HIS EXISTENCE and HIS NATURE A Ί homistic Solution of Certain Agnostic Antinomies By The Rev. R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, O.P. MASTER IN THEOLOGY, PROFESSOR OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY IN THE COLLEGIO ANGELICO, ROME* MEMBER OF THE ROMAN ACADEMY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Translated from the Fifth French Edition By DOM BEDE ROSE, O.S.B., D.D. ST. BENEDICT'S ABBEY MOUNT ANGEL. ORB. Volume II "The first indemonstrable principle is that the same thing cannot be at the same time affirmed and denied; this is based on the notion of being and non-being, and on this principle all others are based, as is stated by the Philosopher in the Fourth Book of his Metaphysics, ch. 3." (St. Thomas, Summa Theol., la 2ae, q.94, a.2) B. HERDER BOOK CO., 15 & 17 SOUTH BROADWAY, ST LOUIS, MO., AND 33 QUEEN SQUARE, LONDON, W.C. 1949 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Printed in U. S. A. NIHIL OBSTAT P. Hieronymus Wespe, O.S.B., Censor deputatus IMPRIMI POTEST •i'Thomas Meier, O.S.B., Abbas NIHIL OBSTAT Sts. Ludovici, die 13. Dec., 1933, F. J. Holwecl(. Censor labrorum IMPRIMATUR Sti. Ludovici, die 14. Dec., 193s, ►F Joannes J. Glennon, Archiepiscopus Copyright 1936 B. HERDER BOOK CO. Fifth Printing Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton and New York TABLE OF CONTENTS PART II THE NATURE OF GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES CHAPTER PAGE I What Formally Constitutes the Divine Nature According to Our Imperfect Mode of Know­ ing It .................................................................. 3 42. The problem. The Deity, as it is in itself, cannot be known by our natural powers. But among the divine perfections which are contained formally and emi­ nently in it, and of which we have a natural knowl­ edge, is there not one which claims priority over the others? Various solutions............................................... 3 43. Neither free will nor the good is what formally con­ stitutes the divine nature............................................. 13 44. Does being itself or subsistent thought formally con­ stitute the divine nature?............................................. 16 II The Derivation of the Attributes from Self­ subsisting Being......................................... 33 45. Notion, division and derivation in general of the at­ tributes . i.............................................................. 33 ARTICLE I ATTRIBUTES RELATIVE TO THE BEING OF COD 46. Unity and simplicity; truth; perfection and goodness; infinity......................................................................... 43 47. Immensity, immutability, eternity................................ 50 48. Invisibility, incomprehensibility, knowableness . . 54 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ARTICLE II ATTRIBUTES RELATIVE TO THE DIVINE OPERATIONS FACE CHATTER 49. Wisdom, foreknowledge, providence............................59 50. The free will and love of God............................................. 95 51. God’s justice and mercy................................................. 108 52. Omnipotence.................................................................. 133 53. The intimate life of God: mystery of the Holy Trinity 170 III Reconciliation of the Divine Attributes: Their Formal Existence and Their Identification in the Eminence of the Deity..................... 187 54. The general antinomy...................................................... 190 55. The indirect solution of the antinomies and the af­ firmed cause of the mystery..................................... 199 ARTICLE III EXPLANATION REGARDING THE PHILOSOPHICAL MYSTERY IN THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE ABSOLUTE PERFECTIONS OF GOD 56. There is no repugnance for the same analogous perfec­ tion to be found formally in the two analogates which differ infinitely from each other by their mode or manner of being............................... 203 57. It is no contradiction for the absolute perfections to be­ come really identical in the Deity and to be present there, however, formally and in the pure state; for, in proportion as they are purified from all imperfec­ tion, they tend, each according to its proper exigen­ cies, in some way to become identical.............. 225 58. The difficulties inherent in the Scotist and Suarezian conceptions of the divine names..................... 246 TABLE OF CONTENTS v PAGE CHARTER IV The Special Antinomies Relating to Freedom . 268 59. Statement of the problem; absolute Intellectualism and Libertism, the third antinomy of Kant .... 269 60. Freedom results from intelligence............................... 284 61. Liberty and the principle of sufficient reason . . . 306 62. The divine attributes of liberty and wisdom . . . 338 63. The divine attributes of liberty and immutability . . 351 64. Human liberty and the divine universal causality . . 354 65. Moral evil and the divine universal causality: (a) sufficient grace; (b) sin..................................... 365 V God’s Ineffability and the Absurdity of the Un­ knowable. Conclusion and Confirmation . 397 66. God’s ineffability ............................................................ 397 67. Progressive harmony of the apparently conflicting per­ fections in the life of grace, which is sanctity . . 405 68. The false harmony. The Unknowable-absurd, the con­ fusion between being and nothingness .411 69. The way which generally leads one to the absurdity of the unknowable: the confusion between good and evil in moral mediocrity.................................................414 70. How Agnosticism leads to Atheistic Evolutionism: identification of being and nothingness in becoming 424 71. Conclusion: the true God or radical absurdity . . 436 APPENDIXES I 11 Note Note on the Validity of the Principles of Inertia and Conservation of Energy.......................... 447 on the Simplicity of the Analogical Notion of Being................................................................................ 453 TABLE OF CONTENU S vi face III The Various Forms of Pantheism Refuted by St. Thomas 456 IV St. Thomas and Neomolinism: A Synthesis op the Doc­ trine of St. Thomas on These Questions Apropos of a New Presentation of the Scientia Media . 465 EPILOGUE God Determining or Determined; No Other Alternative . 529 A Question of Words.................................................................. 530 A Question of Principles............................................................ 537 Foundation for the Distinction between Potency and Act According to St. Thomas........................................... 548 Definition of Potency and the Necessity of a Real Distinc­ tion between It and Act...................... 548 The Last Answer to the Dilemma: termined; There Is No “God Determining or De­ Other Alternative” . . 558 Index............................................................................................... 563 PART II THE NATURE OF GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES CHAPTER I What Formally Consititutes the Divine Nature According to Our Imperfect Mode of Knowing It 42) The problem. The Deity, as it is in itself, cannot be fnown by our natural powers. But among the divine perfections which are contained formally and eminently in it, and of which we have a natural knowledge, is there not one which claims priority over the others? Various solutions. Having proved that God is, we must proceed to the considera­ tion of what He is. We have already (n. 32) proved that reason can acquire some knowledge of the divine essence, but that it is incapable of knowing positively what properly constitutes the Deity or of knowing it quidditative. “God can be known indeed,” says St. Thomas,1 in a natural way “through the images of His cilects,” in that these effects are a reflection of Him.2 Now there cannot be equality between the divine effects and the infinite virtue or power which produced them, and they can be only im­ perfect and very faint images of this power, so that they present as multiplied and divided the attributes which are present in the first cause in an absolutely simple unity. Thus, in a way, the sun contains eminently the various forms of energy which we un­ doubtedly find on the earth. Thus colors are contained in light, and in a higher order the unity of the human soul includes the 1 Summa theol., la, q. 13, a. 5; q. 12, a. 12. 2 The proper or proportionate object of a created intelligence is created being; •nd the proper object of a created intelligence united to a body is the essence of sensible things or what there is of the intelligible in the sensible. Cf. la, q. 12, ·. 4. See also infra (n. 47), on the'invisibility of God. 3 4 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE perfection of the sensitive and vegetative souls, such as we find these in animals and plants.3 Therefore all the perfections which are many and separate in creatures are found unitedly in the eminent simplicity of the Deity. We see this to be particularly so from the proof based on the various degrees in being (fourth proof), arguing as it does from the multiple to the one, from the composite to the simple, from the imperfect to the perfect (n. 39). St. Thomas discusses this question at length in connection with the names given to God. “When any term expressing perfection,” he says, “is applied to a creature, it signifies that perfection dis­ tinct in idea from other perfections; as, for instance, by the term ‘wise’ applied to a man, we signify some perfection distinct from a man’s essence, and distinct from his power and existence, and from all similar things; whereas, when we apply it to God, we do not mean to signify anything distinct from His essence or power or existence. Thus also this term ‘wise’ (or the term ‘being’), ap­ plied to man, in some degree circumscribes, envelops, and com­ prehends the thing signified; whereas this is not the case when it is applied to God; but it leaves the thing signified as incompre­ hended, and as a perfection which infinitely surpasses all the meanings of which it is susceptible. Hence it is evident that this term ‘wise’ is not applied in the same way to God and to man. The same rule applies to other terms. Hence no name is predicated univocally of God and of creatures . . . but in an analogous sense. “However, we cannot say, as some have said, that the names predicated of God and of creatures are purely and simply equivo­ cal, in such a way that there is no similarity between the uncreated and the created being. If such were the case, nothing could be known or demonstrated of God through creatures; for the rea3 These are but very faint analogies. Solar energy is not, in fact, of a higher order than terrestrial energy. Light is not of a higher order than colors. Finally, the human soul, which contains eminently and formally sensitive life and vegetative life, is still very defective, for sensitive life applies univocally to man and beast, whereas nothing can be predicated univocally of God and creatures. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 5 soning would always be exposed to the fallacy of equivocation; the same term would be employed in totally different senses, a verbal similarity being the only thing in their favor. How could the Philosopher have demonstrated so many important truths concerning the Author of all things? How could the Apostle St. Paul have said in Rom. 1:20: ‘The invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made’? “If the names of the absolute perfections predicated of God and of creatures are neither univocal nor equivocal, what are they? They are analogous. This means that they denote things essentially different between which there is a certain propor­ tion.” 4 We have already (n. 29) proved the transcendent or analogical validity of the primary ideas which denote absolute perfections. These perfections, as we said, may be predicated of God not merely by way of metaphor, as when we say of God that He is angry; but they may be said of Him literally. As a matter of fact, they imply no imperfection and therefore are in no way opposed to the supremely perfect Being.® Although they may be predicated of God according to their proper meaning, or formally, these notions denote, nevertheless, things essentially different when applied to God and to creatures. Thus, even in the created order, the notion of knowledge which is applied, according to its proper meaning, both to sensation and to intellection, denotes in both cases essentially different things, there being a resemblance only of analogy or proportion between them. Sensation is to the sensible as intellection is to the intelligible. For this reason we can truly say of each that it is knowledge. In like manner we say that the first cause is to its existence, as the creature is to its existence: the first cause is to its goodness, as the creature is to its goodness. This permits us to say of God that 4 St. Thomas, la, q. 13, a. 5. 5 Ibid., a. 2, 3, 6. 6 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE He is good, and to call Him “being,” using these terms in an analogous sense. It is only in a negative and relative way that we can acquire by our natural powers a knowledge of the divine mode of these per­ fections. Thus we say that God is an infinite being, meaning by this that He is not finite, not limited. Or again, by comparison with the goodness of created beings, we say of God that He is the sovereign Good. The argument from causality enables us to affirm the existence of God and of His perfections. The mode of the presence of these attributes in God is but very imperfectly determined by way of negation and of eminence.6 In chapter three we will explain how these absolute perfections can all be found formally identified in the eminence of the Deity without being destructive of one another, and without ceasing to be formally in the Deity.7 It is of importance to point out here that the formal principle of the Deity as to what properly constitutes it as such, cannot be known by our natural powers. This proves that in God there are truths of a supernatural order.8 Cajetan, merely repeating the doc­ trine of St. Thomas and recalling the terms used by Dionysius, says that the formal concept of the Deity is superior to the con­ cepts of being, of unity, and of goodness. “The divine reality is • Ibid., a. 3. 7 The classical text o£ St. Thomas on this point is that taken from the first book of his Sentences, d. 2, q. 1, a. 3, O: "That God exceeds the power of our intellect, this is due, on the part of God Himself, to the plenitude of His perfection, and also on our part, to the feebleness of the intellect which fails to comprehend this perfection. Hence it is evident that a plurality of these notions is not only due to the nature of our intellect but also because of God Himself, in that His perfection surpasses each concept of our intellect. Therefore, there is something in the object which corresponds to the plurality of those notions, as to what God is, not indeed the plurality of the object, but a fulness of perfection, and hence it comes about that these concepts are applied to it.” See also the explanation of this text given by the Thomists at the beginning of their treatises on God, e. g., Billuart, De Deo, diss. 2, a. 3; also John of St. Thomas, Gonct. * Summa, la, q. 12, a. 4. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 7 prior to being and to all its differences: it is above being and above the one.”9 The Deity contains formally the notes of being, unity, and good­ ness, but it is above these. That is why they can be identified in the eminence of the Deity without being eradicated. All Thomists agree in saying that there is no real or formal dis­ tinction between the divine attributes previous to that made by the mind. Likewise in created things, between the genus and spe­ cific difference (animality and rationality, for instance, as found in man), there is no distinction previous to that made by the mind. 0 Cajetan, in his commentary on the Summa (la, q. 39, a. 1, n. 7), speaking of the Holy Trinity, says: “In the order of realities (so far as a thing is), in God a thing is one, not in a purely absolute sense nor in a purely relative sense nor is it mixed or composite or a result of both these, but it is one in a most eminent and formal way, containing in itself something relative (in fact, many things relative) and also something absolute. In the formal order (that of formal concepts), in itself, not according to our manner of speaking, in God there is but one formal concept, which is not purely absolute nor purely relative nor purely communicable, nor purely incommunicable. But it is a concept which in a most eminent and formal way contains whatever there is of absolute perfection, and whatever is demanded by the Trinity in a relative sense. It must be so, because to anything absolutely simple in itself and absolutely one, there must correspond a formal and adequate concept: otherwise the thing would not be intrinsically and immediately the one intelligible of whatsoever intellect. We have a confirmation of this in the ’Verbum Dei* because it is the only one of its kind. Evidently if the word is perfect, it should adequately represent that of which it is the word. “We make a mistake, however, in arguing from absolute and relative things to the knowledge of God, in that we imagine that the distinction between the absolute and the relative is, as it were, prior to the divine reality. Yet quite the opposite is the case: for the divine reality is prior to being and all its differences. It is above being and above the one!' In like manner Cajetan (op. cit., la, q. 13, a. 5, n. 7) remarks: “Thus the formal concept of wisdom, and the formal concept of justice are elevated so as to constitute one formal concept of a higher order, the proper concept, namely, of the Deity. They constitute numerically one formal concept, containing eminently what is implied in each concept: not virtually, however, as the concept of light includes the concept of color, but formally, as the concept of light includes the concept of calorific energy.’’ St. Thomas had said about the same: “God, however, as considered in Himself, is altogether one and simple; yet our intellect knows Him by different conceptions, because it cannot see Him as He is in Himself’’ (la, q. 13, a. 12). 8 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE We also say that they are only virtually distinct, or that their reality is the foundation for making this distinction which actually exists as such only in the mind. Even less than this is the virtual distinction between the divine attributes. We are right in conceiv­ ing the genus as potential and imperfect, and the specific difference as its extrinsic perfection, which is superadded to it and which is its determining element. But in God there is no foundation for such a distinction. We have no grounds for conceiving a divine perfection as potential, imperfect, and determined by another divine perfection extrinsic to it. Hence, even according to our very imperfect mode of knowing, the divine perfections must be con­ ceived not as extrinsic to one another, but as actually included in one another in an implicit way, though each is not explicitly in­ cluded in the others; otherwise we would have to admit a purely verbal distinction between them. Among the virtual distinctions, this one between the attributes is therefore the least that can be conceived.10 Hence we see that it is impossible for us to know, by the natural power of reason, what formally constitutes the divine nature as it is in itself. To arrive at a knowledge of God, according to what 10 Such is the common teaching of the Thomists. See John of St. Thomas, Gonet, and Billuart, at the beginning of their treatises on God. Billuart, for instance, in his De Deo, diss. 2, a. 2, sec. 3, writes as follows: “The divine attributes are not distinguished from each other, and from the divine essence; nor do the divine relations differ from the divine essence by an actual-formal distinction, which is commonly called the Scotist distinction. [It is a formal distinction, though actual on the part of the thing.] Between each of the divine attributes and between them and the divine essence, also between the relations and the essence, there is a virtual distinction, or one known as rationis ratiocinatae [a purely mental distinc­ tion]. This distinction is not of the major kind, when the objective concept of a thing excludes that of another; but it is of the minor kind, which is by the way of explicit and implicit concepts.” When the Thomists say that the divine essence actually and implicitly contains the divine attributes, they have in mind the divine essence according to our mode of knowing it. Thus, one who speaks of God as the self-existing Being, docs not explicitly speak of His justice. But the divine essence, such as it is in itself, accord­ ing to the proper, intrinsic, and eminent notion of the Deity, contains actually and explicitly all the divine attributes. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 9 properly and intrinsically constitutes the Deity, there must be a supernatural revelation. It is only by divine faith that we are able in this life to know in an obscure manner the mystery of the in­ timate life of God. But to have evident knowledge of what con­ stitutes the Deity, we should have to see it directly, as the blessed do in heaven. Only then could we see the intimate manner in which the divine perfections, which can be known in a natural way, are indentified in the eminence of the Deity without being destructive of one another. Although it is not possible to know in a natural way what con­ stitutes the Deity as it is in itself, among the absolute perfections which can be known in a natural way, is there not one, according to our imperfect mode of knowing them, which is the fundamen­ tal principle of the distinction between God and the world and which is the source of all the divine attributes? If such be the case, we should be right from the logical point of view of our imperfect knowledge in saying that this perfection is what formally con­ stitutes the divine essence. It would be in God what rationality is in man: the specifying principle which distinguishes Him from other beings, and from which His properties are derived. The divine perfections, as they are in themselves, though not distinct from one another, are all equal, in the sense that no one of them is more perfect than the others, each of them implying the others. But, inasmuch as they are distinct from one another according to our mode of knowing them, and are analogically like created perfections, it is possible to find a certain order among them, in that there is a first among them.11 The problem thus stated has been solved in various ways by the Scholastics. We must give a brief account of these solutions. 1) Ockham and the Nominalists do not admit that any one of the perfections explains all the others. This is perfectly in agree­ ment with their theory about universals. They maintain that an 11 See Billuart, De Deo, diss. 2, a. 3, appendix. 10 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE essence is merely a collection of individuals; a substance, the ag­ gregation of its different characteristics. Likewise, according to them, the divine essence is nothing more than the grouping of all the perfections, and there is no need to seek for a logical priority of one of them over the others. Moreover, the Nominalists ad­ mitted merely a verbal distinction between the divine attributes, a purely mental one {rationis ratiocinantis'), such as we have be­ tween Tullius and Cicero. This opinion of the Nominalists leads to Agnosticism. In fact, it would no longer be possible to deduce the other divine attributes from one divine and fundamental perfection. Absolute immu­ tability, for instance, would not have logical priority over eternity. Theology as a science would no longer be possible. 2) According to Scotus, the divine essence is formally con­ stituted by radical infinity, and he considers that this means the exigency of all possible perfections. Also, according to this view, these perfections would be formally distinct from one another in God, before any consideration on the part of our mind. The Thomists reject this opinion, because radical infinity or the exigency of all perfections cannot be thought of, so they say, except in a subject whose essence includes precisely this idea of exigency. This latter does not constitute the divine essence, but presupposes it and is founded upon it. In fact, we shall see that in­ finity is deduced from the fact that God is the self-subsisting Being (la, q. 7, a. 1). Besides, infinity is a mode of each of the divine attributes and not the principle from which they are de­ rived. Finally, the simplicity of God does not admit of a formal distinction between the divine perfections previous to any con­ sideration of them on our part. God would thus be an accumula­ tion of perfections and not Perfection itself. 3) Several theologians—among whom are the Thomists John of St. Thomas, Gonet, and Billuart—are of the opinion that what WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE u formally constitutes the divine essence is subsistent intellection which is always in actu. This reminds us of Aristotle’s νοησιακ voyais: thinking is a thinking on thinking. Their principal argument is as follows : The most perfect of the metaphysical degrees is intellection, according to the gradation which we find among beings. Lifeless creatures have only being; above them we have beings endowed with life, and intelligence belongs to the higher form of life. This opinion differs totally from absolute intellectualism, such as we find, for instance, advocated by Hegel. According to his view, being resolves itself into thought, an opinion which leads to panlogism and to the negation of freedom. 4) Most theologians consider self-subsisting Being (aseity, ens a se) as formally constituting the divine nature, that is, ulti­ mately distinguishing it from everything created, and as the prin­ ciple from which are deduced all the divine perfections, intellec­ tion included. First of all, according to this view, God is "He who is," as revealed to Moses (Exod., ch. iii). This is what Aris­ totle means when he says that God is Actus purus. Among the Thomists holding this opinion, we have Capreolus, Bannez, Gotti, Contenson, Ledesma, Del Prado, and others. Molina, Vasquez, Torres, and others not of the school of St. Thomas side with these Thomists. Before examining the soundness of these two last named opin­ ions, let us point out the principal solutions given by those out­ side the Catholic schools of theology. 5) Certain ones are inclined to hold the priority of goodness over all the other attributes. This view recalls the following fa­ mous passage of Plato: “In the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beau­ tiful and right, and the immediate source of reason and truth in 12 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the intellectual world. However beautiful science and truth may be, you can feel sure, without fear of being deceived, that the good exceeds them in dignity.” Republic, Bk. VII, 517, D. 6) Modern Voluntarists, such as Secrétan, maintain that liberty is what formally constitutes the divine nature. For absolute being to be its own reason for what it is (ratio sui), according to Secré­ tan, it must be absolute liberty, liberty of second potency, free to be free. “As substance, it gives itself existence; as living, it gives itself substance; as spirit, it gives itself life; as absolute, it gives itself liberty. . . . The finite spirit is both spirit and nature, and not merely spirit. It would be the perfection of the spirit to be a pure spirit, having nothing material. The pure spirit consists only in what it does, which means that it is absolute liberty. ... I am what I wish. This formula is therefore the factotum.”12 Lequier, too, had to admit that the fundamental truth in the deductive order, the truth which is the principle upon which all others are based, is the fact of divine liberty, since for him the fundamental truth in the order of invention is not the principle of identity, but the fact of human liberty. He also maintains with Secrétan that God willed to restrict His foreknowledge with regard to our acts so as to leave us free.13 Boutroux held and taught a similar view. “In God, power or liberty is infinite; it is the source of His existence and what comes from it is not subject to the constraint of fatality. The divine essence co-eternal with its power is actual perfection. Its necessity is that of the practical order, that is, it ought to be realized, and cannot be itself, unless it freely becomes a reality.” 14 Not long ago in Germany, Dr. Hermann Schell held that God is not only ratio sui, but causa sui. It is difficult to conceive of other ways of solving the problem as to what formally constitutes the divine essence. Priority is given 12 La Philosophie de la liberté, 2d ed., Vol. I, Bk. XV, pp. 361-370. 18 See Lequier, La Recherche d’une vérité première (fragments posthumes), pp. 82-85. 14 Contingence des lois de la nature, 3d ed., p. 156. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 13 either to Being or to the Good or to die Infinite or to intellection or to liberty. Whether we consider in God what is subjective or what is objective, no other answers than these can be found. 43) Neither free will nor the good is what formally constitutes the divine nature. It is easy to explain why Scholastic philosophy never thought of saying that liberty is what formally constitutes the divine essence. In fact, it is difficult to conceive liberty as being prior to intelli­ gence. Even Secrétan admits this without seeming to suspect that this acknowledgment means the very ruin of his libertarian sys­ tem. “Liberty without intelligence is impossible,” he says, “it would be mistaken for chance, which latter is not a species of causality but its negation. ... It would be a potency which of itself would unconsciously determine the law according to which it becomes a reality. That is a contradiction in terms. No, the free being is intelligent. It is useless to dwell on this point.” 15 “But, on the contrary,” remarks Pillon on this subject, in his criticism of this philosophy, “it is of great importance to dwell on this point,” for we must say whether, in the Absolute, liberty is dependent upon intelligence as it is with us—and this would be the ruination of Secrétan’s system—or, if the reverse is true, “whether absolute freedom cannot be disdnguished from this radical contingency which they tell us is the negation of causality. That is the dilemma which must be faced and which really deserves some notice. Secrétan passes over it without making the least effort to escape from it.” 16 Whereas we cannot think of liberty without delibera­ tion of the intellect, we can conceive of intellect apart from liberty. First comes the intellect, and liberty, as we shall see, is derived from it. Besides, the Libertarian thesis leads one to hold with Ockham and Descartes, that by a purely arbitrary decree God has 15 La Philosophie de la liberté, 2d ed., Vol. I, lesson 17, p. 403. 18 Pillon, La Philosophie de Secrétan, p. 33. 14 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE distinguished good from evil. St. Thomas looked upon this doc­ trine as blasphemous.17 It is “dishonoring” God, as Leibniz says. “Why should not God be, therefore, just as well the principle of evil which the Manichaeans believed in, as the principle of good of orthodox thinkers?”18 It is no less contradictory to maintain that God is cause of Him­ self. For a thing to cause, it must exist, “for nothing can be the sufficient cause of its own existence, if its existence is caused,” says St. Thomas (la, q. 3, a. 4). God can only be ratio sui (His own sufficient reason), inasmuch as His essence in its formal concept implies actual existence; now this is precisely what is meant by aseity. God is a se, of Himself, without being cause of Himself. Likewise, in the order of invention, the principle of causality is not the ultimate principle. It is but a principle derived from that of sufficient reason, and this latter refers back to the principle of identity. Neither can we admit that the Good is what formally constitutes the divine essence. St. Thomas (la, q. 5, a. 2: "Whether goodness is prior in idea to being") proves that being has a logical priority over the good. The formal concept of goodness adds something to that of being. Goodness is being that has reached its fullness and perfection, that is capable of appealing to the appetitive fac­ ulty, as something desirable, of arousing one’s love for it, of per­ fecting one, and of making one happy. The good is what all see!{ for. In a word, the good is being inasmuch as it is desirable, and it is virtuous good that is meant, for which we are by nature or­ dained in our actions. It is being inasmuch as it is what must be desired. For this reason, the notion of good is less simple, hence less independent, less absolute, less universal than the notion of being. Being does not presuppose the good; it is the good that 17 De veritate, q. 23, a. 6: “To say that justice depends simply on the will, is to say that the divine will does not act according to wisdom, and this is blasphemy.” 18 Leibniz, Theodicy, Π, sec. 176 £, WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 15 presupposes being, and this latter is the first of notions. We shall see that God is the sovereign Good only because He is the pleni­ tude of being, the self-subsisting Being. In the same way, intellect which receives its specification from being, is superior to the will which receives its specification from the good, and that is why the intellect directs the will.19 But if in itself and absolutely {simpliciter') being is prior to goodness, in a certain sense {secundum quid'), goodness is prior to being. The explanation given by St. Thomas is as follows: “From the point of view of causality, goodness is prior to being. But good­ ness, since it has the aspect of desirable, implies the idea of a final cause, the causality of which is first among causes, since an agent does not act except for some end; and by an agent matter is moved to its form. Thus goodness, as a cause, is prior to being, as is the end to the form. It is for this reason that Dionysius {De div. nom., ch. v), among the names signifying the divine causality or the relation of God to creatures, gives good priority over being” (la, q. 5, a. 2 ad rum). Wherefore, for us, or in the causal relations which He establishes with us, God is, first of all, the good God, Goodness itself: for good is essentially diffusive of itself. And this sums up all the truth contained in the famous passage we have quoted from Plato’s Republic. But if we consider God as He is in Himself and as He is related to us, He is pre-eminently Being itself. Being is, in itself and absolutely so, prior to good. It is by this profound distinction that St. Thomas reconciles his doctrine with that of the Augustinians, who instead of considering the object of theology as it is in itself, considered it as it is related to us, in that it is the object of the appetitive faculty or of the will, and of its two acts of fruition and of use. In Peter Lombard’s Sen­ tences this relative aspect of the object of theology is made the principle in distinguishing between God and created things. In the Sentences, God is primarily the being which for us cannot be 10 See la, q. 82, a. 3: "Whether the will is a higher power than the intellect.” i6 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the means, but which must be the source of our joy, whereas cre­ ated things serve as the means by which we attain to eternal happi­ ness. On the other hand, in the Summa theologica, St. Thomas considers the object of theology as it is in itself, in which God is primarily the First Being. “As far as our intellect can judge of the matter, goodness, action, and desire belong essentially to being, and are modes of being. It is impossible for us to say that being is a mode of the good and of action. It is the ontological concept of being which comprises the dynamic concept, and not vice versa.” 20 That St. Augustine and St. Thomas held opposite opinions on this point, has been far too much exaggerated, we think, in these latter times.21 It is particularly from the psychological and moral standpoint that St. Augustine considers the object of theology, whereas St. Thomas considers the object from the metaphysical point of view. In this there is no contradiction, but subordination of views. The way in which St. Thomas reconciles these two points of view, is by distinguishing, as we have just explained, between God considered either as He is in Himself or only as He is re­ lated to us. 44) Does being itself or subsistent thought formally constitute the divine nature? In determining God’s nature, St. Thomas (la, q. 3) begins by proving that God is pure Spirit,22 and that He is Being itself.22 20 Cf. Gardcil, Du donné révélé à la théologie, pp. 279-284; also his article “Bien” in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. In his Du donné révélé à la théologie, Gardeil insists more on the difference between the Augustinian and Thomistic points of view, without excluding the possibility of reconciling these views. 21 We find this same exaggeration in various articles published in the Annales de philosophie chrétienne, 1905-1913. The same may be said of certain his­ torians of the Thomistic school of thought, whose viewpoint differs from that advocated by the Annales. 22 See la, q. 3, a. 1: “Whether God is a body”; a. 2: “Whether God is com­ posed of matter and form." 28 See la, q. 3, a. 4: “Whether essence and existence are the same in God." WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 17 This, we think, solves the problem which confronts us. God is pure Spirit. How could He have a body? However perfect this body might be, however subtle, delicate, and endowed with vi­ tality, the divine soul which gave it life would still be the nobler part. We should have to say, therefore, that there is something imperfect and limited in God. This body would not be life, but only a participation in life.24 This body would not be the prime mover, the principle of all motion, but would itself be set in mo­ tion.25 This body would not be the principle of all order in the universe, but would itself require an organizing principle.26 Finally, this body would constitute with the divine soul a com­ posite, more perfect than the parts. But, for the elements of a composite to be united, a cause is required (see n. 26). The First Being, as we have said, must be absolutely simple,27 simpler than a perfect diamond, and therefore must be pure spirit. This prime being is without organs of sense perception, sees not with the eyes but in a purely spiritual manner. It has no pas­ sions or emotions, but a love which is entirely spiritual. Only in a metaphorical sense can we, to express the strictness of its justice, speak of it as being angry. In this life we can have no positive concept of this spirit, except by denoting it in terms borrowed from corporeal things, as when we say that it is a substance and that it acts. But we can have only a negative and relative knowledge, derived from objects of sense experience, of what properly constitutes this being as such. In a negative way, we say of this being that it is incorporeal and im­ material, which means that it is without a body and without matter. In a relative way we try to define this being, referring to what is nobler in the sensible order, comparing it to light, as when 24 This would be an open contradiction of the fourth proof of God’s existence. 25 Contrary to the conclusion of the first proof of God’s existence. 29 This would be a denial of the conclusion established by the fifth proof of God's existence. 27 See the fourth proof of God’s existence. 18 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE we say that it is a bright light, at the same time remarking that its light is of a higher order than material light. Though we know quite well that a spirit has no spatial dimensions, yet, by way of analogy, we attribute dimensions to it, as when we speak of a highminded person, a profound intellect, an intellect of wide range, one so vast that it sees things from on high and from afar. By way of analogy with the resistance of material objects, we speak of a firm mind, or of one that is inconstant, yielding, or subtle. When we wish to designate an unusual subtlety of mind, we speak of the sharpness of the intellect Even though we were to know definitely what constitutes a pure spirit, we should still be in ignorance of what formally con­ stitutes the divine nature. In fact, it is possible for a pure spirit to be created; qur created intellect is of the purely spiritual order, and faith tells us of the existence of angels. But a speck of dust compared with an angel is not so insignificant as an angel com­ pared with God. Whether we consider the vast number of angels in the heavenly choirs, or the numerous suns of the nebulae, or the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore, all of these, in a sense, are equally infinitesimal compared with God. What separates a speck of dust from God is infinity, and between an angel and God the difference is also infinity. By what name, then, shall we truly designate God, if it does not suffice to say of Him that He is pure Spirit? God Himself has told us His name. He revealed it to Moses from the midst of the burning bush : “Moses said to God : Lo, I shall go to the children of Israel, and say to them : The God of your fathers hath sent me to you. If they should say to me: What is His name? what shall I say to them? God said to Moses: I am who am. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel. He who is has sent me to you” (Exod. 3:13, 14). The Hebrew word “Yahveh,” from which the word “Jehovah” is derived, is the equivalent of “He who is.” “This is my WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 19 name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” 28 We come across the same words in the last book of the New Testa­ ment (Apoc. 1:4, 8): “I am Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Thus God revealed Himself to His saints, as He did, for instance, to St. Catherine, when He said to her: “I am He who is, thou art who art not.” God is not only pure spirit, He is Being itselj, that subsists im­ material as such above all created things, not subject to any of the limitations that can be imposed on beings by space, matter, or any of the finite spiritual essences. The fourth proof of God’s ex­ istence, based on the degrees of being, makes this point quite clear. (See n. 39.) From the standpoint of our imperfect knowledge, is it not true that self-subsisting Being, or Actus purus, as Aristotle termed it, is the formal constituent of the divine essence? It seems easy to prove this.29 The formal constituent of the divine nature, according to our imperfect mode of knowing it, is what we conceive in God as be­ ing the fundamental principle that distinguishes Him from crea­ tures, and that is the source of His attributes. Now, since God is self-subsisting Being, He is fundamentally distinct from every­ thing created, and all absolute perfections must be attributed to Him. Therefore, self-subsisting Being is the formal constituent of the divine nature. This doctrine is explained by the very prominence which St. Thomas gives to the fundamental proposition: "'The divine es­ sence is the self-subsisting existence, the self-subsisting Being.” The article in which this question is discussed 30 is the terminus in the 28 Exod. 3: 15. 29 Sec Gotti, O.P., De Deo, II, dub. 3; also Contenson, O.P., De Deo, diss. 2, ch. ii; Zigliara, O.P., Summa phil. theol., Bk. II, ch. i. 80 St. Thomas, la, q. 3, a. 4. 20 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE ascendent order of metaphysical reasoning, the culminating point of the five ways by which we prove the existence of God who is distinct from the world. This article also gives us the principle in the descendent process of metaphysical reasoning, or of that method by which we deduce the divine attributes and establish in what way the world is related to God. The prime mover, as we have said, must be its very own activity and, being Actus purus in the operative order, it must be so also in the entitative order; for the mode of operation follows tire mode of being. Its essence, therefore, is not only capable of existing, it is its very Being. St. Thomas is more explicit when he says: “Existence is that which makes every form or nature actual; for goodness and hu­ manity are spoken of as actual, only because they are spoken of as existing. Therefore existence must be compared to essence, if the latter is a distinct reality, as actuality to potentiality.”31 And since in God there is no potentiality, as shown above, it follows that in Him the essence does not differ from existence. The first cause must find within itself the reason of its own ex­ istence. But it cannot cause itself, for to do so it would have to be already in existence. Therefore it did not receive existence, but is this very existence.32 Necessary being implies existence as an essential predicate, which means that it must not only have existence, but that it must be its very existence. The supreme being, absolutely simple and perfect, could not participate in existence, but must be essentially Being; therefore there could be no distinction in it of an essence as limiting and of an existence as limited,33 of an essence as capable of existence and of an existence as actualizing or determining this essence. 81 See la, q. 3, a. 4, ratio 2a. 82 Ibid., ratio ra. 88 Ibid., ratio 3a. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 21 The first intelligence, which directs all things to their ends, can­ not be itself directed to being, as to an object distinct from itself; it must be Being itself always actually known to itself. As we have said, such is the conclusion to which we come from the proofs of God’s existence, a conclusion which constitutes the fundamental principle of the distinction between God and the world. This distinction comes first to our notice from the fact that < »od is immutable, and the world is subject to change (first, sec­ ond, and third proofs). It is confirmed by the fact that God is absolutely simple and perfect, whereas the world is composite and imperfect (fourth and fifth proofs). Its definite formula and ulti­ mate claim to recognition come from the fact that God is He who is, Being itself, whereas everything else which exists is by its very nature only capable of existing, and is a composite of essence and existence.84 It is clear that no created being can be self-existent; even when actually existing, it is only contingent or non-essential existence that can be predicated of it. This existence is really dis1 inct from the actual essence in which it is received and by which it is limited. "Along with the essence given by God, He produces that which the essence receives" 85 This real distinction, which is beyond the scope of the senses or of experience, is imposed upon human reason so as to enable it to decide the arguments advanced by Parmenides against the multi­ plicity of beings. This multiplicity is a fact, and cannot be ex­ plained except by admitting a limiting principle, which is that of t eal and created essence. In fact, existence cannot of itself be multi­ 84 St. Thomas, la, q. 7, a. 1 ad 30m: “From the fact that the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite, this shows Him to be distinguished from all other beings and all others to be apart from Him. Even so, were there such a thing as a self-subsisting whiteness, the very I .ict that it did not exist in anything else, would make it distinct from every other whiteness existing in a subject." See also Michel, art. “Essence” in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Cf. Hugon, O.P., Cursus phil., V, 15 S., 15 ff., 46 f., 71 ff. 8,1 St. Thomas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 1 ad I7um. 22 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE plied, but only in so far as it is received in essences capable of existing, just as the form is multiplied only in so far as it is re­ ceived in matter.30 This composite of essence and existence is the principle of the imperfection and the mutability in created things. It presupposes that the notion of being as such is not univocal (as Scotus maintained),37 but analogous (la, q. 13, a. 5). Only in this sense can it be said that real essence, a potentiality which in receiving existence limits the same, is a part of being, though it is not existence. Being is predicated analogically or in a different way, of these two elements which constitute created being. Thus sensation and intellection are spoken of as knowledge, though the connotation is essentially different in each case, as also when the term is applied to the thought of created beings and of the un­ created Being. To declare, on the contrary, that the notion of being as such is univocal, makes impossible any explanation of the fact of the multiplicity of beings, and thus obliges the acceptance of Monism, as St. Thomas remarked of Parmenides; and the same may be said of Spinoza, the modern Parmenides. The old philosopher of Elis, as also Spinoza, was of the opinion that being is univocal, and from this he concluded the unicity of both being and sub36 See St. Thomas, la, q. 44, a. i: "It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God. For whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ig­ nited by fire. Now it has been shown (q. 3, a. 4), when treating of the divine simplicity, that God is the essentially self-subsisting Being. And also it was shown (q. 11, a. 4) that subsisting being must be one: as, if whiteness were self-subsisting, it would be one, since whiteness is multiplied by its recipients. Therefore all beings apart from God are not their own being, but are beings by participation.” See also Contra Gentes, Bk. II, ch. lii. De ente et essentia, chs. 5, 6; De veritate, q. 27, a. 1 ad 8um: "Everything which is of the genus of sub­ stance, is made up of parts which unite to form a real composite ... at least of essence and existence (ex esse et quod est)." For other texts of St. Thomas, see Del Prado, De veritate fundamentali philosophiae christianae, pp. 24-30. s’ See Scotus (Oxford), I, d. 3, q. 2, n. 5 ft. Cf. also the other texts of Scotus in his Summa theologica foannis Scoti, edited by Montefortino, la, q. 13, a. 5. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 23 stance. St. Thomas reduced the Eleatic argument to this syllogism: Λ thing that is simple cannot be diversified by itself, but only by something other than itself. Now being as such is simple; and what is not being, is nothing. Therefore, being cannot be diversi­ fied, and so there is only one being. To this objection St. Thomas replies as follows: “The mistake which Parmenides made was in believing that being, like a genus, is univocal. But, as a matter of fact, being is not a genus, and is predicated of the different types of being in very different Renses.” 38 If it were a genus, like animality, it could be diversified Hilly by differences which would be extrinsic to it, and since what is not being is nothing, there is no way by which it could be di­ versified. As a matter of fact, being is analogous, and the only unity it has is that of proportion, like that of the word “know,” which denotes either sense perception in its relation to the sensible ob­ ject, or intellectual perception in its relation to the intelligible object. From this point of view, being as such contains actually and implicitly the various modes by which being is diversified. It is predicated, but with very different meanings, of potentiality and of act, and also of created things which are composites con­ sisting of potentiality and of act, and it is also predicated of pure act. Certain theologians, following Scotus, reject the real distinction between essence and existence in created things, and cause the analogy of being to be merged in univocity.30 It is not surprising that the Thomists consider that these theologians thus undermine *" The comment of St. Thomas I..Hows: “In this Parmenides erred, 1.1.1 one meaning and one nature, I . 0 ible. For being is not a genus, many different senses. Suarez, Disp. Met., disp. 2, sec. (Metaphysica, Bk. I, ch. v, lesson 9) is as in that he always referred'to being as if it as is the case with genus. But this is imbut is predicated of various things and in 2, n. 34. See also infra, at the end of ch. iii. 24 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the distinction between God and the world and prepare the way for Pantheism.40 On the other hand, by at once admitting these fundamental and essentially connected truths,41 we avoid all forms of Pantheism as well as the theory of those who say that we are modes of the divine essence, and the theory of those who make God the formal principle by which all beings are determined. It is truly impossible to conceive the divine essence as passing through a process of evolution and enriching itself by the acquisi­ tion of new modes of being. God is being itself, completely de­ termined, and therefore incapable of further determination (la, q. 3, a. 6). It is equally absurd to maintain that God is the formal principle by which all beings are determined. In that case these beings would participate in His nature, as matter participates in the form (la, q. 3, a. 8). He would constitute with these beings a composite more perfect than Himself. God cannot be the subject of the material or spiritual changes 40 Cf. Del Prado, De veritate fundamentali philosophiae christianae, a criticism of the principles of the metaphysics of Suarez (chs. ix-xi); John of St. Thomas, O.P., Cursus phil., Phil, nat., q. 7, a. 4; Hugon, O.P., Cursus phil., V, 67. See also De Maria, S.J., Ontologia (tr., I, q. 1, a. 5); Cardinal Billot, S.J., De Deo and De Verbo incarnato, passim; Michel, art. “Essence" in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. 41 St. Thomas (De potentia, q. 7, a. 7) says: “The diversity of reference to existence in created things prevents us from predicating being univocally of them. God is His own existence, which cannot be said of anything created." Objection might be made, that all danger of Pantheism is sufficiently avoided by admitting that being is analogous, and that we need not go futher than this and admit a real distinction between essence and existence in created beings. In truth, the analogy of being suffices in explaining the diversification of the different essences viewed as merely possible: but when we consider this same analogy in beings which actually exist, or between the essence and the existence, in each of them, it demands a real distinction between essence and existence, since existence is but a contingent and non-essential predicate of created being. To deny this distinction is to be brought to the alternative of maintaining that existence is an essential predicate of everything which exists; hence, everything which exists is identified with God. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 25 which we observe in the world, nor can He be the formal law of these changes. His relations with tire world cannot be those of immanent cause but only of extrinsic cause, both efficient and final (la, q. 3, a. 8). Spinoza admitted only an immanent cause for the origin of the world, because of his theory of absolute realism by which he maintained that universal being exists as such apart from spirit. Thus he confuses being as such with the divine Being, at the same time admitting both the univocity and unicity of being. Another reason for this view held by Spinoza was that he un­ justly applied to metaphysics that process of reasoning which belongs to mathematics. This latter science, which is concerned only with quantity, rightly abstracts42 from sensible qualities, as well as from ef­ ficient and final causality. This cannot be the case with that science which is concerned only with being and which considers individual things in so far as they have being, and in so far as they come into existence and are kept in existence. This science must seek for the efficient and final cause of these beings. (See also Appendix III: “The Various Kinds of Pantheism Refuted by St. Thomas.”) Being itself is finally the principle of all the divine attributes. Despite what Scotus says, this principle could not consist in radical infinity or in the exigency of all possible perfections. For we cannot conceive of this exigency apart from a subject whose essence precisely calls for all perfections. In the “question” treating of the Perfection of God, St. Thomas dearly explains what is the foundation of this exigency. (la, q. .|, a. 2). “God is existence itself, of itself subsistent. Consequently 11c must contain within Himself the whole perfection of being. I or it is clear that if some hot thing has not the whole perfection of heat, this is because heat is not participated in its full perfec♦* See Aristotle, Metaph., Bk. VI, ch. i; St. Thomas’ commentary, lect. x. 26 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE tion; but if this heat were self-subsisting, nothing of the virtue of heat would be wanting to it. Since therefore God is subsisting being itself, nothing of the perfection of being can be wanting to Him. All created perfections, however, are included in the perfection of being; for things are perfect, precisely in so far as they have being after some fashion. It follows, therefore, that no perfection is wanting to God. This Une of argument, too, is implied by Dionysius in his De divinis nominibus (ch. v), when he says: God exists not in any single mode, but embraces all be­ ing in Himselj, absolutely, without limitation.” Being itself de­ mands all perfections, both those of the operative order and those of the entitative order, since operation presupposes being. In the discussion which follows we shall see how each particular attri­ bute is deduced from subsistent Being. Thought or subsistent intellection, since that is merely the basis of those perfections pertaining to the intellect and to the will, cannot be taken as the principle upon which we base this derivation. The derivation of these attributes is based upon the immateriality of the divine Being (la, q. 14, a. 1). God is intel­ ligence because He is the absolutely immaterial Being. Moreover, intelligence presupposes an intelligible object, and the supremely intelligible is none other than Being itself, which contains vir­ tually all possible beings viewed as so many analogical reflec­ tions of itself, somewhat after the manner of light which contains virtually all colors. Hence St. Thomas does not study the ques­ tion of God’s knowledge of Himself until he has discussed the attributes relating to the divine Being, and has touched upon those relating to the divine operations.43 From the fact that intellection denotes the highest degree of being, above all that is corporeal, and all forms of vegetative and sensitive life, we cannot conclude that it is what formally con­ stitutes the divine nature. In fact, what constitutes the divine See la, q. 14, prologue. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 27 nature, is not a degree of being however noble, but it must be that which is presupposed in every being, the very self-subsisting Being in all the plenitude of its being.44 With regard to the Hebrew tetragrammaton Yahveh (or Je­ hovah), St. Thomas (la, q. 13, a. 11), with his usual precision of thought, says: “This name, He who is, is most properly ap­ plied to God, for three reasons: "First, because of its signification. For it does not signify form, but simply existence itself. Hence since the existence of God is His essence itself, which can be said of no other, it is clear that among other names this one specially denominates God. "Secondly, on account of its universality. For all other divine names are either less universal than 'He who is’ or, if convertible with it, add something above it at least in idea; hence in a cer­ tain way they inform it and determine it. Now our intellect can­ not know the essence of God itself in this life, as it is in itself; but whatever mode it applies in determining what it understands about God, it falls short of what God is in Himself. Therefore the less determinate the names are, and the more universal and absolute they are, the more properly are they applied to God. Hence Damascene45 says: ‘He who is, is the principal of all names applied to God; for comprehending all in itself, it con­ tains existence itself as an infinite and indeterminate sea of sub­ stance.’ Now by any other name some mode of substance is ■*4 St. Thomas (la, q. 4, a. 2 ad 3um) has this to say: "Although therefore existence docs not include life and wisdom, because that which participates in existence need not participate in every mode of existence, nevertheless God’s existence includes in itself life and wisdom, because nothing of the perfection of being can be wanting to Him who is subsisting being itself." Again (la Ilae, q. 2, a. 5 ad sum) we read: “Being taken simply as including all perfection of being, surpasses life and all that follows it. . . . But if we consider being itself participated in this or that thing (in a stone), then it is evident that being itself together with an additional perfection is more excellent." See also Sentences, la, dist. 8, q. I, a. 1, 8; De potentia, q. 8, a. 2 ad çum. Cf. also Gotti, De Deo tr. Π, dub. 3, sec. 3; and Contenson, De Deo, diss. 2, ch. ii, spec. 2. 45 De fide orthodoxa, Bk. I, ch. xii. 28 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE determined, whereas the name He who is, determines no mode of being, but is indeterminate to all, and therefore it denominates the infinite ocean of substance. "Thirdly, from its consignification, for it signifies present ex­ istence; and this above all properly applies to God, whose exist­ ence knows not past or future, as Augustine says (De Trini­ tate, V).” Finally, no matter what the modern idealists may say, all the theologians admit priority of being over thought. This latter, from both the subjective and the objective points of view, can be defined only by reason of its reference to being. Thought is the thought of a thinking being, and its tendency is for the being thought of. In the passage in which Aristotle discusses the νόησυ; νοήσεων νόησίί, the thinking on thinking (Met., XII, ch. ix), he shows that the perfection of intellection consists precisely in this, that it receives its specification from the intelligible object. “What proves this,” he says, “is that there are things which it is better not to know.” To know them is not a perfection. Hence perfec­ tion of knowledge depends upon the dignity of the thing that is known. Also pure Act is considered by Aristotle to be the very first intelligible, το πρώτον νοητόν (Met., XII, ch. vii). It is the objective νόησιν more so than the eternal act of intellection, which has for its object this supreme intelligible. In this we recognize the old objectivism. Whereas being is an absolute of direct apprehension, intelli­ gence cannot be conceived except as something which is vitally related to being. Our very first idea in the order of invention, is the idea of being; our very first principle is the principle of iden­ tity, which enunciates what applies primarily to being, that "a being is what it is and cannot be what it is not!’ In the synthetic or deductive order, in via judicii, it is this first principle of iden­ tity which is the fundamental truth. It is that which ultimately WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 29 explains all other things, and which is the answer to our final inquiries about God and the world. But it is now expressed in the following form: '7 am who am and cannot not be." As Fa­ ther Del Prado has shown in his treatise De veritate fundamen­ tali philosophiae christianae,46 of such a nature is this principle that it constitutes the corner-stone of the treatise on God. It is the terminus of the proof of God’s existence, and the startingpoint in the deduction of the divine attributes. Along with the principle of identity implied in the first of our ideas, which is that of being, there is needed a being in whom essence is identi( al with existence, one who is pure being, without any admixture of potentiality, without limitation, who is to being as A is to A, in whom the principle of identity is completely realized and who is Being instead of simply having being: "1 am He who is" (Exod., ch. iii). By making intelligence dependent upon truth or upon being, we depart from the absolute intellectualism of Leibniz. As Boutroux remarks (La Monadologie, p. 84), “Leibniz, taking the modern point of view of the glorification of personality, considers intelligence . . . the indispensable substratum of truth.”47 It may well be questioned whether Leibniz’ absolute intellectual­ ism, in which liberty is stripped of everything but the name, docs not logically result in Hegel’s absolute idealism, which rele­ gates being to thought, and hence consigns what is to what must be, liberty to necessity, actual fact to right, success to morality.48 If we take this view of the question, we are obliged to make ' becoming” the fundamental reality, and thus deny the objective validity of the principle of non-contradiction, which therefore 48 Published in 1911. 47 Cf. Leibniz, Opera philosophica, Erdmann ed., 562, b. 4"As Ollé-Laprune remarks in his Raison et le Rationalisme, the Rationalistic thesis is based on the principle that being refers to thought, and not thought to being, or reason to being. Such reasoning results in the denial both of liberty and of the claims of divine faith. 3° GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE ceases to be the norm for the reasoning mind and its abstrac­ tions. St. Thomas, as we shall see later on, by maintaining that the will is subordinate to the intellect, avoids the error of psy­ chological determinism; for he is more emphatic than Leibniz in affirming the dependence of the intellect upon being. If being, conceived as an absolute, is prior to intelligence conceived as re­ lated to being, then what the real denotes need not be positively intelligible and of itself predetermined, in order that the transi­ tion from Being itself to the existence of this world by means of creation, and the transitions from the infinite to the finite, from the one to the multiple, from the universal to the particular, be deduced from the principle of sufficient reason. Intellectualism limits itself when it claims to be a realism, and when it distin­ guishes in being—which it regards as prior to thought—two elements, one completely intelligible (act), and the other (potency) thoroughly obscure for the intellect, but necessary so as to enable it to solve the arguments advanced by Parmenides and also to explain multiplicity and becoming in terms of being. At present we cannot insist further on the importance of these notions, but we will return to the subject in chapter four. Therefore we conclude that self-subsisting Being is what formally constitutes the divine nature, according to our imperfect way of knowing it. This thesis is confirmed by the fact that the attributes are derived from the self-subsisting Being. These at­ tributes are in this Being, not merely in a virtual manner (as properties are contained virtually in the created essence from which they are derived), but in an actual and implicit manner, although not as yet explicitly expressed. That is why the Thomists and almost all theologians say there is only a virtual and minor distinction between the divine attributes and the divine essence.49 Since, in speaking thus of the divine essence, we do not simply mean to imply our imperfect mode of knowing it, 48 See Billuart, De Deo, diss. 2, a. 3. WHAT FORMALLY CONSTITUTES THE DIVINE NATURE 31 but the divine essence as it is in itself, then we must say that in the eminence of the Deity, according to what properly and in­ trinsically constitutes it as such, are contained all the divine per­ fections actually and explicitly,60 and that there is no distinction between them except those made by the human mind. That is why St. Thomas (la, q. 13, a. 11 ad turn) says: “The name God is more proper than the name He who is, as regards the object intended by the name, as it is imposed to signify the divine nature.” 80 81 Between the divine essence and the attributes there is no mental distinction either for God or for the blessed who con­ template Him face to face. The intimate life of the Deity in its eminent simplicity is the immediate object of the beatific vision.82 Sanctifying grace is a physical, formal, and analogical partici­ pation of the divine nature. If in this life we had such a knowl­ edge of grace that we could say in what it intimately consists, we should then have a certain knowledge of what intimately con­ stitutes the divine nature. There is resemblance by way of anal< >gy, between inanimate beings and God, in so far as He is being; between living beings and God, in so far as He is living; between intelligent beings and God, in so far as He is intelligent. That is why we say that beings are made to God’s image (la, q. 93, .1. 2). By the supernatural life of grace we are like unto God, precisely in this that He is God, and we thus participate in the intimate life of the Deity according to the strict acceptation of I he term. Hence St. Thomas says: “The least degree of sanctify­ ing grace in the soul of a single man or infant is incomparably more precious than all created beings both corporeal and spir80 Ibid., diss. 2, a. 2. 81 Gotti, in his De Deo (tr. Π, q. 3, dub. 3, 20), says that the word “man" is more proper than the expression "rational animal”; for this term is used to designate human nature and not the elements which constitute it. ’·' See Billuart, De Deo, diss. 2, a. 3, appendix. This view is at least the most probable one. 32 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE itual.” “The good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the whole universe” (la Ilae, q. 113, a. 9 ad 211m). Pascal likewise says: “The least of minds is greater than all material objects, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its king­ doms; for the mind has knowledge of all these things and of itself; whereas things material have no knowledge at all. Bodies and minds, all these taken together and the effects produced by them, do not equal the least act of charity. This latter is of an infinitely higher order. From the sum-total of material things, there could not possibly issue one little thought, because thought is of another order. From bodies and minds we cannot possibly have an act of true charity, for the latter, too, is of another order, pertaining to the supernatural. The saints have their realm, their glory, their victory, their luster, and have no need of temporal or spiritual aggrandisement, which in no way affects them, neither increasing nor decreasing their greatness. The saints are seen by God and the angels, not by bodies or by curious minds. God suffices for them.” 53 Sanctity, which is the life of grace having reached its perfec­ tion, is a participation of the intimate life of God, of that which properly constitutes the Deity such as it is in itself. ss Pascal, Pensées (Havct ed.), art. XVIII, 1. CHAPTER II The Derivation of the Attributes from Self-subsisting Being ) the creation and con­ servation of beings; c) the divine motion; d) the possibility of miracles. a) Infinite power (la, q. 25). “There could not be in God,” says St. Thomas, “passive power, or that aptitude to receive or to be made perfect; but He possesses active power in the highest degree. The more a being is in act and is perfect, the more it is the active principle of something; and vice versa, the more a being is imperfect and deficient, the more it is reduced to a state of passivity. Now God is pure Act, in all ways perfect, and all 134 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE imperfection is to be excluded from Him. Therefore He is in the highest degree the active principle and in no way admits of pas­ sivity” (la, q. 25, a. 1). Does this mean that the active power in God is like our will, a faculty which is the principle of an accidental operation? By no means, for there is nothing accidental in God. Pure Act can­ not be determined any further; its operation is its very essence. We must, therefore, eliminate every created mode from the analogical notion of active power before we can apply it to God. “In creatures, power is the principle not only of action, but like­ wise of effect. Thus in God the idea of power is retained, inas­ much as it is the principle of an effect; not, however, as it is a principle of action, for this is the divine essence itself; except, perchance, after our manner of understanding, inasmuch as the divine essence contains in the highest degree all the perfections to be found in created things, it can be understood either under the notion of action, or under that of power” (la, q. 25, a. 1 ad 3um). The divine power is infinite, for the mode of operation follows the mode of being, and the divine being is infinite. The hotter a body is, the greater its power of heating other bodies. The more enlightened a mind is, the greater power it has to enlighten the minds of others. God, who is Being itself, must therefore have the power to give being to everything capable of receiving it, to everything for which existence is not repugnant. “And if God cannot make the impossible become a reality, that is not because His power is limited; it is because the impossible is in itself in­ capable of existence, and cannot become a reality. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God can­ not do them” (la, q. 25, a. 3). Ockham and Descartes failed to see this, when they claimed that God’s liberty and omnipotence would not be infinite if they could not make a square circle. From this it would follow that the truth of the principle of contradic­ tion and of every essence would depend upon the divine liberty; DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 135 but the divine liberty itself would vanish, for there would be no foundation for it. God would not be of necessity the Being, the Good, the Intellect, or consequently the Liberty. He would be free to be free, as Secrétan maintained, free to be or not to be. This absolute libertinism, which is the destruction of all truth and of all being, is the height of absurdity and leads to radical nihilism. On the other hand, to urge the claims of intellectualism, as much as Leibniz and the advocates of absolute optimism have wished to do, is to go to the other extreme. It unduly restricts God’s liberty and omnipotence, in that it maintains that these divine attributes were limited in the creation of the present world, which would have to be the best of possible worlds. Undoubtedly God could not have created with greater wisdom than He has so done, nor could He dispose things better than as they are; but He could have created better things, says St. Thomas, for between a creature however perfect and the infinite goodness it represents, the distance is always infinite (la, q. 25, a. 5). The animal has not a better arrangement of parts than that of the plant, but it is a better and more perfect being. Man is still more perfect and of a still higher order. Above man we have the pure spirits with a greater or less degree of intellectual power. But the idea of the most perfect pure being that possibly could be created is as truly inconceivable and contradictory as is the idea of the swiftest movement. God can always create a pure spirit still more perfect. (On this point, see the solution of the antinomies relative to liberty, ch. iv, n. 62.) b~) The creation and preservation of beings (la, q. 45, 105). Omnipotence is creative. The dogma of creation may be summed up in these words: Everything which exists outside of God, of His own free will He created out of nothing, for His glory and purely of His goodness. 136 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE Of all things existing outside of God—things visible and in­ visible, the earth, the firmament, angels, those pure spirits as numerous as the stars, and finally man, composed as he is of soul and body—not one exists of itself, for each of them is not being itself, life itself, light itself, holiness itself, since all of them are finite. They have, therefore, of necessity received their existence from Him who is (la, q. 45, a. 2). They were made out of nothing by God, which means that their whole being, absolutely their whole being, was produced by God. Before this production their being was entirely non­ existent.76 *78 There is an infinite distance between creating and act­ ing as we do every day. Modern philosophers who often misuse the word “create,” when they speak, for instance, of creative evolution, of creative imagination, or of a creative idea, have not stopped to think what these words mean: "to make from noth­ ing." This word "create" reveals to us our absolute dependence upon God, a dependence which is the foundation of all our obli­ gations. To understand precisely what Christian humility must be, it would be necessary for us to penetrate into the mystery of the creative act and to grasp the meaning of these words: “to make from nothing.” The sculptor makes a statue, but not from nothing. He takes the marble which he did not make, and merely gives it a certain 76 Ex nihilo (out of nothing) has the same meaning as non ex aliquo subjecto (not from any prior subject), or ex nullo praesupposito subjecto, veluti causa ma­ teriali (from no pre-existing subject matter, as if this were the material cause). Sometimes the Scholastics also define creation as: productio totius rei ex nihilo sui et subjecti: the bringing of a whole thing into existence from a state of non­ existence, and from no prior subject matter. This production has an efficient, a final, and an exemplary cause (the divine idea), but not a material cause. Creation differs essentially from Pantheistic Emanation, no matter what Cousin and various modern philosophers may have said. Emanation implies a contradic­ tion, just as does Pantheism, which it presupposes. Either creation is immanent, and this implies the confusion of the finite with the infinite; or else it is transitive operation, and this presupposes the divisibility of the divine substance, which is absolutely one, simple, and indivisible. DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 137 form, fashioning and transforming it. He does not create the statue, he does not produce the whole of its being. The sculptor is a transformer, not a creator. The architect who constructs an edifice, does not create it. He merely brings together in orderly arrangement the materials which he did not produce. The father who generates a son, does not create him, does not give him the whole of his being. Something of the son’s substance, the matter, a germ that developed, was pre-existent; but the father did not create this out of nothing by the mere act of his will. The thinker who works out a system of some kind does not create it. He starts from certain known facts and evident principles, setting forth a certain number of ideas under these principles so as to render the facts intelligible. He does not create, he constructs with pre­ existent materials. When he afterwards instructs a disciple, he only molds and informs the disciple’s intelligence, but does not create it. Lastly, the will, when making a free act, does not produce it from nothing; the act is simply an accidental modification of the will, and presupposes a real power which it determines or in­ forms. A finite agent cannot create, but can only transform what al­ ready exists. The reason for this is that the most universal of effects comes from the most universal of causes. But being, as being, is the most universal of effects. The production of being as such or of the whole being of a thing, must be attributed to the most universal of causes, which is the supreme Cause. Just as fire gives out heat, and light illumines things, so also the One who is Being itself can produce being, the whole being of any given thing (la, q. 45, a. 5). However insignificant this thing may be, even if it were only a grain of sand, it needs an infinite power to produce it out of nothing. The more impoverished, indeed, is the matter to be transformed, the more powerful must be the agent that works i38 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE upon it. The poorer is the soil, the more it must be cultivated, watered, warmed by the sun, the more also the seed sown in it must be good. When the matter is so poor that it practically amounts to nothing, an infinite power is needed to draw some­ thing, however little it may be, from this nothing. When passive power decreases, active power increases. We may go so far as to say that, when there is no longer any passive potentiality, the active power must be infinite (la, q. 45, a. 5 ad 3um). Only God, who is Being itself, can give to a thing the whole of its being instead of giving it a form or mode of being. Being thus sud­ denly originating from nothing, is the proper effect of God. The creative act is not a formally transitive action, as if emanat­ ing from God after the manner of an accident and received in the created being. It is a formally immanent action not distinct from God’s essence. But it is said to be virtually transitive in that it produces an external fact. Creation taken in the passive sense, as it affects the creature, is merely the real relation of dependence of the creature upon the Creator. There could be no question of a real relation of God to the created being; in this case there can be only a logical relation (la, q. 45, a. 3; and q. 13, a. 7). To dispel the obscurity of the mystery of creation, there has been proposed in these latter days, not a mystery but a contradic­ tion in the employment of the terms: "Creative evolution.” The creative act requires One who is Being itself, whereas evolution is nothing else but inconsistent becoming. That which is becom­ ing and as yet does not exist, cannot have within itself its own sufficient reason. How is it possible for becoming, which is in­ capable of explaining itself, to be the principle of all the rest? Inasmuch as God made us from nothing, it follows, in the strictest sense of the term, that of ourselves we are nothing. If we take away from ourselves what we have received from God, literally speaking, nothing remains. And as action follows being, since we are not of ourselves independent of God, we do not act DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 139 by ourselves independently of God. It would be a great illusion for us to think that we are die unique and all sufficient cause of the free determination of ourselves in what there is of good in this. “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” asks St. Paul. “By the grace of God,” he says, “I am what I am” (I Cor. 4:7; 15:10). What is the end which God has in view in thus creating every­ thing from nothing? We have already said, when speaking of His love for creatures, that the end is His own glory or the free manifestation of His goodness. God in creating cannot seek an end inferior to the sovereign Good, which is Himself. This would be unworthy of Him. It would be the subjecting of His power, of His wisdom, and of His love to a good inferior to Himself. Neither can He create for the purpose of increasing His happi­ ness or adding to His perfection. Therefore, the end sought by God can be only His external glory, which is nothing else but the manifestation of His goodness. “He has given being to creatures in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them” (la, q. 47, a. 1). As the sun emits its rays of light, so God, who is the sovereign Good, has willed to emit the rays of His light. He has been pleased to illumine, rekindle, render all things fecund, and draw them to Himself. As the star in sending forth its rays of light adorns the darkness of night, so God has been pleased to adorn the nothingness of His creatures. As the bird fills the air with its song, so God has been pleased to sound the praises of all His perfections. This radiance on the part of God, this prodigality of song external to Himself, are the expression of His internal glory. Such an end is worthy of Him. (See Vatican Council, Denzinger, n. 1783.) In this quest of His external glory, how could we see the least trace of egotism, since this glory is but the radiation of infinite goodness, of the beneficent riches which God wishes us to share, 140 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE just as the sun causes the earth to participate in its light and heat? God cannot will His external glory unless He also wills our good at the same time, and likewise we cannot will our true happiness without seeking God’s glory. If we sought only the fulfilment of our aspirations, we should remain prisoners of ourselves. We should remain captive to a romantic sentimentalism, and should not realize the magnificence of the following prayer: “Give free rein, O Lord, to the Alleluia which seeks to ascend to Thee, for my heart is bursting with joy and can contain itself no longer. Gush forth, ye torrents of joy, upon the desires which are beyond the heart’s control. Gush forth, ye torrents of glory. Alleluia!" Such is the cry of the Christian soul, and the answer to the philo­ sophic pride that wishes God had created us only for ourselves and not for Himself. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us: but to Thy name give glory” (Ps. 113). It is humility most pronounced; compared with it pride is blind and limited. We need only com­ pare the "non serviam” with the "Magnificat.” This external glory of God, a manifestation of His goodness, was freely willed by Him, without any moral necessity, for God is neither greater nor happier in having created the universe. Be­ fore creation He had in Himself infinite plenitude of being, of goodness, life, and happiness; creatures have added nothing to this. After creation, there have been various beings, but there has not been more being. There have been more living beings but there has not been more life; there have been various intelligences but there has not been more wisdom or sanctity or love. It is a dogma of our faith that God created in time and not from all eternity. According to St. Thomas (la, q. 46), that is de­ pendent upon divine wisdom. Even reason cannot prove the impossibility of an eternal creation. (See supra, n. 10.) On the first day, before sin was, the wonderful order in creation proclaimed God’s glory, just as now the starry heavens continue to show it forth. It was the most sublime symphony without any DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 141 discordant note, “from the depths of nothingness to the summit of being,” from changeable matter susceptible of all passing forms even to the everlasting choirs of pure spirits, these were so many harmonious notes marvelously blended, like the melody of God the Creator. This harmony and hierarchy of beings necessarily imply inequality. The divine goodness, since it is one and simple in itself, cannot be expressed beneath itself except by a manifold variety, after the manner of coins of various value. This mani­ foldness cannot express the different perfections of God and the wealth of the divine ideas, unless it is itself hierarchically ar­ ranged. All the parts of a tree cannot consist of flowers; it must have roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves; all these are necessary for the beauty of the tree. So also in the universe from the stone up to the pure spirit there must be some creatures of the lower and others of a higher order (la, q. 47). If the doctrine of creation is understood, then we see that the preservation of creatures follows as a consequence of this (la, q. 104). If, for one moment, God ceased to preserve creatures in their being, they would immediately fall into nothingness, just as the sun’s ray disappears when it ceases to give light. The imagination does not perceive this necessity for the preser­ vation of beings. The imagination pictures many sensible effects which do not have to be preserved by the sensible cause which brought them into being. The father and mother of a child may die after it is born, and the child continues to Eve. The imagination is unable to distinguish between agents which are directly the causes merely of the becoming of their effects, and those which are causes not only of the becoming but also of the being itself of their effects. This distinction can be made only by the intellect, that faculty which is concerned with being. Some examples, however, will help to make this point clear. The father is directly the cause of the passive generation of his son, and only indirectly of the being of his son. He may die, too, 144 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE in being. But de facto nothing is annihilated by God, neither spirits nor matter. He does not do so, either according to the ordinary course of things in nature,78 or even by working a miracle, for He has no motive for doing so. Annihilation would not be a manifestation of any divine perfection (la, q. 104, a. 4). Such is the Thomistic and classical teaching of the theologians concerning the preservation of creatures. With Descartes it lost its simplicity and its profundity. c) The divine motion (la, q. 105). After treating of the preser­ vation of beings, which is a consequence of creation, St. Thomas speaks of the divine motion. We shall see what are the essential points in his teaching without insisting much on it here, for we have already spoken of the relations between the divine motion and our freedom of action in connection with God’s foreknowl­ edge of free acts of the future (n. 49, bf. We shall have to return to this subject when we give the solution of the antinomies re­ lating to liberty (nn. 64, 65). St. Thomas (la, q. 105, a. 1) begins by saying that God can immediately transform prime matter. He alone has this power, just as He alone has been able to produce matter, which can come into existence by creation only. Only the proper cause of a determi­ nate effect can immediately transform it; for the immediate transformation of a thing is of the same order specifically as drat of its immediate production. Only God, who is able to create or produce the whole being of a substance, can change the being, in­ asmuch as it is being, of this substance or transubstantiate it (Illa, q. 75, a. 4). God, who alone can bring matter into existence, can transform it immediately, can change, for instance, in a 78 The corruption of animals and of plants is no more annihilation than their generation can be called creation. Their essential form was not created out of nothing like the human soul. This form was in the potentiality of the matter, and when they die, it is not annihilated but remains in the potentiality of the matter (la, q. 104, a. 4 ad 311m). DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 145 moment, water into wine without any predisposing accidental alterations. On the contrary, a created agent can only mediately transform matter, by means of the accidental changes it is capable of producing in it (la, q. no, a. 2, 3, 4). Thus only our intellect can immediately modify its own judgment; the imagination can do so only mediately through the intermediary of images. This conclusion is of great importance for the discernibility of miracles. The immediate transformation of matter surpasses all created powers, both known and unknown. Now this transformation is verified in the resurrection of a dead person, in the multiplication of the loaves, in the instantaneous change of water into wine, and other such instances. For the same reason, God, who alone was able to bring our intellects into existence by creation, can move them immediately not only by the presentation of an object, but also subjectively by enlightening them and reinforcing the intellectual faculty. Thus God alone is the cause of certitude in prophetic knowl­ edge 79 and in supernatural faith. God alone can move a created will subjectively. He alone was able to create it and direct it to universal good and to the sovereign Good which is Himself. The order of agents must correspond to the order of ends. He moves the will interiorly without doing any violence to it; for He maintains it in its natural inclination for universal good, and awakens in it this natural inclination when He prompts it to determine itself for some particular good (la, q. 105, a. 4; q. nr, a. 2); “God alone can enter the soul” (Illa, q. 64, a. 1). Does God move all secondary causes in all their actions? (la, q. 105, a. 5.) Holy Scripture replies: “He worketh all in all” (I Cor. 12:6). “For in Him we live and move and are” (Acts 17:28). “Thou hast wrought all our works in us” (Is. 26:12). We must not understand this as the Occasionalists do, in the 78 See la, q. 105, a. 3; q. in, a. 1; Ila Ilae, q. 173, a. 2; q. 172, a. 5 ad 2um. 146 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE sense that God alone acts in all things, that it is not the fire that gives out heat but God in the fire or that the fire is the occasion of this. If it were so, remarks St. Thomas, secondary causes would not be causes and could not act, and their existence would be to no purpose. Their powerlessness would prove, moreover, that God was unable to communicate action and life to them, after the manner of an artist who can produce only lifeless works; and this would imply lack of power in the Creator. Occasionalism leads to Pantheism, for operation follows being; and the mode of operation, the mode of being. If there were only one operation, the divine operation, then there would be only one being; crea­ tures are absorbed in God; abstract being becomes identified with the divine being, as required by Ontological Realism, which is so dear to Malebranche and, according to his theory, is so closely connected with Occasionalism. Molinism is, as we shall see, diametrically opposed to Oc­ casionalism. It maintains that the secondary cause can act without divine premotion. Whereas Malebranche admits the theory of Ontological Realism, according to which we see all things in God, Molina, as we know, has much in common with the Nominalists. The view taken by St. Thomas is more exalted than these extreme doctrines, which are true in what they affirm, but false in what they deny. The basic principles of the Thomistic thesis have been already stated. They are moderate realism and the analogy of being. Only God is Being itself; tire creature is a composite of essence and existence. Now, operation follows being; and the mode of operation, the mode of being. Therefore only God is self-active; the creature really acts just as it really exists, but it acts only by God’s help. How are we to understand this? St. Thomas answers (la, q. 105, a. 5): “(1) God moves all secondary causes, first as an end. For every operation is for the sake of some good and every good participates in the likeness to the Supreme Good. (2) God moves DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES *47 every secondary cause in the right of first agent. Where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the first agent always moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself; and therefore He is the cause of action in every created agent.80 (3) God not only moves all things to operate, as the workman applies the axe to cut, but He gives to each creature its nature and preserves this in each. He gives what is innermost to each, its very being, preserving this in each. Thus God works intimately in all things.” “God not only gives things their form (or nature), but He also preserves them in existence, and applies them to act {applicat eas ad agendum), and is the end of every action” (ibid., ad jum). “One action does not proceed from two agents of the same order. But nothing hinders the same action from proceeding from a primary and a secondary agent” (ad 2um). “God works suffi­ ciently in things as First Agent, but it does not follow from this that the operation of secondary agents is superfluous” (ad turn). St. Thomas develops the same doctrine in the Contra Gentes 80 St. Thomas (la Ilae, q. in, a. 2), when treating of operating and co­ operating grace, undoubtedly distinguishes two movements in the will: “A first in which the will is moved without moving itself, and it is with reference to this that we speak of operating grace. There is a second movement in which the will both moves and is moved, and it is with reference to this that we speak of co­ operating grace." But even in this second act in which the will moves, the divine co-operating motion has a priority of nature over the motion which the will exerts upon itself. It is a case of applying the principle enunciated in the fifth article of question 105, the one which we are now explaining: “Where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the first agent moves the second to act. And then all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent." "And He alone can change this inclination (of the will), who bestowed on the creature the power to will” (la, q. 106, a. 2). “Every act of the will, inasmuch as it is an act, not only is from the will as the immediate agent, but it is also from God as the primary agent, who more vehemently impels it. Wherefore, just as the will can change its act for another, much more so can God do this in it" (De veritate, q. 22, a. 8; also a. 9). “Man cannot make use of the will power given to him except inasmuch as he acts by God's power" (Contra Gentes, Bk. ΙΠ, ch. Ixxxix). 148 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE (Bk. Ill, ch. Ixvii). In the De potentia (q. 3, a. 7) he shows that God is the cause o£ every created action and this in four ways: (1) because He has given to the creature the power or the faculty to act; (2) because He preserves this in the creature; (3) because He applies this to action inasmuch as He moves it to act, by which is not meant a bestowal or preservation of the active power but the application of the faculty to action; (4) because He moves it, as the principal agent moves its instrument so as to produce in the effect what is beyond the proper power of the instrument to produce, which in this case is the being itselj of the action. In fact, being is that which in all things is most profound and most universal; consequently it is the effect which belongs properly to God, just as the effect which belongs properly to the artist is that which he alone produces by the way in which he animates and ennobles his instrument. “Nor does anything act to produce being except by God’s power. For it is precisely being that is the most common of all effects, the first effect and more intimate than all other effects; and therefore it befits only God in accordance with the proper power of such effect.” Likewise every participated absolute perfection {simpliciter simplex, absolutely simple), such as liberty or intellect, requires for its actualization God’s inter­ vention, in the rôle, for instance, of the First Intelligent and of the First Free Being.81 What then does the second cause do? St. Thomas answers in the article just referred to, that it is the cause of the action pre­ cisely inasmuch as this latter is this individual action. In like manner, he says (la, q. 104, a. 1): “Of two things in the same species one cannot directly cause the other’s form as such (of such a species), since it would then be the cause of its own form which is essentially the same as the form of the other; but it can be the 81 “A more perfect order prevails in spiritual beings than in corporeal. But in corporeal beings, all motion is caused by the first motion. Therefore, in spiritual beings, it must needs be that every movement of the will be caused by the first will, which is the will of God.” Contra Gentes, Bk. ΙΠ, ch. Ixxxix. DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 149 cause of this form for as much as it is in matter; in other words, it may be the cause that this matter receives this form. Thus it is the cause of the becoming of the effect and not directly of its being,” as we have shown in the preceding section apropos of the preservation of creatures. The second cause is therefore the instrumental cause of the be­ ing precisely as being of its effect, which under this aspect de­ pends directly upon God. Does it follow, as maintained by Oc­ casionalism, that it is not properly the cause of anything? Not at all, for it is the proper cause of the becoming and consequently of the individuality of its effect. Must we say with Molina, whose view is the very reverse of Occasionalism, that the secondary cause exerts its own causality without the need of its being premoved by the first cause? That is impossible, for the secondary cause exerts its own causality only under the influence of the first cause, which applies it to its act?2 Why is this? Since of itself the secondary cause cannot reduce itself from potentiality to act, it must be moved or applied to act. Besides, the individuality of its effect is still being, and for this reason it depends upon the first cause. Just as being is common to all things and penetrates their most minute particularizations, so the transcendent cause of the being precisely as such of things, remains the first cause of everything that exists. But whoever speaks of a first cause does not speak of the sole and immediate cause of everything that exists. We can­ not, says St. Thomas, distinguish in the reality of a given effect, between what would depend exclusively upon God and what would depend solely upon the secondary cause: "non est distinc­ tum quod est ex causa secunda et ex causa prima, there is no dis82 Thus the instrument produces its proper effect only because it is applied to produce this, and it produces its instrumental or higher effect only because it is ennobled by the principle agent. The pen leaves its imprint on the paper only because it is moved by the hand, and it leaves an artistic imprint because it is maniptdated by an artist. He alone knows how to move it with artistic effect. 150 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE tinction between what proceeds from a secondary cause and from a first cause” (la, q. 23, a. 5). Thus the resulting action is at­ tributed entirely to the created agent which acts as a secondary cause, and it is attributed entirely to God who acts as primary cause. It is only evil which, since it is a deficiency, depends ex­ clusively upon the created and defective cause. Thus Thomism avoids the two opposite extremes of Occasional­ ism and of Molinism. It excels them, only their negations being rejected, by means of an affirmative of a higher order. The reason for this is because it contains every positive element found in them. Occasionalism suppresses created causality. Molinism views the first and secondary causes as two partial and co-ordinated causes of one effect, which may be likened, says Molina, to two men pulling a boat. This does away with the universal causality of the primary agent. Thomism looks upon the first cause and the secondary as two total causes, one of them being subordinate to the other. Both created causality and the universal causality of the First Cause are affirmed by it. It is neither dualism nor Mon­ ism nor Pantheism, but the perfect subordination of the created to the uncreated. There is an abundance of texts in which St. Thomas applies these principles to liberty.83 83 We have quoted them already (n. 49, b) in connection with God's fore­ knowledge of future free acts, and we will again refer to them in nn. 64, 65, when we offer a solution of the antinomies relative to liberty. It suffices here to quote la, q. 19, a. 8; q. 22, a. a ad 4um: "But since the very act of free will is traced to God as to a cause, it necessarily follows that everything happening from the exercise of free will must be subject to divine providence." Also la, q. 83, a. 1 ad 3um: “God by moving voluntary causes does not deprive their actions of being voluntary, but He is the cause rather of this very tiling in them." Sec also la, q. 103, a. 5-8; q. 105, a. 4; q. 106, a. 2: “He alone can change this inclination (of the will), who bestowed on the creature the power to will.” Cf. also la Ilae, q. 10, a. 4 ad rum and 3um; la Ilae, q. 109, a. I. Also Contra Gentes, Bk. I, ch. Ixviii; Bk. Ill, chs. Ixx, Ixxxix, xc, xci, xciv: “How the movement of the will is caused by God and not solely from the power of the will. That choice and the human will are subject to divine providence." “All Intellects and wills, like instruments which depend upon the principal agent, arc dependent upon God who is the first Intellect and the first Will." Bk. Ill, ch. cxlviii. De veritate, q. 22, a. 8, 9; q. 24, a. 14. De malo, q. 6, a. 1 ad 311m; q. 16, DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 151 But how are we to conceive of the divine action which pro­ duces in this way an effect that is external to God? This action, as was said in connection with creation, is formally immanent and virtually transitive. There is no real distinction between it and the being itself of God (la, q. 25, a. 1 ad 311m). It is not formally transitive as is the accidental action of a created agent which is received in the “patient” upon which it operates. But it is said to be virtually transitive since it possesses in an eminent degree all the perfection of a transitive action to the exclusion of its imperfections, and since it can consequently produce an external effect. Is there not, however, any created motion which is received in the secondary cause? Is operating or co-operating actual grace merely the uncreated action of God, or is it the salutary act of which this uncreated action is said to be the cause? St. Thomas replies in the article in which he treats this question ex professo and more at length (De potentia, q. 3, a. 7 ad yum). He says: “What is produced by God in the secondary cause and in virtue of which it actually acts, is in it in a way intentional and transitory, just as colors are in the air or artistic motion is in the instrument manipulated by the artist.” 84 Likewise, in connection with actual grace, he says that it is in the soul “a gratuitous effect on the part of God, a certain movement of the soul . . . inasmuch as man’s soul is moved by God to know or will or do something” (la Ilae, q. no, a. 2). Finally we read in Contra Gentes (Bk. Ill, a. 8; q. 3, a. 2 ad 411m: “When anything moves itself, this does not exclude its being moved by another, from which it has even this that it moves itself. Thus it is not repugnant to liberty that God is the cause of the free act of the will." 84 "That which is effected by God in the natural thing, by which it actually acts, is only as intentional, having a certain incomplete existence, in the way in which colors are in the air and artistic power is in the instrument of the artist. . . . The proper power could be conferred upon the natural thing, as its permanent form, but not as a force by which it acts to produce being as the instrument of the first cause, unless there were given to it to be the universal principle of being. Nor again could there be conferred upon it by natural power that it should move itself, or that it should preserve itself in being.” 152 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE ch. cxlix) : “By right of reason and causality the motion of the mover precedes the motion of the thing movable.” And in Book III, ch. Ixvi, we read: “For the secondary agent receives its com­ plement of power from the primary agent.” Such is the teaching of St. Thomas upon divine motion. We are astonished that certain persons should have sought to see in this merely an extrinsic assistance on the part of God. The texts do not permit of such an interpretation.85 85 See John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, philosophia naturalis, q. 25, a. 2: “That motion cannot be the operation itself of the created cause, if indeed that motion is previous to such operation and moves the being to the same. It is not, therefore, the action itself of the created cause, for this action cannot move the cause as agent but as patient.” See also Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio (1907 ed.), Part II, pp. 178-295, and Part III, ch. xii, pp. 478-521, for his criticism of the interpretation of St. Thomas and of Cajetan given by Cardinals Pecci and Satolli, as well as by Bishop Paquet and Bishop Jansens. In opposition to the Molinists and the Suarezians, these theologians teach that middle knowledge is inconceivable, and that the divine influx necessary for the free act is a physical motion, co-operating and intrinsically efficacious. But in addition to this they say that this motion is not previous and that it has neither priority of time nor of nature over the secondary cause. They tell us that St. Thomas spoke only of motion, and not of premotion, which latter would be to favor Determinism, Del Prado (Bk. Ill, pp. 501-507) shows that this new interpretation cannot be called Cajetan-Thomist, but merely Bellarminc-Congruist. In fact, it must logically end in Bcllarmine’s thesis on both motion and foreknowledge. It is evident that, according to St. Thomas and Cajetan, the divine co-operating motion has a priority, not of time, but of nature or of causality over the secondary cause, since it is in virtue of this cause that the secondary cause acts. True, it moves itself, but as a subordinate agent and in virtue of the first agent (la, q. 105, a. 5). If St. Thomas does not use the word "premotion" it is because this word im­ plies a tautology; all motion has a priority of nature and of causality over its effect. If the Thomists use this word, they do so in order to prevent the divine motion, such as it is conceived by St. Thomas, from being confused with the simultaneous concurrence as devised by Molina. Finally, premotion does not lead to Determinism; rather it is the only answer to the Dcterminists' objection based upon the principle of causality. Co-operating grace retains a priority over our activity. “Grace is said to be co­ operating inasmuch as it gives the inclination to the intrinsic and extrinsic act, and inasmuch as it endows the faculty with the gift of final perseverance” (De veritate, q. 27, a. 5 ad turn). See also la Ilae, q. in, a. 2. Father Scrtillanges (S. Thomas d’Aquin, I, 265) writes: “How much dust has DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 153 Objections of the Molinists to the Thomistic doctrine. With regard to the divine motion, Molina and Suarez thought they must abandon the teaching of St. Thomas. Molina, after present­ ing this doctrine as given by St. Thomas (la, q. 105, a. 5), writes: “There are two difficulties in it for me: (1) I do not see what is in secondary causes, this application by which God moves and applies these causes to act. I think rather that the fire heats with­ out the need of its being moved to act. And I frankly confess that it is very difficult for me to understand this motion and applica­ tion which St. Thomas requires in secondary causes. (2) There is another difficulty. According to this doctrine, God does not concur immediately (immediatione suppositi} in the action and in the effect of secondary causes, but only through the inter­ mediary of these causes.” Molina could have found the solution of these two difficulties in the passage of the De potentia (q. 3, a. 7 ad yum) which we have just quoted, in which it is said that there is a direct influx been raised about these two words, 'physical promotion.’ The greater number of people have not taken into account that, if one wishes by this phrase to qualify the very action of God, conceived as in relation to ours, what in the first place is forgotten is the general law that the relations are not from God to us, but solely from us to God. And afterwards, as regards the present case, a threefold verbal heresy is committed. First, a heresy as regards the plan of action, which is not ‘physical’ but ontological. Then there is a heresy as regards its form, which is not properly ‘motion,’ but creation. Finally, there is a heresy as regards its measure, which is not temporal (prae: before), but immobile and adequate with eternity.” As a matter of fact, the Thomists all teach that even God’s external action {ad extra) is formally immanent and virtually transitive. When they speak of the divine motion, as in the case of operating and co-operating grace, if they call it physical, it is not as opposed to metaphysics but to morality or objectivity. If they say it is premotion, that is not because they admit a priority of time, but only of nature. Finally, we cannot admit that the divine action which moves secondary causes to act is properly creation and not motion; for creation is the production of the whole being of a thing from nothingness. If God were to create our acts instead of moving us to produce them, He alone would act, and then Occasion­ alism would be true. St. Thomas, who always speaks in a formal manner, distin­ guishes between creation and motion, and he docs not even admit that sanctifying grace is produced in our soul by creation, but that it is deduced from the obedi­ ential potentiality of the soul. 154 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE from God upon the entity of the action and of the effect. But what interests us in his objection is the way he avows that physical premotion is really to be found in the works of St. Thomas. Later on, indeed, many Molinists, in order to avoid being in direct opposition to St. Thomas, claimed that this doctrine had been devised by Bannez, and they called it Bannezianism.88 Even now several manuals thus designate it. The Jesuits of Coimbra,87 like Molina, acknowledge that physical premotion was taught by St. Thomas and his earliest commentators, Capreolus and Ferrariensis. It is a previous mo­ tion, a certain influx and motion which is, as it were, an inten­ tional entity of the divine power by which secondary causes are aroused to action. Bellarmine88 and also Toletus, S.J.,89 speak in the same way. Suarez90 also admits it, although he gratui­ tously asserts and maintains that later on St. Thomas made a tacit retractation of it. (Cf. Dummermuth, op. cit., p. 216, note 1.) Rejecting the divine premotion, Molina and Suarez acknowl­ edge merely a simultaneous divine concurrence. “This general concurrence on God’s part,” says Molina,91 “is not an influx re­ ceived in the secondary cause which premoves it to act and to produce its effect, but it is an influx immediately exerted upon the action and the effect along with the secondary cause.” If such be 88 On this point see Billuart, De gratia, diss. 5, a. 7, sec. 3; Del Prado, De gratia el libero arbitrio, Part ΙΠ, p. 427; Dummermuth, S. Thomas et doctrina praemo­ tionis physicae. Cardinal Gonzalez, O.P., in his Philosophia dementaris (Bk. IV, Theodicea, ch. iv, a. 3), writes as follows: “Certain persons, in their endeavor to turn light into darkness, are not afraid to assert that it was only the doctrine of simultaneous concurrence but not that of physical premotion which St. Thomas so ardently defended. ... To be sure, Molina and certain disciples of his treat this subject in a more honorable and dignified manner when they candidly ac­ knowledge that, on this point, they depart from the teaching of St. Thomas.” 87 Conimbricenscs, In physicam, Bk. II, ch. vii, q. 15. 88 De gratia et libero arbitrio, IV, ch. xvi. 89 See the texts of Toletus quoted by Dummermuth, S. Thomas et doctrina praemotionis physicae, pp. 689-699. 00 Suarez, Disp, metaph., disp. 22, sec. 2, and De auxiliis gratiae, III, ch. xxxviii. 81 Concordia, q. 14, a. 13, disp. 26. DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 155 the case, it is no longer true to say that God moves secondary causes to act or applies them to their operations. Quite to the contrary, God and the secondary cause would be two partial and co-ordinated causes. Says Molina: “It is as when two men are pulling a boat. All the motion comes from each of them, although each one is not the total cause of the motion.” 82 Moreover, Molina expressly says : “For us the divine concurrence does not determine the will to consent. On the contrary, it is the particular influx of the free will which determines the divine concurrence in the act, according as the will proceeds to will rather than not to will, willing this thing rather than that.” 83 Secondary causes, far from being determined by God, by their action determine the very exercise of the divine causality,84 which of itself is indifferent. But if it be so, then there is something which escapes the uni­ versal causality of the first agent; for, in fine, the influx exerted by the secondary cause is really something, this being a perfection for it to pass into act?* How can it, of itself alone, give itself this perfection which it did not possess? The greater does not come from the less, this being contrary to the principle of causality and to the principle of the universal causality of the first agent. Is it by going against the principle of causality that we can refute Determinism? Is it not rather by insisting upon the transcendent »2 ibid. 98 Concordia, on q. 23, a. 4, 5, disp. 1, mcmbr. 7 ad 6um. 94 As Goudin remarks in his Philosophia {De praemotione, art. 1), the Thomists teach with St. Thomas that the divine motion adapts itself to the nature of secondary causes, for God moves beings according to their nature; whereas Molinists teach that die divine concurrence is determined effectively by the sec­ ondary causes. 05 The Molinists answer diis by saying: “The transition to act" is nothing which is external to the being of the cause and to the being of the operation which ex­ plains die simultaneous concurrence. The Thomists do not claim that the “transi­ tion to act" is an entity distinct from the act. It is the act itself in fieri: in the be­ coming. But the fact of producing its act, of “determining itself," is so truly a perfection for the will, that the entire system of Molinism is devised to safeguard this delicate perfection, which not even God can influence, so they say. On this point, cf. H. Gayraud, Thomisme et Molinisme, p. 167. 156 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE efficacy of the first cause that this is accomplished? The Molinists have a dread of the intrinsic efficacy of divine grace; they fear that it does away with liberty. On the contrary, St. Thomas says (la, q. 19, a. 8) that if liberty remains intact it is precisely because of the transcendent efficacy of the divine causality which is cap­ able of realizing not only what it wills, but also as to the manner of its being done (either necessarily or freely), which has been willed from all eternity.96 In the second place, in the transition to act independently of God, how can the secondary cause determine the divine concur­ rence both as to its functioning and as to its specification? To determine it in this manner is to perfect it, which would be a reversal of the rôle assigned to each. God cannot wait for the human being to arouse himself from a state of indifference and perfect his own concurrence. God would thus be under the in­ fluence of created causes and would be submitting to their direc­ tion. It would be the same as if we were to admit an indifferent premotion, by which God would determine us merely to an in­ deliberate act, in such a manner that the free will would determine itself and the divine motion to produce this or that particular act. Something real would escape God’s universal causality. There would be a determination independent of God’s supreme deter­ mination, which is that of pure Act. A secondary liberty would be found acting independently of the primary liberty. The main thing in the worl^ of salvation, the determining of our salutary act, would not come from the Author of salvation?1 They bring forward the objection that the will, already moved by God to will its happiness, is in act and consequently can of ee “Since, then, the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they arc done in the way that He wills” (la, q. 19, a. 8). 97 Cf. in/ra, n. 65, and Appendix IV, "St. Thomas and Neomolinism," ch. i, art. 1; ch. iv, art. 1. DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 157 itselj alone reduce itself to the act which consists in choosing the means. This interpretation claims to be based upon a passage of St. Thomas (la Ilae, q. 9, a. 6 ad 3um). This passage cannot be understood in this sense.98 To the objection that, “if God alone moves the will, it can never commit sin,” St. Thomas replies: “The will is not only moved by God but it also moves itself; consequently it can fail.” St. Thomas does not say that the will of itself alone reduces itself in act to choose the means. This answer by no means excludes the divine motion necessary for the act to be a free one, a motion which is, as we have seen, always affirmed by St. Thomas,89 even for the physical act of sin (la Ilae, q. 79, a. 2).100 Moreover, concerning the manner in which the will is moved by God and moves itself under the in­ fluence of the divine motion, this point is clearly explained (la Ilae, q. in, a 2): “There is a first kind of act in which the will101 is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover; this is called operating grace. There is a second act in which the will both moves and is moved, then the operation is attributed not only to God, but also to the soul, and in this case the grace is said to be co-operating." Likewise (la, q. 63, a. 5) it 98 We have already quoted and explained this passage in n. 49, B. “God moves man’s will, as the Universal Mover, to the universal object of the will, which is good. And without this universal motion, man cannot will anything. But man de­ termines himself by his reason to will this or that, which is true or apparent good. Nevertheless, sometimes God moves some specially to the willing of something determinate, which is good; as in the case of those whom He moves by grace, as we shall see later on” (la. Ilae, q. 109, 112). From this passage we see that God is not alone in moving the will but that the will also moves itself under the influence of the divine motion. In the following question (la Ilae, q. 10, a. 4), St. Thomas states precisely the manner in which the will is moved by God in the emission of its free act. “It is moved freely as befitting its nature.” 99 St. Thomas often insists upon this in these terms: "When anything moves itself this does not exclude its being moved by another from which it derives even this that it moves itselj. Tbus it is not repugnant to liberty for God to be the cause of the act of the free will." De malo, q. 3, a. 2 ad 4um. 100 See infra, n. 65, "Moral evil and the divine universal causality." 101 In the text the word “mind” occurs, for the divine motion is exerted not only on the will but also on the intellect. 158 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE is stated that the angels could not have sinned in the first instant of their creation, but only in the second. In its second act the will is not only mobile but also agent; we have here an application of the general principle enunciated by St. Thomas (la, q. 105, a. 5), when he discusses this question ex professo: “Where there are several agents in order, the second always acts [in this case the will which moves itself] in virtue of the first: for the first agent moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent." The secondary cause acts only in virtue of the influence exerted upon it by the first cause. But God is not bound to prevent a naturally defectible agent from failing sometimes. Neither can we say that premotion is merely required for the transition from the potentiality of choosing to the actual choice of a thing, and that it depends solely upon ourselves whether this choice is accepted or refused (volitio vel nolitio, volition or nolition). If such were the case, our act, inasmuch as it is an entity, would but imperfectly depend upon God, and inasmuch as it is determined, it would not depend upon Him. Now, liberty in us is, like being, the participation of an absolute perfection (perfectio simpliciter simplex, an absolutely simple perfection). Also, since every being as such depends upon tire uncreated Being, every secondary liberty as such depends upon the primary liberty; and for the same reason, every created determination depends upon the supreme determination, which is that of pure Act. God would no longer be pure Act if there were a single determination or a single act not dependent upon Him for its existence. Moreover, if in these given circumstances the divine motion is indifferent, then it would be actually inclined to both good and evil; the determina­ tion of our salutary act would not come from the Author of salvation. Contrary to the testimony of St. Paul when he says: "Who distinguisheth thee? Or tvhat hast thou that thou hast not DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 159 received?” (I Cor. 4:7), it would be man himself who does the distinguishing. Finally, if we reject premotion in the Thomistic sense, we are led to the theory of middle knowledge, which attributes a pas­ sivity to God and which, instead of safeguarding created liberty, implies determinism of the circumstances. (See n. 49, B.) “Every being, whatever the mode of its being, must be derived from the First Being . . . God is the cause of every action, in so far as it is an action” (la Ilae, q. 79, a. 2). “Every movement of the will must be caused by the first will which is God’s will” (Contra Gentes, Bk. Ill, ch. Ixxxix). “Thou hast wrought all our works for us” (Is. 26:12). Conclusion. From this we see that Thomism, which is at the terminus of descendent metaphysics, while explaining the startingpoint of ascendent metaphysics, reunites itself to it. This startingpoint was twofold: rational and experimental. On the rational side we have the first principles of reason, especially the principle of identity or of contradiction; on the experimental side we have the facts of experience, especially the movement of sensible things and that of our conscious life. From the closeness of approach of the principle of identity (affirmed by Parmenides) to that of movement (affirmed by Heraclitus), has originated the Aristo­ telian doctrine of potentiality and act, the only one capable of upholding the existence of becoming without denying the real validity of the first principle of reason. This doctrine contains what truth there is in the exaggerated realism of such Intellectualists as Parmenides and the more modern Spinoza, and in the Nominalism of such Empirics as Heraclitus and many modern philosophers. It serves as a guide for the distinction made in every finite being between potentiality and act, between essence and existence. In virtue of the principles of identity and causality, it leads us necessarily to affirm the existence of a first cause, of a pure act, of one who is Being itself in whom essence and existence 16ο GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE are identical. Such a concept of God makes Him essentially dis­ tinct from beings in the world, which are composed of essence and existence and which are subjects of motion. It is the terminus of ascendent metaphysics. The descendent metaphysics is explained by the higher princi­ ples, by the supreme Cause and by those facts which served as starting-point for us and especially by the principle of movement. Operation follows being, and the mode of operation follows the mode of being. Therefore He alone who is Being itself can be self-active, and no other being can either exist or act except by reason of its dependence upon God. This doctrine is that of the creation and the preservation of beings and of the divine motion. Thus we come back to motion and explain it without causing any detriment to the principles of identity and causality. It has not been sufficiently pointed out how the systems opposed to Thom ism in the descendent metaphysics are closely related with those opposed to the ascendent metaphysics of Aristotle. When Aristotle gave us his teaching on potentiality and act, in the first two books of his Physics, and in the ninth book of his Metaphysics, he had against him on the one hand the Megarians who were disciples of Parmenides and who denied potentiality, admitting only act; they were Determinists and the forerunners of Spinoza and Leibniz. On the other hand, Aristotle had against him the disciples of Heraclitus who denied all determination or all act. This sort of contingency has often reappeared among modern philosophers. Thomism in its descendent metaphysics, when seeking to reconcile the divine with created causality, likewise encounters two opposing systems: on the one hand, Occasionalism, denying created potentiality and created causality; Leibnizian Dynamism, reducing potentiality to a prevented act, which it calls force; and Jansenism, maintaining there is no proximate power of doing good apart from the very performance of the good act. All these DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 161 ways of viewing the subject recall what the Megarians said, namely, that there is no potentiality as distinct from act. (See Metaphysics, Bk. IX, ch. iii; St. Thomas, lect. 3.) On the other hand, Thomism encounters Molinism, which is a sort of Indeterminism, in which the absolute exigencies of the principle of causality are no longer safeguarded. Determinism is not answered by imposing a restriction upon the principle of causality; rather the answer is to be found in the concept of potentiality (undetermined being), and in the transcendent efficacy of the first agent, a transcendence which, instead of clash­ ing with created causality, is the cause of it and of the freedom of our acts. Thomistic metaphysics, whether it reaches God by the ascend­ ent order or the descendent order, is certainly not an Eclecticism, a middle system, favoring a sort of half-way position between the extremes. Its method has nothing in common with Opportunism. The very essence of Thomism is based upon a law which is pe­ culiar to itself. It is therefore superior to the contrary systems which it attacks, and to the intermediate systems which it sur­ passes. Thus good is superior to evil, by way of excess in the former and by way of defect in the latter, and it is also above the mediocre. From this point of view, the opposing systems appear true in what they affirm, and false in what they deny. In accord­ ance with the findings of philosophy, Thomism effects a reconcili­ ation between the demands of reason and those of experience, and it ultimately reconciles even divine with created causality, without taking anything away from either. (See injra, ch. iv.) d) The possibility of miracles (la, q. 105, a. 6-8). For the com­ pletion of this question of God’s omnipotence, it remains for us to say a few words about the possibility of miracles. A miracle, as the word implies, excites admiration and is an effect accomplished by God outside the order of nature. Rationalism aims to reduce a 102 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE miracle to an extraordinary event that results from natural laws still unknown, but an event which religious feeling regards as a manifestation of divine benevolence toward us. Contrary to this, the Church considers a miracle to be a divine fact which mani­ festly displays the intervention of divine omnipotence: "factum divinum Dei omnipotentian luculenter commonstrans"102 St. Thomas explicitly defines “miracle” as an effect produced by God in the world, an effect which is beyond the sphere of action of all created natures. “In this anything is said to be miraculous, in that it is against the order of the whole created nature. But God alone can do this” (la, q. no, a. 4). Thus defined, a miracle is not beyond the ordination of divine Providence, but is merely beyond the sphere of action of all created natures. At any rate, it would not be enough for a miracle to be beyond the causal laws of some particular nature, for otherwise to throw a stone upward would be a miracle, since according to the very law of its nature, the stone must fall. But if the miraculous effect must exceed all created forces, it does not have to exceed all created natures. The resurrection of the body restores supernaturally to the corpse a natural and not a supernatural life, as is that of grace. Only grace, which is a participation of the divine nature, exceeds all created natures. Therefore, in defining miracle, we must speak only of the order of action and not of the order of being or of essence in created natures. Thus defined, there is an essential difference between a miracle and natural occurrences whether extraordinary or fortuitous; as also between a miracle and either diabolical manifestations or ordinary divine interventions such as the preservation of created things, the creation of souls, and the divine motion required for every agent that it may act. It is also distinct from the infusion of grace as in the case of conversion (la Ilae, q. 113, a. 9, 10). 102 Vatican Council, Denzingcr, 1790. On this question of miracles, c£. also Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione, II, 35-106. DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 163 Miracles are divided into three kinds according to the various ways in which they surpass all created powers (la, q. 105, a. 8). (1) A miracle may surpass these powers in the very essence of the effect produced, as in the case of the glorious resurrection from the dead. The glorification of the body, reflecting that of the soul, is an effect which by its nature exceeds the power of every created cause. (2) The miraculous effect may surpass all created powers as regards the subject in which it is produced, and not as regards its essence, as when these powers are able to produce it in another subject. Thus nature is able to produce life, but not in a corpse. The raising of a person to life and the cure of a person incurably blind, are miracles of this class. (3) The miraculous effect may surpass all created powers merely according to the mode in which it is produced. Of this kind are the instantaneous cure of a disease which cannot be cured by natural means except after some time, or again the immediate changing of water into wine. The possibility of miracles when so defined, is denied by those who reject God’s existence or His providence or His liberty or His omnipotence. To prove this possibility, it does not suffice to appeal to His omnipotence viewed apart from His liberty, for a miracle is the effect of an exceptional intervention of God’s liberty in the world. And Spinoza who, though directly denying God’s omnipo­ tence, rejected His liberty, must deny the possibility of miracles. In fact, if God acted externally, always according to a necessity of nature, He could produce effects which surpass created powers (such as creation, preservation, concurrence, or ordinary motion), but He would always produce them in the same manner, just as the vital principle in plants always produce in the same way the vital phenomena which are superior to the physico-chemical phenomena. St. Thomas, too, has recourse formally to the divine liberty in proving the possibility of miracles (la, q. 105, a. 6). His proof may be reduced to the following demonstration. A free cause, upon which depends the application of hypothetically 164 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE necessary laws and which is not restricted to laws of a certain order, can act externally. Now, God is a free and omnipotent cause, upon which depends the application of all hypothetically necessary laws which constitute the natural order of action of created agents, and the divine liberty is not restricted to this order. Therefore this cause can act externally or perform miracles. The major of this demonstration is made clear by examples and by an analysis of the concepts. A current example is the following: a man is free to throw a stone up in the air, and this is a suspension of the hypothetically necessary law that the stone left to itself will fall to the surface of the earth, tending toward its center. Likewise the artist pro­ duces an artistic effect beyond the natural power of the instru­ ment which he uses. The musician elevates and animates, so to speak, the harp which he holds in his hands; manipulated by another, whatever effect this instrument would produce, there would be nothing artistic about it. Moreover, if the musician is an artist of genius, he can act beyond and above the ordinary laws of his art; then he produces a work which is not only beau­ tiful but sublime and, as it were, a miracle in the order of art. By this fortunate exception the ordinary laws of art are neither destroyed nor contested. The only thing is that their application has been suspended. This is also made evident by an analysis of the concepts implied in the major of our proof. If, indeed, the application of the hypothetically necessary laws depends upon a free cause, this cause enjoys in this respect liberty of action. If, besides this, it is not restricted to this order of laws, it thus enjoys liberty of speci­ fication. Therefore it can, not only suspend the action of natural laws, but act positively outside of them. The minor of our demonstration is comprised of two parts. Beginning with the second part, that referring to the world, which DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 165 is the object of our sense experience, we shall arrive at the first, which relates to divine liberty. The order of action of all created natures is established by hypothetically necessary laws. Hypothetical necessity is that which is based upon the extrinsic cause of a thing (efficient and final causes), in opposition to absolute necessity, which is based upon the intrinsic causes (formal and material causes). Now, the order of action of all created natures is established evidently by causal laws which have reference to efficient causality. There­ fore the order of action of all created natures is established by laws which are hypothetically necessary. For a complete understanding of this, it suffices to contrast absolute with hypothetical necessity. Absolute necessity is based upon the intrinsic causes or upon the very nature of a thing. Thus it is that a triangle of necessity has its three angles equal to two right angles by reason of its very nature. And whatever Descartes may have said, not even by performing a miracle can God make a triangle the three angles of which would not equal two right angles; for in that case the triangle would be at the same time a triangle and not a triangle. Spinoza’s error consisted in trying to reduce the physical laws to mathematical laws. This necessarily led him to deny the possibility of miracles. God can­ not act outside of absolutely necessary laws, such as mathematical and metaphysical laws, which are based intrinsically upon the very natures of things. On the contrary, hypothetical necessity is based upon the extrinsic causes of things. Granted that a certain agent may act, according to the natural conditions it produces of necessity a certain effect. Thus it is that fire, if it acts, burns, and does not chill. But this hypothetical law does not prevent the action from being arrested or modified by a higher law. So in reference to the final cause, man must have two eyes in order to see well. However, he does not cease to be a man if he becomes ι66 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE blind in one eye or in both eyes. (See St. Thomas, Met. Arist., Bk. V, ch. 5, lect. 6; and la, q. 19, a. 3.) Is the order of action of all created natures established by hy­ pothetically necessary laws? The answer is evident: since it is an order of action, it is established by causal laws which have refer­ ence to efficient causality and which express the mode of action of created agents. Such a natural agent, if it acts, necessarily pro­ duces this effect, but that does not exclude the possibility of the intervention of a higher agent which arrests or modifies the action of the first. We may divide natural laws into positive and negative. The former express what created nature can do if left to itself. These hypothetical laws do not exclude the intervention of a higher agent. Negative laws express what created nature, if left to itself, cannot do; for instance, nature cannot raise a dead man to life; but this hypothetical law does not make the res­ urrection of one from the dead absolutely impossible. Why could not God do what created powers are unable to effect? If God intervenes by working a miracle, these hypothetically necessary laws are not destroyed nor in any way impaired. It is only their application which is suspended by a fortunate excep­ tion which proves the rule. If only God can raise a dead person to life, this proves, moreover, that nature cannot do so; and it follows that a corpse naturally putrifies. Even if God prevents the action of fire, the fire retains its natural potver to burn. It is only the exercize of the power that is suspended. The second part of the minor of our proof has reference to divine liberty. God is a free and omnipotent cause upon which depends the application of all the hypothetically necessary laws of the natural order and which is not restricted to this order. We have already established the fact that God is free with regard to created good things, which cannot increase His infinite happiness. Therefore He is free to create and choose such or such a world rather than a certain other. He could not have DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 167 created better, that is, with more wisdom, but He could have made a better world. Thus the animal has not its parts arranged better than those of the plant, but it is a better or more perfect being. There is always an infinite difference between a creature, however perfect it may be, and the infinite goodness that it re­ flects; it could not exhaust the divine omnipotence. The application of all hypothetically necessary laws is evidently dependent upon the divine liberty. For the application of these laws presupposes the presence of the action of created agents. Now, the action of every created agent depends upon the free action of the first cause, as every natural end is subordinate to the ultimate end willed by God. As the action of our hand de­ pends upon that of our liberty, so the action of created causes depends upon that of the divine liberty. Therefore God can act outside of and above the order of action of all created nature; He can work miracles. In an unseen manner He can prevent a natural action, for instance, that of fire. He can also produce an effect which surpasses all created powers either as to its essence (the glorification of the body), or as to the subject in which it is realized (the non-glorious resur­ rection), or as to the mode in which it is produced (the sudden change of water into wine). There must be, it is true, a sufficient motive for God thus to intervene outside the natural laws. But if He, the pure Spirit, wills to manifest Himself to our souls held captive by the senses, if He wills to reveal to us a truth of salvation or the sanctity of one of His servants who will be a model for us in the practice of virtues, is not this more than a sufficient motive? All bodies are subordinated to the spirit, and the created spirit has for its end to know God. If God wills to reveal Himself to us, why could He not suspend for a moment the course of things in the sensible order? In comparison with a soul, all bodies taken together count for nothing. (See Contra Gentes, Bk. Ill, ch. xcix, in fine.) 168 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE Such is the Thomistic and classical demonstration of the pos­ sibility of miracles. By means of the principles we have just stated, it would be easy to solve the objections, which can readily be shown not to differ from those examined by St. Thomas in the Summa (la, q. 105, a. 6), and more at length in his De potentia (q. 6, a. 1). As to the discernibility of miracles, the principles expounded in the beginning of the preceding chapter enable us to answer the current objection that, before we can affirm that an effect is by its nature miraculous or that it surpasses all created powers, we should have to know all these powers, whereas many of them remain unknown to us. In order to discern the miraculous nature of an effect, it is not necessary for us to know all that nature can do; it suffices for us to know what it cannot do. And that we know, because we know the principal effects which belong properly to God. It is metaphysically certain that God alone can produce, and consequently immediately modify,103 the very being of creatures: prime matter, the human soul, the intellect, and the will. Now these immediate modifications of being or of matter are neces­ sarily found in such great miracles as the resurrection, the sudden change of water into wine, the multiplication of the loaves. There­ fore only God can be die author of these extraordinary effects. 108 We have shown that only the proper cause of a determinate effect can modify it, for the immediate modification of a thing has a specification which is of the same order as its immediate production. Thus it is only our intellect that can immediately modify its own judgment; the imagination can modify this judgment only mediately by means of images. Likewise, created agents cannot modify the being of creatures or prime matter except through the intermediary of phenomena or of accidents. God alone has immediate power over the substantial being of things. We have shown elsewhere (Le sens commun, pp. 91-94; De revelatione, Π, 70-78) that common sense or natural reason grasps at once confusedly in certain miraculous effects that there is a modification of the being itself of things which can have only the First Being as its cause. That is possible because reason is a faculty the object of which is being and not merely phenomena. DERIVATION OF ATTRIBUTES 169 For a full understanding of this it suffices to apply these prin­ ciples to each of these facts. Only God, who can produce by way of creation both matter and the human soul, can reunite them substantially without the accidental dispositions which are the prerequisites of generation (£> sec. it. 4 Scotus, Oxon., I, d. 2, q. 7, sec. sed hic restât; dist. 8, q. 4; "Whether there is in God a distinction of the essential perfections in some way previous to any act of the intellect." Scotus replies in the affirmative against St. Thomas. Cf. Cajetan, on la, q. 13, a. 5, 12; q. 39, a. 1. See also art. “Duns Scotus” in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, col. 1876. 6 Denzinger, 389. Gilbert de la Porrée admitted between God and the Deity, and perhaps between the attributes, a certain real distinction. Pctavius, Vasquez, and some others maintain that the distinction admitted by Gilbert and condemned by the Council, was not a real and absolute distinction, but merely an actually formal distinction which differs scarcely or not at all from that of Scotus. On the con­ trary, the Scotists and some other theologians maintain that it was a real and ab­ solute distinction which was condemned. See Billuart, loc. cit. 3 Scotus, Oxon., I, d. 3, q. 2, n. 5, says: “Not asserting the latter, because con­ trary to the commonly accepted opinion, we may say that, not only do we con­ ceive of God by means of a concept which is analogous to that of the creature, which, of course, denotes something entirely different from that which is said of the creature, but we conceive of God by means of a concept which is in some way RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 193 The advocates of either of these extreme solutions do not admit the possibility of a third solution. The Agnostics say with Maimonides that, if in God there is only a virtual distinction between the absolute perfections, as the Thomists and we affirm, then these perfections are not contained formally in Him; there is only one eminent formality in Him, the Deity, which is un­ knowable. The Scotists concede this and in their turn say that, if the absolute perfections are contained formally in God and not merely virtually, as in the case of the mixed perfections, then univocal as regards Him and the creature. And that there may be no dispute con­ cerning the term ‘univocation,' I speak of a univocal concept which is one in such a way that its unity suffices for contradiction, by affirming and denying it of the same thing. It also suffices as the middle term in the syllogism, so that we may conclude that the extremes, united in the middle term which is thus one, without fallacy of equivocation, are themselves one. And I give three proofs of univocation understood in this sense.” St. Thomas and his school (see Cajetan, on la, q. 13, a. 5; De analogia nominum, ch. x) having always claimed, following Aristotle (II Post. Anal., chs. xiii, xiv), that unity of proportion in the analogous concept suffices for the employment of this concept as a middle term. It is this which Scotus here denies. It is clear that the Subtle Doctor on this main point takes a stand different from that of St. Thomas. See also Oxon., I, d. 3, q. 3, n. 6; d. 8, q. 3, n. 16. It is useless for one to strive to reduce this opposition to a question of terminology. The Scotist, H. de Montcfortino, who compiled from the teaching and text of Scotus a theological Summa in which the division into questions and articles corresponds to that made by St. Thomas, always takes die opposite view to that of the Thomists when it is a question of analogy. It is thus that he concludes in his la, q. 4, a. 3, when he says: “I reply by saying that every creature is like to God in all those predications which apply univocally to both. But diese are the concept of being as well as all those pure perfections found in creatures.” Cf. Oxon., I, d. 3, q. 2, n. to. The conclusion is the same in la, q. 13, a. 5: “The names of pure perfections which are predicated of God and creatures, are predicated univocally of them, and they denote the same real concept." In this last mentioned article, Montcfortino presents the Thomist doctrine on analogy in the form of objections which arc solved by the teaching of Scotus in the passages just quoted. The Scotist arguments against analogy and in favor of univocation are refuted by Cajetan in his com­ mentary on la, q. 13, a. 5, and more at length in his commentary on the De ente et essentia of St. Thomas, and in his treatise De analogia nominum, ch. iv. Capreolus, in his commentary on III Sent., dist. 5, q. 3, sec. 1 ad num, after de­ claring the falsity of this proposition of Scotus, namely, that being is predicated univocally of God and creatures, points out that a Pantheistic conclusion can be drawn from it. We shall speak of this again further on. 194 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE we must say, of course, that there is an actually formal distinction between them previous to the mind’s consideration of them. In other words, we must acknowledge the presence of an actually formal multiplicity in God. The Thomists have replied that there is a third solution, su­ perior to die other two.7 They have not always been understood, and their doctrine has sometimes been distorted. 7 They discuss this problem either in their commentaries on the Summa (la, q. 13, a. 5), as Cajetan had done, or in the commentaries on the Contra Gentes (chs. xxii, xxiii, xxiv), as Ferrariensis has done, or they discuss it at the end of their treatises on God, after giving the proofs for His existence, as John of St. Thomas does in his Cursus theologicus, de Deo, dissert Π, a. 3. For the exact definition of real distinctions, virtual and actually formal, consult especially this latter work. Among tire texts of St. Thomas which positively state the thesis maintained by the Thomists, it suffices to quote three. (1) Against Agnosticism, St. Thomas affirms that absolute perfections are contained formally in God: "As to the name applied to God, there are two things to be considered, namely, the perfections which they signify, such as goodness, life, and the like, and their mode of signification. As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God.” la, q. 13, a. 3. (2) St. Thomas maintains the absolute simplicity of the divine essence, in which there is not, according to him, any ground for distinction previous to the consideration of the mind. "The perfect unity of God requires that what are manifold and divided in others should exist in Him simply and unitedly. Thus it comes about that He is one in reality, yet multiple in idea, because our intellect apprehends Him in a manifold manner, as things represent Him." la, q. 13, a. 4 ad 3um. (3) In la, q. 13, a. 12, we read: "God, however, as considered in Him­ self, is altogether one and simple; yet our intellect knows Him by different con­ ceptions because it cannot see Him as He is in Himself." He says the same in I Sent., dist. 2, q. 1, a. 3, a text which we quoted in n. 42, supra. If we had an immediate knowledge of God, we would see no distinction in His essence previous to the consideration of the mind. It is on this that Cajetan insists in his com­ mentary on the Summa, la, q. 13, a. 12, as follows: “Observe, O Thomist, that from this you have it made plain to you that, according to St. Thomas, there is only one formal, sublime, all-comprehensive concept corresponding to God.” Also in Cajetan’s commentary on la, q. 13, a. 5, n. 7, we read: “Thus the formal con­ cepts of wisdom and justice are raised to a formal concept of a higher order, to the formal concept, namely, of the Deity, and constitute numerically one formal concept which contains eminently each concept, though not virtually, as the con­ cept of light includes the concept of heat, but formally, as the concept of light in­ cludes the concept of the power of calefaction.” Sec also Cajetan on la, q. 39, a. 1, n. 7, a passage quoted supra, in n. 42. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 195 In our days, certain writers have, at times, drawn so close a comparison between the Thomistic doctrine on analogy and the Agnosticism of Maimonides as to see between the two only a difference in the manner of presentation.8 In these statements of the mind of St. Thomas, the absolute perfections {simpliciter simplices) seem no longer to exist formally in God but only virtually, after the manner of mixed perfections. And, as it can­ not be said of God that He is an animal or a body, because animality and coporeity are only virtually contained in Him, it seemed impossible to say truly of God that He is good, wise, etc., because these absolute perfections seemed to destroy one another by becoming identified in the eminence of the Deity. Even to the present day the Thomists have said, presenting again the teaching of their master (la, q. 13, a. 2, 3, 5), that “the absolute perfections are in God not merely virtually, but formally and eminently {formaliter eminenter).” These writers seem to have had in mind only the second part of the formula, the word "eminenter” which Agnosticism accepts without any difficulty. On the other hand, some adversaries of this interpretation have at times defended the formal existence of the absolute per­ fections in God without sufficiently insisting upon the absolute and eminent simplicity of the divine essence. These latter, in their explanation of the ordinary formula of the Thomists, in­ sisted by all means upon the word "formaliter” even to the point of seeming to posit a formally real multiplicity in God, as was the case with Duns Scotus. In order to avoid Agnosticism, this meant turning toward an anthropomorphism utterly irrécon­ ciliable with the perfect simplicity of the Deity. We would like to show how the Thomist doctrine on analogy avoids Agnosticism without falling into the error of anthro­ 8 See Father Chossat, art. "Agnosticisme" in the Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, col. 38, 66. This article is a discussion of the principal errors of our times on this point. 196 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE pomorphism, and how it constitutes the exact mean between the equivocation of Maimonides and the univocation of Scotus. This solution, superior to the other two solutions, is the one given by moderate realism, which steers a middle course between Nominalism and extreme realism. It is expressed as follows: Absolute perfections are contained formally and eminently in God, and yet they are only virtually distinguished from each other. They are contained formally, which means according to their formal concept; they are contained eminently, which means according to a mode infinitely above the created mode. It is only in a negative and relative way that this mode can be known by us, and this allows of their being identified without destroying one another, in the formal concept of the Deity. Thus, the ab­ solute perfections are contained formally in God and yet are only virtually9 distinguished from one another, or, in other words, according to a reasoned-out distinction for which there is a foundation, but consequent to the consideration of the mind. The foundation of this distinction is twofold. (1) The eminence of the Deity which can identify in itself perfections that are really distinct in creatures; (2) the imperfection of our mind which cannot attain to the absolute simplicity of God.10 And again, as we pointed out (n. 42), this virtual distinction is less than the distinction in creatures between the genus and the ® The virtual distinction is a logical distinction, and refers to objective concepts which are identical in the object in which the distinction is made, but which are made really different in other objects of a lower order. Thus it is that we distin­ guish virtually in tire substance of the human soul, the sensitive principle which beasts have, from the intellectual principle which beasts do not have. 10 St. Thomas, in I Sent., d. 2, q. I, a. 3, says: “That God surpasses our intel­ lect is, on the part of God, on account of the plenitude of His perfection and, on the part of our intellect, because it fails to comprehend this. Hence it is evident that the plurality of these concepts arises not only on account of our intellect, but also on account of God, inasmuch as His perfection exceeds any concept whatever of our intellect. And therefore, to the plurality of these concepts there corresponds something in the object, which is God, not indeed a plurality of the object, but a fulness of perfection, from which it comes about that all these concepts are applied to it.” RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 197 specific difference, as we find in man, for instance, between animal­ ity and rationality. We have sound reasons for conceiving genus as potential and imperfect, and the difference as a perfection extrinsic to it, which is superadded to it and determines it. But in God there is no foundation for such a distinction. We have no right to conceive of a divine perfection as potential, imperfect, deter­ mined by another perfection extrinsic to it. God is pure Act, and there is nothing potential in Him. Consequently, according to our imperfect mode of knowing the divine attributes, a mode, however, for which there is a real foundation, these attributes must be conceived not as extrinsic to one another but as actually and implicitly though not explicitly including one another. This would bring us back to the purely verbal distinction of the Nominalists.11 It is the least conceivable of virtual distinctions: and yet it is true to say, according to the Thomists, that the absolute per­ fections thus really identified in the eminence of the Deity are contained formally in God, and not merely virtually like the mixed perfections.12 This identification, they add, is not absurd but mysterious. It constitutes a philosophical mystery, the existence of which we can truly demonstrate independently of revelation, and in this it differs from a supernatural mystery like that of the Trinity; but by reason alone we cannot positively know in what this identification essentially consistsi Apart from the beatific vision, 11 See Billuart, De Deo, diss. Π, a. 2, sec. 3. It is the common teaching of the Thomists and of the greater number of theologians. See also John of St. Thomas, Gonct, Gotti, and others, at the beginning of their treatises on God. 12 Of late years, among those who sought to explain the mind of St. Thomas, some, on the pretext that he admits only a virtual distinction between the attri­ butes, seem to conclude that, according to him, the absolute perfections arc con­ tained only virtually in God. This would reduce the doctrine of St. Thomas to the Agnosticism of Maimonides which St. Thomas declared to be “contrary to tile tenets of the saints and the prophets, when speaking of God" (De potentia, q. 7, a· 5. 7)· 198 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the essence of this identification of the divine attributes can be known by us only negatively and relatively. This mystery, how­ ever, is explained inasmuch as it is shown that the absolute per­ fections, in proportion as they are purified from all imperfection, tend toward identification. This identification toward which they tend, far from destroying them, must constitute them in their pure state. If this Thomistic solution seems inadmissible to our adver­ saries, the Agnostics and the Scotists, if the reunion of the two terms formaliter eminenter, according to the explanation just given, seems to them a contradiction and not a mystery, it is be­ cause the contrary tenets of these two latter schools proceed from an equal misunderstanding of the profound and even infinite difference separating analogy from univocation. In the main, al­ though the Agnostics end in equivocation, they begin as the Scotists do, by considering the absolute perfections as being univocal. For both, the notions of being, goodness, intelligence, are endowed with absolute unity. The Agnostics conclude from this, therefore, that these perfections are not formally in God, for they would be distinct in Him as they are in creatures, and this is contrary to the divine simplicity. And since they fail to under­ stand what causes analogy to differ from univocation, the Ag­ nostics thus fall into equivocation, this being the charge made by St. Thomas against Maimonides (De potentia, q. 7, a. 7), and the result is that God is for them unknowable. On the other hand, the Scotists conclude that for these perfections to be con­ tained formally in God, they must be distinguished in Him even in an actually formal manner, and this previous to any con­ sideration of the mind. That we may show that the problem admits of a better solution and that it is not absurd for the absolute perfections to be iden­ tified in the formal concept of the Deity without destroying one another, we must above all set forth clearly how infinite is the RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 199 difference separating the analogous perfection from one that is univocal, since it is this which our adversaries fail to grasp. This will be the relative and inadequate explanation of the philo­ sophical mystery of the identification of the divine attributes. But first we must prove indirectly that there is in this identification a mystery and not a contradiction. This proof is the indirect solu­ tion of the general antinomy and the principle for the solution of the others. 55) The Indirect Solution of the Antinomies and the Affirmed Cause of the Mystery The antinomies which the Agnostics bring up against us must be merely apparent ones. We prove this by the following syllo­ gism, which has the force of an indirect demonstration, or one by the method of reduction to absurdity. The necessary and strict application of ideas and first principles of reason, as explained by us when we were defending the ontological and transcendent validity of these ideas and principles, cannot result in confronting us with real antinomies, but only with obscurities or incomprehensible mysteries; moreover, it must finally bring us to mysteries. Now the necessary and strict application of ideas and first principles of reason leads us to admit the existence of a first and absolutely simple cause, one possessing formally the various ab­ solute perfections of being—intelligence, goodness, freedom, etc. —which have been communicated by it to created beings. There­ fore, in the reconciliation and identification of these various per­ fections in God, there cannot be a real antinomy, but only a mystery. The minor of this argument was established in the chapter on the demonstrability of God’s existence. It was afterwards con­ firmed by the proofs of His existence and in the deduction of the divine attributes. We have shown that each of these attributes is 200 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE a perfection without any trace of imperfection. But nothing except an imperfection is repugnant to the supremely perfect Being. As for the major, the first part of it must be accepted, or else with Hegel we must declare that reality is thoroughly absurd, and that absurdity is at the root of all things. If, indeed, the object of reason and of experience brings us to a real antinomy, that is because the fundamental reality would itself be contra­ dictory. Some Rationalists preferred to admit this on the authority of Hegel, rather than acknowledge, by submitting to the author­ ity both of reason and of God, that it is a question of incompre­ hensible mysteries. One could not have a better proof of the unreasonableness of Rationalism. It is the crudest illustration of the vice which is opposed to wisdom and which is called spiritual folly, stultitia in the Scriptural and theological sense of the term. Wisdom judges of all things with reference to God; spiritual folly takes what is least in reality, what is becoming and as yet is not a reality, as its standard in judging of all things, even of God. To declare that what is becoming and as yet is not a reality is sufficient for itself and is none other than God, the Being par excellence, is to identify non-being with being, to avow that con­ tradiction is the principle of all things, and it furnishes the most decisive proof by the method of absurdity of the existence of the true God, since His existence cannot be denied without ending in systematic absurdity. If reality is not fundamentally contradictory, the necessary ap­ plication of ideas and first principles cannot result in real an­ tinomies, but must of necessity make us acknowledge that there are obscurities or mysteries. Thus reason must of necessity come to recognize that, in the compossibility and identification 13 of the various attributes, there is involved a philosophical mystery. 18 Compossibility or reconciliation has the same meaning here as real identifica­ tion; for, among all the attributes which must be reconciled, there is the absolute simplicity or identity of God, with which the other attributes cannot be recon­ ciled except by being really identified with it. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 201 Reason is forced to conclude the fact of this identification, the essence (or mode} of which is mysterious, and is not naturally knowable except in a negative and relative way, contrasted with what we see in creatures. For a definite and clear knowledge of this mode of identification, we should have to know God pre­ cisely in what properly constitutes Him (Deus sub ratione Deitatis), and not merely in what He has analogically in common with creatures; we should have to see the divine essence such as it is in itself. To have intrinsic evidence of the intimate recon­ ciliation of the divine attributes, we should have to see them identified in the essence which we conceive as their principle. It is precisely because we wish to see all the obscurities cleared up which have been left by natural theology with regard to the compossibility of the various divine attributes, that we naturally desire, though conditionally and inefficaciously, to see the essence of God which is the principle of these attributes.14 We cannot desire naturally to see the divine essence according as it is the principle of the processions in the Trinity and of the order of grace, for a natural desire cannot have a formally supernatural object. But we can have a natural velleity of seeing the divine essence as the principle of the naturally knowable attributes, the reconciliation between which we would like to perceive clearly. The divine essence, since it is thus not considered in a formally supernatural manner, can be the object of an inefficacious natural desire, but not of an intuitive natural vision. We can know in a natural way that it is (quia est) and desire it, but we cannot positively know what it is, what properly constitutes it (quid est). Evidently it exceeds the natural means of knowing at the disposal of a created intelligence. That these means may be proportionate to this intelligence, they cannot themselves be other than created (la, q. 12, a. 4). 14 Cf. St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, Bk. Ill, ch. li; Ferrariensis Comment, and la, q. 12, a. I. 202 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE So long as we have not the supernatural intuitive vision of God, we cannot have intrinsic evidence of the philosophical mystery underlying the intimate reconciliation and identification of the divine attributes, but we can have extrinsic evidence of it, since we are necessarily led to admit the existence of this mystery by the legitimate and rigorous application of the first principles of reason. This indirect demonstration does not enable us to see how the divine simplicity and the formal existence of the diverse absolute perfections are reconciled in God, but it establishes the fact of this reconciliation without which reality itself would be absurd. On the one hand, it is certain that God is absolutely simple; on the other hand, that He possesses a plurality of at­ tributes (being, goodness, intelligence). We arrived at these con­ clusions by legitimate and rigorous logical processes. They can­ not, therefore, be in contradiction to one another. Let us hold the two ends of the chain. The same holds good for the reconciliation of divine im­ mutability with divine freedom, of justice with mercy, etc., or again for the reconciliation of the divine premotion, necessary that every created agent may act, with the fact of the freedom of our will. But human reason is not reduced to this simple indirect demon­ stration and to this extrinsic evidence concerning the identifica­ tion of the divine attributes which the Agnostics reproach us with. It can achieve still more. Without arriving at intrinsic evi­ dence it can, to a certain extent, explain the mystery, the existence of which we have just acknowledged. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 203 ARTICLE II EXPLANATION REGARDING THE PHILOSOPHICAL MYSTERY IN THE IDEN­ TIFICATION OF THE ABSOLUTE PERFECTIONS OF GOD This explanation will consist of two parts. Since our opponents, the Nominalistic Agnostics and the Scotists, reject our solution, because both fail to recognize the infinite difference there is be­ tween an analogous and a univocal perfection, it is this difference that we will point out first of all, by proving there is no repugnance for the same analogous perfection to be found formally in two analogates which infinitely differ from each other by their mode or manner of being. That is what our opponents fail to see, because they view the absolute perfections univocally. Secondly, we will show that the different absolute and analo­ gous perfections, in proportion as they are purified from all im­ perfection, tend to become identified and that they tend to this by their own properties fox propriis}, according to the peculiar exigencies of each and not merely by what they have in common fox communibus}, according to the common exigencies of the divine simplicity. Hence it follows that this mysterious identifica­ tion to which they thus formally tend, far from destroying them, must constitute them in a pure state, a state which cannot be known by us in this life except in a negative and relative way. Thirdly, we will point out the difficulties which the Scotist and Suarezian concepts of the divine names leave unsolved. 56) There is no repugnance for the same analogous perfection to be found formally in two analogates which differ infinitely from each other by their mode or manner of being. This proposition is denied by Agnostics, such as Maimonides. According to them, one and the same perfection cannot be found 204 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE formally in God and in creatures. If it is found formally in created beings, it can be only virtually in God. Scotus admits that one and the same absolute perfection can exist formally in God and crea­ tures, but he fails to note the infinite diversity of the modes or manners of being, claiming that neither the divine nor the created mode allows of the real and formal identification of the attributes; in God as in creatures, there is an actually formal distinction. The reason for this is because Scotus, as well as Maimonides, assigns to the primary ideas (of being, goodness, etc.) an absolute unity. Be­ ing which is common to God and creatures would be abso­ lutely one. For the Thomists, on the contrary, the mental and the objective concepts 1 of an absolute and analogous perfection have but a unity of proportionality.2 Besides, since this perfection implies no imperfection, there is nothing repugnant in the idea of its existing according to an infinite and sovereignly perfect mode. It follows that this perfection, thanks to its unity of proportionality, can exist formally in two analogates which infinitely differ from each other by their mode of being. We have proved at length (cf. supra, nn. 29, 45) that it is not repugnant for the absolute perfections to exist according to an in­ finite mode. What is of importance for us to prove here is that their unity is but a unity of proportionality. We may symbolize schematically a concept which denotes ab­ solute unity by the figure 0, and one which denotes unity of pro­ portion by the figure 8. The three confronting systems may then be represented as follows: 1 The objective concept is the object which corresponds to our mental concept. 2 Cf. Cajetan, De analogia nominum, chs. iv and vi; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, q. 13, a. 5; De potentia, q. 7, a. 7; Ia, q. 13, a. 5, both of St. Thomas. Also De veritate, q. 2, a. it. Consult the general index of the works of St. Thomas under the words "analogia" and "proportio." We will quote, how­ ever, the principal texts of St. Thomas. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES Nominalistic Agnosticism of Maimonides {equivocation) God absolutely simple but unknowable Extreme formalism or realism of Scotus {univocation) God God knowable, but in Him actually formal mul­ tiplicity God concept of intelligence concept of concept of intelligence being concept of being creature 205 creature Moderate realism of St. Thomas {analogy). θ j f absolutely simple and 1 analogically knowable concept of being concept of intelligence To establish the truth of our proposition, we must show that the concept (either mental or objective) of an absolute and analo­ gous perfection has but a unity of proportion, and this permits these perfections to exist formally according to infinitely diverse modes. We will show this: {a) indirectly, by contrasting it with the unity demanded by univocal perfection; (Z>) directly for being and its transcendental properties; (c) for every absolute analo­ gous perfection. a) Under pain of identifying the nature of the analogous con­ cept with that of univocal concept, we must recognize that the definition is not the same. The univocal concept is essentially that concept which expresses a perfection found in the same way in 2o6 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE many beings, a perfection denoting absolute unity, which can be perfectly abstracted {praescindit perjecte) from the beings in which it is realized, such as genus (animality) or a species (hu­ manity). Therefore the analogous concept cannot possess this same absolute unity. The minor of this argument is self-evident if we consider that a genus (animality) designates absolutely the same thing in many species, because in each it is differentiated by specific differences extrinsic to it and it preserves its unity under these differences superadded to it. Animal denotes, in man as in the dog, a body endowed with sensitive life. It is the same with the species as re­ gards the individualizing conditions; human nature is the same in all men. If the concept of an analogous perfection differs radi­ cally from the univocal concept, it could not have this absolute unity. The Thomists,3 using the very terms of St. Thomas (la, q. 13, a. 5), express this doctrine as follows: Things that are univocal {συνώνυμα) 4 are those which have the same name and the essence of which signified by this name is simply the same {simpliciter eadem). Thus animality is simply or absolutely the same in the horse and in the lion. Things that are equivocal {ομώνυμα) 5 are those which have the same name and the essence of which signified by this name is to­ tally diverse in each of them {totaliter diversa). Thus the dog (a domestic animal), the dog-fish, and the constellation “canis” have only the name in common, this denoting in each of them some­ thing entirely different. Things that are analogous are those which have the same name and the essence of which signified by this name is simply differ­ ent in each of them, although there is some point of resemblance s See John of St. Thomas, Cursus phil., q. 13, a. 5, and Goudin, Logica major. Part I, disp. II, q. 1, a. I. 1 Aristotle, Categoriae, ch. i. » Ibid. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 207 between them, according to a certain proportion, κατ’ αναλογίαν 6 (simpliciter diversa, secundum quid tamen eadem, id est per ali­ quam proportionem). But analogy admits of subdivisions, and we can classify the di­ visions as given by St. Thomas by the schema on page 208 (cf. De veritate, q. 2, a. 11). The analogy of attribution, or of proportion, calls for merely a simple attribution or extrinsic denomination; one or several things receive this denomination according to a proportion which they bear to another which is the principal one. Thus the air is said to be healthy as regards the animal in that it can preserve it in health; one’s complexion is said to be healthy in so far as it is a sign of health; but health itself is found really only in the animal.7 Maimonides would have conceded that God can be called good extrinsically and relatively to the goodness of the creature of which He is the cause. Analogy of attribution never implies intrinsic denomination in the various analogates, but does not necessarily exclude it. Thus it is that quantity and quality belong to being, because of their dependence upon being which alone subsists in them. Quality and quantity are, however, intrinsically realities in that we find veri­ fied in them both the analogy of attribution and the analogy of proper proportionality which we shall now consider. We may say, likewise, that the creature is, because of its dependence upon God.8 The analogy of proportionality, as its name indicates, is based ® Aristotle, Post Analyt., Bk. H, chs. xiii, xiv; Metaph., Bk. IV, ch. i; Bk. X, ch. i; Bk. XII, ch. iv; Ethic, ad Nie., Bk. I, ch. vi. 7 St. Thomas, la, q. 13, a. 5. This analogy of attribution is also called analogy of proportion, because it implies a proportion to a principal analogate. Cf. De veritate, q. 2, a. II, and the Tabula aurea of the works of St. Thomas under the words "analogia" and "proportio." 8 Ibid. St. Thomas remarks in this article that God and the creature cannot be analogates relatively to a third reality which would be superior to them, as quantity and quality are analogues relatively to substance upon which they depend. It would be an error to think that universal being is prior to God. between God and the creature Γ L 4 God ----------------His existence = creature ---------------- : being its existence 2O8 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 209 upon the proportionality existing between various things and not upon a denomination which would apply to them relatively to a principal analogate.9 This analogy is of two kinds: metaphorical and proper. Meta­ phorically we say that the lion is the king of animals because he is to the wild animals what a king among men is to his subjects. So, too, metaphorically we say of God that He is angry, because when inflicting punishment His attitude is that of an angry man when chastising others. But since anger is a passion of the sensible order, we see quite well that it cannot belong properly to God who is pure spirit. Maimonides and the Agnostics concede that this metaphorical analogy of proportionality is found to pre­ vail between God and creatures; but such analogy amounts to more than a mere symbolism, as St. Thomas points out (De veri­ tate, q. 2, a. ii ; De potentia, q. 7, a. 5). The analogy of proper proportionality presupposes that the analogy is really found, and in its strict sense, in each of the analogates. However, it does not admit of any determinate distance or proportion between the two analogates. For we must carefully distinguish between proportion which denotes a relation (c. g., and proportionality which denotes equality or similarity between two relations ( GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE But there are some distinctions which are solely the outcome of the imperfection of our knowledge. It is not between two specifically different attributes that we introduce distinctions in God, but between potentiality and act which have the same specifi­ cation; for instance, between the divine intelligence and intellec­ tion, or between God’s omnipotence and His act. This is what makes St. Thomas say that: "In God the idea of power is re­ tained, inasmuch as it is the principle of an effect; not, however, as it is a principle of action, for this is the divine essence itself; except, perchance, after our manner of understanding . . .” (la, q. 25, a. i ad 3um). There is no potentiality in God, and therefore no foundation for a virtual distinction between potentiality and act. If we happen to make this distinction, the only basis for doing so is in creatures, which serve us as a means for knowing God, but not in God Himself. Starting from this principle, it is easy for us to arrange the divine perfections in three groups. Those who have studied the treatise on God as given in the Theological Summa of St. Thomas, and in the commentaries which the great Thomists, such as Cajetan, Bannez, and John of St. Thomas, have left us and also in the summary of their writings by Billuart, will not be surprised at this classification which the schema on the next page, as previ­ ously explained (n. 45), will enable us the better to understand. Three groups of divine perfections can easily be discerned: a) The perfections which are not virtually distinct from one another, according to a distinction which has its basis in God.25 These are, on the one hand: being, essence, existence, operative power, intellection, and truth. They are written on the same curve in the schema diagrammed below. On the other hand: being, 25 If we speak here of a virtual distinction, this can be only one that is quite extrinsic, for which there is no foundation in God but only in creatures, as will be explained. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 228 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE essence, existence, operative power, will, goodness, which are also written on the same curve. b) The perfections which are virtually distinct from one an­ other solely because of the diverse relations they bear to creatures either actual or possible. These are, for the divine intelligence: knowledge of simple intelligence or knowledge of possible things, knowledge of vision or knowledge of actual things, and provi­ dence which ordains and directs these things to the ultimate end of the whole universe. In the divine will, such perfections are: the free love of God for creatures whom He could have willed not to create; mercy or the will to come to the assistance of creatures in their misery; justice or the will to give creatures what is necessary for them to attain their end, and to reward them according to their merits or to punish them according to their demerits. c) The perfections which are virtually distinct from one an­ other independently 20 of a relation to creatures either actual or possible. These are: intellection and volition,27 which would exist in God even if no creature were possible, much less realized. In the foregoing schema they are written on two distinct curves. For these last perfections it is more difficult to show how they can, without destroying each other, become really identical in the eminence of the Deity. We single out here merely the positive attributes which are the only ones the identification of which in God presents a diffi­ culty. Negative perfections are merely the negation of an imper­ fection (la, q. 13, a. 2). With regard to infinity and immutability, these are negatively expressed perfections which accompany the 28 The word “independently" applies to these perfections and not to our im­ perfect knowledge of them. 27 Divine truth and divine goodness arc not virtually distinct on the part of the divine essence, but according as they are differendy related to the divine in­ telligence and to the divine will. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 229 various attributes. Thus we say: infinite being, infinite good­ ness, infinite power, infinite intelligence, infinite mercy, etc. Also immutability is fittingly predicated of the being of God, of His knowledge, providence, will, justice, etc. This immutability, more­ over, like eternity, has its origin in absolute simplicity with which it is our effort to conciliate all the attributes. As for life, this is implied in intellection and volition. Let us see how the attributes of each of the three groups just distinguished are identified in God. a) The perfections not virtually distinct from one another are easily identified, even according to our mode of knowing them. What are these perfections? They are those which in creatures are distinguished not formally but only potentially; in other words they are those which have the same formal object and are in the same rank. For instance, essence is distinct from existence in the creature only because essence is potentiality with regard to existence. The same condition prevails between essence and op­ erative power and equally so between this latter and operation, as also btween intelligence and intellection, or again between will and volition. Clearly these perfections are not virtually distinct in God; they become identical in Him, even according to our way of knowing them.28 If they were virtually distinct in God, or, in other words, according to a distinction reasoned out by the mind which has its foundation in the divine reality, it would follow that there would be a foundation for conceiving in God something potential or imperfect; there would be, for instance, a 2S In this case, however, we can concede an extrinsic virtual distinction, inas­ much as the pure actuality of God is equivalent eminently to potentiality and act which arc distinct in the created order. But then we see that the foundation for this distinction is entirely extrinsic to God; it has not its raison d’etre in the formal notions of the perfections so distinguished, but in their created mode which could not be found as such in God. Cf. la, q. 25, a. 1 ad 3um, and Gredt, Metaphysica, p. 196 f. 230 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE foundation for conceiving His essence as potentiality with regard to His existence, His intelligence as potentiality with regard to His intellection. Hence God would no longer be pure Act. As He is supreme Actuality, free from all potentiality, from all imperfection, there are no grounds in Him for our conceiving His essence as in potentiality for existence, operation, or any­ thing else whatever. Such is the doctrine of St. Thomas. It can be explained from his Theological Summa in which he devotes some special articles to the absolute identification, even according to our manner of knowing, of certain divine perfections, but not all of them. He proves that in God, who is pure Act, essence and existence are identical, and he also proves the identity of existing essence (sub­ ject) with intelligence, of intellection with essence which is the divine object of this intellection, and of existing essence also with will and volition. Essence and existence are the same (la, q. 3, a. 4). “Since God has no potentiality in Him, but is pure Act, His intellect and its object must be altogether the same” (la, q. 14, a. 2) and His act of understanding is His essence and His existence (subject-object). la, q. 14, a. 4; q. 54, a. 1, 2. And as His intellect is His own existence, so is His will (la, q. 19, a. 1). “In God the idea of power is retained, inasmuch as it is the principle of an effect; not, however, as it is a principle of action, for this is the divine essence itself” (la, q. 25, a. 1 ad 2um and ad 3um). Contrary to this, St. Thomas never wrote any article in order to identify the divine intellection and will. He acknowledges an intrinsic virtual distinction between them, which he does not admit between the above mentioned perfections. Several Thomists have condensed this doctrine in the follow­ ing proposition: “In God there is a virtual distinction between those perfections only which are distinguished in creatures not potentially (as essence and existence, or intelligence and intellec­ tion), but because of their formal concept or formal object, and RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 231 which therefore belong to different orders (as intellect and will).” 29 It is upon the real and formal identification of the perfections of this first group that the attributes of the two following groups depend. But we now find the solution of the two so-called antinomies: (1) The duality of subject and object essential to all knowledge cannot be reconciled with the divine simplicity; (2) Absolute immutability is contrary to divine life which pre­ supposes, like all life, a becoming. 1) The first of these two antinomies was formulated by Plotinus and taken up again by Fichte. Plotinus declared that die one is superior to intelligence, because intelligence implies duality of subject and object. For the same reason Fichte re­ fused to admit the existence of a personal and conscious God. Spencer acknowledges that we must attribute knowledge to God, but at the same time refuse it to Him because it implies a duality which is contrary to the divine simplicity. St. Thomas considers this difficulty in la, q. 14, a. 2, obj. 1 and 2. He replies: “Let us not seek in God for a duality of intelligent subject and intelligible object, for this proceeds only from die potentiality of both. So 28 See John of St. Thomas, on la, q. 14, disp. 16, a. 2, nn. 19, 20, 28, 33, and Billuart, De Deo, dissert. II, a. I; and dissert. V, a. 1, dico 2. In n. 49 we showed that this is the conclusion of the Salmanticenses and of Gonet. Contenson, De Deo, Bk. I, diss. II, ch. ii, spec. 2, admits that there is no virtual distinction between divine intelligence and intellection, but, contrary to several Thomists, he believes that we must admit one between divine intelligence and its primary object, the divine essence. Billuart, De Deo, diss. II, a. 1, sec. 4, obj. 3, sums up the more common teaching of the Thomists. He says: “The object in every act of under­ standing seeks to be united with the intellect, and the more perfect is tire intel­ lection the more perfect is the union. Hence the divine intellection by reason of its infinity and supreme actuality, reaches such a degree of eminent and simple perfection that it becomes identical with its object, without any virtual distinc­ tion for which thre is a real foundation." This is precisely what St. Thomas teaches in la, q. 14, a. 2, when he says: "Since God has nothing in Him of poten­ tiality, but is pure act, His intellect and its object must be altogether the same," and therefore are not virtually distinct. This thesis does not oblige us, moreover, to maintain that the divine intellection is what formally constitutes the essence of God. 232 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE also in us the sensible (or rather the object perceived) in act is sense in act, and the intelligible (or rather the object understood) in act is intellect in act. Our intellect is identified (intentionally or representatively) with its object in so far as it is actually known; if it is distinct from its object as an entity (entitative), this is because both are in potentiality and not pure act; because of this only, it follows that sense or intellect is distinct from the sensible or intelligible object, since both are in potentiality” (la, q. 14, a. 2). In fact, man is intelligent in proportion as he is immaterial (la, q. 14, a. 1), in proportion as his form, his soul, dominates matter, space, and time, and enables him to know not only such being as is particular and contingent, existing here and now, but being as such. And as man is not being, intelligence in him is only a power or faculty in relation to being which is intentional, capable of representing it to itself. It is an accident belonging to the category of quality, and human intellection is merely an accidental act of this power. Likewise, the object of die human intellect is intelligible only potentially in sensible things. We must also form for ourselves an idea, an intellectual image, which makes it actually intelligible. From this two-fold potentiality of our intellect and of the in­ telligible which is proportionate to it, arises the duality of subject and of being. Our intellect becomes idendfied in its act with its object in so far as it is kn°wn’ but it is distinct from it in so far as it is being. And truth is the conformity of judgment with being which is judged, in so far precisely as it is distinct from judgment. “Truth is found in the intellect according as it appre­ hends a thing as it is” (la, q. 16, a. 5).30 00 This prevents us from admitting the thesis maintained by Sertillanges in his Saint Thomas d'Aquin, II, 182, which is as follows: "Truth is not, directly, a relation that we bear to things. It is a relation that we bear to ourselves which is in corresponding equation with things. The subject of truth is judgment, and RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 233 God, who is the self-subsisting Being, must also be intelligent, according to the degree of His immateriality (la, q. 14, a. 1) ; and as He is, according to His definition, independent not only of all material and spatial limitation, but also of all limitation on the part of essence and potentiality, He is supremely intelfigent, and His intelligence cannot be a faculty or power in relation to being, but it is intellection itself (self-subsisting intelligence). As, moreover, God is intelligible also according to tire degree of His immateriality, He is being in a state of supreme intel­ ligibility. He has no need of having recourse to an expressed concept of Himself so as to render Himself intelligible in act; He is of Himself and always has been, not only actually knowable but actually known, otherwise He would not be pure Act in the intelligible order. Hence the divine intellection is identical with the divine essence, not only in so far as it is known (intentionaliter), but in so far as it is being (entitatiue}. Without the least antinomy, the divine intelligence becomes identical with the divine essence in an eternally subsisting intellectual luminous­ ness. Consequently, there could not be a virtual distinction in God between being and truth, since the divine being is not only in conformity with the divine intelligence, but is simply one with it.81 judgment is entirely within us, whereas one of the terms of simple apprehension is within us, the other being external to us. Truth is therefore purely an internal relation." “This conception of truth is little known,” says the author, “even by those who profess to be Thomists. It is, however, of great consequence, for it im­ plies, with regard to intellectual knowledge, a dose of subjectivity capable of counteracting the tendencies toward subjectivism.” On the contrary, we think that it favors these tendencies, that it tends to make one overlook the essential duality of subject and object in created intelligence, a duality which disappears only when we come to God.” 31 See St. Thomas, la, q. 16, a. 5: “Truth is found in the intellect according as it apprehends a thing as it is; and in things according as they have being con­ formable to an intellect. This is to the greatest degree found in God. For His be­ ing is not only conformed to His intellect, but it is the very act of His intellect; and His act of understanding is the measure and cause of every other being and of every other intellect, and He Himself is His own existence and act of under- 234 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE There is, therefore, absolute identity without virtual distinc­ tion32 between the existing divine essence (thinking subject) and intelligence (operative power), the idea (cognitive deter­ minant), intellection (act of knowledge), and the divine essence known or first truth (object). To admit here a virtual distinction would mean that it is possible for one of these perfections to be conceived as potential, /or which there is a real foundation in the divine reality itself. Is there a virtual distinction between willing or the act of love by which God necessarily loves Himself, and the divine essence which is both subject and object of this love? The answer is, no. The same holds good between willing and intellection. The divine will cannot be conceived as a power or faculty; it is identical with the divine essence (subject) and its act of love.33 Besides, the object of this act is the sovereign Good which is of itself and always has been, not only lovable but actually loved.34 If it were otherwise, then something would be wanting to Him as pure act in what pertains to goodness. Finally, this primary object of the divine love is not virtually distinct from tire divine essence (subject), for this essence is of itself plenitude of being, and this plenitude is the very definition of goodness. We also say that God is good or essentially goodness. "Deus est bonus per suam essentiam, God is essentially good” (la, q. 6, a. 3). 2) The second antinomy, which can be solved by explaining this first group of perfections, relates to the divine life, which is standing. Whence it follows not only that truth is in Him, but that He is truth itself, and the sovereign and first truth.” 32 If we can say there is a virtual distinction here, it is only an extrinsic virtual distinction which has its foundation, not in God, but in creatures. 38 St. Thomas (la, q. 19, a. i) says: "And as His intellect is His own existence, so is His will." "For each,” as Cajetan points out, “is a second and immanent act.” 34 St. Thomas, la, q. 19, a. 1 ad aum, says: “Will in us . . . not only seeks what it does not possess, but also loves what it does possess and delights in it. In this respect will is said to be in God, as having always good which is its object, since, as already said, it is not distinct from His essence." RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 235 declared to be contrary to absolute immutability. All life seems, indeed, to imply a becoming. St. Thomas did not fail to consider this objection in the question treating of the divine life (la, q. 18, a.3, obj. i and 2). He replies as follows: “As God is His very own existence and understanding, so is He His own life; and therefore He so lives that He has no principle of life.” The act of intellection represents the highest degree of life, since we dis­ tinguish btween the vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual in life. Intellectual life in creatures implies a certain becoming because their intelligence is only a faculty which is in relation to being, and which must seek its object outside itself, ab extrinseco. Never­ theless, it is an imperfect life, for what characterizes life is im­ manence (motus ab intrinseco). If, on the contrary, pure intellec­ tion is identical in God with pure being always known, it follows that the divine life is pre-eminently, absolutely immanent life on the part of both subject and object, and consequently is absolutely immobile and simple, measured by eternity and not by time, which is but the measure of motion. Becoming is in life only an imperfection, the imperfection of changeable being which is either tending toward that which as yet it has not become, or losing that which it had. Life which implies a becoming, is a life which is but a birth with a blending also of death. Life free from all imperfection is eternal, one, indivisible, immutable with an im­ mutability that is not a privation of motion, like inertia, but which is the negation of motion or of instability. It is the absolute stability of a subsistent knowledge and love which are of them­ selves and from all eternity all that they can be, without any possibility of increase or decrease. On the contrary, it would be truly an antinomy to posit in God an increase, for this essentially implies imperfection, the privation of that which one is seeking to acquire. Our conclusion is established therefore without difficulty for the perfections of this first group. In proportion as they are puri­ 236 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE fied of all potentiality or imperfection they tend to become really identical, not only according to the general exigencies of the divine simplicity {ex coinmunibus'), but also according to the proper exigencies of each of them {ex propriis). Hence this identification to which they thus formally tend, far from destroy­ ing them, must be the means of constituting them in the pure state. Being and intelligence, therefore, are contained formally in God, becoming absolutely identical in Him. It is this which most readily appeals to us in this mystery since for this first group, according to our manner of knowing, identification becomes peremptory because of the impossibility of admitting here an in­ trinsic virtual distinction, as this would involve potentiality in God. b) The perfections of the second group are those between which there is a virtual distinction solely on account of the diverse rela­ tions 35 they bear to creatures either actual or possible. These are tire intellectual virtues, some of them with regard to die others, and likewise the virtues of the will. In God there is only one act of intellecdon, unum intelligere subsistens (one subsistent act of understanding), which has for its primary object the divine essence, the first truth. In this unique act we cannot introduce any virtual distinedon on the part of God; but according to His various relations with created diings, we virtually distinguish between His knowledge of possible things {or that of simple intelligence), His knowledge of actual things, which in time have been, are, or will be {knowledge of vision which presupposes the free decree calling these creatures into existence), and His providence or divine prudence which ordains or directs all things to the final end of the universe. It is clear that a virtual distinction of this kind, since it is based 85 This is an abridged form of speech, for it would be better to say: on account of the diverse relations of creatures to God, since there is a real relation of crea­ tures to God, and only a logical relation of God to creatures. Cf. la, q. 13, a. 7; De veritate, q. 3, a. 2 ad 8. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 237 solely upon the various relations to creatures, could not be con­ trary to the absolute simplicity of God. As John of St. Thomas says:86 “Wisdom, knowledge, are sometimes taken to mean the act itself of the intellect in the universality of its extent, and thus wisdom is the same in God as His act of understanding and His existence. Sometimes they are taken to mean a special manner of understanding, and in this way wisdom denotes cognition by means of the highest causes, knowledge a cognition by means of inferior causes, prudence a cognition in directing things; and thus they are distinguished after the manner of certain intellectual virtues and the divine attributes (£>. Thom, in I dist. 39, q. 2, a. 1). Hence they are distinguished not because of the different formal grounds of knowledge, for the grounds are one and the same, in divine cognition; but because of a different connotation and reference to the objects ultimately known." Likewise Billuart, De Deo, dissert. V, art. 2, sec. 3. It must be said that there are as many virtual distinctions in the divine volition or love between the necessary and free volition, as in this latter between mercy and justice. These virtual distinc­ tions cannot be contrary to God’s absolute simplicity since they are based solely upon the diverse relations which they bear to creatures. In fact, as St. Thomas says {Contra Gentes, Bk. I, ch. Ixxxii) : “The divine will by one and the same act, wills Himself and other things. Now His relation to Himself is necessary and natu­ ral; whereas His relation to other things is by way of a kind of fittingness, not necessary and natural, not violent and unnatural, but free.”37 We shall later (n. 63) examine the antinomy which Agnosticism se On la, q. 14, disp. 16, art. 2, n. 41. 87 "Voluntas Dei uno et eodem actu vult se et alia, sed habitudo ejus ad se est necessaria et naturalis, habitudo ejus ad alia est secundum convenientiam quam­ dam, non quidem necessaria et naturalis, neque violenta aut innaturalis, sed vol­ untaria." Contra Gentes, Bk. I, ch. Ixxxii. 240 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE has been given to it out of pure kindness, by an act of absolutely gratuitous love. The influence of mercy is thus more intense than that of justice. It manifests itself toward the damned, mitigating their punishments; if justice alone were meted out to the repro­ bates according to their deserts, their sufferings would be far greater (la, q.21, a. 4 and ad rum). In order that this mystery of the reconciliation of justice with mercy be not a scandal for us, of His own accord God has willed to show how these two perfections, far from destroying each other in being united, find only in this union the realization of their supreme demands. By the death on the cross of the Word made flesh, “mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed” (Ps. 84:12). God the Father, in demanding of Jesus Christ, by reason of His justice, an infinite satisfaction, as the offence was infinite, re­ quired of Him the most heroic act of love. And in consigning Him thus for our salvation to the glorious ignominy of death on the cross, He showed His own infinite love for the sovereign Good, for Christ, and for us. What is the sublimity of the cross, if not the harmony of perfections seemingly in opposition, the union of the supreme demands of justice and love? “The standard of our King comes forth, Bright shines the mystery of the Cross, Through which as man the Creator of man, On the gibbet was suspended.” Liberal Protestants who refuse to see anything more in the Pas­ sion of our Lord than a manifestation of God’s love for us and not a demand of His justice, outrage this love which they claim they want to safeguard. They do not understand that, in propor­ tion as love is purified of all imperfection, it becomes identical with mercy and justice. It is as absolute, imperative, and strong as it RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 241 is sweet and compassionate. This sweetness and mercy would be false and would no longer have anything divine about them, if they were not identical in God 39 with the holy demands expressed by justice. We are far from believing in that “good-natured God whom the world delights in creating for itself, and whom Bossuet, somewhere in his works, calls an idol.” 40 “Love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell. The lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it” (Cam. 8:6). Love is strong as death; its holy hatred of evil is as inflexible as hell, its intensity is that of fire, a flame of Jehovah. High floods could not extinguish love nor could rivers submerge it. St. Thomas, in his commentary on this passage, writes: “Love is strong as death, because it sepa­ rates the soul from the body, as is the case with one who dies from love as Christ did. Excess of love is hard as hell, because the pains that it caused Christ to endure were like those of hell. The torrent of tribulations and afflictions cannot extinguish love.” In this eminent degree, as known by certain souls, victims of expia­ tion, who are in union with the Crucified, mercy and justice are simply one; and in this life it is the highest degree of participa­ tion in the infinitely holy love that is in God. As for the permission of evil, this could not be incompatible with sovereign Goodness and Omnipotence, for, as St. Augustine says: “God has permitted evil because He is good enough and powerful enough to draw good out of the very evil.” 41 “This is 39 We say "in God,” because in Him this identification is necessary, whereas ad extra it is in a sense free. Of His own accord God willed to redeem us by the death of our Lord. He could have saved us by forgiving us our offences without demanding satisfaction, but the manifestation of His love would not have been so striking for us: "God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son" (John 3: 16). 40 Bishop Gay, Venus chrétiennes, chapter on “faith," apropos of God's sanctity. 41 Enchiridion, ch. xi: “Since God is in the highest degree good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." 242 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the part of the infinite goodness of God,” says St. Thomas,42 “diat He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good,” the heroism of the martyrs for instance (la, q. 2, a. 3 ad turn). Besides, “creatures are by their nature, liable to fail, and it belongs to nature that what may fail should sometimes fail.” 43 Among the good things for which the permission of evil is the condition we must include the manifestation of justice, splendor justitiae, the triumph of truth over error, of wisdom over false science, and of good over evil.44 God is not bound to prevent, though He may, the perversity of false philosophers; He can even permit the wilful hardening of their hearts, but even that must contribute to His glory. If the vengeance of mercy cannot be His, in souls that no longer have the least wish to be reinstated and that are confirmed in evil, there is still left to Him the vengeance of justice. However mysterious it may be, this permission of evil, far from being op­ posed to the love of the sovereign Good, is manifestly subordinate to it and to the glory of God. Thus are solved the so-called antinomies which concern the at­ tributes of this second group, between which there is a virtual dis­ tinction according to the various ways in which they are related to creatures. These perfections, in proportion as they are purified of all potentiality or imperfection, tend ex propriis, according to the proper exigencies of each of them, to become identical. Hence 42 See la, q. 2, a. 3 ad turn: "Hoc ergo ad infinitam bonitatem pertinet ut esse permittat mala, et ex eis elicias bona." 43 Sec Ia, q. 48, a. 2 ad 311m : "Ipsa natura rerum hoc habet, ut quae deficere possunt, quandoque deficiant." The permission oj evil is thus explained by the four causes: (1) by the final cause; for the purpose of a greater good; (2) by the efficient cause; God’s power is such that He can bring good even out of evil; (3) by the material cause; it is natural that what may fail should sometimes fail; (4) the formal cause in the per­ mission of evil is thus seen to be quite different from what formally constitutes the culpable gratification in letting one do the wrong which ought to be pre­ vented. God is not bound to prevent the defection of the creature which by its nature is liable to fail, a defection from which He will effect a greater good. 44 See Illa, q. 59, On Christ's judiciary power. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 243 this identification does not destroy them or prevent them from existing formally in God, but constitutes them in a pure state. c) The third group presents a greater difficulty. It includes the perfections between which there is a virtual distinction, independ­ ently of all relation to creatures. These are intellection and volition, which would exist in God even if no created being were possible. In intellectual creatures, these perfections are distinguished not only by potentiality as, for instance, is the case between intelligence and its act which is intellection, but also because they belong for­ mally to two distinct orders. We must therefore admit a virtual distinction between them. Moreover, this distinction is independ­ ent of any relation to creatures either actual or possible. God, by the very fact that He is immaterial, pure spirit, and at the same time the first Truth and the sovereign Good, necessarily knows and loves Himself before knowing and loving anything else. How, then, can these two perfections be formally in God and nevertheless become identical in the eminent formal concept of the Deity which is absolutely simple? Particularly in this case the Agnostic will say that, if God is absolutely simple, intellection and volition can be said to belong to Him only virtually. On the contrary, Scotus insists that we should introduce into the divine reality his actual-formal dis­ tinction previous to the consideration of our mind, so as to be able to attribute formally to God intellection and volition. Scotus claims that if his distinction is rejected, then it is right to say that God knows by His will, and wills by His intellect. The Thomists reply that45 what is formally implied by Deity is so eminent that it can identify in itself intellection and love without destroying them. It is superior to these two perfections, yet it is still formally intellection and love, according to an all­ divine eminent mode which only the blessed in heaven know in a positive way. 45 Cf. Cajetan, on la, q. 13, a. 5; q. 39, a. I. 244 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE However mysterious the real identification of the perfections of this third group may be for us, we can explain them in a nega­ tive and relative way. Intellection and love, in proportion as they are purified of all potentiality or imperfection, likewise tend to become identical, not only according to die general exigencies of the divine simplicity (ex communibus'), but also according to their proper exigencies (ex propriis). In fact, as was shown when speak­ ing of the first group of perfections, divine intellection and love are not virtually distinct from the divine essence which is their common subject and object.46 The divine intellection is identical with its object, the divine essence or the first truth, without vir­ tual distinction between them; the divine love is likewise identi­ cal with the divine essence taken in the sense of sovereign good. Besides, they are both identical with the divine essence as sub­ ject in thinking and loving. Are we not thus induced to say that two perfections which are virtually distinct from each other, but not from a third which is their common object and subject, tend to become really identical in this same third ? 47 And as they tend toward it according to their proper exigencies, objective and sub­ jective, this identification cannot destroy them. They subsist in it, therefore, formally and explicitly in a mysterious way, the posi46 If we speak here at times of a virtual distinction, this can only be a virtual distinction which is entirely extrinsic. The foundation for it is not in God, since He is pure act, but in the creature, which is composed of potentiality and act. Therefore, in the above diagram, we have marked on one curve the divine intel­ lection and the divine essence which is its subject and object; on another curve, which pardy coincides with the first, are placed the divine will and the divine essence which is its subject and object. 47 There is identification of divine intellection and volition in the divine essence, not such as we conceive it, as the self-subsisting Being, but such as it is in itself, according to the eminent and most intimate notion of Deity. That is why the Thomists, and the majority of theologians with them, say: "The essence of God, if taken as it is objectively, contains all attributes formally and explicitly. But if taken for what constitutes it essentially as such according to our mode of con­ ceiving it, it contains them formally but only implicitly, and in a confused man­ ner." Billuart, De Deo, diss. II, a. 2. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 245 tive knowledge of which is unattainable for us in this world. Only an opposition of relation could prevent this identification of in­ tellection and love; but this opposition exists only between the di­ vine Persons, and it is only revelation that can make this known to us. “In God all tilings are one and the same where there is no opposition of relation.”—Council of Florence (Denzinger, n. 703). In this life, however, supernatural contemplation which pro­ ceeds from the highest of die gifts of the Holy Spirit, die gift of wisdom, is a savory knowledge {sapida sapientia') of God, vivified by charity, a simple glance filled with admiration and love (Ila Ilae, q. 45). From this we surmise what may be the nature of this identification of thought and love in God. In thus uniting, diey are not at all mutually destrucdve, but they reinforce each other, and it is only diere they are found in their pure state, free from all imperfection. In God intelligence is vital and loving; His love is always penetrated by wisdom, as free as He wishes it to be. Thus is verified for the three groups of divine perfections the principle stated against die Agnosticism of Maimonides and the formalism of Scotus, namely, that there is no repugnance in the ab­ solute perfections being really identical in the eminence of the formal notion of Deity and existing there, however, not only vir­ tually but formally, and in a pure state. We have not the intrinsic evidence of this mystery which the blessed in heaven possess. Here on earth it is die object of a natural desire which is conditional and inefficacious, and also of a supernatural desire which is efficacious and absolute. But, although we do not have this intrinsic evidence, we have shown at least: (1) that there is in this identification of the divine attributes not an antinomy, but a mystery; (2) that we can explain this mystery in a negative and relative way. Thus we avoid Agnosticism without impairing, as the formalism of Scotus seems to do, the absolute simplicity of God. Our thesis is that of moderate realism (or of realistic conceptualism); the two others represent 246 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the old established opposition of Nominalism and extreme Real­ ism.48 Such is the solution of the fundamental antinomy brought against us, and it is the principle upon which the solution of the other antinomies rests. In conclusion, let us point out the difficul­ ties (which the Thomists say cannot be solved) that are inherent in the formalism of Scotus and in the rather similar theory held by Suarez regarding the unity required for analogy. 58) The difficulties inherent in the Scotist and Suarezian concep­ tions of the divine names. It is with regret that we here insist upon the differences between die theological schools. We are averse to entering into the theologi­ cal controversies; they have been too long, too violent, at times too human. Have we not in these days enough common enemies against whom we must unite for the defence of the faith and the good of souls? We introduce this subject here because St. Thomas’ sublime teaching on the divine names has sometimes been mis­ understood and more or less confused with the formalism of Sco­ tus who took the opposite view, or with the attempts proposed by Suarez. We must note these differences so as to set forth the true meaning and import of the mind of the Angelic Doctor. With Scotus, there is a close connection between his two doc­ trines of the univocation of being and the actual-formal distincdon between die divine attributes. He contends that being is universal: (1) because we can be certain there is being, and yet doubt regarding the distinction be­ tween God and the world; in this case it is a determinate concept 48 In Sertillangcs, S. Thomas d’Aqtiin (Vol. I, ch. i), in the consideration of the analogical knowledge of God, we regret not to find an explanation of the doctrine of St. Thomas, and the way in which it differs radically from the Ag­ nosticism of Maimonidcs so often attacked by him. Not enough is said as to how the absolute perfections arc found to exist in God not only eminendy but also formally. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 247 that we have of being, but not of God or creature. He thinks, therefore, that we abstract being perfectly from either the created or divine being, and that this concept thus abstracted is absolutely one; (2) the demonstrations of the existence of God and His at­ tributes, so as not to admit of four terms, presuppose a middle term which is predicated univocally of God and creatures; (3) if it were not so, there would be no way of knowing God by means of a simple concept abstracted from sensible things. Maimonides would be right.49 According to Scotus there is an actual-formal distinction, previ48 Such are, in brief, Scotus’ arguments as given in I, dist. 3, q. 1, 3; and disc. 8, q. 3. Cajetan has refuted them in his commentary on la, q. 13, a. 5, and more at length in his De analogia nominum, and in his commentary on De ente et essentia, q. 3: (1) Inasmuch as the analogical concept of being does not con­ tain explicitly, but only actually and implicitly and in a confused way, the con­ cepts of God and the creature, it can be determined, though the others are not. (2) In a syllogism the middle term can be analogous; unity of proportionality is sufficient; as Aristotle explained in his Post. Anal., chs. xiii and xiv (St. Thomas’ commentary, lecL 17, 18). In fact, the syllogism is based upon the principle of contradiction, and contradiction consists in affirming and denying one and the same predicate of one and the same subject, and not in affirming and denying one and the same univocal predicate of one and the same univocal subject. Identity includes identity of proportionality. (3) We can have a positive knowledge of God inasmuch as there is analogical resemblance to Him on the part of creatures (by participation or by imitation). See also the refutation of Scotus’ objections in Goudin, Metaphysica, q. 1, a. 2; and John of St. Thomas, Logica, q. 13, a. 5. Still the Scotists object: “If subordinate modes were included in the concept of being, even implicitly and in a confused manner, then, if being were predicated of anything whatsoever, the subordinate modes would be predicated, to wit, God and the creature, substance and accident. The consequence is false: for every being would be God, creature, etc. . . . Therefore the antecedent is also false." Goudin replies: “I distinguish the major. If being included subordinate modes determinately and as it were copulatively, concedo; indeterminately and as it were disjunctively, nego. Being, however, does not include the subordinate modes de­ terminately and conjunctively, but only indeterminately and as it were disjunc­ tively, inasmuch as it denotes some mode of being, whatever that may be. But when it descends to the subordinate modes, that mode of being which was inde­ terminate becomes determinate, the one in God, tire other in the creature, the one in accident, the other in substance." To put it more briefly: “The many others correspond to the concept of being as proportionately alike, but each one in its own way.” Thus, when we say, "God is being," being attributed to God contains eminently 248 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE ous to the mind’s consideration, between the metaphysical degrees of one and the same being; as, for instance, in Socrates, between being, substantiality, corporeity, animality, and rationality. Wc must, then, bear well in mind that univocation of being, thus dis­ tinguished from the other formalities, is not only a logical but also a metaphysical uni vocation, and not unjustly has it been generally criticized by Thomists, such as Capreolus, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, and others. Thus on the supposition that the concept of being is univocal, it must designate in God, as in creatures, a perfection formally dis­ tinct from the other absolute perfections, from wisdom for in­ stance. The distinction in God, as in creatures, must be previous to the consideration of our mind. Hence, according to Scotus, the virtual distinction of the Thomists is insufficient, like the purely mental one of the Nominalists; for, in the divine reality, justice would be the same as mercy, and we should have to say diat God punishes sinners by His mercy and pardons them by His justice. Contradictories would be verified in God. The Subtle Doctor does not accept, however, the real distinction admitted by the extreme realists and condemned by the Church. He maintains, therefore, the existence of an actual-formal distinction which is neither real nor formal (I, dist. 8, q. 4). Univocation of being seems, indeed, to require this conclusion. This Scotist view has many difficulties to contend with. Vacant remarks :50 “When we study the controversies concerning dais created being which is a participated resemblance of it. When we say, "the crea­ ture is," being attributed to the creature is a participated resemblance of God’s being. · It would seem that the purpose of this last objection of the Scotists is to show that analogy of being must end in Pantheism; on the contrary, it is univocation that leads to it. The apparent force of the objection comes from the fact that being, after the manner of Rosmini, is still conceived to be univocal. If it is univocal and also contains actually and implicitly its differences (which, moreover, is a con­ tradiction), the Pantheistic contradiction must follow as a necessary consequence. 60 Vacant, Etudes comparées sur la philosophie de Saint Thomas et sur celle de Duns Scot, p. 22. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 249 subject on a certain point, they seem in most cases to amount to a question of words of no significance. But it is a different matter when these words are viewed in their philosophical setting.” We will point out three principal difficulties. 1) The actual-formal distinction seems to be absolutely incom­ patible with the divine simplicity. This distinction is the one which, according to Scotus, exists between the soul and its facul­ ties and between the faculties themselves. How are we to reconcile with the absolute simplicity of God a distinction of the same kind as that we find to exist between the faculties of the soul? What is, in fact, this actual-formal distinction ? If it is not a logical distinction, it must be a real distinction. As Vacant says,51 along with all the Tho­ mists, “a formal distinction which is neither real nor logical seems to be a contradiction. It must be that what our mind distinguishes formally, is distinguished or not distinguished really in the object which we are considering and which exists outside our mind. There is no other choice.” To avoid the real distinction, we should have to reduce to a mere question of words the arguments of Scotus against St. Thomas. Now, the real distinction of the di­ vine attributes is manifestly incompatible with the absolute sim­ plicity of the divine nature. It is only between the divine Persons that there can be a real distinction, and this because of the rela­ tions of opposition between them, which can be made known to us only by revelation. “In God all things are one and the same where there is no relation of opposition.”—Council of Florence (Dcnzinger, n. 703). 2) Univocation of being paves the way for Pantheism. Equally with the actual-formal distinction between the divine attributes, with which it is closely connected, the doctrine of the univocation of being is of the essence of Scotism. Scotus claims to prove this fully, at die same time maintaining that being is not a genus. This, in the opinion of the Thomists, is an inconsistency; for, if being 61 Vacant, op. cit., p. 23. 25° GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE is univocal, the modes which differentiate it are necessarily ex­ trinsic to it, just as the specific differences are to the genus. Strange to say, Scotus, on certain occasions, without abandon­ ing univocation, maintains analogy of being. He writes, for in­ stance, in his De rerum principio (q. I, a. 3, n. 20) : 52 “Concern­ ing the nature of being it must be understood that unity of being, when the term ‘being’ is taken in its broad sense as including the Creator and the creature, this unity is not generic but analogical.” Father Mariano Fernandez Garcia, in his recent edition of this work (1910), explains in a footnote that this analogy is quite com­ patible with Scotist univocation which implies only that unity necessary for the verification of the principle of contradiction which forbids one to affirm and deny the same univocal predicate of the same subject. To that the Thomists have always replied, that contradiction consists in affirming and denying one and the same predicate of one and the same subject, and not one and the same univocal predicate of one and the same univocal sub­ ject. Identity includes identity of proportionality, as explained by Aristotle in his Post. Anal. Bk. II, chs. xiii and xiv (Comm, of St. Thomas, lect. 17 and 19).53 Several Scotists, such as Belmond,54 maintain that the Scotist univocation is not in opposition to the analogy of St. Thomas. We ask for nothing more, and this effort to moderate this univocation is for us another indication of the truth of the Thomistic doc62 See q. 1, a. 3, n. 20. 68 Aristotle after speaking, apropos of demonstration, of the univocal middle term, says: "We can also choose as middle term an analogue, one according to proportion." St. Thomas explains this by saying: “But from this common analogue certain results follow because of the unity of proportion, as when things are the same generic or specific nature. For instance, the term 'principle' is analogous; the resulting syllogism, however, is rigorously conclusive, the principle having priority over what follows from it. Now tire spring is the principle of the river; therefore it comes before it. Thus we can say that in the creature immateriality is the reason for intelligence, from which result the will and liberty. It will be the same in God, though not univocally but proportionately. 64 Revue de philosophie, August 1, 1912, “L’univocité scotiste." RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 251 trine which we are defending. It is no less true that, even if the difference between the two were reduced to a question of words, the term univocation can only serve to bring about a great con­ fusion of concepts, as Father Pctazzi, S.J, has shown in his in­ teresting articles on this subject.55 However moderated it may be, univocation seems to us to be absolutely incompatible with analogy, as we have already shown. For, after all, once univocation is admitted, being as being is no longer essentially varied; it no longer implies essential variety. Hence how can we avoid the danger of confusing God’s being with that of creatures? Concerning the absolute Monism of Par­ menides, who declared all multiplicity to be an illusion, St. Thomas says: "Parmenides' mistake was in conceiving being to be univocal like a genus." 50 The Eleatic philosopher started from this principle that being is one, and, observing that besides being there is nothing {praeter ens nihil est), he concluded that being can be diversified neither by itself nor by anything else. The modes by which it would be differentiated, since they are extrinsic to it, would be nodiing. It is the most condemned form of extreme realism. The universal as such exists outside the mind; universal being and the divine being are identical. Spinoza, not to be illogi­ cal, ought to return to the theory of Parmenides and deny the existence of the world, or else declare its absorption in God. Capreolus,57 having declared this Scotist doctrine to be false, “to wit, that being is predicated univocally of God and creatures,” at once points out the conclusion which, in his opinion, follows from it, in these words: “It follows from this that if God creates or simply annihilates the ass, He creates or annihilates Himself or some formality which is God, to wit, the formality of being 65 Rivista de filosofia neo-scolastica, February 1912, “Univocita od analogia.’* 00 St. Thomas, in Metaph., I, ch. v, lect. 9: "In this Parmenides was deceived, in that he used the term 'being as if it were one in meaning and nature, as genus is. But this is impossible.” 67 In III Sent., dist. V, q. 3, sec. 1, ad num. 252 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE and of substance.” Vacant likewise says: “If we seek to interpret the mind of Scotus, we find ourselves confronted with the alterna­ tive either of looking upon the controversy as a question of words or else of accusing him of paving the way for Pantheism.” 58 Schwane expresses himself in the same way in his Histoire des dogmes, IV, 205 f. He sees in the theory of Scotus “a point of view diametrically opposed to that of St. Thomas.” That we may see the connection between univocation of being and Monism, it is enough for us to consider carefully the first sixteen propositions of Rosmini condemned in 1887 (cf. Denzinger, nn. 1891-1930). As a matter of fact, Rosmini, too, sought to discover at least a minimum of univocation between God and creatures. It is the basic error of these first sixteen propositions. We need only quote the sixth: “In being that prescinds from crea­ tures and from God, which is indeterminate being, and in God which is not indeterminate but absolute being, the essence is the same.” The fifth proposition is deduced from this: “Being which man acquires by intuition, must be something of the necessary and eternal being, of the creative, determining, and final cause of all contingent beings: and this is God.” Moreover, if being is univocal, the modes by which it is differentiated (i. e., created es­ sences) must be extrinsic to it as the specific difference is to the genus; hence these modes are no longer being but a simple nega­ tion. This brings us to the twelfth proposition of Rosmini; “Fi­ nite reality does not exist, but God causes it to exist by adding limitation to infinite reality. Being which actualizes finite natures, united with them, is an excision from God." According to the way Rosmini views things, it is as if creatures were to God as colors are to light, and even since their differentiating modes are nothing, the logical end of this must be the absolute Monism of Par­ menides. 3) From this arises a third difficulty: univocation of being 58 Vacant, op. cit., p. 25. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 253 seems absolutely to comprise the essential and necessary distinc­ tion between the natural and the supernatural order, and Scotus is led to consider this to be a contingent distinction, dependent upon the free will of God. In fact, if being is analogous, it is certain that a created intellect cannot know, by its natural powers alone, the divine essence such as it is in itself. The created intellect has created being which is proportionate to it, for its proper and natural object; and the human intellect united with a body has the essence of sensible things for its proper and natural object. Therefore the only natural knowledge of God that we can have is by means of the analogical likeness of Himself which God has imprinted upon creatures. The immediate knowledge of the divine essence can be only su­ pernatural; it exceeds our proper and natural object, and if there is no repugnance in this, that is because it does not exceed our adequate object which is universal being. This is proved by St. Thomas in la, q. 12, a. 4. God is God, the creature is a creature. For a creature to see God naturally as He sees Himself, it would need to have God’s nature; it would be at the same time created and uncreated, which is absurd. Cf. Ill, Contra Gentes, ch. lii. Scotus, we know, strives to invalidate this demonstration of St. Thomas (cf. Scotus on I, dist. 3, q. 3; IV, dist. 49, q. 11; and Cajetan on la, q. 12, a. 4). For the Subtle Doctor, the object of our intellect is simply being. Does he not consider being to be univ­ ocal? He refuses to assign to the human intellect a naturally pro­ portionate object, which is the essence of sensible things. And if the Thomists object against him that we ought then to have immediate knowledge of all beings, God Himself included, Scotus replies: “In our present state it is true that our understanding has no conception of anything except by means of concepts de­ rived from material things and with the help of sensible images; but that may be either a punishment of original sin, or the result of an agreement between the faculties which prevents our intel­ 254 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE lect from having any conception of anything, unless at the same moment there is formed in the imagination a sensible image of the object. But this agreement which persists in the present state has nothing to do with the nature of our understanding, either in so far as it is understanding, or in so far as it is united with a body, inasmuch as it will no longer be in existence when our body shall have risen again glorified.59 Consequently, whatever may be the cause of our present condition, whether it be purely the will of God or a just punishment or a mental infirmity ... or something else, the object of our understanding as a faculty is not only the essence of sensible things, but also something which is common to all intelligible things.” 60 Scotus is thus led to admit that there is in us a natural and in­ nate desire (and not only elicited) 81 of seeing God. This desire is the very tendency of our nature.02 Hence we can no more see how this desire is not efficacious and does not constitute an exigency. We conceive that a natural and elicited desire which results from knowledge is inefficacious, if this knowledge is conditional: it would be good for us to see God, if it pleased Him to elevate us gratuitously to this vision. We thus avoid the heresy of Baius (Denzinger, n. 1021). How can a natural and innate desire which precedes all knowledge be merely a velleity; why does it not con­ stitute an exigency? It is the very tendency of our nature. If it was possible for God, as Author of our nature, to give us this desire, 69 As if that could not be a gratuitous privilege of the glorious state. 60 Scotus (I Sent., disc 3, q. 3, nn. 24, 25) says: “Whatever then may be the cause of this condition, whether it be the will of God or a just punishment or an infirmity which Augustine hints at (De Trinitate, Bk. XV, last chapter) when he says: "What is the reason, if it is not, indeed, because of a weakness that you cannot with fixed gaze behold this light? And was not sin truly the cause of this? Whether, I say, this be the total cause, or there arc some other causes, at least the primary object of the intellect, as a faculty, is not the quiddity of a material thing.” Cf. Vacant, op. cit., pp. 17 f. 91 “Elicited" means that it is the result of a cognitive act. 92 Scotus, Prolog. Sent., q. 1; see John of St. Thomas, Cursus theol., disp. 12, a. 3. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 255 He ought, in so far as He is our final end in the natural order, to be able to satisfy it, for the order of agents corresponds to the order of ends. Consequently our natural end would have to be confused with the supernatural end. Thus we can explain why Scotus de­ nied the necessity of the light of glory for the beatific vision 63 and the necessity of the infused moral virtues,04 and why he re­ duces the supernatural nature of faith to that of a mode which exalts natural faith.65 As Vacant observes (op. cit., p. 15), tire distinction between the natural and the supernatural is therefore for Scotus contingent and free. “It depends upon God’s arbitrary determination.” This is tantamount to saying that it is not repugnant for a creature to know God naturally, as God naturally knows Himself. In other words, it is not repugnant for God to create a supernatural sub­ stance; but this substance would and would not have the same nature as God; it would thus be a created, a contingent God, which is an absurdity. God’s liberty cannot be extended to the68 68 Cf. Cajetan, on la, q. 12, a. 5, n. 9: “And note well that Scotus can no longer be upheld on this subject.” And in n. 12 we read: “But from these state­ ments it is evident that the opinion of Scotus is false; he would have it that the natural and supernatural do not distinguish between entities, but between their relations to their active causes.” 04 Scotus, III, dist. 36 (Vives ed. XV, 701). Cf. Cajetan, on la Ilae, q. 63, a. 3. 05 Scotus, III, dist. 23: As the will is made perfect by charity, so is the intel­ lect by faith; “although the will can love God clearly seen objectively, yet it can­ not do so in that way without charity and with charity ... as charity makes (he second act more perfect, so also docs faith.” Cf. art. “Duns Scotus” in the Dictionnaire de théol. cathol., col. 1906, n. 3. We know that Molina follows Scotus on this point. Concordia, q. 14, a. 13, disp. 7, 8. For them, faith is not entitatively but modally supernatural. Cf. Billuart, De gratia, diss. Ill, a. 2, sec. 2. We have explained the Thomistic doctrine on this point in another work, De revelatione, I, 458—514. Suarez does not follow Scotus on this point, but admits that the obediential power is active and not passive, which is the teaching of St. Thomas. Cf. John of St. Thomas (on la, q. 12, disp. 14, a. 2, n. 11), who considers the active obedi­ ential power of Suarez to be a contradiction. It would be essentially natural, as being a property of the nature, and at the same time essentially supernatural, as being specified by a supernatural object. From this arise many differences between Suarez and the Thomists concerning the questions of grace. 256 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE realization o£ contradictories. God is God, the creature is a crea­ ture; this is one of the formulas by which the principle of identity or of non-contradiction is expressed. The theologians also gen­ erally maintain, against Ripalda, that a created supernatural sub­ stance is an evident contradiction. (Cf. Billuart, De Deo, diss. IV, sec. 4.) From this contingency, which does away with the necessity of finite essences, Scotus concludes that only our duties toward God are necessary, but those toward ourselves and our neighbors are contingent. God could have willed them to be other than they are (III, d. 37). This necessity of the natural law is thus reduced to a religious morality. In virtue of the same contingent principle, Scotus declares that the immortality of the soul cannot be proved, for it may be, he says, that the soul is immortal not by its nature, but miraculously. (Idem., q. 2, n. 23.) This doctrine of contingency is in perfect agreement with the voluntarism of Scotus and with many of his Nominalistic tend­ encies; 66 but it seems to establish a trend of thought which is opposed to the realistic formalism of the univocation of being, for this latter view, if the truth were admitted, would lead rather to Pantheism and eventually to Determinism.67 It is difficult to say ee Scotus takes the view of absolute Realism when he substitutes his formalactual distinction for the mental distinction of St. Thomas, but he takes the view of Agnostic Nominalism when he substitutes it for real distinctions, for instance, when he denies a real distinction between the faculties of the soul. If there is no real distinction between intellect and sight, it ought to follow that intellect is the same thing as sight, and that the distinction between the two is only mental. Cf. Vacant, op. cit., p. 23. 67 Truly this opposition is the result of extreme Realism and shows the falsity of it. This is clearly seen in the case of absolute and Pantheistic Realism which is in itself inevitably a contradiction. In fact, absolute Realism, applied to the notion of being, confuses the universal with the divine being, and the necessary conse­ quence of this is that the subordinate notions of genera and species become in­ volved in Nominalism. This is very clearly seen in the writings of Parmenides and Spinoza; genera and species are nothing but vain abstractions, flatus vocis (vocal sounds), and so are created substances and the faculties. There is nothing truly real left except unique substance. The two extremes meet: Absolute Realism RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 257 which of these two trends of thought predominates. We there­ fore think that Scotism is not really a system; it is not sufficiently connected, coherent, unified, to be called a system. This should not surprise us, since Scotus declares that theology is not a specu­ lative but only a practical science.®8 From this it would follow that theology cannot claim organization into a system, into a Summa in the scientific sense of the term; it can be only a collec­ tion of sentences and maxims. Whatever the dominant trend of thought with Scotus, as re­ gards the question which here concerns us, we must conclude with Scheeben®9 that: “Compared with the profound explanation of God’s invisibility given by St. Thomas, that of Scotus, who attacks it, seems to be very superficial and mechanical. Scotus merely says that God is naturally invisible to creatures, because His absolute independence requires that He should not distribute His light around Him except when He wills to do so out of condescension to creatures. To reason thus, is not only no explanation, but is a notable weakening of the essential point to be explained, which is that God, in consequence of His being naturally invisible, can make Himself visible not simply by an act of His will, but by a supernatural influence which transfigures the perception of the created mind.” The danger of confounding the natural with the supernatural appears also in the case of Rosmini, as a consequence of his main­ taining that being in univocal. See Rosminian propositions 36, 37, 38. The thirty-sixth reads: “The supernatural order consists in and Nominalism. Wc find something similar to this in tile modern philosophy of action; on the one hand it tends to confound the natural with the supernatural, and such a view would lead to Pantheism; on the other hand it is given up to a criticism of intellectualism which ends in more or less Agnostic Nominalism. And, of course, the philosophy of action is incomparably more removed from Thomism than tile doctrine of Scotus is. In this philosophy of action, the dangers we have just pointed out are considerably increased. 08 Prol. Sent., q. 4. 80 Scheeben, Dogmatik., Vol. I, sec. 79, n. 278. 258 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE the manifestation of being in the plenitude of its real form.” The thirty-eighth is: “God is the object of the beatific vision inasmuch as He is the author of ad extra works.” (Denzinger, nn. 1926, 1928.) It is true that Rosmini, in order to safeguard the distinction between the two orders, does not have recourse to the divine liberty, as Scotus does. But, as we have seen, this recourse is illogical. To distinguish, as the Subtle Doctor does, between natural and supernatural knowledge solely with reference to the agent upon whom they depend and not with reference to the object by which they are specified, does not sufficiently take into account the doctrine as formulated by the Vatican Council in the following words: “The Catholic Church, with one consent has also ever held and does hold that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct both in principle and also in object: in principle, because our knowledge in the one is by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which unless divinely revealed cannot be known.” (Denzinger, n. 1795.) If it is thought that we have exaggerated the consequences of extreme Realism, let anyone read the twenty-eight propositions of Master Eckhard which were condemned after his death. It will be seen how he returned at certain times, at least in the form of his teaching, to a doctrine peculiarly like that of Parmenides, who said that either creatures are nothing or else they are God.T0 Such are the principal difficulties which remain in the Scotist 70 Cf. Denzinger, n. 526: "All creatures arc one pure nothing: I do not say that they are a modicum of quiddity or anything, but that they arc one pure noth­ ing.” Rosmini says: “There is no finite reality: quiddity of finite being is consti­ tuted by the limits of finite being, and is negative.” Denzinger, nn. 1901, 1902. Eckhard also said: “There is something in the soul which is uncreated and uncrcatable” (n. 527). And Rosmini said: “Being which actualizes finite natures united with them, is an excision from God” (n. 1902). RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 259 concept of the divine names. The divine simplicity seems to be compromised, and with it the necessary distinction between die natural and die supernatural. However, a slight falsification of the first notion of the mind upon which all others depend, is not without very serious conse­ quences. As St. Thomas says, following Aristotle, at the end of his De ente et essentia, “a slight error in the beginning assumes considerable proportions toward the end.” Now Scotus, as Cajetan says,71 takes the opposite view to St. Thomas on almost all the great questions of general metaphysics. Should we be surprised at the consequences which we have just pointed out? 71 See Cajetan in the prefatory letter to his Commentary on Pars prima (Leonine edition), addressed to Cardinal Caraffa: “But John Scotus made it his point on this subject, beyond all others, with pronounced subtlety and copious­ ness of words, to endeavor to rob almost the whole of this passage of its force.” John of St. Thomas (Cursus theol., Approbatio doctrinae D. Thomae, disp. 1, a. 3), seeking to show what was the authority of St. Thomas at this time, said however: “Scotus on many points attacked the teaching of St. Thomas, but he did so with much modesty and with no disrespect.” Father Michael de Maria, S.J., in his Ontologia, tract. I, q. 1, a. 5, points out, as well as Capreolus and many historians, such as Vacant, tire consequences of the Scotist notion of being, inasmuch as it is opposed to that of St. Thomas: “Cer­ tainly the Angelic Doctor, starting from the truth that created beings are really composed of essence and existence, explains the proper concept of being, formed by our intellect, from this that being denotes that which has existence, or that which is. . . . From this St. Thomas infers that God is not in any genus, be­ cause being, predicated of God, does not denote quiddity having existence, but existence itself identified with quiddity. ... To this most distinguished doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, which concerns the very fundamentals of metaphysics, and which consequently extends further and fully pervades the whole of philosophy, the findings of Scotistic philosophy are diametrically opposed. Scotus, indeed, starts from the identity of essence and existence in created beings, and from this he concludes that being denotes mediately the praedicamenta and that being is predicated univocally of God and creatures, of substance and accident. Which of these two contradictory teachings of St. Thomas and Scotus better and more assuredly corresponds with the truth, each one can sincerely judge for himself, especially if he considers that the subverters of the Christian and PeripateticScholastic Philosophy very seldom appealed to the teachings of Scotus on the univ­ ocation of being; on potentiality and act, and on the distinction between beings. Hut contrary to this, they always held in abhorrence the principles of philosophiz­ ing handed down by St. Thomas.” We must also say the same of Suarez: “he •tarts frocs, the identity of essence and existence in created beings.” 200 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE One understands how Pope Pius X of saintly memory could have written in his encyclical Pascendi: “But we warn teachers to bear this well in mind, that great harm is done in deviating ever so little from Aquinas, especially in Metaphysics. A slight error in the beginning, to quote the words of Aquinas, is great in the end." All this has been said without the least animosity and with the respect due to the venerable Duns Scotus. He would obviously be the first to reject the Pantheistic and Naturalistic consequences which seem to us to follow as a necessity from his doctrine of univ­ ocation if this univocation is not merely a question of words. Let us say with him, when without irreverence he departed from the teachings of St. Thomas, that, “in choosing or shunning an opin­ ion one must not be influenced by love or hatred for the person holding such an opinion, but rather by the truth itself. Therefore we must love both, i. e., those whose opinion we follow and those whose opinion we shun, because both are of use in the search for truth. Therefore it is right to say : Thanks.” 72 Contemporary Scotists avoid, moreover, the inconveniences we have just mentioned in proportion as they reconcile—and they are doing so more and more—the univocation of Scotus with the analogy of St. Thomas. Suarez, as he does in most other instances, seeks a middle course between St. Thomas and Scotus. Like the good eclectic that he is, he applies in philosophy and theology the maxim that in medio stat virtus (virtue is the golden mean). He determines this mean, guided perhaps less by speculative principles than by the opposite opinions which practically are taught in the Schools. Is there not some element of truth in these two contrary opinions, since they are held and impressed upon us as facts? We must complete the one by the other and find an intermediate one, unless we are 72 Exposition in Metaph. Arist., Bk. XII, sec. 2, n. 56, quoted in the preface to Garcia, De rerum principio, p. xcv. RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 261 willing to risk displeasing all those whom we wish to conciliate. At times Suarezian wisdom seems less concerned with the rigor of metaphysics than with the flexibility of prudence, seeming to for­ get at certain moments that the mean of speculative intellectual virtues consists in conformity with objective reality and not in conformity with our intention, however upright this may be.73 Theological eclecticism takes its good where it finds it. It entails the vast labor of bringing together the diverse Scholastic doctrines and striking a sort of mean between the conflicting opinions. This made it possible for Bossuet to say of Suarez that “he voices the opinion of every School.” But, in wishing always to find the just mean between the rival systems, he seems to have gone to excess, by sometimes making this mean to be, as it were, the criterion of truth. For this reason, because error is constantly opposed to truth, we would have to seek for a just mean between the two; and be­ cause evil is the perpetual foe of good, we would be obliged, as a certain Liberalism wishes, to stick to the mediocre. There is noth­ ing farther from the drought of the celebrated Jesuit. But is it dis­ paraging for St. Thomas to have found in Scotus someone to con­ tradict him, and is his doctrine false or incomplete because it was attacked by another system? Suarez was not less esteemed, as even his adversaries admit, for he, too, encountered a very pene­ trating theologian. If he did not find a via media, firm, secure, and certain, between Thomism and Scotism, that is because there is no such way. In his Disputationes metaphysicae (disp. 2, sec. 2), Suarez treats of the unity of the notion of being; of the analogy between divine 78 Cf. St. Thomas, la Ilae, q. 64, a. 3: Whether the intellectual virtues observe lhe mean. “The good of an intellectual virtue is the true; in the case of con­ templative virtue, it is the true taken absolutely; in the case of practical virtue, it r. the true in conformity with a right appetite. . . . Accordingly, the good of speculative intellectual virtue consists in a certain mean, by way of conformity with things themselves, in so far as the intellect expresses them as being what they are, or as not being what they are not.” 2Ô2 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE and created being (disp. 28, sec. 3) ; of being common to substance and accident (disp. 32, sec. 2). We cannot give here a full explana­ tion of the opposition between the Suarezian and the Thomist no­ tions of being. This has been well done by A. Martin (art. “Suarez métaphysicien et théologien” in Science catholique, July and Sep­ tember, 1898) ;7475 finally, Del Prado devotes more than fifty pages to this question in his fine work entitled, De veritate fundamentali philosophiae christianae. In conclusion, Suarez strives to refute Scotism by Thomism, and Thomism by Scotism; then, when he himself seeks to find a middle way, he is continually buffeted between these two sys­ tems. First of all, he rejects the Scotist univocation because, as the Thomists say, being would be a genus, and because God and crea­ tures would not differ as beings (cf. disp. 2, sec. 5, nn. 5, 10; disp. 28, sec. 3, n. 7). Besides, Suarez is not satisfied with the analogy of proportion­ ality, for the reason that Scotus gives, in that the notion of being would not have sufficient unity (cf. disp. 28, sec. 3, nn. 9, 11). In his opinion, the objective concept of being cannot contain actually and implicitly the various modes of being (disp. 2, sec. 2, n. 20) .76 74 The views of A. Martin as set forth in this work reappeared in the author’s article entitled “Essence," written for the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, un­ der the name of "Michel." 75 Father Delmas, S.J., who usually follows Suarez, thus defines his position: “Suarez with many others teaches that the concept of being purely prescinds from the peculiar modes of being of other beings; so that such a concept, in what is properly implied by such being, actually contains none of its subordinates, al­ though it represents indeterminately all subordinates and all their modes, in so far as they agree in the common notion of being, in a word, in so far as they are beings.” Delmas, Metaphysica, p. 61. Also Frick, S.J., Ontologia, n. 23. According to the Suarczians, we should have to define analogues as follows: Analogues are such as have a common name, but the meaning signified by the name is relatively speaking different and absolutely speaking the same. But ac­ cording to this, the genus animal would be an analogue, for in man and the worm it is absolutely speaking the same and relatively speaking different. On the contrary, the Thomists say: “Analogues are such as have a common RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 263 Are we not thus brought back to univocation which from the very first was rejected? How can being still be essentially varied? Suarez perceives the difficulty and goes so far as to write (disp, 2, sec. 2, n. 34) as follows: “What I have just said of the unity of the concept of being is far clearer and more certain than the analogy of being; in defending analogy one must not deny the unity of the concept; but if anything had to be denied, it would be rather analogy which is uncertain, than the untiy of the concept which is a demonstrated fact.” 76 However, Suarez maintains an intrinsic analogy of attribution between the divine Being and created beings (disp. 28, sec. 3, n. 16) ; the creature is being by participation, and God is essentially being; the creature merely participates in being inasmuch as it is dependent upon God and is subordinate to Him. Very good; but how then can anyone maintain the absolute unity of the concept of being?77 It is clear that being by participation differs from what is essentially being, by reason of its very actuality, and there­ fore, in so far precisely as it is being and even in so far as it is opposed to nothingness, it is in a way contingent and not neces­ sary. They do not both exist in the same way. The actuality of the two is essentially different. Can there be in this difference any other similarity than that of proportion, which is the only one admitted by St. Thomas? Cf. De veritate, q. 2, a. 11. In order to safeguard the absolute unity of the notion of being, does Suarez admit with Scotus that in God being is formally name, but the meaning signified by the name is absolutely speaking different in them, though relatively speaking the same, that is, according to some proportion.” Gondin, Logica major, Part I, disp. i, q. r, a. I. 78 "Now I merely assert that everything which has been said concerning the unity of the concept of being, appears to be clearer and more certain than that being is analogous. Therefore, in order to defend analogy, it is not right to deny the unity of the concept; but if one of the two must be denied, it is analogy which is uncertain that is to be denied, rather than unity of concept, which seems to be demonstrated by sound arguments.” Disp. 2, sec. 2, n. 34. 77 This is how we translate praescindit simpliciter, which sums up the view of Suarez. Cf. Delmas, loc. cit. 264 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE and actually distinct from other absolute perfections? No; on this point he follows St. Thomas. But, although he does not posit in God a real distinction, he denies a real distinction between essence and existence in creatures.78 Does not this in a way tend to destroy the distinction between the created and the uncreated? Scotus brings God nearer to the creature; Suarez, the creature nearer to God. Whatever he may say, we cannot but maintain that what primarily distinguishes created from uncreated being is the rela­ tion of dependence of the former upon the latter. This relation of dependence necessarily arises from the very nature of created being whose essence is not existence. Because it is not self-existent, it de­ pends upon another. This relation of dependence does not consti­ tute its nature, its entity.79 It is even impossible to conceive of be­ ing by participation, of which Suarez speaks, without distinguish­ ing in it what participates and what is participated, what limits and what is limited, essence and existence. (See Del Prado, op. cit., pp. 170-178.) On all these fundamental points Suarez manifestly abandons St. Thomas,80 and is more on the side of Scotus. The 78 How could a well-known controversialist write in these latter days that "we must be very careful not to confound with legitimate and necessary Thomism this distinction defended by Cajetan and his school?” How can he see in it "the danger of this theory being connected with the idealism of Lc Roy?” One might as well say that this real distinction leads to modernist Pantheism, when it is a positive refutation of it. Long before Cajetan, St. Thomas expressly said (la, q. 7, a. 1 ad 3um): “The fact that the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite, shows Him to be distin­ guished from all other beings, and all others to be apart from Him.” In the De potentia, q. 3, a. 3 ad 17, he says: "God in giving a thing its essence produces that which the essence receives." And in the De veritate (q. 27, a. I ad 8um) he says: “Everything which is in the genus of substance is composite, being a real composite at least of essence and existence.” These same expressions constantly recur in the works of St. Thomas. Sec Del Prado’s work on this subject and also that of Fa­ ther Mattiussi, S.J., entitled, Distinzione fra I'essenza e I’essere. 79 Cf. St. Thomas, la, q. 44, a. I ad turn: “Though the relation to its cause is not part of the definition of a thing caused, still it follows as a consequence on what belongs to its essence; because from the fact that a thing has being by participation, it follows that it is caused.” 80 As Martin, op. cit., says: “Suarez in this completely contradicts, if not him­ self, at least most certainly St. Thomas. ... In short, on the theory of universal RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 265 identity of essence and existence in creatures always brings him back to univocation of being admitted by the Subtle Doctor, “and perhaps without suspecting it, he reproduces his theories.” (Cf. Martin, op. cit.) We have already pointed out the dangers of this univocation. It compromises tire infinite distinction prevailing be­ tween the natural and the supernatural. Suarez seems to escape these difficulties only by continually wavering between Scotus and St. Thomas. This movement to and fro does not seem to conform sufficiently to the rules of logic to permit us to look upon the Suarezian doctrine as a system. Everything conspires, then, to make us say that there is here no possibility of a via media between Scotus and St. Thomas. Be­ ing as such either does or does not actually imply essential variety; in this it is (actu implicite) or is not essentially varied. If it is not, the differential modes of being are not being; they are nothing. Hence being cannot be diversified, and we must come logically to the absolute Monism of Parmenides and declare that all multi­ plicity is an illusion. This is what St. Thomas said with great depth of drought in refuting this primitive form of Pantheism. Cf. Metaphysica, I, ch. v, lect. 9: "In this Parmenides was deceived, in that he used the term ‘being’ as if it were one in meaning and nature, as genus is. But this is impossible. For being is not a genus, but is predicated in various ways of diverse things.” If, then, the notion of being were absolutely one, we should have to ac­ cept the conclusion of Parmenides, because, as St. Thomas says here, “We cannot conceive of anything which accrues to the notion of being by which it would be diversified; for that which accrues being he seems to have preferred the subtleties of Scotus to the clear and simple doctrine of St. Thomas. ... If, then, the metaphysics of Suarez separates on this point from that of St. Thomas, totally differing from it on the main topics, it stands to reason that we shall be astonished to see Suarez proposed to us as a sure and faithful commentator of St. Thomas.” Suarez seems even to forget here what the Fourth Lateran Council said: "The similarity between the Creator and the creature cannot be so great as not to find a greater dissimilarity between them.” Denzinger, 432. 266 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE to being is extraneous to it. But what is of this kind is nothing.” This solution of St. Thomas appears so necessary that it seems the disciples of Scotus and also those of Suarez are more and more inclined to accept it. So it is that several Suarezians, such as Father Frick, S.J. (Ontologia, nn. 6, 7), and Father Delmas, S.J. (Metaphysica generalis, n. 49), demand for the concept of being only an imperfect unity, and it is not impossible to find texts of Suarez in support of this interpretation. There would no longer be any differences on this question if it were not necessarily connected with the problem of the real dis­ tinction between essence and existence in creatures. Since Scotus and Suarez did not perceive the radical difference between the analogue and the univocal, and since they did not realize that the unity of the concept of being is only one of pro­ portionality, they could admit only that essence still belongs to being if it is but a real potentiality which receives and limits exist­ ence. On the contrary, this presents no difficulty if we grasp well the fact that being is analogous and applies in quite a different way to potentiality and act. Both Scotus and Suarez, since they do not admit a real distinc­ tion between essence and existence in creatures, deprived them­ selves of the most typical example of analogy of proportionality between God and creatures. It is clear, indeed, that there can be only similarity of proportions between the being of creatures com­ posed of potentiality and act, and the being of God who is pure Act.81 Thus is verified what we affirmed at the beginning of the sec­ ond part of this work, when treating of what formally consti81 St. Thomas (Dr potentia, q. 7, a. 7) says: "The various ways in which things are related to existence prevent one from predicating being of them univ­ ocally. But God’s relation to existence is different from that of any creature; for He is His own existence, which applies to no creature. Hence in no way is being predicated univocally of God and the creature; and consequently neither is any of the predicables, among which is the very first being.” RECONCILIATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 267 tutes the divine nature (n. 44), which is that there is an intimate connection between the two fundamental theses of Thomistic on­ tology: (1) That being is analogous with reference to God and creatures, according to an analogy of proportionality; (2) That God alone is Being itself, and that in creatures there is a real distinction between essence and existence. The unity of the primary notions common to God and creatures is therefore only a unity of proportionality. Hence the perfec­ tions expressed by them can exist formally in God and are iden­ tical in Him. Thus is safeguarded the knowability of God and also His ineffability which results from His transcendence and abso­ lute simplicity. By the light of this general doctrine of the identification of the divine attributes it will be possible for us to solve the special an­ tinomies relative to liberty. The difficulties which they present oblige us to discuss them somewhat at length. CHAPTER IV The Special Antinomies Relating to Freedom Of all the antinomies brought against us by Agnosticism, the most difficult to solve seem to be those relating to freedom. First of all, how are we to reconcile either divine or human free will with the principle of sufficient reason, which, as we have seen, is the foundation for the proofs of God’s existence? If all that is, has its sufficient reason, a determining sufficient reason without which the determination of what comes into existence would remain un­ explained and unintelligible, must we not admit that the free act itself must have a determining sufficient reason? And how is it free under this determination? If to avoid Determinism we main­ tain that the free act of itself has no determining sufficient reason, we conceive of it, it seems, as an absolute beginning. But this is practically a denial of the necessity and universality of the prin­ ciple of sufficient reason, which is the foundation for the proofs of God’s existence. To safeguard the validity of reason and its first principles, some Intellectualists, such as Spinoza, thought they must deny both di­ vine and human freedom. To safeguard freedom and along with it morality, some Volun­ tarists, such as Renouvier and Secrétan, thought they must deny the necessity or objectivity of the first principles of reason. There are other antinomies connected with this principal one: How can we reconcile the freedom of God with His wisdom and immutability? How can we reconcile human freedom with God’s foreknowledge and movement of all things? Above all, how are we to reconcile moral evil or sin with the divine motion ? 268 THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 269 For a full realization of the importance of the problem, we will briefly explain the thesis of Absolute Intellectualism and also that of Libertism; they correspond more or less to the two parts of the third antinomy of Kant. 59) Statement of the problem; absolute Intellectualism and Liber­ tism, the third antinomy of Kant Absolute Intellectualism is to be found especially in the works of Spinoza, who applies the mathematical method to all the sci­ ences. As mathematics considers neither efficient nor final causes, nor sensible qualities, Spinoza denies the reality of efficiency prop­ erly so called, of finality, and of sensible qualities, and admits such a conformity of mathematical reason with being that it makes him completely deny contingency and free will. Everything exists be­ cause of the quite geometrical necessity of the divine nature, with­ out any choice on the part of God. Hegel in his Panlogism goes so far as to say that the real and the rational are identical, what is and what must be, the accomplished fact and right, success and morality. But thus to reduce every con­ tingent fact to the necessity of rational laws, he is obliged to change the meaning of these laws. For him the principle of con­ tradiction is nothing more than a law of minor logic, of the under­ standing occupied with abstractions. The law of major logic, of reason and reality, is the identification of contradictories in be­ coming. Absolute Intellectualism or Panlogism is thus itself iden­ tified with anti-Intellectualism which denies the necessity of ra­ tional principles. The Intellectualism of Leibniz, though maintaining the neces­ sity of the principles of contradiction and sufficient reason, strives to find a place for freedom. As a matter of fact, it allows only contingency to remain, and a necessary choice of a moral neces­ sity. In God as in man, choice is infallibly determined by the prin­ ciple of sufficient reason. Leibniz read St. Augustine, St. Thomas, 270 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE Bannez, and Alvarez, as well as Molina and Fonseca; he admits with the Thomists that “intelligence is, as it were, the soul of freedom” (Théod. Ill, sec. 228); that freedom presupposes spon­ taneity, which means exemption from all external constraint (sec. 301) and also indifference; but he adds: provided we do not un­ derstand by indifference anything more than contingency.1 Con­ tingency is the “exclusion of logical or metaphysical necessity” (sec. 288), but not the exclusion of moral necessity which belongs properly to understanding and which inclines infallibly though without necessity (sec. 310). According to Leibniz, the last prac­ tical judgment which terminates a deliberation is indifferent to what is meant by contingent. This is equivalent to saying that the contrary or at least the contradictory judgment is possible, or does not imply a contradiction. But it is not indifferent in this sense, that the contrary or the contradictory judgment would be com­ patible with the external circumstances and the internal disposi­ tions in which one finds oneself in the act of judging. To admit this compatibility, to admit that in the same circumstances a man can at one time act and at another time not act or act differently, is, according to Leibniz, a denial of the principle of sufficient rea­ son, because that principle requires that nothing happen without a determining reason for it. He says further: “Without this great principle we should never be able to prove the existence of God and we should lose a vast number of very exact and very useful reasonings which ultimately rest upon this principle. It suffers no exception, otherwise its force would be weakened. There is 1 "So far we have enumerated the two conditions of freedom of which Aristotle speaks, i. e., spontaneity and intelligence, which are found united in us in delib­ eration, whereas the second condition is wanting to beasts. But the Scholastics require still a third condition which they call indifference. And we must admit it if indifference means as much as contingency; for I have already said that free­ dom must exclude an absolute and metaphysical or logical necessity." Théod., Ill, sec. 302; I, sec. 46. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 271 also nothing so weak as those systems in which everything is un­ stable and replete with exceptions.” (Théod., I, sec. 84.) The last practical judgment that terminates a deliberation is therefore not absolutely necessary, like a geometrical conclusion— in that Leibniz differs from Spinoza—but it is necessary, he says, with a moral necessity in virtue of the principle of sufficient reason or that of the better. In such determined circumstances it cannot at the same time be better to act and better not to act; in one and the same situation there can be only one better, not two. And if one judges that it is better to act, the circumstances being the same, one cannot effectively abandon this judgment and judge that it is better not to act. “Everything is certain and predeter­ mined in man as in everything else, and the human soul is a kind of spiritual automaton” Théod., I, sec. 52. This is what is called Psychological Determinism. If that is true, our activity seems to be no more than a series of acts or phenomena, the connection between them being governed by the laws of association of ideas when we do not reflect, but by the principle of sufficient reason when we do reflect. Can the rational automaton be called a person, is it really master of its acts, sui juris? Is it not rather a part of the universe, a group of phenomena lost in the immense series? Is it not rather limited to the transmission of the received activity? Is it really the source of its own activity, is it truly endowed with initiative? In spite of being endowed with reason, it is not so much acting as acted upon. According to the author of Monadologie, God, too, finds Him­ self under the moral necessity of creating rather than not creating; He would be neither good nor wise if He did not create; and of all possible worlds, He is under the moral necessity of choosing the best; therefore the best must exist. Leibniz sees no possible inter­ mediate position between this thesis and that of the Nominalists, 272 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE Ockham and Descartes, who make the truth of the principle of contradiction and the first principle of morality depend upon di­ vine freedom. And it is “dishonoring” God, he says, to claim that He has established the distinction between good and evil by a purely arbitrary decree. . . . Why would it not, then, just as well be the Manichaean principle of evil as the orthodox principle of good? 2 (Théod., II, secs. 176 f.) Consequently Leibniz maintains that God knows future free acts “by the knowledge of simple intelligence before He has de­ creed to give them existence.” “From this we see,” he says, “that to account for God’s foreknowledge, we can do without the sci­ entia media of the Molinists and without Predetermination, as taught by Bannez and Alvarez, who were very profound writers” (Théod., I, sec. 47). “It is sufficient,” says Leibniz, “for the crea­ ture to be by its preceding condition inclined more to one side than the other; and all these combinations of actions of the crea­ ture and of all creatures were represented in the divine intellect and known to God by the knowledge of simple intelligence before He decreed to give them existence.” Such is Psychological Deter­ minism, according to which the principle of sufficient reason im­ poses an infallibly determining moral necessity upon divine and human freedom. This doctrine of moral necessity has been held, more or less dis­ tinctly, by a rather large number of philosophers both before and after Leibniz. It seemed to many to be the inevitable consequence of the principle of sufficient reason and of that of the subordina­ tion of the will to the intellect which directs it. In favor of this 2 St. Thomas says in equivalent words: “It is blasphemous to hold that the distinction between moral good and evil depends simply upon the free will of God. God would no longer be essentially good.” Cf. St. Thomas, De veritate, q. 23, a. 6 (“Whether justice in created things depends simply upon the will of God.”): “To say that justice depends simply upon the will of God, is to say that the divine will docs not proceed according to the regulations of wisdom; and this is blasphemous.” THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 273 thesis Leibniz quotes Plato,3 and generally those in favor of abso­ lute optimism. Afterwards, Rosmini was condemned by the Church for having taught the following proposition: “The love by which God loves Himself even in creatures, and which is the reason determining Him to create, constitutes a moral necessity, which in the most perfect being is always productive of an effect : for necessity of this kind only in the majority of imperfect beings leaves intact bilateral freedom” (Denzinger, n. 1908). Contrary to this, the Vatican Council said: “God, of His own goodness and almighty power, not for the increase or acquirement of His own happiness, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, and with absolute freedom of counsel, created out of nothing, from the very first beginning of time, both the spiritual and the corporeal creature, to wit, the angelical and the mundane, and afterwards the human creature as partak­ ing, in a sense, of both, consisting of spirit and of body” (Den­ zinger, n. 1783). “If anyone shall say that God created, not by His will, free from all necessity, but by a necessity equal to the neces­ sity whereby He loves Himself; let him be anathema” (Den­ zinger, n. 1805). The Intellectualism and Psychological Determinism of Leibniz which the Church rejected, was followed by a no less excessive voluntarist and libertarian reaction. Between Lebniz and Kant the question at issue is, to know whether we must attribute the supremacy to die will or the intellect. The third Kantian an­ tinomy ■* presents the difficulty in sufficiently clear terms. The thesis of this antinomy shows the necessity of admitting a free causality. According to the antithesis, a free causality is con­ trary to rational principles. The thesis is formulated by Kant as follows: Causality in cons Leibniz is mistaken in quoting also Aristotle: c£. Perihermenias, Bk. I, ch. ix; St. Thomas’ comment., lect. 13-15. 4 Critique of Pure Reason (Transcendental Dialectic; Antinomies of Pure Reason), tr. by Meiklejohn, pp. 252-257. 274 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE formity with the laws of nature is not the only kind of causality which can explain all the phenomena in the world. To explain them a free causality must also be admitted. Let it be supposed, indeed, that everything happens in the world according to neces­ sary laws; from this it results that a phenomenon can never be considered as fully determined, for its previous condition presup­ poses another, and so on indefinitely. We do not therefore arrive at that complete determination demanded by the natural law. To satisfy this law the series of causes must therefore be complete, final; it must start from a cause which has no need of being pre­ viously determined; it must start from a free cause. The antithesis maintains, on the contrary, that there is no such thing as freedom and that everything in die world happens solely according to the laws of nature. Granted, indeed, diat there is such a thing as free causality, capable of commencing of itself a whole series of connected actions, you thus introduce incoherence into nature and break the unity of experience which demands that all phenomena be interconnected, without any possible gap, by a rela­ tion of antecedents and consequents. We must therefore keep to natural necessity and exclude a freedom which introduces dis­ order into the world and knowledge which is contrary to the prin­ ciple of sufficient reason and to that of causality. We know that Kant solved this antinomy by distinguishing be­ tween the phenomenal and the intelligible. Certain human actions which, for our senses, are embodied in the inflexible chain of phy­ sical causality, can at the same time proceed from a free causality situated in the world of things in themselves. There would thus be “a causality the effects of which are to be met with in the world of phenomena, although it is not itself a phenome­ non.” 0 Man can discover by his own reasoning a motive capable of determining his conduct independently of all sensuous im­ pulses. 6 Ibid., p. 303. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 275 Kant himself avows that this conception “must appear in the highest degree subtle and obscure.” We do not see, indeed, how it solves the difficulty, if the principle of sufficient reason is ap­ plied both to the intelligible and the phenomenal world of things. Moreover, are not the things in themselves determined by the di­ vine causality? And how can moral action be necessary in so far as it is a phenomenon, and free in so far as it is a transcendent de­ termination? ® Without succeeding in finding a place for freedom in the order of phenomena, Kant subordinated metaphysics to morality and thus admitted the principle of Voluntarism. This voluntarist idea prepared the way for him. The system of Fichte may be called a philosophy of freedom. The absolute is not that which is, but that which must be; and that which must be is freedom. In the philosophy of his last years, quite in opposition to Hegel, Schelling puts the will above reason. Schopenhauer declares the living will to be superior to this He­ gelian logic which he considers only a series of abstractions. Lequier and Secrétan strive, each in his own way, to submit all philosophical problems to this mooted question. Both of them, after the manner of Kant, subordinate metaphysics to morality. The Intellectualist and Voluntarist theses are pushed to their ulti­ mate or so-called ultimate consequences. Is it not true that Intel­ lectualism, which posits as a principle the subordination of the will to the intellect, must admit that all the steps in willing are predetermined by the intellect? Must we not return to the old doc­ trine of Socrates and Plato, that virtue is a science: that when any­ body does what is morally wrong, he does so through ignorance or, as Spinoza said, because of a failure to form clear ideas for himself? Does not Intellectualism normally end in the negation of free will ? According to these same philosophers, if we wish to bring • Cf. Ruyssen, Kanl, p. 204. 276 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE back freedom we must in the end reject the absolute necessity of first principles as laws of being, subordinate in all cases intelli­ gence to volition, at least in God, and say with Descartes that if the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles and if there are no mountains without valleys, this is because God willed it to be so. According to Secrétan7 and Lequier,8 if we do not put freedom in the first place, it has no place anywhere; if it is not everything, it is nothing. Necessity is the result of abstrac­ tions of the mind. As Descartes said, God is absolute freedom. That being admitted, Secrétan does not hesitate to sacrifice divine foreknowledge to free will: God wills to be ignorant of future free acts. Lequier, though claiming to remain faithful to Catholi­ cism and to infuse new life into theology, also denies divine fore­ knowledge.9 Do not certain contemporary apologists still cherish the ambition of the author of La recherche d’une première vérité to make “freedom the fundamental dogma of Catholicism”? 10 There are many philosophers who have declared themselves 7 Secrétan writes as follows: “Long ago I admitted that freedom and necessity are the supreme dilemma. Long ago I said that, in favoring divine freedom, my main purpose was to give a reason for human freedom, the reason for which, in my opinion, is based on the authority of duty." La philosophie de la liberté, 2d ed., I, 370. Absolute being, if it is to be ratio sui or causa sui, must be absolute freedom, freedom to be free. “Being substance, it gives itself existence; being alive, it gives itself substance; being a spirit, it gives itself life; being absolute, it gives itself freedom. . . . The finite spirit is both spirit and matter, and not merely spirit. The perfection of spirit would be to be pure spirit, without matter. Pure spirit is only what it is, i. e., absolute freedom. . . . I am what I will. This formula is therefore the factotum." Ibid., pp. 361-364. 8 Lequier: “Fundamental truth has been confided to the keeping of human conscience. It is in the ardor of the strife between passion and duty that we con­ template face to face the two terms of the alternative which constitutes its es­ sence.” La Recherche d'une première vérité (fragments posthumes), pp. 82-85. Cf. Revue philosophique, 1898, p. 139. 8 “God Himself has restricted His knowledge concerning our acts; He could not have consented to create man free without consenting to be ignorant at least of the use that man would make of his free will.” Lequier, ibid., pp. 214-216. 10 It is the title of Book VIII of La Recherche d'une premiere vérité. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 277 more or less completely in favor of this libertarian solution.11 Charles Renouvier and the neo-critics have brought up again in its defence all the arguments of the Pyrrhonists: that nothing is certain, and that every affirmation is a free belief. For a long time the neo-critics have led us back to the famous dilemma by which Lequier thought he could prove that we must choose freely be­ tween necessity and freedom, both of them impossible of demon­ stration. It is frequently said that freedom and necessity cannot rule with equal authority; we must choose between the two. Charles Renouvier decided freely in favor of freedom, because it makes the least demand upon truth and gives the greatest result: (1) It is the foundation of knowledge; for knowledge is the re­ sult of an act of free will; for, even considered in detail, no propo11 Boutroux writes as follows: ‘‘In God power or freedom is infinite; it is the source of His existence which, in a way, is not subject to the restraint of fatality. The divine essence, coeternal with His power, is actual perfection. It is necessary, being a practical necessity, which means that it deserves absolutely to be realized, and can be itself only if it is freely realized." Contingence des lois de la nature, 2d ed., p. 156. Brochard (Oe l'erreur, 2d ed., p. 265) writes: “To say that everything in the world is the object of knowledge, or, what comes to the same, that everything is subject to the law of causality, is to depict the world solely under the form of thought, which means that thought is the measure of being. But what right have we thus to settle the question and eliminate what has been given us on the same grounds as that which is preferred? Moreover, this makes it impossible for any­ one who takes this stand to explain free will which exists, at least in virtue of outward appearances, to say nothing of the problem of error, which, as we have seen is impossible of solution on this hypothesis. . . . True, at first sight it is peculiarly bold to admit the existence of an irreducible and, as the Germans say, illogical element to thought. However, this conception enjoys certain advantages over the preceding. Besides, whereas Intellectualism cannot find any place for free will, the philosophy of freedom can find a place for necessity. . . . There is nothing in existence which is not intelligible; but it is not enough that a thing be intelligible for it to be real; it must yet be realized by a principle other than the idea, ». e., by the will. Furthermore, the will is not determined by the intel­ lectual or aesthetic validity of ideas. It is not the essence of things, but the intel­ ligible united with the will that constitutes the intelligible. We must find a place for the illogical alongside the logical element; in simpler words, we must sup­ plement Intellectualism by the philosophy of freedom." 278 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE sition claimed to be proved is absolutely certain; (2) It makes mor­ ality possible, since without it one cannot conceive of duty. It can­ not be a question of proving the existence of this duty; but it is one’s duty to believe freely in duty. “I refrain,” Lequier said, “from the pursuit of a work of knowledge which would not be mine. I embrace the certitude of which I am the author. The formula of knowledge is doing. It is not becoming but doing, and in doing to become. . . . Freedom is the condition which renders possible the imperfect and admirable work of human knowledge, and the work of duty which results from it. This is enough perhaps to assure us that it is not a vain conception of our pride.” 12 This thesis is nowadays pressed to its ultimate conclusions by the representatives of the “new philosophy,” Bergson and his dis­ ciples Le Roy and Wilbois. Truth is essentially variable; it is freely realized and freely accepted. “The mind is never confronted but by itself, its degrees and moments. The world is its work and it, too, in so far as it is realized, is still its work. In that way, Idealism is truth; I mean the Idealism of thought-action.” 13 Thought-action “is founded upon itself and does not presuppose anything. . . . In fact, only thought-action is capable of being self-sufficient. Noth­ ing is posited before it, since nothing is posited except by it. It is a positing of itself. If one takes it to be the fundamental reality, it becomes freedom, for there is nothing that conditions it; on the contrary, everything is connected with it. Hence it really seems like a starting-point, a first beginning.” 14 You would think you were reading a translation from Fichte with this difference, however, that Fichte, far less paradoxical than Le Roy, thus defines the absolute and universal, and not the individual ego. According to the new philosophy, “axioms and categories, forms of the under12 Lequier, op. cit., p. 82. 13 Le Roy, Bulletin de la Société française de philosophie, 1904, p. 166. [Re­ cently Le Roy made his submission to the Holy See, retracting anything he may have written which is contrary to the teaching o£ the Church. Tr.J 14 Ibid., p. 162. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 279 standing or sense perception, all these are submitted to the process of becoming, of evolution. The human mind is plastic and can change its most intimate desires.”15 The freedom which Bergson admits is nothing else, however, than absolute spontaneity. The free act is that “which emanates from the ego and only from the ego, to the exclusion of any ex­ ternal influence whatever.” 16 This doctrine is, in certain respects, reminiscent of Hume who no more believes in freedom in the proper sense of the term than he does in necessity. According to Bergson, freedom is not the power to decide between two alter­ natives; there is no active indifference between two possible choices; but “if our action seemed free to us, it is because the rela­ tion of this action to the state from which it came could not be expressed by a law, this psychic state being unique of its kind and no more needing ever to reproduce itself.” 17 “You do not bathe twice in the same river,” said Heraclitus, and from this point of view should we be surprised that freedom is everywhere? John Weber, who appeals to Bergson, himself admits: “They have criticized this theory, not without some show of reason, in that it escapes the difficulties (of free will) by an arbitrary definition. I call free every act that I accomplish; then I am free, since all my acts, according to the definition, are free.” 18 Weber also deduces the moral consequences of the Libertarian and anti-Intellectualist theory of Bergson. These consequences form the most radical kind of unmorality. This conclusion, pre­ viously quoted by us {supra, n. 21), will bear repetition here: 16 Le Roy, Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 1901, p. 305. Cf. Etudes March 1907; “La notion de vérité dans la philosophie nouvelle,’’ by J. de Tonqucdec. 10 Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, ch. iii, pp. 132-138 and i40-151. 17 Ibid., p. 181. 18 Revue de mét. et de mor., 1894, p. 539. Maritain, in his recent work (La Philosophie bergsonienne, pp. 263-276), shows clearly how freedom, such as Bergson conceives it, is nothing but spontaneity. 28ο GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE “Morality, in planting itself on a terrain from which invention grows in all its vigor, immediately and full of life, in manifesting itself as the most insolent encroachment of the realm of the intel­ lect upon spontaneity, was fated to encounter the continual con­ tradictions of that undeniable reality of dynamism and creation which is our activity. . . . Confronted with these morals of ideas, we outline morality, or, more correctly, the unmorality of the act. . . . We call ‘good’ whatever has triumphed. If the success is fierce and implacable, if the vanquished are completely defeated, destroyed, abolished beyond hope, then success justifies everything. . . . The man of genius is profoundly immoral; but for anyone to be immoral is not the proper thing. In this world of egoisms which are strangers to one another, ‘duty’ is nowhere in particular, yet it is everywhere, for all actions possess absolute value. . . . The act is a law unto itself, the whole law. . . . The repentant sinner deserves all the anguish of his contrite soul, because he was not strong enough to transgress the law, and unworthy to be a sinner. The criminal still at large, who is tortured by remorse of conscience and gives himself up and confesses his crime, deserves punishment, for he was not strong enough to bear with undis­ turbed mind the terrible weight of crime.” 19 The philosophers of freedom had to end in such radical nihilism. With Bergson and Le Roy, as Jacob remarked, not only have we no more truth and necessity in the Kantian sense, but neither truth nor necessity in the Spencerian sense: “Here every intellectual norm disappears or ceases to be anything else but an artifice, an unfaithful symbol which betrays what it symbolizes and which cannot be called a true lie, ^eû8os.” 20 We see that the anti-Intellectualism of the champions of the “New Philosophy” again unites with the absolute Intellectualism 19 Revue de met. et de mor., 1894, pp. 549-56°· 20 Jacob, “La Philosophie d'hier et celle d’aujourd'hui,” in Revue de met. et de mor., 1898, p. 181. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 281 of Hegel. These extreme systems coincide and ought to, for both admit the formula of their common father, Heraclitus, that: “everything is and is not, nothing is, all is becoming.” From this point of view, necessity and freedom are identical. Hegel reduced the real to the rational, fact to right; the anti-Intellectualists reduce the rational to the real, right to “accomplished fact.” Both must grant that success is at the same time truth and goodness. There is no need of saying that might exceeds right; it is right. These two extreme doctrines are the ruination of all morality; absolute In­ tellectualism suppresses it, because it denies freedom; Libertism, devised to safeguard it, likewise suppresses it because it denies the absolute character of truth and declares itself powerless to establish duty on a solid basis. Frankly, we do not believe that the problem of free will has made much progress in modern times. Too often people have de­ lighted in dramatic antidieses which seduce the imagination and deceive one with an appearance of profundity; too often also, in claiming to define univocally what is of the very essence of being by one of these two terms: intelligence or will. Moreover, the modern philosophers have not always sufficiently profited by the researches of their predecessors concerning the relations between the will and the object by which it is specified. Occasion, too, will be afforded us of showing that the division of the faculties which has become classic since the time of Kant and the Eclectics (intel­ lect, sense perception, and will), a division which implies the abandonment of the traditional definition of the will (that it is a radonal appetite), has led modern philosophers to eliminate in the problem of free will the very principle of its solution, namely, this formal object of the will, goodness under this aspect, or its ade­ quate object, universal goodness. Contemporary philosophers still need, we think, to profit by the speculations of Aristode and St. Thomas, by the synthesis realized by this “Christian philosophy,” which Boutroux recently 282 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE declared to be “so complete, so precise, so logical, so firmly estab­ lished in its least details that it seemed for ever unchangeable.” 21 Could freedom be eliminated from such a synthesis constructed by theologians from the Intellectualist point of view? The Church affirms the existence of divine and human freedom as well as the absolute character of truth and the nature of God. Every Catholic theologian, even Scotus, must admit with Leibniz, against Ockham and Descartes, that it is "dishonoring" God to claim that He “established the distinction between good and evil by a purely arbitrary decree. . . . Why would it not then just as well be the Manichaean principle of evil as the orthodox principle of good?” (Théod., II, secs. 176,177.) Besides, the Church affirms the absolute freedom of the creative act: “God, with absolute freedom of coun­ sel, created out of nothing, from the very first beginning of time, both the spiritual and corporeal creature.”—Vatican Council, Sess. Ill, ch. i. She likewise affirms the free will of man in her doctrine on merit and demerit and the just punishments of God. It has been defined, at least since the condemnation of Jansenism, that spontaneity alone (freedom from coercion) does not suffice for meriting.22 Hence it is particularly interesting to study a speculative theo­ logian on this question, since he cannot think of sacrificing either of these two terms: truth and freedom; he is forced to reconcile them. It is a remarkable thing that, contrary to the majority of contemporary philosophers, St. Thomas not only claims to remain faithful to the principle of Intellectualism, but also claims to derive freedom in the. true sense from reason itself. That is what we 21 Boutroux, art. ''Aristote," in the Grande Encyclopédie; and Etudes d'histoire de la philosophie, p. 202. 22 Innocent XII and Alexander VII condemned as heretical the following propo­ sition of Jansenius: “For meritorious and demeritorious acts in the state of fallen nature, there is not required in man freedom from necessity; freedom from co­ ercion is sufficient.” Denzinger, n. 1094. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 283 should like to explain. Thus we see the true character of Thomist Intellectualism and in what it differs from Absolute Intellec­ tualism. The difficulty of the problem of freedom was certainly realized by those who lived in the Middle Ages. St. Thomas gives an Intellectualiste solution, defending the principle that the will fol­ lows the direction of the intellect. That given by Duns Scotus was Voluntarist, implying the primacy of the will.23 Suarez, who in most cases seeks a middle course between Scotus and St. Thomas, claims to uphold the superiority of intellect over will, while main­ taining with Molina that the will is not in all its acts directed by the intellect24 and that, confronted by two choices equally good, the will can, without any motive proposed to it by the intellect, choose one and leave the other. The freedom of indifference thus becomes for Suarez and Molina a freedom of equilibrium; there may be an unmotived preference. To solve the principal antinomy relating to free will, we will examine in the first place how, according to St. Thomas, free will results from intelligence; after that we will consider how it is reconciled with the principle of sufficient reason and therefore with divine wisdom. It will then be easier to defend the reconciliation of the freedom of God with His immutability, and of human freedom with the divine motion. The problem of freedom, stated 23 Scotus (IV Sent., dist. 49, quaestio ex latere 4, 5, 16) says: “The will com­ manding the intellect is higher cause in this respect; but, if the intellect is the cause of volition, it is a cause supervening upon the will, as being the first act in the generative order." Hence this explains why, “if two things are presented to the will, although of equal appeal, they are not equally willed." II Sent., dist. 25, q. 18. 24 Cf. Suarez, Disp, met., XIX, sec. 6: “If the will in all things is guided by the intellect, then there is an end of freedom.” “If the intellect judges this medium to be useful or eligible, even though at the same time it judges another to be useful, the will can choose one of them; neither is it necessary that the intellect should previously decide upon the choice of another, nor that it is to be preferred to another.” Suarez, loc. cit., sec. 11. 284 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE first on the part of man, is seen in all its force when stated as it concerns God. In spite of the irreparable imperfections of our analogical knowledge, we shall see that God’s freedom is incom­ parably more manifest than man’s, though it is not—as Secrétan and, in a certain sense, Descartes would have it to be—that which formally constitutes the divine nature. 60) Freedom results from intelligence. “Reason is the radical cause of all liberty.” St. Thomas, De veritate, q. 24, a. 2. The philosophy of St. Thomas, considered in its fundamental aspects, shows itself to be a decisively intellectualistic doctrine. We are confronted by a philosophy which maintains the dependence of intellect on being, the ontological validity of the laws of thought, the subordination of practice to theory, of will to intellect; we will only what we know, apprehend as good nihil volitum nisi praecog­ nitum. In a general way, in a being endowed with knowledge, appetite follows upon knowledge of good {Summa Theol., la, q. 19, a. 1; q. 80, a. 1) and, according as this knowledge is sensible or intellectual, we must distinguish the sensitive appetite (irascible and concupiscible, principle of the passions) from the rational appetite or the will (la, q. 80, a. 2). The will appears thus to be rooted in the intellect. Voluntas consequitur intellectum (Ia, q. 19, a. 1). The majority of modern philosophers since the time of Kant and the Eclectics, after adopting the classification of the faculties due to the influence of J. J. Rousseau (intellect, sense perception, will), refuse to identify the rational appetite with the will, and sharply reprove Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz for having confused them. The principal reason they give in support of their view is that, if the will is confused with the rational appetite, this means the end of freedom, for every appetite is a necessary one. We shall see that, on the contrary, the modern notion of will suppresses the THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 285 principle in the solution of the problem of free will and prevents us from seeing that liberty is a result of reason.25 Reid, Kant, Cousin, and Renouvier, in striving to show that the will is not an appetite, have claimed that we can will without desiring. This is manifestly contrary to the facts, for every volition presupposes an end, and the notion of an end implies the notion of goodness. The goodness may be either virtuous, useful, or delec­ table, but it must always be desirable. The will is nothing else but a rational appetite; this is its definition. Having thus defined the will, we now consider what is its formal and adequate object. It cannot be a certain and determinate good, such or such kind of delectable, useful, or virtuous good; if the will follows upon the intellect, it can tend toward everything in which the intellect will be able to discover the notion of goodness, toward every reality which the intellect will be able to present to the rational being as something good. The formal object of the will is therefore goodness as such: just as the formal object of the intel­ lect is being or the notion of being, which is the foundation of every idea, the soul of every judgment, the connecting link in every process of reasoning: just as the formal object of sight is color, and the formal object of hearing is sound. The eye perceives nothing except in virtue of color, the intellect nothing but in vir28 This is not the only confusion introduced into philosophy by the classification of the faculties of the soul, a classification due to the influence of J. J. Rousseau: intellect, sense perception, and will. Sense perception has taken up a position which it never held before. It was but the ensemble of appetitive faculties di­ rected by the external and internal senses, and proper to the animal; to this have been added intellectual, moral, and aesthetic sentiments, the love of truth, good­ ness, and beauty, religious sentiments which presuppose the intervention of reason and which are proper to man. The spontaneous love of truth is the natural ap­ petite of the intellect for its object; the reflex love of truth is an act of the will; the love of goodness and the inclination to love God above all things constitute the substratum of the will (la, q. 60, a. 5). This present-day classical division of the faculties is quite superficial, empirical, and phenomenalistic; it isolates facts most intimately related to one another (love of goodness, volition, joys of con■.ience) and reunites in one class facts that are most diverse in kind (carnal nleasure and the joy of union with God). 286 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE tue of being, and the will nothing but in virtue of good; it wills evil only in so far as it finds it to be an apparent good, just as the intellect can conceive nothingness only by comparing it to being. The will can therefore desire or will all that pertains to good, just as the intellect can know all that pertains to being. But what is of importance here for us clearly to see, is the in­ finite difference between the intellectual and the sensible knowl­ edge of good, between the idea of good and the common image or sensible remembrance of pleasure, a remembrance which the animal has and which cannot be the basis of freedom. The idea, as we have said (cf. supra, nn. 15-18), differs essen­ tially from the common image because it contains the intrinsic raison d’etre or the essence of what it represents, rendering it in­ telligible to us, whereas even the common image, which by its confusion can simulate the universality of the idea, contains only sensible phenomena in juxtaposition, revealing them to us. The common image of the triangle contains in juxtaposition the sen­ sible phenomena of any triangle, without causing these phenomena to become intelligible to us, without bringing out clearly a dom­ inant trait which would be the raison d’etre of all the others. The idea of the triangle, on the contrary, reveals to us this essential trait by which all the properties which necessarily follow from it are made intelligible to us. From this we see what difference there is between the idea of the good and the common or confused image simultaneously pres­ ent in the imagination. This confused image recalls merely the sensation of pleasure associated with the presence of this or that pleasurable object. The idea of the good, on the contrary, tells us what good is; it connects all its notes with a fundamental element, and this element with being which is tire first object of our intel­ lect. For everyone, good is that which by its nature arouses in us, by our knowledge of it, desire, love, and hope; when it is present, it causes joy, when absent, sadness; in a general way, it arouses THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 287 all the movements of the appetite. Just as all these movements of the appetite spring from love, so all the characteristics of good are derived from one of them; good is that which is capable of exciting love {bonum est id quod omnia appetunt: good is what all beings seek for). What is the raison d’être of this “appetibility,” of this power which good possesses of attracting the appetite? Why does good attract us, why is it desirable? It is because good can increase our being, fill up a void in us, perfect us. But to perfect us it must itself be perfection, plenitude of being in which nothing is wanting, capable of diffusing itself. “A thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual” (la, q. 5, a. 1). “The formal notion of good consists in perfection as constituting the basis of appetibility.” 26 As we rise by the principle of raison d'etre from the multiplicity of beings to the absolute Being, from the multiplicity of truths to the absolute Truth, so we also rise from the multiplicity of goods which are partial and limited, to the su­ preme Good in whom no absolute perfection can be wanting. He is plenitude of Being. If, then, the intellect is directed by the will and not by the im­ agination, the adequate object by which it is specified can be only good in all its generality, universal good, to speak from the view­ point of extension. This will enable the will to rise to the love of the supreme Good, the absolute, total, or infinite Good which alone is adequate to its vast capacity for loving, which alone, therefore, can give to it the perfect happiness that it seeks; every partial good will be incapable of fully satisfying it (la Ilae. q. 10, a. 2). “That good alone which is perfect and lacking in nothing is such a good that the will cannot not-will it.” From this definition of the will St. Thomas goes on to deduce liberty, just as a property is deduced from a nature. But as the will has its principle in reason and is directed by this in all acts, 26 John of St. Thomas, on la, q. 5. 288 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE we cannot say that liberty is deduced from the definition of the will and not at the same time from reason. “Forasmuch is it neces­ sary that man has a free will, as he is rational” (la, q. 83, a. 1). Freedom must manifest itself as a property of rational being. “The radical cause of all liberty is reason” (De veritate, XXIV, 2), or, according to a more precise formula: “The root of liberty is the will as the subject thereof, but it is the reason as its cause” (la Ilae, q. 17, a. i ad 2). In distinguishing between the radical and the proximate principle either of liberty or of the free act, we shall see: (1) that the radical principle of liberty, as being the power of choosing (potentia ad utrumlibet), is in reason, in so far as this latter knows what causes the good to be so, and its proximate prin­ ciple is in the vast range of the will which is specified by universal good; (2) that the radical principle of choice or the free act is in the indifference of the practical judgment with regard to such particular good, and its proximate principle is in the dominating indifference of the will with regard to this same good.27 Too often the Thomist proof of liberty is presented without tak­ ing into account the radical principle or the immediate condition of choice: the indifference of the judgment. One is satisfied in considering the relation which the will, specified by universal good, bears toward a particular and inadequate good, basing die argument on this major: An inadequate object which does not exhaust the capacity of a faculty leaves it in a state of indifference. Presenting the proof in this way, one forgets that the will tends toward an object only if this object is judged to be good, and not sufficient notice is taken of the fact that the modality of the vol­ untary act depends upon the modality of the judgment. Thus the formal mean in the demonstration of free will is overlooked, mak­ ing it impossible for oneself to answer the objections of the De27 See John of St. Thomas, Cursus phil., De anima, q. 12, a. 1-4; Billuart, De actibus humanis, diss. Π, a. 1, sec. 3, multiplex radix libertatis, and sec. 4, multi­ plex definitio libertatis. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 289 terminists who rely upon the presence in us of indeliberate and inevitable voluntary acts which tend toward particular goods. As a matter of fact, it is only through the absence of indifference in the judgment, as we shall see, that these acts are to be explained. It is in la, q. 19, a. 3; q. 59, a. 3; q. 83, a. 1, that St. Thomas asks himself whether God, angels, and man are free, and deduces the reality of liberty from the presence of intelligence. The same doc­ trine is more fully developed in De veritate, XXIV, 1,2. Elsewhere (la, q. 82, a. 1, 2; la Ilae, q. 10, a. 2; De veritate, XXII, 5, 6), lib­ erty is discussed, not in relation to its cause (the reason), but in relation to its subject (the will). The two aspects of the question are synthesized in the masterly article of the De malo, q. 6, a. 1. The essential element in the argument by which the reality of liberty is deduced from the presence of intelligence, is contained in la, q. 83, a. 1. This argument resolves itself into the following syllogism: We are free in the same degree as the practico-practical judgment which regulates our choice is of itself indifferent. Now the judgment of reason is of itself indifferent with regard to par­ ticular goods which have no necessary connection, hic et nunc evident, with the attainment of complete good. Therefore man, a rational being, is free with regard to these particular goods. The major of this proof offers no great difficulty. It contains the definition of liberty. A free act is that which the will accom­ plishes with a freedom or a dominating indifference such that it is able not to accomplish it; so that, although die circumstances remain exactly the same, the will is able on another occasion to suspend its act and not to act. This dominating indifference of the will is safeguarded if the immediate determining principle of volition is itself indifferent. This principle is the practico-practical judgment which precedes the voluntary choice, being the judg­ ment by which we affirm that such an object hic et nunc is good for us and that it is good to will it. This judgment is called practico-practical because it concerns an act viewed in such fully 2Ç0 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE determined circumstances in which it will be accomplished, in opposition to speculativo-practical judgments (such as the precepts of the moral law), everywhere and always true in themselves, in­ dependently of circumstances; for example: that good must be done, that we must do what is right. The purely speculative judg­ ment is that which in no way concerns action; for example, the principle of contradiction, of causality, any sort of judgment on existence. The practico-practical judgment can be indifferent with an in­ difference either of specification or of exercise. Its indifference is that of specification when it can affirm the fittingness or unfittingness of a certain object loved under one aspect and hated under another (indifference of specification by way of contraries) or again when it can affirm the fittingness of certain means or others which can be preferred to them in view of one and the same end (indifference of specification by way of disparities). Judgment is said to be indifferent with a simple indifference of exercise when it can affirm or not affirm the fittingness or goodness of a certain object. Only this latter indifference is required for liberty. To be free with regard to an object, it is not necessary to be able to love or hate it, to be able to prefer it to another, or another to it; it suffices to be able to love it or not to love it. To be master of one’s act, it suffices to be able to act or not to act, to go into or refrain from action. The minor of the argument also needs to be demonstrated. Why is tire judgment of reason of itself indifferent with regard to par­ ticular goods which have no necessary connection, hic et nunc evident, with the attainment of complete good? To explain this St. Thomas compares man with the animal. The animal tends inevitably toward the object which by its instinct is necessarily and automatically presented to it as suitable. Sometimes it seems to be reasoning, but the acts are merely an experienced succession of images subject to the laws of association, the representation re THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 291 maining concrete and individual and never rising to the abstract and the universal. The animal perceives in quite an empirical way that an object is suitable for it at a certain moment and not at a certain other, in proportion as this object does or does not corre­ spond to the concrete and individual actual dispositions of its ap­ petite. Thus it knows some things that are good, without knowing that any one of them is good, which means that it does not know their goodness. The intelligent being, on the other hand, compares particular goods which are presented to it with the universal idea of good. This comparison takes place in the syllogism in which the middle term, that must reunite the extremes, is good without any restriction, without admixture of imperfection or of non-good, it being the only object capable of realizing in all its purity this notion of good which our intellect perceives and of making us perfectly happy.28 It is not necessary for a free act that we distinctly have in mind the complete and absolute good, which is God; it suffices if reason has the idea of good in general and if the will tends naturally to happiness without restriction.29 The practical syllogism is formulated as follows in the first fig­ ure. The middle, major, and minor terms are indicated. Good (Middle} is what suits me and what I will (Major}. Now, a certain particular object, v.g., a life of pleasure (Mi­ nor}, hic et nunc is and is not a good, according to the aspect in which I view it (Middle}. Therefore this particular object (Minor} hic et nunc is what 28 “If the will is offered an object which is good universally and from every point of view, the will tends to it of necessity, if it wills anything at all, since it cannot will the opposite. If, on the other hand, the will is offered an object that is not good from every point of view, it will not tend to it of necessity. And since lack of any good whatever, is a non-good, consequently that good alone which is perfect and lacking in nothing, is such a good that the will cannot not-will it: and this is happiness. Whereas any other particular goods, in so far as they arc lacking in some good, can be regarded as non-goods; and from this point of view, they can be set aside or approved by the will, which can tend to one and the same thing from various points of view" (la Ilae, q. 10, a. 2). 20 Cf. la, q. 2, a. 1 ad rum; la Ilae, q. 1, a. 6. 292 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE suits me and also what does not suit me, according to the aspect in which I view it (Major). The conclusion, like the minor, is indifferent. A life of pleasure may be considered hic et nunc both from the point of view of its advantages and of its disadvantages. It is the same with duty, for it, too, has two sides, the one by which it appears to be in con­ formity with our higher faculties, the other which shows it to be in opposition with certain of our lower appetites or certain of our bad habits. God Himself, in this life, can be considered under two contrary aspects: as the sovereign Good, alone capable of filling the infinite void in our heart, and also as legislator imposing upon us precepts which are not fulfilled without effort and suffering, and as a judge punishing those who transgress his commands. We can have speculative certitude of the fact that there is no happiness without virtue and the love of God, and that virtue is a good which in itself is obligatory. This speculative certitude persists even in the case of the sinner and constitutes the element of ad­ vertence in sin. But if there is question of a hic et nunc practical judgment, that is to say, in certain circumstances and under certain conditions, virtue and the love of God can be considered under two contrary aspects: for we can love God or turn away from Him. Of the two paths of pleasure and of duty which present themselves to one seeking happiness, there is liberty of specification and a fortiori liberty of exercise, so much so that none of these partial goods appears to be in a necessary connection, hic et nunc evident, with the attainment of complete good. We see that the indifference of the practico-practical judgment is due to the vast disproportion that there is in the practical judg­ ment, between the minor and middle terms; the minor term is finite, the middle term, like the major, is infinite. The basis of liberty is therefore in the intellect which perceives the idea of good, and its judgment of it is consequently indifferent as regards every THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 293 object Jand act which is not exempt from every admixture of evil, reluctance, or imperfection. This derivation of liberty has evidently no meaning unless one admits a natural distinction between the intellect and the senses, between the idea and the image, the universal and the particular. Empirical Nominalism, which denies the specific difference in man, must also deny the property which flows from it. “Forasmuch is it necessary that man has a free will, as he is rational” (la, q. 83, a. 1). St. Thomas, in thus deriving liberty of intellect, assigns to it its limits. There is no liberty of specification except with regard to particular goods which have no necessary connection, hic et nunc evident, with the attainment of complete good. Thus it is that, as regards happiness, this liberty disappears; 80 under no aspect can happiness displease us or appear insufficient; in this case there is only liberty of exercise, for we can judge that it is suitable or not suitable hic et nunc to think of happiness and seek it.30 31 Again this liberty of exercise is sufficiently relative, since we cannot desire and will anything whatever without virtually desiring to be happy (la Ilae, q. 1, a. 6). And there is not any liberty of specification, at least liberty of contrary specification, with regard to goods which appear evi­ dently hic et nunc as an indispensable condition of happiness, namely: existence, life, use of our faculties, “being, living, sensa­ 30 “There is inborn in man a desire of his ultimate end in general, namely, that he naturally desires to be completely happy. But in what this consists, whether in virtue or knowledge or pleasure or in anything else of this kind, this is not de­ termined for him by nature.” De veritate, q. 22, a. 7; la, q. 82, a. 1. 31 “Man of necessity desires happiness which, according to Boethius, consists in the perfect state of the assembly of all good things. I say, however, of neces­ sity, as regards the determination of the act because he cannot will the opposite; but not as regards the exercise of the act because anyone can then not will to think of happiness; for also the very acts of the intellect and will are particular ones." De malo, q. 6, a. 1. 294 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE tion, understanding” (la, q. 82, a. 2; la Ilae, q. 10, a. 1). Consid­ ered in themselves, these goods cannot displease us or seem useless. He who kills himself does not hate life, but only the evils which make it unbearable. We might say that he kills himself only be­ cause he wishes, too much so, to enjoy life. With regard to certain of these goods diere is only liberty of specification by way of dis­ parities. If the martyr prefers rather to die than to renounce the faith, this is not because life is displeasing; at the very moment in which he sacrifices it, he still loves it by a previous act of the will, just as in another order, says St. Thomas, a merchant, to avoid shipwreck, throws his merchandise into the sea in spite of his de­ sire to keep it. Starting from this principle, that there is no liberty of specifica­ tion with regard to goods which appear to be invincibly and nec­ essarily connected with happiness, the majority of Thomists 32 hold as probable that a pure spirit, an angel, cannot sin directly against the natural law of his being which he intuitively sees in­ scribed in his own essence. From every point of view duty must appear to him to be in conformity with his purely spiritual nature; here the occasions of practical error vanish, since there are no pas­ sions or sensitive appetite in the angel. The possibility of sinning presents itself only when the angel is raised to the supernatural order and must act according to the light of faith. The precepts of the supernatural order, the acts to be performed by grace, through the beneficence of another, may be displeasing to one who takes delight in the perfection of his own nature and in his own manner of acting (la, q. 63, a. 3). Thus Socrates and Plato were right in saying that the clearer one’s intellect is, the more difficult it is to do what is wrong, to sin in any way, through ignorance. St. Thomas was able to retain a considerable part of Platonism in 32 Billuart, De angelis, diss. V, a. I. This opinion, common among the Thom­ ists, is based upon two texts of St. Thomas: la, q. 63, a. 1 ad 3um; De malo, q. 16, a. 3. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 295 his treatise on the angels. From this it does not follow that a pure spirit is not free; if an angel is not free in the natural order to do good or evil, in tire moral order he is free with regard to the different means which have no necessary connection with the end in view. It is the same for the blessed who are supernaturally rooted in good, and for God who is absolutely impeccable by nature and is in possession of supreme liberty. Such are the limits of a liberty derived from intelligence. There is no indifference in the presence of partial goods which evidently appear hic et nunc as an indispensable condition of happiness. But liberty of exercise, the only kind required for liberty, vanishes, ac­ cording to St. Thomas, only when confronted by the divine essence intuitively known as the plenitude of all good (la, q. 82, a. 2). Not only can the absolute Good, viewed such as it is, not appear in any aspect as bad or insufficient, but in the act of love that it excites there is no trace of evil, reluctance, weariness, inconvenience, and to the eye of the intellect it is but one in a certain way with the possession of the absolute Good. There is, then, in this case no indifference of judgment concerning the exercise of the act. Con­ sequently, there is no indifference in the will, strictly speaking, from the point of view of the exercise of the act which comes from the will. The absolute Good thus presented is adequate to the infinite capacity of the will in loving. By its very nature, the will tends toward this Good to the utmost of its inclination and power; there is no available energy left for the suspension of its act; there is nothing else but spontaneity of act, as the liberty of exercise dis­ appears. This faculty of loving, the extent of which is unlimited, cannot but surrender itself to the attraction of the infinite Good which is intuitively known. With regard to every other object, there is, from the point of view of exercise, indifference of judgment and consequently in­ difference of the will. The will is mistress of itself in yielding or not to the attraction of a good, the actual possession of which is 296 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE presented to it as advantageous, but only in certain respects. Man is free because the practical judgment that he forms about particular goods is of itself indifferent. “Particular works that can be done, are contingent and therefore in such matters the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determinate to one. And forasmuch is it necessary that man has a free will, as he is rational” (la, q. 83, a. 1; q. 59, a. 3; II Contra Gentes, 48). Having started from this principle, that the appetite of a being endowed with knowledge is dependent on this knowledge, St. Thomas had to conclude that the free or independent appetite depends upon the indifference of the judgment. But is this indeterminate judg­ ment which can be formulated either in the affirmative or the nega­ tive, sufficient on the part of the intellect so that the will may pro­ ceed to the act of election? Those who uphold the liberty of indifference in the sense of liberty of equilibrium, think so. The Molinists, and after them the Cartesians and Reid, maintain that the will can choose without having a motive for doing so, or when there are equal grounds for and against the choice. Suarez stated very clearly that it is not necessary for the intellect to have judged that the choice about to be made is the best hic et nunc.33 Liberty is defined by these theologians as the faculty which, for action, can either act or not act. This means to say that, even after the final judgment which terminates deliberation, it is pos­ sible for the will (in sensu composito') not to perform the act in question. The disciples of St. Thomas, 34 appealing to the most 83 ‘‘If the intellect judges that this particular means is useful or eligible, even though at the same time it judges something else to be useful, the will can choose one of the two; neither is it necessary previous to this that the intellect definitely decide that the other is to be chosen, nor even rather to be preferred.” Suarez, Disp. Met., XIX, sec. 6, n. 11. 31 “It is not enough for the intellect to judge that each extreme is open to one’s choice, but it must definitely decide that it is absolutely proper hic et nunc, all things considered, for what is chosen, to be chosen rather than its opposite: just as the will by a reflex act absolutely wills all this." Salmanticenses, Cursus theol., 1878, V, 125; Billuart, De actibus humanis, diss. Ill, a. 6, sec. 4. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 297 formal texts of their master,35 teach, on the other hand, that there must always be a motive for the choice nothing is willed unless foreknown"), that there must be a determinate and positively final practice-practical judgment which is infallibly followed by the free act.38 Let us illustrate this by an example. According to St. Thomas, the one who sins judges speculatively that virtue is a good which in itself is of obligation; it is this speculative judgment which con­ stitutes the element of advertence in sin. The sinner judges even practically that hic et nunc virtue may be considered from two points of view: under one aspect it is good, under the other it ad­ mits of a distinction, being partly good and partly not good. But precisely at the moment of sinning, the sinner judges practically that it is fitting to sin, saying to himself: this act is simply good 85 “When the appetite appears not to follow upon knowledge, this is because the appetite and the judgment of reasoning are not concerned about the same tiling; for the appetite is concerned about particular operable things, but the judgment of reason, at times, is concerned with something universal which is sometimes contrary to the appetite. But a judgment concerning this particular thing that may be done at the present moment, never can be contrary to the ap­ petite; for he who wishes to fornicate, although he knows in a general way that fornication is wrong, yet, at that moment, he judges that fornication is a good act, and under the aspect of good chooses it.” De veritate, q. 24, a. 3. And if we have presented to us ttvo means equally good, “nothing hinders us from consider­ ing in one of them some particular point of superiority, so that the will has a bent toward that one rather than toward the other.” la Ilae, q. 13, a. 6 ad 3um. In this case, if we wish to choose, nothing prevents our considering in one of the two objects a certain condition which gives it the preference over the other. To realize this condition in favor of one of the two objects, the Thomists find judgment to be sufficient: liberty stands for reason. Cf. Billuart, loc. cit. 30 The Thomists accept the Molinist definition of liberty, but with the follow­ ing distinction: “a faculty, granted all that is required by a priority of time for acting, can act or not in sensu composito; a faculty, granted all that is required by a priority of nature for acting, can act or not, only in sensu diviso." In the case of choice, both the divine premotion and the final judgment arc prerequired by a priority of nature. Cf. Billuart, De actibus humanis, art. I, sec. 4. On this question of free will, see especially the Thomist John of St. Thomas, in his Cursus phil., de anima, q. 12, a. 1-4. If we quote Billuart more frequently, this is because he generally sums up the doctrine very clearly, and because he is better known. 298 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE hic et nunc. This is the way St. Thomas understood the words of St. Paul : "I see and approve of the better things, but I do what is worse!' “I see and approve of the better things" (with a speculative and even a practical judgment which as yet is undetermined) ; “I do what is worse" (with a practico-practical judgment and by choice). It remains for us to examine how the intellect from an indifferent judgment arrives at a determinate final judgment. To say that the intellect is indifferent, is to say that it is not here, as it were, confronted by a first principle or a necessary conclusion from which it cannot withhold its consent. Here, as in faith, the object does not sufficiently determine it; and in this case there could be no intellectual determination, if the will did not intervene to make up for the insufficiency in the order of specification. St. Thomas employs exactly the same terms when it is a question of explaining the rôle of the will in faith and in the final practical judgment. Concerning faith he writes: “The intellect of the be­ liever is determined to one object, not by the reason but by the will; wherefore assent is taken here for an act of the intellect as determined to one object by the will” (Ila Ilae, q. 2, a. 1 ad 3). “The act of faith is an act of the intellect determinate to one object by the command of the will” (Ila Ilae, q. 4, a. 1). In the question which treats especially of the command of the will (la Ilae, q. 17, a. 6), he explains in what case “assent or dissent is in our power and is subject to our command.” This is so not only with faith, but in all cases in which the object does not sufficiently determine the intellect. If it is a question of adhering to a first principle, or a demonstrated conclusion, the will intervenes only in the order of exercise that it may apply the intellect to consider and judge; but if it is a question of formulating a definite judg­ ment when the motive is objectively insufficient, the will must also intervene in order to make up for this objective insufficiency. “But some things are apprehended which do not convince the intellect so that one cannot assent or dissent, or at least suspend one’s assent THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 299 or dissent, on account of some cause or other: and in such things assent or dissent is in our power, and is subject to our command” (la Ilae, q. 17, a. 6). That is what St. Thomas understands by being master of one's judgment. He affirms in many places that man is free, master of his choice, because he is master of his practico-practical judgment. “If the judgment of the cognitive faculty is not in one’s power, but is determined by another, neither the appetite will be in one’s power, and consequently neither mo­ tion nor operation in the strict sense” {De veritate, q. 24, a. 2). “Man is the cause not only of his own motion, but also of his judg­ ment; and therefore he has free will; it is as if one said that in point of judgment he is free to act or not to act” {De veritate, q. 24, a. 1). Concerning the liberty of the angels, we read (la, q. 59, a. 3) : “There are some things which act, not from any previous judg­ ment but, as it were, moved and made to act by others, just as the arrow is directed to the target by the archer. Others act from some kind of judgment, but not from free will, such as irrational animals; for the sheep flees from the wolf by the instinctive judg­ ment whereby it esteems the latter to be hurtful to itself; such a judgment is not a free one, but implanted by nature. Only an agent endowed with an intellect can act with a judgment which is free, in so far as it apprehends the common note of goodness, from which it can judge this or the other thing to be good. Conse­ quently, wherever there is intellect, there is free will.” Therefore the will determines the practical judgment which without it would remain indifferent.37 Besides, if the will intervenes here only as regards the exercise of the act, evidently we would not escape determinism of the 87 "Concerning particular things capable of being done, the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determined to one" (la, q. 83, a. 1). "Since the intelligible form has a relation to opposite things, inasmuch as the same knowledge relates to opposites, it would not produce a determinate effect unless it were determined to one thing by the appetite, as the Philosopher says in the ninth book of his Metaphysics, text to” (la, q. 14, a. 3). 300 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE circumstances. The circumstances being the same, man could not one time judge that it is suitable to act and another time that it is not (indifference of exercise). If in such circumstances the action was judged preferable, it will be of no use for the will to apply the intellect to consider the advantages of not acting; the intellect could never judge, the circumstances being the same, that it is better not to act. If the will intervenes only as regards the exerecise of the act in the positively final judgment, the spontaneity of the Jansenists is safeguarded, but not liberty of exercise. St. Thomas, too, following Aristotle, always affirms (la Ilae, q. 58, a. 5) that the truth of the practico-practical judgment con­ trary to truth of the speculative and the speculativo-practical judg­ ments depends “not on its conformity with the thing but with right appetite.” The appetite is rectified by virtue, and the inter­ vention of the will in the order of specification is then explained by its tendency, by reason of which the object enters into a relation of either fittingness or unfittingness with the subject. But to explain this intervention of the will by appealing to its tendency, is merely to leave the question still unanswered. Tendency does not infal­ libly determine our free act, any more than the external circum­ stances do. Moreover, we cannot appeal to it to explain the first free act of the psychological life, as discussed by theologians with regard to the sin of the angels. How, then, are we to explain this intervention of the will ? The answer to this question will be given in the following division (n. 61): How to reconcile free choice with the principle of sufficient reason. This will lead us to state more precisely the nature of this intervention on the part of the will, and we shall see that it is nothing else but choice itself which must follow judgment as regards formal causality and which pre­ cedes it as regards efficient causality. This relation of mutual priority will present itself to us as one of the most interesting applications of the Aristotelian axiom, in which we have briefly summarized the whole theory about the four causes, namely, THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 301 causae ad invicem sunt causae. For the present let it suffice to say that St. Thomas gives no other explanation of the voluntary inad­ vertence to the sense of obligation accompanying the sin of the angels. The angel willed not to consider; what is the cause of this? “But in an action of this kind, which consists in not following the rule of reason and the divine law, there is no need to seek for any cause because the liberty itself of the will is sufficient for this, by means of which it can act or not act” (De malo, q. 1, a. 3). "He would not understand that he might do well’’ (Ps. 35 : 4). This intervention on the part of the will, necessary for overcom­ ing the indifference of the practical judgment, could not be itself infallibly determined by the intellect since it comes into action precisely for the purpose of determining the intellect. It remains for us to prove against Leibniz—and we are not unmindful of the fact—that the influence of the circumstances and the interior dis­ positions are not sufficient for determining judgment when it is a question of acting or not acting. We have deemed it sufficient here to examine the thesis of St. Thomas without concerning ourselves with the Intellectualist objection. We shall see that the answer to this objection is deduced from the very principle of our theory, namely, that there is an infinite distance between universal and particular good, between total and partial good ; and we will con­ clude that the intelligent being is free because it is master of its final judgment, because, at the very moment when it judges, by a reflex act it judges that it could judge otherwise or at least not judge (a judgment on judgment)?3 This is how the most faithful disciples of St. Thomas have un­ derstood the doctrine of their master. Cajetan has explained with the greatest care that the truth of the practico-practical judgment 88 “Judgment is in the power of the one judging on one’s judgment: for we can judge of that which judgment on one’s judgment belongs only to reason knows the ways in which those things that it judges has its root in reason” (De veritate, q. 24, a. 2). in that one can pass judgment is in our power. But to pass which reflects on its act and are related. Hence all liberty 302 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE depends “on its conformity with right appetite, not on its conform­ ity with the object”; on this point he shows how the appetite may intervene as regards the specification of the object.39 Elsewhere he expressly teaches that it is the will that determines the intellect “to judge that one of two opposites is to be done. ... It is the will alone which, as it wishes, inclines the judgment.” 40 The Salmanticenses speak in the same way : “The will freely applies the intel­ lect to judge thus; and because the total efficacy of that judgment is the result of this free application, liberty leaves it intact.” 41 This doctrine reappears in Billuart’s works.42 John of St. Thomas formulates as accurately as possible the Thomist thesis when he writes : “Indifference of liberty consists in the dominating power which the will has not only over its act originating from it, but also over the judgment by which it is moved to act. And this is necessary so that the will may have com­ plete dominion over its actions” {De anima, XII, 2).43 89 “In accordance with the self-assertiveness of the appetite, there arises in the intellect the conviction of its reasonableness; (because from the disposition of the appetite) in its very self-assertiveness there arises with regard to such appetite a relation of fittingness” (On la Hae, q. 58, a. 5). 40 "Speaking unconditionally of the determination of the intellect, it must simply be said that the will determines the intellect to judge that one of two opposites is to be done; but the judgment differs according as things are good or evil. Because, when neither of two opposites denotes something morally evil, it is the will alone which, as it wishes, inclines the judgment; but, when one of the opposites is morally evil, the will itself inclines the judgment, yet not unless some other defect of the intellect is found to accompany this inclination, at least that of not considering all things that ought to be considered; and this sufficiently explains why every evil act is done through ignorance, as was said concerning the sin of the angels" (On la Ilac, q. 77, a. 2, n. 4). 41 Salmant., op. cit., V, 426. “You may ask what act of the will causes such an application. We answer that it can be caused by the same act which that judgment directs on account of the mutual causality of different orders usually to be found in that application.” Ibid. 42 Billuart, De actibus humanis, diss. Ill, a. 6, sec. 4, solv. obj. 43 A Thomist may thus interpret in a favorable sense these words of Lequier: "Liberty is applied to the final judgment which suggests tlte free act, and not only to the act strictly speaking of the will.” “We can,” so also Renouvier says, "stop, suspend, or banish a representation.” The suggestion in a sense is an “auto- THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 303 Through whnt of sufficient consideration of this indifference of judgment which is the principle of the indifference of volition, objections have been raised against the Thomist doctrine, such as the following one : “There is nothing more open to question than the alleged postulate that inadequate objects, which do not exhaust the capacity of a psychological faculty, leave it in a state of indif­ ference. I contemplate a masterpiece of art, for instance, the Moses of Michelangelo; it is a real but limited beauty which does not exhaust the ideal of the beautful nor the capacity of my aesthetic faculties. In all the fine arts there are some works worthy of admi­ ration, such as a Gothic cathedral, the picture of the Transfigura­ tion, the Aeneid. . . . The statue of Moses does not realize in itself all the forms of beauty; it is but a partial expression of beauty, and yet I admire it of necessity; it is not in my power to refuse this admiration. Here we have a contradiction of the general princi­ ple.” 44 The objector may just as well say of a certain rigorous conclusion in geometry that it does not realize all forms of truth, that it is but a partial expression of the same; and yet I must accept it. St. Thomas has already answered this objection as fol­ lows: “The intellect is moved of necessity by an object which is such as to be always and necessarily true: but not by that which may be either true or false, viz., by that which is contingent, as we have said of the good” (la Ilae, q. 10, a. 2 ad 2um). It is a general principle that a simple probable reason is not sufficient for determining the intellect; an object the beauty of which is open to question, does not necessarily call forth our admiration; also an object whose beauty, taking it hic et nunc and considering the suggestion" of which our will is in a way the cause. Ravaisson saw in this doc­ trine what has been said to be more profound concerning the free will. In Christ, who was comprehensor and viator, this intervention of the will was always what it ought to have been, because His will was essentially upright. It was that of the Word made flesh, and the beatific vision directed it. He merited, however, because His practico-practical judgment remained indifferent as re­ gards the merits of the object. Cf. Illa, q. 18, a. 4 ad jum. Also Billuart, III, 57. 44 Alibert, La psychologie thomiste et les théories modernes, p. 320. 304 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE dispositions of the will, is open to question, does not invincibly attract this will. But the objection claims to be based on facts. “Is it true that partial goods leave our will in a state of indifference and do not determine that its act is one of necessity? To claim this would be to fail to recognize the existence of sensation. . . . Some partial goods of the suprasensible order arouse in us emotional feelings, indeliberate acts which precede the free determination, which be­ gin as attractions and are transformed into desires, such as the attractions to perform an act of virtue, to visit a friend, to read something philosophical.” 45 In addition to this it is said that, according to the Thomist division of the faculties, the only pos­ sible subject of these sensations is the will. Every Thomist will answer that these are indeliberate and not free acts of the will, which are produced precisely when there is not sufficient reflection to assure indifference of judgment by a con­ sideration of the two possible alternatives. “Hence we see that when there is no indifference in the judgment and it is solely re­ stricted to one thing, the movement resulting in the will is in­ deliberate and not free.” John of St. Thomas, De anima, q. 12, a. 2. The indeliberate movements have never been overlooked by the­ ologians; they occupy a rather important place in every theory on actual grace, both sufficient and efficacious. Nominalists, since they cannot distinguish between sensible and intellectual knowledge of good, have sought to ridicule the meta­ physical proof of human liberty by saying that, if this proof were of any value, we should have to conclude that a hungry dog, from the very fact that his hunger is insatiable, is free to eat or not to eat a morsel of bread which he may find is not enough. Nominal­ ism, if it is of the radical kind, leads in fact to Sensualistic Empiri­ cism and is unable to discern what is the foundation of liberty. In the doctrine of St. Thomas, the basis or tire radical principle « Ibid. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 305 of liberty is in the intellect which knows what good is; its judg­ ment therefore remains indifferent as regards any object and any act which is not free from every admixture of evil or imperfection. The proximate principle of liberty is in the vast scope of the will by which man as master determines his own judgment. A partial good can never be an invincible attraction for us so long as it does not appear to the intellect as a means absolutely necessary in view of an end which is absolutely imposed upon us. In the final analysis, man is free only because he rises to the knowledge of the universal founded on the abstract; or better still (abstraction being a property of the human idea in so far as it is an idea), every intelligent being is free because it rises to the percep­ tion of the raison d’être and particularly of the raison d’être of good: because it knows what makes good to be such, the quod quid est or ratio boni: because it perceives this ratio boni which it finds again variously expressed in the delectable, the useful, and the upright. This ratio boni is the norm of its judgment when it is a question of affirming whether hic et nunc a certain thing is good ; hence it is only in the presence of goodness that there must be an absence of all indifference, “a goodness not waxing and waning,” as Diotima would have said in reply to Socrates, “not good in one point of view and bad in another, good in one place, bad in another, good for some, bad for others, ... a goodness which is not to be found in any other being, as for example, in an animal or in earth or in heaven or in any other place, but which exists eternally and absolutely by itself and in itself; a goodness which is imparted to that of all other things, the ap­ pearance or disappearance of which does not bring about in it the least decrease or increase or change whatsoever.” 46 This derivation of liberty is based, as we see, upon the very prin­ ciple of the philosophy of being, which is opposed to the philosophy of the phenomenon. It ceases to have any meaning for the Em48 See Plato, Symposium, 211 c. 3o6 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE piric Nominalist who refers the abstract and universal concept to a common image which remains, for the purpose of considera­ tion, concrete and singular. According to the Empiric, man has a common image of good, just as the grazing animal has an image of grass. This common image is but a medium between particular goods made known to us by experience; it is not of a higher order than these goods and does not at all represent this ratio boni which can be realized in all its purity only in the per­ fect and unlimited Good. Such a completely empiric representa­ tion cannot be the basis of liberty; it does not presuppose in the appetite which it specifies an unlimited range, and the practical syllogism in which it appears as a mean term is for the Empiric merely a tautology, since the universal is an illusion. With us as with the animal there is only a transition from the particular to the particular, subject to the laws of association. Empiricism, in point of liberty, must rest satisfied with the clinamen of Epicurus, that is to say with chance, or with simple spontaneity as Hume conceived it, or as Bergson views it at the present day. It remains for us to see whether this theory of liberty which we have just explained, enables us to solve the fundamental objection of Determinism, that derived from the principle of sufficient rea­ son, without at the same time abandoning the Intellectualist axiom that “nothing is willed unless foreknown as suitable,” as the defenders of the liberty of equilibrium do. 61) Liberty and the principle of sufficient reason (the sufficient motive). “Not every cause produces its effect, although the cause be sufficient: for the cause can sometimes be prevented from attain­ ing its effect.” St. Thomas, De malo, q. 6, a. i ad 15. We have deduced liberty of intellect. We have stated that the intelligent being is free because it possessses not only the inter­ mediate image of sensible good, but also the idea of good; be- THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 307 cause it does not rest satisfied, like the animal, in perceiving things that are good, but because it knows of each of them that it is good, and why. Our intellect knows the reason for the good, that which makes good to be so; from that it rises to the idea of the perfect Good. Then, as we have shown, its practico-practical judgment remains indifferent (at least with an indifference of exercise) as regards every object and every act which is not with­ out some element of evil, pain, or imperfection. An intervention of the will is necessary for overcoming this indifference of judg­ ment, and this intervention could not be itself infallibly deter­ mined by the intellect, since the only purpose of the intervention is precisely to determine the intellect. That is why a man, placed twice in the same circumstances, can one time act and the other time not act. Liberty is deduced from the relation which our will bears to the universal, i. e., to reason. Does the theory of liberty enable us to solve the fundamental objection of Determinism, that derived from the principle of suf­ ficient reason? The principle of Determinism which is also, in the physical order, the principle of induction, is stated as follows : The same cause in the same circumstances necessarily produces the same effect. This principle is one which is derived from the prin­ ciple of sufficient reason that the change of effect would be abso­ lutely without a sufficient reason if it were produced without there having been previously introduced into the cause or into the circumstances a change to determine it. Let the cause be A, and its effect B ; if once from A could result, not effect B, but ef­ fect B', this change from B to B' would be without a cause and without a reason. The principle of Determinism seems, then, like the principle of sufficient reason from which it is derived, to be certain a priori, i.e., the same cause in tire same circumstances necessarily produces the same effect. But liberty, such as we have defined it, is a violation of dris principle. Therefore liberty, such as we have defined it, is impossible. 3o8 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE We may answer this objection by a distinction as to the mean­ ing of the word “cause.” The same cause which by nature is determined to one thing, produces necessarily in the same circum­ stances the same effect, as for example, heat, electricity, magne­ tism. But the case is not the same with the will, which by nature is determined only to universal and not to some particular good. We are not called upon here to refute physiological Determinism: its refutation is included in that of Empiricism. St. Thomas merely says that physical or physiological influences cannot di­ rectly determine the act of the will; like our passions and our habits, they are previously submitted to the judgment of reason, which remains indifferent because its norm is universal good.47 But then the objection narrows down to this: even if the will is not by nature determined to a certain particular good, the dif­ ficulty remains. The will in all its acts must follow the judgment of the intellect. But the will would be judging without sufficient reason, if, without any change of circumstances, it were to change its judgment. Hence, with the circumstances unaltered, the will cannot change its choice. The usual answer to this objection is that the will in all its acts must follow the judgment as to the specification of the object; but it precedes judgment as to the exercise of the act. Conse47 "On the part of the body and its powers man may be such by virtue of a natural quality, inasmuch as he is of such a temperament or disposition due to any affection whatever produced by corporeal causes, which cannot affect the in­ tellectual part, since it is not the act of a corporeal organ. And such as man is by virtue of a corporeal quality, such also does his end seem to him, because from such a disposition a man is inclined to choose or reject something. But these inclinations are subject to the judgment of reason, which the lower appetite obeys, as we have said (q. 81, a. 3). Wherefore this is in no way prejudicial to free will. “The adventitious qualities arc habits and passions by virtue of which a man is inclined to one thing rather than to another. And yet, even these inclinations are subject to the judgment of reason. Such qualities, too, are subject to reason, as it is in our power either to acquire them, whether by causing them or dispos­ ing ourselves to them, or to reject them. And so there is nothing in this that is repugnant to free will” (la, q. 83, a. I ad sum). THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 309 quently, in judging or not judging, the intellect is dependent on the will, and this suffices for liberty of exercise. This answer is not final. The objection again presses the point more closely. Even if the will precedes tire intellect as to the ex­ ercise of the act, liberty of exercise is not safeguarded, but merely the spontaneity of the Jansenists. It is indeed an evident fact that, if the mere exercise of tire act takes place, it depends upon the will; but it does not depend upon the will whether there is or not an act which is exercised; that is precisely the object of our de­ liberation. That must depend upon the intellect, and the intellect can in no case withdraw itself from the demands of the principle of sufficient reason. This principle seems, indeed, to be derived from the principle of identity, which itself is based immediately on the notion of being. It states that “everything which exists has its sufficient rea­ son,” or “everything is intelligible.” It is connected with the prin­ ciple of identity by means of the principle of contradiction. (Cf. supra, n. 24.) From it are derived the principles of efficient and final causality. (Cf. nn. 25, 26, 27.) If such is the connection between the principle of sufficient rea­ son and being, which is the formal object of our intellect, must we not affirm a priori that this principle, as well as that of identity, governs all the modes of being and that nothing escapes it; so that an absolute beginning without a sufficient reason is repug­ nant, and that liberty such as we have defined it is manifestly impossible? Such is, we think, the full force of the objection. Nothing is in­ telligible except as a function of being, of the principles of identity and of sufficient reason. But the free act as we understand it, im­ plying as it does the initiative of voluntary intervention, would be an act without a reason and therefore in itself unintelligible and absurd. If we admit the primacy of the intellect, we must forever give up the idea of again finding liberty. If, then, we wish 310 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE to render morality possible, we must reject the absolute necessity of first principles as laws of the real, in all things subordinate the intellect to volition, in God at least, and say with Descartes that the truth of the principle of contradiction depends upon the caprice of the absolute Will. “If we do not put liberty in the first place, it has no place whatever; if it is not everything, it is noth­ ing.” Secrétan conferred on choice, either the formula of Parmen­ ides which is the principle of identity, or the philosophy of liberty.48 Does our explanation of the theory of liberty enable us to answer this objection? On first consideration it seems not. We have seen that Thomist liberty steers a middle course between liberty of indifference in the sense of liberty of equilibrium—as conceived by the Molinists,49 a few Cartesians and Reid who fol­ low Scotus and certain Nominalists—and Psychological Deter­ minism as conceived by Leibniz. Is this middle course possible? Is it possible to affirm against Scotus the prinicple of Intellectual­ ism which is the subordination of the will to the intellect, with­ out going so far as to admit Leibnizian Determinism ? If tire will by its definition is subordinate, must we not say that all its acts are determined by the intellect? The possibility of an intermedi­ ate position is denied by the advocates of both extreme views in virtue of the same principle, that Determinism is the inevitable consequence of Intellectualism. Fundamentally, a Leibnizian will say, you do not differ from those who advocate liberty of equilibrium. It is this very liberty of equilibrium which you place before the final judgment instead 48 La philosophie de la liberté, zd ed., p. 439. 49 Concerning the stand taken by these theologians, cf. Salmanticenses, op. cit., V, 424. They refuse to admit that choice infallibly follows the final practical judg­ ment. After the formulation of this final judgment, the will can (even in sensu composito) act otherwise. If it were not so, say these Scholastics, there would be no more liberty. If the will is guided in all things by the intellect, liberty is de­ stroyed. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 311 of placing it after the judgment. The will to appeal to, to enter­ tain, or to set aside a certain motive, to consider what is one’s duty under this or that aspect, cannot be itself without a motive. The middle course which you seek is illusive. An Intellectualist philosopher cannot admit a dominating indifference of the will which implies in the last analysis a free play of this faculty under the influence of the intellect. It is useless for us to limit these initiatives of the will; is it not an admission of these absolute be­ ginnings, of these “victorious advances of the will” which Liber­ tarians speak of? The Molinists and Suarez likewise declare that there is no mid­ dle course between their view and the negation of liberty. Your solution, said Suarez to the Thomists, only defers the question at issue: that the act of the will preceding the final judgment must itself be preceded by another judgment in virtue of your alleged principle (that nothing is willed unless foreknown as suitable), and so on indefinitely.50 Hence we have Determinism, for if the will in all things is guided by the intellect, liberty is destroyed. St. Thomas (De malo, q. 6, a. 1, obj. 15) 51 brings out the full force of this objection. In replying to it, he merely recalls the prin60 Cf. Suarez, Disp. Met., disp. XIX, sec. 6. B1 “If the will is not of necessity moved to will some things that it wills, we must say that it is free to choose; because what need not necessarily exist, can possibly not exist. But everything which is in potentiality and free to choose, is not reduced to act as regards the object of its choice except by some being that is in act, and this causes what was potential to become actual. But what makes anything become actual, we call its cause. Therefore, if the will determinately wills something, there must be some cause which makes it will this thing. But when the cause is placed, the effect must follow, as Avicenna proves (Bk. VI, Met., chs. 1,2), because if, the cause being placed, it is still possible for the effect not to follow, then there will still be need of another cause reducing this one from potentiality to act; and thus the first was not a sufficient cause. Therefore the will is of necessity moved to will something." De malo, q. 6, a. 1, obj. 15. This same objection is more briefly expressed in la Ilae, q. to, a. 2: “The object of the will is compared to the will as mover to movable, as stated in De anima, iii (tex. 54). But a mover, if it be sufficient, moves the movable of necessity. Therefore the will can be moved of necessity by its object.” 312 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE ciples of his thesis; indeed we shall see that in them we have a solution of the problem that Intellectualism prepares tire way for true liberty. First of all we will show that Thomist liberty is not at all liberty of equilibrium which immediately precedes practical judg­ ment. True to the principle of Intellectualism, this theory admits of no act of the will which is not formally determined by the in­ tellect. A. Thomist liberty is not liberty of equilibrium; all its acts are formally determined by the intellect. In replying to Suarez, the Thomists say that the act of the will, by which the intellect is ap­ plied to judge in a certain way, is that very act which follows judgment.52 There is no contradiction if we properly understand Aristotle’s axiom concerning the ways in which the different kinds of causes are interrelated. Causes mutually interact, though in a different order, και άλλήλ,ων αιτία.53 Here we willingly ac­ knowledge that there is an element of truth in the analyses of 02 "The infallible connection between the act of the will and the final practical judgment of the intellect does not interfere with its liberty; because, although it is not in the power of the will consequent to the act to refuse to assent to such a judgment, yet previous to the act it truly has this power by which it freely applied the intellect to form such a judgment. And because the total efficacy of the judg­ ment comes from this free application, liberty remains intact. You may ask what act of the will causes such an application. We answer that it can be caused by the same act which that judgment directs on account of the mutual causality of different orders usually to be found in that application: for judgment in the order of extrinsic formal causality directs the will to determine its choice thus; and the will in the order of efficient causality applies the intellect as to the ex­ ercise of the act so as to come thus to a decisive judgment. But this result can be verified only when both in the intellect and in the will certain acts have pre­ ceded, from which the above-mentioned causality can be deduced.” Salmant., V, 426. This concluding sentence refers to the very first act of the psychological life. The intellect cannot be applied to its very first judgment by the will which is as yet in a state of pure potentiality; there is need here of a special intervention on the part of God, who is the prime mover of intellects. Wc say that for this act God Himself gives the dictamen (la, q. 82, a. 4 ad sum). In this first instant the creature cannot sin; it is not in complete possession of liberty (non est plenum dominium). The liberty of this first act seems very much like Leibnizian liberty. 53 Met., IV, ch. ii, 515, 34 (Didot). THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 313 Bergson and Le Roy when they affirm that everything is in every­ thing. For us, too, in a sense, everything is in everything, but without confusion, and the real does not escape the intellect. It is solely due to these conceptual and real distinctions that this be­ comes possible of comprehension. These distinctions have been distorted by the “new philosophies” which always seek to view them, very incorrectly so, as quantitative and spatial distinctions. The Bergsonians are fond of speaking of those “reciprocal condi­ tionings, those mutually prior relations, those discursively unsolvable riddles which characterize the march of life at every stage.”54 There is nothing truer than the existence of these mutually prior relations; but must we regard them as so many unsolvable riddles for discursive reasoning, declare the real to be unintelligible, and take refuge in a philosophy of action? Aris­ totle and the defenders of the philosophy of the concept do not think so. Having rendered becoming intelligible as a function of being by means of the distinction of the four causes, Aristotle recognizes and explains how these causes are mutually related. Becoming presupposes an undetermined being (potency or mat­ ter) which acquires a determination (act or form). This progres­ sive determination of potency presupposes a determining prin­ ciple (efficient cause), and this active potency of the agent gives this determination rather than another only because it is ordained to such an act and not to a certain other. With Aristotle, that potency refers to act, is one of the simplest formulas of the prin­ ciple of finality. From this it follows that causes mutually inter­ act from different points of view, καί άλληλων αιτία. Matter receives and limits the form, the form determines and contains the mat­ ter. The efficient cause brings about that which makes it a finality. The desire of some good arouses the agent to action, and the ac­ tion causes it to acquire the desired good.55 64 Le Roy, Annales de philosophie chrétienne, December, 1906. 66 “The efficient cause is the cause of the end as regards its existence, indeed, 3M GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE These mutually prior relations must reappear wherever the four causes intervene, which means that “they characterize the march of life at every stage.” The living being takes its food, but the food reacts upon it and reinvigorates it. The cognitive being as­ similates to itself its object and yet allows itself to be assimilated by it. The intellect would have no knowledge of first princples if the object of first ideas were not materially presented to it by the senses, and yet the intellect, in virtue of the purely intellectual evidence of first principles, can judge formally of the validity of sensation and of sensible evidence. There is in this no vicious circle but a mutual relation between different species of cause. In like manner we would not assent by an act of divine faith to the dogmas of revealed truth unless these were proposed to us by the Church. It is an indispensable condition. Yet by this same faith, in virtue of the authority of God revealing, which is the formal motive of faith, we can believe supernaturally in the in­ fallibility of the Church. There is no vicious circle in this but a mutual relation between the formal motive and the indispensable condition. Thus, in the physical order, fire burns straw by reason of its combustible property, provided that the straw is near enough to it. But the progress itself of combustion causes the fire to draw nearer and nearer to it. In the order of grace there are classical examples cited by theologians. In the justification of the sinner which takes place in one instant, the remission of sin is the result of the infusion of grace, although on the part of the sinner deliverance from sin precedes the reception of grace, according to priority of nature.50 because the action of the efficient cause is for this that it be the end; but the end is the cause of the efficient cause, not in the existential order but in the order of causality." St. Thomas, In Met., V, lect. 2. 58 'On the part of the tiling moved, the withdrawal from a term naturally precedes the approach to a term, since in the subject of movement the opposite which is put away is prior to the opposite which the subject moved, attains to by its movement. But on the part of the agent it is the other way about, since the agent, by the form pre-existing in it, acts for the removal of the opposite form; THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 315 Light dispels darkness, but darkness is no longer present when light makes its appearance. “You would not be seeking me if you had not already found me.” 57 Our Lord said of Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). As justifi­ cation is the work of God in us, we must first of all consider the divine efficient cause and say purely and simply that the remis­ sion of sin is the result of the infusion of grace. We obtain from God the remission of sin, and it is not because we are freed from sin that we receive the grace of God. Pelagianism was an utterly material concept of justification. In the reverse order, the moment that man sins mortally and loses habitual grace, his falling away from grace, in the order of material causality, precedes God’s refusal of efficacious actual grace and is the reason of this. In causality of another kind, however, this falling away presupposes the absence of efficient grace and would not happen without it.58 Final perserverance is also a free gift granted to the predestined (Council of Trent, Sess. VI, ch. xiii). But, contrary to justification, sin as such is the work of the creature who becomes deficient and is not the work of God; it is therefore true to say that purely and simply sin precedes the re­ fusal of God’s efficacious grace. In other words, God does not abandon the just before He is abandoned by them. “God forsakes as the sun by its light acts for the removal of darkness, and hence on the part of the sun, illumination is prior to the removal of darkness; but on the part of the atmosphere to be illuminated, to be freed from darkness is, in the order of nature, prior to being illuminated, although both are simultaneous in time. And since the infusion of grace and the remission of sin regard God who justifies, hence in the order of nature, the infusion of grace is prior to the freeing from sin. But if we look at what is on the part of the man justified, it is the other way about, since in the order of nature, the being freed from sin is prior to the obtaining of justifying grace" (la Ilae, q. 113, a. 8 ad rum). 57 Pascal, Mystère de Jésus. 58 “Help is refused only to the one who becomes deficient, not before the de­ ficiency, and yet the defecdon follows from the refusal of help." John of St. Thomas, on la, q. 19, disp. 5, a. 6, sec. 61. 3i6 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE not those who have been once justified by His grace, unless He be first forsaken by them” (Council of Trent, Sess. VI, ch. xi). All receive sufficient grace and all have sufficient grounds for doing what is right, and this gives them the power to do what is right, but not to do so effectively. The same law of mutual relations between various kinds of cause must regulate the relations between the intellect and the will at the completion of deliberation. The answer of the Thom­ ists is not a crafty device; it is based upon the very definition of becoming. In the case of the final practical judgment and the act of the will which precedes and follows it, there is no priority of time.58 At one and the same time the will applies the intellect to judge what it must choose, and is directed by the intellect in its choice. There is here only priority of nature and reciprocal pri­ ority according to the point of view that one takes of it. In the order of extrinsic formal causality (directive idea), there is pri­ ority of judgment, since the judgment actually directs the will that it may choose in a certain manner; but in the order of ef­ ficient causality there is priority of volition which applies the in­ tellect to judge in such a way, priority of volition which can sus­ pend the inquiry of the intellect or let it proceed.60 The will is thus the cause of the attraction itself that it experiences, in this sense, that it depends upon the will to cause the intellect to judge that a certain good is by nature disposed to move it; it is the cause of the direction that it receives, in so far as it moves the intellect to impress upon it this direction. Kant says that empirical causality, which is realized in time, implies Determinism; but where we find intelligible causality in operation, there is neither before nor after; this causality is liberty 08 To will and not to will—the movements of free will—arc not successive, but instantaneous. Hence the justification of the ungodly must not be successive." la Hae, q. 113, a. 7 ad 4Um: Whether the justification of the ungodly takes place in an instant or successively. Cf. la, q. 95, a. 1 ad gum. 80 Salman'., tsp. fit.. V, 4s£. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 317 itself.01 The Thomists do not believe that they get out of the dif­ ficulty so easily as this, and they do not think that the whole problem is solved after eliminating priority of time. It remains to be seen whether efficient causality, though bearing a relation of dependence to extrinsic formal causality (idea), would not retain an absolute priority over the other causes when it is under the necessity of acting. It cannot be doubted. The for­ mal causality of the idea actually exerts its influence only in virtue of an application which depends upon efficient causality. If the artist wishes to act, he has need of a directive idea; but this idea exerts its formal causality only if die artist by his action makes use of it as the director of his action."2 When it is question of an act to be performed, it is efficient causality that is positively the first, and it must take the initiative. It is, in truth, only by enter­ ing into a relation of dependence upon the idea that it comes into action; but to come into action or not to come into action, de­ pends upon itself. The act of coming into action cannot be com­ manded by the formal determination to do so. "Causes are to one another causes, though in a different order; but the efficient cause is absolutely prior to other causes in act.” When there is question of an act to be performed, it is the efficient cause that purely and simply has priority. By this answer the Thomists distinctly separate from the advo­ cates of the liberty of equilibrium. They affirm that there can be no efficient causality in action without a formal determination, 81 Critique of Pure Reason (Transcendental Dialectic), ch. ii, sec. 9. 62 “Any cause whatever is, of its kind, partly prior to another; but the causality of the efficient cause is absolutely prior to both the material and the formal causes in their act of causation. . . . Hence the aforesaid volition is absolutely prior; for, indeed, the extrinsic formal cause does not cause in the second act any opera­ tion unless it is applied to this by what makes use of it, producing as efficient cause the aforesaid operation; so it results, indeed, that the influence of the ef­ ficient cause upon the aforesaid operation is absolutely prior . . . because the extrinsic formal cause does not actually cause the operation of its kind unless it be applied to this by the efficient cause, as is evident in the case of the artificer and his idea." Salmant., IV, 680. 3i8 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE that there can be no act of the will which is not formally de­ termined by the intellect. The will in all its acts is guided by the intellect. But it is for the will to enter into this relation of de­ pendence as regards the motive of its action, and the same act of volition which follows judgment, in a sense precedes it. This Thomist thesis is but an application of the general theory of the subordination of the total causes of one effect. One single effect can be entirely the result of the First Cause and entirely that of the subordinate secondary cause. Thus our choice, in so far as it is good, is entirely from God and entirely from our­ selves; it is equally the result both of our intellect and of our will. Suarez in this question as in many other questions, substitutes for the subordinate total causes of which St. Thomas speaks, co­ ordinate partial causes. According to him, God is only the partial cause of our acts; similarly, in the act of deliberation, the intel­ lect and the will would also be co-ordinate partial causes, like two separate persons towing a boat. B. In the principles of Thomist Intellectualism we have a refu­ tation of Psychological Determinism. We avoid liberty of equi­ librium, but do we avoid Psychological Determinism? It seems not. Too many psychologists think they have refuted Leibniz by saying: “The intellect is by its nature representative, con­ templative, and not an active and motive power. It illumines the will, pointing out the end; but it is the will that tends to the end by its own motive power.” 63 Leibniz would reply: “Priority of efficient causality admitted and understood, according to the prin­ ciple that causes are to one another causes, safeguards only spon­ taneity, the mere exercise of the act, but not liberty in your sense of the term. I agree that the will is the first principle as regards the exercise of the act, and it is clear that if it did not apply the intellect to the act of consideration there would never be any 03 Rabier, Psychologie, ad ed., p. 549. THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 319 volition. But you do not at all explain how, placed twice in the same circumstances, we could in one case judge that it is fitting to act and in the other that it is not. Priority of efficient causality does not imply this initiative which would be a violation of the principle of sufficient reason.” Let us recall that if the principle of sufficient reason is inseparable from the principle of identity which governs all the modes of being, it must itself govern all the modes of being. A thing without a sufficient reason is a con­ tradiction; a thing is what it is either by reason of itself or of something else. An absolute beginning is something repug­ nant. In De malo, q. 6, a 1 ad 15, St. Thomas answers this objection as follows: The will always has a sufficient reason fqr acting, but it cannot have an infallibly determinative sufficient reason. “It must be said that not every cause necessarily produces an effect, even though it be a sufficient cause, for this reason, that the cause can be prevented sometimes from attaining its effect; such are natural causes which only in most cases necessarily produce their effects, because in a few cases they are prevented from so doing. Thus therefore, it need not necessarily be so that the cause makes the will wish something; for the will itself can put an obstacle in the way, either by discarding such consideration as induces it to will, or by considering the opposite: namely, that this which is proposed as good, in some aspect is not good.” This answer would be meaningless unless it were interpreted in accordance with the fundamental principle of the Aristotelian and Thomist theory of liberty, namely: that diere is essentially a lack of pro­ portion between universal and particular good, between total and partial good, that there is an infinite distance between them. It has been said in the body of this article that liberty of exercise still holds good as regards happiness, “because anyone is able not to will then to think of happiness; because even the acts them­ selves of the intellect and of the will are particular ones" Does 320 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE not Leibniz forget to take into consideration the fact that the indifference of our judgment has its final reason in the absolute universality of the will and in the infinite capacity we have for loving? The exterior circumstances and the interior dispositions are powerless to determine infallibly this final practical judgment, namely, that it is better to act than not to act. So long as "to act” as well as “not to act” has its advantages and disadvantages, we are concerned with two finite goods in which there is a mingling of non-good. But two finite goods, however unequal, are both at an infinite distance from the pure Good, in whom there is no admixture of imperfection. If there are two unequal infinite distances, this will never be so except in so far as they are finite on one side, in ratione finiti. Hence there cannot be an absolutely determining sufficient reason for the transition from the Infinite to a certain finite quantity or quality rather than to a certain other; or, what comes to the same thing, there cannot be an infallibly determining sufficient reason for the transition from the one to the multiple, from the universal to the particular. In this case there is an insurmountable obstacle which no principle of the intelligible order can overcome, neither the principle of sufficient reason nor that of contradiction. We shall see this disproportion to be far more pronounced when we come to consider the divine liberty, the sovereign independ­ ence of God who, with regard to everything created, is both Be­ ing itself and Good itself, and who, as regards everything created, infinitely transcends all possible worlds. But the same problem presents itself in man: the problem of the relation existing be­ tween the one and the multiple, the pure and the mixed, the uni­ versal and the particular, the infinite and the finite. Two partial goods, however unequal they may be, are both com­ pounded of potentiality and act, and hence both are infinitely removed from the perfect Good who alone is pure Act. There can be a relatively sufficient, but not an absolutely sufficient and THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 321 actually determinative reason for preferring the one to the other. The reason is relatively sufficient as regards the inequality of the means; it is not absolutely so, that is to say, as regards the general end of all human activity, which is unlimited good or perfect happiness. Therefore, like sufficient grace, it gives the power to act, but not to act effectively. In the Summa (la Ilae, q. 10, a. 2), St. Thomas answers this objection as follows: “The sufficient mover of a power is none but that object that in every respect presents the aspect of the mover of that power, and as regards the will this is perfect good in which nothing is lacking. If, on the other hand, it is lacking in any respect, it will not move of necessity.” We see that St. Thomas sometimes says that the motive is sufficient and some­ times that it is not so. It is really sufficient in its order; it gives the power to act, though not to act effectively. To grasp tire meaning of this reply and see how psychological liberty is established without compromising tire necessity of the principles and conclusions of the moral law, we must distinguish clearly, as we have done, between the speculative-practical judg­ ment (we must do what is right) which dictates what is good in itself at all times and in all places, independently of circum­ stances, and the practico-practical judgment which dictates what is good for us hic et nunc (it is good for me at this moment to perform this act of justice). The truth of the first judgment, says Aristotle, is an absolute truth, its truth depends upon its con­ formity with the thing; the second judgment is a relative truth dependent upon the actual rectitude of the appetite, veritas ejus accipitur per conformitatem ad appetitum rectum.6* The specu8,1 Ethic., VI, ch. ii, St. Thomas, lect. 2. St. Thomas, la Ilae, q. 57, a. 4, and 5 ad 311m; “The truth of the speculative intellect depends upon conformity between the intellect and the thing (and it cannot infallibly be in conformity with things, in contingent matters); but the truth of the practical intellect depends upon con­ formity with a right appetite (and this conformity, indeed, is found only in contingent matter® which fan be effected bv 322 GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE lative-practical judgment is concerned with tire order of specifica­ tion, namely, that in itself the act of justice is a good in con­ formity with right reason, that the act of injustice can be only an apparent good. The practico-practical judgment, on the con­ trary, at least that one which is absolutely required for liberty,05 is concerned with the order of exercise; and this, we say, is an indifferent judgment, in spite of the urgent appeal made by interior dispositions and actual exterior circumstances. Thus, hie et nunc, for me the act of justice is and also is not a good: I can place the act and also refrain from so doing; is this not because I consider that it is good to try out my liberty, by refusing to respond to the motives which attract me? 00 So long as “not to act” and “to act" each has its advantages and disadvantages, I am concerned with two finite goods compounded with non-good. However unequal the two parts may be, the practico-practical judgment which is concerned with the exercise of the act, inas­ much as it depends entirely on the intellect, remains in a sense indifferent. An intervention of the will is necessary to overcome this indifference. The will intervenes in this case not only for the pure and simple exercise of the act (it would only be spon­ taneity, freedom from coercion), but for the fittingness of the ex­ ercise, that there may or may not be an act performed. It is in this that the essence of liberty consists, and this alone is required for liberty.07 05 Only liberty of exercise pertains to the essence of liberty. To be free with regard to an object, it is not necessary for us to be able to love or hate it, to prefer it to another, or another to it; it is sufficient if we are able to love or not to love it. To be master of our act, it is enough if we can act or not act. 66 In this case the statement that the will is on the side of reason, becomes the motive, the object of a judgment. It is not, as the advocates of liberty of equilib­ rium maintain, merely an initiative of the will. Cf. Billuart, De actibus humanis, diss. Ill, a. 4, sec. 4. 67 Let us call to mind tile text of St. Thomas already quoted, in which he defines what it is to be master of one’s judgment. It is not in our power to ad­ here or not to a first principle, a demonstrated conclusion; here the will merely intervenes for the pure and simple exercise of the act in order to apply the intel- THE SPECIAL ANTINOMIES RELATING TO FREEDOM 323 There is evidently a great difference between these two judg­ ments. We can accept the speculative-practical judgment of one who teaches us the moral law or who gives us advice; but the practico-practical judgment is exclusively our own and absolutely incommunicable. To confound the second with the first is equivalent to saying with Plato, that virtue is a science (la Ilae, q. 58, a. 5); it is also claiming for science moral dispositions (