose of the arguments which appeared to offer difficulty about divine generation. [2] From what we have said it is already clear that we assert an intelligible generation in God, and not such as that we find in material things wherein the generation is a kind ?of change which is the opposite of corruption. For not even in our intellect is the word conceived with some change, nor does it have an opposing corruption. It is to this conception that the generation of the Son of God is similar, as is now clear. [3] In like manner, too, the word conceived by our intellect does not proceed from potency to act except in so far as the intellect proceeds from potency to act. For all that, the word does not arise in our intellect except as it exists in act; rather, simultaneously with its existence in act, there is a word conceived therein. But the divine intellect is never in potency, but is actual only, as was shown above. Therefore, the generation of the Word Himself is not like the process from potency to act rather, it is like the origin of act from act, as is brilliance from light and an understanding understood from an understanding in act. Hence, clearly also, generation does not prevent the Son of God from being true God, nor from being Himself eternal. Rather, He is indeed necessarily coeternal with God whose Word He is, for an intellect in act is never without its word. [4] And since the Son of God’s generation is not material, but intelligible, it is now stupid to doubt whether the Father gave His nature wholly or partially. For, manifestly, if God understands Himself, the whole fullness of Himself must be contained in His Word. Nevertheless, the substance given to the Son does not cease to be in the Father, for not even in our case does the proper nature cease to be in the thing which is understood. ne word of our intellect owes it to the very thing understood that it contains intelligibly that very same nature. [5] Since, again, divine generation is not material, clearly there need not be in the Son of God something which receives and something else which is the nature received. For this necessarily happens in material generations in that the matter of the generated -receives the form of the one generating. But, in an intelligible generation, such is not the case. For it is not thus that a word arises within an intellect: one part of it is previously understood as receiving, and one part as flowing from the intellect; but in its entirety the word has its origin from the intellect, as even in our case one word in its entirety has its origin from others—a conclusion, for example, from principles. Where one thing in its entirety rises from another there is no marking off a receiver from the thing received, but the entire thing which arises is from him from whom it rises. [6] In this same way it is clear that the truth of divine generation is not ruled out by this: in God there can be no distinction of a plurality of subsistents. The divine essence, subsistent though it be, cannot for all that be separated from the relation which must be understood to be in God, because the conceived Word of the divine mind is from God Himself speaking. For the Word, too, is the divine essence, as was shown, and God speaking—from whom the Word is—is the divine essence; not a first and a second, but an essence numerically the same. But relations like this are not accidents in God; they are subsistent things; for nothing can happen to God, as was proved above. There are, therefore, many things subsisting if one looks to the relations; there is but one subsistent thing, of course, if one looks to the essence. And on this account we speak of one subsisting God, because He is one subsisting essence; and we speak of a plurality of Persons, because of the distinction of subsisting relations. For the distinction of persons, even in things human, is not worked out in accordance with the specific essence, but in accordance with things adjoined to the specific nature. Now, in all the persons of men there is unity in the specific nature; there is, nevertheless, a plurality of persons simply because men are distinguished in these things which are adjoined to the nature. In divinity, therefore, one must not speak of one Person by reason of the unity of the subsisting essence, but of many Persons by reason of the relations. [7] From this, of course, it clearly does not follow that what serves as principle of individuation is in some other, because the divine essence is not in another god, nor is the paternity in the Son. [8] Although, of course, the two Persons—namely, that of the Father and that Of the Son—are differentiated not by essence, but by a relation, the relation is not, for all that, other than the essence in reality, since a relation in God cannot be an accident. Neither will this be looked on as impossible if one earnestly considers the points established in Book I. There it was shown that in God are the perfections of all beings, not in any composition, but in the unity of a simple essence, for the diversity of perfections which a created thing acquires by many forms is God’s in His one and simple essence. For a man lives by one form, is wise by another, and is just by another; and all of these belong to God by His essence. Therefore, just as wisdom and justice in a man are accidents indeed, but in God the same as the divine essence, so a relation (say, that of paternity or of sonship), although it be an accident in men, in God is the divine essence. [9] It is not, of course, said that the divine wisdom is His essence whereas in us wisdom adds something to the essence, because the divine wisdom is, as it were, something lesser than our wisdom; it is said because His essence exceeds our essence, so that a thing which exceeds our essence (namely, to know and to be just) is possessed by God in His essence perfectly. Therefore, whatever is fitting to us which is distinguished in accord with essence and with wisdom must be ascribed to God by reason of His essence at one and the same time. And a like proportion must be observed in other cases. Now, since the divine essence is the very relation of paternity or of sonship, whatever is the property of paternity must belong to God, although paternity be His very essence. However, this is the property of paternity: to be distinguished from sonship. For one is said to be a father to a son as to another. And this is, essential to a father: to be the father of a son. Therefore, although God the Father is the divine essence, and in the same way God the Son is, from His being the Father He is distinguished from the Son, even though they be one in that each of the two is the divine essence. [10] From this it is also evident that a relation in divinity is not without an absolute. But a comparison to an absolute in God is other than a comparison to an absolute in created things. For in created things a relation is compared to an absolute as an accident to a subject; not in God, of course—there the comparison is by way of identity, just as it is also in other. things which are said about God. An identical subject, of course, cannot have opposed relations in itself: the same man, for example, being his father and his son. But the divine essence, by reason of its all round perfection, is identified with its wisdom and its justice and other things of this kind, which in our case are contained in differing genera. And in the same way nothing stops the one essence from being identified with paternity and sonship, and the Father and the Son from being one God, although the Father is not the Son; for it is by an identical essence that God has by nature being and His very own intelligible Word. [11] From what has been said it can be made clear that the relations in God are in reality, and not in understanding alone. For every relation which follows on the proper operation of any thing—whether potency, or quantity, or anything of this kind—really exists in that thing; otherwise, it would be in the thing by understanding alone, as is apparent in the instance of knowledge and the knowable. For the relation of knowledge to the knowable follows on the action of the knower; not, of course, on the action of the knowable. The knowable maintains itself as it is in itself, both when it is understood and when it is not understood. Accordingly, the relation is in the knower really, but it is in the knowable consequently upon understanding only, since one says that the knowable is understood relatively to the knowledge because the knowledge is related to the knowable. A like situation appears in the case of right and left. For there is in animals a distinction of the powers from which the relation of right and left arises, on which account such a relation truly and really exists in the animal. Hence, no matter how the animal is turned around, the relation always maintains itself in the same way, for the right part is never called the left. Inanimate things, to be sure, which lack the powers just mentioned, have no relation of this kind really existing in them, but one names them in the relation of right or of left from this: the animals in some way present themselves to the inanimate. Hence, the same column is called now right, now left, inasmuch as the animal is compared to it in a different situation. Of course, the relation of the Word to God who speaks and whose Word He is in the divinity is based on the fact that God understands Himself. This operation is, indeed, in God, or, rather, is God Himself, as was shown above. One concludes that the relations aforesaid are in God truly and really and not solely according to our understanding. [12] Although, of course, one holds that there is a relation in God, it does not, for all that, follow that there is in God something which has a dependent being, for in us the relations have a dependent being because their being is other than the being of the substance. Hence, they have a proper mode of being in their proper essence, just as happens in the case of the other accidents. In view of the fact that all accidents are forms of a sort superadded to the substance and caused by the principles of the substance, it must be that their being is superadded to the being of the substance and dependent on that being. And by as much as the being of each and every one of them is prior or posterior, by that much the accidental form in its proper essence will be more like a substance or more perfect. For this reason even a relation really accruing to a substance has a being which is last in order and quite imperfect: last in order, that is, because not only is the being of the substance prerequisite, but also the being of other accidents, out of which the relation is caused (thus to be one in quantity causes equality, and one in quality similarity); quite imperfect in turn, because the proper essence of the relation consists in its being toward-another-hence, its proper being, which it adds to the substance, depends not only on the being of the substance, but on the being of some exterior thing as well. This situation, of course, has no place in divinity, since there is in God no other being than that of substance, for whatever is in God is substance. Just as the being of wisdom in God, therefore, is not being by depending on substance (since the being of wisdom is the being of substance), so the being of relation is not being by depending either on substance or on another exterior thing (since the being of relation is also the being of substance). From the fact, then, that one puts a relation in God it does not follow that there is in Him some dependent being, but only that there is in Him some aspect in which aspect the essence of relation consists. just so from the fact that one puts wisdom in God it does not follow that there is something accidental in Him, but only that there is a certain perfection in which the essence of wisdom consists. [13] Thus clearly, also, from the imperfection in created relations it does not follow that the divine persons—distinguished by relations—are imperfect, but it does follow that the distinction of the divine persons is minimal. [14] Clearly, also, from the points made, although God is substantially predicated of the Father and the Son, it does not for all that follow that, if the Father and the Son are a kind of plurality, they are a plurality of gods. For they are many by reason of the distinction of subsistent relations, yet one God, nevertheless, by reason of the unity of subsistent essence. This does not happen among men, of course—that is, that some plurality is one man—since the essence of humanity is not numerically one in each of the plurality, nor is the essence of humanity subsistent; that is, humanity is not a man. [15] From the fact that in God there is unity of essence and distinction of relations it becomes manifest that nothing stops one’s finding opposites in the one God, at least those opposites which follow the distinction of relation: begetting and begotten, for instance, which are opposed relatively, and begotten and unbegotten which are opposed as affirmation and negation. For wherever there is a distinction one must find the opposition of negation and affirmation. Things which differ in no affirmation or negation are entirely undifferentiated, for the first would have to be in every respect one with the second, and thus they would be thoroughly identified, and in no way distinct. [16] Let these points on the divine generation suffice, then.

Chapter

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, THAT HE IS IN DIVINITY

[1] Now, divine Scriptures’ authority not only tells us about the Father and the Son in divinity, but together with these two also numbers the Holy Spirit. For our Lord says: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 2.8:1g). And 1 John (5:7) says: “there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.” Sometimes, also, the procession of this Holy Spirit is mentioned by Scripture. We read in John (15:26): “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me.”

Chapter

ARGUMENTS WHICH MADE SOME THINK THE HOLY SPIRIT A CREATURE

[1] Now, in the opinion of some, the Holy Spirit is a creature exalted over other creatures. They used the testimony of sacred Scripture for this assertion. [2] Amos (4:13) says, if we take the Septuagint literally: “Behold He who forms the mountains and creates the spirit and declares His word to man.” And Zechariah (12:1): “Thus says the Lord who stretches forth the heavens, and lays the foundations of the earth, and creates the spirit of man in it.” It seems, then, that the Holy Spirit is a creature. [3] Moreover, our Lord says, speaking of the Holy Spirit: “He shall not speak of Himself, but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak” (John 16:23), and from this it appears that He speaks not with the authority of a further power, but to one who commands He is in a service of obedience, for to speak what one hears is proper to a servant. Therefore.’the Holy Spirit seems to he a creature subject to God. [4] Again, “to be sent” appears proper to an inferior, since there is in the sender an implication of authority. The Holy Spirit, of course, is sent by the Father and the Son, for our Lord says: “The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost~ whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things”; and: “Men the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father” (John 14:26; 25:26). The Holy Spirit, therefore, appears to be less than the Father and the Son. [5] Moreover, divine Scripture, associating the Son with the Father in matters of divinity, makes no mention of the Holy Spirit. This is clear from Matthew (11:27), when our Lord says: “No one knows the Son but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father but the Son,” making no mention of the Holy Spirit. And John (17:3) says: “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You sent.” There, again, no mention is made of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle also says: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:7); and: “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by Him” (1 Cor. 8:6); and in these places also there is nothing said about the Holy Spirit. It seems, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is not God. [6] There is more. Whatever is moved is created, for it was shown in Book I that God is immobile. But to the Holy Spirit motion is attributed by divine Scripture. One reads in Genesis (1:2): “And the Spirit of God was moved over the waters”; and in Joel (2:28): “I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh.” It seems, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is a creature. [7] Moreover, everything that can be increased or divided is mutable and created. These seem to be attributed to the Holy Spirit in sacred Scripture. For the Lord said to Moses: “Gather unto Me seventy men of the ancients of Israel; and I will take of your spirit, and will give to them” (Num. 11:16-17). And 2 Samuel (2:9-10) says that Elishah begged of Elijah: “I beseech you that in me may be your double spirit”; and Elijah answered: “If you see me when I am taken from you, you shall have what you asked.” The Holy Spirit, therefore, appears to be mutable and not to be God. [8] Again, no sorrow can come upon God, since sorrow is passion of a sort and God is not subject to passion. But passion does come upon the Holy Spirit; as the Apostle reveals: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30); and Isaiah (63:10) says: “They provoked to wrath and afflicted His Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit, therefore, seems not to be God. [9] What is more, it is not suitable for God to entreat, but to be entreated. But to entreat is suitable to the Holy Spirit; we read in Romans (8:2.6): “The Spirit Himself asks for us with unspeakable groanings.” Therefore, the Holy Spirit appears not to be God. [10] Moreover, no one makes a thing a gift appropriately unless he has dominion over it. But God the Father gives the Holy Spirit, and so does God the Son. For our Lord says: “Your Father from heaven will give the good Spirit to them that ask Him” (Luke 11:13); and Peter speaks of “the Holy Spirit whom God has given to all that obey Him” (Acts 5:32). [11] For these reasons it seems, then, that the Holy Spirit is not God. [2] Once again, if the Holy Spirit is truly God, He ought to have the divine nature. Thus, when the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” (as (John 15:26) has it), necessarily He receives the divine nature from the Father. Of course, what receives its nature from a thing which produces it is generated by that thing. For it is proper to one begotten to be produced unto a similarity in species to its principle. Therefore, the Holy Spirit will be begotten and, consequently, the Son. And this is repugnant to sound faith. [13] If the Holy Spirit, furthermore, receives the divine nature from the Father and not as one begotten, the divine nature must be communicated in two ways: by way of generation in which the Son proceeds, and in that way in which the Holy Spirit proceeds. But one nature seems not to have two fitting modes of communication if one examines natures universally. It seems, therefore, that the Holy Spirit, since He does not receive the divine nature by generation, does not receive it in any way at all. He thus appears not to be true God. [14] Now, this was the position of Arius, who said that the Son and the Holy Spirit were creatures: the Son, to be sure, greater than the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit the servant of the Son; just so, he said that the Son was lesser than the Father. Arius was followed in respect of the Holy Spirit by Macedonius, “who rightly held that the Father and the Son were of one and the same substance, but was unwilling to believe this of the Holy Spirit. He said that the Holy Spirit was a creature.” Hence, some call the Macedonians Semi-Arians, because they are in partial agreement with the Arians, and in partial disagreement with the same group.

Chapter

THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS TRUE GOD

[1] One shows, of course, by clear testimonies from Scripture that the Holy Spirit is true God. For to none but God is a temple consecrated, and so the Psalmist speaks of “God in His holy temple” (Ps. 10:5). Yet there is a temple assigned to the Holy Spirit, for the Apostle says: “Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” The Holy Spirit, therefore, is God. This is especially clear since our members, which the Apostle calls the temple of the Holy Spirit, are the members of Christ. For just above he had set down: “Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” (1 Cor. 6:19, 15). It obviously would be awkward (since Christ is true God, as is clear from the foregoing) to have the members of Christ a temple of the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit were not God. [2] Again, holy men do not give the cult of adoration except to the true God, for Deuteronomy (6:13) says: “You shall fear the Lord your God, and shall serve Him only.” But holy men serve the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says: “We are the circumcision who serve the Spirit of God” (Phil. 3:3). And although some books have “who serve in the spirit of the Lord,” the Greek books and some Of the more ancient Latin ones have: “who serve the Spirit of God.” And from the Greek itself, this clearly must be understood as the cult of adoration which is due to God alone. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is true God to whom adoration is due. [3] Further, to sanctify men is the proper work of God, for Leviticus (22:32) says: “I am the Lord who sanctify you.” It is, of course, the Holy Spirit who sanctifies, as the Apostle says: “You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). And in 2 Thessalonians (2:12) one reads: “God has chosen you first fruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the Spirit and faith of the truth.” Necessarily, therefore, the Holy Spirit is God. [4] And further, just as the life of corporeal nature is from the soul, so the life of justice of the soul itself is from God; and so our Lord says: “As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father, so He that eats Me, the same also shall live by Me” (John 6:58). Of course, this kind of life is from the Holy Spirit, and so our Lord adds in the same place: “It is the Spirit that gives life” (John 6:54); and the Apostle says: “If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Rom. 8:13). Therefore, the Holy Spirit is of the divine nature. [5] Our Lord, furthermore, when arguing His divinity against the Jews who could not bear the fact that He made Himself equal to God, asserts that there is in Him a power of raising to life. He says in John (5:21): “As the Father raises up the dead and gives life, so the Son also gives life to whom He will.” The power of raising to life, of course, belongs to the Holy Spirit; as the Apostle says: “If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you; He that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). Therefore, the Holy Spirit is of the divine nature. [6] Again, creation is the work of God alone, as was shown above. But creation belongs to the Holy Spirit; as the Psalmist says: “Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created” (Ps. io3:30); and Job (33:4) says: “The Spirit of God made me”; and Sirach (1:9) says of God: “He created her,” meaning wisdom, “in the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, the Holy Spirit is of the divine nature. [7] The Apostle says, further: “The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:10-11). But to comprehend all the deep things of God is not the act of a creature. And this is clear from our Lord’s words: “No one knows the Son but the Father, neither doth any one know the Father but the Son” (Mat. 11:27). And Isaiah (24:16) says in the person of God: “My secret to Myself.” Therefore, the Holy Spirit is not a creature. [8] What is more, in the comparison by the Apostle just given, the Holy Spirit is to God as the spirit of man is to man. Now, the spirit of man is intrinsic to man and is not extraneous to him in nature, but is of his nature. Therefore, the Holy Spirit as well is not by nature extraneous to God. [9] If one further compares the just quoted words of the Apostle with those of the Prophet Isaiah, he will see clearly that the Holy Spirit is God. For Isaiah (64:4) says: “The eye has not seen, O God, besides You, what things You hast prepared for them that wait for You.” And the Apostle, indeed, when he had introduced these words (1 Cor. 7:9) adds the words just mentioned, to wit, that “the Spirit searches the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:9-10). Manifestly, therefore, the Holy Spirit knows those deep things of God “which He has prepared for those that wait for Him.” Therefore, if none sees these besides God, as Isaiah says, clearly the Holy Spirit is God. [10] Isaiah, once again (6:8-9), says: “I heard the voice of God saying: Whom shall I send? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me. And He said: Go, and you shall say to His people: Hearing, hear, and understand not.” Now, Paul ascribes these words to the Holy Spirit; and thus we are told that Paul said to the Jews: “Well, did the Holy Spirit speak... by Isaiah the Prophet, saying: Go to this people and say to them: With the ear you shall hear and shall not understand” (Acts 28:2526). Manifestly, therefore, the Holy Spirit is God. [11] It is further apparent from sacred Scripture that it is God who speaks by the Prophets. For from the mouth of God, Numbers (12:6) says: “If there be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him in a dream.” And a Psalm (84:9) says: “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me.” But it is plain to see that the Holy Spirit has spoken in the Prophets. One reads in Acts (1:16): “The Scripture must needs be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David.” And in Matthew our Lord says: “How do the scribes say that Christ is the son of David. For David himself says by the Holy Spirit: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit you at My right hand.” And in 2 Peter (1:71) we read: “For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time, but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, one plainly gathers from the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is God. [ 12] Again, that the revelation of mysteries is a proper work of God is shown in Scripture, for in Daniel (2:28) it says: “There is a God in heaven that reveals mysteries.” But the revelation of mysteries is seen to be a work of the Holy Spirit, for we read in 1 Corinthians (2:10; 14:2): “To us God has revealed them, by his Spirit”; and: “By the Spirit He speaks mysteries.” The Holy Spirit, therefore, is God. [13] What is more, to teach within is a proper work of God, for the Psalmist says of God: “He who teaches man knowledge” (93:16); and Daniel (2:21): “He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that have understanding.” ]out that such is the proper work of the Holy Spirit is plain, for our Lord speaks in John (14:26): of “the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name: He will teach you all things.” The Holy Spirit, therefore, is of the divine nature. [14] Furthermore, those who are identical in operation must be identical in nature. But the operation of the Son and the Holy Spirit is identical. For Christ speaks in the saints, as the Apostle shows in the words of 2 Corinthians (13:3): “Do you seek a proof of Christ that speaks in me?” This also plainly appears to be a work of the Holy Spirit, for we read in Matthew (10:20): “It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” There is, then, an identical nature in the Son and the Holy Spirit and, consequently, the Father, since it has been shown that the Father and Son are one nature. [15] Moreover, to dwell in the minds of the saints is the proper work of God, and so the Apostle says: “You are the temple of the living God; as God says: I will dwell in you” (2 Cor. 6:16). But the Apostle attributes the same thing to the Holy Spirit, for he says: “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). Therefore, the Holy Spirit is God. [16] Once again, to be everywhere is proper to God, who says in Jeremiah (23:24): “I fill heaven and earth.” This belongs to the Holy Spirit, for we read in Wisdom (1:7): “The Spirit of the Lord bath filled the whole world,” and the Psalmist says: “Whither shall I go from your Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, You are there,” and so forth (Ps. 138:7-8). Our Lord also says to the disciples: “You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8), from which it is clear that the Holy Spirit is everywhere; He dwells in those existing in every place. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is God. [17] There is more. Scripture expressly names the Holy Spirit God, for Peter says: “Ananias, why did Satan tempt your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit?” Later on, he adds: “You hast not lied to men, but to God” (Acts 5:3-4). The Holy Spirit, therefore, is God. [18] We read again, in 1 Corinthians (14:2, 21): “He that speaks in a tongue speaks not unto men, but unto God; for no one hears. Yet by the Spirit He speaks mysteries,” from which he gives one to understand that the Holy Spirit was speaking in those who spoke with different tongues. Later on, of course, he says: “In the Law it is written: In other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; and neither so will they hear me, says the Lord.” Therefore, the Holy Spirit who speaks mysteries with diverse lips and tongues is God. [19] Furthermore, after a bit, this is added: “If all prophesy, and there come in one that believes not, or an unlearned person, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all. The secrets of his heart are made manifest; and so, falling down on his face, he will adore God, affirming that God is among you indeed” (1 Cor. 14:24-2-5). Clearly, of course, from what he had previously set down, “the Spirit speaks mysteries,” the manifestation of the secrets of the heart is from the Holy Spirit. And this is a proper mark of divinity, for we read in Jeremiah (17:9-10): “The heart of man is perverse... and inscrutable, who can know it? I am the Lord who search the heart and prove the reins: And so from this indication even an unbeliever (cf. 1 Cor. 14:24) is said to consider carefully that He who speaks these secrets of hearts is God. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is God. [20] Again, a bit later, the Apostle says: “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the God of dissension, but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:32-33). Of course, the graces of the Prophets which he named “the spirits of the prophets” are from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, he shows that the Holy Spirit who distributes graces of this kind in such wise that from them follows not dissension but peace is God by these words: “God is not the God of dissension, but of peace.” [21] Furthermore, to adopt as sons can be the work of no other than God. For no spiritual creature is called son of God by nature, but by the grace of adoption. Hence, the Apostle attributes this work to the Son of God who is true God: “God sent His Son that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). But the Holy Spirit is the cause of the adoption, as the Apostle says: “You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father)” (Rom. 8:15). Therefore, the Holy Spirit is not a creature, but God. [22] Again, if the Holy Spirit is not God, He must be a creature. Plainly enough, He is not a bodily creature, And neither is He a spiritual creature, for no creature is infused into a spiritual creature, since a creature is not participable, but rather participating. The Holy Spirit, of course, is infused into the minds of the saints, as it were participated by them, for we read that Christ was full of Him (Luke 4:1) and even the Apostles (Acts 7:4). The Holy Spirit, therefore, is not a creature but God. [23] But, if one says that the aforesaid works which are God’s are not attributed to the Holy Spirit in principalship as to God, but in ministry as it were to a creature, he says what is expressly false. And this is clear from the words of the Apostle: “There are diversities of operations, but the same God, who works all in all.” Afterwards, when the Apostle had enumerated the different gifts of God, he adds: “All these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to every one according as He will” (1 Cor. 12:6, 11). Therein clearly he has set forth that the Holy Spirit is God: not only by saying that the Holy Spirit performs the works which he said before that God performs, but also by proclaiming that the Holy Spirit performs them according to a decision of His will. Manifestly, therefore, the Holy Spirit is God.

Chapter

THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A SUBSISTENT PERSON

[1] But, since some assert that the Holy Spirit is not a subsistent person, but, rather, the divinity of the Father and the Son (so some Macedonians are held to have said); or even an accidental perfection of the mind bestowed on us by God—wisdom, for instance, or charity or something of this sort (and these are participated by us as certain created accidents); one must on the contrary show that the Holy Spirit is nothing of this kind. [2] For accidental forms have no proper operations; instead, one has them in accord with the decision of his will, for the wise man uses wisdom when he wills. But the Holy Spirit operates in accord with the decision of His will. This has been showm One must not, therefore, think of the Holy Spirit as an accidental perfection of the mind. [3] The Holy Spirit, again, so we are taught by Scripture, is the cause of all the perfections of the human mind. For the Apostle says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us” (Rom. 5:5)” and: “To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom, and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:8), and so of the rest. The Holy Spirit, therefore, must not be thought of as an accidental perfection of the human mind, since He is, of all perfections of this kind, the existing cause. [4] Of course, that in the name of the Holy Spirit the essence Of the Father and Son is designated so as to be personally distinguished from neither of them conflicts with what divine Scripture hands on to us about the Holy Spirit. It says that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” and that He receives from the Son (John 15:26; 16:14). And this cannot be understood of the divine essence, since the divine essence neither proceeds from the Father nor receives from the Son. One must, then, say that the Holy Spirit is a subsisting Person. [5] Again, sacred Scripture manifestly speaks of the Holy Spirit as of a subsisting divine person, for it says: “As they were ministering to the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them: “Separate Me Saul and Barnabas, for the work whereunto I have taken them”; and later: “So they, being sent by the Holy Spirit, went” (Acts 13:2). And in Acts (15:28) the Apostles say: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, to lay no further burden upon you,” and so forth; and these things would not be said of the Holy Spirit if He were not a subsistent person. The Holy Spirit is, therefore, a subsistent person. [6] Furthermore, since the Father and Son are subsisting persons and of the divine nature, the Holy Spirit would not be numbered along with them unless He also were a person subsisting in the divine nature. He is numbered with them, of course. This is clear from Matthew (28:19), where our Lord says to the disciples: “Go, therefore, teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”; and from 2 Corinthians (13:13): “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with you all”; and from 1 John (5:7): “There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.” From this it shows clearly that He is not only a subsistent person like the Father and the Son, but has unity of essence with them. [7] One could, of course, calumniate against the foregoing, saying that the “Spirit of God” is one thing and the “Holy Spirit” another. To be sure, in certain of the authorities set down, the “Spirit of God” is named, and in certain others “the Holy Spirit,” but the identity of the “Spirit of God” and “the Holy Spirit” is clearly shown from the words of the Apostle, when he had premised: “God has revealed them, by His Spirit,” by way of confirmation he says: “the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God”; and finally he concludes: “so the things also that are of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:10-11). From this there is manifestly apparent the identity of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Gold. [8] The same point is apparent from this: our Lord says in Matthew (10:20): “It is not you that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you.” But in place of these words Mark says (13:11): “It is not you that speak, but the Holy Spirit.” Manifestly, the Holy Spirit is the same as the Spirit of God. [9] Since from the authorities set down it is clear in so many ways that the Holy Spirit is not a creature, but true God, it is accordingly manifest that we are not compelled to say that one must understand the Holy Spirit filling and dwelling in the-minds of the saints in the same way that one understands the devil to be filling and dwelling in some minds. One finds in John (13:27): “After the morsel, Satan entered into him”; and in Acts (5:3) Peter says—so some books have it: “Ananias, why has Satan tempted your heart?” For, since the devil is a creature, as was manifested in the foregoing, he fills no one by a participation in himself, and he cannot dwell in a mind through his substance; rather, he is said to fill some men by the effect of his wickedness. Hence, Paul says to a certain one: “O full of all guile and of all deceit” (Acts 13:10). The Holy Spirit, of course, since He is God, dwells in a mind by His substance and makes men good by participation in Himself. For He is His own goodness, since He is God. And this can be true of no creature. Neither does this, for all that, change the fact that by the effect of His power He fills the minds of the holy.

Chapter

HOW ONE MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT IS SAID ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT

[1] Taught by holy Scripture, therefore, we maintain this firmly about the Holy Spirit: that He is true God, subsistent, personally distinct from the Father and the Son. But one ought to consider how a truth of this kind must be grasped somehow, in order to defend it from the attacks of unbelievers. [2] To get at the evidence one must first premise that in every intellectual nature a will must be discovered. For an intellect is made to be in act by an intelligible form so far as it is understanding, as a natural thing is made to be in act in its natural being by its proper form. But a natural thing, through the form by which it is perfected in its species, has an inclination to its proper operations and to its proper end, which it achieves by operations, “for as everything is so does it operate,” and it tends to what is fitting for itself. Hence, also, from an intelligible form there must follow in one who understands an inclination to his proper operations and his proper end. Of course, this inclination in an intellectual nature is the will, which is the principle of operations in us, those by which he who understands operates for an end. For end and the good are the will’s object. One must, therefore, discover a will in everyone who understands. [3] Although several acts seem to belong to the will, to desire, to delight in, to hate, and others of this kind, nevertheless for all of these love is found to be the one principle and the common root. This can be gathered from the following points. The will, as was said, is related to intellectual things as natural inclination to natural things (this is also called natural appetite). But natural inclination arises thus: The natural thing has an affinity and correspondence from its form (which we have called the principle of the inclination) with that to which it is moved. The heavy has such a relation with the lower place. Hence, also, every inclination of the will arises from this: by an intelligible form a thing is apprehended as suitable or affective. To be affected toward something—so far as it is of this kind—is to love that thing. Therefore, every inclination of will and even of sensible appetite has its origin from love. For from the fact that we love something we desire that thing if it be absent; we rejoice, of course, if it be present; and we are sad when we are kept from it; and we hate those things which keep us from the beloved, and grow angry against them. [4] Thus, then, what is loved is not only in the intellect of the lover, but in his will as well; but in one way and another. It is in the intellect by reason of the likeness of its species; it is in the will of the lover, however, as the term of a movement is in its proportioned motive principle by reason of the suitability and proportion which the term has for that principle. just so, in a certain way, there is in fire the upper place by reason of that lightness which gives it proportion and suitability to such a place, but the fire which is generated is in the fire which generates by reason of the likeness of its form. [5] Since, then, it has now been shown that in every intellectual nature there is will, and that God, of course, is intelligent was shown in Book I, there must, then, be will in Him; the will of God, to be sure, is not something which accrues to His essence, just as His intellect is not, as was shown above, but the will of God is His very substance. And since the intellect of God, as well, is His very substance, it follows that the one thing in God is intellect and will. However, the manner in which what in other things are many things in God are one thing can be manifest from the points made in Book I. [6] And because it was shown in Book I that the operation of God is His very essence, and that the essence of God is His will, it follows that will is not in God by way of potency, or of habit, but by way of act. It was shown, of course, that every act of will is rooted in love. Hence, in God there must be love. [7] And because, as was shown in Book I, the proper object of the divine will is His goodness, necessarily it is first and principally His goodness and Himself that God loves. But, since it has been shown that the beloved must somehow be in the will of the lover, and that God Himself loves Himself, it needs must be that God Himself is in His will as the beloved in the lover. But the beloved is in the lover so far as it is loved—an act of love, of course, is a kind of act of will—but the act of will of God is His being, just as His will is His being. Therefore, the being of God in His will by way of love is not an accidental one—as it is in us—but is essential being. And so it must be that God, when He is considered existing in His own will, is truly and substantially God. [8] But a thing’s being in the will as a beloved in a lover bears a certain order to the conception by which the intellect conceives the thing, and to the thing itself whose intellectual conception is called a word. For it would not be loved unless it were somehow known; neither is the beloved’s knowledge alone loved, but the beloved as good in itself. Necessarily, therefore, does the love by which God is in the divine will as a beloved in a lover proceed both from the Word of God and from the God whose Word He is. [9] Now, since it has been shown that the beloved is not in the lover by a likeness of species, as the thing understood is present in the one understanding, whereas whatever proceeds from another as one generated does proceed by a likeness of species from the generator, this follows: A thing’s proceeding in order to be in the will as the beloved is in the lover is not a proceeding by way of generation, just as a thing’s proceeding in order to be in the intellect does have the essentials of generation, as was shown above. Therefore, God proceeding by way of love does not proceed as begotten. And He, therefore, cannot be called Son. [10] But, because the beloved in the will exists as inclining, and somehow inwardly impelling the lover toward the very thing beloved, and an impulse of a living thing from within belongs to a spirit, this is suitable: that God proceeding by way of love be called His “spirit; as it were a kind of existing spiration. [11] Hence it is that the Apostle attributes to the Spirit and to Love a kind of impulse; for he says in Romans (8:14): “Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,” and: “The charity of Christ presses us” (2 Cor. 5:14). [12] However, since every intellectual motion is named from its term, and the love aforesaid is that by which God Himself is loved, quite fittingly is God proceeding by way of love called “Holy Spirit”; for the things assigned to God have customarily been called “holy.”

Chapter

ON THE EFFECTS ATTRIBUTED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT IN SCRIPTURE REGARDING THE WHOLE CREATION

[1] One must, of course, in harmony with what has been said, give thought to the effects which sacred Scripture attributes to the Holy Spirit. [2] For it was shown in the foregoing that the goodness of God is His reason for willing that other things be, and that by His will He produces things in being. The love, then, by which He loves His own goodness is the cause of the creation of things: whence, even certain ancient philosophers held that “the love of the gods” is the cause of all things as is plain in Metaphysics I [4]; and Dionysius says that “the divine love did not allow itself to be without seed” [ De div. nom. 4]. But it was held in the preceding that the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of the love by which God loves Himself. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the principle of the creation of things. And this is signified in the word of the Psalmist: “Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created” (Ps. 103:30). [3] It is also from the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of love-and love has a kind of driving and moving force—that the movement which is from God in things seems properly to be attributed to the Holy Spirit. Of course, the first existing mutation in things from God is understood to be this: He produced the different species out of formless created matter. Hence, this work is what sacred Scripture attributes to the Holy Spirit. For we read in Genesis (1:2): “The Spirit of God moved over the waters.” For by “waters” Augustine wants one to understand prime matter over which the Spirit of the Lord is said to be borne, not as though He Himself is moved, but because He is the principle of the movement. [4] Again, the government of things by God is understood to be according to a kind of motion, in that God directs and moves all things to their proper ends. If, then, drive and motion belong to the Holy Spirit by reason of love, the government and propagation of things is fittingly attributed to the Holy Spirit. Hence Job (33:4) says: “The Spirit of God made me”; and the Psalmist: “Thy good spirit shall lead me into the right land” (Ps. 142:10). [5] And because a master’s proper act is to govern subjects, dominion is fittingly attributed to the Holy Spirit, for the Apostle says: “Now the Lord is a Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17); and the Creed of our faith says: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord.” [6] Life also is especially manifested in motion, for we say that self-moving things live and in general we say this of everything which puts itself into operation. If, then, by reason of love, drive and motion are suited to the Holy Spirit, life is also suitably attributed to Him. For John (6:64) says: “It is the Spirit who gives life”; and Ezekiel (37:5): “I will send Spirit into you, and you shall live”; and in the Creed of our faith we profess to believe in the Holy Spirit, “the giver of life.” This also harmonizes with the name “Spirit,” for even the bodily life of animals is due to a vital spirit diffused from the principle of life into the rest of the members.

Chapter

ON THE EFFECTS ATTRIBUTED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT IN SCRIPTURE REGARDING THE RATIONAL CREATURE, SO FAR AS GOD’S GIFTS TO US ARE CONCERNED [1] Looking to the effects which He properly produces in the rational nature, we must also give consideration to this fact: When we are somehow made like a divine perfection, perfection of this kind is said to be given us by God; so wisdom is said to be a gift from God to us when we are somehow made like the divine wisdom. Since, then, the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of the love by which God loves Himself, as was shown, from the fact that in loving God we are made like to this love, the Holy Spirit is said to be given to us by God. Hence the Apostle says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, who, is given to us” (Rom. 5:5). [2] One should realize, for all that, that what is in us from God is related to God as to an efficient and as to an exemplar cause. We say as to an efficient cause inasmuch as something is accomplished in us by the divine operative power. We say as to an exemplar cause so far as we are, thanks to that in us which is from God, imitating God. Since, then, the power of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is identical just as the essence is, necessarily whatever God effects in us must be, as from an efficient cause, simultaneously from the Father and the Son and the, Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, the “word of wisdom” (cf. Dan. 1:20) by which we know God, and which God sends into us, is properly representative of the Son. And in like fashion the love by which we love God is properly representative of the Holy Spirit. And thus the charity which is in us, although it is an effect of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is nonetheless for a special sort of reason said to be in us through the Holy Spirit. [3] However the divine effects not only begin to be by the divine operation, by it they are also maintained in being (as is clear from the foregoing). And nothing operates where it is not, for the agent and that acted upon must be simultaneously in act, just as the mover and the moved. Necessarily, then, wherever there is an effect of God, there God Himself is efficient. Hence, since the charity by which we love God is in us by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit Himself must also be in us, so long as the charity is in us. And so the Apostle says: “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). Therefore, since we are made lovers of God by the Holy Spirit, and every beloved is in the lover as such, by the Holy Spirit necessarily the Father and the Son dwell in us also. And so our Lord says: “We will come to him”—He means to one who loves God—“and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23). And in 1 John. (3:7.4) we read: “In this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us.” [4] Moreover, God manifestly loves in the greatest degree those whom He has made lovers of Himself through the Holy Spirit, for He would not confer so great a good save by loving us. Hence, we read in Proverbs (8:17) from the Person of God: “I love those who love Me”; “not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us,” as we read in 1 John (4:10). Of course, every beloved is in a lover. Therefore, by the Holy Spirit not only is God in us, but we also are in God. Hence, we read in 1 John (4:16, 13): “He who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him;” and: “In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us: because He has given us of His Spirit.” [5] Of course, this is the proper mark of friendship: that one reveal his secrets to his friend. For, since charity unites affections and makes, as it were, one heart of two, one seems not to have dismissed from his heart that which he reveals to a friend; and so our Lord says to His disciples: “I will not now call you servants but friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Therefore, since by the Holy Spirit we are established as friends of God, fittingly enough it is by the Holy Spirit that men are said to receive the revelation of the divine mysteries. Hence, the Apostle says: “It is written that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him. But to us God has revealed them, by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9-10). [6] It is from the things a man knows that his speech is.formed; fittingly, therefore, a man speaks the mysteries through the Holy Spirit. Hence, the words of 1 Corinthians (14:2): “By the Spirit He speaks mysteries”; and Matthew (10:20): “It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you.” And of prophets, 2 Peter (1:21) says that “the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Spirit.” Hence, also, in the Creed of our faith we say of the Holy Spirit: “Who spoke through the prophets.” [7] Now, it is not only proper to love that one reveal his secrets to a friend by reason of their unity in affection, but the same unity requires that what he has he have in common with the friend. For, “since a man has a friend as another self,” he must help the friend as he does himself, making his own possessions common with the friend, and so one takes this as the property of friendship “to will and to do the good for a friend.” This agrees with 1 John (3:17): “He who has the substance of this world, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his bowels from him: how does the charity of God abide in him?” But such is especially the case with God whose will is efficacious on its effect. Therefore, it is fitting that all the gifts of God are said to be gifts from the Holy Spirit; thus, in 1 Corinthians (12:8, 11): “To one, indeed, by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom, to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit”; and later on, having mentioned many, it says: “One and the same Spirit works, dividing to every one according as He will.” [8] This, too, is manifest: just as, to get a body to the place of fire, it must be likened to fire by acquiring that lightness according to which fire is moved by its own motion; so also, to get a man to the beatitude of divine enjoyment which is proper to God in His own nature, these are necessary: first, that by spiritual perfections he be likened to God; then, that he operate with these perfections; and thus, lastly, achieve that beatitude we mentioned. Of course, the spiritual gifts are given to us by the Holy Spirit, as was shown. And thus by the Holy Spirit we are configured to God and through Him we are made ready for good operation. And by the same Spirit the road to beatitude is opened to us. The Apostle implies all three of these when he says: “He who confirms us... is God who also has sealed us, and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:21, 22). And in Ephesians (1:13, 14): ‘You were signed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance: For the “signing” seems to belong to the likeness of configuration; the “confirming” to man’s readiness for perfect operation; the “pledge,” of course, to the hope by which we are ordered to the heavenly inheritance, and this is perfect beatitude. [9] Further, since out of the good will which one has to another it comes about that he adopt that other as his son—and so the inheritance belongs to that other as adopted—it is fitting that the adoption of the sons of God is attributed to the Holy Spirit, in the words of Romans (8:15): “You have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father).” [10] Of course, by the fact that one is established as the friend of another, every offense is removed, because friendship and offense are contraries. Thus, we read in Proverbs (10:12): “Charity covers all sins.” Therefore, since we are established as friends of God by the Holy Spirit, it is by Him that God remits our sins, and so our Lord says to His disciples (John 20:22-23): “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven.” Therefore, also, in Matthew (12:31) blasphemers against the Holy Spirit are denied the remission of sins, as though they do not have that by which a man achieves the remission of his sins. [11] Hence, also, it is by the Holy Spirit that we are said to be renewed, and cleansed or washed; as the Psalmist has it: “Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth” (Ps. 103:30); and Ephesians (4:23): “Be renewed in the Spirit of your mind”; and Isaiah (4:4): “If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the sons of Zion and cleanse away the blood of her daughters in the midst by the Spirit of judgment and the Spirit of burning.”

Chapter

ON THE EFFECTS ATTRIBUTED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THAT HE MOVES THE CREATURE TO GOD [1] Now that we have considered the things which are said to be done in us by God through the Holy Spirit, we ought to consider how through the Holy Spirit we are moved to God. [2] First, indeed, this appears to be especially proper to friendship: really to converse with the friend. Now, the conversation of man with God is by contemplation of Him, just as the Apostle used to say: “Our conversation is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit makes us lovers of God, we are in consequence established by the Holy Spirit as contemplators of God. Hence, the Apostle says: “But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). [3] It is also a property of friendship that one take delight in a friend’s presence, rejoice in his words and deeds, and find in him security against all anxieties; and so it is especially in our sorrows that we hasten to our friends for consolation. Since, then, the Holy Spirit constitutes us God’s friends, and makes Him dwell in us, and us dwell in Him (as was shown), it follows that through the Holy Spirit we have joy in God and security against all the world’s adversities and assaults. And so we read in the Psalmist: “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and strengthen me with your lordly Spirit” (Ps. 50:14); and in Romans (14:17): “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”; and in Acts (9:31): “The church had peace and was edified, walking in the fear of the Lord, and was filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.” For this reason, too, our Lord calls the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, that is, Comforter, in John (14:26): “But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit,” and so forth. [4] Similarly, too, it is proper to friendship to consent to a friend in what he wills. Of course, the will of God is set forth for us by His precepts. Therefore, it belongs to the love by which we love God that we fulfill His commandments, as the Word in John (14:15) says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Hence, since we are established as God’s lovers by the Holy Spirit, by Him, too, we are in a way driven to fulfill the precepts of God, as the Apostle’s word goes: “Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). [5] For all that, one must bear in mind that the sons of God are driven not as slaves, but as free men. For, since he is free who is for his own sake, we do that freely which we do of our very selves. But this is what we do of our will, but what we do against our will we do not freely but as slaves: be the violence absolute, as when “the whole principle is extrinsic, with the sufferer contributing nothing—for instance, a man is pushed into motion, or be the violence mixed with the voluntary—for instance, when one wishes to do or to suffer what is less contrary to his will to avoid what is more contrary to it. But the Holy Spirit so inclines us to act that He makes us act voluntarily, in that He makes us lovers of God. Therefore, the sons of God are impelled by the Holy Spirit freely out of love, not slavishly out of fear. Hence, the Apostle says: “You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but the Spirit of adoption of sons” (Rom. 8:15). [6] The will, of course, is ordered to that which is truly good. But if, by reason of passion or of bad habit or disposition, a man be turned away from that which is truly good, he acts slavishly, in that he is diverted by some extraneous thing, if consideration be given the will’s natural order itself. But if one considers the act of the will as inclined to an apparent good, one acts freely when he follows passion or a corrupt habit he acts slavishly, of course, if while his will remains such he—for fear of a law to the contrary—refrains from that which he wills. Therefore, since the Holy Spirit inclines the will by love toward the true good, to which the will is naturally ordered, He removes both that servitude in which the slave of passion infected by sin acts against the order of the will, and that servitude in which, against the movement of his will, a man acts according to the law; its slave, so to say, not its friend. This is why the Apostle says: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17); and: “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Gal. 5: 18). [7] Hence it is that the Holy Spirit is said to mortify the deeds of the flesh, inasmuch as a passion of the flesh does not turn us away from the true good, and to this the Holy Spirit orders us by love; hence, we read in Romans (8:13): “If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.”

Chapter

AN ANSWER TO THE ARGUMENTS GIVEN ABOVE AGAINST THE DIVINITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

[1] One must now answer the arguments previously given, those in which the conclusion seemed to be that the Holy Spirit is a creature, and not God. [2] In this matter our first consideration must be that the name “spirit” seems to be taken from the respiration of animals, in which with some change air is taken in and expelled. And so the name “spirit” is extended to every impulse and movement of every single airy body; thus, the wind is called a “spirit” in the words of the Psalmist: “Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds which fulfill His word” (Ps. 148:8). Thus, also, the fine vapor diffused through the members for their movements is called “spirit.” Again, because air is invisible, the name “spirit” was carried further to all invisible and motive powers and substances. And on this account the sensible soul, the rational soul, the angels, and God are called “spirits”—and properly God proceeding by way of love, because love implies a kind of moving force. Accordingly, one understands the saying of Amos, “creating a spirit,” as referring to the wind; so our translation more expressly says, and this is also harmonious with what goes before: “forming mountains.” But what Zechariah says about God “creating” or “forming the spirit of man in him” one understands of the human soul. Hence, the conclusion cannot be that the Holy Spirit is a creature. [3] In the same way, of course, one cannot from our Lord’s saying about the Holy Spirit, “He shall not speak of Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak,” conclude that the Holy Spirit is a creature. For it was shown that the Holy Spirit is God. Hence, He must have His essence from another, just as we said about the Son of God above. And thus, since in God the knowledge and the power and the operation of God are His essence, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit all the knowledge and power and operation are from another. But the Son’s is from the Father only; that of the Holy Spirit is from the Father and from the Son. Therefore, since one of the operations of the Holy Spirit is His speaking in saintly men, as wag sbown, it is on this score said that “He shall not speak of Himself,” since He does not operate of Himself. “To bear,” of course, in His case is to receive knowledge, as He does essence, from the Father and the Son; and this because we receive knowledge by bearing, for it is customary in Scripture to deal with things divine in the fashion of things human. Nor need one be disturbed by His saying: “He shall hear,” speaking of future time, so to say. For the Holy Spirit receives eternally, and the verbs of any tense can be applied to the eternal, because eternity embraces the whole of time. [4] Following the same points, it is also clear that the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son does Hot justify concluding that He is a creature. For it was said above that in this the Son of God is said to have been sent: that He appeared to men in visible flesh. Thus, He was in a new kind of fashion in the world, a fashion in which previously He had not been—namely, visibly; and for all that He had always been in it invisibly as God. The Son’s doing so, of course, was His from the Father, and so in this He is said to have been sent by the Father. Thus, of course, the Holy Spirit visibly appeared: “as a dove” (Mat. 3:1.6) above Christ at His baptism, or “in tongues of fire” (Acts 2:3) above the Apostles. And, granted He did not become a dove or a fire as the Son became man, He nevertheless did appear in certain signs of His own in visible appearances Of this kind; thus, He also.in a new kind of fashion—namely, visibly—was in the world. And this presence was His from the Father and the Son; wherefore, He, too, is called sent by the Father and the Son. Yet this indicates not His being the lesser, but His proceeding. [5] Nevertheless, there is another way in which both the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to be invisibly sent. For from what has been said it is plain that the Son proceeds from the Father by way of the knowledge by which God knows Himself, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of the love by which God loves Himself. Hence, as was said,” when by the Holy Spirit one is made a lover of God, the Holy Spirit is dwelling within that one, and thus in a new kind of way He is in a man: to wit, dwelling in the man according to a new proper effect. And that the Holy Spirit produce this effect in man is His from the Father and the Son; and on this account He is said to be sent invisibly by the Father and the Son. And reasoning equally, in a human mind the Son is said to be invisibly sent when a man is in such wise established in the divine knowledge that the love of God comes forth in the man. Hence, clearly, neither does that fashion of being sent indicate in the Son or in the Holy Spirit His being the lesser, but His proceeding from another. [6] Similarly, also, the Holy Spirit is not excluded from the Divinity by the occasional connumeration of the Father and the Son without mention of the Holy Spirit, just as the Son is not excluded from the Divinity by occasional mention of the Father without the Son. In this way Scripture tacitly suggests that whatever relating to Divinity is said of one of the Three must be understood of all, because they are one God. Nor is it possible to understand God the Father without a Word and a Love, nor is the converse possible. For this reason, in one of the Three all Three are understood. Hence, mention occasionally is made of the Son on a point common to the Three; such is the case in Matthew (11:27): “Neither does any one know the Father, but the Son,” although both the Father and the Holy Spirit know the Father. In the same way, we read about the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians (2:11): “The things... of God no one knows, but the Spirit of God,” whereas it is certain that from this cognition of Divinity neither the Father nor the Son is excluded. [7] Clearly, also, one cannot show that the Holy Spirit is a creature because one finds sacred Scripture saying things about Him which pertain to motion. They must be taken metaphorically. For sometimes, also, sacred Scripture attributes motion to God; for example, Genesis (3:8; 18:21): “When they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise; and later: “I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that is come to Me.” Therefore, the saying, “the Spirit of God was borne over the waters,” must be understood to be said as the will is said to be borne on the willed, or the love on the beloved. This, also, by the way, some choose not to understand of the Holy Spirit, but of the air which has its natural place above the water, and so it was to indicate its manifold mutation that Scripture said it “was moved over the waters.” This further saying, “I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh,” must be understood as said of the way in which the Holy Spirit is sent to men by the Father and the Son. This was mentioned. Of course, in the word, “poured out,” the abundance of the effect of the Holy Spirit is grasped: He will not be stopped at one but will move on to many, and from these also somehow to others; this is clear when things are poured out corporeally. [8] In like manner, the saying, “I will take of your Spirit, and will give to them,” must not be referred to the essence or person of the Holy Spirit, since He is indivisible. The reference is to His effects, by which He dwells in us, and these can be increased or diminished in a man: not with the result, for all that, that what is subtracted from one is bestowed on another remaining numerically identical (this happens in bodily things), but so that a like thing may increase in one which decreases in another. Nor does this demand that to increase the effect in one it must be subtracted from another, for a spiritual thing can be possessed by many simultaneously without any loss. Hence, concerned with spiritual gifts, one must not understand that something was withdrawn from Moses to be conferred on others; the reference is rather to his act or office, for what the Holy Spirit had previously done through Moses alone He later effected through many. Thus, also, Elishah did not beg that the essence or person of the Holy Spirit be increased by duplication, but that the twofold effect of the Holy Spirit which had been in Elijah—namely, prophecy and the working of miracles—be also in himself. To be sure, there is no awkwardness in one’s participating in the Holy Spirit more abundantly than another, be it by the double or by any other ratio whatever, for the measure in each participant is finite. For all that, Elishah would not have had the presumption to ask that in a spiritual effect he should be greater than his master. [9] Again, it is plainly the custom of sacred Scripture to pass over into God a likeness to the passions of the human spirit; we read in the Psalms (105:40-41): “And the Lord was exceedingly angry with His people.” God is said to be angered by similarity in the effect, for He punishes, which is what the angered do; so this is added below: “And He delivered them into the hands of the nations.” Thus, the Holy Spirit is said to be ‘made sorrowful,” for He leaves sinners as those who are made sorrowful leave those who make them sorrowful. [10] It is also the usual manner of speech in sacred Scripture to attribute to God what He does in man; hence, Genesis (22:12): “Now I know that you fear God”—that is, “now I have made you know.” And in this way the Holy Spirit is said to petition, for He makes others petition; He makes the love of God be in our hearts; out of this we desire to enjoy Him, and in our desiring we petition. [11] Of course, since the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of the love by which God loves Himself, and by that same love and for His own goodness God loves Himself and other things, manifestly that love pertains to the Holy Spirit, the love by which God loves us. So, also, does the love by which we love God, for He makes us lovers of God. This has been explained. It is in regard to each of these loves that “to be bestowed” is fitting to the Holy Spirit. It is fitting by reason of the love by which God loves us in that manner of speech wherein each is said “to give his love” to someone when he begins to love him. Although there is no one whom God begins to love in time, if one considers the divine will by which He loves us, there is, nevertheless, an effect of His love caused in time in the one whom He draws to Himself. It is fitting to the Holy Spirit by reason of the love by which we love God, for the Holy Spirit makes this love in us. Hence, in accord with this love, He dwells in us—clearly from what has been said—and so we possess Him as one whose resources we enjoy. Now, this is in the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son: that by the love which He causes in us He be in us and be possessed by us. Fittingly, therefore, He is said “to be bestowed” upon us by the Father and the Son. Nor does this show Him to be one lesser than the Father and the Son, but to be one who has His origin from them. He is said also to be given us even by Himself in that He causes in us the love by which He dwells in us together with the Father and the Son. [12] Although the Holy Spirit is, of course, true God and has the true divine nature from the Father and the Son, He need not, for all that, be a son. For son is said of one because he is begotten. Hence, if a thing should receive its nature from another not by begetting, but in any other way whatever, it would lack the essential of sonship. If, for example, a man had the power divinely conceded to him to make a man out of some part of his own body, in some exterior fashion as one makes artefacts, the man produced would not be called the son of the producing, for he would not proceed from him by birth. But the procession of the Holy Spirit does not have the essentials of birth (as was shown above). Hence, the Holy Spirit, although He has the divine nature from the Father and the Son, cannot, for all that, be called Their son. [13] But that in the divine nature alone nature be communicated in several ways is reasonable. For in God alone is His operation His being. Hence, since in Him, as in any intellectual nature, there is an act of understanding and an act of will, that which proceeds in Him by way of understanding as Word, or by way of love and will as Love, must have the divine being and be God. And thus, not only the Son but the Holy Spirit is true God. [14] Let these, then, be our points about the divinity of the Holy Spirit. But other difficulties about His procession ought to he considered in the light of what has been said about the nativity of the Son.

Chapter

THE HOLY SPIRIT PROCEEDS FROM THE SON

[1] We find some who make this mistake about the procession of the Holy Spirit: they say the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son. For this reason we must show that the Holy Spirit does proceed from the Son. [2] It is manifest in sacred Scripture that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, for Romans (8:9) says: “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” But that one might not be able to say that the Spirit that proceeds from the Father is one, and the Son’s Spirit another, it is shown from the words of the same Apostle that the Holy Spirit of the Father and of the Son is identified. For the words just cited, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His,” the Apostle added after he had said: “If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us,” and so forth. But one cannot say that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ merely because He had Him as man, according to the words of Luke (4:1): “Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.” For one reads in Galatians (4:6): “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: Abba (Father).” The Holy Spirit, therefore, makes us the sons of God precisely because He is the Spirit of the Son of God. But we are made the adoptive sons of God by assimilation to the natural Son of God, as Romans (8:29) has it: “Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren.” Thus, then, is the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ: so far as He is God’s natural Son. But there is no relation in accord with which the Holy Spirit can be called the Spirit of the Son of God except a relation of origin, for this is the only distinction we find in divinity. Therefore, one must say that the Holy Spirit is the Son’s Spirit by proceeding from Him. [3] The Holy Spirit, again, is sent by the Son; consider John (15:26): “When the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father.” But whoever sends has an authority over the one sent. One must, then, say that the Son has an authority in regard to the Holy Spirit: not, of course, that of being master or being greater, but in accord with origin only. In this wise, then, the Holy Spirit is from the Son. Now, let one say that the Son is sent by the Holy Spirit as well, because we read in Luke (4:18-21) that our Lord said Isaiah’s words (61:1) were fulfilled in Him: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, He has sent Me to preach the gospel to the poor.” But consideration must be given this: the Son is sent by the Holy Spirit in accord with the assumed nature. But the Holy Spirit has not assumed a created nature, so that in accord with it He can be called sent by the Son, or so as to give the Son authority in His regard. Therefore, this remains: it is considered as an eternal person that the Son has authority over the Holy Spirit. [4] There is more. In John (16:14-15), the Son says of the Holy Spirit: “He shall glorify Me because He shall receive of Mine.” Of course, this cannot be said: He receives what is the Son’s, but does not receive from the Son; by saying, for instance, that He receives the Son’s divine essence from the Father. Hence, our Lord adds: “All things whatsoever the Father has are mine. Therefore, I said that He shall receive of Mine.” For, if all things which are the Father’s are the Son’s as well, the Father’s authority as principle of the Holy Spirit must be the Son’s as well. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit receives what is the Father’s from the Father, so He receives what is the Son’s from the Son. [5] Here one can also introduce the testimonies of the Doctors of the Church, the Greeks included. Athanasius says: “The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son-not made, not created, not begotten, but proceeding.” Cyril, too, in his epistle received by the Council of Chalcedon, says: “The Spirit of the truth is named and is the Spirit of the Truth and flows from Him just as, indeed, from God the Father.” Didymus also says in his book On the Holy Spirit: “The Son is nothing else than what is given to Him by the Father, and the substance of the Holy Spirit is no other than that given Him by the Son.” Of course, it is ridiculous that some concede that the Holy Spirit “is from the Son” or “flows from the Son” but does not “proceed from. Him.” For the verb “to proceed,” among all those which refer to origin, turns up most commonly; for, if anything is in any way at all from something, we say it proceeds from that thing. And since divinity is better designated by what is common than by what is special, in the origin of the divine persons the verb proceeding is the most suitable. And so, if one concedes that the Holy Spirit “is from the Son” or “flows from the Son,” it follows that “He proceeds from the Son.” [6] There is this, too, in the determination of the Fifth Council: “In all matters we follow the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church: Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Theophilus, John of Constantinople, Cyril, Leo, Proclus; and we accept what they have set down on the correct belief and the condemnation of heretics.” But it is manifest from many testimonies of Augustine, especially his On the Trinity and his Exposition of John, that the Holy Spirit is from the Son. It must, then, be conceded that the Holy Spirit is from the Son just as He is from the Father. [7] This is also clarified by straight reasoning. For among things, with the material distinction gone (and in the divine Persons such can have no place), one discovers no differentiation except by some opposition. For things which have no opposition to one another can be simultaneously in something identical; thus, no distinction can be caused by them. Take white and triangular. Although they are diverse, they can, because they are not opposed, be in an identical thing. But one must set down, according to the documents of the Catholic faith, that the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Son; otherwise, there would not be a Trinity, but a duality of Persons. Therefore, a distinction of this kind must take place through some opposition. But it is not the opposition of affirmation and negation. for such is the distinction of being from non-being. Nor is it the opposition of privation and habit, for such is the distinction of the perfect from the imperfect. Neither is it the opposition of contrariety, for such is the distinction of diversity of form. For contrariety as philosophers teach, is a “difference following on form.” And this difference is not suited to the divine Persons, since their form is one, just as their essence is. Hence, the Apostle says, speaking of the Son, “being in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6), the form, namely, of the Father. Therefore, the conclusion remains that one divine Person is not distinguished from another except by the opposition of relation: thus, the Son is distinguished from the Father consequently to the relative opposition of father and son. It is because in the divine Persons there can be no relative opposition except, consequently, on origin. For a relative opposition is founded on quantity—say the double or the half; or on action and passion—say master and servant, mover and moved, father and son. Further, among the relative oppositions founded on quantity, some are founded on diversity of quantity—say the double and the half, the greater and the lesser, some on unity itself—say identity, which means one in substance, and equality, which means one in quantity, and similarity, which means one in quality. The divine Persons, therefore, cannot be distinguished by relations founded on diversity of quantity, because this would take away the equality of the three Persons. Nor, again, by the relations which are founded on unity, because relations of this kind cause no distinction; rather, in them one finds more of what pertains to agreement, although some of them may presuppose a distinction. In all relations founded on action and passion, however, there is always one of the two which is a subject and unequal in power to the other; here, exception is made only for the relations of origin, and in such there is no lesser indicated, because one finds there something producing that which is similar and equal to itself in nature and power. The conclusion, therefore, must be that the divine Persons cannot be distinguished except by relative opposition in origin. Therefore, if the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Son, He is necessarily from the Son, for we do not say that the Son is from the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit is, rather, said to be of the Son and given by the Son. [8] Again, the Son is from the Father and so is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Father must be related both to the Son and the Holy Spirit as a principle to that which is from the principle. He is related to the Son by reason of paternity, but not to the Holy Spirit; for then the Holy Spirit would be the Son, because paternity is not said except of a son. There must, then, be another relation in the Father by which He is related to the Holy Spirit; and spiration is its name. In the same way, since there is in the Son a relation by which He is related to the Father, the name of which is sonship, there must also be in the Holy Spirit another relation by which He is related to the Father, and this is called procession. And thus, in accord with the origin of the Son from the Father, there are two relations, one in the originator, the other in the originated: to wit, paternity and sonship; and there are two others in reference to the Holy Spirit: namely, spiration and procession. Therefore, paternity and spiration do not constitute two Persons, but pertain to the one Person of the Father, for they have no opposition to one another. Therefore, neither would sonship and procession constitute two persons, but would pertain to one, unless they had an opposition to one another. But there is no opposition to assign save that by way of origin. Hence, there must be an opposition of origin between the Son and the Holy Spirit so that the one is from the other. [9] What is more, when things come together by something common to them, they must, if they are to be distinguished, be distinguished by differences which belong per se and not accidentally to that common thing. Thus, man and horse meet in animal, and are distinguished from one another not by black and white, which are related accidentally to animal, but by rational and irrational, which are per se pertinent to animal. This is because animal is what has soul [ animam ], and this must be distinguished by having this or that kind of soul—say, rational or irrational. Now, manifestly, the Son and the Holy Spirit agree in their being from another, since each is from the Father. And in this the Father suitably differs from each, in that He can have no birth-origin [ innascibilis ]. Therefore, if the Holy Spirit be distinguished from the Son, this must take place by differences which per se divide this being from another. And such, indeed, can only be differences of the same genus—namely, pertaining to origin—so that one of them is from the other. One concludes, then, that the distinction of the Holy Spirit from the Son requires that He be from the Son. [10] Let one say, further, that the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Son not because He is from the Son, but by reason of their differing origin from the Father. The difficulty really returns to the same point, for, if the Holy Spirit is other than the Son, the origin or procession of each must be other. But two origins cannot be distinguished except by term, or by principle, or by subject. Thus, the origin of a horse differs from the origin of a cow by way of term, in that these two origins have their terms in natures diverse in species. There is difference by way of principle if we suppose that some animals in the same species are generated by the active power of the sun alone, and some others along with this power by the active power of the seed. There is difference by way of subject when the generation of this horse differs from that as the nature of the species is received in diverse matters. But this distinction on the part of subject can have no place in the divine Persons, since they are entirely immaterial. In the same way, also, on the part of the term, granting one may speak so, there can be no distinction of processions. For the divine nature, one and the same, which the Son receives by His birth, the Holy Spirit receives by His proceeding. It remains, therefore, that the distinction of each origin can be only on the part of the principle. Manifestly, of course, the principle of the origin of the Son is the Father alone. If, therefore, the principle of the procession of the Holy Spirit is the Father alone, the procession of the Holy Spirit will not be other than the generation of the Son; thus, neither will the Holy Spirit be distinct from the Son. Therefore, that there may be otherness in processions and otherness in those proceeding, one of necessity says that the Holy Spirit is not from the Father alone, but from the Father and the Son. [11] But, again, if one says that the processions differ in principle, in that the Father produces the Son by way of intellect as Word, and the Holy Spirit by way of will as Love, it will be necessary to say that in accord with a difference of intellect and will in God the Father the two processions and the two proceeding are to be distinguished. Will and intellect in God the Father are not distinguished really, but only rationally, as was shown in Book I. It follows, then, that the two processions and the two proceeding differ only rationally. Now, things which differ only rationally are predicated of each other: it will be truly said that the divine intellect is the divine will, and conversely. Therefore, it will be true to say that the Holy Spirit is the Son, and conversely. This is the Sabellian impiety. Therefore, it does not suffice for the distinction of the Holy Spirit and the Son to say that the Son proceeds by way of intellect and the Holy Spirit by way of will, unless along with this one says the Holy Spirit is from the Son. [12] There is more. From the very fact of saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of will and the Son by way of intellect it follows that the Holy Spirit is from the Son. For love proceeds from a word: we are able to love nothing but that which a word of the heart conceives. [13] Again, if one considers the diverse species of things, a certain order appears in them: the living are above the nonliving; animals are above plants; and man is above the other animals. And in each of these, different grades are discovered according to different species; hence, even Plato said that the species of things are numbers, which are varied in species by the addition and subtraction of unity. Hence, in immaterial substances there can be no distinction except that of order. But in the divine Persons who are entirely immaterial there can be no other order than that of origin. Therefore, there are not two Persons proceeding from one, unless one of those proceeds from a second. And thus, necessarily, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. [14] Moreover, the Father and the Son, unity of essence considered, do not differ save in this: He is the Father and He is the Son. So, anything other than this is common to the Father and the Son. But to be the principle of the Holy Spirit is not included in the notion of paternity and of sonship, for it is one relation by which the Father is Father, and another by which He is the principle of the Holy Spirit, as was said above. Therefore, to be the principle of the Holy Spirit is common to the Father and the Son. [15] Furthermore, whenever one thing is not opposed to the essential intelligibility of another, there is no impossibility—unless, perhaps, accidentally—about their coming together. But to be the principle of the Holy Spirit is not contrary to the intelligibility of the Son: not in so far as He is God, because the Father is the principle of the Holy Spirit; nor in so far as He is Son, because the procession of the Holy Spirit is other than that of the Son. It is, of course, not repugnant to have what is from a principle according to one procession he the principle of another procession. It follows, then, that it is not impossible for the Son to be the principle of the Holy Spirit. But that which is not impossible can be. “In divinity being and possibility do not differ.” Therefore, the Son is the principle of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS OF THOSE WHO WANT TO SHOW THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT DOES NOT PROCEED FROM THE SON AND THE ANSWERS [1] There are some, pertinacious in their willful resistance to the truth, who make some points to the contrary which are hardly worth an answer. They say that our Lord, speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit, says that He proceeds from the Father, without mentioning the Son. So one reads in John (15:26): “When the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father.” Hence, since nothing must be held about God which is not given in Scripture, it must not be said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. [2] But this is entirely frivolous. For, by reason of unity of essence, what is said in the Scriptures about one Person ought to be understood of another, unless it is repugnant to His propriety as a Person, and this even if some exclusive phrase is added. For, although it says in Matthew (12:27): “No one knows the Son, but the Father,” neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit is, for all that, excluded from knowledge of the Son. Hence, even if it is said in the Gospel that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from any but the Father, this would not exclude His proceeding from the Son. For this is not repugnant to the propriety of the Son, as was shown. Neither is there cause to marvel if our Lord said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, saying nothing about Himself, His custom is to refer everything to His Father from whom He has whatever He has. Thus, He says in John (7:16): “My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me.” Many things of this kind are discovered in the words of our Lord which establish in the Father the authority of the principle. And, for all that, in the passage just mentioned our Lord was not altogether silent about His being the principle of the Holy Spirit. He called Him “the Spirit of Truth,” and He had previously called Himself “the Truth” (John 24:6). [3] They further object that in certain councils one finds it prohibited under penalty of anathema to add anything to the Creed ordered by the council. In this, they say, there is no mention of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. And so they hold the Latins guilty of anathema because they have added this to the Creed. [4] But such arguments are inefficacious. For the declaration of the Synod of Chalcedon says that the Fathers gathered at Constantinople corroborated the doctrine of the Synod of Nicea. This they did, “not as though to imply that the doctrine was something less, but to declare by Scriptural testimonies the understanding of the Holy Spirit Of their predecessors against those who attempted to reject that understanding.” One must say, similarly, that the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son is implicitly contained in the Creed of Constantinople, for the latter says that “He proceeds from the Father,” and what is understood of the Father must be understood of the Son, as was said. And the authority of the Roman Pontiff sufficed for this addition; by this authority, too, all the ancient councils were confirmed. [5] They maintain, also, that the Holy Spirit, since He is simple, cannot be from two; and that the Holy Spirit, if He proceeds perfectly from the Father, does not proceed from the Son; and other arguments of this sort. These are easy to solve, even if one is but little skilled in theological matters. For the Father and the Son are a single principle of the Holy Spirit by reason of the unity of divine power, and by one production they produce the Holy Spirit; thus, also, the three Persons are one principle of creatures and by one action they produce creatures.

Chapter

THAT THERE ARE BUT THREE PERSONS IN DIVINITY: THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

[1] From what has been said, then, one must hold that in the divine nature three Persons subsist: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that these three are one God, distinguished from one another by relations only. For the Father is distinguished from the Son by the relations of paternity and innascibility; the Son from the Father by the relation of sonship; the Father and the Son from the Holy Spirit by spiration, so to say; and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son by the procession of love, by this He proceeds from each of Them. [2] Beside these three Persons, no fourth in the divine nature can be asserted. For the divine Persons, since they agree in essence, cannot be distinguished except by relation of origin, as is clear. These relations of origin one must understand not as a procession which inclines to what is without—for what proceeds thus is not co-essential with its principle—one must understand them as proceeding within. Of course, a thing which proceeds and remains its own principle is found only in the operation of the intellect and will, as was made clear. Hence, the divine Persons cannot be multiplied save by the requirements of the procession of the intellect and will in God. It is, of course, not possible that there be in God more than one proceeding within His understanding, because His act of understanding is one, simple, and perfect, for in, understanding Himself He understands all things else. And thus, there can be in God but one proceeding of the Word. In like manner, too, must the proceeding of Love be one only, for the divine will act is one and simple-by loving Himself He loves all things else. Therefore, it is not possible that in God there be more than two Persons proceeding: one by way of intellect, as Word—namely the Son; the other by way of Love, as the Holy Spirit. There is also one Person who does not proceed-namely, the Father. Therefore, in the Trinity there can be only three Persons. [3] Again, let the divine Persons be distinguished by proceeding. But the mode of a person in proceeding can be but threefold: namely, to be altogether not proceeding, which is the Father’s mode; to be proceeding from one who does not proceed, which is the Son’s; to be proceeding from one who Proceeds, which is the Holy Spirit’s. Therefore, it is impossible to assert more than three Persons. [4] We grant, of course, that in other living things relations of origin can be multiplied—for example, in human nature there can be many fathers and many sons—but in the divine nature this is altogether impossible. For sonship, since in one nature it is of one species, cannot be multiplied except by matter or by subject; this is also the case with other forms. Hence, since in God there is neither matter nor subject, and since the relations are themselves subsistent (which is clear from what was said above) it is impossible that there be a plurality of sonships of God. The same reasoning holds for the other Persons. Thus, in God there are only three Persons. [5] Of course, an objector may say that in the Son who is perfect God there is infinite intellective power, and thus He can produce a word; in like fashion, since there is in the Holy Spirit infinite goodness which is the principle of communication, He will be able to communicate the divine nature to another person. But such a one ought to consider that the Son is God, as begotten not as begetting; and so the intellective power is in Him as proceeding in the way of the Word, and not in Him as producing the Word. Similarly, since the Holy Spirit is God as proceeding, there is infinite goodness in Him as the Person receiving, and not in Him as communicating the infinite goodness to another. For the Persons are not distinguished from one another except by relations, as is clear from the things said above. Therefore, all the fullness of divinity is the Son, numerically identical with that in the Father, but with the relation of birth, as it is in the Father with the relation of active generation. Hence, if the relation of the Father be attributed to the Son, all distinction is removed. And the same reasoning holds for the Holy Spirit. [6] Now, this divine Trinity has a likeness in the human mind which we can consider. For the mind itself, because it understands itself, conceives within itself a word. And this is nothing but the intelligible intention of the mind, which is called the mind understood and exists within the mind. When this mind further loves itself, it produces its very self in the will as beloved. Of course, it does not proceed further within itself, but the cycle is concluded when by love it returns to the very substance from which the proceeding began by the intention understood. The proceeding extends to external effects when from love of itself it proceeds to make something. Thus, three things are discovered in the mind: the mind itself, the source of the proceeding, existing in its nature; and mind conceived in the intellect; and mind beloved in the will. For all that~ these three are not one nature, for the mind’s act of understanding is not its being; and its will act is neither its being, nor its act of understanding. For this reason, also, the mind understood and the mind beloved are not persons, since they are not subsisting. Even the mind itself existing in its nature is not a person, for it is not the whole which subsists, but a part of the subsistent; namely, of the man. [7] Therefore, in our mind one finds a likeness of the divine Trinity in regard to proceeding, “and this multiplies the Trinity.” For from the exposition this is clear: there is in the divine nature God unbcgotten, who is the source of the whole divine proceeding, namely the Father; there is God begotten by way of a word conceived in the intellect, namely the Son; there is God by way of love proceeding, namely the Holy Spirit. Of course, no further proceeding is discovered within the divine nature, but only a proceeding to exterior effects. In this, of course, the mind fails in representing the divine Trinity: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in nature, and in each of these the person is perfect, simply because the act of understanding and the act of will are the divine being itself, as was shown. For this reason one considers the divine likeness in man just as one considers the likeness of Hercules in stone: with regard to the representation of form, not with regard to the agreement of nature. And so one says that in the mind of man there is the “image of God” according to the Word: “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). [8] One also finds in other things a likeness of the divine Trinity, so far as anything in its substance is one, formed in a kind of species, ordered in some fashion. just as is clear from the things said, the conception of the intellect in intelligible being is like the species formation in natural being, love, of course, is like the inclination or order in a thing of nature. And so the species of things in nature from afar represent the Son; their order, of course, the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, by reason of the remote and obscure representation in irrational things, one speaks of the “vestige” of the Trinity in them, not of the “image”; so we read in Job (11:7): “Would you comprehend the steps of God?” and so forth. [9] And this is enough to say about the divine Trinity for the present.

Chapter

ON ME INCARNATION OF THE WORD ACCORDING TO THE TRADITION OF SCRIPTURE

[1] Since, of course, when divine generation was dealt with above, it was said of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, that some things belong to Him in His divine nature, and some in that human nature by the assumption of which in time the eternal Son chose to be incarnate, it now remains to speak of the mystery of the Incarnation itself. Indeed, among divine works, this most especially exceeds the reason: for nothing can be thought of which is more marvelous than this divine accomplishment: that the true God, the Son of God, should become true man. And because among them all it is most marvelous, it follows that toward faith in this particular marvel all other miracles are ordered, since “that which is greatest in any genus seems to be the cause of the others.” [2] This marvelous incarnation of God, of course, which divine authority hands down, we confess. For it says in John (2:14): “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” And the Apostle Paul says: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (Phil. 2:6-7). [3] This is also shown clearly by the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, since at times He says lowly and human things of Himself, such as: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) and “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matt 26:38), which become Him in His assumed humanity, but at times He says sublime and divine things, such as: “I and the Father are one” (John 10: 30) and “whatever the Father has is Mine (John 16:15), which certainly belong to Him in His divine nature. [4] Even the things which we read about what our Lord did show this. That He feared, that He was grieved, that He thirsted, that He died: these belong to the human nature. That by His own power He healed the sick, that He raised the dead, that He effectively commanded the elements of the world, that He drove out devils, that He forgave sins, that when He chose He rose from the dead: these reveal the divine power in Him.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF PROTINUS ABOUT THE INCARNATION

[1] There are, of course, those who have debased Scripture and have conceived a perverse understanding of the divinity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] For there have been some, like Ebion and Cerinthus, and, later, Paul of Samosata and Photinus, who confess in Christ a human nature only. But divinity was in Him, not by nature, but by a kind of outstanding participation of divine glory which He had merited by His deeds. Hence, they fabricate, as was said above. [3] But—to pass over the other things said against this position above—this position destroys the Incarnation’s mystery. [4] For, according to this position, God would not have assumed flesh to become man; rather, an earthly man would have become God. Thus, the saying of John (1:14) would not be true: “The Word was made flesh”; on the contrary, flesh would have been made the Word. [5] In the same way, also, emptying Himself and descent would not fit the Son of God; rather, glorification and ascent would fit the man. Thus, there would be no truth in the Apostle’s saying: “Who being in the form of God emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7, 9), but only in the exaltation of the man to divine glory about which he adds later: “For which cause God also has exalted Him.” [6] Neither would there be truth in our Lord’s word: “I came down from heaven,” but only in His saying: “I ascend to My Father,” in spite of the Scripture which joins these two, for our Lord says: “No one has ascended into heaven, except him who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven” (John 6:38; 20:17; 3:13); and, again: “He who descended is the same who ascended above all the heavens” (Eph. 4: 10). [7] Thus, also, it would not become the Son to have been sent by the Father, nor to have gone out from the Father to come into the world, but only to go to the Father, although He Himself, for all that, unites the two, saying: “I go to Him that sent Me?” and “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and I go to the Father” (John 16:5, 28). In each of these cases both the humanity and the divinity is established.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF THE MANICHEANS ABOUT THE INCARNATION

[1] There also have been others who denied the truth of the Incarnation and introduced a kind of fictional incarnation. The Manicheans said that God’s Son assumed not a real, but a phantasy, body; thus, He could not be a true man, but only an apparent one. Consequently, the things He did as man—such as being born, eating, drinking, walking, suffering, and being buried—were done not in truth but in a kind of false appearance. Thus, clearly, they reduce the whole mystery of the Incarnation to a fiction. [2] First, of course, this position wipes out the authority of Scripture. Since the likeness of flesh is not flesh, the likeness of walking not walking, and so of the rest, Scripture lies in saying: “The Word was made flesh” (John 1:14)—if it was but phantasy flesh. It also lies when it says that Jesus Christ walked, ate, died, and was buried—if these things took place only in an apparent phantasy. But, if even in a moderate way the authority of Scripture be decried, there will no longer be anything fixed in our faith which depends on sacred Scripture, as in John’s words (20:31): “These are written, that you may believe.” [3] Someone can say, of course, that the truth is certainly not lacking to sacred Scripture when it deals with an appearance as though it were a fact, because the likenesses of things are equivocally and figuratively called by the names of the things themselves; a man in a picture, for example, is called a man equivocally. Sacred Scripture itself is accustomed to this manner of speech; thus the Apostle: “And the rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4). Of course, many bodily things are found to be said of God in Scripture by reason of mere metaphor: so He is named lamb, or lion, or something of the sort. [4] However, although the likenesses of things may at times take the names of things by equivocation, it is nonetheless unsuitable to sacred Scripture to set down the whole story of one event under such an equivocation, and so to do it that from other Scriptural passages the plain truth cannot be had. For from this would follow not men’s instruction, but their deception instead, whereas the Apostle says: “For what things soever were written, were written for our learning” (Rom. 15:4); and in 2 Timothy (3:16): “All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach and to instruct.” Moreover, the entire Gospel story would be but poetry and fable if it narrated the apparent similarities of things as the things themselves; whereas 2 Peter (1:16) says: “For we have not by following artificial fables made known to you the power of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” [5] But, when the Scriptural narrative is of things which had appearance, but not existence, the very manner of the narration makes us understand this. For Genesis (18:2, 27, 25) says: “And when he” (Abraham) “had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men.” This gives us to understand that they were men by appearance. And so in them he adored God and acknowledged Divinity, and he said: “I will speak to my Lord whereas I am but dust and ashes”; and again: “This is not beseeming You, You who judge all the earth.” However, the fact that Isaiah and Ezekiel and other Prophets have described some things which were seen in imagination produces no error, for they do not set these things down in the narration of history, but in the description of prophecy. And they nonetheless add something which designates apparition: thus, Isaiah (6:1): “I saw the Lord sitting,” and so forth; Ezekiel (1:3-4; 8:3): “The hand of the Lord was there upon him. And I saw,” and so forth: “The likeness of a hand was put forth and took me and brought me in the vision of God into Jerusalem.” [6] Even the fact that Scripture sometimes speaks of things divine through a comparison cannot produce error, and this both for this reason—the likenesses are taken from things so lowly it is manifest that the passage deals with similitude and not with the existence of things; and for this reason—some things are found said properly in Scripture through which the truth is expressly clarified, and this truth in other places is hidden under similitudes. This, indeed, does not take place in this case, for there is no Scriptural authority touching what is read of Christ’s humanity which precludes the truth of what is said. [7] Perhaps one may say that we are given so to understand by the words of the Apostle: “God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3). Or by this in Philippians (2:7): “Made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.” But here the meaning is excluded by what is added, for it does not merely say “in the likeness of flesh,” but adds “sinful,” because Christ had, indeed, true flesh, but not “sinful flesh”, for there was no sin in Him. But His was similar to “sinful flesh,” for His was the,,captive of suffering, and such did the flesh of man become through sin. In the same way, a fictional understanding is excluded from the saying, “Made in the likeness of men,” by the addition: “taking the form of a servant.” It is clear that “form” is put here in place of nature rather than of likeness because he had said: “Who being in the form of God” (Phil. 7:6). There, for nature, “form” is put, for the words do not assert that Christ was God by some mere similarity. Further exclusion of fictional understanding is in the addition: “Becoming obedient even unto death” (Phil. 2:8). Likeness is not, therefore, taken for the likeness of an appearance, but for natural likeness of the species; as all men are said to he alike in species. [8] But sacred Scripture more expressly excludes the suspicion of apparition. For we read in Matthew (14:26-27) that the disciples, seeing Jesus “walking upon the sea, were troubled, saying: It is an apparition. And they cried out for fear.” This very suspicion of theirs our Lord consequently took away; and so the addition: “And immediately Jesus spoke to them saying: Be of good heart; it is I, fear not.” However one takes it, this appears irrational: that it should escape the disciples’ notice that He had assumed but a phantasy body, since He had chosen them to give testimony of the truth about Him from what they “had seen and heard” (Acts 4:20); or, if it did not escape their notice, then the thought of an apparition should not have stricken them with fear. [9] But again, more expressly, the suspicion of a phantasy body was removed from the minds of the disciples by our Lord after the resurrection. For we read in Luke (24:37-39) that the disciples, “being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit,” namely, when they saw Jesus. “And He said to them: Why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See My hands and feet, that it is I Myself. Handle and see: for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have.” For in vain did He offer Himself to be touched, if he had had none but a phantasy body. [10] Again, the Apostles show themselves suitable witnesses of Christ, for Peter says: “Him,” namely, Jesus, “God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest. Not to all the people, but to witnesses preordained by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He arose again from the dead” (Acts 10:40-41). And John the Apostle, at the beginning of his Epistle, says: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life: we witness” (1 John 1:1-2). But there can be no efficacy in witness to the truth based on things done, not in real existence, but in appearance only. If, therefore, the body of Christ was a phantasy and He did not truly eat and drink, and if He was not truly seen and handled, but in phantasy only, no fitness is found in the testimony of the Apostles about Christ. And thus, “vain is their preaching, and our faith is vain,” as Paul says (1 Cor. 15:14). [11] But, again, if Christ had no true body, He did not truly die. Therefore, neither is He truly risen. Therefore, the Apostles are false witnesses of Christ when they preach to the world that He has risen. Hence, the Apostle says in the same place: “We are found false witnesses of God: because we have given testimony against God, that He has raised up Christ; whom He has not raised up” (1 Cor. 15:15). [12] What is more, falsity is not a suitable way to the truth. As Sirach (34:4) has it: “What truth can come from that which is false?” But Christ’s coming into the world was for the manifestation of truth. He Himself says: ‘Tor this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth” (John 18:37). There was not then, any falsity in Christ. But there would have been if what He says of Himself had been about mere appearance, for the “false is that which is not as it seems.” Therefore, everything said of Christ was in accord with real existence. [13] Moreover, we read in Romans (5:9) that “we are justified by His blood” and in the Apocalypse (5:9): “You have redeemed us, O Lord, in your blood.” Therefore, if Christ did not have true blood, He did not truly shed it for us. Therefore, we are neither truly justified nor truly redeemed. Therefore, there is no usefulness to being in Christ. [14] Again, if there is nothing but apparition to be understood of Christ’s coming into the world, nothing new took place in Christ’s coming. For, in the Old Testament, God appeared to Moses and the Prophets under multiple figures, as even the writings of the New Testament witness. Yet this position wipes out the whole teaching of the New Testament. Therefore, it was not a phantasy body, but a true one, which the Son of God assumed.

Chapter

THE ERROR OF VALENTINE ABOUT THE INCARNATION

11] The opinions of Valentine, of course, were close to these in regard to the mystery of the Incarnation. For he said that Christ did not have an earthly body, but brought one from heaven; that He received nothing from the Virgin Mother, but passed through her as through an aqueduct. The occasion of his error he seems to have found in some words of sacred Scripture. For we read in John (3:13, 31): “No man has ascended into heaven, but He that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven... He that comes from above, is above all”; and in John (6:38) our Lord says: “I came down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him that sent Me.” And 1 Corinthians (15:47) has: “The first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven, heavenly.” All of these they want to have so understood that one believes that Christ came down from heaven even in the body. [2] But this position of Valentine and that of the Manicheans just mentioned proceed from one false root: they believed that all these earthly things were created by the devil. And so, since “the Son of God appeared that He might destroy the works of the devil,” as 1 John (3:8) says, it was unsuitable for Him to assume a body from a creature of the devil, since Paul also says: “What fellowship has light with darkness? What concord has Christ with Belial?” (Il Cor. 6:14-15). 13] And since things which come from the same root produce similar fruits, this position lapses into the same discordant falsity as the previous one. For in every single species there are determined essential principles (matter, I mean, and form) from which comes the essential constitution of the species in things composed of matter and form. But just as human flesh and bone and the like are the proper matter of man, so fire, air, earth, and water and the like, such as we sense, are the matter of flesh and bone and parts of this kind. Therefore, if the body of Christ was not earthly, it was not true flesh and true bone, but in appearance only. And thus, also, He was not a true, but an apparent man, whereas, as was noted, He Himself nonetheless says: “A spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have (Luke 24:39). [4] A heavenly body, moreover, is in its nature incorruptible and inalterable, and cannot be moved outside of its own place. Of course, it was not seemly that the Son of God should diminish the dignity of the nature He assumed, but that He exalt it. Therefore, He did not carry a celestial or incorruptible body below; rather, He assumed an earthly body, capable of suffering, and rendered it incorruptible and heavenly. [5] Again, the Apostle says about the Son of God that He “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). But the body of David was earthly. Therefore, too, was the body of Christ. [6] The Apostle further says that “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). And Matthew (1:16) says: “Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” But He would not be called made of her, or born of her, if He had only passed through her as a channel, assuming nothing from her. Therefore, He assumed His body from her. [7] Furthermore, Mary could not be called the Mother of Jesus, which the Evangelist (Mat. 1:18) witnesses, unless He had received something from her. [8] Again, the Apostle says: “Both He that sanctifies,” namely, Christ, “and they who are sanctified,” namely, Christ’s faithful, “are all of one. For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren saying: I will declare your name to My brethren”; and farther on: “Therefore, because the children are partakers of the flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner has been partaker of the same” (Heb. 2:11-12, 14). But if Christ had a heavenly body only, clearly, since we have an earthly body, we are not one with Him, and, consequently, we cannot be called His brothers. Neither did He Himself partake of flesh and blood, for we know that flesh and blood are composed of the lower elements, and are not of the celestial nature. Plainly, therefore, the position aforesaid is contrary to the Apostolic teaching. [9] The points on which they rely are clearly frivolous. For Christ did not descend from heaven according to soul or to body, but inasmuch as He was God. And this can be gathered from the very words of our Lord. For, when He was saying: “No man has ascended into heaven, but He that descended from heaven,” he added: “the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13); in which He is pointing out that He has so descended from heaven that He has not, for all that, ceased to be in heaven. But this is proper to deity: so to be on earth as to fill the heaven also, as Jeremiah (23:24) has it: “I fill heaven and earth.” Therefore, the Son of God does not have to descend from heaven by a local motion, for what is moved locally so approaches one place as to withdraw from another. Therefore, the Son of God is said to have descended in that He joined an earthly substance to Himself: just as the Apostle calls Him ‘emptied” in that He took the fonn of a servant, in such wise, nonetheless, that He did not lose the nature of divinity. [10] However, that which they assume for the root of this position the foregoing shows to be false, for it was made plain in Book II that bodily things are not from the devil, but are made by God.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF APOLLINARIS ABOUT THE BODY OF CHRIST

[1] Even more irrational than these were the errors of Apollinaris about the mystery of the Incarnation. Nonetheless, he agrees with those mentioned in one thing: Christ’s body was not assumed from the Virgin, but (and this is a greater impiety) he says that something of the Word was changed into the flesh of Christ The occasion of his error he finds in John (1:24): “The Word was made flesh.” He thought this must be understood as though the Word Himself were changed into flesh, as the other text in John (2:9) is understood: “When the steward tasted the water made wine.” For this latter is said because the water was changed into wine. [2] The impossibility in this error is easy to grasp from the things shown above. For it was shown that God is entirely immutable, but whatever is changed into another is manifestly mutable. Since, then, the Word of God is true God, as was shown, it is impossible that the Word of God be changed into flesh. [3] The Word of God, again, since He is God, is simple, for it was shown above that there is no composition in God. Therefore, if something of the Word of God is changed into flesh, the whole Word must be changed. But what is changed into another ceases to be what it was before; just as the water changed into wine is no longer water, but wine. Therefore, after the Incarnation, according to the position described the Word will simply not be. And this is evidently impossible: both because the Word is eternal, as in John (1:1): “In the beginning was the Word”; as well as because after the Incarnation Christ is said to be the Word of God, as in the Apocalypse (19:13): “He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood; and His name is called THE WORD OF GOD.” [4] There is more. Things which do not share matter and are not in one genus cannot possibly undergo conversion into one another. For from a line whiteness is not made: they are of different genera; nor can an elementary body be converted into one of the celestial bodies, or into some incorporeal substance, nor conversely, since they have no matter in common. But the Word of God, since He is God, has neither genus nor matter in common with anything else whatsoever, for God is not in a genus and has no matter. It is, therefore, impossible that the Word was converted into flesh or into anything else whatever. [5] Furthermore, it is essential to flesh, to bone, to other parts of this sort that they be of determined matter. Therefore, if the Word of God be converted into flesh, as the position described holds, it will follow that there was not in Christ true flesh or anything else of the sort. And thus, also, He will not be true man, but an apparent one only; and so for the other points which we made against Valentine previously. [6] Plainly, then, the saying of John, “The Word was made flesh,” must not be understood as though the Word had been changed into flesh, but that He assumed flesh so as to dwell with men and appear visible to them. Hence there is added: “And dwelt among us, and we saw His glory,” and so forth; just as Baruch (3:38) also says of God: “He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.”

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF ARIUS AND APOLLINARIS ABOUT THE SOUL OF CHRIST

[1] It is, however, not only about the body of Christ but also about His soul that one finds some bad opinions. [2] For Arius held that in Christ there was no soul, but that He assumed only flesh, and that divinity stood to this as soul. And he seems to have been led to this position by a certain necessity. For he wanted to maintain that the Son of God was a creature and less than the Father, and so for his proof he picked up those Scriptural passages which show human infirmity in Christ. And to keep anyone from refuting him by saying that the passages he picked referred to Christ not in His divine, but in His human, nature, he evilly removed the soul from Christ to this purpose: since some things are not harmonious with a human body, that He wondered, for example, that He feared, that He prayed—all such must necessarily imply the inferiority of the Son of God Himself. Of course, he picked up for the assertion of his position the words of John just mentioned, “The Word was made flesh,” and from this he wanted to gather that the Word only assumed flesh, not a soul. And in this position even Apollinaris followed him. [3] But it is clear from what has been said that this position is impossible. For it was shown Ames that God cannot be the form of a body. Since, therefore, the Word of God is God, as was shown, it is impossible that the Word of God be the form of a body, so as to be able to stand as a soul to flesh. [4] This argument, of course, is useful against Apollinaris, who confessed the Word of God to be true God; and granted Arius would deny this last, the argument just given goes against him, also. For it is not God alone who cannot be the form of a body, neither can any of the supercelestial spirits among whom Arius held the Son of God supreme. Exception might be made for the position of Origen, who held that human souls were of the very same species and nature as the supercelestial spirits. The falsity of this opinion was explained above. [5] Take away, moreover, what is of the essence of man, and no true man can be. Clearly, of course, the soul is chiefly of the essence of man, since it is his form. Therefore, if Christ had no soul He was not true man, whereas the Apostle does call Him man: “There is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). [6] It is on the soul, furthermore, that not only man’s essence, but that of his single parts, depends; and so, with the soul gone, the eye, the flesh, and the bone of a dead man are equivocally named, “like a painted or a stone eye.” Therefore, if in Christ there was no soul, of necessity there was neither true flesh in Him nor any of the other parts of man, whereas our Lord says that He has these in Himself: “A spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have (Luke 24:39). [7] Further, what is generated from another cannot be called his son unless he comes forth in the same species; the maggot is not called the son of the animal from which it is generated. But, if Christ had no soul, He was not of the same species as other men, for things which differ in form cannot be identical in species. Therefore, one will not be able to say that Christ is the Son of the Virgin Mary or that she is His Mother. Nonetheless, Scripture asserts this in the Gospels (Mat. 1:18; Luke 7:7). [8] There is mo re. The Gospel expressly says that Christ had a soul; Matthew (26:38) for instance: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death,” and John (17:2.7): “Now is My soul troubled.” [9] And lest they say perhaps that the very Son of God is called soul because in their position He stands to the flesh as soul, one must take our Lord’s own saying: “I have power to lay My soul down: and I have power to take it up again” (John 10:18). From this one understands that there is another than the soul in Christ, which had the power of laying the soul down and taking it up again. It was, of course, not in the power of the body to be united to the Son of God or be separated from Him, since this, too, exceeds the power of nature. One must, then, understand that in Christ the soul was one thing and the divinity of the Son of God another, to whom such power justly is attributed. [10] Another reason: Sorrow, anger and the like are passions of the sensitive soul; the Philosopher makes this plain. [11] But, since one can say that the human things in the Gospels are said of Christ metaphorically, just as the sacred Scriptures speak of God in many places, one must take something which is understood properly of necessity. For, just as other bodily things which the Evangelists relate of Christ are understood properly and not metaphorically, so it must not be understood of Christ metaphorically that He ate and that He hungered. Only he who has a sensitive soul hungers, since hunger is the appetite for food. Necessarily, then, Christ had a sensitive soul.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF APOLLINARIS, WHO SAYS THERE WAS NO RATIONAL SOUL IN CHRIST; AND THE ERROR OF ORIGEN, WHO SAYS THE SOUL OF CHRIST WAS CREATED BEFORE THE WORLD [1] Won over, however, by this Gospel testimony, Apollinaris confessed that there was a sensitive soul in Christ; nonetheless, it was without mind and intellect, so that the Word of God was in that soul in place of intellect and mind. [2.] But even this is not sufficient to avoid the awkward consequences described, for man gets his human species from his having a human mind and reason. Therefore, if Christ did not have these, He was not true man, nor was He of the same species with us. For a soul which lacks reason belongs to a species other than that of the soul which has reason. For, according to the Philosopher [ Metaphysics VIII, 3], in definitions and species any essential difference which is added or subtracted varies the species, just as unity does in numbers. But rational is the specific difference. Therefore, if in Christ there was a sensitive soul without reason, it was not of the same species with our soul, which does have reason. Neither, then, was Christ Himself of the same species with us. [3] Again, among the sensible souls themselves which lack reason there exists diversity by reason of species. This appears from consideration of the irrational animals which differ from one another in species; nonetheless, each of them has its species according to its proper soul. Thus, then, the sensitive soul lacking reason is, so to say, one genus including within itself many species. But nothing is in a genus which is not in one of its species. If, then, the soul of Christ was in the genus of sensitive soul lacking reason, it must have been included in one of its species; for example, it was in the species of lion soul, or some other beast. And this is entirely absurd. [4] The body, moreover, is compared to the soul as matter to form, and as instrument to principal agent. But the matter must be proportionate to the form, and the instrument to the principal agent. Therefore, consequent on the diversity of souls, there must be a diversity of bodies. And this is sensibly evident, for in diverse animals one finds diverse dispositions of the members, in which they concord with the diverse dispositions of the souls. Therefore, if in Christ there was not a soul such as our soul is, neither would He have had members like the human members. [5] There is more. Since, according to Apollinaris, the Word of God is true God. wonder cannot be seemly in Him, for we wonder at those things whose cause we ignore. But, in the same way, wonder cannot be fitting for the sensitive soul, since solicitude for the knowledge of causes does not belong to the sensitive soul. But there was wonder in Christ; so one proves from the Gospels. It says in Matthew (8:10) that Jesus heard the words of the centurion and “marveled.” One must, then, in addition to the divinity of the Word and His sensitive soul put in Christ that which can make wonder seemly in Him; namely, a human mind. [6] Manifestly, therefore, from the aforesaid there was in Christ a human body and a true human soul. Thus, therefore, John’s saying (1:14), ‘The Word was made flesh,” is not thus to be understood, as though the Word has been converted into flesh; or as though the Word has assumed the flesh only; or with a sensitive soul without a mind; but after Scripture’s usual manner the part is put for the whole, so that one says: “The Word was made man.” “Soul” is sometimes used in place of man in Scripture; Exodus (1:5) says: “And all the souls that came out of Jacob’s thigh were seventy”; in the same way, also, “flesh” is used for the whole man; Isaiah (40:5) says: “All flesh together shall see that the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Thus, then, “flesh” is here used for the whole man, also, to express the weakness of the human nature which the Word of God assumed. [7] But, if Christ had human flesh and a human soul, as was shown, it is plain that there was no soul of Christ before His body’s conception. For it was shown that human souls do not pre-exist their proper bodies. Hence is clear the falsity of that tenet of Origen, who said that in the beginning, before all bodily creatures, the soul of Christ was created with all other spiritual creatures and assumed by the Word of God, and that finally, toward the end of the ages, for men’s salvation it was endowed with flesh.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTE AND NESTORIUS ON THE UNION OF THE WORD TO MAN [1] From the things set down, therefore, it appears that Christ was not without divine nature, as Ebion, Cerinthus, and Photinus said; nor without a true human body, as in the error of Mani and Valentine; nor without a human soul, as Arius and Apollinaris held. Since, then, these three substances met in Christ—namely, divinity, the human soul, and the true human body—what one should think about their union following the Scriptural teachings remains for inquiry. [2] Now, then, Theodore of Mopsueste and Nestorius, his follower, offered one sort of opinion on the aforesaid union. They said that the human soul and the true human body came together in Christ by a natural union to constitute one man of the same species and nature with other men, and that in this man God dwelt as in His temple, namely, by grace, just as in other holy men. Hence, it says in John (2:19, 21), that He said to the Jews: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up”; and later the Evangelist by way of exposition adds: “But he spoke of the temple of His body”; and the Apostle says: “In Him it has well pleased the Father, that all fullness should dwell” (Col. 1:19). And out of these arose further a certain affective union between that man and God, when that man cleaved to God with his own good will, and God lifted up that man with His will, in the words of John (8:29): “He that sent me is with me, and He has not left me alone: for I do always the things that please Him.” Let one thus understand that the union of that man to God is such as was the union of which the Apostle said: “He who is joined to God is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). And just as, from the latter union, names which properly befit God are transferred to men so that they are called “gods,” and “sons of God,” and “lords,” and “holy ones,” and “christs”—as is clear from a diversity of places in Scripture; so also the divine names befit that man so that, by reason of God’s indwelling and the affective union, he is called God, and the Son of God, and Holy, and Christ. Nonetheless, because there was in that man a greater fullness of grace than in other holy men, he was before all the rest the temple of God, he was united to God, more closely in affection, and it was by a singular kind of privilege that he shared the divine names. And because of this outstanding grace he was established in a share of the divine dignity and honor—namely, that he be co-adored with God. So, then, consequently on the things just said there must be one Person of the Word of God, and another person of that man who is co-adored with the Word of God. And if one Person of each of the two be mentioned, this will be by reason of the affective union aforesaid; so that man and the Word of God may be called one Person, as is said of man and woman that “now they are not two, but one flesh” (Mat. 19:6). Now, such a union does not bring it about that what is said of the first can be said of the second (for not everything which becomes the man is true of the woman, or conversely); therefore in the union of the Word and that man they think this must be observed: The things proper to that man and pertinent to the human nature cannot be said becomingly of God’s Word, or of God. just so it becomes that man that he was born of a virgin, that he suffered, died, was buried, and this kind of thing; and all of these, they assert, ought not be said of God, or of the Word of God. But, since there are certain names which, although they are chiefly befitting to God, are nonetheless communicated to men in a fashion—“christ,” for instance, “lord,” “holy,” and even “son of God”—nothing according to them keeps one from the use of such names in predication of the things just mentioned. For, according to them, we say fittingly that Christ, or the “Lord of glory,” or the “Saint of saints,” or “God’s son” was born of a virgin, suffered, died and was buried. Hence, too, the Blessed Virgin must not be named the mother of God, or of the Word of God, but the mother of Christ, they say. [3] But let one earnestly consider the matter and he will see that the position described excludes the truth of the Incarnation. For, in that position, the Word of God was united to that man only through an indwelling by grace, on which a union of wills follows. But the indwelling of God’s Word in a man is not for God’s Word to be made flesh. For the Word of God and God Himself have been dwelling in all the holy men since the world was founded; as the Apostle says: “You are the temple of the living God; as God says: I will dwell in them” (2 Cor. 6: 16). And this indwelling, for all that, cannot be called incarnation; otherwise, God would have repeatedly been made flesh since the beginning of the world. Nor does it suffice for the notion of incarnation if the Word of God or God dwelt in that man with a fuller grace, for “greater and less do not diversify the species of union.” Since the Christian religion is based on faith in the Incarnation, it is now quite evident that the position described removes the basis of the Christian religion. [4] In addition is the very manner of speech of Scripture, which makes the falsity of the position described plain. For the indwelling of the Word of God in holy men is usually designated by Scripture in these ways: “The Lord spoke to Moses”; ‘ne word of the Lord came to Jeremiah” (or to some other Prophet); “The word of the Lord came to the hand of Haggai the Prophet.” But one never reads the Word of the Lord was made Moses, or Jeremiah, or one of the others. Yet thus uniquely was the union of God’s Word to the flesh of Christ marked by the Evangelist: “The Word was made flesh,” as was explained before. Clearly, then, it was not by indwelling alone that God’s Word was in the man, Christ, if we follow Scripture. [5] Again, whatever was made is what it was made; thus, what was made man is man, and what was made white is white. But God’s Word was made man, as is gathered from the foregoing. So God’s Word is man. It is, of course, impossible when two things differ in person, or hypostasis or supposit that one he predicated of the other, for, when we say “Man is animal,” that which is animal man is. And when we say “Man is white,” the signification is that man himself is white, although whiteness is other than the essence of humanity. Accordingly, there is no way to say Socrates is Plato or anyone of the singulars of his own or another species. So, if “the Word was made flesh,” that is, “man,” as the Evangelist witnesses (John 1:14). it is impossible that there be two persons, or hypostases, or supposits of the Word of God and of that man. [6] Demonstrative pronouns, moreover, refer to the person, or hypostasis, or supposit. For no one says “I run” when another is running, except figuratively, perhaps, when another is running in his place. But the man called Jesus says about Himself: “Before Abraham was made, I am”,and “I and the Father are one” (John 8:59; 10:30), and several other things which clearly pertain to the divinity of the Word. Therefore, the person and hypostasis of the man speaking is plainly the very person of the Word of God. [7] There is more. From our exposition one sees that the body of Christ did not descend from heaven as in Valentine’s error, nor did His soul according to Origen’s. What is left is this: one can say pertinently of the Word of God that He descended, not by some local motion, but by reason of the union to a lower nature. This was said above. But that man, speaking in His own person, says that He descended from heaven in John (6:51): “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” Necessarily, then, the person and hypostasis of that man must be the person of the Word of God. [8] Again, to ascend into heaven plainly belongs to Christ the man who “was raised up while the disciples looked on,” as Acts (1:9) says. But to descend from heaven is proper to the Word of God. But the Apostle says: “He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens” (Eph. 4:10). The very person and hypostasis of that man is, accordingly, the person and hypostasis of the Word of God. [9] Moreover, that whose origin is in the world, which had no being before the world, does not properly “come into the world.” But the man Christ in the flesh had His origin in the world, since He had a true, human, earthly body, as was shown. In His soul, as well, He had no being before He was in the world, for He had a true human soul in whose nature there is no being before it is united to the body. So, then, it does not belong to that man’s humanity to “come into the world.” He Himself says, of course, that He came into the world: “I came forth from the Father,” He says, “and I came into the world” (John 16:28). Plainly, then, what belongs to the Word of God is truly said of that man. For, that it belongs to the Word of God to come into the world John the Evangelist clearly shows (1:10-11): “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not; He came unto His own.” So, the person and hypostasis of the man speaking is the person and hypostasis of the Word of God. [10] Again, the Apostle says: “When He comes into the world He says: Sacrifice and oblation You did not want: but a body You fitted for Me” (Heb. 10:5). But He who enters the world is the Word of God, as was shown. It is, then, to God’s very Word that a body is fitted; namely, so as to be His own body. And one could not say this if the hypostasis of God’s Word were not identified with that of the man. Therefore, the hypostasis of the Word of God and of that man are the very same. [11] Every change or passion, furthermore, proper to ones body can be ascribed to him whose body it is, So, if the body of Peter is wounded, scourged, or dies, it can be said that Peter is wounded, scourged, or dies. But the body of that man is the body of the Word of God, as was just proved. Therefore, every suffering that took place in the body of that man can be ascribed to the Word of God. So it is right to say that the Word of God—and God—suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried. And this they used to deny. [12] The Apostle also says: “It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, who, had brought many children into glory, to perfect the author of their salvation, by His passion” (Heb. 2:10). Thus one holds: He for whom all things are, through whom all things are, He who leads men to glory, and who is the Author of human salvation suffered and died. But these four are God’s in a singular way; they are attributed to no other. For we read in Proverbs (16:4): “The Lord has made all things for Himself”; in John (1:3) of the Word of God: “All things were made by Him”; in the Psalmist: “The Lord will give grace and glory”; and elsewhere: “The salvation of the just is from the Lord” (Ps. 83:12; 36:39). It is, then, plainly right to say that “God, God’s Word, suffered and died.” [13] There is more. Granted someone may be called a lord by sharing in lordship: no man at all, no creature in fact, can be called “Lord of glory,” for God alone by His nature possesses the glory of the future beatitude. But others do so by the gift of grace, and so the Psalmist says: “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory” (Ps. 2-3:8-10). But the Apostle says the Lord of glory was crucified (1 Cor. 2:8). Then truly it can be said: God was crucified. [14] The Word of God, furthermore, is called God’s Son by nature, this was made plain above. But a man through the indwelling is called God’s son by the grace of adoption. But in the position now opposed, one must accept in our Lord Jesus Christ each of these modes of sonship, for the indwelling Word is the Son of God by nature; the man in whom He dwells is a son of God by the grace of adoption. Hence, that man cannot be called “the very own” or “only-begotten Son of God”; the Word of God alone in His own proper birth is uniquely begotten of the Father. But Scripture attributes the passion and death to God’s very own and only-begotten Son, for the Apostle says: “He has spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32); and John (3:16) says: “God so loved the world as to give His only~-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” And that He spoke of “giving” Him over to death is clear from this: John had previously used the very same words about the crucified Son of Man when he said: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him” (John 3:14), and the rest. And the Apostle makes the death of Christ an indication of the divine love for the world by saying: “God commends His charity towards us; because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8-9). Rightly, then, does one say that the Word of God, that God, suffered and died. [15] Again, one is said to be the son of a mother because his body is taken from her, although his soul is not taken from her, but has an exterior source. But the body of that man was taken from the Virgin Mother. Now, it was proved that the body of that man is the body of the natural Son of God, that is, of the Word of God. So it becomes us to say that the Blessed Virgin is “the Mother of the Word of God,” and even “of God”. Of course, the divinity of the Word is not taken from His Mother, for a son need not take the whole of his substance from his mother, but his body only. [16] The Apostle says further that “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). These words show us how to understand the sending of the Son of God: He is called sent thither, where He was made of a woman. This could not, of course, be true if the Son of God had not been before He was made of a woman, for that which is sent into another is understood to be previously to its being in that other to which it is sent. But that man, the Nestorian adoptive son, had no being before he was born of the woman. The Apostle’s word, “God sent His Son,” cannot, therefore, be understood of the adoptive son, but must be understood of the natural Son, that is, of God the Word of God. But if one is made of a woman, he is called the woman’s son. Therefore, God the Word of God is the Son of a woman. [17] Perhaps we will be told not to understand the word of the Apostle thus: that the Son of God was sent to be made of a woman; but to understand it thus: that God’s Son, made of a woman and under the Law, was sent “that He might redeem them who were under the Law” (Gal. 4:5). And in this reading “his son” need not be understood of the natural Son, but of that man who was the son by adoption. But the very words of the Apostle exclude this meaning. For no one can release from the Law save him who exists above the Law, the author of the Law. But the Law was established by God. Only God, then, can take away servitude to the Law. But the Apostle attributes this to the Son of God of whom he speaks. So, the Son of God of whom he speaks is the natural Son. Therefore, it is true to say: The natural Son of God, that is, God the Word of God, is made of a woman. [18] The very same point is clarified by Scripture’s attribution of the redemption of the human race to God Himself, thus the Psalmist: “You have redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth” (Ps. 30:6). [19] Furthermore, the adoption of God’s sons is made by the Holy Spirit, according to Romans (8:15): “You have received the spirit of adoption of sons.” But the Holy Spirit is a gift, not of man, but of God. And so, the adoption of sons is not caused by man, but by God. But it is caused by the Son of God sent by God and made of a woman. This is clear from the Apostle’s addition: “That we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:5). One ought, then, to understand the Apostle’s expression of God’s natural Son. It is, accordingly, God the Word of God who “was made of a woman”; that is, of the Virgin Mother. [20] And, again, John says: “The Word was made flesh.” But He has no flesh, except from a woman. The Word, then, is made of a woman; that is, of the Virgin Mother. Therefore, the Virgin is the Mother of God the Word. [2]] The Apostle further says that Christ is from the fathers’s “according to the flesh, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever” (Rom. 9:5). But he is not from the fathers save through the Virgin. God, then, who is above all things, is from the Virgin in the flesh. The Virgin, then, is the Mother of God in the flesh. [22] The Apostle, once more, says of Christ Jesus that, “being in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7). Now, clearly, if, following Nestorius, we divide Christ into two—into that man who is the adoptive son, and into God’s natural Son who is the Word of God—this text cannot be understood of that man. For that man, if he be pure man, was not first in the form of God, so as to be made later in the likeness of man; rather conversely: the existing man was made to share in divinity; in this he was not emptied, but exalted. The text must, then, be understood of the Word of God who first was eternally in the form of God, that is, in the nature of God, and later emptied Himself, made in the likeness of man. But that emptying cannot be understood solely by the indwelling of the Word of God in the man Jesus Christ. For, since the beginning of the world, the Word of God has dwelt in all the saints by grace. It is not, for all that, emptied, since God communicates His goodness to creatures so that nothing is subtracted from Him. Rather, He is somehow exalted, in that the goodness of the creatures manifests His sublimity, and so much the more so as the creatures have been better. Hence, if the Word of God has dwelt more fully in the man Christ than in the other saints, then even less in this case than in others is the emptying harmonious with the Word. Plainly, then, the union of the Word with the human nature must not be understood in accordance merely with the indwelling of the Word of God in that man (as Nestorius held), but in accordance with this fact: The Word of God truly was made man. In this wise only, then, will there be place for “emptying”: namely, let the Word of God be called “emptied,” that is, made small, not by the loss of His own greatness, but by the assumption of human smallness; just so would it be if the soul were to pre-exist the body, and were said to be made the corporeal substance which man is: not by a change of its own nature, but by the assumption of corporeal nature. [23] There is more. Manifestly, the Holy Spirit dwelt in the man Christ, for Luke (4:11) says: “Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.” If, then, our understanding of the Incarnation of the Word is this alone—the Word of God dwelt most fully in that man—we will have to say that the Holy Spirit was incarnate also. And this is altogether foreign to the teaching of the faith. [24] This is also clear: The Word of God dwells in the holy angels, and by sharing the Word they are filled with understanding. But the Apostle says: “Nowhere doth He take hold of the angels: but of the seed of Abraham he takes hold” (Heb. 2:16). Clearly, then, the assumption of human nature by the Word is not merely to be taken as indwelling. [25] If, furthermore, as in the Nestorian position, Christ be separated into two differing in hypostasis—that is, into the Word of God and that man—the Word of God cannot possibly be called “Christ.” This is clear, for one thing, from Scripture’s manner of speaking: Scripture before the Incarnation never names God, or the Word of God, Christ. It is clear, as well, from the very account of the name. For one says “Christ” only as though to say “anointed.” But one understands anointed with the “oil of gladness” (Heb. 1:9, Ps. 44:8), that is, “with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38), as Peter explains. Yet, one cannot say that the Word of God is anointed with the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit would thus be greater than the Son, as the sanctifier is greater than the sanctified. It will be necessary, then, to understand the name “Christ” only of that man. Therefore, this word of the Apostle, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5-6), must be referred to that man. Yet he adds: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with Cod.” Truly, then, one speaks of that man in the form, that is, the nature of God, and equal to God. Yet, granted men are called “gods” or “sons of God” by God’s indwelling, one never calls them “equal to God.” Clearly, then, the man Christ is not called God merely by reason of the indwelling. [26] Granted, again, that the name of God is used for holy men by reason of the indwelling of grace, nonetheless works which are God’s alone—the creation of heaven and earth, for example, or something of the sort—are never ascribed to any saint by reason of the indwelling of grace. But to Christ the man the creation of all things is attributed. We read in Hebrews (3:1-4): “Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession Jesus Christ who is faithful to Him that made Him, as also was Moses in all His house.” This must be understood of that man and not of God’s Word; both because it was shown that in the Nestorian position God’s Word cannot be called Christ, as well as because God’s Word is not made, but begotten. The Apostle, of course, adds: “This man was counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, by so much as He that built the house bath greater honor than the house.” Now, the man Christ built the house. This the Apostle proves subsequently when he adds: “For every house is built by some man: but He that created all things is God.” Thus, then, the Apostle proves that the man Christ built the house of God from the fact that God created all things. But this would be no proof at all if Christ were not the God who creates all things. And so to that man the creation of the worlds is ascribed, a thing which is God’s very own work. The man Christ, then, is God Himself by hypostasis and not merely by reason of indwelling. [27] Further, it is clear that the man Christ, speaking of Himself, says many divine and supernatural things: so this in John (6:40): “I will raise him up in the last day”; and again: “I give them life everlasting” (10:28). This would be the height of pride if that man speaking were not by hypostasis Cod Himself, but merely had God indwelling. But pride is not suited to the man Christ, who says of Himself: “Learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Mat. 11:29). There is, then, identity in person between that man and God. [28] There is more. just as we read in Scripture that the man is “exalted”—as in Acts (2:33): “Exalted therefore by the right hand of God,” and the rest, so also we read that God is “emptied” in Philippians (2:7): “He emptied himself,” and the rest. Thus, just as sublime things can be said of that man by reason of the union-that He is God, that He raises the dead, and others of this sort—so of God can lowly things be said: that He was born of the Virgin, suffered, died, and was buried. [29] Then, too, both relative verbs and pronouns bring out identity of supposit. The Apostle says, speaking of the Son of God: “In Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; then, later, he adds: “And He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:16, 18). Now, clearly, the text, “In Him were all things created,” refers to the Word of God; whereas the text, “first-born from the dead,” belongs to the man Christ. Therefore, God’s Word and the man Christ are one supposit and, consequently, one Person; and whatever is said of that man must he said of the Word of God, and conversely. [30] Again, the Apostle says: “There is one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are A things” (1 Cor. 8:6). But Jesus, the name of that man through whom all things are, clearly befits the Word of God. Thus, then, the Word of God and that man are one Lord; and these are not two lords, or two sons, as Nestorius held. From this it follows further that there is one person of the Word of God and the man. [31] Let one consider the matter earnestly and he sees that this Nestorian opinion on the Incarnation differs very little from that of Photinus. For each held that the man was called God only by reason of the indwelling grace. Photinus, of course, said that the man merited the name and glory of divinity by suffering and good works; and Nestorius confessed that from the beginning of his conception he had this name and glory by reason of the fullness of God’s dwelling within him. Of course, on the eternal generation of the Word they differed greatly: Nestorius confessed it, but Photinus denied it completely.

Chapter

AGAINST THE ERROR OF EUTYCHES

[1] Since the mystery of the Incarnation—as has been shown in many ways—must be understood thus: there is one and the same person of the Word of God and the man, a certain difficulty remains in the consideration of this truth. For necessarily its personality follows the divine nature. The case seems to be the same for human nature, for everything which subsists in an intellectual or a rational nature fulfills the account of person. Hence, it does not seem possible that there be one Person and two natures, divine and human. [2] Now, for the solution of this difficulty various men have proposed various positions. Eutyches, for instance, to preserve the unity of person in Christ against Nestorius, says there is one nature, also. He says that, although before the union there were two distinct natures, the divine and human, they came together, nevertheless, in the union into one nature. And so he said that the person of Christ “is from two natures,” but does not “subsist in two natures.” For this he was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon. [3] The falsity of this position, of course, appears in many ways. For we showed above that there was in Christ Jesus a body, a rational soul, and divinity. And, clearly, the body of Christ even after the union was not the very divinity of the Word; for the body of Christ even after the union could be touched, could be seen with bodily eyes, and had distinctly outlined members. All of these are foreign to the divinity of the Word, as the foregoing make clear. And in like fashion the soul of Christ after the union was other than the divinity of the Word, because after the union the soul of Christ was affected by the passions of sadness, of sorrow, and of anger. These, too, are entirely disproportionate to the divinity of the Word, as the foregoing shows. But a human soul and a human body constitute a human nature. Thus, then, even after the union, the human nature in Christ was other than the divinity of the Word which is the divine nature. Therefore, in Christ, even after the union, there are two natures. [4] Again. It is by its nature that something is called a natural thing. One calls it a natural thing because it has a form, as one does with an artificial thing; one does not call a house a house before it has the form of its architecture, nor a horse a horse before it has the form of its nature. The form of a natural thing is, then, its nature. But one must say that in Christ there are two forms, even after the union. For the Apostle says of Christ Jesus, when he was “in the form of God, He took the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7). Of course, one cannot say that the form of God is the same as the form of the servant. For nothing receives what it already has, and so, if the form of God and of the servant are the same, He would not—since He already had the form of God—have received the form of servant. Neither, again, can one say that the form of God in Christ is corrupted by the union, because thus after the union Christ would not be God. Nor, again, can one say that the form of the servant was corrupted in the union, because thus He would not have received the form of the servant. But neither can one say that the form of the servant is mixed thoroughly with the form of God, for things mixed thoroughly do not retain their integrity; rather, each is in part corrupted, and so the Apostle would not say that He had received the form of the servant, but something of the servant. Hence, One ought to say respecting the words of the Apostle that in Christ even after the union there were two forms; therefore, two natures. [5] The name “nature,” moreover, in its first imposition had as meaning the very generation of things being born. Thence it was carried over to meaning the principle of this kind of generation, and then to signifying the principle of motion intrinsic to the moveable thing. And because this kind of principle is matter or form, nature is further called the form or matter of a thing which has in itself a principle of motion. And since form and matter constitute the essence of the natural thing, the name was extended to meaning the essence of everything whatsoever which exists in nature. As a result of this, the nature of a thing is called “the essence signified by the definition.”O In this last fashion nature is in question here, for thus we say that there is in Christ human nature and divine. [6] Now, then, if, as Eutyches held, the human nature and the divine were two before the union, but from those in the union one nature was breathed together, this should take place in one of the ways in which it is natural that one comes to be from many. [7] Now, one way in which one comes from many is the way of order alone; so from many homes a city comes to be, or from many soldiers an army. Another way is that of order and composition; so a house comes to be when they join together its parts and its walls. But neither of these two ways fits the constitution of one nature from a plurality. For things whose form is order or juxtaposition are not natural things. The result is that their unity cannot be called a unity of nature. [8] In a third way, one comes from many by mixture, as from the four elements one gets a mixed body. And this way, too, does not fit the present consideration. The first reason is this: Mixture is only of things which have matter in common and by nature act and react reciprocally. Such cannot~ indeed, be the case here, for it was shown in Book I that God is entirely immaterial and subject to no action. The second reason is this: When one thing greatly exceeds another there can be no mixture, for, if a man puts a drop of wine into a thousand measures of water, he is not mixing, but spoiling, the wine. For the same reason we do not say that wood thrown into a furnace is mixed with the fire, but—by reason of the superior power of the fire—consumed by the fire. The divine nature, of course, exceeds the human by infinity, since the divine power is infinite, as was shown in Book I. There cannot, then, be any mixture at all of each nature. The third reason is this: If a mixture were to come into being, neither nature would be preserved. For things subject to mixture are not preserved in the mixed product, if it be a true mixture. Given, then, a thorough mixture of each of the two natures—the divine, namely, and the human—neither of the two natures would remain, but some third. What Eutyches said, then, cannot be understood thus: There were two natures before the union, but after the union one nature in our Lord Jesus Christ, as though from two natures one nature has been established. Therefore, the understanding of it which remains is this: Either the one or the other remained after the union. Either, then, there was in Christ the divine nature only and what appeared human in Him was but phantasy as Mani said; or the divine nature was converted into the human as Apollinaris said. But against these we have previously disputed. The conclusion, then, is that it is impossible that before the union there were two natures in Christ; after the union, but one. [9] There is more. One never finds one coming to be from two abiding natures, because any nature is a kind of whole, but its constituents are accounted for as parts. Hence, when one comes to be from a soul and a body, neither the soul nor the body can be called a nature (as we are now speaking of nature), because neither has the complete species, but each is a part of the one nature. Since human nature, then, is a kind of complete nature, and the divine nature is similarly, it is impossible that they concur in one nature without the corruption either of each of the two, or of one of the two. Now, this cannot be, since from our previous points” the one Christ clearly is both true God and true man. It is impossible, then, that in Christ there is only one nature. [10] Again, from two abiding one nature is constituted: from bodily parts, if you like, as an animal is constituted of its members-which cannot be said in this case, since the divine nature is not something bodily; if you like, something one is constituted from matter and form, as an animal is constituted of its soul and body. Neither can this be said in the present discussion, for it was shown in Book II that God can neither be matter nor the form of anything. Then, if Christ is true God and true man, as was seen, it is impossible that in Him there be one nature only. [11] The subtraction or addition of an essential principle, furthermore, varies the species of a thing; consequently, it changes the nature which is not other than “the essence which the definition signifies.”1 For this reason we see that a specific difference added to a definition or subtracted from it makes a difference in species; so the rational animal and the one lacking reason differ in species, just as in numbers the addition or subtraction of unity makes another species of number. But form is an essential principle. So, every addition of form makes another species and another nature (as we are now speaking of nature). If, then, the divinity of the Word be added to the human nature as a form, it will make another nature. And thus Christ will not be of the human nature but of some other, just as an animated body is of another nature than that which is body only. [12] Then, again, things which do not agree in nature are not similar in species; man and horse, for example. But, if Christ’s nature be a composite of the divine and human, clearly Christ’s nature will not be in other men. Therefore, He will not be similar to us in species. And this is contrary to the Apostle’s word: “It behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17). [13] There is more. One species is always constituted of form and matter which is actually or potentially predicable of many according to the essentials of the species. If, then, the divine nature accrues to the human nature as a form, some common species must spring from the mixture of the two, and in this many should be able to share. And this is plainly false. For there is but one Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 8:6), God and man. Therefore, the divine and human natures have not established one nature in Christ. [14] Moreover, even this saying of Eutyches seems foreign to the faith, that before the union there were two natures in Christ. For, since a human nature is constituted of a soul and a body, it would follow that the soul, or the body, or both were in being before Christ’s incarnation. And this the points made above show to be false. This, then, is contrary to the faith: to say that before the union there were two natures in Christ and, after the union, one.

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF MACARIUS OF ANTIOCH, WHO HOLDS THERE IS BUT ONE WILL IN CHRIST [1] Now, the position of Macarius of Antioch seems to come to just about the same thing. He says that in Christ there is only one operation and will. [2] Every nature, of course, has a proper operation of its own, for the form is the principle of operation, and in accord with its form every nature has the species proper to it. Hence, as of diverse natures there are diverse forms, there must be also diverse actions. If, then, in Christ there be one action, it follows that there is in him but one nature. This last belongs to the Eutychean heresy. We then conclude that it is false to say there is but one operation in Christ. [3] Again. In Christ there is the perfect divine nature by which He is consubstantial with the Father, and a perfect human nature by which He is one in species, with us. But the perfection of the divine nature includes having will (this was shown in Book I); similarly, also, the perfection of human nature includes having a will by which a man has free choice. There must, then, be in Christ two wills. [4] The will, further, is one potential part of the human soul, as the intellect is. If, then, in Christ there was no other will than the will of the Word, by an equal account there was no other intellect than the intellect of the Word. Thus we return to the position of Apollinaris. [5] If, moreover, there was in Christ but one will, surely it was only the divine will. For the divine will which the Word had from eternity He could not lose. But the divine will is unrelated to merit because he merits who is tending toward perfection. Thus, then, Christ by His passion would have merited nothing-whether for Himself, or for us. The contrary of this is taught by the Apostle: “He was made obedient to the Father even unto death, for which cause God also has exalted Him” (Phil. 2:8-9). [6] What is more, if there was no human will in Christ~ it follows that by His assumed nature He had no free choice. So, then, Christ used to act not after the fashion of man, but after the manner of the other animals who lack free choice. Then, nothing in His acts was virtuous or laudable, nothing a model for imitation by us. In vain, then, he says in Matthew (11:29): “Learn of Me because I am meek, and humble of heart”; and in John (13:15): “I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so do you also.” [7] Again, in one who is pure man, although he is one in supposit there are many appetites and operations according to the diversity of natural principles. For in his rational part there is will; in his sensitive, the irascible and concupiscible appetites; and, further, the natural appetite following on natural powers. In the same way he sees with the eye, bears with the ear, steps with the foot, speaks with the tongue, and understands with the mind, and these are diverse operations. The case is such because the operations are not multiplied according to diverse subjects operating only, but as well according to diverse principles by which one and the same subject operates, and from which the operations take their species. But the divine nature is much more removed from human nature than the principles of human nature are from one another. Therefore, the will and operation of the divine and the human nature in Christ are distinguished from one another, although Christ Himself is one in each of the natures. [8] Furthermore, Scriptural authority clearly shows that in Christ there were two wills. He Himself says: “I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me (John 6:38); and again: “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). From these words it is clear that there was in Christ another will apart from the will of the Father. But clearly, there was in Him a will common to Him and the Father. For, just as the Father’s and the Son’s nature is one, so also is their will. Therefore, there are two wills in Christ. [9] But this is as clear of their operations. For in Christ there was an operation common to Him and the Father, for He says: “Whatever the Father does the Son does likewise” (John 5:19). But there is another operation in Him which is not proper to the Father: to sleep, for example, to be thirsty, to eat, and others of this sort which Christ made man did or suffered; so the Evangelists tell us. Therefore, there was not one operation. [10] Now, the present position seems to have had its rise in this: its authors did not know how to distinguish between what is simply one, and what is one by order. For they saw the human will in Christ ordered entirely beneath the divine will, so that Christ willed nothing with His human will except that which the divine will disposed Him to will. In like manner, also, Christ did nothing in His human nature, whether by acting or by suffering, except as the divine will disposed; hence we read: “I do always the things that please Him” (John 8:29). The human operation of Christ, also, achieved a kind of divine efficacy by union with the divinity, just as the action of a secondary agent achieves a kind of efficacy from the principal agent; and this resulted: every action or suffering of Hit was salutary. For this reason Dionysius calls the human operation of Christ “theandric,” that is, “God-mannish”; and also because it is of God and a man. So, those men, seeing the human operation and will of Christ ordered beneath the divine in an infallible order, decided that there was in Christ only one will and operation, although there is no identity (as was said) between one by order and one simply.

Chapter

AGAINST THOSE WHO SAID THAT THE SOUL AND BODY DO NOT CONSTITUTE A UNITY IN CHRIST [1] From the foregoing it is clear that there is only one Person in Christ as the faith maintains; and that there are two natures, contrarily to what Nestorius and Eutyches held. Yet this appears foreign to what natural reason experiences, and therefore there were some later on who took a position on this union such as the following. The soul and body union constitutes a man, but the union of this soul and this body constitutes this man. And this is the designation of person or hypostasis. Wishing, then, to avoid being pushed into asserting in Christ some hypostasis or person other than the hypostasis or Person of the Word, these men said that the soul and body were not united in Christ, nor was a substance made from them. In saying this they were trying to avoid the Nestorian heresy. This also seemed impossible: that one thing be substantial to another, yet not be of the nature which that other previously had, without any mutation taking place; and the Word, of course, is entirely immutable. Therefore, lest they be forced to make the assumed soul and body belong to the nature which the Word had eternally, they laid it down that the Word assumed the human soul and body in an accidental fashion, just as a man puts on his clothes. By this they wished to exclude the error of Eutyches. [2] But this position is entirely repugnant to the teaching of the faith. For a soul and body by their union constitute a man, since a form which accrues to matter constitutes a species. If, then, soul and body were not united in Christ, Christ was not a man. This goes against the Apostle’s words: The mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). [3] Again, everyone of us is said to be a man on this account that he is constituted of a rational soul and a body. But, if Christ is not called man on that account but only because He had a soul and a body, although not united, He will be called man equivocally and will not be in the same species with us. This is against the Apostle’s words: “It behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17). [4] Furthermore, not every body belongs to human nature, but the human body alone. Of course, it is not a human body except for the fact that it has been vivified by union with the rational soul. For one says neither eye, nor hand, nor foot, nor flesh, nor bone—with the soul gone—except by equivocation. Therefore, one will not be able to say that the Word assumed human nature if He did not assume a body united to a soul. [5] What is more, the human soul by its nature has a capacity for union with the body. Therefore, a soul which is never united to a body to constitute something is not a human soul, for “what is apart from nature can never be.” If then, the soul of Christ is not united to His body to constitute something, we conclude that it is not a human soul. And, thus, in Christ there was no human nature. [6] There is more. If the Word was united to the soul and body accidentally, as one is to clothing, the human nature was not the nature of the Word. Then the Word, after the union, was not subsisting in two natures; just as a man in his clothing is not said to subsist in two natures. It was for saying this that Eutyches was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon. [7] Again, what the clothes suffer is not referred to the wearer. One does not say a man is born when he is dressed, nor wounded if his clothes are torn. If the Word, then, took on a soul and a body, as a man does his clothes, no one will be able to say that God was born, or that He suffered by reason of the body He assumed. [8] If the Word, moreover, assumed human nature only as a garment in which to be apparent to the eyes of men, He would have assumed the soul in vain. This by its nature is invisible. [9] Furthermore, in this fashion the Son’s assumption of the flesh would not have differed from the Holy Spirit’s assumption of the form of a dove in which He appeared (Mat. 3:16). And this is plainly false. For one does not say the Holy Spirit has “become dove” or is “less than the Father,” as one says that the Son “has become man” and is less than the Father in the nature, assumed (John 14:28). [10] Again, when it is earnestly weighed, the awkwardness of a diversity of heresies follows on this position. For in saying that the Son of God is united to the soul and the flesh in an accidental mode as a man is to his garments, it agrees with the opinion of Nestorius, who claimed the union took place by the indwelling of God’s Word in a man. God’s being clothed, of course, cannot be understood through bodily touch but only through indwelling grace. And in saying that the union of the Word to the soul and human flesh was accidental, one must be saying that the Word after the union was not subsistent in two natures. And this Eutyches said. For nothing subsists in that to which it is accidentally united. But, when this position says that the soul and body are not united to constitute something, it partially agrees with Arius and Apollinaris: they held that the body of Christ was not animated by the rational soul; and it partially agrees with Mani: he held that Christ was not true man, but a phantasy only. For, if the soul is not united to the flesh for the constitution of something, it was but phantasy when Christ appeared similar to other men constituted by the union of soul and body. [11] This position, of course, had as its occasion the words of the Apostle: “In habit found as a man” (Phil. 2:70). They did not understand that this was said metaphorically. But things said metaphorically need not be similar in every respect. So, the human nature assumed by the Word has a kind of likeness to clothing, in that the Word was seen in His visible flesh just as a man is seen in his clothing; but the likeness is not in this, that the union of the Word to human nature in Christ was in an accidental mode.

Chapter

AGAINST THOSE WHO PUT TWO SUPPOSITS OR HYPOSTASES IN THE ONE PERSON OF CHRIST

[1] Others, indeed, have avoided this position by reason of the awkwardness described above. They have held that soul and flesh in our Lord Jesus Christ constitutes one substance, namely, a certain man of the same species as other men. They call this man united to the Word of God, not in nature, indeed, but in person, so that there is one person of the Word of God and of that man. But, since that man is a kind of individual substance—and this is to be an hypostasis and supposit—some say that in Christ the hypostasis and supposit of that man is one and that of the Word of God another, but that there is one person of each of the two. On account of this unity, the Word of God, as they say, is predicated of that man and that man of the Word of God. This sense results: “The Word of God is man,” and that is: “The person of the Word of God is the person of the man,” and conversely. And in this account whatever is predicated of the Word of God is, they say, able to be predicated of that man; and, conversely, although with a kind of reduplication, so that when it is said “God has suffered,” the sense is “A man who is God by unity of person has suffered,” and “A man created the stars” means “He who is man.” [2] But, of necessity, this position lapses into the error of Nestorius. For, if the difference of person and hypostasis be marked, one finds that person is not foreign to hypostasis, but a kind of part of hypostasis. For a person is nothing else than a hypostasis of a certain nature; namely, rational. This is clear from Boethius’ definition: “person is the individual substance of a rational nature.” Clearly, then, although not every hypostasis is a person, every hypostasis of human nature is, nonetheless, a person. If, therefore, from the mere union of soul and body in Christ there is constituted a certain particular substance which is the hypostasis-namely, that man-it follows that from the same union a person is constituted. There will be, then, in Christ two persons: one, and newly constituted, of that man; the other, eternal, of the Word of God. And this belongs to the Nestorian impiety. [3] Again, even if the hypostasis of that man could not be called a person, the hypostasis of the Word of God is nonetheless the same as His Person. If, therefore, the hypostasis of the Word of God is not that of the man, neither will the Person Of the Word of God be the person of the man. This will falsify their own assertion that the person of that man is the Person of the Word of God. [4] If one were to grant, further, that person is other than the hypostasis of God’s Word or of the man, one could find no difference save one: person adds some property to hypostasis. Nothing, of course, pertaining to the genus of substance can he added, since hypostasis is the most complete thing in the genus of substance, and it is called “first substance.” If, then, the union is made in person and not in hypostasis, it follows that the union takes place only according to some accidental property. This, too, comes again back to the error of Nestorius. [5] Cyril, moreover, in his letter to Nestorius approved by the Council of Ephesus, has this to say: “If anyone does not confess that the Word from the Father is united to the flesh in subsistence, that Christ is one with his flesh, that is to say, that the same one is God and man at the same time, let him be anathema.” And almost everywhere in the synodal writings this is assigned as the error of Nestorius, who put two bypostases in Christ. [6] Damascene, moreover, in Book III, says: “It was from a two perfect natures, we say, that the union took place, and not in a prosopic,” that is, personal way, “as God’s enemy Nestorius says, but according to the hypostasis.” Thus, clearly and expressly, this was the position of Nestorius: to confess one person and two hypostases. [7] Again, hypostasis and supposit must be identified. Everything else is predicated of the first substance, which is the hypostasis: namely, the universals in the genus of substance as well as accidents, as the Philosopher says in his Categories [3]. If, therefore, there are not two hypostases in Christ, neither are there two supposits. [8] If the Word and that man, furthermore, differ in supposit, it must be that when that man is supposed the Word of God is not supposed, nor is the converse true. But, if the supposits are distinct, what is said of them must be distinguished, for the divine predicates mentioned are disproportionate to the man’s supposit except by reason of the Word; and the converse is true. Therefore, one must take separately the things said of Christ in Scripture; namely, the divine and the human. And this is contrary to the opinion of Cyril confirmed by the Synod: “If one divides between two persons or subsistences the words said in the evangelical and apostolic Scriptures-whether they be said about Christ by the saints, or by Him about Himself, and marks off some of them, indeed, as for a man especially understood alongside that Word from God, and marks off others as capable of being said by God, for that Word from God the Father alone: let him be anathema.” [9] Moreover, in the position described, things proportioned to the Word of God by nature would not be said of that man except by a certain association in one person; this is what -the interposed reduplication means when they expound thus: “That man created the stars,” that is, “the Son of God, who is that man,” and similarly with others of that sort. Hence, when one says: “That man is God,” one understands it thus: “That man exists by the Word of God.” But it is this kind of expression that Cyril condemns when he says: “If anyone dares to say that the man assumed ought to be co-adored with God’s Word, co-glorified, and co-named God, a second of two with the first, so to speak (for that is what “co” forces us to understand as often as it is added), and does not honor Emmanuel with one adoration and offer Him one glorification, inasmuch as the Word was made flesh; let him be anathema.” [10] There is more. If that man is other than the Word in supposit, he cannot belong to the person of the Word except by the assumption by which He was assumed by the Word. But this is foreign to a correct understanding of the faith, for the Council of Ephesus says in the words of Felix, Pope and martyr: “We believe in God our Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary: that He is God’s everlasting Son and Word, and not a an assumed by God so that there is another beside Him. Nor did God’s Son assume a man that there be another beside Him; but the perfect existing God was made at the same time perfect man, made flesh of the Virgin.” [11] Again, things which are many in supposit are many simply, and they are but incidentally one. If, then, in Christ there are two supposits, it follows that He is two simply and not incidentally. And this is “to dissolve Jesus” (1 John 4:3), for everything, in so far as it is, is one.”

Chapter

WHAT THE CATHOLIC FAITH HOLDS ABOUT THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST

[1] From what has been set down above it is clear that according to the tradition of the Catholic faith we must say that in Christ there is a perfect divine nature and a perfect human nature, constituted by a rational soul and human flesh; and that these two natures are united in Christ not by indwelling only, nor in an accidental mode, as a man is united to his garments, nor in a personal relation and property only, but in one hypostasis and one supposit. Only in this way can we save what the Scriptures hand on about the Incarnation. Since, then, sacred Scripture without distinction attributes the things of God to that man, and the things of that man to God (as is plain from the foregoing), He of whom each class is said must be one and the same. [2] But opposites cannot be said truly of the same thing in the same way: the divine and human things said of Christ are, of course, in opposition, suffering and incapable of suffering, for example, or dead and immortal, and the remainder of this kind; therefore, it is necessarily in different ways that the divine and the human are predicated of Christ. So, then, with respect to the “about which” each class is predicated no distinction must be made, but unity is discovered. But with respect to what is predicated, a distinction must be made. Natural properties, of course, are predicated of everything according to its nature; thus to be home downward is predicated of this stone consequently on its nature as heavy. Since, then, there are different ways of predicating things human and divine of Christ one must say there are in Christ two natures neither confused nor mixed. But that about which one predicates natural properties consequently on the proper nature pertaining to the genus of substance is the hypostasis and supposit of that nature. Since, then, that is not distinct and is one about which one predicates things divine and human concerning Christ, one must say that Christ is one hypostasis and one supposit of a human and a divine nature. For thus truly and properly will things divine be predicated of that man in accord with the fact that the man bears the supposit not only of the human but of the divine nature; conversely, one predicates things human of God’s Word in that He is the supposit of the human nature. [3] It is clear also from this that, although the Son is incarnate, neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit, for all that, need be incarnate, since the Incarnation did not take Place by a union in the nature in which the three divine Persons are tog. ether, but in hypostasis or supposit, wherein the three Persons are distinguished. And thus, as in the Trinity there is a plurality of Persons subsisting in one nature, so in the mystery of the Incarnation there is one Person subsisting in a plurality of natures.

Chapter

OBJECTIONS AGAINST FAITH IN THE INCARNATION

[1] But against this statement of the Catholic faith many difficulties come together, and by reason of these the adversaries of the faith attack the Incarnation. [2] We showed in Book I that God is neither a body nor a power in a body. But, if He assumed flesh, it follows either that He was changed into a body or that He was a power in a body after the Incarnation. It seems, then, impossible that God was incarnate. [3] Again, whatever acquires a new nature is subject to substantial change; for in this is a thing generated, that it acquires a nature. Then, if the hypostasis of the Son of God becomes a subsistent anew in human nature, it appears that it was substantially changed. [4] Furthermore, no hypostasis of a nature extends outside that nature; rather, indeed, the nature is found outside the hypostasis, since there are many hypostases under the nature. If, then, the hypostasis of the Son of God becomes by the Incarnation the hypostasis of a human nature, the Son of God—one must conclude—is not everywhere after the Incarnation, since the human nature is not everywhere. [5] Once again; one and the same thing has only one what-it-is, for by this one means a thing’s substance and of one there is but one. But the nature of any thing at all is its what-it-is, “for the nature of a thing is what the definition signifies.” It seems impossible, then, that one hypostasis subsist in two natures. [6] Furthermore, in things which are without matter, the quiddity of a thing is not other than the thing, as was shown above. And this is especially the case in God, who is not only His own quiddity, but also His own act of being. But human nature cannot be identified with a divine hypostasis. There, fore, it seems impossible that a divine hypostasis subsist in human nature. [7] Once again; a nature is more simple and more formal than the hypostasis which subsists therein, for it is by the addition of something material that the common nature is individuated to this hypostasis. If, then, a divine hypostasis subsists in human nature, it seems to follow that human nature is more simple and more formal than a divine hypostasis. And this is altogether impossible. [8] It is, furthermore, only in matter and form composites that one finds a difference between the singular thing and its quiddity. This is because the singular is individuated by designated matter, and in the quiddity and nature of the species the latter is not included. For, in marking off Socrates, one includes this matter, but one does not in his account of human nature. Therefore, every hypostasis subsisting in human nature is constituted by signate matter. This cannot be said of the divine hypostasis. So, it does not seem possible that the hypostasis of God’s Word subsist in human nature. [9] Furthermore, the soul and body in Christ were not less in power than in other men. But in other men their union constitutes a supposit an hypostasis, and a person. Therefore, in Christ the union of soul and body constitutes a supposit, hypostasis, and person of the Word of God; this is eternal. Therefore in Christ there is another supposit, hypostasis, and person beside the supposit, hypostasis, and person of the Word of God. Or so it seems. [10] There is more. Just as soul and body constitute human nature in common, so this soul and this body constitute this man, and this is the hypostasis of a man. But this soul and this body were in Christ. Therefore, their union constitutes an hypostasis, it seems. And we conclude exactly as before. [11] Again, this man who is Christ, considered as consisting of soul alone and body, is a certain substance; not, of course, a universal one; therefore, a particular one. Therefore, it is an hypostasis. [12] Moreover, if the supposit of the human and the divine nature in Christ is identified, then in one’s understanding of the man who is Christ there ought to be a divine hypostasis. Of course, this is not in one’s understanding of other men. Therefore, man will be said equivocally of Christ and others. Hence, He will not belong to the same species with us. [13] In Christ, what is more, one finds three things, as is clear from what was said: a body, a soul, and divinity. The soul, of course, since it is nobler than the body, is not the supposit of the body, but its form. Neither, then, is what is divine the supposit of the human nature; it is, rather, formally related to that nature. [14] Furthermore, whatever accrues to something after its being is complete accrues to it accidentally. But, since the Word is from eternity, plainly the flesh assumed accrues to Him after His being is complete. Therefore, it accrues to Him accidentally.

Chapter

HOW ONE SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD

[1] Now, to get at the solution of these objections, one must begin somewhat more fundamentally. Since Eutyches set it down that the union of God and man took place in nature; Nestorius, that it was neither in nature nor in person; but the Catholic faith holds this: that the union takes place in Person, not in nature-it seems necessary to know first what it is “to be made one in nature,” and what it is “to be made one in person.” [2] Grant, then, that nature is a word used in many ways: the generation of living things, and the principle of generation and of motion, and the matter and the form are all called nature. Sometimes, also, nature is said of the what-it-is of a thing, which includes the things that bear on the integrity of the species; in this way we say that human nature is common to all men, and say the same in all other cases. Those things, therefore, are made one in nature from which the integrity of a species is established; just as the soul and human body are made one to establish the species of the animal, so, universally, whatever the parts of a species are. [3] Of course, it is impossible that to a species already established in its integrity something extrinsic be united for the unity of its nature without losing the species. For, since species are like numbers, and in these any unity added or subtracted makes the species vary, if to a species already perfected something be added, necessarily it is now another species; thus, if to animate substance one adds only sensible, one will have another species, for animal and plant are different species. It does happen, nonetheless, that one finds something which is not integral to the species; in an individual included under that species—white and dressed, for instance, in Socrates or in Plato, or a sixth finger, or something of the sort. Hence, nothing prevents some things being made one in the individual which are not united in one integrity of species; thus, human nature and whiteness and music in Socrates; and things of this kind are united and are called “one by subject.” Now, the individual in the genus of substance is called hypostasis, and even in rational substances is called person; therefore, all things such as those mentioned are suitably said to be, united “in the hypostasis” or even “in the person.” Clearly, then, nothing prevents some things not united in nature from being united in hypostasis or person. [4] But when the heretics heard that in Christ a union of God and man took place, they approached the exposition of this point in contrary ways, but neglected the way of the truth. For some thought of this union after the mode of things united into one nature: so Arius and Apollinaris, holding that the Word stood to the body of Christ as soul or as mind, and so Eutyches, who held that before the Incarnation there were two natures of God and man, but after the Incarnation only one. [5] But others, seeing the impossibility of this position, went off on a contrary road. Now, the things which accrue to one having a nature, but do not belong to the integrity of that nature, seem either to be accidents—say, whiteness and music; or to stand in an accidental relation—say, a ring, a garment, a house, and the like. Of course, they weighed this: Since the human nature accrues to the Word of God without belonging to the integrity of His nature, it is necessary (so they thought) that the human nature have an accidental union with the Word. To be sure, it clearly cannot be in the Word as an accident: both because God is not susceptible to an accident (as was previously proved); and because human nature, being in the genus of substance, cannot be the accident of anything. Hence there appeared to be this remaining: Human nature accrues to the Word, not as an accident, but as a thing accidentally related to the Word. Nestorius, then, held that the human nature of Christ stood to the Word as a kind of temple, so that only by indwelling was the union of the Word to the human nature to be understood. And because a temple possesses its individuation apart from him who dwells in the temple, and the individuation suitable to human nature is personality, this was left: that the personality of the human nature was one, and that of the Word another. Thus, the Word and that man were two persons. [6] To be sure, others wished to avoid this awkwardness. So, regarding the human nature they introduced a disposition such that personality could not be properly suitable to it. They said that the soul and the body, in which the integrity of human nature consists, were so assumed by the Word that the soul was not united to the body to establish any substance, lest they be forced to say that the substance so established fulfilled the account of person. But they held the union of the Word to soul and body to be like a union to things in an accidental relation, for instance, of the clothed to his clothes. In this they were somehow imitating Nestorius. [7] Now, with these accounts set aside by the foregoing, it must be laid down that the union of the Word and the man was such that one nature was not breathed together out of two; and that the union of the Word to the human nature was not like that of a substance-a man, say-to those externals which are accidentally related to him, like a house and a garment. But let the Word be set down as subsisting in a human nature as in one made His very own by the Incarnation; and in consequence that body is truly the body of the Word of God, and the soul in like manner, and the Word of God is truly man. [8] And although to explain this union perfectly is beyond man’s strength, nonetheless, in accord with our measure and power, we will try to say something “for the upbuilding of the faith” (cf. Eph. 4:29), so that concerning this mystery the Catholic faith may be defended from the infidels. [9] Now, in all created things nothing is found so like this union as the union of soul to body. And the likeness would be greater, as Augustine also says, in Against Felician, if there were one intellect in all men. So some have held, and according to them one ought to say that the pre-existing intellect is in such wise united anew to a man’s conception that from each of these two a new person is made, just as we hold that the pre-existing Word is united to the human nature in a unity of person. Accordingly, and by reason of the likeness of these two unions, Athanasius says in the Creed: “as the rational soul and flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ.” [10] However, since the rational soul is united to the body both as to matter and as to an instrument, there cannot be a likeness so far as the first mode of union is concerned, for thus from God and man one nature would be made, since the matter and the form properly establish the nature of a species. Therefore, what is left is to look upon the likeness so far as the soul is united to the body as an instrument. With this, also, there is the concordance of the ancient Doctors, who held that the human nature in Christ was “a kind of organ of the divinity,” just as the body is held to be an organ of the soul. [11] Now, the body and its parts are the organ of the soul in one fashion; external instruments in quite another. For this axe is not the soul’s very own instrument, as this hand is, for by an axe many can operate, but this hand is deputy to this soul in its very own operation. For this reason the hand is an instrument of the soul united to it and its very own, but the axe is an instrument both- external and common. This is the way, then, in which even the union of God and man can be considered. For all men are related to God as instruments of a sort, and by these He works: “for it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish according to His good will” (Phil. 2:3), as the Apostle says. But other men are related to God as extrinsic and separated instruments, so to say; for God does not move them only to operations which are His very own, but to the operations common to every rational nature, to understand the truth, for example, to love the good, to do what is just. But the human nature in Christ is assumed with the result that instrumentally He performs the things which are the proper operation of God alone: to wash away sins, for example, to enlighten minds by grace, to lead into the perfection of eternal life. The human nature of Christ, then, is compared to God as a proper and conjoined instrument is compared, as the hand is compared to the soul. [12] Nor is there departure from the course of natural things because one thing is by nature the proper instrument of another, and this other is not its form. For the tongue, so far as it is the instrument of speech, is the intellect’s very own organ; and the intellect is nevertheless, as the Philosopher proves, not the act of any part of the body. In like manner, too, one finds an instrument which does not pertain to the nature of the species, which is, nevertheless, on the material side fitted to this individual; a sixth finger, for example, or something of the sort. Therefore, nothing prevents our putting the union of the human nature to the Word in this way: that the human nature be, so to speak, an instrument of the Word-not a separated, but a conjoined, instrument; and the human nature, nonetheless, does not belong to the nature of the Word, and the Word is not its form; nevertheless the human nature belongs to His person. [23] But the examples mentioned have not been set down so that one should look in them for an all-round likeness; for one should understand that the Word of God was able to be much more sublimely and more intimately united to human nature than the soul to its very own instrument of whatever sort, especially since He is said to be united to the entire human nature with the intellect as medium. And although the Word of God by His power penetrates all things, conserving all, that is, and supporting all, it is to the intellectual creatures, who can properly enjoy the Word and share with Him, that from a kind of kinship of likeness He can be both more eminently and more ineffably united.

Chapter

THAT THE ASSUMPTION OF HUMAN NATURE WAS MOST SUITED TO THE WORD OF GOD

[1] From this it is also clear that the assumption of human nature was outstanding in—suitability to the person of the Word. For, if the assumption of human nature is ordered to the salvation of men, if the ultimate salvation of man is to be perfected in his intellective part by the contemplation of the First Truth, it should have been by the Word who proceeds from the Father by an intellectual emanation that human nature was assumed. [2] There especially seems to be, furthermore, a kind of kinship of the Word for human nature. For man gets his proper species from being rational. But the Word is kin to the reason. Hence, among the Greeks “word” and reason” are called logos. Most appropriately, then, was the Word united to the reasonable nature, for by reason of the kinship mentioned the divine Scripture attributes the name “image” to the Word and to man; the Apostle says of the Word that He is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15); and the same writer says of man that “the man is the image of God” (1 Cor. 11:7). [3] The Word also has a kind of essential kinship not only with the rational nature, but also universally with the whole of creation, since the Word contains the essences of all things created by God, just as man the artist in the conception of his intellect comprehends the essences of all the products of art. Thus, then, all creatures are nothing but a kind of real expression and representation of those things which are comprehended in the conception of the divine Word; wherefore all things are said (John 1: 3) to be made by the Word. There, fore, suitably was the Word united to the creature, namely, to human nature.

Chapter

THAT THE HUMAN NATURE ASSUMED BY THE WORD DID NOT PRE-EXIST ITS ASSUMPTION, BUT WAS ASSUMED IN THE CONCEPTION ITSELF [1] However, since the Word assumed the human nature into a unity of person (this is clear from the things already said), necessarily the human nature did not pre-exist before its union to the Word. [2] Now, if it were pre-existing, since a nature cannot preexist except in an individual, there would have had to be some individual of that human nature pre-existing before the union. But the individual of human nature is an hypostasis and person. Then one will be saying that the human nature to be assumed by the Word had pre-existed in some hypostasis or person. If, then, that nature had been assumed with the previous hypostasis or person remaining, two hypostases or persons would have remained after the union: one of the Word, the other of a man. And thus the union would not have taken place in the hypostasis or person. This is contrary to the teaching of the faith. But if that hypostasis or person in which the nature to be assumed by the Word had pre-existed were not remaining, this could not have happened without corruption, for no singular ceases to be what it is except through corruption. Thus, then, would that man have had to be corrupted who pro-existed the union and, in consequence, the human nature, as well, which was existing in him. It was impossible, then, that the Word assume into a unity of person some preexisting man. 13] But at the same time it would detract from the perfection of the incarnation of God’s Word, if something natural to man were lacking to it But it is natural to man to he born in a human birth. But God’s Word would not have this if He had assumed a pre-existing man, for that man in his birth would have existed as pure man, and so his birth could not be attributed to the Word, nor could the Blessed Virgin be called the Mother of the Word. But what the Catholic faith confesses regarding natural things is that He is “in all things like as we are, without sin” (Heb. 4:15); and it says that the Son of God was “made of a woman,” following the Apostle (Gal. 4:4), that He was born and that the Virgin is the Mother of God. This, then, was not seemly, that He assume a pre-existing man. [4] Hence, also, it is clear that from the first moment of conception He united human nature to Himself. Just as God’s Word’s being human demands that the Word of God be born by a human birth, in order to be a true and natural man in complete conformity with us in respect to nature, so, too, it requires that God’s Word be conceived by a human conception, for, in the order of nature, no man is born unless first he be conceived. But, if the human nature to be assumed had been conceived in any state whatever before it was united to the Word, that conception could not be so attributed to the Word of God that one might call Him conceived by a human conception. Necessarily, then, from the first moment of conception the human nature was united to the Word of God. [5] Again, the active power in human generation acts toward the completion of human nature in a determined individual. But, if the Word of God had not assumed human nature from the first moment of His conception, the active power in the generation would, before the union, have ordered its action to an individual in human nature, and this is a human hypostasis or person. But after the union the entire generation would have had to be ordered to another hypostasis or person, namely, to God’s Word who was being born in the human nature. Arid such a generation would not have been numerically one, if thus ordered to two persons. Neither would it—in its entirety—have been one in form; this seems foreign to the order of nature. Therefore, it was not suitable that the Word of God assume human nature after the conception, but in the conception itself. [6] Once again, this seems to be required by the order of human generation: the one who is born must be the same as the one conceived, not another, for conception is ordered to birth. Hence, if the Son of God was born by a human birth, it must be that it was the Son of God who was conceived in a human conception, and not a pure man.

Chapter

THAT THE HUMAN NATURE ASSUMED BY THE WORD IN THE CONCEPTION ITSELF WAS PERFECT IN SOUL AND BODY [1] Now, this further point is also clear: In the very beginning of conception the rational soul was united to the body. [2] The Word of God, of course, assumed the body through the soul’s mediation, for the body of a man is not more subject to assumption by God than other bodies except because of the rational soul. The Word of God, then, did not assume the body without the rational soul. Therefore, since the Word of God assumed the body in the very beginning of conception, necessarily the rational soul was united to the body in the very beginning of conception. [3] Moreover, one who grants what is posterior in a generation must grant also that which is prior in the order of generation. But the posterior in a generation is that which is most perfect. But the most perfect is the generated individual, and this in human generation is an hypostasis or person, and it is toward constituting this that the body and soul are ordered. Granted, then, a personality of the man generated, there must needs exist a body and a rational soul. But the personality of the man Christ is not different from the personality of God’s Word. But the Word of God united a human body to Himself in the very conception. Therefore, the personality of that man was there. Therefore, the rational soul must also have been there. [4] It would also have been awkward if the Word, the fount and origin of all perfections and forms, were united to a thing. not formed, which still was lacking the perfection of nature. Now, anything corporeal that comes into being is, before its animation, formless and still lacking the perfection of nature. It was, therefore, not fitting for the Word of God to be united to a body not yet animated. Thus, from the moment of conception that soul had to be united to the body. [5] Hence, this point too, is clear: The body assumed in the moment of conception was a formed body, if the assumption of something not formed was improper for the Word. But the soul demands its proper matter, just as any other natural form does. But the proper matter of the soul is the organized body, for a soul is “the entelechy of a natural organic body having life potentially.” If, then, the soul from the beginning of the conception was united to the body (this has been shown), the body from the beginning of the conception was of necessity organized and formed. And even the organization of the body precedes in the order of generation the introduction of the rational soul. Here, again, if one grants what is posterior, he must grant what is prior. [6] But there is no reason why a quantitative increase up to the due measure should not follow on the body’s being animated. And so, regarding the conception of the man assumed, one should hold that in the very beginning of conception the body was organized and formed, but had not yet its due quantity.

Chapter

THAT IT BECAME CHRIST TO. BE BORN OF A VIRGIN

[1] It is, of course, now plain that of necessity that man was born from a Virgin Mother without natural seed. [2] For the seed of the man is required in human generation as an active principle by reason of the active power in it. But the active power in the generation of the body of Christ could not be a natural power, in the light of the points we have seen. For the natural power does not of a sudden bring about the entire formation of the body, it requires time for this, but the body of Christ was in the first moment of conception formed and organized as was shown. Therefore, one concludes that the generation of Christ was without natural seed. [3] Again, the male seed, in the generation of any animal at all, attracts to itself the matter supplied by the mother, as though the power which is in the male seed intends its own fulfillment as the end of the entire generation; hence, also, when the generation is completed, the seed itself, unchanged and fulfilled, is the offspring which is born. But the human generation of Christ had as ultimate term union with the divine Person, and not the establishment of a human person or hypostasis, as is clear from the foregoing. In this generation, therefore, the active principle could not be the seed of the man; it could only be the divine power. Just as the seed of the man in the common generation of men attracts to its subsistence the matter supplied by the mother, so this same matter in the generation the Word of God has assumed into union with Himself. [4] In like manner, of course, it was manifestly suitable that, even in the human generation of the Word of God, some spiritual property of the generation of a word should shine out. Now, a word as it proceeds from a speaker—whether conceived within or expressed without—brings no corruption to the speaker, rather, the word marks the plenitude of perfection in the speaker. It was in harmony with this that in His human generation the Word of God should be so conceived and born that the wholeness of His Mother was not impaired. And this, too, is clear: It became the Word of God, by whom all things are established and by whom all things are preserved in His wholeness, to be born so as to preserve His Mother’s wholeness in every way. Therefore, suitably this generation was from a virgin. [5] And for all that, this mode of generation detracts in nothing from the true and natural humanity of Christ, even though He was generated differently from other men. For clearly, since the divine power is infinite, as has been proved, and since through it all causes are granted the power to produce an effect, every effect whatever produced by every cause whatever can be produced by God without the assistance of that cause of the same species and nature. Then, just as the natural power which is in the human seed produces a true man who has the human species and nature, so the divine power, which gave such power to the seed, can without its power produce that effect by constituting a true man who has the human species and nature. [6] But let someone object: a naturally generated man has a body naturally constituted from the seed of the male and what the female supplies—be that what it may; therefore, the body of Christ was not the same in nature as ours if it was not generated from the seed of a male. To this an answer may be made in accordance with a position of Aristotle, he says that the seed of the male does not enter materially into the constitution of what is conceived; it is an active principle only, whereas the entire matter of the body is supplied by the mother. Taken thus, in respect of matter the body of Christ does not differ from ours; for our bodies also are constituted materially of that which is taken from the mother. [7] But, if one rejects the position of Aristotle just described, then the objection just described has no efficacy. For the likeness or unlikeness of things in matter is not marked off by the state of the matter in the principle of generation, but by the state of the matter already prepared as it is in the term of the generation. There is no difference in matter between air generated from earth and that from water, because, although water and earth are different in the principle of generation, they are nonetheless reduced by the generating action to one disposition. Thus, then, by the divine power the matter taken from the woman alone can be reduced at the end of the generation to a disposition identical with that which matter has if taken simultaneously from the male and female. Hence, there will be no unlikeness by reason of diversity of matter between the body of Christ which was formed by the divine power out of matter taken from the mother alone, and our bodies which are formed by the natural power from matter, even though they are taken from both parents. Surely this is clear; the matter taken simultaneously from a man and a woman and that “slime of the earth” (Gen. 2:7) of which God formed the first man (very certainly a true man and like us in everything) differ more from one another than from the matter taken solely from the female from which the body of Christ was formed. Hence, the birth of Christ from the Virgin does not at all diminish either the truth of His humanity or His likeness to us. For, although a natural power requires a determined matter for the production of a determined effect therefrom, the divine power, the power able to produce all things from nothing, is not in its activity circumscribed within determinate matter. [8] In the same way, that she as a virgin conceived and gave birth diminishes not at all the dignity of the Mother of Christ—so that she be not the true and natural mother of the Son of God. For, while the divine power worked, she supplied the natural matter for the generation of the body of Christ-and this alone is required on the part of the mother; but the things which in other mothers contribute to the loss of virginity belong not to the process of being a mother, but to that of being a father, in order to have the male seed arrive at the place of generation.

Chapter

THAT CHRIST WAS BORN OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

[1] Although, of course, every divine operation by which something is accomplished in creatures is common to the entire Trinity (as has been shown in the points made above), the formation of Christ’s body, which was perfected by the divine power, is suitably ascribed to the Holy Spirit although it is common to the entire Trinity. [2] Now, this seems to be in harmony with the Incarnation of the Word. For, just as our word mentally conceived is invisible, but is made sensible in an external vocal expression, so the Word of God in the eternal generation exists invisibly in the heart of the Father, but by the Incarnation is made sensible to us. Thus, the Incarnation of God’s Word is like the vocal expression of our word. But the vocal expression of our word is made by our spirit, through which the vocal formation of our word takes place. Suitably, then, it is through the Spirit of the Son Of God that the formation of His flesh is said to have taken place. [3] This is also in harmony with human generation. The active power which is in the human seed, drawing to itself the matter which flows from the mother, operates by the spirit, for this kind of power is founded on the spirit, and by reason of its control the seed must be cloudy and white. Therefore, the Word of God taking flesh to Himself from the Virgin is suitably said to do this by His Spirit—to form flesh by assuming it. [4] Ths also helps to suggest a cause moving to the Incarnation of the Word. And this could, indeed, be no other than the unmeasured love of God for man whose nature He wished to couple with Himself in unity of person. But in the divinity it is the Holy Spirit who proceeds as love, as was said. Suitably, then, was the task of Incarnation attributed to the Holy Spirit. [5] Sacred Scripture, too, is accustomed to attributing every grace to the Holy Spirit, for what is graciously given seems bestowed by the love of the giver. But no greater gift has been bestowed on man than union with God in person. Therefore, suitably is this work marked as the Holy Spirit’s own.

Chapter

THAT CHRIST WAS NOT THE SON OF THE HOLY SPI1UT IN THE FLESH

[1] Now, although Christ is said to be conceived of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin, one cannot for all that say that the Holy Spirit is the father of Christ in the human generation as the Virgin is His mother. [2] For the Holy Spirit did not produce the human nature of Christ out of His substance, but by His power alone operated for its production. It cannot, therefore, be said that the Holy Spirit is the father of Christ in His human generation. [3] It would, furthermore, be productive of error to say that Christ is the son of the Holy Spirit. Plainly, God’s Word has a distinct Person in that He is the Son of God the Father. If, then, He were in His human nature called the son of the Holy Spirit, one would have to understand Christ as being two sons, since the Word of God cannot be the son of the Holy Spirit. And thus, since the name of sonship belongs to a person and not to a nature, it would follow that in Christ there are two Persons. But this is foreign to the Catholic faith. [4] It would be unsuitable, also, to transfer the name and the authority of the Father to another. Yet this happens if the Holy Spirit is called the father of Christ.

Chapter

THAT CHRIST MUST NOT BE CALLED A CREATURE

[1] It is clear, moreover, that, although the human nature assumed by the Word is a creature, it cannot, for all that, be said without qualification that Christ is a creature. [2] For to be created is to become something. Now, since becoming is terminated in being simply, a becoming is of that which has subsistent being, and it is a thing of this kind which is a complete individual in the genus of substance, which, indeed in an intellectual nature is called a person or even an hypostasis. But one does not speak of forms and accidents and even parts becoming, unless relatively, since they have no subsistent being in themselves, but subsist in another; hence, when one becomes white, this is not called becoming simply, but relatively. But in Christ there is no other hypostasis or person save that of God’s Word, and this person is uncreated, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, one cannot say without qualification: “Christ is a creature;” although one may say it with an addition, so as to say a creature “so far as man” or “in His human nature.” [3] Granted, however, that one does not, in the case of a subject which is an individual in the genus of substance, refer to that as becoming simply which belongs to it by reason of accidents or parts, but that one calls it becoming only relatively, one does predicate simply of the subject whatever follows naturally on the accidents or parts in their own intelligibility; for one calls a man “seeing” simply: this follows the eye; or “curly” because of his hair; or “visible” because of his color. Thus, then, the things which follow properly on human nature can be asserted of Christ simply: that He is “man”; that He is “visible”; that He “walked,” and that sort of thing. But what is the person’s very own is not asserted of Christ by reason of His human nature, unless with some addition whether expressed or implied.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE INCARNATION GIVEN ABOVE

[1] With what has now been said the points made previously against faith in the Incarnation are easily disposed of. [2] For it has been shown that one must not understand the Incarnation of the Word thus: that the Word was converted into flesh or that He is united to the body as a form. Hence, it is not a consequence of the Word’s Incarnation that He who is truly God is a body or a power in a body as the first argument was trying to proceed. [3] Neither does it follow that the Word was substantially changed by the fact that He assumed human nature. For no change was made in the Word of God Himself, but only in the human nature which was assumed by the Word, in accord with which it is proper that the Word was both temporally generated and born, but to the Word Himself this was not fitting. [4] What is proposed in the third argument is also without necessity. For an hypostasis is not extended beyond the limits of that nature from which it has subsistence. The Word of God, of course, has no subsistence from the human nature, rather, He draws the human nature to His subsistence or personality. It is not through, but in, human nature that He subsists. Hence, nothing prevents the Word of God from being everywhere, although the human nature assumed by the Word of God is not everywhere. [5] Thus, also, the fourth is answered. For in any subsistent thing there must be only one nature by which it has being simply. And so, the Word of God has being simply by, the divine nature alone, not, however, by the human nature, by human nature He has being this—namely, being a man. [6] The fifth also is disposed of in the very same way. For it is impossible that the nature by which the Word subsists be other than the very person of the Word. Of course, He subsists by the divine nature and not by the human nature, but He draws the latter to His own subsistence that He may subsist in it, as was said. Hence, it is not necessary that the human nature be identical with the person of the Word. [7] From this also follows the exclusion of the sixth objection. For an hypostasis is less simple—whether in things or in the understanding—than the nature through which it is established in being: in the thing, indeed, when the hypostasis is not its nature, or in the understanding alone in the cases in which the hypostasis and the nature are identified. The hypostasis of the Word is not established simply by the human nature so as to have being through the human nature, but through it the Word has this alone: that He be man. It is, then, not necessary that the human nature be more simple than the Word so far as He is the Word, but only so far as the Word is this man. [8] From this also the way is open to solving the seventh objection. For it is not necessary that the hypostasis of the Word of God be constituted simply by signate matter, but only so far as He is this man. For only as this man is He constituted by the human nature, as was said. [9] Of course, that the soul and body in Christ are drawn to the personality of the Word without constituting a person other than the person of the Word does not point to a lessened power, as the eighth argument” would have it, but to a greater worthiness. For everything whatever has, when united to what is worthier, a better being than it has when it exists through itself; just so, the sensible soul has a nobler being in nun than it has in the other animals in which it is the principal form, for all that it is not such in man. [10] Hence, also, comes the solution to the ninth objection. In Christ there was, indeed, this soul and this body, for all that there was not constituted from them another person than the person of God’s Word, because they were assumed unto the p6rsonality of God’s Word; just as a body, too, when it is without the soul, does have its own species, but it is from the soul, when united to it, that it receives its species. [11] Thus, also, one answers what the tenth argument proposed. It is clear that this man who is Christ is a certain substance which is not universal, but particular. And He is an hypostasis; nevertheless, not another hypostasis than the hypostasis of the Word, for human nature has been assumed by the hypostasis of the Word that the Word may subsist in human as well as in divine nature. But that which subsists in human nature is this man. Hence, the Word itself is supposed’s when one says “this man.” [12] But, let one move the very same objection over to human nature and say it is a certain substance, not universal but particular and consequently an hypostasis-he is obviously deceived. For human nature even in Socrates or Plato is not an hypostasis, but that which subsists in the nature is an hypostasis. [13] But to call a human nature a substance and particular is not to use the meaning in which one calls an hypostasis a particular substance. “Substance” we speak of with the Philosopher [ Categories 5] in two ways: for the supposit, namely, in the genus of substance which is called hypostasis; and for the what-it-is which is “the nature of a thing.” But the parts of a substance are not thus called particular substances—subsisting, so to say, in themselves; they subsist in the whole. Hence, neither can one call them hypostases, for none of them is a complete substance. Otherwise, it would follow that in one man there are as many hypostases as there are parts. [14] Now, to the eleventh argument in opposition. The solution is that equivocation is introduced by a diversity of the form signified by a name, but not by diversity of supposition. For this name “man” is not taken as equivocal because sometimes it supposes Plato, sometimes Socrates. Therefore, this name “man” said of Christ and of other men always signifies the same form; namely, human nature. This is why it is predicated of them univocally; but it is only the supposition which is changed, and, to be sure, in this: when it is taken for Christ it supposes an uncreated hypostasis, but when it is taken for others it supposes a created hypostasis. [15] Nor, again, is the hypostasis of the Word said to be the supposit of the human nature, as though subjected to the latter as to a more formal principle, as the twelfth argument proposed. This would, of course, be necessary if it were the human nature which establishes the hypostasis of the Word in being simply. This is obviously false: for the hypostasis of the Word is the subject of the human nature so far as He draws this latter unto His own subsistence, just as something drawn to a second and nobler thing to which it is united. [16] For all that, it does not follow that the human nature accrues to the Word accidentally, because the Word pre-exists from eternity, as the final argument was trying to conclude. For the Word assumed human nature so as to be truly man. But to be man is to be in the genus of a substance. Therefore, since by union with human nature the hypostasis of the Word has the being of man, this does not accrue to the Word accidentally. For accidents do not bestow substantial being.

Chapter

THAT ORIGINAL SIN IS TRANSMITTED FROM THE FIRST PARENT TO HIS DESCENDANTS

[1] It has been shown, then, in the points set down that what the Catholic faith preaches about the Incarnation of the Son of God is not impossible. And the next thing is to make plain the suitability of the Son of God’s assumption of human nature. [2] Now, the reason for this suitability the Apostle seems to situate in original sin, which is passed on to all men; be says: “As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners: so also by the obedience of one many shall be made just” (Rom. 5:19). However, since the Pelagian heretics denied original sin, we must now show that men are born with original sin. [3] First, indeed, one must take up what Genesis (2:15-17) says: “The Lord God took man and put him into the paradise of pleasure, saying: Of every tree of paradise you shall eat but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in what day soever you shall eat of it, you shall die the death.” But, since it was not on the very day that he ate that Adam actually died, one has to understand the words “you shall die the death” as “you will be handed over to the necessity of death.” And this would be said pointlessly if man from the institution of his nature had the necessity of dying. One must, then, say that death and the necessity of dying is a penalty inflicted on man for sin. But a penalty is not justly inflicted except for a fault. Therefore, in every single one of those in whom one finds this penalty one must of necessity find a fault. But this penalty is found in all men, even from the very moment of birth, for since that day man is born handed over to the necessity of death. Hence, too, some are immediately after birth, “carried from the womb to the grave” (Job 10:19). In them, therefore, there is some sin. But it is not actual sin, for children do not have the use of free will, and without this nothing is imputed to man as sin (which is clear from the things said in Book II). One must, therefore, say that sin is in them, passed on to them in their origin. [4] This is also, made clear and explicit by the Apostle’s words: “As by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death, and so death pawed upon all men, in whom all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). [5] Of course, one cannot say that by one man sin entered the world by way of imitation. For, thus, sin would have reached only those who in sinning imitate the first man; and, since death entered the world by sin, death would reach only those who sin in the likeness of the first man sinning. It is to exclude this that the Apostle adds that “death reigned from Adam unto Moses even over them also who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam” (Rom. 5:14). Therefore, the understanding of the Apostle is not that sin entered the world through one man by way of imitation, but by way of origin. [6] There is more. If the Apostle were speaking of the entry of sin into the world by way of imitation, he should rather have said that sin entered the world by the devil than by one man; as is said also expressly in Wisdom (2:24-25): “By the envy of the devil death came into the world: they follow him that are of his side.” [7] David says furthermore, in a Psalm (50:7): “Behold I was conceived in iniquities and in sins did my mother conceive me “ But this cannot be understood of actual sin, since David is said to be conceived and born of a legitimate marriage. Therefore, this must be referred to original sin. [8] Moreover, Job says (14:4): “Who can make him clean that is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not You only?” One gathers clearly from this that from the uncleanness of human seed there extends an uncleanness to the man conceived of the seed. One must understand this of the uncleanness of sin, the only one for which a man is brought into judgment, for Job (14:3) had already said: “And dost You think it meet to open your eyes upon such a one, and to bring him into judgment with You.” Thus, then, there is a sin contracted by man in his very origin which is called “original.” [9] Once again; baptism and the other sacraments of the Church are remedies of a sort against sin, as will be clarified later. But baptism, according to the common custom of the Church, is given to children recently born. It would be given quite in vain unless there were sin in them. But there is no actual sin in them, for they lack the exercise of free will—without which no act is imputed to a man as a fault. Therefore, one must say that there is in them a sin pissed on by their origin, since in the works of God and the Church there is nothing futile or in vain. [10] But one may say: Baptism is given to infants not to cleanse them from sin, but to admit them to the kingdom of Cod, to which there is no admission without baptism, since our Lord says: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). This objection is in vain. For no one is excluded from the kingdom of God except for some fault. The end of every rational creature is to arrive at beatitude, and this cannot be save in the kingdom of God. And this, in turn, is nothing but the ordered society of those who enjoy the divine vision, in which true beatitude consists, which is clear from the points made in Book III. But nothing fails its end except through a sin. Therefore, if children not yet baptized cannot reach the kingdom of God, one must say there is some sin in them. [11] Thus, then, according to the tradition of the Catholic faith one must hold that men are born with original sin.

Chapter

OBJECTIONS AGAINST ORIGINAL SIN

[1] There are, of course, certain things which appear to be adversaries of this truth. [7] For the sin of one man is not imputed as fault to others. So Ezekiel (18:7.0) says: “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” And the reason for this is that we are neither praised nor blamed except for the things which are in ourselves. But these are the things to which we are committed by will. Therefore, the sin of the first man is not imputed to the entire human race. [3] But let one answer that when one sinned, “all sinned in him,” as the Apostle seems to say and so the sin of one is not imputed to another, but the sin is his own. Yet even this, it seems, cannot stand. For those born of Adam were, when Adam sinned, not yet in him actually, but only in his power, as in their first origin. But to sin, since it is to act, is proportionate only to one who actually exists. Therefore, we did not all sin in Adam. [4] But let it be said that we sinned in Adam as though originally the sin comes from him to us along with the nature. Even this seems impossible. For an accident, since it does not pass from one subject to another, cannot be passed on unless the subject is passed on. But the subject of sin is the rational soul, which is not passed on to us from our first parent, but is created by God in each and one by one, as was shown in Book II. Therefore, it is not by origin that the sin of Adam flowed on to us. [5] Further, if the sin of our first parent flows into others because they take their origin from him, then, since Christ took His origin from our first parent, He, also, it seems, was subject to original sin. And this is foreign to the faith. [6] Moreover, what follows on a thing from its natural origin is natural to that thing. But what is natural to a thing is not a sin in it, thus, the lack of vision is not a sin in a mole. Therefore, sin could not flow into others by reason of their origin from the first man. [7] But let it now be said that the sin flows from the first parent into his descendants by way of origin, not inasmuch as the origin is natural, but inasmuch as the origin is vitiated; this also, it seems, cannot stand. For a failure in nature’s work takes place only through the failure of some natural principle, due to some corruption in the seed, for example, monstrous births in animals are caused. But one cannot grant the corruption of a natural principle in human seed. It seems, then, that a sin does not flow from the first parent into his descendants by a vitiated origin. [8] Once again; the sins of nature, appearing among its works by the corruption of a principle, take place neither always nor frequently except in a few cases. Therefore, if by a vitiated origin sin flows from the first parent into his descendants, it will not flow into all, but into some few. [9] And if, furthermore, due to a vitiated origin, a failure appears in the offspring, that failure ought to be of the same genus as the vice which is in the origin, for effects are conformed to their causes. The origin, of course, of human generation, since it is a perfection of the generative power, which shares reason not at all, can have no vice in it which belongs to the genus of fault. For only in those acts can there be virtue or vice, which are subject to reason in some fashion. And so one does not call it a man’s fault if, due to a vitiated origin, he is born a leper or blind. Therefore, there is no way for a blameworthy failure to come down from the first parent to his descendant by origin. [10] Yet again; nature’s good is not taken away by sin. Wherefore, even in the demons natural goods remain, as Dionysius says. But generation is an act of nature. Therefore, the sin of the first man could not vitiate the origin of human generation so that the sin of the first man should flow into his descendants. [11] Man, moreover, generates one like himself in species. In things, then, which have no bearing on the generation of the species, the son need not be made like his parents. But sin cannot bear on the essentials of the species, for sin is not among the things of nature; rather, it is a corruption of the natural order. There is, then, no necessity that from a first man sinning other sinners be born. [12] There is more. Sons are more likened to their proximate than to their remote parents. But at times it happens that the proximate parents are without sin and even in the act of generation no sin takes place. It is not, therefore, by the sin of the first parent that all are born sinners. [13] And again, if the sin of the first man flowed into others, and—on the other hand—the good is more powerful in acting than the evil (as was shown above), then by so much the more was the satisfaction of Adam, and his justice, transferred through him to others. [14] If the sin of the first man, moreover, was by origin propagated to his descendants, by an equal reason the sins of other parents pass down to their descendants. And in this way the later would always be more burdened with sins than the earlier generations. Especially must this follow if, in fact, the sin passes on from the parent to the offspring, and the satisfaction cannot pass on.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS PROPOSED

[1] Now, for the solution of these points one should first set down that certain signs of the original sin appear with probability in the human race. For, since God takes care of human acts so as to give reward for good works and set a penalty for bad works, as was previously shown, it is from the very penalty that we can assure ourselves of the fault. Now, the human race commonly suffers various penalties, both bodily and spiritual. Greatest among the bodily ones is death, and to this all the others are ordered: namely, hunger, thirst, and others of this sort. Greatest~ of course, among the spiritual penalties is the frailty of reason: from this it happens that man with difficulty arrives at knowledge of the truth; that with ease he falls into error, and that he cannot entirely overcome his beastly appetites, but is over and over again beclouded by them. [2] For all that, one could say that defects of this kind, both bodily and spiritual, are not penalties, but natural defects necessarily consequent upon matter. For, necessarily, the human body, composed of contraries, must be corruptible; and the sensible appetite must be moved to sense pleasures, and these are occasionally contrary to reason. And, since the possible intellect is in potency to all intelligibles, possessing none of them actually, but by nature acquiring them from the senses, one must arrive at knowledge of the truth with difficulty, and due to the phantasms one with ease deviates from the truth. But, for all that, let one weigh matters rightly, and he will be able to judge with probability enough—granted a divine providence which for every perfection has contrived a proportionate perfectible—that God united a superior to an inferior nature for this purpose: that the superior rule the inferior, and that, if some obstacle to this dominion should happen from a failure of nature, it would be removed by His special and supernatural benefaction. And the result would be, since the rational soul is of a higher nature than the body, belief that the rational soul was united to the body under such a condition that in the body there can be nothing contrary to the soul by which the body lives; and, in like fashion, if reason in man is united to the sensual appetite and other sensitive powers, that the reason be not impeded by the sensible powers, but be master over them. [3] Thus, then, according to the teaching of the faith, we set it down that man from the beginning was thus established by God: As long as man’s reason was subject to God, not only did the inferior powers serve reason without obstacle, but the body also could not be impeded in subjection to reason by any bodily obstacle—God and His grace supplying, because nature had too little for perfecting this establishment. But, when reason turned away from God, not only did the inferior powers rebel from reason, but the body also sustained passions contrary to that life which is from the soul. [4] Of course, although defects of this kind may seem natural to man in an absolute consideration of human nature on its inferior side, nonetheless, taking into consideration divine providence and the dignity of human nature on its superior side, it can be proved with enough probability that defects of this kind are penalties. And one can gather thus that the human race was originally infected with sin. [5] These things now seen, one must answer to the points made as contrary objections. [6] Now, there is no awkwardness in saying that when one sins the sin is propagated to all in their origin, even though each is praised or blamed according to his own act; as the first argument attempted to proceed. For things go one way in matters of a single individual, and another way in matters of the entire nature of a species, since “by participation in the species many men are as one man,” as Porphyry says. A sin, then, which refers to an individual man or his person is not imputed to another as fault unless he be the sinner, since personally one is divided off from another. But, if there is a sin which looks to the nature of the species itself, there is nothing awkward about its propagation from one to another, just as the nature of the species is communicated through one to others. But, since sin is a kind of evil of rational nature, and evil a privation of good, one judges on the basis of the missing good whether a sin is related to a nature commonly or to a person Of course, actual sins which are committed by all men commonly deprive the person of the sinner of a good: grace, for instance, and the due order of the parts of the soul. This is why they are personal, and why, when one sins, the sin is not imputed to another. But the first sin of the first man not only deprived him of his proper and personal good—namely, grace, and the due order of the parts of the soul—he was deprived as well of a good related to the common nature. For—as we said above—human nature was established in its first beginning so that the inferior powers were perfectly subject to reason, the reason to God, the body to the soul, and God was by His grace supplying what nature lacked for this arrangement. Now, this kind of benefit which some call “original justice” was conferred on the first man in such wise that he was to propagate it to his descendants along with human nature. But in the sin of the first man reason withdrew itself from the divine subjection. And it has followed thereon that the lower powers are not perfectly subject to the reason nor is the body to the soul; and this is not only the case for the first sinner, but the same consequent defect follows into his posterity and to the posterity in whom the original justice mentioned was going to follow. Thus, then, the sin of the first man from whom all other men are derived according to the teaching of faith was not only personal in that it deprived the first man of his own good, but natural, also, in that it deprived him and consequently his descendants of the benefit bestowed on the entire human nature. Thus, too, this kind of defect which is in others as a consequence from the first parent still has in others the essentials of fault so far as all men are counted as one man by participation in the common nature. For one discovers the voluntary character in a sin of this kind in the will of the first parent much as the action of the hand has the essentials of fault from the will of the first mover, which is the power of reason; as a result, in a sin of nature judgments are made about the diverse men as though parts of a common nature, much as they are made in a personal sin about diverse parts of one man. [7] In this way, then, it is true to say that when one sinned, “all sinned in him,” as the Apostle says, and on this basis the second argument made its proposal. Other men were present in Adam, however, not in act, but only in his power as in an Original principle. Nor are they said to have sinned in him as exercising any act, but so far as they belong to Adam’s nature which was corrupted by sin. [8] Let the sin be propagated from the first parent to his descendants. Nevertheless, it does not follow, although the subject of sin is the rational soul, that the rational soul is propagated along with the seed; as the progress of the third argument had it. For the manner of propagating this sin of nature which is called original is like that of the very nature of the species, and this nature, although it is perfected by the rational soul, is for all that not propagated with the seed; such propagation is only of the body fitted by nature to receive such a soul. It was in Book II that we showed this. [9] We grant that Christ was a descendant of the first parent in the flesh. For all that, He did not incur the contamination of original sin as the fourth argument concluded. For it was only the matter of His human body which He received from the first parent; the power to form His body was not derived from the first parent, but was the power of the Holy Spirit, as was shown. Accordingly, He did not receive human nature from Adam as an agent although He did receive it from Adam as from a material principle. [10] One should consider this, also: The natures origin passes along the defects mentioned because the nature has been stripped of that help of grace which had been bestowed on it in the first parent to pass on to his descendants along with the nature. Now, since this stripping came from a voluntary sin, the consequent defect has the character of fault. Hence, defects of this kind are faulty when referred to their first principle, which is the sin of Adam; and they are natural when referred to the nature already stripped. Accordingly, the Apostle says: ‘We were by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). In this way one answers the fifth objection. [11] Clearly, then, from what has been said, the vice of origin in which the original sin is caused comes from the failure of a principle, namely, the gratuitous gift which human nature at its institution had had bestowed upon it. To be sure, this gift was in a sense natural: not natural as caused by the principles of the nature, but natural because it was given to man to be propagated along with his nature. But the sixth objection” was dealing with the natural which is caused by the principles of the nature. [12] The seventh objection proceeds in the same way, from a defect of a natural principle belonging to the nature of the species. Of course, what comes from a defect of a natural principle of this kind happens in but few cases. But the defect of original sin comes from the defect of a principle added over and above the principles of the species, as we said. [13] Be it observed, also, that in the act of the generative powers there can be no vice in the genus of actual sin which depends on the will of a single person, because the act of the generative power is not obedient to reason or to will, as the eighth objection went. But nothing prevents our finding the vice of original sin—this refers to nature-in an act of the generative power, since acts of the generative powers are called natural. [14] The ninth objection, of course, can readily be answered from the points already made. For sin does not take away that good of nature which belongs to the nature’s species. But that good of nature which grace added over and above nature could be removed by the sin of our first parent. This was said before. [15] From the same points one easily answers the tenth objection. For, since privation and defect correspond to one another mutually, in that characteristic in original sin are the children made like to the parents in which the gift also, granted the nature in the beginning, would have been propagated to their descendants; for, although the gift did not belong to the essentials of the species, it was given by divine grace to the first man to flow from him into the entire species. [16] This, too, must be considered: Let one by the sacraments of grace be cleansed from original sin so that it is not imputed a fault in him (and for him personally this is to be freed from original sin); for all that~ the nature is not entirely healed; therefore, in an act of the nature the original sin is transmitted to his descendants. Thus, then, in a man who generates there is no original sin in so far as he is a given person; and it also happens that in the act of generation there is no actual sin, which the eleventh argument was proposing. But so far as the man who generates is the natural principle of generation, the infection of the original sin which bears on nature remains in him and in his act of generation. [17] Be it observed, also, that the actual sin of the first man passed over into nature because the nature in him had been further perfected by the benefit bestowed on the nature. But, when by his sin the nature was stripped of the benefit, his act was simply personal. Hence, he could not satisfy for the entire nature, nor could he make the good of nature whole once more by his act. But the only satisfaction of which he was somewhat capable was that which had a bearing on his own person. Therein the answer to the twelfth argument appears. [18] In like manner, of course, one answers the thirteenth, for the sins of later parents find a nature stripped of the benefit which was at the outset granted to the nature itself. Hence, from those sins no defect follows which is propagated to the descendants, but only a defect which infects the person of the one sinning. [19] Thus, then, it is neither unsuitable nor irrational to affirm the presence of original sin in men, and thus the heresy of the Pelagians, which was a denial of original sin, is confounded.

Chapter

ARGUMENTS WHICH SEEM TO PROVE THAT GOD’S INCARNATION WAS NOT SUITABLE

[1] Faith in the Incarnation, of course, is counted foolishness by unbelievers, as the Apostle has it: “It pleased God by the foolishness of our preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21); and it seems foolish to preach a thing which is not just impossible, but also unbecoming; therefore, the unbelievers press on their fight against the Incarnation, and they try not only to show that what the Catholic faith preaches is impossible, but also that it is inharmonious, and that it ill befits the divine goodness. [2] For it does befit the divine goodness that all things stand fast in order. Now, the order of things is this: that God be exalted above all things, but man hemmed in among the lowest creatures. Therefore, it ill befits the divine majesty to be united to human nature. [3] Once more; if it was suitable for God to become man, this had to be for some usefulness coming therefrom. But whatever be the usefulness granted, since God is omnipotent He could produce this usefulness merely by His will. Therefore, since it becomes everything whatever to be done as quickly as possible, it was unnecessary for a utility of this sort that God unite human nature to Himself. [4] Since God is, moreover, the universal cause of all things. He should especially attend the usefulness of things in their universal entirety. But the assumption of human nature looks only to the usefulness of man. It was, therefore, not seemly for God, if He was to take on a foreign nature, to assume only human nature. [5] Moreover, the more one thing is like another, the more suitably it is united to the other. But the angelic nature is more like God and closer to Him than human nature. Therefore, it was not suitable to assume human nature and pass over the angelic. [6] There is more. The chief thing in man is his understanding of the truth. And in this man seems to be impeded if God assumed human nature, for man is thus given an occasion of error, its result is agreement with those who held that God is not exalted above all bodies. Therefore, it contributed nothing useful to human nature for God to assume human nature. [7] Again, we can learn from experience that many an error concerning the Incarnation of God has arisen. It seems, then, that it was not becoming human salvation that God should be incarnate. [8] Furthermore, among all the things that God has done, that appears the greatest: His own assumption of flesh. But from the greatest work one should look for the greatest usefulness. If, then, the Incarnation of God is ordered to the salvation of men, it appears that it was becoming that He should have saved the entire human race, since even all men’s salvation scarcely seems to be useful enough that so great a work should have been done for it. [9] What is more, if God assumed human nature for the salvation of men, apparently it was suitable that there be enough indications for men of His divinity. But it seems this did not happen, for some other men simply assisted by the divine power and without God’s union to their nature are discovered doing miracles like or even greater than those which Christ did (cf. John 24:12). It seems, then, that Gods, Incarnation did not take place with enough care for human salvation. [10] There is more. If it was necessary for human salvation that God take on flesh, since there were men from the beginning of the world, it appears that from the beginning of the world He ought to have assumed human nature, and not, so to say, in the last days, for it seems that the salvation of all the preceding men was passed over. [11] For the same reason, also, He should have dwelt among men to the very end of the world, in order to instruct men by His presence and govern them. [12] Then, too, this is, above all, useful to men: to solidify in them the hope of future beatitude. But this hope would have been better conceived from an incarnate God if He had assumed an immortal, impassible, and glorious flesh and had displayed this to all men. Therefore, it seems not suitable to have assumed a mortal and frail flesh. [13] Apparently it was suitable, furthermore, to show that whatever is in the world is from God, He should have put to use the abundance of earthly things, living in riches and the greatest honors. It is the contrary we read of Him: that He. led a poor and abject life, that He suffered a shameful death. Therefore, what the faith preaches about the incarnate God is not suitable. [14] The fact, moreover, that He suffered abjectly did most to obscure His divinity. Nonetheless, the most necessary thing for men all the while was this: that they know His divinity—if He was God incarnate. It seems, then, that what the faith preaches,.is not in harmony with human salvation. [15] Let a man say that the Son of God underwent death by reason of His obedience to the Father—this also appears unreasonable. For obedience consists in one’s conforming himself to the will of him who commands. But the will of God the Father cannot be unreasonable. If, then, it was unbecoming for God made man to suffer death because death seems contrary to divinity which is life, the reason for this thing cannot suitably be found in obedience to the Father. [16] God’s will, moreover, is not for the death of men, even sinners, but for life, as Ezekiel (18:23, 32) says: “I will not the death Of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live.” By so much the less, then, could it have been the will of God that the most perfect man be subject to death. [17] It seems, furthermore, impious and cruel to command an innocent to be led to death, especially on behalf of the impious who are worthy of death. But the man Christ Jesus was innocent. Therefore, it would have been impious if at the command of God the Father He had undergone death. [18] But let a man say that this was necessary as a demonstration of humility, as the Apostle appears to say, that Christ “humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:8)—this reason is not suitable either, because, in the first place, one must commend humility in him who has a superior to whom he can be subject. This cannot be said of God. Therefore, it was not suitable for God’s Word to be humbled unto death. [19] Again, men were able to be informed sufficiently about humility by the divine words-to which faith must wholly cling-and by human examples. Therefore, to set an example of humility it was not necessary for the Word of God either to assume flesh or to undergo death. [20] But, again, let one say that it was necessary for the cleansing of our sins that Christ undergo death and the other seemingly abject things; as the Apostle says: “He was delivered up for our sins” (Rom. 4:25); and again: “He was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28). This, too, seems awkward, because, in the first place, only by God’s grace are men cleansed of sins. [2]] In the next place, because, if satisfaction was required, it was suitable that he should give satisfaction who had sinned. For in the just judgment of God “every one shall bear his own burden” (Gal. 6:5). [22] Again, if it was becoming for someone greater than, pure man to satisfy for man, it seems it would have been sufficient for an angel to take flesh and fulfill this sort of satisfaction, since an angel is by nature superior to a man. [23] What is more, sin is not expiated by sin, but increased. Then, if Christ had to satisfy by death, His death should have been such that no man sinned therein; that is to say, He should have died not a violent, but a natural, death. [24] If Christ, moreover, had to die for the sins of men, since men sin frequently He should have had to undergo death frequently. 125] Now, let one say that it was especially because of original sin that Christ had to be born and to suffer, and that sin had infected the whole human race when the first man sinned. But this seems impossible. For, if other men are not equal to satisfying for original sin, neither does the death of Christ seem to have been satisfactory for the sins of the human race, since He Himself died in His human, not in His divine nature. [26] Furthermore, if Christ made satisfaction enough for the sins of the human race, it seems unjust that men still suffer the penalties which were brought in, Scripture says, by sin. [27] There is more. If Christ made satisfaction enough for the sins of the human race, no further remedies for the absolution of sins need be sought. But they are constantly sought by all who have care for their salvation. Therefore, it seems that Christ did not sufficiently take away the sins of men. [28] These and similar points, then, can make it appear to a man that what the Catholic faith preaches about the Incarnation has not been harmonious with the divine majesty and wisdom.

Chapter

THAT IT WAS SUITABLE FOR GOD TO BE MADE FLESH

[1] However, if one earnestly and devoutly weighs the mysteries of the Incarnation, he will find so great a depth of wisdom that it exceeds human knowledge. In the Apostle’s words: “The foolishness of God is wiser then men” (1 Cor. 1:25). Hence it happens that to him who devoutly considers it, more and more wondrous aspects of this mystery are made manifest. [2] First, then, let this be taken into consideration: The Incarnation of God was the most efficacious assistance to man in his striving for beatitude. For we have shown in Book IIII that the perfect beatitude of man consists in the immediate vision of God. It might, of course, appear to some that man would never have the ability to achieve this state: that the human intellect be united immediately to the divine essence itself as an intellect is to its intelligible; for there is an unmeasured distance between the natures, and thus, in the search for beatitude, a man would grow cold, held back by very desperation. But the fact that God was willing to unite human nature to Himself personally points out to men with greatest clarity that man can be united to God by intellect, and see Him immediately. It was, then, most suitable for God to assume human nature to stir up man’s hope for beatitude. Hence, after the Incarnation of Christ, men began the more to aspire after heavenly beatitude; as He Himself says: “I have come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). [3] At the same time, too, some obstacles to acquiring beatitude are removed from man. For, since the perfect beatitude of man consists in the enjoyment of God alone, as shown above, necessarily every man is kept from participation in the true beatitude who cleaves as to an end to these things which are less than God. But man was able to be misled into this clinging as to an end to things less than God in existence by his ignorance of the worthiness of his nature. Thus it happens with some. They look on themselves in their bodily and sentient nature-which they have in common with other animals—and in bodily things and fleshly pleasures they seek out a kind of animal beatitude. But there have been others who considered the excellence of certain creatures superior to man in some respects. And to the cult of these they bound themselves. They worshiped the universe and its parts because of the greatness of its size and its long temporal duration; or spiritual substances, angels and demons, because they found these greater than man both in immortality and in sharpness of understanding. They judged that in these, as existing above themselves, the beatitude of man should be sought. Now, although it is true, some conditions considered, that man stands inferior to some creatures, and even that in certain matters he is rendered like to the lowest creatures, nothing stands higher in the order of end than man except God alone, in whom alone man’s perfect beatitude is to be found. Therefore, this dignity of man—namely, that in the immediate vision of God his beatitude is to be found—was most suitably manifested by God by His own immediate assumption of human nature. And we look upon this consequence of God’s Incarnation: a large part of mankind passing by the cult of angels, of demons, and all creatures whatsoever, spurning, indeed, the pleasures of the flesh and all things bodily, have dedicated themselves to the worship of God alone, and in Him only they look for the fulfillment of this beatitude; and so the Apostle exhorts: “Seek the things that are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth” (Col. 5:1-2). [4] Since man’s perfect beatitude, furthermore, consists in the sort of knowledge of God which exceeds the capacity of every created intellect (as was shown in Book III), there had to be a certain foretaste of this sort of knowledge in man which might direct him to that fullness of blessed knowledge; and this is done through faith, as we showed in Book III. But the knowledge by which man is directed to his ultimate end has to be most certain knowledge, because it is the principle of everything ordered to the ultimate end; so, also, the principles naturally known are most certain. But there cannot be a most certain knowledge of something unless the thing be known of itself, as the first principles of demonstration are known to us; or the thing be resolved into what is known of itself, in the way in which the conclusion of a demonstration is most certain for us. Of course, what is set forth for us to hold about God by faith cannot be known of itself to man, since it exceeds the capacity of the human intellect. Therefore, this had to be made known to man by Him to whom it is. known of itself. And, although to all who see the divine essence this truth is somehow known of itself, nevertheless, in order to have a most certain knowledge there had to be a reduction to the first principle of this knowledge—namely, to God. To Him this truth is naturally known of itself, and from Him it becomes known to all. And just so the certitude of a science is had only by resolution into the first indemonstrable principles. Therefore, man, to achieve perfect certitude about the truth of faith, had to be instructed by God Himself made man, that man might in the human fashion grasp the divine instruction. And this is what John (1: 18) says: “No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him: And our Lord Himself says: “For this was I born and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth” (John 18:37). And for this reason we see that after Christ’s Incarnation men were the more evidently and the more surely instructed in the divine knowledge; as Isaiah (11:9) has it: “The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord.” [5] Again, since man’s perfect beatitude consists in the enjoyment of divinity, man’s love had to be disposed toward a desire for the enjoyment of divinity, as we see that there is naturally in man a desire of beatitude. But the desire to enjoy anything is caused by love of that thing. Therefore, man, tending to perfect beatitude, needed inducement to the divine love. Nothing, of c6urse, so induces us to love one as the experience of his love for us. But God’s love for men could be demonstrated to man in no way more effective than this: He willed to be united to man in person, for it is proper to love to unite the lover with the beloved so far as possible. Therefore, it was necessary for man tending to perfect beatitude that God become man. [6] Furthermore, since friendship consists in a certain equality, things greatly unequal seem unable to be coupled in friendship. Therefore, to get greater familiarity in friendship between man and God it was helpful for man that God became man, since even by nature man is man’s friend;” and so in this way, “while we know God visibly, we may [through Him] be home to love of things invisible.” [7] In like fashion, too, it is clear that beatitude is the reward of virtue. Therefore, they who tend to beatitude must be virtuously disposed. But we are stimulated to virtue both by words and by examples. Of course, his examples and words of whose goodness we have the more solid opinion induce us the more effectively to virtue. But an infallible opinion of goodness about any pure man was never tenable-, even the holiest of men, one finds, have failed in some things. Hence, it was necessary for man to be solidly grounded in virtue to receive from God made human both the teaching and the examples of virtue. For this reason our Lord Himself says: “I have given you an example that as I have done to you do also” (John 13:15). [8] By virtues, again, man is disposed to beatitude, and so by sin he is blocked therefrom. Sin, of course, the contrary of virtue, constitutes an obstacle to beatitude; it not only induces a kind of disorder in the soul by seducing it from its due end, but it also offends God to whom we look for the reward of beatitude, in that God has the custody of human acts. And sin is the contrary of divine charity, as we showed more fully in Book III. What is more, man, being aware of this offense, loses by sin that confidence in approaching God which is necessary to achieve beatitude. Therefore, the human race, which abounds in sins, needed to have some remedy against sin applied to it. But this remedy can be applied only by Cod, who can move the will of man to good and bring it back to the order due; who can, as well, remit the offense committed against Him-for an offense is not remitted except by him against whom the offense is committed. But, if man is to be freed from awareness of past offense, he must know clearly that God has remitted his offense. But man cannot be clear on this with certainty unless God gives him certainty of it. Therefore, it was suitable and helpful to the human race for achieving beatitude that God should become man; as a result, man not only receives the remission of sins through God, but also the certitude of this remission through the man-God. Hence, our Lord Himself says: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins” (Mat. 9:6), and the rest; and the Apostle says that “the blood of Christ will cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9:14). [9] The tradition of the Church, moreover, teaches us that the whole human race was infected by sin. But the order of divine justice—as is clear from the foregoing—requires that God should not remit sin without satisfaction. But to satisfy for the sin of the whole human race was beyond the power of any pure man, because any pure man is something less than the whole human race in its entirety. Therefore, in order to free the human race from its common sin, someone had to satisfy who was both man and so proportioned to the satisfaction, and something above man that the merit might be enough to satisfy for the sin of the whole human race. But there is no greater than man in the order of beatitude, except God, for angels, although superior to man in the condition of nature, are not superior in the order of end, because the same end beatifies them. Therefore, it was necessary for man’s achievement of beatitude that God should become man to take away the sin of the human race. And this is what John the Baptist said of Christ: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:79). And the Apostle says: “As by the offense of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification” (Rom. 5:16). [10] These points, then, and similar ones make us able too conceive that it was not out of harmony with the divine goodness for God to become man, but extremely helpful for human salvation.

Chapter

ANSWER TO THE ARGUMENTS PREVIOUSLY SET DOWN AGAINST THE SUITABILITY OF THE INCARNATION

[1] Now, then, the points opposed to this doctrine above are disposed of easily. [2] It is not contrary to the order of things for God to become man, as the first argument proceeded. This is the case because, although the divine nature exceeds the human nature to infinity, man in the order of his nature has God Himself for end and has been born to be united to God by his intellect And this union had as example and testimony of a sort the union of God to man in person; nonetheless, what was proper to each nature was preserved, so that nothing of the excellence of the divine nature was lost, nor was there an exaltation which drew the human nature beyond the bounds of its species. [3] There is the following to be considered, also. By reason of the perfection and immobility of the divine goodness, God loses no dignity no matter how closely a creature draws near to Him, although this makes the creature grow in dignity. For He communicates His goodness to creatures in such wise that He Himself suffers no loss. [4] In like fashion, too, one grants that God’s will suffices for doing all things; nevertheless, the divine wisdom requires that provision be made for the various classes of things in harmony with themselves, for He has suitably established the proper causes of various things. Be it granted, accordingly, that God was able by His will alone to effect in the human race every useful good which we are saying came from God’s Incarnation, as the second argument was proposing; nevertheless, it was in harmony with human nature to bring about these useful goods through God made man, just as the arguments giveng make apparent to some extent. [5] The answer to the third argument is also plain. For, since man is constituted of a spiritual and of a bodily nature, and stands, so to say, on the boundary of each nature, that appears to belong to the whole of creaturehood which is done for the salvation of man. For the lesser bodily creatures seem to yield to man’s use and are in some way subject to him. But the superior spiritual, namely the angelic, creature has the achievement of the ultimate end in common with man (this is plain from the foregoing). Thus, it seems suitable that the universal cause of all things assume that creature into unity of person in which the cause shares more with other creatures. [6] This fact should be considered, also: To act of itself belongs only to the rational creature, for irrational creatures are more acted upon by a rational force than they are acting of themselves. Hence, they are rather in the order of instrumental causes than bearing themselves as principal agents. But the assumption of a creature by God had to be of the kind which could act of itself as a principal agent. For whatever acts as an instrument acts as moved into action, but a principal agent acts of itself. If, then, something was to be done divinely by an irrational creature, it sufficed, the creature’s condition considered, that it merely be moved by God. But it would not be assumed in person for the person to actq since its natural condition was not susceptible of this, it was only the condition. of the rational nature which was so susceptible. Therefore, for God to assume an irrational creature was not suitable, whereas to assume a rational one, whether human or angelic, was. [7] And, although one finds in the angelic nature natural properties making it more excellent than the human nature, as the fourth argument was proposing, the human nature was nevertheless assumed with greater fitness. First, indeed, this is because in man sin is subject to expiation; and this is so because his choice is not unchangeably fixed on something, but can be perverted from good to evil, and from evil restored to good. In man’s reason, also, this happens: Since it gathers the truth from sensible things and certain signs, the way lies open to contradictory positions. But an angel, just as he has an unchangeable grasp of truth because he knows by simple understanding, so also he has an unchangeable choice. Accordingly, he is either not fixed upon evil at all, or, if he is fixed on evil, is fixed so immutably. Hence, his sin is not subject to expiation. Since, then, the chief cause of the divine incarnation appears to be the expiation of sin, as divine Scripture teaches us, it was more fitting that God assume a human than an angelic nature. Second, the assumption of the creature by God is in person, not in nature-as the foregoing makes clear. It was, therefore, more suitable to assume the human than the angelic nature because in man the nature is other than the person, for man is composite of matter and form; but this is not so in the angel, who is immaterial. Third, the angel, in what is proper to his nature, is closer to the knowledge of God than man is whose knowledge arises from the senses. Therefore, it was sufficient for the angel to be intelligibly instructed by God regarding divine truth. But the condition of man required that God instruct man sensibly about Himself as Man. This was done by the Incarnation. Then, again, the very distance of man from God seemed more repugnant to the divine enjoyment. Therefore, man needed to be assumed by God more than an angel did, that man’s hope for beatitude be stimulated. Lastly, man, since he is the term of creatures, presupposing, so to say, all other creatures in the natural order of generation, is suitably united to the first principle of things to finish a kind of cycle in the perfection of things. [8] But the fact that God assumed human nature gives no occasion of error, as the fifth argument was trying to show. For the assumption of humanity, as already said, took place in a unity of person, not in a unity of nature, which might result in our agreement with those who held that God is not exalted above all things, and said that God was the soul of the universe, or something of the sort. [9] We grant, of course, that respecting God’s Incarnation certain errors have arisen, as the sixth argument objected; nevertheless, it is manifest that after the Incarnation many more errors were removed. For, just as in the creation of things which proceeded from the divine goodness some evils followed, and this was proportionate to the condition of creatures which are able to fail, so also in the manifestation of divine truth it is not astonishing that some errors have arisen from the failure of human minds. And these errors, for all that, exercised the talents of the faithful toward a more diligent penetration and understanding of divine truth, just as the evils which occur in creatures are ordered by God to some good. [10] Although, of course, every created good turns out to be negligible in comparison to the divine good, nevertheless, because in things created nothing can be greater than the salvation of the rational creature (which consists in the enjoyment of the divine goodness itself)—since human salvation has followed upon the divine Incarnation-it was no small usefulness which the Incarnation mentioned brought to the universe (so the seventh argument was proceeding). And it need not follow on this that all men should be saved, but only those who adhere to the Incarnation mentioned by faith and the sacraments of the faith. To be sure, the power of the divine Incarnation is equal to the salvation ‘of all men, but the fact that some are not saved thereby comes from their indisposition: they are unwilling to take unto themselves the fruit of the Incarnation; they do not cleave to the incarnate God by faith and love. For men were not intended to lose that freedom of choice by which they are able to cleave or not to cleave to the incarnate God, lest the good of man be produced by coercion—a good without merit and without praise. [11] There have also been sufficient indications to make this Incarnation of God manifest to men. For there is no more suitable way to manifest divinity than by things which are God’s very own. But this is God’s very own: the power to change the laws of nature by doing something above that nature whose very author He is. Most suitably, then, is something proved divine by doing works above the laws of nature, to enlighten the blind, for instance, or to cleanse lepers, or to raise the dead. Works of this kind are what Christ did. Accordingly, when He was asked: “Are you He that is to come or look we for another?” by these works He Himself indicated His divinity in His reply: “The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear” (Mat. 11:15, 5), And so forth. But to create another world was not necessary; and this was not consonant either with the divine wisdom or with the nature of things. One may, of course, say—as the eighth argument was proposing—that we read of others also performing miracles of this kind, but it must be borne in mind that Christ performed them very differently and more divinely. For we read of others doing these things by praying; Christ did them by commanding by His very own power, so to say. And He not only did these things Himself, but even granted to others the power to do the same, and greater; and the latter used to do them by the mere invocation of the name of Christ. And not merely bodily miracles were worked through Christ, but spiritual ones as well, and these are much greater: namely, by Christ and at the invocation of His name the Holy Spirit is received, and so hearts are inflamed by the affection of divine charity; and minds suddenly are instructed in the knowledge of things divine; and the tongues of the unlettered are rendered skilled for setting divine truth forth to men. But works of this sort are express indications of the divinity of Christ; they are things so pare man was able to do. Hence, the Apostle says that the salvation of men “which, having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him, God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 2:3-4). [12] Granted, of course, that God’s Incarnation was necessary for the entire human race, it was not for all that, necessary that God be incarnate from the beginning of the world, as the ninth objection ran. Now first: by the incarnate God a remedy against sin had to be brought to men, as was shown above. But no one receives a suitable remedy against sin unless first he acknowledges his failure, so that man in his lowliness, not relying on himself, may put his ‘hope in God, by whom alone sin can be healed, as was said above. Man’s presumption was possible,of course, both in regard to knowledge and in regard to virtue. He had, then, to be left to himself for a while to discover that he was not equal to his own salvation: not equal by natural knowledge, for before the time of the written law man transgressed the law of nature; nor equal by his own virtue, for, when he was given knowledge of sin through the law, he still sinned out of weakness. Thus necessarily, man, presuming neither on his knowledge nor on his virtue, could at last be given efficacious help against sin by Christ’s Incarnation; namely, the grace of Christ by which he was not only to be instructed in doubtful matters lest he be deficient in knowledge, but also to be strengthened against the assaults of temptation lest he be deficient through frailty. And so it happened that there were three states of the human race: the first, before the Law; the second, under the Law; the third, under grace. Then, again, by the incarnate God precepts and perfect testimonies were to be given to men. Now, the condition of human nature requires that it be not led immediately to the perfect, but that it be led by the hand through the imperfect so as to arrive at perfection. We see this in the instruction of children. They are first instructed minimally; for they cannot grasp perfect things in the beginning. In the same way, also, if to some multitude things unheard of were proposed as great, the multitude would not grasp them immediately unless it became accustomed to these things by something less great. Thus, then, was it suitable that from the beginning the human race be instructed in the matter of its salvation by some light and lesser testimonies through the Patriarchs, and the Law, and the Prophets; and that at last, at the consummate time, the perfect teaching of Christ be set forth on earth. Thus, the Apostle says: “When the fullness of the time was come “sent His Son” into the world. And we read in the same place: “The law was our pedagogue in Christ. But we are no longer under a pedagogue” (Gal. 4:4; 3:24-2-5). One must also consider this: as the coming of a great king must be preceded by a number of envoys to prepare his subjects to receive him more reverently, so many things had to precede the coming of God to the earth: to prepare men for the reception of the incarnate God. Indeed, this did take place when, because of the promises and testimonies that had gone before, the minds of men were disposed the more readily to believe Him who had had envoys before Him, and the more eagerly to receive Him because of the previous promises. [13] One may also grant that the coming of the incarnate God was extremely necessary for human salvation; nevertheless, it was not necessary for human salvation that He converse with men even unto the end of the world, as the tenth argument was proposing. For this would have worked against the reverence which men ought to show to the incarnate God, so long as, seeing Him clothed in flesh similar to other men, they esteemed Him nothing beyond other men. But He, after the wondrous things which He did upon the earth, withdrew His presence from men, and they began to revere Him the more. For this reason He did not even give His disciples the fullness of the Holy Spirit so long as He conversed with them, as though by His absence their souls were more prepared for spiritual gifts. Hence, He Himself said to them: “If I go not the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go I will send Him to you” (John 16:7) [14] It was not right for God to take flesh incapable of suffering and death, as the eleventh argument was proposing, but, rather, capable of suffering and death. First, indeed, because it was necessary for men to know the beneficence of the Incarnation so as to be thereby inflamed in the divine love. But to manifest the truth of the Incarnation He had to same flesh like that of other men; namely, capable of suffering and death. For, if He had taken flesh incapable of suffering and death, it would have seemed to men who did not know such flesh that it was a phantom and not the reality of flesh. Second, because it was necessary that God assume flesh to satisfy for the sin of the human race. It happens, of course, that one does satisfy for another (as was shown in Book III) in such wise, however, that the penalty for sin due to the second, and not due to the first, the first voluntarily assumes. But the penalty consequent on the sin of the human race is death and the other capacities for suffering of the present life, as was said above. Hence, the Apostle says: “By one man sin entered this world and by sin death” (Rom. 5:17.). Th6refore, God had to assume without sin flesh capable of suffering and death, so that by suffering and dying He would satisfy for us and take away sin. And this is what the Apostle says, that “God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3), that is, having flesh like that of sinners, namely, capable of suffering and death; and the Apostle adds “that of sin He might condemn sin in the flesh,” that is, in order that by the penalty which He sustained in the flesh for our sin He might take sin away from us. Third, because by having flesh capable of suffering and death He gave us examples of virtue more effectively by overcoming bravely the sufferings of the flesh, and making virtuous use of them. Fourth, because we are by this the more strengthened in the hope of immortality: that He from a state of flesh capable of suffering and death was changed into a state of flesh incapable of suffering and death; and this we can hope for ourselves, we who bear a flesh capable of suffering and death. But if from the beginning He had assumed flesh incapable of suffering and death, no occasion to hope for immortality would be given those who experience in themselves mortality and corruptibility. This, also, was required by His mission as mediator: that, while He had in common with us flesh capable of suffering and death,. but in common with God power and glory, He should take away from us what He had in common with us—namely, suffering and death—in order to lead us to that which was common to Him and to God. For He was the mediator for uniting us to God. [15] In like fashion, also, it was not expedient that the incarnate God live in this world a life of riches, and one excelling in honors or dignities, as the twelfth argument was concluding. First, to be sure, because He had come to draw the minds of men, devoted to earthly things, away from earthly things and to lift them up to things divine. Hence, that His example might lead men to a contempt of riches and the other things which the worldly desire, He had to lead a needy and private life in this world. Second, because, if He had abounded in wealth and been established in some great dignity, what He did divinely would have been attributed more to secular power than to the virtue of the divinity. Hence, the most efficacious argument for His divinity has been this: Without the support of the secular power He has changed the whole world for the better. [16] Accordingly, the solution is open to what was said in the thirteenth objection. [17] It is not, of course, far from true to say that the incarnate Son of God bore His death in obedience to a command of His Father, according to the Apostle’s teaching (Phil. 2:8). For God’s commandment to men deals with the works of virtue; and the more perfectly one carries out an act of virtue, the more is he obedient to God. Among the other virtues, charity is the outstanding one to which all the other are referred. Christ then, when He fulfilled the act of charity most perfectly was most obedient to God. For there is no act of charity more perfect than the one by which a man bears even death for another; as our Lord Himself says: “Greater love than this no man has that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Therefore, one finds that Christ bearing death for the salvation of men and for the glory of God the Father was extremely obedient to God and carried out a perfect act of charity. Nor is this repugnant to His divinity, as the fourteenth argument ran. For the union in person took place in such wise that what was proper to each of the natures remained, namely to the divine and to the human, as was explained above. Therefore, even when Christ suffered death and other things proper to humanity, the divinity remained incapable of suffering, although by the unity of person we say that God suffered and died. And somewhat of an instance of this appears in us because, although the flesh dies, the soul remains immortal. [18] This, too, should be understood: Although the will of God is not for the death of men, as the fifteenth argument” set down, the will of God is for virtue by which a man bears death bravely, and in charity exposes himself to the dangers of death. Thus, the will of God was for the death of Christ, in that Christ undertook that death in charity and bore it bravely. [19] Hence, clearly, it was neither impiety nor cruelty that God the Father willed Christ to die, as the sixteenth argument was concluding, for He did not coerce one who was unwilling but was pleased with that will in whose charity Christ undertook His death. And God even wrought this charity in the soul of Christ. [20] In the same way, too, there is no awkwardness in saying that Christ willed the death on the cross as a demonstration of humility. To be sure, the humility does not touch God, as the seventeenth argument was proposing. Truly, the virtue of humility consists in this, that one keep himself within his own limits; he does not stretch himself to what is above him, but he subjects himself to his superior. Hence, clearly, God can have no proportionate humility, for He has no superior; He Himself exists above all things. But, if a man at times subjects himself in humility to an equal or inferior, this is because the one who is his equal or inferior simply is held by the man as his superior in a certain respect. Therefore, although the virtue of humility was not fitting to Christ in His divine nature, it was fitting to Him in His human nature, and His humility was Tendered the more praiseworthy by His divinity. For the dignity of the person contributes to the praise humility deserves; for example, when out of some necessity a great man has to suffer something lowly. But there can he no dignity of man so great as this: that he be God. Hence, the humility of the God-man was praiseworthy in the extreme when He bore those abject things which He was called on to suffer for the salvation of men. For men were by reason of pride lovers of worldly glory. Therefore, to change the spirits of men over from love of worldly glory to love of divine glory He willed to bear death—not just any sort of death, but a death abject in the extreme. For there are some who, although they do not fear death, abhor an abject death. And even to the contempt of such a death did our Lord inspire men by the example of His death. [21] One grants also that men instructed by the divine lessons were able to be informed about humility, as the eighteenth argument was proposing. For all that, deeds are more provocative of action than words; and deeds move the more effectively, the more certain is the opinion of the goodness of him who performs such deeds. Hence, although many examples of humility of other men are discoverable, it was most expeditious to arouse men to humility by the example of the God-man. He clearly could not make a mistake, and His humility is the more wondrous as His majesty is the more sublime. [22] This, too, is clear from what has been said: Christ had to suffer death not only to give an example of holding death in contempt out of love of the truth, but also to wash away the sins of others. This indeed took place when He who was without sin willed to suffer the penalty due to sin that He might take on Himself the penalty due to others, and make satisfaction for others. And although the grace of God suffices by itself for the remission of sins, as the nineteenth argument was proposing, nonetheless in the remission of sin something is required on the part of him whose sin is remitted: namely, that he satisfy the one offended. And since other men were unable to do this for themselves, Christ did this for all by suffering a voluntary death out of charity. [23] Be it granted, also, that in the punishment of sins he who sinned ought to be punished, as the twenties argument was proposing, for all that, in the matter of satisfaction one can bear another’s penalty. For, when penalty is inflicted for sin, we weigh his iniquity who is punished; in satisfaction, however, when to placate the one offended, some other voluntarily assumes the penalty, we consider the charity and benevolence of him who makes satisfaction, and this most especially appears when one assumes the penalty of another. And, there. fore, God does receive from one satisfaction for another, as was shown in Book III. [24] But to satisfy for the whole human race (this was shown previously) was beyond the power of any mere man; neither was an angel equal to this, as the twenty-first argument was proceeding. For, granted an angel in some natural properties has a power beyond man, nonetheless in the sharing of beatitude (and by the satisfaction man was to be restored to this) the angel is man’s equal. And again, there would be no full restoration of man’s dignity if man were rendered obnoxious to the angel satisfying for man. [25] One should, of course, know that the death of Christ had its satisfying power from His charity in which He bore death voluntarily, and not from the iniquity of His killers who sinned in killing Him; because sin is not wiped out by sin, as the twenty-second argument proposed. [26] And although the death of Christ was satisfactory for sin, it was unnecessary for Him to die just as many times as men sinned, as the twenty-third argument was concluding. The death of Christ was sufficient for the expiation of all sins; and this by reason of the extraordinary charity in which He bore death, as well as by reason of the dignity of the satisfying person who was God and man. But even in human affairs it is clear that by as much as the person is higher, by so much is the penalty he bears reckoned for more, whether reckoned by the humility and charity of the one suffering or by the fault of the one incurring the penalty. [27] Of course, for the satisfaction of the sin of the entire human race the death of Christ was sufficient. For, although He died only in His human nature, as the twenty-fourth argument” was proposing, the dignity of the person suffering—and this is the Person of the Son of God—renders His death precious. For, as was said above,8 just as it is a greater crime to commit an injury to a person who stands out more in dignity, so it is more virtuous and proceeds from greater charity that the greater person submit Himself voluntarily to suffering for others. [28] But, although Christ has by His death satisfied sufficiently for original sin, there is nothing awkward in this: that the penalties consequent on original sin still remain in all, even in those who are given a share in Christ’s redemption, as the twenty-fifth argument was proceeding. For it was both fitting and useful to have the penalty remain even when the fault was taken away. First, indeed, to achieve conformity of the faithful to Christ as members to the head; hence, just as Christ first bore many sufferings, and thus arrived at the glory of immortality, it also was becoming to His faithful first to undergo sufferings and so to arrive at immortality, bearing in themselves, so to say, the marks of the passion of Christ, in order to achieve a likeness to His glory. So the Apostle says: “Heirs, indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17). Second, because, if men coming to Jesus were forthwith to achieve immortality and impassibility, many men would approach Christ more for these bodily benefits than for spiritual goods. And this is against the intention of Christ who came into the world to change men from love of bodily things to love of spiritual things. Third, because, if those who come to Christ were forthwith rendered incapable of suffering and death, this would somehow compel men to accept faith in Christ. And thus the merit of faith would be diminished. [29] Granted, of course, that Christ has sufficiently satisfied for the sins of the human race by His death, as the twenty-sixth argument proposed, every single one, for all that, must seek the remedies of his own salvation. For the death of Christ is, so to say, a kind of universal cause of salvation, as the sin of the first man was a kind of universal cause of damnation. But a universal cause must be applied specially to each one, that he may receive the effect of the universal cause. The effect then, of the sin of the first parent comes to each one in the origin of the flesh, but the effect of the death of Christ comes to each one in a spiritual regeneration in which the man is somehow conjoined with Christ arid incorporated into Him. And for this reason each must seek to be regenerated through Christ, and must himself undertake to do those things in which,the power of Christ’s death operates. [30] From this it is clear that the flow of salvation from Christ to men is not through a natural propagation, but through the zeal of good will in which a man cleaves to Christ. Hence, that which each accomplishes by Christ is a personal good. Wherefore, it is not passed on to descendants, as is the sin of the first parent, which is produced with the propagation of the nature. Accordingly, although the parents are cleansed of original sin by Christ, there is nothing awkward about the birth of their children in original sin, requiring the sacraments of salvation, as the twenty-seventh argument was concluding. [31] Thus, then, from what has been set down it is to some extent clear that what the Catholic faith preaches about the Incarnation contains nothing impossible and nothing inharmonious.

Chapter

ON THE NECESSITY OF THE SACRAMENTS

[1] Since, however (as has already been said), the death of Christ is, so to say, the universal cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must he applied singly to each of its effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of the Church are said to be. [2] Now, remedies of this kind had to be handed on with some visible signs. [3] First, indeed, because just as He does for all other things, so also for man, God provides according to his condition. Now, man’s condition is such that he is brought to grasp the spiritual and intelligible naturally through the senses. Therefore, spiritual remedies had to be given to men under sensible signs. [4] Second, because instruments must be proportioned to their first cause. But the first and universal cause of human salvation is the incarnate Word, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, harmoniously the remedies by which the power of the universal cause reaches men had a likeness to that cause-, that is, the divine power operates in them under visible signs. [5] Third, because man fell into sin by clinging unduly to visible things. Therefore, that one might not believe visible things evil of their nature, and that for this reason those clinging to them had sinned, it was fitting that through the visible things themselves the remedies of salvation be applied to men. Consequently, it would appear that visible things are good of their nature—as created by God—but they become damaging to men so far as one clings to them in a disordered way, and saving so far as one uses them in an ordered way. [6] Thus, of course, one excludes the error of certain heretics who want every visible thing of this kind removed from the sacraments of the Church. Nor need one marvel at this, for the very same men maintain that whatever is visible is evil in its nature, and is produced by an evil author. And this we rejected in Book II. [7] Nor is it unsuitable that by things visible and bodily a spiritual salvation is served. For visible things of this kind are the instruments, so to say, of a God who was made flesh and suffered. Now, an instrument does not operate by the power of its nature, but by the power of its principal agent who puts it into operation. Thus, also, then, do visible things of this kind work out a spiritual salvation-not by a property of their own nature, but by Christ’s institution, and from the latter they receive their instrumental power.

Chapter

THE DISTINCTION OF THE SACRAMENTS OF THE OLD AND THE NEW LAW

[1] Next, this must be considered. Since the sacraments of this visible kind got their efficacy from the passion of Christ and in some way represent it, they must be such as to be in harmony with the salvation wrought by Christ. Now, this salvation was promised, indeed, before Christ’s Incarnation and death but not displayed, it was the incarnate and suffering Word who brought about this kind of salvation. Therefore, the sacraments which preceded Christ’s Incarnation had to be such as signified and somehow promised salvation. But the sacraments which follow the suffering of Christ ought to be such as deliver this salvation to men, not merely such as point to it by signs. [2] Of course, in this way one avoids the opinion of the Jews, who believe that the sacraments of the Law must be observed forever precisely because they were established by God, since God has no regrets and is not changed. But without change or regret one who disposes things may dispose things differently in harmony with a difference of times; thus, the father of a family gives one set of orders to a small child and another to one already grown. Thus, God also harmoniously gave one set of sacraments and commandments before the Incarnation to point to the future, and another set after the Incarnation to deliver things present and bring to mind things past. [3] But more unreasonable still is the error of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, who used to say that the sacraments of the Law should be observed simultaneously with those of the Gospel. An error of this kind involves a sort of contrariety. For, while they observe the evangelical sacraments, they are professing that the Incarnation and the other mysteries of Christ have already been perfected; but, when they also observe the sacraments of the Law, they are professing that those mysteries are in the future.

Chapter

ON THE NUMBER OF THE SACRAMENTS OF THE NEW LAW

[1] However, since the spiritual remedies of salvation (as was said) have been given to men under sensible signs, it was suitable also to distinguish the remedies provided for the spiritual life after the likeness of bodily life. [2] Now, in bodily life we find a twofold order: for some propagate and order the bodily life in others; and some are propagated and ordered in the bodily life. [3] Now, in a bodily and natural life three things are necessary of themselves, and a fourth incidentally. For first, by generation or birth a thing must receive life; second, by growth it must arrive at its due size and strength; third, both for the preservation of life acquired by generation and for growth nourishment is necessary. And these are of themselves necessities for natural life, because without these bodily life cannot be perfected; wherefore, one assigns to the vegetative soul which is the principle of life the three natural powers: that of generation, that of growth, and that of nourishment. But, since there can be an impediment to natural life from which the living thing grows weak, a fourth thing is incidentally necessary; this is the healing of the sick living thing. [4] Thus, then, in the spiritual life, also, the first thing is spiritual generation: by baptism; the second is spiritual growth leading to perfect strength: by the sacrament of confirmation; the third is spiritual nourishment: by the sacrament of the Eucharist. A fourth remains, which is the spiritual healing; it takes place either in the soul alone through the sacrament of penance; or from the soul flows to the body when this is timely, through extreme unction. These, therefore, bear on those who are propagated and preserved in the spiritual life. [5] Now, those who propagate an! order in the bodily life are marked by two things: namely, natural origin, and t is refers to parents; and the political regime by which the peaceful life of man is conserved, and this refers to kings and princes. [6] It is, then, also like this in the spiritual life. For some propagate and conserve the spiritual life in a spiritual ministry duly, and this belongs to the sacrament of orders; and some belong to the bodily and spiritual life simultaneously, which takes place in the sacrament of matrimony where a man and woman come together to beget offspring and to rear them in divine worship.

Chapter

ON BAPTISM

[1] In this way, then, one can discern in the individual sacraments the proper effect of each one and the becoming matter. Now, first: Regarding the spiritual generation which takes place in baptism, one must consider that the generation of a living thing is a kind of change from non-living to life. But man in his origin was deprived of spiritual life by original sin, as was shown above; and still every single sin whatever which is added draws him away from life. Baptism, therefore, which is spiritual generation, had to have the power to take away both original sin and all the actual, committed sins. [2] Now, because the sensible sign of a sacrament must be harmonious with the representation of its spiritual effect, and since washing away filth in bodily things is done more easily and more commonly by water, baptism is, therefore, suitably conferred in water made holy by the Word of God. [3] And since the generation of one is the corruption of another, and since what is generated loses both its previous form and the properties consequent on that form; necessarily through baptism, which is a spiritual generation, not only are sins taken away—these are contrary to a spiritual life—but also every guilt of sins. For this reason, too, baptism not only washes away the fault, but also absolves from all guilt. Hence, no satisfaction for their sins is enjoined on the baptized. [4] Again, when by generation a thing acquires a form, it acquires at the same time the operation consequent on the form and the place in harmony with it. For fire, as soon as generated, tends upward as to its proper place. Accordingly, since baptism is a spiritual generation, the baptized are forthwith suited for spiritual actions-the reception of the other sacraments, for example, and other things of the sort—and forthwith there is due to them the place harmonious to the spiritual life, which is eternal beatitude. Hence, we say that “Baptism opens the gate of heaven.” [5] One should also consider that one thing has but one generation. Hence, since baptism is a spiritual generation, a man is to be baptized once only. [6] Clearly, also, the infection which entered the world through Adam makes a man guilty but once. Hence, baptism, which is chiefly ordered against this infection, should not be repeated. There is also this common consideration: that, as long as a thing is once consecrated, it must not be consecrated again, so long as it endures, lest the consecration appear inefficacious. And so, since baptism is a kind of consecration of the one baptized, baptism must not be repeated. This excludes the error of the Donatists or Rebaptizers.

Chapter

ON CONFIRMATION

[1] The perfection of spiritual strength consists properly in a man’s daring to confess the faith of Christ in the presence of anyone at all, and in a man’s being not withdrawn therefrom either by confusion or by terror, for strength drives out inordinate terror. Therefore, the sacrament by which spiritual strength is conferred on the one born again makes him in some sense a front-line fighter for the faith of Christ. And because fighters under a prince carry his insignia, they who receive the sacrament of confirmation are signed with the sign of Christ; this is the sign of the cross by which He fought and conquered. This sign they receive on the forehead as a sign that without a blush they publicly confess the faith of Christ. [2] This signing takes place with a mixture of oil and balm which is called chrism, and not without reason. For by the oil one designates the power of the Holy Spirit, from whom Christ, too, is called “anointed” (Ps. 44:8, Luke 4:18); and consequently from Christ they are called “Christians” (Acts 9:26), so to say, as fighting under Him. And by the balm, through its fragrance, good repute is indicated. For the public confession of faith in Christ this good repute must be had by those who dwell among men of this world, brought forth, so to say, from the hidden recesses of the Church onto the field of battle. [3] Suitably, too, this sacrament is conferred only by bishops, who are in some sense the leaders of the Christian army. For even in secular military forces it is the prerogative of the army leader to select some men to be enrolled; so, also, those who receive this sacrament seem to be enrolled somehow in the spiritual military forces. Hence, also, a hand is laid upon them to designate the derivation of manliness from Christ.

Chapter

ON THE EUCHARIST

[1] Now, bodily life needs material nourishment, not only for increase in quantity, but to maintain the nature of the body as well, lest it be dissolved by continuous resolutions and lose its power; in the same way it was necessary to have spiritual nourishment for the spiritual life that the reborn may both be conserved in virtues and grow in them. [2] Spiritual effects were fittingly given under the likeness of things visible (as was said); therefore, spiritual nourishment of this kind is given to us under the appearances, of the things which men rather commonly use for bodily nourishment. Bread and wine are of this sort. Accordingly, this sacrament is given under the appearances of bread and wine. [3] But consider this: He who begets is joined to the begotten in one way, and nourishment is joined to the nourished in another way in bodily things. For the one who begets need not be conjoined to the begotten in substance, but in likeness and in power only. But nutriment must be conjoined to the one nourished in substance. Wherefore, that the spiritual effects may answer the bodily signs, the mystery of the incarnate Word is joined to us in one way in baptism which is a spiritual rebirth, and in another way in this sacrament of the Eucharist which is a spiritual nourishment. In baptism the Word incarnate is contained in His power only, but we hold that in the sacrament of the Eucharist He is contained in His substance. [4] And since the fulfillment of our salvation took place through the passion and death of Christ, in which His blood was separated from His flesh, we are given the sacrament of His body separately under the appearance of bread, and of His blood under the appearance of wine-, and so we have in this sacrament both memory and the representation of our Lord’s passion. And in this our Lord’s words are fulfilled: “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:56).

Chapter

ON THE ERROR OF THE INFIDELS ABOUT THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST

[1] Of course, just as when Christ spoke these words, some of the disciples were troubled and said: “This saying is hard, and who can bear it?” (John 6:61), so, also, against the teaching of the Church some heretics have arisen to deny this truth. They say that the body and blood of Christ are not really present in this sacrament, but by way of sign only; thus, one understands Christ’s saying when He indicated the bread: “This is My body” (Mat. 26:26) as though He were saying: “This is a sign or figure of My body.” And in this way the Apostle spoke: “And the rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4), that is, “a figure of Christ”; and to such an understanding they refer whatever is said in the Scriptures in a similar way. [2] Of course, the occasion of this opinion is taken from our Lord’s words. Speaking of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, to quiet the scandal which had arisen among the disciples He, said-as, though explaining Himself: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:64); as though His words were to be understood not literally, but in a spiritual sense. [3] They are also induced to their dissent by the many difficulties which seem to follow this teaching of the Church; by reason of these “this saying” of Christ and the Church appears hard to them. [4] In the first place, there seems to be a difficulty in the way in which the true body of Christ begins to be on the altar. For a thing begins to be where it was not before in two ways: either by local motion, or by the conversion of another into itself. This is clear in the case of fire, which begins to be in some place either because it is newly lighted there or because it is newly carried there. Manifestly, of course, the true body of Christ was not always on the altar; for the Church confesses that Christ in His body ascended into heaven. [5] But it seems impossible to say that here something is newly converted into the body of Christ. For nothing seems converted into the pre-existent, since what is converted into something begins to be by this sort of conversion. But, manifestly, the body of Christ pre-existed, let us say, as conceived in the virginal womb. Therefore, it does not seem possible that on the altar it begins to be anew by the conversion of another into itself. [6] In a similar fashion, it cannot be there by a change of place, since whatever is moved locally begins to be in one place in such wise that it ceases to be in another in which it was before. Therefore, one will have to say that when Christ begins to be on this altar whereon the sacrament is enacted He ceases to be in heaven where He arrived after His ascension. Furthermore, no local motion has two places simultaneously as its term. But, clearly, this sacrament is celebrated simultaneously on different altars. Therefore, it is not possible that the body of Christ begins to be thereon by local motion. [7] The second difficulty comes from the place. For parts are not contained in separated places if a thing remains a whole. But, manifestly, in this sacrament the bread and wine, are apart from one another in separate places. Therefore, if the flesh of Christ is under the appearance of bread and the blood under the appearance of wine, it seems to follow that Christ does not remain whole; but whenever this sacrament is performed His blood is separated from His body. [8] Furthermore, it seems impossible that a larger body be inclosed in the place of a smaller one. Clearly, of course, the true body of Christ is greater in quantity than the bread which is offered on the altar. It seems, then, impossible that the true body of Christ be whole and entire there where the bread is seen. Of course, if it is not the whole there, but one of its parts, then the first awkwardness recurs: Whenever this sacrament is performed the body of Christ is scattered into parts. [9] It is further impossible that one body should exist in many places. But, manifestly, this sacrament is celebrated in many places. Therefore, it seems impossible that the body of Christ is truthfully contained in this sacrament—unless one says, perhaps, that the body is contained in one of its particles here, and in another there. And on this it follows, once again, that by the celebration of this sacrament the body of Christ is divided into parts; for all that, at the same time, the quantity of the body of Christ does not seem to suffice for the division of as many particles from the body as there are places where this sacrament is performed. [10] The third difficulty lies in the things which we perceive by our senses in this sacrament. For, clearly, in this sacrament we sense, even after the consecration, all the accidents of bread and wine: color, taste, odor, figure, quantity, and weight; and concerning these we cannot be deceived, for “the sense is never deceived about the proper sensibles.” [11] But accidents of this kind cannot be in the body of Christ as in a subject; in like fashion, neither can they be in the surrounding air; for, since many of them are natural accidents, they call for a subject of a determined nature, which is not like the nature of the human body or of the air. [12] Nor can they subsist in themselves, since “the being of an accident is by inherence.” [13] Also, since accidents are forms, they cannot he individuated except through a subject. Wherefore, with the subject removed they would be universal forms. Therefore, this remains: Accidents of this kind are in their determined subjects; namely, in the substance of bread and wine. Therefore, the substance of bread and wine is there, and the substance of the body of Christ is not, since it seems impossible that the two bodies be there simultaneously. [14] The fourth difficulty arises from the actions and passions which appear in the bread and wine after the consecration just as they did before it. For the wine, if taken in large quantity, would make one warm and would make one drunk; the bread, of course, would strengthen and would nourish. They seem, also, if kept long and carelessly, to rat or to be eaten by mice, they can even be burned, and reduced to ashes and smoke. But none of this agrees with the body of Christ, since the faith preaches that it is incapable of suffering. Therefore, it seems impossible that the body of Christ be contained substantially in this sacrament. [15] A fifth difficulty seems to arise especially from the breaking of the bread; indeed, this breaking appears sensibly and cannot be without a subject. It even seems absurd to say that the subject of that breaking is the body of Christ. Therefore, the body of Christ seems not to be there, but only the substance of the bread and wine. [16] These, then, and points of this kind are the reason why the teaching of Christ and the Church concerning this sacrament appears hard.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE DIFFICULTIES SET DOWN: FIRST, ABOUT THE CONVERSION OF THE BREAD HIM THE BODY OF CHRIST

[1] Although, of course, the divine power operates with a greater sublimity and secrecy in this sacrament than a man’s inquiry can search out, nonetheless, lest the teaching of the Church regarding this sacrament appear impossible to unbelievers, one must make the endeavor to exclude every impossibility. [2] The first consideration we meet, then, is that of the way in which the true body of Christ begins to be under this sacrament. [3] It is impossible, of course, that this take place by a local motion of the body of Christ. One reason is that it would follow that He ceases to be in heaven whenever this sacrament is performed. Another reason is that this sacrament could not be performed at the same time except in one place, since a local motion is not ended except at one term. Another reason, also, is that local motion cannot be instantaneous, but requires time. Consecration, however, is perfected in the ultimate instant of the pronouncement of the words. [4] Therefore, one concludes by saying that the true body of Christ begins to be in this sacrament by the fact that the substance of the bread is converted into the substance of the body of Christ, and the substance of the wine into the substance of His blood. [5] But thus appears the falsity of the opinion: not only of those who say that the substance of the bread exists simultaneously with the substance of Christ in this sacrament, but also of those who hold that the substance of the bread is reduced to nothing or is resolved into prime matter. For on each of these positions it follows that the body of Christ does not begin to be in this sacrament except by local motion. And this is impossible, as we have shown. Furthermore, if the substance of the bread is simultaneous in this sacrament with the true body of Christ, Christ should rather have said: “My body is here” than: “This is My body.” For by “here” one points to the substance which is seen, and this is indeed the substance of the bread, if it remains in the sacrament with the body of Christ. Similarly, also, it seems impossible that the substance of the bread returns to nothingness. For much of the bodily nature first created would have already returned into nothingness from the repetition of this mystery. Neither is it becoming that in a sacrament of salvation something be reduced to nothing by the divine power. Nor is it even possible that the substance of the bread is resolved into prime matter, since prime matter cannot be without form—except, perhaps, that one is to understand by “prime matter” the primary bodily elements. To be sure, if the substance of the bread were resolved into these, this very thing would necessarily be perceived by the senses, since the bodily elements are sensible. There would also be local transmutation in the place and bodily alteration of contraries. And these cannot be instantaneous. [6] Nonetheless, it must be recognized that the aforesaid conversion of the bread into the body of Christ is of another mode than any natural conversion whatever. For in any natural conversion a subject persists in which different forms succeed themselves: these are accidental—white, for example, is converted into black, or they are substantial—air, for example, is converted into fire; wherefore these are named formal conversions. But in the conversion under discussion a subject passes over into a subject, and the accidents persist; hence, this conversion is named substantial. Indeed, how these accidents persist, and why, must be closely examined later. [7] But now we must consider how a subject is converted into a subject. And this, to be sure, nature cannot do. For every operation of nature presupposes matter which individuates the substance; wherefore, nature cannot bring it about that this substance ‘become that substance, that this finger, for example, become that finger. But matter is subject to the divine power, since the latter brings it into being. Hence, by divine power it can come about that this individual substance be converted into that pre-existing substance. Now, just as the power of a natural agent whose operation extends to the change of a form only—and the existence of the subject is supposed—changes this whole into that whole in a variation of the species and the form—this air, let us say, into that generated fire—so the divine power, which does not presuppose matter, but produces matter, converts this matter into that matter, and, in consequence, this individual into that individual; for the principle of individuation is matter, just as form is the principle of species. [8] In this way, of course, it is clear that in the aforesaid conversion of bread into the body of Christ there is not a common subject persisting after the conversion, since a transmutation takes place in the first subject, and this is the principle of the individuation. It is necessary, for all that, that something persist to make true the words: “This is My body”; the very words, in fact, which are significative and effective of this conversion. And the substance of the bread does not persist; neither does any prior matter (as was shown). Therefore, one necessarily says that what persists is other than the substance of the bread. Of this sort, of course, is the accident of the bread. Therefore, the accidents of the bread do persist even after the conversion mentioned. [9] Among accidents, however, there is a certain order to be considered. For, among all the accidents, that inhering more closely to the substance is the quantity which tends to measure. Then the qualities are received in the substance with the quantity as medium—color, for example, with the surface as medium; hence, even by the division of the quantity they are incidentally divided. But, in addition, the qualities are the principles of actions and passions, as well as of certain relations-father and son, let us say, or master and servant, and others of this kind. Of course, some relations follow immediately on the quantities—greater and less, for instance, or doubled and halved, and similar relations. Therefore, one ought to hold that the accidents of the bread persist after the conversion mentioned in such wise that only the quantity which tends to measure subsists without a subject, and on it the qualities are based as on a subject, and so in consequence are the accidents, passions, and relations. Therefore, in this conversion what takes place is the contrary of what usually takes place in natural mutations, for in these the substance persists as the subject of the mutation, whereas the accidents are varied; but here, conversely, the accident persists, the substance passes. [10] Of course, a conversion of this kind cannot properly be called motion as that is considered by the natural philosopher, since that requires a subject, but it is a kind of substantial succession; so there is in creation a succession of being and non-being, as was said in Book II. [11] This, then, is one reason why the accident of the bread must remain: that something be discoverable which persists in the conversion under discussion. [12] But it is necessary for another reason. For, if the substance of the bread were converted into the body of Christ and the accidents were to pass on, it would not follow from such a conversion that the body of Christ in His substance would be where first there was bread, for no relationship between the body of Christ and the aforesaid place would be left. But since, after the conversion, the quantity of the bread which tends to measure does remain, and through this the bread acquired this place, the substance of the bread changed into the body of Christ becomes the body of Christ under the bread’s quantity tending to measure; in consequence, the body of Christ in some way acquires the place of the bread, with the measurements of the bread, nonetheless, mediating. [13] Other reasons can also be given: respecting the essentials of faith, which deals with the invisible; respecting also its merit, which is so much the greater in connection with this sacrament, since it deals with the more invisible, for the body of Christ is hidden under the accidents of the bread; respecting, also, the more appropriate and worthy use of this sacrament, for it would be horrible for the receivers, and an abomination to those looking on, if the body of Christ were received by the faithful in its own appearance. Hence, it is under the appearance of bread and wine, which men use rather commonly for meat and drink, that the body of Christ is set forth to be eaten and His blood to be drunk.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS MADE REGARDING PLACE

[1] Now, after we have considered these points about the mode of conversion, the way to solve the other arguments is opened up to us somewhat. For it has now been said that the place in which the sacrament is is ascribed to the body of Christ by reason of the measurements of the bread remaining after the conversion of the substance of the bread into the body of Christ. And in accord with this, that which is of Christ must be in the place mentioned so far as the essentials of the conversion mentioned require it. [2] Consideration, then, must be given this: There is something in this sacrament by force of the conversion and something by natural accompaniment. Now, by force of the conversion there is in the sacrament that in which the conversion is directly terminated: so, under the appearances of bread there is the body of Christ into which the substance of the bread is converted, as is clear from the words of the consecration when one says: “This is My body”; in like manner under the appearance of wine there is the blood of Christ when one says: “This is the chalice of My blood,” and so forth. But by natural accompaniment all the other things are there in which the conversion is not terminated, but which are, nonetheless, really conjoined to that in which the conversion is terminated. For it is clear that the conversion of the bread is not terminated in the divinity of Christ, nor in His soul; nonetheless, under the appearance of bread the soul of Christ is there, and His divinity by reason of the union of each of these to the body of Christ. [3] However, if in the three-day period of the death of Christ this sacrament had been celebrated, the soul of Christ would not have been under the appearance of bread, because it was not really united to His body; in the same way, there would not have been blood under the appearance of bread, nor body under the appearance of wine, by reason of the separation of each of these in death. But now, since the body of Christ in His nature is not without blood, His body and blood are contained under each appearance: under the appearance of bread the body is contained by force of conversion, the blood by natural accompaniment; under the appearance of wine the converse is true. [4] The same points give a solution to the objection about the inequality of the body of Christ to the place of the bread. For the substance of the bread is directly converted into the substance of the body of Christ, but the dimensions of the body of Christ are in the sacrament by natural accompaniment, and not from force of conversion, since the dimensions of the bread remain. In this way, then, the body of Christ is not related to this place with its own dimensions as medium, so that the place need be equated to those dimensions, but His body is here with the persisting dimensions of the bread as medium, and to these the place is equated. [5] Therein, also, the solution is open to what was objected to about the plurality of places. For the body of Christ in His own dimensions exists in one place only, but through the mediation of the dimensions of the bread passing into it its places are as many as there are places in which this sort of conversion is celebrated. For it is not divided into parts, but is entire in every single one; every consecrated bread is converted into the entire body of Christ.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING ACCIDENTS

[1] Thus, then, with the difficulty solved arising from place, one ought to look into the one which seems to arise from the accidents which remain. For it cannot be denied that the accidents of bread and wine remain, since the senses infallibly point this out. [2] Neither the body of Christ nor His blood is: affected by these accidents, because without changing Him this could not be; nor has He the capacity for such accidents. Much the same can he said of the substance of the air. Hence, one concludes that they are without a subject. Nevertheless, they are without a subject in the manner mentioned: namely, that only the quantity tending to measure subsists without a subject,.and this supplies a subject to the other accidents. [3] Neither is it impossible that by the divine power an accident can subsist without a subject. For one ought to make the same judgment about the creation of things and about their conservation in being. The divine power, of course, can produce the effects of any second causes whatever without the second causes themselves; so it was able to form a man without seed, and to cure a fever without the operation of nature. And this happens by reason of the infinity of His power, and be, cause He grants to all second causes their power to act. Wherefore, also, He can conserve the effects of second causes in being without the second causes. And in this way in this sacrament He conserves an accident in being, even after the removal of the substance which was conserving it. And this, indeed, can especially be said of the quantities tending to measure; these even the Platonists held to subsist of themselves, for this reason: They are separated in the understanding. But it is clear that God can do more in operation than the intellect can in apprehension. [4] Of course, the quantity tending to measure has among the remaining accidents this property: that it is in itself individuated. And the reason is this: Position, which is “the order of parts in the whole,” is essentially included in this quantity, for quantity is “that which has position.” But wherever a diversity of parts of the same species is understood, individuation is necessarily understood, for things which are of the same species are not multiplied except in the individual; accordingly many whitenesses cannot be apprehended except as they are in different subjects, but many lines can be apprehended, even if they are considered in themselves. For diversity of site which is in the line of itself is sufficient for the plurality of lines. And because only the quantity tending to measure has in its essentials a possible source of the multiplication of individuals in the same species, the first root of this kind of multiplication seems to be from measurement, because even in the genus of substance the multiplication is made according to the division of matter. And this could not even be understood save by the consideration of matter under measurements, for with the quantity gone all substance is indivisible, as is clear from the Philosopher in Physics I [2]. [5] It is, of course, manifest that in the other genera of accidents, individuals are multiplied in the same species on the part of the subject. And thus one is left to conclude: Since we hold that in this sacrament the measurements subsist of themselves and that the other accidents are founded on these as on a subject, we need not say that accidents of this kind are not individuated; for there persists in the measurements themselves the root of individuation.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING ACTION AND PASSION

[1] After the consideration of these points, one should consider those belonging to the fourth difficulty. And concerning these there is, indeed, something which can be dealt with easily; something else, however, offers a greater difficulty. [2] The fact that in this sacrament the same actions appear which previously appeared in the substance of the bread and wine (they change the senses in the same way, let us say; they even in the same way alter the surrounding air, or anything else, by odor or color) now seems fitting enough from what has been set down. For we said that in this sacrament the accidents of the bread and wine persist. And among these are the sensible qualities which are the principles of actions of this sort. [3] Again, concerning some passions (those, for instance, which take place in alterations of accidents of this kind), the difficulty which occurs is not so great, if the premises be granted. For, since it was premised that the other accidents are based on the measurements as on a subject, the alteration of the other accidents can be considered in the same way with respect to this subject as they would be if the substance were there; for example, if the wine had been warmed and became cold, or if it should change its flavor, or something of this kind. [4] But a very great difficulty appears regarding the generation and corruption which seems to take place in this sacrament. For if one were to use this sacramental food in large quantity he could be sustained, and by the wine even made drunk, as the Apostle has it: "One indeed is hungry and another is drunk" (1 Cor. 11:21). And these things could not take place unless, from this sacrament, flesh and blood were generated, for nourishment is converted into the substance of the one nourished. Some may, of course, say that a man is not nourished by this sacramental food, but only invigorated and refreshed, as when one is invigorated by the fragrance of wine. But this invigoration can happen for an hour; it does not, of course, suffice to sustain a man if he remains long without food. But a trial would readily show that a man can be sustained for a long time by the sacramental food. [5] It also seems a wonder why they should deny that a man can be nourished by this sacramental food, refusing to this sacrament the possible conversion into flesh and blood, when it appears to the senses that by putrefaction or combustion it is turned into another substance; namely, dust and ashes. [6] And this, indeed, seems nonetheless difficult, since it does not seem possible to make a substance out of accidents; nor is it right to believe that the substance of Christ's body—which is not capable of suffering—be converted into another substance. [7] However, if one wishes to say that as the bread is miraculously converted into the body of Christ, so the accidents are converted miraculously into substance: first, indeed, this does not seem suitable for a miracle, the putrefaction of this sacrament, or its dissolution by combustion; and then that putrefaction and combustion are found taking place in this sacrament in the usual order of nature, which is not usually the case in things done miraculously. [8] To remove this hesitation a certain famous position was invented, which is held by many. They hold thus: When this sacrament happens to be converted into flesh or blood by nutrition, or into ashes by combustion or putrefaction, the accidents are not converted into substance; nor is the substance of the body of Christ converted; but by a divine miracle the substance of the bread which was there previously returns, and from it are generated the things into which we find the sacrament converted. [9] But this, to be sure, simply cannot stand. For we have shown above that the substance of the bread is converted into the substance of the body of Christ. But that which is converted into another cannot return unless, conversely, that other be reconverted into it. If, therefore, the substance of the bread returns, it follows that the substance of the body of Christ is reconverted into bread. And this is absurd. What is more, if the substance of the bread returns, it must return either while the appearances of bread persist or when the appearances of bread are already destroyed. In fact, while the appearances of bread persist, the substance of the bread cannot return, because, as long as the appearances remain, thereunder remains the substance of the body of Christ; it would follow, therefore, that simultaneously present there would be both the substance of the bread and the substance of the body of Christ. In like manner, also, if the appearances of the bread are corrupted, the substance of the bread cannot return-for this reason: The substance of the bread is not without its own appearances; and for this reason, as well: When the appearances of the bread are destroyed, another substance has already been generated, and it was for the generation of this second substance that (so they were holding) the substance of the bread should return. [10] Therefore, it seems better to say that in the consecration itself, just as the substance of the bread is miraculously converted into the body of Christ so this is miraculously conferred on the accidents: that they subsist which is proper to substance, and, as a consequence, are able to do and to suffer the things which the substance could do and suffer if the substance were present. And so, without a new miracle, they are able to inebriate and to nourish, to be burned and to rot, in the same way and order they would if the substance of the bread and wine were present.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING FRACTION

[1] It remains to speculate on the points which belong to the fifth difficulty. It is manifest, of course, from the aforesaid that we can set down as subject of the breaking the dimensions subsisting of themselves. For all that, when dimensions of this kind are broken, the substance of the body of Christ is not broken, because the whole body of Christ remains under every portion. [2] Now, to be sure, although this appears difficult, it has an explanation in accord with the things premised. For we said above that the body of Christ is in this sacrament in His substance by force of the sacrament, but the dimensions of the body of Christ are there by their natural accompaniment to the substance; the situation here is contrary to the one in which a body is naturally in a place, for the natural body is in place with those dimensions mediating by which it is measured in the place. [3] But something substantial is related to that in which it is in one way, and something quantified is related in another way. For the quantified whole is in some whole so that the whole is not in the part, but the part is in the part as the whole is in the whole. Hence, too, a natural body is thus in the whole place a whole which is not whole in every part of the place, but the parts of the body are fitted to the parts of the place. This is because it is in the place by -the mediating dimensions. Of course, if a substantial thing is whole in some whole, it is also whole in every part thereof. So, the whole nature and species of water is in every part of water, and the whole soul is in every part of the body. [4] Since, then, the body of Christ is in the sacrament by reason of His substance into which the substance of the bread—the dimensions thereof remaining—has been converted, as the whole species of bread was in every part of its dimensions, so the entire body of Christ is in every part of the same dimensions. Therefore, that breaking or division does not touch on the body of Christ so as to be in it as in a subject, but the subject thereof is the persisting dimensions of the bread or wine; so also we called those dimensions the subject of the other accidents therein persisting.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE AUTHORITY INTRODUCED

[1] With these difficulties removed, then, it is clear that what ecclesiastical tradition holds about the sacrament of the altar contains nothing impossible for God, who can do all things. [2] Neither is there anything contrary to the teaching of the Church in the word which our Lord spoke to His disciples, who seemed scandalized by His teaching: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:64). For by these words He did not give them to understand this: in this sacrament His true flesh was not being given to the faithful to eat, but that it is not given to be eaten in an ordinary manner, with the result that, like earthly foods it might be received as macerated in its own appearances. He gave them to understand that it is received in a certain spiritual fashion, apart from the manner of earthly carnal foods.

Chapter

ON THE KIND OF BREAD AND WINE THAT ARE TO BE USED IN THIS SACRAMENT [1] Now, because, as was said above, this sacrament is accomplished with bread and wine, those conditions necessarily must be observed to, accomplish this sacrament therefrom which belong to the essentials of bread and wine. But one calls wine only that liquid which is pressed from grapes, and one calls bread, properly speaking, only that which is made from grain wheat. But other so-called breads, for lack of wheat bread and to supplement it, have come into use; in a like way, other liquids have come into use with wine. Hence, neither from some other bread nor from some other wine could this sacrament be accomplished, especially not if the mixture of foreign matter with bread or wine be so considerable that the species is lost. [2] However, if things happen to this sort of bread and wine which do not touch the essentials of bread and wine, manifestly one may pass these things over, and truly accomplish the sacrament. Wherefore, since to be leavened or unleavened is not essential to bread-rather, whichever of the two is the case, the species of bread is preserved-the sacrament can be accomplished from either of the two breads. This is the reason why different churches have different customs in this matter, but each of the two can be in harmony with the significance of the sacrament. For, as Gregory puts it in his Register: “The Roman Church offers unleavened bread because our Lord took on flesh without any mixture. But the rest of the Churches offer leavened bread, since the Word of God was clothed with flesh, and is true God and true man, just as the leaven is mixed with the paste.” [3] Nonetheless, there is greater harmony with the purity of the mystical body, that is, the Church, of which there is also a figure in this sacrament, in the use of unleavened bread; as the Apostle has it: “Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast... with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7-8). [4] Thus does one exclude the error of certain Greeks, who deny that this sacrament can be celebrated with unleavened bread. And this is even clearly destroyed by the Gospel’s authority, for we read in Matthew (26:17), in Mark (14:12), and in Luke (22:7) that on the first day of the unleavened bread our Lord ate the pasch with His disciples, and at that time instituted this sacrament. Now, since it was not permitted by the Law that from the first day of the unleavened bread anything leavened be found in the homes of the Jews (which is clear from Exodus 12:15), and since our Lord as long as He was in the world kept the Law, clearly He converted unleavened bread into His body and gave it to His disciples to receive. It is stupid, then, to attack in the use of the Latin Churches what our Lord observed in the very institution of this sacrament. [5] For all that, one must acknowledge that some say He anticipated the day of the unleavened bread with His passion so near, and, then, used leavened bread. Indeed, to support this they rely on two things. First, there is what John (13:1) says, that “before the festival day of the pasch” our Lord celebrated the feast with His disciples, and at this feast consecrated His body, as the Apostle tells us (1 Cor. 11:23). Hence, it seems that Christ celebrated the feast before the day of the unleavened bread, and so, in the consecration of His body, used leavened bread. Also, they want to confirm this by what is found in John (18:28): that on the Friday on which Christ was crucified the Jews did not enter the pretorium. of Pilate, “that they might not be defiled but might eat the pasch.” But the pasch is called the unleavened bread. Therefore, they conclude that the feast had been celebrated before the unleavened bread. [6] Now, to this one answers that, as the Lord commands in Exodus 12, “the feast of the unleavened bread was celebrated for seven days, and of these the first day was especially holy and solemn among the others, and it was the fifteenth day of the month.” But, since among the Jews the solemnities used to begin on the preceding evening, they therefore on the evening of the fourteenth day began to eat the unleavened bread and they ate it for seven days following. And, therefore, we read in the same chapter (Ex. 12:18-19): “The first month, the fourteenth day of the month in the evening you shall eat unleavened bread until the one and twenties day of the month in the evening. Seven days there shall not be found any leaven in your houses.” And on the same fourteenth day in the evening they used to sacrifice the paschal lamb. Therefore, the first day of the unleavened bread is the way the three Evangelists—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—name the fourteenth day of the month, because in the evening they used to eat the unleavened bread, and then “they sacrificed the pasch,” that is, “the paschal lamb”; and this, according to John, was before the festival day of the pasch,” that is, the day before the fifteenth day of the month which was the most solemn day of all, and on this day the Jews wanted to eat the pasch, that is, “the unleavened paschal bread,” not, of course, the paschal lamb. And thus, since no discord exists among the Evangelists, it is plain that Christ consecrated His body from unleavened bread at the feast. Hence it becomes clear that the Church of the Latins reasonably uses unleavened bread in this sacrament.

Chapter

ON THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE, AND, FIRST, THAT MEN AFTER RECEIVING SACRAMENTAL GRACE ARE ABLE TO SIN [1] Now, although grace is bestowed upon men by the aforesaid sacraments, they are not, for all that, rendered incapable of sin. [2] For gratuitous gifts are received in the soul as habitual dispositions; it is not always, then, that a man acts according to those gifts. Nothing stops him who has a habit from acting in accord with the habit or against it; thus, a grammarian can in accord with grammar speak rightly, or even against grammar speak awkwardly. It is also like this with the habits of the moral virtues, for one who has the habit of justice can also act against justice. This is the case because the use of habits in us depends on the will, but the will is related to each of two opposites. Manifestly, then, he who receives gratuitous gifts can sin by acting against grace. [3] What is more, there can be no impeccability in a man unless there is immutability of will. But immutability of will does not become man except so far as he attains his ultimate end. For what renders the will immutable is its complete fulfillment, so that it has no way to turn away from that on which it is made firm. But the fulfillment of will is not proportioned to a man except as attaining his ultimate end, for, as long as something remains to be desired, the will has not been fulfilled. Thus, then, impeccability is not proper for a man before he arrives at the ultimate end. And this, to be sure, is not given man in the grace which is bestowed in the sacraments, because the sacraments are for man’s assistance along the road to the end. Therefore, no one is rendered impeccable from the grace received in the sacraments. [4] Furthermore, every sin comes about from a kind of ignorance. Thus, the Philosopher says that “every evil man is ignorant”; and we read in Proverbs (14:22): “They err that work evil.” Therefore, then, a man can be secure from sin in the will, only when his intellect is secure from ignorance and from error. But, manifestly, a man is not rendered immune from every ignorance and error by the grace received in the sacraments; for such is a man whose intellect is beholding that truth which is the certitude of all truths; and this very beholding is the ultimate end of man, as was shown in Book III. It is not, then, by the grace of the sacraments that man is rendered impeccable. [5] Again, to that change in a man which accords with malice and virtue much is contributed by that change which accords with the soul’s passions. For by a reason curbing and ordering the soul’s passions a man becomes virtuous or is preserved in virtue, but by a reason following the passions a man becomes vicious. So long, then, as a man can be altered in the soul’s passions, he can also be altered in vice and virtue. But alteration in the soul’s passions is not taken away by the grace conferred in the sacraments; it persists in a man as long as the soul is united to the body, which is capable of passion. Manifestly, then, the sacramental grace does not render a man impeccable. [6] There is more. It seems superfluous to warn those not to sin who cannot sin. But in the evangelical and apostolic teaching the faithful are so admonished, although they have already received the grace of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, for we read in Hebrews (12:15): “Looking diligently, lest any man be wanting to the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up do hinder”; and in Ephesians (4:30): “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed”; and again: “He that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. io=). Even the Apostle himself says of himself: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:27). Therefore, men are not rendered impeccable by the grace received in the sacraments. [7] This excludes the error of certain heretics who say that man, after he has received the grace of the Spirit, is unable to sin, and that, if he sins, he never had the grace of the Holy Spirit. [8] They take, however, as a prop for their error the saying of 1 Corinthians (13:8): “Charity never falls away.” And 1 John (3:6, 9) says: “Whosoever abides in Him sins not; and whosoever sins has not seen Him nor known Him.” And later on, more expressly: “Whosoever is born of God commits not sin; for His seed abides in him, and he cannot sin use he is born of God.” [9] But for establishing their proposition these texts are not effective. For one does not say: “charity never falls away” on the ground that he who has charity does not sometimes lose it, since the Apocalypse (2:4) says: “I have somewhat against you because you hast left your first charity.” But “charity never falls away” was said because, when all other gifts of the Holy Spirit (which essentially contain some imperfection—the spirit of prophecy, for example, and this kind of thing) “shall be made void... when that which is perfect is come” (1 Cor. 13:8, 10), then in that state of perfection charity shall abide. [10] But the remarks taken from the Epistle of John are said for this reason: The gifts of the Holy Spirit by which a man is adopted or born again as a son of God have of themselves power enough to be able to preserve a man without sin, and a man cannot sin who lives by those gifts. He can, for all that, act against them, and sin by departing from them. For “whosoever is born of God... cannot sin” was said just as though one should say that “the hot cannot cool.” What is hot, nevertheless, can be made cool, and then it will make cool. Or it was said as though one should say that “the just man does no unjust things”; namely, in so far as he is just.

Chapter

THAT A MAN SINNING AFTER THE GRACE OF THE SACRAMENTS CAN BE CONVERTED BY GRACE [1] However, from what has been said it further appears that a man falling into sin after receiving sacramental grace can once more be restored to grace. [2] For, as we showed, so long as we live here the will is mutable in the matter of vice and virtue. Therefore, as one can sin after grace is received, so also from sin, it seems, one can return to virtue. [3] Manifestly, again, good is more powerful than evil: for “evil acts only in the power of the good,” as was shown above in Book III. If, then, the will of man is turned away from the state of grace by sin, much more can grace call him back from sin. [4] Immobility of will, furthermore, is not proper to anyone so long as he is on the way. But, so long as man lives here, he is on the way which tends towards the ultimate end. He does not, then, have a will unmovable in evil, so that he is not able to return to the good by divine grace. [5] There is more. Manifestly, a man who committed sins before he received grace in the sacraments is delivered from those sins by the grace of the sacraments, for the Apostle says: “Neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers,” and so forth, “shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you am justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Manifestly, also, the grace bestowed in the sacrament does not diminish, but increases, nature’s good. Yet this belongs to the good of nature, that it can be led back from sin into the state of justice, for the capacity for good is a kind of good. If, then, sin takes place after grace is received, man can still be led back to the state of justice. [6] If those, moreover, who sin after baptism cannot return to grace, their hope of salvation is entirely lost. But despair is the way to sinning freely, for the Apostle speaks of some who “despairing have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness” (Eph. 4:19). This is, then, a very dangerous position which leads men to so great a cesspool of vices. [7] There is more. We showed above that the grace received in the sacraments does not make a man unable to sin. Therefore, if one who sins after receiving grace in the sacraments could not return to the state of justice, it would be dangerous to receive the sacraments. And this is obviously unsuitable. Therefore, to those who sin after receiving the sacraments the return to justice is not denied. [8] This also is confirmed by the authority of sacred Scripture, for we read in John: “My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the just. And He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2). And these very words were clearly being set forth to the faithful already reborn. Paul also writes about the Corinthian fornicator: “To him who is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient which is given by many: so that on the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him.” And later he says: “I am glad: not because you were made sorrowful, but because you were made sorrowful unto penance” (2 Cor. 2:6-7; 7:9). We also read in Jeremiah (3:1): “You prostituted yourself to many lovers; nevertheless, return to Me, says the Lord”; and in his Lamentations (5:21): “Convert us, O Lord, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning.” And from all these one sees that if the faithful fall after receiving grace, there is open to them a second time a way back to salvation. [9] In this way, of course, one excludes the error of the Novatians, who used to deny forgiveness to those who sinned after baptism. [10] Now, they used to set down as the occasion of their error the saying in Hebrews (6:4-6): “It is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and are fallen away: to be renewed again to penance.” [11] But the sense in which the Apostle said this is apparent from what is immediately added: “Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making Him a mockery.” Therefore, the reason why those who have fallen after receiving grace cannot be renewed again to penance is that the Son of God must not be crucified again. One, therefore, denies to them that renewal again to penance in which a man is crucified along with Christ. And this indeed is in baptism, for we read: “All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death” (Rom. 6:3). Therefore, as Christ must not be crucified once again, so he who sins after baptism must not be baptized again. Nonetheless, he can be converted to grace once again by penance. Hence, the Apostle did not say it was impossible that those once fallen should again be recalled or converted to penance, but impossible that they be “renewed”—which one usually attributes to baptism—as in Titus (3:5): “According to His mercy, He saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Spirit.”

Chapter

ON THE NECESSITY OF PENANCE AND OF ITS PARTS

[1] From this, then, it is evident that if a man sins after baptism, he cannot have the remedy against his sin in baptism. And since the abundance of the divine mercy and the effectiveness of Christ’s grace do not suffer him to be dismissed without a remedy, there was established another sacramental remedy by which sins are washed away. And this is the sacrament of penance, which is spiritual healing of a sort. For just as those who receive a natural life by generation can, if they incur some disease which is contrary to the perfection of life, be cured of their disease: not, indeed, so as to be born a second time, but healed by a kind of alteration; so baptism, which is a spiritual regeneration, is not given a second time against sins committed after baptism, but they are healed by penance which is a kind of spiritual alteration. [2] Let this, however, be considered: bodily healing is at times wholly from within, as when one is cured by the power of nature alone. But there are times when one is cured from within and from without simultaneously, for example, when the operation of nature is helped by the external benefit of medicine. But it never happens that one is cured entirely from without, for he still has within himself the principles of life, and from these the healing is somehow caused within him. But spiritual healing, it happens, cannot be brought about entirely from within, for we showed in Book III that man cannot be delivered from fault except by the help of grace. In like fashion, also, neither can his spiritual cure be entirely from an external thing; for the soundness of his mind would not be restored unless ordered movements of will were caused in man. Therefore, the spiritual health in the sacrament of penance must proceed both from something internal and from something external. [3] This comes about in this way. For a man to be perfectly cured of a bodily disease, he necessarily must be freed from all the inconveniences which the disease involves. Thus, then, even the spiritual cure of penance would not be perfected unless a man were relieved of all the damages into which he has been led by sin. Now, the first damage which man sustains from sin is the disordering of the mind; in that man is turned away from the incommutable good—namely, God—and is turned toward sin. But the second damage is that he incurs the guilt of punishment, for, as was shown in Book III, God the most just ruler requires a punishment for every fault. The third damage is a certain weakening of the natural good, in that man by sinning is rendered more prone toward sinning and more reluctant toward doing well. [4] Therefore, the first thing required in penance is the ordering of the mind; namely, that the mind be turned toward God, and turned away from sin, grieving at its commission, and proposing not to commit it; and this belongs essentially to contrition. [5] But this reordering of the mind cannot be without grace, for our mind cannot duly be turned toward God without charity, but one cannot have charity without grace, as is clear from what was said in Book III. Thus, then, by contrition the offense to God is removed and one is also freed from that guilt of eternal punishment which cannot be simultaneously with grace and charity; for there is no eternal punishment except by separation from God, and by grace and charity man is united with Him. Therefore, this reordering of the mind, which consists of contrition, proceeds from within, that is, from the free will with the help of divine grace. [6] Since, however, it was established above that the merit of Christ suffering for the human race works for the expiation of all sins, if a man is to be healed of sin his mind must necessarily cleave not only to God, but also to the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, in whom rests the remission of all sins. For spiritual health consists in the turning of the mind to God, and, to be sure, we cannot achieve this health except through the physician of our souls, Jesus Christ, “who shall save His people from their sins” (Mat. 1:21). Indeed, His merit is sufficient to take away all sins altogether, for it is He “‘who takes away the sins of the world” as John (1:29) says. Nonetheless, not all achieve perfectly the effect of remission; each achieves it in the measure in which he is conjoined with Christ suffering for sins. [7] Our conjunction, then, with Christ in baptism is not in accord with our operation (from within, so to say), because nothing generates itself in being, but it is from Christ, who “regenerated us unto a lively hope” (1 Peter 1:3); therefore, the remission of sins in baptism is made in accord with the power of Christ conjoining us perfectly and entirely with Himself, so as not only to take away every impurity of sin, but also to free us entirely from every guilt of punishment; except incidentally, perhaps, in the case of those who do not get the effect of the sacrament because they approach with a false attitude. [8] In the later spiritual healing we are conjoined to Christ in accord with our own operation informed by divine grace. Hence, we do not always entirely, nor do we all equally, achieve the effect of remission by this conjunction. For there can be a turning of the mind toward God, and to the merit of Christ, and to the hatred of sin which is so vehement that a man perfectly achieves the remission of sin, not only with regard to wiping out the fault, but even with regard to remission of the entire punishment. But this does not always happen. Hence, after the fault is taken away by contrition and the guilt of eternal punishment is relieved (as was said), there sometimes persists an obligation to some punishment to maintain the justice of God which requires that fault be ordered by punishment. [9] Since, however, to undergo punishment for a fault calls for a kind of judgment, the penitent who has committed himself to Christ for healing must look to Christ’s judgment for fixing the punishment; and this, indeed, Christ does through His ministers, just as He does in the other sacraments. But no one can judge of faults which he does not know. It was necessary, then, that confession be instituted, the second part of this sacrament, so to say, in order to make the fault of the penitent known to the minister of Christ. [10] The minister, therefore, to whom confession is made must have judiciary power representing Christ, “who was appointed to be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). For judiciary power two things are required: namely, the authority to know about the fault, and the power to absolve or condemn. And these two are called the “two keys of the Church,” namely, the knowledge to discern and the power to bind and loose which our Lord committed to Peter as Matthew (16:19) has it: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” He is not understood to have committed these to Peter so that he alone might have them, but so that they might through him be passed on to others; otherwise, sufficient provision for the salvation of the faithful would not have been made. [11] Of course, keys of this kind have their effectiveness from the suffering of Christ by which, we know, Christ opened for us the door of the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, just as without baptism, in which the suffering of Christ works, there cannot be salvation for men—whether the baptism be really received, or desired to the purpose “when necessity, but not contempt, excludes the sacrament”—so for those sinning after baptism there can be no salvation unless they submit themselves to the keys of the Church, whether it be by actually confessing and undergoing the judgment of the ministers of the Church, or at least having this as a purpose to be fulfilled at the opportune time; because, as Peter says: “There is no other name given to men whereby we must be saved except by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 4:10-12). [12] In this way one avoids the error of some who held that a man can achieve forgiveness of sins without confession and without the purpose of confessing, and that the prelates of the Church can dispense one from the obligation of confessing. For the prelates of the Church are unable “to make vain the keys of the Church” in which their entire power consists, and they cannot bring it about that one achieve the remission of his sins apart from a sacrament which has power from the passion of Christ. This belongs only to Christ, who established the sacraments and is their author. Thus, then, as there can be no dispensation from the prelates of the Church allowing one to be saved without baptism, neither can there be one allowing a man to achieve the remission of his sins without confession and absolution. [13] Nonetheless, there is this consideration. Baptism has some effectiveness for the remission of sins even before it is actually received, while one has the purpose of receiving it. We grant that afterwards—when it is actually received—it bestows a fuller effect both in the achievement of grace and in the remission of fault. Sometimes, too, grace is bestowed in the very reception of baptism and a fault is remitted for which previously there was no remission. And thus the keys of the Church have effectiveness in one before he actually submits himself to them, provided that he has the purpose of submitting himself to them; nevertheless, he achieves fuller grace and forgiveness when he actually submits himself to the keys by confessing and receiving absolution; and nothing prevents our thinking that sometimes a grace is conferred by the power of the keys on one who has confessed, in the course of the absolution itself, and that by this grace his fault is dismissed. [14] Therefore, since even in the very confession and absolution a fuller effect of grace and remission is bestowed on him who—by reason of his good purpose—had previously obtained both, manifestly the minister of the Church, absolving by the power of the keys, dismisses. something of the temporal punishment for which the penitent remains in debt after contrition. He does, however, oblige the penitent to the balance by his command. And this fulfillment of the obligation is called satisfaction, which is the third part of penance. By this a man is entirely freed from the guilt of punishment when he pays the penalty which he owed; further, the weakness of the natural good is cured when a man abstains from bad things and accustoms himself to good ones: by subjecting his spirit to God in prayer, or by taming his flesh by fasting to make it subject to the spirit, and in external things by uniting himself by giving alms to the neighbors from whom his fault had separated him. [15] Thus, clearly, then, the minister of the Church exercises a certain judgment in the use of the keys. But judgment is not granted to one unless it be judgment on those who are his subjects. Hence, it is manifest that it is not any priest at all who can absolve any man at all from sin—as some falsify it; he can absolve only one over whom he has received power.

Chapter

ON THE SACRAMENT OF EXTREME UNCTION

[1] Now, the body is the instrument of the soul, and an instrument is for the use of the principal agent: therefore, the disposition of the instrument necessarily must be such as becomes the principal agent. Hence, the body is disposed in harmony with the soul. Therefore, from the infirmity of the soul which is sin infirmity sometimes flows into the body, when the divine judgment so disposes. To be sure, this bodily infirmity is at times useful for the soundness of the soul: so far as a man bears bodily infirmity humbly and patiently, and so far as it is reckoned as satisfying punishment for him. At times, also, it tends to hinder spiritual health: so far as bodily infirmity hinders the virtues. Therefore, it was suitable to employ some spiritual medicine against sin, in accord with the fact that bodily infirmity flows out of sin; indeed, this spiritual medicine cures the bodily infirmity at times, namely, when this is helpful to salvation. And for this a sacrament was established-extreme unction, about which James (5:14-15) says: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick man.” [2] Nor is the power of this sacrament prejudiced if at times the sick on whom it is conferred are not wholly cured of this bodily infirmity, for the restoration of bodily health—even in those who receive the sacrament worthily—sometimes is not useful for salvation. And they do not, for all that, receive it in vain, although bodily health may not follow on it. For, since this sacrament is set against bodily infirmity so far as this follows on sin, this sacrament manifestly was established against the other consequences of sin, which are proneness to evil and difficulty in good, and it is set so much the more as the soul’s infirmities of this sort are closer neighbors to sin than bodily infirmity is. Indeed, spiritual infirmities of this sort are to be cured by penance, in that the works of virtue which the penitent performs when he makes satisfaction withdraw him from evils and incline him to good. But, since man, whether due to negligence, or to the changing occupations of life, or even to the shortness of time, or to something else of the sort, does not perfectly heal within himself the weaknesses mentioned, a healthful provision for him is made by this sacrament: it completes the healing aforesaid, and it delivers him from the guilt of temporal punishment; as a result, nothing remains in him when the soul leaves the body which can obstruct the soul in the perception of glory. And therefore James adds: “And the Lord shall raise him up.” Perhaps, also, a man has neither awareness nor memory of all the sins which he has committed, so that they may be washed away individual by penance. There are also those daily sins without which one does not lead this present life. And from these a man ought to be cleansed at his departure by this sacrament, so that nothing be found in him which would clash with the perception of glory. And therefore James adds: “If he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.” [3] Hence, it is clear that this sacrament is the last, that it somehow tends to consummate the entire spiritual healing, and that in it a man is, as it were, prepared for the perception of glory. For this reason also it is named extreme unction. [4] From this it is apparent that this sacrament is not to be given to anyone at all who is sick, but only to those who seem in their weakness to be approaching the end. Nevertheless, if they get well, the sacrament can be conferred on them again if they return to a similar situation. For the anointing in this sacrament involves no consecration, as does the anointing in confirmation, or the washing in baptism, and certain other anointings which are never repeated—simply because the consecration always remains, so long as the thing consecrated endures, because of the effectiveness of the divine power which consecrates. But the anointing of this sacrament is-ordered toward healing, and healing medicine ought to be repeated as often as the weakness is repeated. [5] We grant that some are in a state close to death even without infirmity—this is clear in the case of those condemned to death—and they nevertheless would need the spiritual effects of this sacrament, but it is not to be given unless such a one is sick, since it is given under the appearance of bodily medicine, which is fitting only for one who has been weakened in the body. For in the sacraments the character of the sign must be maintained. Therefore, just as baptism requires that washing be used on a body, so this sacrament requires that medicine be applied for bodily weakness. Hence, also, oil is the special matter of this sacrament, because it has effectiveness for bodily healing by alleviating pain; just as water which cleans the body is the matter of the sacrament in which spiritual cleansing takes place. [6] Therein one also sees that, just as bodily medicine must be applied at the source of the infirmity, so this anointing is used on those parts of the body from which the weakness of sin proceeds: such are the organs of the senses, and the hands and feet by which the works of sin are carried On, and—in accord with the custom of some—the loins in which the libidinous force is strong. [7] But, since sins are forgiven by this sacrament, and no sin, of course, is forgiven except by grace, manifestly grace is conferred in this sacrament. [8] Now, when things bestow enlightening grace on the mind, their use is proper only to priests, for their order tends to enlighten, as Dionysius says. Neither does this sacrament require a bishop, since this sacrament does not confer a state of excellence, as is the case with those whose minister is a bishop. [9] Nonetheless, since this sacrament has a perfect cure as its effect, and an abundance of grace is required in it, it becomes this sacrament to have many priests present, and to have the prayer of the whole Church help in the effect. Hence, James says: “Let him bring in the priests of the Church... and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man.” If, nonetheless, only one priest is present, it is understood that he fulfills this sacrament in the power of the entire Church whose minister he is, and which, in person, he represents. [10] Of course, the effect of this sacrament is obstructed by pretense in the receiver, just as can be the case with the other sacraments.

Chapter

ON THE SACRAMENT OF ORDERS

[1] It is, of course, clear from what has been said that in all the sacraments dealt with a spiritual grace is conferred in a mystery of visible things. But every action ought to be proportioned to its agent. Therefore, the sacraments mentioned must be dispensed by visible men who have spiritual power. For angels are not competent to dispense the sacraments; this belongs to men clothed in visible flesh. Hence, the Apostle says: “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God” (Heb. 5:1). [2] This argument can be derived in another way. The institution and the power of the sacraments has its beginning in Christ. For the Apostle says of Him: “Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it: that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life” (Eph. 5:75-26). It is also clear that Christ gave the sacrament of His body and blood at the Last Supper, and ordered it to be frequented; and these are the principal sacraments. Therefore, since Christ was about to withdraw His bodily presence from the Church, it was necessary that Christ should establish other ministers in His place who would dispense the sacraments to the faithful; in the Apostle’s words: “Let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). And so He committed the consecration of His body and blood to the disciples, saying: “Do this in commemoration of Me” (Luke 2:19); the same received the power of forgiving sins, in the words of John (20:2.3): “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them”; the same also were given the duty of teaching and baptizing, when He said: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them” (Mat. 28:19). But a minister is compared to his lord as an instrument to its principal agent, for, as an instrument is moved by the agent for making something, so the minister is moved by his lord’s command to accomplish something. Of course, the instrument must be proportionate to the agent. Hence, the ministers of Christ must be in conformity with Him. But Christ, as the Lord, by His very own authority and power wrought our salvation, in that He was God and man: so far as He was man, in order to suffer for our redemption; and, so far as He was God, to make His suffering salutary for us. Therefore, the ministers of Christ must not only be men, but must participate somehow in His divinity through some spiritual power, for an instrument shares in the power of its principal agent. Now, it is this power that the Apostle calls “the power which the Lord bath given me unto edification and not unto destruction” (2 Cor. 13:10). [3] One must not say, of course, that power of this sort was given by Christ to His disciples in such a way as not to flow on through them to others; it was given “for building up the Church,” in the Apostle’s phrase. So long, then, must this power be perpetuated as it is necessary to build up the Church. But this is necessary from the death of the disciples of Christ to the very end of the world. Therefore, the spiritual power was given to the disciples of Christ so as to pass on from them to others. Hence, also, our Lord used to address His disciples in the person of other believers. Thus, we have in Mark (13:37): “What I say to you, I say to all”; and in Matthew (28:20) our Lord said to the disciples: “Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.” [4] This spiritual power from Christ, then, flows into the ministers of the Church; the spiritual effects on us, of course, derived from Christ, are fulfilled under certain sensible signs, js is clear from the foregoing; therefore, this spiritual power also had to be passed on to men under certain sensible signs. But fixed forms of words and determined acts are of this sort: the imposition of hands, for example, the anointing, and the offering of the book or the chalice, or of something of this sort which belongs to the execution of the spiritual power. But, whenever something spiritual is transferred under a bodily sign, we call it a sacrament. Clearly, then, in conferring the spiritual power, a certain sacrament is enacted which is called the sacrament of orders. [5] Now, this belongs to the divine liberality: that, if the power for some operation is conferred on one, there be conferred also those things without which this operation cannot suitably be exercised. But the administration of the sacraments to which the spiritual power is ordered is not suitably done unless one be helped to it by divine grace. Accordingly, grace is bestowed in this sacrament as it is in the other sacraments. [6] Now, the power of orders is established for the dispensation of the sacraments. But among the sacraments that which is most noble and tends most to complete the others is the sacrament of the Eucharist as is clear from what has been said. Therefore, the power of orders must be weighed chiefly by reference to this sacrament, for “everything is denominated from its end.” [7] It seems, of course, to be the same power which grants a perfection, and which prepares matter for the reception of that perfection. just so, fire has the power both to pass its form on to another, and to dispose that other for the reception of the form. Since, then, the power of orders is extended to performing the sacrament of the body of Christ and handing it on to believers, the same power must extend itself to this: making the believers ready for this sacrament and in harmony with its reception. But a believer is made ready for the reception of this sacrament and in harmony with it by his freedom from sin; otherwise, he cannot be united spiritually with that Christ to whom he is sacramentally conjoined by the reception of this sacrament. Therefore, the power of orders must extend itself to, the remission of sins by the dispensation of those sacraments which are ordered to the remission of sins; baptism and penance are of this kind, as is clear from what has been said. Hence, as was said, our Lord’s disciples, to whom He committed the consecration of His body, were also given the power to forgive sins. This, indeed, is the power we understand by the “keys” about which our Lord said to Peter: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 16:19). For to every man heaven is closed or is opened by this: he is subject to sin, or he is cleansed from sin; hence, too, the use of these keys is called “to bind and to loose”, namely, from sins. It was of these, indeed, keys that we spoke above.

Chapter

ON THE DISTINCTION OF ORDERS

[1] Let us now take this into consideration: The power ordered to some principal effect by nature has under it inferior powers which serve it. This is especially clear in the arts, for the are which introduces into a thing its artificial form is served by the are which prepares the material; in turn, the one which introduces the form serves the are to which the end of the artificial thing belongs; the one in turn ordered to a further end serves the one ordered to the ultimate end. just so, the are of the, wood-cutter serves that of the ship-builder, and the latter that of navigation, and this in turn the are of economy, or of warfare, or something of this sort, since the navigator’s are can be ordered to different ends. Since, then, the power of orders is principally ordered to consecrating the body of Christ and dispensing it to the faithful, and to cleansing the faithful from their sins, there must be some principal order whose power extends principally to this; this is the order of the priesthood; and there must be other orders which serve this one by preparing the material, and these are the ministerial orders. Now, since the priestly power, as was said, is extended to two things-namely, the consecration of the body of Christ and making the faithful ready for the Eucharist by absolution from their sins—the lesser orders must serve the priestly power either in both of these things, or else in one or the other. And, manifestly, an order is superior among the inferior orders by just as much as it serves the superior order in many things or in some worthier one. [2] Therefore, the lowest orders serve the priestly order merely in the preparation of the people: doorkeepers, by actually keeping unbelievers out of the gathering of believers; readers, by instructing catechumens in the rudiments of the faith—hence, the Old Testament Scripture is assigned them for reading, exorcists, however, by cleansing those who are already instructed, but to some extent are obstructed by the devil from the reception of the sacraments. [3] The superior orders serve the priestly order both in the preparation of the people and in the consummation of the sacrament. Acolytes have supervision over vessels which are not sacred and in which the material of the sacrament is prepared; hence, the cruets are handed to them during their ordination. Subdeacons, however, have supervision over sacred vessels and the disposal of material not yet consecrated. But deacons, beyond this, have supervision over consecrated material in that they dispense the blood of Christ to the faithful. Accordingly, these three orders—the priesthood, the diaconate, and the subdiaconate—are called sacred orders because they receive a ministry over something sacred. The superior orders serve also in the preparation of the people. Hence, deacons are entrusted with the Gospel teaching to present it to the people, and subdeacons with the apostolic teaching; acolytes are entrusted with the performance in each of the two cases with what belongs to the solemnity of the teaching, namely, that they carry the lights and administer tasks of this kind.

Chapter

ON THE EPISCOPAL POWER AND THAT THEREIN ONE IS THE HIGHEST

[1] Now, the bestowal of all of these orders accompanies some sacrament, as was said, and the sacraments of the Church require some ministers for their dispensing; there must, therefore, be a superior power in the Church with a higher ministry which dispenses the sacrament of orders. And this is the episcopal power, which, although it does not exceed the power of the priest in the consecration of the body of Christ, does exceed the priestly power in what touches the faithful. For the priestly power itself flows from the episcopal power, and anything particularly difficult to be performed for the faithful is reserved to the bishops; by their authority, even priests are empowered to do that which is committed to them to be done. Hence, even in the tasks which priests perform they employ things consecrated by bishops; thus, in the Eucharistic consecration they use a chalice, an altar, and a pall consecrated by the bishop. Clearly, then, the chief direction of the faithful belongs to the dignity of the bishops. [2] But this, too, is clear: Although people are set apart according to differing dioceses and states, yet, as the Church is one, so must the Christian people be one. Therefore, as for the specific congregation of one Church one bishop is called for who is the head of that Church; so for the entire Christian people there must be one who is head of the entire Church. [3] Then, too, the unity of the Church requires that all the faithful agree as to the faith. But about matters of faith it happens that questions arise. A diversity of pronouncements, of course, would divide the Church, if it were not preserved in unity by the pronouncement of one. Therefore, the unity of the Church demands that there be one who is at the head of the entire Church. But, manifestly, in its necessities Christ has not failed the Church which He loved and for which He shed His blood, since even of the synagogue the Lord says: ‘What is there that I ought to do more to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” (Isa. 5:4). Therefore, one must not doubt that by Christ’s ordering there is one who is at the head of the entire Church. [4] No one should doubt, furthermore, that the government of the Church has been established in the best way, since He has disposed it by whom “kings reign, and lawmakers decree just things” (Prov. 8:15). But the best government of a multitude is rule by one, and this is clear from the purpose of government, which is peace; for peace and the unity of his subjects are the purpose of the one who rules, and one is a better constituted cause of unity than many. Clearly, then, the government of the Church has been so disposed that one is at the head of the entire Church. [5] The militant Church, moreover, derives from the triumphant Church by exemplarity, hence, John in the Apocalypse (21:2) saw “Jerusalem coming down out of heaven”; and Moses was told to make everything “according to the pattern that was shown you in the mount” (Ex. 25:40; 26:30). But in the triumphant Church one presides, the one who presides over the entire universe—namely, God—for we read in the Apocalypse (21:3): “They shall be His people and God Himself with them shall be their God.” Therefore, in the militant Church, also, there is one who presides over things universally. [6] Hence it is that we read in Hosea (1:11): “The children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together; and they shall appoint themselves one head.” And our Lord says: “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16). [7] But let one say that the one head and one shepherd is Christ, who is one spouse of one Church; his answer does not suffice. For, clearly, Christ Himself perfects all the sacraments of th Church: it is He who baptizes; it is He who forgives sins; it is He, the true priest, who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, and by whose power His body is daily consecrated on the altar—nevertheless, because He was not going to be with all the faithful in bodily presence, He chose ministers to dispense the things just mentioned to the faithful, as was said above. By the same reasoning, then, when He was going to withdraw His bodily presence from the Church, He had to commit it to one who would in His place have the care of the universal Church. Hence it is that He said to Peter before His ascension: “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17); and before His passion: “You being once converted confirm your brethren” (Luke 22:32); and to him alone did He promise: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 16:19), in order to show that the power of the keys was to flow through him to others to preserve the unity of the Church. [8] But it cannot be said that, although He gave Peter this dignity, it does not flow on to others. For, clearly, Christ established the Church so that it was to endure to the end of the world; in the words of Isaiah (9:7): “He shall sit upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom to establish and strengthen it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and forever.” It is clear that He so established therein those who were then in the ministry that their power was to be passed on to others even to the end of time; especially so, since He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Mat. 28:20). [9] By this, of course, we exclude the presumptuous error of some who attempt to withdraw themselves from the obedience and the rule of Peter by not recognizing in his successor, the Roman Pontiff, the pastor of the universal Church.

Chapter

THAT THE SACRAMENTS CAN BE DISPENSED BY EVIL MINISTERS

[1] From what we have Premised it is clear that the ministers of the Church, when they receive their orders, receive a certain power for dispensing the sacraments. [2] But what is acquired by a thing through consecration persists in that thing forever; hence, nothing consecrated is consecrated a second time. Therefore, the power of their orders persists in the ministers of the Church perpetually. Therefore, it is not taken away by sin. Therefore, even sinners and evil men, provided they have orders, are able to confer the sacraments of the Church. [3] Then, too, nothing has power over that which exceeds its capacities unless the power be received from some other source. This is clear in natural as well as in civil matters: Water cannot heat unless it receives the power of beating from fire, nor can a bailiff coerce citizens unless he receives power from a king. But the things accomplished in sacraments exceed human capacity, as the foregoing made clear. Therefore, no man can dispense the sacraments, no matter how good he is, unless he receives the power to dispense them. Now, goodness is in man the opposite of malice and sin. Therefore, one who has received the power to dispense the sacraments is not blocked by sin from dispensing them. [4] A man, furthermore, is called good or bad in accord with virtue or vice, which are habits of a sort. Habit differs from power in this way: By a power we are able to do something, but by a habit we are not rendered able or unable to make something, but ready or unready in doing well or badly what we are able to do. Habit, therefore, neither gives us an ability nor removes one, rather, by habit we acquire this: to do something well or badly. Therefore, a man’s being good or bad does not make him able or unable to dispense the sacraments, but suitable or unsuitable for dispensing them well. [5] Moreover, that which acts by the power of another likens the thing modified not to itself, but to the principal agent. For a house is riot made like the instrument which a builder uses; it is made like his art. The ministers of the Church do not perform the sacraments in their own power, but in the power of Christ, of whom John (1:33) says: “He it is who baptizes.” Hence, also, ministers are said to act as instruments, for a minister is an “animate tool.” Therefore, the malice of the ministers does not block the faithful from achieving in the sacraments the salvation which is from Christ. [6] There is more. The goodness or malice of another man cannot be judged by man; this is God’s alone, who scans the secrets of the heart. If, then, the malice of the minister could block the effect of the sacrament, a man could not have a sure confidence about his salvation, and his conscience would not remain free from sin. It seems awkward, also, that one put the hope of his salvation in the goodness of a mere man, for Jeremiah (17:5) says: “Cursed be the man that trusts in man.” But, if a man were not to hope for the achievement of his salvation through the sacraments—except through those conferred by a good minister—he would appear to put the hope of his salvation to some extent in a man. That we may, therefore, put the hope of our salvation in Christ, who is God and man, we must confess that the sacraments are for salvation by the power of Christ, whether they are good ministers or bad ministers who confer them. [7] This is apparent as well from the fact that our Lord teaches us to obey even bad prelates, whose works we must not imitate. For He says: “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on the chair of Moses. All things, therefore, that they say to you, observe and do. But according to their works, do not do” (Mat. 23:2-3). But there is much more reason to obey people who have received a ministry from Christ than there was to obey “the chair of Moses.” Therefore, one must obey even bad ministers. And this would not be the case unless the power of their orders persisted in them-which is the reason one obeys them. Even bad men, therefore, have the power of dispensing the sacraments. 18]. In this way one excludes the error of some who say that all good men have the power of dispensing the sacraments and no bad men have it.

Chapter

ON THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY

[1] Now, we grant that by the sacraments men are restored to grace; nonetheless, they are not immediately restored to immortality. We have given the reason for this. But things which are corruptible cannot be perpetuated except by generation. Since, then, the people of the faithful had to be perpetuated unto the end of the world, this had to be done by generation, by which, also, the human species is perpetuated. [2] But let us consider this: When something is ordered to different ends there must be differing principles directing it to the end, for the end is proportioned to the agent. Human generation, of course, is ordered to many things; namely, to the perpetuity of the species and to the perpetuity of some political good—the perpetuity of a people in some state for example. It is also ordered to the perpetuity of the Church, which consists in the collection of the faithful. Accordingly, generation of this kind must be subject to a diversity of directions. Therefore, so far as it is ordered to the good of nature, which is the perpetuity of the species, it is directed to the end by nature inclining to this end; thus, one calls it a duty of nature. But, so far as generation is ordered to a political good, it is subject to the ordering of civil law. Then, so far as it is ordered to the good of the Church, it must be subject to the government of the Church. But things which are dispensed to the people by the ministers of the Church are called sacraments. Matrimony, then, in that it consists in the union of a husband and wife purposing to generate and educate offspring for the worship of God, is a sacrament of the Church; hence, also, a certain blessing on those marrying is given by the ministers of the Church. 13] And as in the other sacraments by the thing done outwardly a sign is made of a spiritual thing, so, too, in this sacrament by the union of husband and wife a sign of the union of Christ and the Church is made; in the Apostle’s words: “This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the church” (Eph. 5:32). [4] And because the sacraments effect that of which they are made signs, one must believe that in this sacrament a grace is conferred on those marrying, and that by this grace they are included in the union of Christ and the Church, which is most especially necessary to them, that in this way in fleshly and earthly things they may purpose not to be disunited from Christ and the Church. [5] Since, then, the union of husband and wife gives a sign of the union of Christ and the Church, that which makes the sign must correspond to that whose sign it is. Now, the union of Christ and the Church is a union of one to one to be held forever. For there is one Church, as the Canticle (6:8) says: “One is My dove, My perfect one.” And Christ will never be separated from His Church, for He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Mat. 28:20); and, further: “we shall be always with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:16), as the Apostle says. Necessarily, then, matrimony as a sacrament of the Church is a union of one man to one woman to be held indivisibly, and this is included in the faithfulness by which the man and wife are bound to one another. [6] Thus, then, there are three goods of matrimony as a sacrament of the Church: namely, offspring to be accepted and educated for the worship of God; fidelity by which one man is bound to one wife; and the sacrament—and, in accord with this—there is indivisibility in the marriage union, in so far as it is a sacrament of the union of Christ and the Church. [7] Now, all the other things one ought to consider in matrimony we have dealt with in Book III.

Chapter

THAT THROUGH CHRIST THE RESURRECTION OF BODIES IS TO COME

[1] Now, we have shown above that we have been freed by Christ from what we incurred by the sin of the first man; and, when the first man sinned, not only was the sin itself passed on to us, but also, death, which is the punishment of sin, in the Apostle’s words: “By one man sin entered into this world and by sin death” (Rom. 5:12). Therefore, it necessarily is by Christ that we are freed from each of these; namely, from the fault and from death. Accordingly, the Apostle says in the same place: “If by one man’s offence death reigned through vie; much more they who receive abundance... of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:37). [2] Therefore, in order to make each of these clear to us in Himself, He chose both to die and to rise. He chose to die, indeed, to cleanse us from sin; hence, the Apostle says: “As it is appointed unto men once to die, so also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Heb. 9:77-2.8). But He chose to rise to free us from death; hence, the Apostle says: “Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep. For by a man came death and by a man the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20-21). [3] It is, then, the effect of the death of Christ in regard to the remission of sin which we achieve in the sacraments, for, it has already been said, the sacraments work in the power of the passion of Christ. [4] But the effect of the resurrection of Christ in regard to our liberation from death we shall achieve at the end of the world, when we shall all rise by the power of Christ. Hence, the Apostle says: “If Christ be preached that He arose again from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again then is our preaching vain and our faith is vain (1 Cor. 15:12`14). It is, then, a necessary tenet of faith to believe that there will be a resurrection of the dead. [5] There are, however, some who are perverse in their understanding of this and they do not believe in the future resurrection of bodies, but attempt to ascribe what we read about the resurrection in the Scriptures to a spiritual resurrection in which some arise from the death of sin by grace. [6] But this error is rejected by the Apostle himself, he says: “But shun profane and vain babblings: for they grow much towards ungodliness, And their speech spreads like a canker: of whom are Hymenaeus and Pbilebus: who have erred from the truth of the faith, saying that the resurrection is past already” (2 Tim. 2:16-18). And this was not understandable except of a spiritual resurrection. It is, therefore, contrary to the truth of the faith to accept a spiritual resurrection and deny a bodily one. [7] There is more. It is clear from what the Apostle says to the Corinthians that the words cited are to be understood of a bodily resurrection. For, after a bit, he adds, “It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body,” wherein, manifestly, the body’s resurrection is touched on; and a little later he adds: “This corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:44, 53). But the corruptible and the mortal mean the body. Therefore, it is the body that will rise. [8] Moreover, our Lord promises both resurrections, for He says: “Amen, Amen, I say unto you that the hour comes and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live.” And this seems to pertain to the spiritual resurrection of souls, which even then was beginning to be completed, when some were cleaving to Christ in faith. But, later, it is the bodily resurrection He expresses, saying: “The hour is coming, when all who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God” (John 5:25, 28). For, clearly, souls are not in the graves, but bodies. Therefore, this predicts the bodily resurrection. [9] The bodily resurrection was also expressly foretold by Job. For he says: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God” (Job 19:75-76). [10] Moreover, to establish that there will be a resurrection of the flesh there is an evident supporting argument which is based on the points made earlier. For we showed in Book II that the souls of men are immortal. They persist, then, after their bodies, released from their bodies. It is also clear from what was said in Book II that the soul is naturally united to the body, for in its essence it is the form of the body. It, then, contrary to the nature of the soul to be without the body. But nothing which is contrary to nature can be perpetual. Perpetually, then, the soul will not be without the body. Since, then, it persists perpetually, it must once again be united to the body; and this is to rise again. Therefore, the immortality of souls seems to demand a future resurrection of bodies. [11] Furthermore, there was shown in Book III the natural desire of man to tend to happiness. But ultimate happiness is the perfection of the happy one. Therefore, anyone to whom some perfection is wanting does not yet have perfect happiness, because his desire is not entirely at rest, for every imperfect thing naturally desires to achieve its perfection. But the soul separated from the body is in a way imperfect, as is every part existing outside of its whole, for the soul is naturally a part of human nature. Therefore, man cannot achieve his ultimate happiness unless the soul be once again united to the body, especially since it was shown that in this life man cannot arrive at his ultimate happiness. [12] Moreover, as was shown in Book III, by divine providence sinners deserve punishment, and those who do well a reward. But in this life men, composed of soul and body, sin or act rightly. Therefore, in both the soul and the body men deserve reward or punishment. But that in this life they cannot achieve the reward of ultimate happiness is clear from the points made in Book III. And time after time sins are not punished in this life; rather, in fact, as we read in Job (21:7) here “the wicked live, are advanced, and are strengthened with riches.” Necessarily,. then, we must assert a repeated union of the soul with the body, so that man can be rewarded and punished in the body as well as in ths soul.

Chapter

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE RESURRECTION

[1] There are, of course, some things which seem to be opposed to faith in the resurrection. Thus: in no natural thing does one find that which has been corrupted returning to being with numerical identity; neither does it seem possible to go back again from privation of a thing to possessing it. Accordingly, since things which are corrupted cannot be repeated with an identity in number, nature intends that the thing which is corrupted be preserved with an identity in species by generation. Since, then, man is corrupted by death, and the very body of man resolved even into the primary elements, it does not seem possible for a man with identity in number to be restored to life. [7] Again, numerical identity is impossible to a thing if one of its essential principles cannot be numerically identical, for, if an essential principle is varied, that essence of the thing is varied by which the thing, as it is, is also one. But what is returned altogether to nothingness cannot be taken up again with numerical identity; this will be the creation of a new thing rather than the restoration of an identical thing. But there seem to be several of the essential principles of man returning to nothingness by his death. And first, to be sure, his very corporeity and the form of the compound, since the body is manifestly dissolved. Then, too, a part of the sensitive soul, and the nutritive, which cannot he without bodily organs, seem lost. Further, of course, there seems to return to nothingness the humanity itself-which is said to be the form of the whole—once the soul is separated from the body. It seems, then, impossible that man should rise again being identical in number. [3] Furthermore, what is not continuous seems not to he numerically identical. And this is manifest not only in sizes and motions, but even in qualities and forms, for if, after healing, a man becomes sick and is healed again, the health which returns will not be the same in number. Now, clearly, man’s being is taken away by death, since corruption is a change from being to non-being. It is, then, impossible that man’s being be repeated with numerical identity. Then, neither will the man be the same in number, for things which are the same in number are the same in being. [4] If, furthermore, a man’s identical body is restored to life, by equal reasoning whatever was in the man’s body ought to be returned to the same man. But on this something extremely unseemly follows—not only by reason of the beard and the nails and the hair which are openly removed by daily trimming, but also by reason of other parts of the body which are covertly resolved by the action of the natural heat—and if these all are restored to the man rising again, an unseemly enormity will rise with him. It seems, then, that man will not rise after death. [5] There is more. It happens, occasionally, that some men feed on human flesh, and they are nourished on this nutriment only, and those so nourished generate sons. Therefore, the same flesh is found in many men. But it is not possible that it should rise in many. And the resurrection does not seem otherwise to be universal and entire if there is not restored to every man what he has had here. [6] Again, that which is common to all those existing in a species seems to he natural to that species. But the resurrection of man is not natural, for there is not a natural power of man which suffices to do this. Therefore, not all men will rise in common. [7] Furthermore, if by Christ we are freed from fault and from death, which is the effect of sin, it seems that those alone ought to be freed who had a share in the mysteries of Christ by which they would be freed from sin. But this is not true of all men. Therefore, not all men will rise, it seems.

Chapter

SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS MENTIONED

[1] Now, toward a solution of these difficulties this consideration is required: God, as was said, above, when He established human nature, granted the human body something over and above that which was its due in its natural principles: a kind of incorruptibility, namely, by which it was suitably adapted to its form, with the result that, as the life of the soul is perpetual, so the body could live perpetually by the soul. [2] And this sort of incorruptibility, although not, of course, natural in its. active principle, was somehow natural in its order to the end; namely, as matter would be ordered to its natural form, which is the end of the matter. [3] When the soul, then, outside the order of its nature, was turned away from God, that disposition was lost which had been divinely bestowed on the soul’s body to make it proportionally responsive to the soul; and death followed. Death, therefore, is something added as an accident, so to say, to man through sin, if one considers the establishment of human nature. [4]. But this accident was taken away by Christ, who by the merit of His passion our “death by dying did destroy.” From this, then, it follows that by the divine power which gave the body incorruption the body may once again be restored from death to life. [5] In this way, then, one must answer the first argument that the power of nature fails the divine power, as the power of an instrument fails the principal agent. Granted, then, that the operation of nature cannot bring it about that a corrupted body be restored to life, the divine power can bring it about. The reason nature is unable to do this is that nature always operates by a form. But what has a form, already is. When it was corrupted, of course, it lost the form which was able to be the principle of the action. Hence, by natures operation, what was corrupted cannot be restored with a numerical identity. But the divine power which produced things in being operates by nature in such wise that it can without nature produce natures effect, as was previously shown. Hence since the divine power remains the same even when things are corrupted, it can restore the corrupted to integrity. [6] What is stated in the second objection, however, cannot be an obstacle to man’s ability to rise with numerical identity. For none of man’s essential principles yields entirely to nothingness in death, for the rational soul which is man’s form remains after death, as was shown above; the matter, also, which was subject to such a form remains in the same dimensions which made it able to be the individual matter. Therefore, by conjunction to a soul numerically the same the man will be restored to matter numerically the same. [7] Corporeity, however, can be taken in two ways. In one way, it can be taken as the substantial form of a body as it is located in the genus of substance. Thus, the corporeity of any body is nothing else but its substantial form; in accord with this it is fixed in genus and species, and to this the bodily thing owes its having three dimensions. For there are not different substantial forms in one and the same thing, by one of which it is placed in the supreme genus—substance, say; by another in its proximate genus—body or animal, say; and by another in its species—say man or horse. Since, if the first form were to make the being substance, the following forms would be accruing to that which already is actually a definite something (hoc aliquid), and subsisting in nature; thus, the later forms would not make a definite something, but would be in the subject which is a definite something as accidental forms. Therefore, corporeity, as the substantial form in man, cannot be other than the rational soul, which requires in its own matter the possession of three dimensions, for the soul is the act of a body. Another way of taking corporeity is as an accidental form; in accord with this one says a body is in the genus of quantity. And corporeity thus is nothing other than the three dimensions which constitute the character of body. Therefore, although this corporeity yields to nothingness when the human body is corrupted, it cannot, for all that, be an obstacle to the body’s rising with numerical identity; the reason is that corporeity taken in the first way does not yield to nothingness, but remains the same. [8] In the same fashion, also, the form of a compound can be taken in two ways. In one way it is so taken that by form of a compound one understands the substantial form of the compound body. And thus, since there is not in man any other substantial form than the rational soul, as was shown, one will not be able to say that the form of the compound, as it is the substantial form, yields to nothingness when man dies. Taken in a second way, a form of the compound is called that certain quality which is composed and balanced from the mixture of the simple qualities, and stands to the substantial form of the compound body as the simple quality stands to the substantial form of the simple body. Hence, although the form of the compounding when thus stated yields to nothingness, this is not prejudicial to the unity of the body arising. [9] Thus, also, must one speak of the nutritive part and the sensitive part. For, if by sensitive part and nutritive part one understands those very capacities which are the natural properties of the soul, or, better, of the composite, then, when the body is corrupted, they are corrupted; nonetheless, this is no obstacle to the unity of the one arising. But, if by the parts mentioned the very substance of the sensitive and nutritive soul is understood, each of those parts is identified with the rational soul. For there are not three souls in man, but only one, as was shown in Book II. [10] But, in speaking of humanity, one should not understand it as a kind of form coming forth from the union of the form to the matter, as though it were, really other than each of the two, because, since by the form the matter is made this actual something, as De anima II [ 1] says, that third form following would be not substantial, but accidental. Of course, some say that the form of the part is the same as the form of the whole: it is called form of the part in that it makes the matter actual being, but it is called form of the whole in that it completes the species essentially. In this way, humanity is not really other than the rational soul. Hence, clearly, when the body is corrupted it does not yield to nothingness. But humanity is the essence of man. The essence of a thing, of course, is, what the definition signifies; and the definition of a natural thing does not signify the form alone, but the form and the,matter. Therefore, necessarily, humanity signifies something composite of matter and form, just as “man” does. Differently, nevertheless; for “humanity” signifies the essential principles of the species, both formal and material, prescinding from the individual principles. Humanity is used so far as one is a man; one is not a man by reason of having the individual principles, but only by having the essential principles of the species. Humanity, therefore, signifies only the essential principles of the species. Hence, it is signified in the way in which a part is signified. “Man” truly signifies the essential principles of the species, but does not exclude the individuating principles from.its signification, for he is called man who has humanity, and this does not shut out the ability to have other things. For this reason, man is signified as a whole is, for it signifies the essential principles actually, but the individuating principles potentially. “Socrates,” however, signifies each set of principles actually, just as the genus contains the difference in potency, but the species contains it actually. Hence, it is clear that man returns numerically the same both by reason of the permanence of the rational soul and by reason of the unity of matter. [11] However, what is said in the third argument—that being is not one because it is not continuous—rests on a false foundation. For, clearly, the being of matter and form is one; matter has no actual being except by form. Nonetheless, in this respect the rational soul differs from other forms. For there is no being of other forms except in their concrete union with matter, since they exceed matter neither in being nor in operation. But the rational soul plainly exceeds matter in its operation, for it has an operation in which no bodily organ takes part; namely, the act of understanding. Hence, its being, also, is not merely in its concrete union with matter. Its being, therefore, which is that of the composite, remains in the soul even when the body is dissolved; when the body is restored in the resurrection, it is returned to the same being which persisted in the soul. [12] The fourth objection, also, fails to remove the unity of the one who rises. For what is no obstacle to a man’s numerical unity while he continues to live manifestly cannot be an obstacle to the unity of one who rises. But in the body of man, so long as he is alive, it is not with respect to matter that he has the same parts, but with respect to his species. In respect to matter, of course, the parts are in flux, but this is not an obstacle to his being numerically one from the beginning of his life to the end of it. An example of this can be taken from fire: While it continues to bum, it is called numerically one because its species persists, yet wood is consumed and -new wood is applied. It is also like this in the human body, for the form and species of its single parts remain continuously through a whole life; the matter of the parts is not only resolved by the action of the natural heat, but is replenished anew by nourishment. Man is not, therefore, numerically different according to his different ages, although not everything which is in him materially in one state is also there in another. In this way, then, this is not a requirement of man’s arising with numerical identity: that he should assume again whatever has been in him during the whole time of his life; but he need assume from that matter only what suffices to complete the quantity due, and that especially must be resumed which was more perfectly consistent with the form and species of humanity. But, if something was wanting to the fulfillment of the quantity due, either because one was overtaken by death before nature could bring him to the quantity due or because mutilation perhaps deprived him of so-me member, the divine power will supply this from another source. This, however, will be no obstacle to the unity of the body of the one rising, for even the work of nature adds to what a boy has from some other source to bring him to his perfect quantity. And this addition does not make him numerically other, for the man is the same in number whether he is boy or adult. [13] From this it is clear, also, that there is no obstacle to faith in the resurrection—even in the fact that some men eat human flesh, as the fifth objection was maintaining. For it is not necessary, as has just been shown, that whatever has been in man materially rise in him; further, if something is lacking, it can be supplied by the power of God. Therefore, the flesh consumed will rise in him in whom it was first perfected by the rational soul. But in the second man, if he ate not only human flesh, but other food as well, only that will rise in him which came to him materially from the other food, and which will be necessary to restore the quantity due his body. But if he ate human flesh only, what rises in him will be that which he drew from those who generated him, and what is wanting will be supplied by the Creator’s omnipotence. But let it be that the parents, too, have eaten only human flesh, and that as a result their seed—which is the superfluity of nourishment—has been generated from the flesh of others; the seed, indeed, will rise in him who was generated from the seed, and in its place there will be supplied in him whose flesh was eaten something from another source. For in the resurrection this situation will obtain: If something was materially present in many men, it will rise in him to whose perfection it belonged more intimately. Accordingly, if something was in one man as the radical seed from which he was generated, and in another as the superfluity of nourishment, it will rise in him who was generated therefrom as from seed. If something was in one as pertinent to the perfection of the individual, but in another as assigned to the perfection of the species, it will rise in him to whom it belonged as perfection of the individual. Accordingly, seed will arise in the begotten, not in his generator; the rib of Adam will arise in Eve, not in Adam in whom it was present as in a principle of nature. But, if something was in both in the same degree of perfection, it will rise in him in whom it was the first time. [14] Now, however, what is said in the sixth objection can be answered from what has been said. Resurrection is natural if one considers its purpose, for it is natural that the soul be united to the body. But the principle of resurrection is not natural. It is caused by the divine power alone. [15] Nor must one deny that there will be a resurrection of all, although not all cleave to Christ by faith, and are not imbued with His mysteries. For the Son of God assumed human nature to restore it. Therefore, what is a defect of nature will be restored in all, and so all will return from)death to life. But the failure of the person will not be restored except in those who have adhered to Christ; either by their own act, believing in Him; or at least through the sacrament of faith.

Chapter

THAT MEN WILL RISE IMMORTAL

[1] From this it is clear, also, that in the resurrection to come men will not so rise that they are to die again. [2] For the necessity of dying is a deficiency brought upon human nature by sin. But Christ, by the merit of His passion, repaired the deficiencies of nature which sin had brought upon nature. For, as the Apostle says: “Not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by the offence many died, much more the grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many” (Rom. 5:15). From this one gathers that the merit of ‘Christ is more effective for removing death than the sin of Adam for introducing it. Therefore, those who will rise by the merit of Christ, freed from death, will suffer death no more. [3] Furthermore, that which is to last forever has not been destroyed. Therefore, if the men who rise will still die again so that death lasts forever, in the death of Christ death has by no means been destroyed. But it is destroyed: right now in its cause, as the Lord had foretold in Hosea (13:14): “O death, I will be your death”; at the end it will be actually destroyed, according to the word: “The enemy death shall be destroyed last” (1 Cor. 15:26). One must, then, hold with the faith of the Church that those who rise will not die again. [4] An effect, moreover, is likened to its cause. But the resurrection of Christ is the cause of the future resurrection, as was said. But Christ so rose from the dead as to die no longer, in the Apostle’s words: “Christ rising again from the dead dies now no more” (Rom. 6:9). Therefore, men will so rise as to die no longer. [5] Moreover, if the men who rise are to die a second time, they will either rise again from that second death or they will not. If they do not rise, they will remain forever as separated souls-and this is awkward, as was said above In fact, to avoid this awkwardness, they were held to rise the first time; in other words, if after the second death they are not going to rise, there will be no argument for their rising after the first death. On the other hand, if after the second death they do rise again, they will either rise to die again or they will not. If they are not to die again, the same reasoning will have to hold for the first resurrection. But, if they are to die again, the alternation of death and life in the same subject goes on to infinity-and this seems awkward, for the intention of God ought to have a determinate term. But the successive alternation of life and death is a kind of changing back and forth, so to say, and this cannot be an end, for it is essentially contrary to motion that it be an end; every motion tends toward another. [6] There is more. In action, the intention of an inferior nature bears on perpetuity. For every action of an inferior nature is ordered to generation, and its very end is safeguarding the perpetual being of the species; wherefore, nature does not intend this individual as ultimate end, but the conservation in him of the species. And nature has this end, in that it acts by the power of God who is the first root of perpetuity. Hence, even the end of generation is held by the Philosopher [ De gen. et corr. II, 10] to be this: that the generated share in the divine being by perpetuity. All the more, then, does the action of God Himself tend to something perpetual. But the resurrection is not ordered to the perpetuity of the species, for this could be safeguarded by generation. It must, then, be ordered to the perpetuity of the individual: but not in the soul alone, for the soul already had perpetuity before the resurrection; therefore, in the composite. Man rising, therefore, will live forever. [7] Again, the soul and body appear to be related in a different order in the first generation of man and in his resurrection. Now, in the first generation the creation of the soul follows the generation of the body, for, when the bodily matter is prepared by the power of the separated seed, God infuses the soul by an act of creation. But in the resurrection the body is adapted to the pre-existing soul. Of course, that first life which man acquires by generation follows the condition of the corruptible body in this: man is deprived of that life by death. Then, the life which man acquires by resurrection will be perpetual according to the condition of the incorruptible soul. [8] Again, if life and death succeed one another to infinity in the same subject, the alternation of life and death will in species be a kind of circular motion. But every circular motion in generable and corruptible things is caused by the first circular motion of the incorruptible bodies. For the first circular motion is found in local motion, and in its likeness is transferred to other motions. The alternation of death and life, therefore, will be caused by a celestial body. And this cannot be, because the restoration of a dead body to life is beyond the capacities of an action of nature. Therefore, that there is such alternation of life and death cannot be asserted, and, consequently, that the bodies which rise may die. [9] Furthermore, whenever things succeed one another in the same subject they have a fixed measure of their duration in time. Everything of this kind is subject to the celestial motion on which time follows. But the separated soul is not subject to the celestial, for it exceeds the whole of bodily nature Therefore, an alternation of its separation from the body and union to it is not subject to celestial motion. Therefore, there is no circular motion in the alternation of death and life such as that which follows if those who rise are to die again. They will rise, then, never again to die. [10] Hence, we read in Isaiah (25:8): “The Lord shall cast death down headlong forever”; and in the Apocalypse (21:4): “Death shall be no more.” [11] Thus, of course, one avoids the error of certain ancient Gentiles, who used to hold that “the same periods and events of time are repeated; as if, for example, the philosopher Plato having taught at the school in Athens which is called the Academy, so numberless ages before, at long but certain intervals, this same Plato and the same school, and the same disciples existed, and so also are to be repeated during the endless cycles yet to come”; so Augustine describes the position in the City of God. To this position, so he himself tells us in the same place, some like to refer the words of Ecclesiastes (1:9-10): “What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be. What is it that has been done? The same thing that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us.” This is not, indeed, to be understood as though things numerically the same are repeated through various generations, but things similar in species. So Augustine explains in the same place. And Aristotle at the end of De generatione [II, 11], taught the same thing, speaking against the group mentioned.

Chapter

THAT AMONG THE RISEN THERE WILL BE NO USE OF FOOD OR SEXUAL LOVE

[1] From what has been set down it follows that aummg those who rise there will be no use of sexual activity or of food. [2] For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life. But clearly, the use of food serves the corruptible life, for we take food to avoid the corruption which can follow on the consumption of natural moisture. At present, moreover, the use of food is necessary for growth; after the resurrection there will be no growth in men, since all will rise in their due quantity, as has been made clear. In the same way, the intimate union of man and woman serves the corruptible life, for it is ordered to that generation by which what cannot be perpetually preserved in the individual is preserved in the species. Now, it was shown that the life of those who rise will be incorruptible. Therefore, among those who rise there will be use neither for food nor for sexual activity. [3] Again, the life of those who rise will not be less ordered than the present life, but better ordered. For man will reach that life only through God’s action, but he leads this life with nature co-operating. In this life the use of food is ordered to an end, for one takes food to convert it into the body by digestion. If, then, there is to be food at that time, it will be for the purpose of converting it into the body. Therefore, since nothing will be resolved from the body, because it will be an incorruptible body, we will have to say that everything converted into the body from nourishment must be devoted to its growth. However, man will rise in his due quantify, as was said above. Therefore, he will achieve a size beyond moderation, for an immoderate size is that which exceeds the quantity due. [4] The man who rises, furthermore, will live forever. Therefore, either he will use food always, or not always but during a fixed time. But let him use food always: since the food will be converted into a body in which no dissolution takes place, it necessarily will cause an increase in some dimension and we will have to say that the body of the man who rises will be increased to infinity. And this cannot be, because increase is a natural motion and the intention of a natural moving power is never infinity, but is always something fixed. For, as the De anima [II, 4] says, “in everything established by nature there is a term of size and increase.” If the man who rises will not always use food, but will always live, one must grant a time in which he does not use food. Accordingly, this must be done from the beginning. Therefore, the man who rises will not use food. [5] But if he will not use food, it follows that neither will he have sexual union for which the separation of the seed is required. Of course, the seed will not be separable from the body of the one who rises, nor from his substance. There is this reason: It is contrary to the seed in its essentials, for it would be seed as corrupted and as withdrawing from nature, and so it could not be the principle of a natural action, which the Philosopher makes clear in his De generatione animalium [I, 18]. And there is this reason as well: Out of the substance of those existing incorruptible bodies nothing will be able to be resolved. Finally, the seed cannot be the superfluity of nutriment if those who rise do not use food, as was shown. Therefore, among those who rise there will be no sexual union. [6] Again, sexual union is ordered to generation. If, then, after the resurrection there is to be sexual union, it follows—unless it is to be in vain—that there will be human generation then just as there is now. Therefore, there will be many men after the resurrection who were not before the resurrection. In vain, then, does the resurrection effect this great difference: that all who have the same nature receive life at the same time. [7] And again, if after the resurrection there is to be human generation, those who are generated will either be once again corrupted or they will be incorruptible and immortal. But, if they are to be incorruptible and immortal, the awkward consequences are many. First, indeed, one will have to hold that those men are born without original sin, since the necessity of dying is a punishment that follows on original sin. This is contrary to the Apostle’s word: “By one man came sin to all and by sin death” (Rom. 5:12). Next, it follows that not all would require the redemption which is from Christ, and so Christ will not be the bead of all men. And this is contrary to the Apostle’s teaching: “As in Adam all die so also in Christ all will live again” (1 Cor. 15:22). There would also be this awkward result: Men whose generation is the same would not have the same term of generation, for by generation from seed they achieve a corruptible life now, but then they would achieve an immortal one. Allow, on the other hand, that the men who will then be born will be corruptible and will die: if they do not rise again, it will follow that their souls will remain forever separated from their bodies. And this is awkward, since they are of the same species as the souls of the men who do rise. But if they, too, are to rise, their resurrection has to be waited for, by the others, that all who share the same nature may simultaneously receive that benefit of resurrection which is proper to the restoration of that nature (as is clear from what has been said). And, what is more, there does not seem to be a reason for waiting for the simultaneous resurrection of some, if one does not wait for the resurrection of all. [8] Again, if the men who rise will use sexual union and generate, this will always take place or it will not always take place. If it always takes place, the multiplication of men will go on to infinity. The intention of the generating nature after the resurrection cannot be for any other end than the multiplication of men; it will not be for the conservation of the species by generation, since men are going to live incorruptibly. It will follow, therefore, that the intention of the generating nature is infinity; and this is impossible. But, if they do not generate always, but only for a fixed time, they will not generate after that time. For this reason one should attribute to them right from the start no use of sexual union and no generation. [9] Now, let one say that in those who rise there will be eating and sexual union, not for the preservation and growth of the body, nor for the preservation of the species and multiplication of men, but simply for the pleasure which there is in these acts, so that no pleasure will be lacking in man’s final reward: in many ways, indeed, is it clear that such is an awkward position. [10] The first reason is this: The life of those who rise will be better ordered than our life, as was said above. But in the present life it is a disordered and vicious thing to use food and sexual union for mere pleasure and not for the necessity of sustaining life and begetting offspring. And this is reasonable, for the pleasures which are in the activities mentioned are not the ends of those activities. It is, rather, the converse, for nature ordered the pleasure of those acts for this reason: lest the animals, in view of the labor, desist from those acts necessary to nature, which is what would happen if they were not stimulated by pleasure. Therefore, the order is reversed and inharmonious if those operations are carried out merely for pleasure. By no means, therefore, will such a thing be found among those who rise; their life is held to be one of perfect order. [11] The life of the risen, moreover, is ordered to the preservation of perfect beatitude. But the beatitude and felicity of man do not consist in bodily pleasures, and such am the pleasures of eating and of sexual union as was shown. in Book III. One should not, therefore, hold that there are pleasures of this kind in the life of those who rise. [12] Furthermore, the acts of the virtues are ordered to beatitude as to an end. If, then, in the state of beatitude to come there be the pleasures of eating and sexual love, as constituents, so to say, of this beatitude, it would follow that in the intention of those who perform virtuous acts the pleasures mentioned are somehow or other present. And this excludes temperance by essence, for it is contrary to the essence of temperance that one abstain now from pleasures to become able to enjoy them the more later on. This would, therefore render all chastity wanton, and all abstinence gluttonous. But allow that the pleasures mentioned are to be, and are, nonetheless, not to be as constituents, so to say, of beatitude, so that they are in the intentions of those who act virtuously: even this cannot be. For whatever is, is for another or for itself. But the pleasures mentioned are not for another; they are not for the actions ordered to the end of nature, as was already shown. It follows, then, that they are for themselves. But everything like this is either beatitude or a part of beatitude. Therefore, if the pleasures mentioned are to be in the life of those who rise, it must be that they belong to its beatitude. And this cannot be, as was shown.” There is, then, no way for pleasures of this kind to be in the future life. [13] There is more. It seems ridiculous to search for. bodily pleasures which the brute animals share with us there where the loftiest pleasures which we share with the angels are expected—the pleasures in the vision of God which will be common to us and the angels, as was shown in Book III. Unless, perhaps, someone wants to say that the beatitude of the angels is imperfect because the angels lack the pleasures of the brutes—which is completely absurd. Pertinent to this is our Lord’s saying in Matthew (22:30), that “in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God.” [14] By this, of course, one avoids the error of the Jews and of the Saracens, who hold that in the resurrection men will have use for food and sexual pleasure as they do now. And even certain Christian heretics have followed them; they hold that there will be on earth for a thousand years an earthly kingdom of Christ, and in that space of time “they assert that those who rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. Those who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, a Greek word, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians”; so Augustine says in the City of God [XX, 7, 1]. [15] Some points, however, seem to favor this opinion. First, indeed, there is this: Before his sin Adam had an immortal life; nevertheless, eating and sexual love were in his power while in that state, for before his sin he was told: “Increase and~multiply” and “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat” (Gen. 1:28; 2:16). [16] Again, one reads of Christ Himself that He ate and drank after His resurrection. For Luke (24:43) says that “when He had eaten before them, taking the remains, He gaw to them.” And in Acts (10:40-41) Peter says: “Him,” namely Jesus, “God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest, not to all the people but to witnesses preordained by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He arose again from the dead.” [17] There are also some authorities which seem to promise men the use of food in the state of which we speak. For Isaiah (25:6, 8) says: “The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain a feast of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees.” And we are to understand this of the state of those who rise, as is clear from the addition: “He shall cast death down for ever: And the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every face.” Isaiah (65:13, 17) also says: “Behold my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty.” And that this refers to the future life is clear from the addition: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,” and so forth. Our Lord also says: “I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father” (Matt. 26:29); and He says in Luke (22:29-30): “I dispose to you as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom.” And we read in the Apocalypse (22:4) that “on both sides of the river” which will be in the City of the Blessed, there will be “the tree of life bearing twelve fruits.” It also says: “I saw... the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Apoc. 20:4-5). From all of which the opinion of the heretics mentioned seems to be confirmed. [18] But the solution of these points is not difficult. The first objection, about Adam, is not effective. For Adam did have a certain personal perfection, but human nature was not yet perfected when the human race was not yet multiplied. Adam, therefore, was established in the kind of perfection which suited the first source of the entire human race. Accordingly, he had to generate for the multiplication of the human race, and consequently had to take food. But the perfection of those who rise will be at a time when human nature is arriving at the fullness of its perfection and the number of the elect is already complete. Accordingly, generation will have no place, and neither will the use of food. For this reason the immortality and incorruption of those who rise will be of one kind; those which were in Adam were of another. For those who rise will be immortal and incorruptible in such wise that they cannot die; nor can any dissolution take place within their bodies. Adam, however, was immortal thus: he could not die if he did not sin; and be could die if he did sin. And the preservation of his immortality could take place not by the exclusion of dissolution within the body; rather, it could be helped by preventing loss of the natural moisture through the assumption of food, lest his body arrive at corruption. [19] With regard to Christ, however, we ought to say that He ate after the resurrection not out of necessity, but to establish the truth of His resurrection. Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection. [20] Now, as for the authorities which appear to promise the use of food after the resurrection: one must understand them spiritually. For divine Scripture proposes intelligible things to us in the likeness of sensible things, “so that the soul from what it knows may learn to love the things it knows not.” And in this fashion the pleasure of contemplation of wisdom and the assumption of the intelligible truth into our intellect is customarily indicated in sacred Scripture as the use of food; the saying of Proverbs (9:2, 4-5), for example, about wisdom: “She has mingled her wine and set forth her table... And to the unwise she said: Come, eat my bread and drink the wine I have mingled for you”; and Sirach (15:3): “With the bread of life and understanding, she shall feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink.” And of the same wisdom we read in Proverbs (3:18): “She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her: and he who retains her is blessed.” Therefore, the authorities mentioned above do not require us to say that those who rise will make use of food. [21] Of course, the words of our Lord in Matthew (26:29) can be understood in another sense. Thus, they can refer to the fact that He ate with His disciples after His resurrection and actually drank new wine, that is, “newly” namely not out of necessity, but as proof of His resurrection. He then says “in the kingdom of My Father” because in the resurrection of Christ there is a demonstrable beginning of the kingdom of immortality. [22] Now, the saying of the Apocalypse (22:2) about “the thousand years” and the “first resurrection of the martyrs” must be understood of that first resurrection of souls from their sins, of which the Apostle says: “Arise from the dead and Christ shall enlighten you” (Eph. 5:14). And by the thousand years one understands the whole time of the Church in which the martyrs as well as the other saints reign with Christ, both in the present Church which is called the kingdom of God, and also—as far as souls are concerned—in the heavenly country: for “the thousand” means perfection, since it is the cube whose root is ten, which also usually signifies perfection.” [23] Thus, then, it becomes clear that those who rise will not spend their time eating and drinking and in acts of sexual union. [24] From this one can see, finally, that all the business of the active life—it seems ordered to the use of food, to sexual activity, to the other necessities of the corruptible life—will come to a halt. Therefore, only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection. This is the reason one reads in Luke (10:42) of Mary’s contemplation that she “has chosen the best part which shall not be taken away from her.” Hence, too, we read in Job (7:9-10): “He that shall go down to hell shall not come up. Nor shall be return any more into his house, neither shall his place know him any more.” In these words Job is denying the kind of resurrection some have asserted who said that after the resurrection a man will return to the kind of business he has now: to building houses, fm example, and carrying on other duties of this kind.

Chapter

THAT THE BODIES OF THOSE WHO RISE WILL BE THE SAME IN NATURE

[1] For some, of course, the points mentioned have been an occasion of error about the conditions of those who rise. For there were some who held that, since a body composed of contraries seems necessarily subject to corruption, those who rise do not have bodies composed of contraries in this way. [2] Some among these held that our bodies do not rise in a bodily nature, but are changed into spirit. They were moved by what the Apostle says: “It is sown a natural body; it shall rise a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). But others were moved by the same words to say that our bodies in the resurrection would be subtle bodies, similar to the air and the winds. For air is called a “spiration”, so that airy things may be called “spiritual.” But others said that in the resurrection the souls will assume bodies: not earthly ones, to be sure, but heavenly. Their occasion is this word of the Apostle speaking of the resurrection: “There are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial.” And all this seems supported by what the Apostle says in the same place: “Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of Cod” (1 Cor. 15:40, 50). It thus appears that the bodies of those who rise will not have flesh and blood and, consequently, no other humors. [3] But the error of these opinions is quite evident. For our resurrection will conform to the resurrection of Christ, as the Apostle has it: “He will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory” (Phil. 3:21). After His resurrection, of course, Christ had a body one could touch, constituted of flesh and bones, because after His resurrection—so we read in Luke (24:39)—He said to the disciples: “Handle and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have.” Therefore, when other men rise, they will have bodies one can handle, composed of flesh and bones. [4] The soul is, furthermore, united to the body as form to matter. Of course, every form has its determined matter, for there must be proportion between act and potency. Since, therefore, the soul is the same in species, it appears that its matter must be the same in species. Therefore, the body will be the same in species after the resurrection as before. And so it has to consist of flesh and bones and other parts of this kind. [5] Again, in the definition of a natural thing which signifies the essence of the species, one includes the matter; necessarily, then, whenever the matter is varied in species, the species of the natural thing is varied. But man is a natural thing. If, therefore, after the resurrection he is not to have a body consisting of flesh and bones and parts of this kind as he has now, he who rises will not belong to the same species, but will be called man only equivocally. [6] There is, moreover, a greater differentiation between the soul of a man and a body of some other species than there is between one human body and that of another man. But no soul can be united in turn to the body of a second man, as was shown in Book II. Much less, then, will it be able in the resurrection to be united to a body of another species. [7] There is more. For a man to rise with numerical identity there must also be numerical identity in his essential parts. Therefore, if the body of the man who rises is not to be composed of the flesh and bones which now compose it, the man who rises will not be numerically the same man. [8] But all these false opinions are most clearly rejected by the words of Job (19:26-27) who says: “Once again I shall be clothed with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God. Whom I myself shall see and not another.” [9] Of course, each of the opinions mentioned has its own awkward consequence. [10] For to hold that a body changes into a spirit is altogether impossible. Things do not change into one another unless they have matter in common. But spiritual things and bodily things can have no communication by matter, because spiritual substances are entirely immaterial, as was shown in Book II. Therefore, it is impossible that the human body is changed into a spiritual substance. [11] Again, if the human body is changed into a spiritual substance, it will be changed either into the same spiritual substance which the soul is or into some other. But, if it is into the soul itself, then after the resurrection there would be in a man only his soul, just as there was before the resurrection. Therefore, the condition of man would not be altered by the resurrection. But, if the body is to be changed into another spiritual substance, it will follow that from two spiritual substances some unit in nature is effected. And this is entirely impossible, for every spiritual substance subsists of itself. [12] In like fashion, it is impossible that the body of man who rises be like air and kindred to winds. [13] For the body of man and of any animal must have a determined figure both in the whole and in the parts. But a body which has a determinate figure must be terminable of itself, for figure is that which is comprised by a term or terms. Air, however, is not terminable in itself, but is terminated only by the term of something else. It is, therefore, not possible that the body of man when he rises be like the air or the winds. [14] There is more. The body of man when he rises must have the capacity to touch, for without touch there is no animal. But that which rises must be animal if it is to be man. But an aerial body can have no capacity for touch, just as no simple body can, for the body in which the touch sensation takes place must be midway between the tangible qualities so as to be in potency to them, as the Philosopher prom in De anima [II, 11]. It is impossible, then, that the body of man who rises be like the air or the winds. [15] From this it is also apparent that it will not be able to be a celestial body. [16] For the body of manor of any animal must be receptive to tangible qualities, as was just said. But so to be is impossible for a celestial body which is not hot or cold, nor wet or dry, nor anything else of the sort, whether actually or potentially, as the Philosopher proves in De caelo [I, 3]. Therefore, the body of the man who rises will not be a celestial body. [17] Celestial bodies, moreover, are incorruptible and cannot be changed from their natural disposition. But the figure due to them naturally is the spherical, as the Philosopher proves. It is not possible, then, for them to receive the figure which is naturally due to the human body. It is, then, impossible that the bodies of the risen be in nature those of celestial bodies.

Chapter

THAT THE BODIES OF THE RISEN WILL HAVE ANOTHER DISPOSITION

[1] Although the bodies of the risen are to be the same in species as our bodies are now, they will have a different disposition. [2] First, to be sure, in this respect: All the bodies of those who rise, both the good and the evil, will be incorruptible. [3] And the reason for this is threefold. [4] One reason is taken from the very purpose of the resurrection. For both the good and the evil will rise for this: that in their very own bodies they may receive their reward or their punishment for the deeds they performed while they lived in the body. But the reward of the good, felicity, that is, will be everlasting; in like fashion, too, everlasting punishment is due to mortal sin. Each of these points was established in Book III. Necessarily, then, in each case an incorruptible body must be assumed. [5] The second reason is taken from the formal cause of those who rise which is the soul. We said above that, lest the soul remain forever separated from the body after the resurrection, the soul will once again assume the body. Since, then, this reception of the body is provided for the perfection of the soul, it is suitable that the disposition of the body be proportioned to that of the soul. But the soul is incorruptible. Hence, the body restored to the soul will be incorruptible. [6] The third reason can be found in the active cause of the resurrection. For God, who will restore the already corrupted bodies to life, will be able to grant this so much more firmly by preserving forever the life regained in them. And by way of example of this, when He chose He preserved even corruptible bodies from corruption unharmed, as He did the bodies of the three youths in the fiery furnace (see Daniel 3:93-94). [7] Thus, then, must one understand the incorruptibility of the state to come: that this body, corruptible now,, will be made incorruptible by the divine power, so that the soul will have perfect dominion over the body in the course of vivifying the body; nor will this communication of life be subject to any obstacle at all. Hence, also, the Apostle says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). [8] Therefore, man when he rises will be immortal, not for this reason: he has assumed another body which is incorruptible (as the opinions mentioned held); but for this reason: This same body which now is corruptible will become incorruptible. [9] One must, therefore, understand the Apostle’s saying”Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 15:50)—in this way: that the corruption of flesh and blood will be taken away in the state of the resurrection, while the substance of flesh and blood nevertheless persists. Hence, he adds: “neither shall corruption possess incorruption.”

Chapter

ON THE QUALITY OF GLORIFIED BODIES

[1] Grant, of course, that in the resurrection the merit of Christ does remove the deficiency of nature commonly from all men—from both the good and the evil; nonetheless, a difference will persist between the good and the evil in respect to what is suitable to each group personally. Now, it is an essential of nature that the human soul is the form of the body which vivifies the body and preserves it in being, but by its personal acts the soul merits to be elevated to the glory of the divine vision or to be excluded from the order of that glory by reason of its sin. The body, then, will be commonly disposed in all men in harmony with the soul, with this result: The incorruptible form bestows an incorruptible being on the body in spite of its composition from contraries, because in respect to corruption the matter of the human body will be entirely subject to the human soul. But the glory and power of the soul elevated to the divine vision will add something more ample to the body united to itself. For this body will be entirely subject to the soul—the divine power will achieve this—not only in regard to its being, but also in regard to action, passion, movements, and bodily qualities. [2] Therefore, just as the soul which enjoys the divine vision will be filled with a kind of spiritual lightsomeness, so by a certain overflow from the soul to the body, the body will in its own way put on the lightsomeness of glory. Hence, the Apostle says: “It is sown in dishonor. It shall rise in glory” (1 Cor. 15:43); for our body is dark now, but then it will be lightsome; as Matthew (13:43) has it: “The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” [3] Moreover, the soul which will enjoy the divine vision, united to its ultimate end, will in all matters experience the fulfillment of desire. And since it is out of the soul’s desire that the body is moved, the consequence will be the body’s utter obedience to the spirit’s slightest wish. Hence, the bodies of the blessed when they rise are going to have agility. This is what the Apostle says in the same place: “It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power.” For weakness is what we experience in a body found wanting in the strength to satisfy the desire of the soul in the movements and actions which the soul commands, and this weakness will be entirely taken away then, when. power is overflowing into the body from a soul united to God. For this reason, also, Wisdom (3:7) says that the just “shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds”; this is not said because there is motion in them by reason of necessity—since they who have God want nothing—but as an indication of their power. [4] Of course, just as the soul which enjoys God will have its desire fulfilled in the achievement of every good, so also will its desire be filled in the removal of every evil, for with the highest good no evil has a place. Therefore, the body perfected by the soul will be, proportionally to the soul, immune from every evil, both in regard to act and in regard to potency. This will be actually so, indeed, because there will not be in them any corruption, any deformity, any deficiency. It will be potentially so, however, because they will not be able to suffer anything which is harmful to them. For this reason they will be incapable of suffering. Nonetheless, this incapability of suffering will not cut them off from the modification essential to sense knowledge, for they will use their senses for pleasure in the measure in which this is not incompatible with their state of incorruption. It is, then, to show their incapacity for suffering that the Apostle says: “It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:42). [5] Furthermore, the soul which is enjoying God will cleave to Him most perfectly, and will in its own fashion share in His goodness to the highest degree; and thus will the body be perfectly within the soul’s dominion, and will share in what is the soul’s very own characteristics so far as possible, in the perspicuity of sense knowledge, in the ordering of bodily appetite, and in the all-round perfection of nature; for a thing is the more perfect in nature, the more its matter is dominated by its form. And for this reason the Apostle says: “It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44) The body of the risen will be spiritual, indeed, but not because it is a spirit—as some have badly understood the point—whether in the sense of a spiritual substance, or in the sense of air or wind; it will be spiritual because it will be entirely subject to the spirit. just so, the Apostle calls it now an “animal body,” not because it is a soul, but because it is subject to animal passions and requires nourishment. [6] This, then, is clear from the points now made: Just as the soul of man will be elevated to the glory of heavenly spirits to see God in His essence, as was shown in Book III, so also will his body be raised up to the characteristics of heavenly bodies: it will be lightsome, incapable of suffering, without difficulty and labor in movement, and most perfectly perfected by its form. For this reason the Apostle speaks of the bodies of the risen as heavenly, referring not to their nature, but to their glory. Hence, after he had said that “there are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial,” he added: “one is the glory of the celestial, and another of the terrestrial” (1 Cor. 15:40). just as, of course, the glory to which the human soul is exalted exceeds the natural power of the heavenly spirits, as was shown in Book III, so does the glory of the risen bodies exceed the natural perfection of the heavenly bodies so as to have a greater lightsomeness, a more stable incapacity for suffering, an easier agility, and a more perfect worthiness of nature.

Chapter

ON THE PLACE OF THE GLORIFIED BODIES

[1] Now, because place must be in proportion to that which is in place, there is this consequence: Since the bodies of the risen will achieve the characteristics of heavenly bodies, they, too, will have a place in the heavens, or, rather, “above all the heavens,” so as to be at once with Christ, whose power will lead them to this glory. The Apostle says of Him: “He ascended above all the heavens that He might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10). [2] It seems frivolity, of course, to make an argument against this divine promise out of the natural position of the elements, alleging the impossibility of elevating the body of man, since it is earthly and by its nature holds the lowest place, to a place above the lighter elements. For, manifestly, by the power of the soul the body which it perfects need not follow the inclinations of the elements. For even now, by its power, so long as we live the soul holds the body together lest it be dissolved by the contrariety of the elements; and also by the power of the soul to move the body is raised high; and it will be raised the more fully, as the motive power will have the greater strength. But, manifestly, it will be then a soul of perfect power when it will be united to God by vision. Therefore, it ought not be looked on as difficult if the body be then preserved by the power of the soul immune from every corruption and be lifted up above every body whatever. [3] Neither does this divine promise meet an impossibility in the assertion that celestial bodies are unbreakable so the glorious bodies may not be elevated above them. For the divine power will bring it about that the glorious bodies can be simultaneously where the other bodies are; an indication of this was given in the body of Christ when He came to the disciples, “the doors being shut” (John 20:26).

Chapter

ON THE SEX AND AGE OF THE RISEN

[1] One ought, nevertheless, not bold that among the bodies,of the risen the feminine sex will be absent, as some have thought. For, since the resurrection is to restore the deficiencies of nature, nothing that belongs to the perfection of nature will be denied to the bodies of the risen. Of course, just as other bodily members belong to the integrity of the human body, so do those which serve for generation—not only in men but also in women. Therefore, in each of the cases members of this sort will rise. [2] Neither is this opposed by the fact that there will be no use for those members, as was shown above. For, if for this reason such members are not to be in the risen, for an equal reason there would be no members which serve nutrition in the risen, because neither will there be use of food after the resurrection. Thus, then, a large portion of the members would be wanting in the body of the risen. They will, them, fore, have all the members of this sort, even though there be no use for them, to re-establish the integrity of the natural body. Hence, they will not be in vain. [3] In like fashion, also, the frailty of the feminine sex is not in opposition to the perfection of the risen. For this frailty is not due to a shortcoming of nature, but to an intention of nature. And this very distinction of nature among human beings will point out the perfection of nature and the divine wisdom as well, which disposes all things in a certain order. [4] Nor is this position forced on us by the words of the Apostle: “Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). For he did not say this because everyone in that meeting when the risen shall go forth “to meet Christ into the air” (1 Thes. 4:16) will have the male sex. He said it to point out the perfection of the Church and its power. For the whole Church when meeting Christ will be like a perfect man,—as is clear from the words which precede and follow. [5] But all must rise in the age of Christ, which is that of youth, by reason of the perfection of nature which is found in that age alone. For the age of boyhood has not yet achieved the perfection of nature through increase; and by decrease old age has already withdrawn from that perfection.

Chapter

ON THE QUALITY OF THE RISEN BODIES AMONG THE DAMNED

[1] From these points one can, of course, reasonably consider what sort of condition there will be in the risen bodies of those to be damned. [2] For those bodies, too, must be proportioned to the souls of those to be damned. Of course, the souls of the wicked have a good nature, indeed, since it is created by God, but they will have a disordered will which will be failing its very own end. Their bodies, then, so far as nature is concerned, will be restored to integrity; because, as one can see, they will rise in the perfection of age, without any members diminished, without any deficiency or corruption which the error or the weakness of nature has introduced. Hence, the Apostle says: “The dead shall rise again incorruptible” (1 Cor. 15-52); and clearly this ought to be understood of all, both the good and the evil, according to what precedes and follows in his text. [3] But because in its will their soul will be turned away from God, and deprived of its own end, their bodies will not be spiritual, that is to say, entirely subject to the spirit; rather, by its affection their soul will be carnal. [4] Nor will their bodies have agility obeying the soul, so to say, with no difficulty, rather, they will be burdensome and heavy, and in some way hard for the soul to carry, just as their very souls are tamed away from God by disobedience. [5] They will also remain capable of suffering, as they now are, or even more so; in such wise, nonetheless, that they will indeed suffer affliction from sensible things; and, for all that, no corruption; just as their souls also will be wracked, frustrated entirely in their natural desire for beatitude. [6] Their bodies also will be dense and darksome, just as their souls will be foreign to the light of divine knowledge. And this is what the Apostle says: “We shall all indeed rise again we shall not all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51). For the good alone shall be changed for glory; it will be without glory that the bodies of the wicked shall rise. [7] There is a chance, of course, that someone may see an impossibility in the fact that the bodies of the wicked are capable of suffering and, for all that, are not corruptible, because “every passion when intensified takes something away from substance.” For we see that a body, if it remains in a fire a long time, is finally consumed; and sorrow, if it be too intense, separates the soul from the body. But this entire process takes place on the basis of the transmutability of matter from form to form. But after the resurrection the human body will not be transmutable from form to form, in the case of the good or of the wicked; for in each class the body will be entirely perfected by the soul so far as its natural being is concerned. Thus, it will no longer be possible to remove this form from such a body, nor to introduce another form, when the divine power is subjecting the body entirely to the soul. Hence, also, that potency for every form which is in prime matter will be somehow bound by the power of the soul, lest it be able to be reduced to the act of another form. But, in regard to some conditions, the bodies of the damned will not be entirely subject to the soul; therefore, they will be sensibly afflicted by the contrariety of the sensibles. For they will be afflicted by bodily fire, so far as the quality of fire by its own excellence is the contrary of the equal balance and harmony that is connatural to the sensibility although it is unable to dissolve it. Nevertheless, such an affliction will not be able to separate the soul from the body, since the body necessarily must persist under the same form. [8] Now, just as the bodies of the blessed, by reason of the newness of their glory, will be lifted above the heavenly bodies, so also the lowest place, one of darkness and punishment, will in proportion be set aside for the bodies of the damned. Hence the Psalmist says: “Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into hell” (Ps. 54:16). And the Apocalypse (20:9-10) says that “the devil who reduced them was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever.”

Chapter

HOW INCORPOREAL SUBSTANCES MAY SUFFER FROM BODILY FIRE

[1] But a doubt can arise as to the manner in which the devil, who has no body, and the souls of the damned before the resurrection, can suffer from the bodily fire by which the bodies of the damned will suffer in hell. As our Lord says: “Depart from Me you cursed into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mat. 25:41). [7] One must not, then, judge the matter thus: that non-bodily substances can suffer from bodily fire so that their nature is corrupted by fire, or altered, or in any other way at all transmuted, as our corruptible bodies do now suffer by fire; because non-bodily substances have no bodily matter so as to be able to be changed by bodily things, and they are not even receptive to sensible forms except intelligibly—such reception, of course, is not proper to punishment, but tends, instead, to perfect and to please. [3] Neither can it be said that they suffer affliction from bodily fire by reason of any contrariety, as the bodies will suffer after the resurrection, because the non-bodily substances do not have organs of sense and do not use sense powers. [4] Therefore, the non-bodily substances suffer from bodily fire in the manner of a certain bondage. For spirits are able to be bound by bodies: this can be by way of form, as the soul is bound to the human body to give it life; or it can be without being the form of a something, as the necromancers by the power of devils bind spirits by images or that sort of thing. Therefore,~,much Inore can the divine power bind the spirits to be damned by bodily fire. And this is to them the greater affliction: they know they are in bondage to the lowliest things as a punishment. [5] It is also becoming that the damned spirits should be punished by bodily penalties. For the sin of every rational creature grows out of this: It is not subject to God in obedience. Punishment, of course, should answer to fault proportionally, with this result: that in its punishment the will suffer an affliction which is the contrary of that for whose love it sinned. Therefore, a befitting punishment to a sinning rational nature is this: to be subject somehow to the bondage of things which are its own inferiors, namely, bodily things. [6] Again, the sin committed against God deserves not only the punishment of loss, but the punishment of sense, as we showed in Book III, for the punishment of sense answers to the fault in regard to the soul’s disordered turning toward a changeable good, as the punishment of loss answers to the fault in regard to its taming away from the unchangeable good. But the rational creature, and especially the human soul, sins by its disordered taming to bodily things. Therefore, its becoming punishment is affliction by bodily things. [7] It furthermore, an afflicting punishment be due to sin, the one we call “the pain Of sense,” such punishment ought to come from that which can bring on affliction. But nothing brings on affliction except so far as it is the contrary of the will. But it is not contrary to the natural will of a rational nature that it be united to a spiritual substance. Say, rather, this is a pleasure to it, and belongs to its perfection, for it is a union of like to like and of intelligible to intellect, since every spiritual substance is intelligible in itself. But it is contrary to the natural will of a spiritual substance to be in subjection to a body from which in the order of its own nature it ought to be free. It is, then, fitting to punish a spiritual substance with bodily things. [8] In consequence, this, too, is clear: Grant that one understands the bodily aspects of the rewards of the blessed mentioned in Scripture spiritually, as was said about the promise of food and drink, nonetheless, when Scripture threatens certain bodily punishments to sinners, these are to be understood in a bodily fashion and taken in their own meaning. For there is nothing suitable about rewarding a superior nature by the use of an inferior one-the reward, rather, is in the union to the superior—but a superior nature is suitably punished by being turned over to its inferiors. [9] For all that, there is no reason why even some of the things we read in Scripture about the punishments of the damned expressed in bodily terms should not be understood in spiritual terms, and, as it were, figuratively. Such is the saying of Isaiah (66:24): “Their worm shall not die”: by worm can be understood that remorse of conscience by which the impious will also be tortured, for a bodily worm cannot eat away a spiritual substance, nor even the bodies of the damned, which will be incorruptible. Then, too, the “weeping” and “gnashing of teeth” (Mat. 8:12) cannot be understood of spiritual substances except metaphorically, although there is no reason not to accept them in a bodily sense in the bodies of the damned after the resurrection. For all that, this is not to understand weeping a loss of tears, for from those bodies there can be no loss, but there can be only the sorrow of the heart and the irritation of the eyes and the head which usually accompany weeping.

Chapter

THAT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEIR SEPARATION FROM THE BODY THE SOULS WILL RECEIVE PUNISHMENT OR REWARD [1] From these points, of course, we can gather that immediately after death the souls of men receive either punishment or reward according to their merits. [2] For the separated souls are susceptible to punishment, not only to spiritual, but even to bodily, punishment, as has been shown. That they are susceptible to glory is manifest from the points treated in Book III. For the separation of the soul from the body makes it capable of the divine vision, and it was unable to arrive at this so long as it was united to the corruptible body. Now, in the vision of God consists man’s ultimate beatitude, which is the “reward of virtue.” But there would be no reason why punishment should differ from reward, in each of which the soul can share. Therefore, immediately after its separation from the body the man’s soul receives its reward or punishment “according as he bath done in the body (see 2 Cor. 5:10). [3] In that life, too, there is the state of being paid or docked; hence, the comparison to “warfare” and “the days of the hireling,” as is clear in Job (7:1): “The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling.” But, after the state of warfare and the labor of the hireling, the reward or punishment is straightway due those who have fought well or badly; hence, we read in Leviticus (19:13): `The wages of him that bath been hired by you shall not abide with you until the morning”; and in Joel (3:4): “I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head.” Immediately after death, therefore, the souls receive either reward or punishment. [4] There is, moreover, in the order of fault and merit a harmony with the order of punishment and reward. But merit and fault are fitted to the body only through the soul, since there is essentially no merit or demerit except so far as a thing is voluntary. Therefore, both reward and punishment flow suitably from the soul to the body, but it does not belong to the soul by reason of the body. There is, therefore, no reason in the infliction of punishment or bestowal of reward why the souls should wait for the resumption of their bodies; rather, it seems more fitting that, since the souls had priority in the fault or merit, they have priority also in being punished or rewarded. [5] Then, too, the same providence of God owes rational creatures their reward or punishment which bestows on the natural things the perfections due them. But it happens this way in natural things: Everything immediately receives the perfection for which it has capacity unless there is an obstacle and the part of the one receiving or of the one giving the perfection. Therefore, since the souls immediately after they are separated from the body have a capacity for glory or punishment, they will straightway receive one or the other, and neither the reward of the good nor the punishment of the evil is put off until the souls take up their bodies again. [6] Nonetheless, one must weigh the fact that in the case of the good there can be an obstacle to keep the souls from receiving their ultimate reward, which consists in the vision of God, right after their release from the body. To that vision no rational creature can be elevated unless it be thoroughly and entirely purified, since that vision exceeds the whole of the creatures natural powers. Hence, Wisdom (7:25) says of wisdom that “no defiled thing comes into her”; and Isaiah (55:8) says of “the holy way, the unclean shall not pass over it.” But by sin the soul is unclean in its disordered union to inferior things. To be sure, the soul is purified from this uncleanness in this life by penance and the other sacraments. as was said above, but it does at times happen that such purification is not entirely perfected in this life, one remains a debtor for the punishment, whether by reason of some negligence, or business, or even because a man is overtaken by death. Nevertheless, he I not entirely cut off from his”reward, because such things can happen without mortal sin, which alone takes away the charity to which the reward of eternal life is due. And this is clear from what was said in Book III. They must, then, be purged after this life before they achieve the final reward. This purgation, of course, is made by punishments, just as in this life their purgation would have been completed by punishments which satisfy the debt; otherwise, the negligent would be better off than the solicitous, if the punishment which they do not complete for their sins here need not be undergone in the future. Therefore, if the souls of the good have something capable of purgation in this world, they are held back from the achievement of their reward while they undergo cleansing punishments. And this is the reason we hold that there is a purgatory. [7] This position, of course, is supported by the Apostle’s saying: “If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 5: 15). There is also support in the universal custom of the Church which prays for the dead, such prayers would be useless, indeed, if one holds there is no purgatory after death. For the Church does not pray for those who are already at the goal of good or of evil, but for those who have not yet arrived at the goal. [8] Now, the attainment immediately after death of -the punishment or of the reward if there be no obstacle is established by Scriptural authorities. For Job (21:3) says of the wicked: “They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to hell”; and Luke (16:22): “And the rich man,died and he was buried in hell.” Hell, of course, is the place where souls are punished. The same point is clear about the good, for, as Luke (23:43) has it, our Lord hanging on the cross said to the thief: “This day you shall be with Me in paradise.” By paradise one understands the reward which is promised to the good, as in the Apocalypse (2:7): “To him that overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of My God.” [9] However, some do say that by “paradise” one understands not the ultimate reward which will be in heaven, as in Matthew (5:12): “Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven,” but an equal reward upon earth. For “paradise seems to be an earthly place, from what Genesis (2:8) says: “The Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure wherein He placed man whom He had formed.” But let a man consider rightly the words of sacred Scripture and he will find that the final recompense promised to the saints in heaven is given immediately after this life. For the Apostle, after he had spoken of the final glory, said: “That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4: 17-18). Clearly, he is speaking of the final glory which is in heaven, and to show when and how this glory is had he adds: “For we know, if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven” (2 Cor. 5: 1). By this he manifestly gives us to understand that when the body is dissolved the soul is led to an eternal and heavenly mansion which is nothing bbutt the enjoyment of divinity as the angels enjoy it in heaven. [10] But someone may choose to contradict and to assert that the Apostle did not say that immediately on the dissolution of the body we are to have an eternal home in heaven in fact, but merely in hope, and at long last we are to have it in fact. Clearly, however, this is contrary to the Apostle’s intention, for, even while we live here, we are to have the heavenly mansion according to divine predestination; and we already have it in hope, as Romans (8:24) says: “For we are saved by hope.” Vainly, then, he added: “if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved,” for it would have been enough to say: “We know that we have a building of God,” and so forth. The point is again and more expressly clear in the addition: “Knowing that while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight. But we are confident and have a good will to be absent rather from the body, and to be present to the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6-8). But we should be willing in vain “to be absent from the body,” meaning “separated,” unless we were to be straightway present to the Lord. But we are not present except when we behold by sight, for as long as we walk by faith and not by sight “we are absent from the Lord,” as he says there. Straightway, therefore, when the holy soul is separated from the body, it sees God by sight. And this is the ultimate beatitude, as was shown in Book III. The same truth is also made manifest by the words of the same Apostle: “Having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). Now, Christ is in heaven. Therefore, the Apostle was hoping that immediately after the dissolution of his body he would arrive in heaven. [11] In this way one avoids the error of some of the Greeks, who deny purgatory and say that before the resurrection souls neither ascend into heaven nor descend into hell.

Chapter

THAT THE SOULS OF THE SAINTS HAVE AFTER DEATH AN UNCHANGEABLE WILL IN THE GOOD [1] From these points this is clear: souls immediately after their separation from the body become unchangeable in will, with the result that the will of man cannot further be changed, neither from good to evil, nor from evil to good. [2] As long as the soul can be changed from good to evil or evil to good, it is in a state of struggle and warfare, for it must with solicitude resist evil lest it be conquered by evil, or it must try to be freed from it. Immediately after the soul is separated from the body it will not be in a state of warfare or struggle, but in a state of receiving reward or punishment, because it “has lawfully or unlawfully striven” (2 Tim. 2:5). For it was shown that reward or punishment follows immediately. No longer, then, is the soul able to be changed in its willing, whether from good to evil, or from evil to good. [3] Then, too, in Book III it was shown that beatitude which consists in the vision of God is everlasting; and in like fashion we showed in the same Book that mortal sin deserves eternal punishment. But a soul cannot be blessed if its will is not going to be right—and it ceases to be right by being tamed away from the end—but it cannot simultaneously be turned away from the end and enjoying the end. Necessarily, then, the rectitude of the will in the blessed soul is everlasting; as a result, it cannot be changed from good to evil. [4] The rational creature, furthermore, naturally desires to be happy; hence, it cannot wish not to be happy. For all that, its will can be deflected from Him in whom its true beatitude consists; this is the perversity of will. And this takes place because that in which there is the true beatitude is not grasped essentially as beatitude, but something else is, and toward this the disordered will is deflected as though to an end. For example, take the man who puts his end in bodily pleasures; he thinks they are the greatest good, and this is essential to his beatitude. But those who are already happy grasp that in which there truly is beatitude essentially as beatitude and as ultimate end; otherwise, there would be therein no quiet of the appetite and, in consequence, they would not be happy. Therefore, all those who are happy cannot turn their wills away from Him in whom the true happiness is. Therefore, they can have no perversity of will. [5] Then, too, when what one has suffices him, he seeks nothing beyond it. But whoever is happy has what suffices him in the true beatitude; otherwise, his desire would not be fulfilled. Therefore, whoever is happy seeks nothing which does not belong to that in which true beatitude consists. But no one has a perverse will unless he wills something repugnant to Him in whom true beatitude consists. Therefore, there is no one of the blessed whose will can be changed to evil. [6] There is more. Sin cannot take place in the will-without some sort of ignorance in the intellect, for we will nothing but the good whether true or apparent. For this reason Proverbs (14:27) says: “They err who work evil”; and in the Ethics the Philosopher says “every evil man is ignorant.” But the soul which is truly happy cannot be in ignorance at all, since in God it sees everything which belongs to its. perfection. Therefore, there is no way for it to have a bad will, especially since that vision of God is always actual, as was shown in Book III. [7] Our intellect, again, can be in error about some conclusion before a resolution into the first principles is made; once the resolution into the principles is made, one has knowledge of the conclusions in which there can be no falsity. “But what the principle of demonstration is in speculative matters, so the end is in matters of appetite.” Therefore, as long as we do not achieve the ultimate end our will can be perverted, but not after it arrives at the enjoyment of the ultimate end which is desirable in itself, just as the first principles of demonstration are known in themselves. [8] The good, furthermore, is precisely as good the lovable. Therefore, that which is grasped as the best is the most lovable. But a happy rational substance that sees God grasps Him as the best. Therefore, it loves Him the most. But this is an essential of love: the wills of those who love each other are in conformity. Therefore, the wills of the blessed are most in conformity with God, and this makes rightness of will, since the divine will is the first rule of all wills. Therefore, the wills of those who see God cannot be rendered perverse. [9] Once more: So long as a thing is by nature changeable to another it does not have its ultimate end. Therefore, if the blessed soul can still be changed from good to evil, it is not yet in its ultimate end. And this is against the essentials of beatitude. It is clear, then, that the souls which immediately after death are beatified become immutable in their wills.

Chapter

THAT AFTER DEATH THE SOULS OF THE WICKED HAVE A WILL UNCHANGEABLE IN EVIL

[1] In the same way, also, the souls which immediately after death are made miserable in punishment become unchangeable in their wills. [2] For we showed in Book III that mortal sin deserves everlasting punishment. But there would be no everlasting punishment of the souls of the damned if they were able to change their will for a better will; it would be unjust, indeed, if from the moment of their having a good will their punishment would be everlasting. Therefore, the will of the damned soul cannot be changed to good. [3] There is more. The very disorder of the will is a kind of punishment and one of extreme affliction. The reason: So far as one has a disordered will he is displeased by whatever is done rightly, and the damned souls will be displeased because God’s will is fulfilled in all those who by sinning have sided against Him. Therefore, their disordered will shall never be taken away from them. [4] The change of a will, furthermore, from sin to good takes place only by the grace of God, as what was said in Book III makes clear. But, just as the souls of the good are admitted to a perfect sharing in the divine goodness, so the souls of the damned are entirely excluded from grace. Therefore, they will not be able to change their will for the better. [5] Then again: just as the good when living in the flesh make God the end of all their works and desires, so also the wicked do with some improper end which turns them away from God. But the separated souls of the good will cleave unchangeably to the good they have set before themselves in this life; namely, to God. Therefore, the souls of the wicked will cleave unchangeably to the end which they themselves have chosen. Therefore, as the will of the good will not be able to become evil, so the will of the evil will not be able to become good.

Chapter

ON THE IMMUTABILITY OF WILL IN SOULS DETAINED IN PURGATORY

[1] There are some souls, however, which do not attain beatitude immediately after separation, and for all that are not damned, such are those who carry with them something subject to purging, as was said; therefore, one ought to show that not even souls of this kind after separation from the body are able to be changed in their wills. Now, the blessed and the damned souls have an unchangeable will by reason of the end to which they adhered, as what was said makes clear; but the souls which carry with them something subject to purging do not differ in end from the blessed souls, for they depart in charity by which we cleave to God as to an end. Those very souls, then, will have an unchangeable will.

Chapter

ON THE IMMUTABILITY OF WILLS COMMONLY IN ALL SOULS AFTER THEIR SEPARATION FROM THE BODY [1] That the unchangeable character of will follows from the end in all the separated souls can be made clear this way. [2] “For the end,” as was said, “acts in matters of appetite as the first principles of demonstration do in speculative matters.” Of course, principles of this kind are known naturally, and, should there be an error about principles like these, it would come from the corruption of nature. Hence, a man could not change from a true acceptance of these principles to a false one—or conversely—except by a change in his nature, for he who errs in the principles cannot be called back by something more certain, as a man is called back from his error about a conclusion. In the same way, one could not be led away from his acceptance of the principles by something more evident. Thus, then, it is with regard to the end, for every man has by nature a desire of the ultimate end. [3] To be sure, it follows universally on rational nature to desire beatitude, but the desire of this thing or that thing under the aspect of beatitude and ultimate end arises from some special disposition of nature; hence, the Philosopher says that “as a man is, so also the end appears to him.” Therefore, if that disposition in which something is desired as ultimate end cannot he removed from the man, neither will his will be able to be changed in respect to desire of that end. [4] Dispositions like these, of course, can be removed from us so long as the soul is united to -the body. For, that we desire a thing as the ultimate end sometimes happens from our being so disposed by a passion which quickly passes; hence, too, this desire of the end is easy to remove, as appears among the continent. Sometimes, however, we are disposed to the desire of a good end or a bad one by a habit, and that disposition is not easily taken away; hence, such a desire for an end persists rather strongly, as is clear among the temperate. For all that, an habitual disposition can be removed in this life. [5] Thus, therefore, it is manifest that so long as the disposition persists in which a thing is desired as ultimate end, the desire of that end is not changeable, because the desire of the ultimate end is an extreme; hence, one cannot be called from desire of the ultimate end by something more desirable. The soul is, of course, in a mutable state so long as it is united to the body, but it will not be after it has been separated from the body. A disposition of the soul is changed incidentally with some change in the body, for, since it is at the service of the soul for its very own operations, the body was given to the soul by nature with this in view: that the soul existing within the body be perfected, be, as it were, moved toward its perfection. When it shall, then, be separated from the body it will not be in a state of motion toward the end, but in a state of rest in the end acquired. The soul’s will, therefore, will be immovable regarding a desire for the ultimate end. [6] Now, on the ultimate end the entire goodness or wickedness of the will depends, for whatever goods one wills in an order toward a good end he wills well; whatever evil he wills in an order toward an evil end he wills badly. Therefore, there is not in the separated soul a will changeable from good to evil, although it is changeable from this object of will to that so long as the order to the same ultimate end is preserved. [7] It is now apparent that such immutability is not in conflict with the power of free will whose act it is to choose, for choice is of the things for the end; choice is not of the ultimate end. Therefore, just as there is now no conflict with free will in the fact that with an immutable will we desire beatitude and fly from misery in general, so there will be no contrariety to free will in the fact that the will is unchangeably fixed upon some definite thing as upon an ultimate end. The reason: just as there now inheres in us unchangeably that common nature by which we desire beatitude in general, so then there will persist in us unchangeably that special disposition by which this thing or that is desired as ultimate end. [8] On the other hand, the separate substances—namely, angels—are in the nature in which they are created closer neighbors to their ultimate perfection than human souls are, for they do not need to acquire knowledge from the senses nor to arrive at conclusions by reasoning from principles as souls do; rather, they are able by infused species to arrive straightway at the contemplation of truth. And therefore, just at the moment they adhered to the end which was due, or that which was not they persisted unchangeably therein. [9] For all that, one should not think that the souls, after they take up their bodies again in the resurrection, lose the immutability of will; rather, they persevere therein, because, as was said above, the bodies in the resurrection will be disposed as the soul requires, but the souls will not be changed by means of the bodies.

Chapter

THE LAST JUDGMENT

[1] From the foregoing it is clear, then, that there is a twofold retribution for what a man does in life: one for the soul—and this he receives as soon as the soul has been separated from the body, but there will be another retribution when the bodies are assumed again—and some will receive bodies which are incapable of suffering and glorious; but others, bodies capable of suffering and ignoble. The first retribution is made to men singly and one by one, in that men die separately and one by one. But the second retribution will be made to all and at the same time in that all will rise at the same time. Every retribution, of course, wherein different decisions are rendered according to differing merits demands a judgment. Necessarily, therefore, the judgment is twofold: There is one, regarding the soul, in which separately and one by one punishment or reward is determined; there is another common one, however, regarding the soul and body-in it there will be determined for all at the same time what they have earned. [2] And since by His humanity in which He suffered and rose again Christ earned for us both resurrection and eternal life, it is to Him that universal judgment belongs, in which those who rise are rewarded or punished. For this reason we read of Him in John (5:27): “He has given Him power to do judgment, because He is the Son of man.” [3] A judgment, of course, ought to be proportional to the matters judged. And because the last judgment will be about the reward or punishment of visible bodies, it is suitable that it be carried on visibly. Hence, also, Christ will carry out that judgment in the form of humanity which all may be able to see, both the good and the wicked. The sight of His divinity, however, makes men blessed, as was shown in Book III. Accordingly, this will be visible only to the good. The judgment of the soul, of course, since it is about invisible things, is carried on invisibly. [4] Granted, of course, that Christ has the authoritative act of judging in that last judgment nonetheless at the same time those will judge with Him—sitting with the judge, as it were—who adhered to Him more than others. These are the Apostles, of whom it was said: “You, who have followed Me, shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mat. 19:2.8); and this promise is extended also to those who follow in the footprints of the Apostles.

Chapter

THE STATE OF THE WORLD AFTER THE JUDGMENT

[1] When, therefore, the last judgment is completed, human nature will be entirely established in its goal. However, since everything bodily is somehow for the sake of man (as was shown in Book III), at that time, also, the entire bodily creation will be changed—and suitably—to be in harmony with the state of the men who then will be. And because men will then be incorruptible, the state of generation and corruption will then be taken away from the whole bodily creation. And this is what the Apostle says: that “the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8: 21). [2] Now, generation and corruption in inferior bodies are caused by the movement of the heavens. Therefore, that generation and corruption may come to a stop in the inferior bodies, the movement of the heavens must also come to a stop. And on this account the Apocalypse (10:6) says “that time shall be no longer.” [3] It ought not, of course, seem impossible that the movement of the heavens come to a stop. For the movement of the heavens is not natural in the way the movement of heavy and light bodies is—that is, they are inclined to movement by an interior active principle—but it is called natural in that the heavenly body has an aptitude for such movement; the principle of that motion, however, is an intellect, as was shown in Book III. The heaven is moved, therefore, as are things moved by a will. But a will moves for a purpose. Of course, the purpose of the motion of the heavens cannot be the very movement itself, for motion, since it always tends toward another, does not have the character of an ultimate end. Neither can one say that the end of the heavenly motion is this: the reducing of the heavenly body from potency to act in place where. This potency can never be entirely reduced to act, for, while the heavenly body is actually in one place where, it is in potency to another such, just as is the case of prime matter with respect to forms. Therefore, just as nature in generation does not have as end the reduction of matter from potency to act, but something consequent on this reduction—namely, that perpetuity in things by which they approach a divine likeness—so the end of heavenly motion is not the being reduced from potency to act, but something consequent on this reduction: namely, to be made like to God in the act of causing. But all things generable and corruptible caused by the motion of the heaven are somehow ordered to man as to an end, a s was shown in Book III. Therefore, the motion of the heaven is especially on account of the generation of men; in this it does most to accomplish a divine likeness in the act of causing, since man’s form—namely, the rational soul—is immediately created by God, as was shown in Book II. But the multiplication of souls to infinity cannot be an end, for infinity is contrary to the notion of end. Nothing awkward, then, ensues if we hold that, when a fixed number of men is filled out, the motion of the heavens ceases. [4] Nonetheless, when the motion of the heavens and generation and corruption in the elements have come to a stop, their substance will continue to be by reason of the changelessness of the divine goodness, “for He created all things that they might be” (Wis. 1:14). Hence, the being of things which have an aptitude for perpetuity will remain in perpetuity. Both wholly and in part, of course, the heavenly bodies have the nature to be everlasting. The elements, however, have it wholly, but not in part, for in part they are corruptible. Man, of course, has it in part, but not wholly: for the rational soul is incorruptible; the composite, corruptible. These, then, which in any way at all have an aptitude for being everlasting will abide in their substance in that last state of the world, and God in His power will supply what is wanting in their own weakness. [5] But the other animals, the plants, and the mixed bodies, those entirely corruptible both wholly and in part, will not remain at all in that state of incorruption. In this way, then, must the saying of the Apostle be understood: “The fashion of this world passes away” (1 Cor. 7:31), that this appearance of the world which now is will cease to be, but the substance will remain. Thus, also, is understood what Job (24:12) says: “Man, when he is fallen asleep, shall not rise again: till the heavens be broken” that is, until that disposition of the heaven ceases to be, that in which it is moved and causes motion in others. [6] But since among the other elements fire is the most active, and tends to consume the corruptible, the consumption of the things which ought not remain in the future state will most suitably take place by fire. Hence, one holds in accord with the faith that at the last the world will be purified by fire, not from corruptible bodies alone, but from that infection which the place incurred by serving as the dwelling of sinners. And this is what is said in 2 Peter (3:7): “The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto, fire against the day of judgment,” so that we may understand by “heavens” not the very firmament in which the stars are, whether fixed or wandering, but those heavens of air which are close to the earth. [7] Since, then, the bodily creation will at the last be disposed in harmony with the state of man—since men, of course, will not only be freed from corruption but also clothed with glory, as what has been said makes clear—necessarily even the bodily creation will achieve a kind of resplendence in its own way. [8] AND, HENCE, THE SAYING OF THE APOCALYPSE (21:l): “I SAW A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH.” AND ISAIAH (65:17-18): “BEHOLD I CREATE NEW HEAVENS, AND A NEW EARTH: AND THE FORMER THINGS SHALL NOT BE IN REMEMBRANCE AND THEY SHALL NOT COME UPON THE HEART. BUT YOU SHALL BE GLAD AND REJOICE FOREVER.” AMEN.