THEODICY
A Class Manual
in the Philosophy of Deity

By
Right Rev. Msgr. PAUL J. GLENN, Ph.D., S.T.D.
PRESIDENT OF COLLEGE-SEMINARY OF
ST. CHARLES BORROMEO, COLUMBUS, 0.

B. HERDER
»5

BOOK

CO.

SOUTH BROADWAY, ST LOUIS, MO.
AND

33

QUEEN SQUARE,
1948

LONDON,

W. C.

PREFACE

Î
Î
J

This textbook in Natural Theology,—one of the
most notable and the more neglected parts of philoso­
phy,·—is meant to supply to the modern college stu­
dent some readily intelligible account of fundamental
truths. It is not meant, and does not presume, to pre­
sent a complete study of deeply involved points of
doctrine. Like the other manuals of the present
series, this book tries to rear a sturdy framework or
scaffolding upon which the young student may take
confident stand for the long and difficult task of
building up his edifice of philosophical knowledge.
It does not seek recognition as the finished building,
nor even as a finished portion of the building. But
the building cannot be raised at all unless the builder
have a proper place and a sure position for the work
he has to do. Thus, it may, without boastfulness, be
claimed that the service of such a book as this is an
indispensable one.
Some readers may be disappointed to find in these
pages little of the interesting (and sometimes profitable) discussion which is ardently aroused by the
mention of such terms as, Thowiism, Molinism,

Scientia Media,

Premotion,
v

Supercotnprehension,

vi

PREFACE

Future Contingencies, Futuribilia. It has seemed best
to deal briefly and calmly with these matters instead
of recognizing in them the call to glorious encounter.
If our Rolands and our Olivers seem too frequently
to leave the field arm-in-arm after a short exchange
of compliments, it is only because we have generally
held them to the mere statement of their terms of
meeting, so that the youthful student may have a
clear notion of what their differences are all about.
We stress the point that this book is not for the
specialist.
The first portion of this manual,—in which we
prove the existence of God,—is shaped upon the
traditional model of St. Thomas. No better plan has
been devised than this, and it would be sheer folly to
attempt another in the name of modernity. These
arguments will be found modern enough, in the
sense of new, by any adversary upon whom the stu­
dent may employ them. For our age has many
notable gaps in its culture, and none greater nor more
lamentable than the great open space which should be
occupied by the recognition of God and His place of
supremacy and control. Arnold Lunn writes that,
when he expounded these ancient proofs before a
group of modern university students, his audience
was astounded to learn that such fresh and cogent
arguments exist.
It is hoped that this manual will render good
service to college classes, to studious individuals out

PREFACE

VII

of college, and even to those who have never been in.
Certainly, the matter with which it deals is its most
eloquent recommendation to the attention of serious
minds. If that matter has not been treated with
seemly skill and thoroughness, the book has still its
value. For gold, though imperfectly refined, is always
precious, always a treasure worthy of quest and
possession.

P. J. G.
College of St. Charles Borromeo,
Columbus, Ohio.

CONTENTS
FAGE

Preface

V

Introduction................................................................................... i
BOOK FIRST

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
CHAPTER

I.

God’s Existence a Demonstrable Truth

13 1
13 >

Art. I. The Question of God’s Existence
Art. 2. The Need and Possibility of Dem­
onstrating God’s Existence .... 28

II.

Demonstration of the Existence of God 53
Art. I. The Chief Types of Causes. 53
-**Art. 2. The Proof from Efficient Causality 61
«•♦Art. 3. The Proof from Formal and Final
Causality......................................................... /I
Art. 4. Certain Supplementary Proofs . 85
BOOK SECOND

THE NATURE OF GOD

I.

The Essence

of God........................................... 105
Art. I. The Physical Essence of God . . 105
Art. 2. The Metaphysical Essence of God 131
ix

CONTENTS
CHAPTER

II.

ΓΛ6Ϊ

The Attributes

oe

God.................................... 143

Art. i. The Divine Attributes in General 144
Art. 2. The Divine Attributes in Special 15!
BOOK THIRD

THE OPERATIONS OF GOD
I

Π.

The Immanent Operations

God

,

. 181
Art. I. The Operations of God’s Intellect 181
Art. 2. The Operations of God’s Will . . 205
Art. 3. The Personal Nature of God . .231
of

The Transient Operations of God.

. . 244
Art. I. The Divine Operation of Creation 245
Art. 2. The Divine Operation of Conserva­
tion ..................................................................... 259
Art. 3. The Divine Operation of Concur­
rence
.......................................................... 2^5
Art. 4. The Divine Operation of Govern­
ance and Providence................................281

Index.........................................................................................

IN T ROD U CT ΓΟ N
I. Name

2. Definition

3. Object 4. Importance 5. Division

I. NAME

The term theodicy (from the Greek theos “God”
and dike “right; custom; usage; manner”) was
coined by the famous philosopher and mathematician
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) who used
it in his Essays on Theodicy to express the justice
or the righteous manner of God’s dealings with man­
kind, which he defended against those who felt that
the evils of life are an argument for atheism. The
term theodicy thus literally means ‘‘God's justice” or
“God’s righteous way.” But this original meaning
was quickly expanded to include not only the bene­
ficent providence of God, but the whole of God,—
nature, attributes, and operations. In a word, theodicy
became a synonym for natural theology. Theology had
long been distinguished as (a) natural theology
which is a part of philosophy, and which is the science
of God as knowable by unaided human reason; and
(b) supernatural theology or divine theology which is
the science of God as manifested by Divine Revela­
tion. The term theodicy came in handily to replace
the more cumbrous natural theology (although it is
I

THEODICY
not an accurate name for that science) and to allow
the simple name theology to be used for the super­
natural science. Convenience and long usage have
established the term theodicy in its present meaning.
Theodicy means natural theology. And natural theol­
ogy means the philosophical science which sets forth
all that human reason can discover by its unaided
efforts about God, His existence, His nature, His
attributes, and His operations. The term theology, by
the way, comes from the Greek theos “God,” and
logos “science,” and literally means the science of
God.
2. DEFINITION

Theodicy is the philosophical science of God.
a) Theodicy is a science. The term science (from
Latin scire “to know”) means not only knowledge,
but a special kind of knowledge. It means knowledge
that is evidenced and therefore certain. And the evi­
dence or proof of any point of knowledge lies in the
fact that we recognize its reasons or its causes or
both. Therefore science has often been defined as
“knowledge through causes or reasons.” Such is the
fundamental meaning of the term science without the
-article. Now, a science is any defined branch of knowl­
edge which sets forth the truths that belong to its
domain in a clear and orderly fashion and with all
’ possible completeness, and which adds to these truths
the reasons (or causes) which make the truths know-

INTRODUCTION

3

able with certitude to the thinking mind. Theodicy
meets the requirements here mentioned; it sets forth
the truths that the unaided human mind can discover
about God ; it presents these truths in a manner that is
clear, orderly, logical, and complete; it offers, at every
step of its development, the evidence, the proofs,
which the mind requires to make it give its full and
unwavering assent to the doctrines proposed. There­
fore, theodicy is justly called a science.
b) Theodicy is a philosophical science. A philo­
sophical science is one of the branches of philosophy.
Such a science has twO distinctive features. First of
all, it is a human science, that is, it is built up by reason
unenlightened by Revelation. Thus it is distinguished
from the divine science of theology. Among human
sciences, a philosophical science is distinguished as
one that seeks the very last discoverable causes and
reasons for its data; its quest is an ultimate investiga­
tion; it is not content with proximate causes and rea­
sons such as the other human sciences find adequate
for their respective purposes. Every science asks and
answers the questions “Why?” and “How do we
know that?” ; a philosophical science keeps on asking
“Why?” and “How?” until it has pushed back the
inquiry as far as it is humanly possible to go with it.
A philosophical science deals with knowledge that is
root-deep, and it digs out the deepest roots. These,
then, are the two marks of a philosophical science: it
is a human science, and it is an ultimate science. The-

4

THEODICY

odicy has these two marks, and is, in consequence, a
philosophical science.
c) Theodicy is the science of God. The phrase “of
God” means, as is evident, “about God.” The preposi­
tion “of” is not possessive, but objective, it docs not
indicate the knowledge that belongs to God, but the
knowledge which man can gain about God in 1 limself
and in all the phases under which He is viewed by the
limited human mind.

3. OBJECT
The object of a science is its scope, its field of inves­
tigation, its subject-matter. Further, it is the special
way in which it does its work in its field, or it is the
special purpose which guides it in its work. Thus the
object of any science is twofold. The subject-matter,
the field of inquiry, is the material object of the
science. The special way, or purpose, or end-in-view,
which a science has in dealing with its subject-matter
or material object is the formal object of that science.
Many sciences may have the same material object, for
many more or less independent inquiries may be pros­
ecuted in the same general field. But each science has
its own distinct and distinctive formal object which
it shares completely with no other science. That is why
this object is called formal ; it gives formal character
to the science; it makes the science just what it is
formally or as such.
To illustrate all this. Many sciences deal with the

Muai

INTRODUCTION

5

earth under one aspect or another. Such, for example,
are geology, geodisy, geography, geonomy, gcogony,
and even geometry. All these sciences study the earth ;
they have therefore the same material object. But no
two of these sciences study the earth in the same
special way or with the same special purpose. Geology
studies the earth in its rock formations: geodisy
studies the earth in its contours ; geography studies the
earth in its natural or artificial partitions; geonomy
studies the earth as subject to certain physical laws;
geogeny studies the earth to discover its origins ;
geometry in its first form was a study of the earth in
its mensurable bulk and its mensurable movements.
Thus, while all these sciences have the same material
object, each of them has its own formal object. If
two sciences were to have the one identical formal ob­
ject, they would not really be two sciences at all, but
one science. It is manifest that a science is formally
constituted in its special character by its formal ob­
ject; it is equally manifest that a science is distin­
guished from all other sciences by its formal object.
Theodicy studies God. God is, therefore, the ma­
terial object of this science. But theology (the divine
science) also studies God as its material object. The
distinction between theodicy and theology lies in
their respective formal objects. For theodicy studies
God by the unaided light of reason, and theology
studies God by the light of reason aided by Revela­
tion.

6

THEODICY

The material object of theodicy is God. The formal
object of theodicy is God as knozvable by unaided
human reason.
4.

IMPORTANCE

Regarded absolutely, or in itself and independently
of its relationships with other sciences, theodicy is far
and away the most important of all human sciences.
For it deals with the most sublime subject that can
engage the mind of man. And when theodicy is viewed
in its relations to other sciences, it still maintains its
place of preeminence. For every other science rests
ultimately upon certain assumptions which theodicy
does not assume, but proves ; every other science is
based upon notions of primal causality, of an ordered
universe (and hence an Orderer), of an arrangement
and balance, of a consistency and constancy in nature.
Let scientists ignore this fact as they may, it remains
a fact beyond dispute. St. Augustine was voicing no
pious sentiment but expressing the clearest of rea­
soned conclusions when he said that those who try to
philosophize, or to play the scientist, while ignoring or
denying God, only succeed in entangling themselves in
a net of contradictions. It is manifest, therefore, that
theodicy, in view of its supreme object and of its
fundamental relations to other sciences, is a most im­
portant study.
Not only is theodicy the most important of philo-

INTRODUCTION

7

sophical sciences in its object and in its relationships
with other sciences; it is important because it meets
the highest and strongest tendencies of the human
mind;because its certain conclusions are a satisfaction
to the noblest emotional yearnings ; because it gives
meaning to the bewildering universe of sentient ex­
perience; because it makes intelligible the resistless
human bent and bias for moral conduct. Theodicy is
the best that the human mind can do for man, for that
strange being whose life is a blending of the most
curious and even opposite elements; for man, the
creature of penetrating reason and unseeing passion ;
for man, who moves among the hard and gross things
of sense with the deepest spiritual longings in his
soul; for man, whose tendency to be wilful and per­
verse is inextricably bound up with an insatiable ap­
petite for what is moral and good. So great is the
essential service of theodicy that those who scorn its
ministry and ignore God who is its object are com­
pelled by their human constitution to make up a
theodicy of their own, a theodicy which suffers only
from the fact that it is wholly false. It is of first im­
portance, then, that we bring reason to a calm, clear,
penetrating view of facts, and follow its course
through all complexities to inevitable conclusions
about the First Reality. It is important that we build
up the true theodicy of which our mind and our whole
being have need. Man is, of course, a philosopher by

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nature. The most uncultured and untrained has some
sort of natural theology at the back of his view of all
things. But for persons of education such a vague theodicy will not suffice, even if it happens to be a true
theodicy as far as it goes. We need the discipline oi
philosophical theodicy for our minds, and we need its
conclusions for our lives. Not that it is all-sufficing. It
is the best that natural powers can do for us, but man
needs more than nature; man needs supernature. Nor,
for us who have the divine gift of faith, is theodicy
meant to supplant faith or to rationalize it into a cold
and mathematical formula. Theodicy supplements
faith, rendering service by showing how reasonable
and even inescapable are the first truths of faith; and
it equips us for the task of showing others, who have
not the faith, the first inviting reaches of the straight
path that leads through reason to certainty and security of life in the one Institution on earth where
men can really be at home.
5.

IN TROD

THEODICY

8

I i

fdgh'- *

DIVISION

Three questions define the plan we are to follow in
this present study. They are the following : j. Is there
a God? 2. What is God? 3. What does God do? The
first question inquires about the existence of God; the
second, about His nature; the third, about Elis operations. These three topics,—the existence, the nature,
and the operations of God,—will be discussed in three
Books with Chapters as follows:

„jk First
Bor

existence
oi God
The E
xt

1. Gt
God's Existence a
Demonstrable Truth
Chap. II. Detnoiislration
of
the Existence or (n>d

Chap.

""
()f Cod
The NatuK

Chap. 1. lbt
r,.< .
Chap. Π. I bc

God

Book T
.1. HIRD
i i 1KJJ

The Operations of God

Ch;ιρ. I. The Immanent OP'
erations of God
Cha p. II. The Transient OP'
erations of God

_ οί
Ate

BOOK FIRST

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
This Book discusses, first of all, the demonstrability of
the Existence of God : it asks whether there is any need for
proving a truth which some have called self-evident ; then
it inquires whether—granted a proof is required—it is pos­
sible to establish such a proof. To both queries an affirmative
answer is given: we need proof for God’s existence, and
such proof is actually available. The Book goes on to set
forth the traditional proofs for the existence of God, and
answers the objections that are brought against their valid­
ity. These points are discussed in two Chapters :
Chapter I. God’s Existence a Demonstrable Truth
Chapter II. Demonstration of the Existence of God

CHAPTER I

GOD’S EXISTENCE A DEMONSTRABLE
TRUTH
This Chapter discusses the need and the possibility of
proving that God exists. It answers the question-, : i> there
any need of going to the trouble of dimming out rational
proofs for the existence of God; is not 1 lis existence a selfevident fact? Or, if it be not self-evident to the mind, is it
not a manifest requirement of the liner feelings or emotions;
does not a man experience the “value” called God as some­
thing intuitively certain and requiring no process of proof?
On the other hand, the Chapter answers the mistaken charge
of the Kantian, the agnostic, and the skeptic, that any ra­
tional proof for the existence of God is based upon a causal
relation among phenomena (that is, the merely apparent or
sensible qualities of things) and has no power to evidence
the nature of that supposed Being from which causal ac­
tion proceeds. Thus the Chapter deals with two schools of
thought, the one declaring that no proof for God’s existence
is needed, the other maintaining that no valid proof is pos­
sible. These mistaken assertions are investigated in two
Articles, as follows :
Article i. The Question of God’s Existence
Article 2. The Need and Possibility of Demonstrating
God’s Existence

Article i. The Question of God’s
Existence
a) Meaning of Terms
b) Urgency of the Question
c) Theories on the Point
a) MEANING OF TERMS

We take the term existence in its first and obvious
13

\

14

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'll

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ife

THEODICY

meaning. When we ask whether a thing exists, we ask
whether it is actual, whether it is present among those
realities which are not merely possible (or potential,
as philosophers say) but which are here.
In ontology,—the science of fundamental meta­
physics, which is the very core of philosophy,—we
learn that a being is a reality, and that a reality is any­
thing that exists or can be thought of as actually exist­
ing. A reality is therefore an existible thing. And
realities are classed as potential and actual realities. A
potential reality is one that can exist because (a) the
thought of it as existing involves no contradiction ;
thus, for example, a glass mountain is a potential
reality while a square circle is not, since the latter is
self-contradictory and seif-canceling ; and (b) there
is already in existence a being, a power, which is able
to draw the potential thing out of its state of pos­
sibility and confer actuality upon it ; in short, there is
a being which can cause it to exist. An actual reality,
on the other hand, is one that is really here. It is here
either (a) because it has been produced by its causes,
and is no longer a mere possibility but an actualized
being ; it is a caused being ; it is an effect; it is a
contingent being, that is, a being contingent upon or
dependent upon its causes; or (b) because it is so
completely perfect and self-sufficing that it involves in
itself the perfection called existence, and it therefore
must exist and cannot be non-existent; it is an un­
caused being; it is not an effect; it is a necessary

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

15

being; it is pure actuality since is has about it no po­
tentiality which has been or is to be actualized by the
action of causes.
Now, when wc come to discuss the existence of
God, we speak not of potential or possible existence
but of actual existence. Further, we speak not of
caused existence but of uncaused existence; not of
contingent existence but of necessary existence; not
of effected existence but of ptire actuality.
So much for the term existence. Now what of the
term God? We must give at least a general explanation
of the meaning of this latter term before we can begin
to discuss the question of God’s existence. For the
limited human mind cannot even start to investigate
the existence (potential or actual) of a reality until
it has somehow conceived, at least in a general way,
just what the reality in question is. There have been
philosophers, and not the least in ability or the least
esteemed or the least influential, who made the per­
fectly inane statement, “Even if you can know that
God is, you cannot know what tie is.” How can any­
one know that a thing exists unless he knows what
thing ? It is as though a person should say, “There’s
something ” and then stop short. And when the ex­
cusably curious auditor of that somewhat incon­
clusive and airy statement asked (as infallibly he
would ask), “What?” the answer would be, “I don’t
know.” Surely, the explanation of such a remark
would necessarily be either aberration or alcohol. It

16

THEODICY

is not the statement one would expect, delivered with
smug complacency as the conclusion of a profound
process of reasoning, by revered men of mind. And if
the philosopher hastened to explain by adding, “Oh,
I mean there’s something that started all this mess,”
or, “There’s something back of this obvious universe,
we don’t know what,” then it is bare charity to point
out to him that he does know what, or he pretends to
know what, for he states that there is an Originator
or a Hidden Supporting Force that accounts for the
world we live in and look upon. The moment you as­
sign to your “something” an intelligible role in the
origin or management of things, you so far define
your “something” and make it this special kind of
thing. If you know what a thing does, you have at
least a partial grasp of what that thing is. Even Mat­
thew Arnold professed some knowledge (granted a
very sketchy knowledge) of what God is when he
described Him as “The enduring power, not our­
selves, which makes for righteousness.” How the
somber Matthew must have rolled that sounding state­
ment from his tongue. How pleased he must have
felt, and with what satisfaction he must have stroked
his mutton-chop whiskers ; across the lengthening
decades one can almost hear him purr.
There is no position so intolerable as the agnostic
position, the position which declares God to be the
Great Unknowable, the Being that exists, we don’t

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

17

know what. The atheistic position is far more human
and reasonable, absurd as it proves to be under in­
vestigation. For the atheist knows what the term God
means, and he denies the actuality or the existence of
what it means. 1 le denies not signification, but signifi­
cance. But the agnostic makes the word meaningless,
and then denies its meaning. The agnostic is a man
who hears a phrase in an unfamiliar tongue, and
promptly declares it mere gibberish which can have no
meaning for anybody. The point we have here so
labored is a most important one and it must not be
overlooked or forgotten for a moment in all that
follows. You cannot know that a thing exists without
knowing, in some dim measure, what it is that exists.
Nor can you deny existence to a thing without being
able, with some degree of exactness, to describe the
conceivable thing at -which your denial is directed.
What, then, is meant by the term God? Most people
of any period in the world’s history would answer the
question promptly by saying that God (whether Fie
really exists or not) is conceived of as an actual Being
who is the supreme Originator and Ruler of the world
and all things in it. A fewr people in any age, and a
great many people in some ages, would say that the
term God is a sort of blanket-name for a number of
super-human beings, or even invisible “forces”
viewed collectively as “Nature,” which together man­
age the universe ; such people would be polytheists,

18

THEODICY

(from the Greek poly “many” and theos “God”) or
believers in a plurality of gods. The first group, to
whom God is one actuality, would be monotheists
(from monos “single” and theos). Yet back of all the
gods of the polytheists would be the single idea of
deity, of Godhead, of divinity, so that, as Λ1 r. Chester­
ton declares, the idea of one supreme Power and one
supreme Being is behind all the gods of all the mythol­
ogies “like the sky behind the clouds.” For Godhead is
necessarily conceived as first and as supreme in both
Power and Being. And to say that a Being is first and
supreme is to say that It is without peer, that It stands
alone in its awful place, that It is a single Being, not a
plurality of Beings. Even polytheism in its crudest
form looks back to monotheism from which it is a
lapse and a retrogression.
The points we have made give us a fair description
of what the term God means to the generality of men.
It means a Being (whatever be true of His existence
or non-existence) that is thought of as actual, one,
first, supreme, the originator and the ruler of the
universe. It is of such a Being that we speak when we
take up the momentous question of the existence of
God. It is of such a Being,—conceived by the manin-the-street as the Almighty Ruler, and by the philos­
opher as the Necessary Being and the Pure Actuality,
—that we ask, “Does He exist? Have we need to
prove His existence? If we have this need, can the
need be met by valid demonstration?”

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

19

b) URGENCY OF THE QUESTION
Anyone who entertains ethereal academic, doubts
about the existence of original sin will have them
blown to shreds like a fog in a gale if he can be in­
duced to take one really attentive glance at the world
about him, particularly at the funny two-legged crea­
tures known as human beings that one sees every­
where. Let him look at men, and listen to what they
are saying, and follow their thoughts and fancies, and
weigh the meaning of their conduct. He will find that
his inevitable theory of mechanical evolution and
progress with its gospel of “onward, upward, holding
steady to the goal” turns to the silliest sort of detached
doctrinizing when it is brought into the light of
human facts ; it will never explain the wide diversity
and the tumultuous clashes of human aims, ambitions,
hopes, employments. If the evolutionist with his ten­
der doubts about the tragedy of Eden were to come
upon a flock of chickens or a herd of horses rushing
about in wild disorder, he would instantly conclude
that something had disturbed them. If he were to
see a lake or pond frothed by churning waves, he
would understand at once that wind or some eruptive
inner force must account for the commotion. Yet the
evolutionist walks daily through crowds of his fellow­
men whose aims, ideals, and conduct are more furi­
ously in conflict than warring waves or milling cattle,
and he does not notice that something must have dis­
turbed them. He does not notice that they are in any

20

THEODICY

state of confusion and commotion. Or if he docs, he
calls the commotion difference of opinion, and thinks
it a good thing; whereas, of course, it is nothing of
the sort. If he found three men staring at a brick and
explaining it violently in totally different ways; if
he found one man calling it delicious cheese, and a
second man declaring it a trick of the capitalists, and
the third man praising it as an attractive bunch of
violets, he would know that something had gone
wrong with the minds of these men. He would not say
that they were progressive fellows showing the world
the worth of a healthy difference of opinion ; for once,
even an evolutionist with doubts about the Fall would
understand that the question in the case is not one of
opinion at all, but of a fundamental fact which has
first to be recognized before opinions about it are
valuable or even sane. But the evolutionist finds every
day, and every hour if he chooses, men who differ on
really important things, such as the meaning of life,
in a fashion quite as wild as that of the three madmen
with their brick, and he does not notice anything odd
in the fact. He finds men with fantastic notions
about a brick, and he knows that something is wrong
with their minds ; he finds men with equally fantastic
notions about life, and he does not acknowledge that
something must be wrong with their souls. He finds
one man to whom life is a plodding business of getting
bread and cheese; he finds another to whom life is
a mere war against plots, against the whips and scorns

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

21

of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s con­
tumely ; he finds a third man to whom life is as tîiflmg
as a boutonniere. And, with glazed evolutional y eye
in fixed imbecility staring, he takes in the situation
and calls it Difference of Opinion and Progress; or,
with eyes tightly closed, lie calls it Enlightenment ; or,
in a frenzy of delight, he flourishes a calendar and
calls it the Modern Mind. At all events, the evolution­
ist fails to see that the situation calls for an explana­
tion. And there is an explanation. It is an explanation
made to us by word from Heaven, but, had that mes­
sage never come, the explanation might have been
.made by any plain man with sight enough to tell a
hawk from handsaw and mind enough to know that
two and two make four. The explanation lies in
the fact that something has upset man, has got him
off balance, has twisted his viewpoint and set askew
his scale of values. We call that something original
sin. It has not made men mad, but it has disorientated
men, and it is the one really urgent need of men to get
orientated aright. And to be orientated aright men
must fairly face and come to grips with the first and
fundamental question of the existence of God. For on
the right settlement of that question, everything else
depends.
And yet, to the ordinary average man of the world,
and more particularly to the ordinary average philos­
opher and teacher and moulder of the public mind,
nothing seems more remote from the needs of life,

I

22

THEODICY

nothing seems less practically important, than the
settlement of the question of the existence of God.
Discussion of it is brushed aside as of no consequence
when there are pressing matters at hand, like a raise
in rents, or a flutter in the stock-market, or rumors of
war-clouds over the Orient, or Doctor Dewey’s views
on the substantive mind, or the details of a match at
tennis or golf. God’s existence is regarded as a thing
of academic interest merely, a subject for idle discus­
sion in those few drab hours of life that draw no
illumination from politics, business, or sport. And
even such discussion is frankly regarded as a sort of
time-killer, for it is tacitly assumed from the start
that no conclusion can ever be drawn from it. Chester­
ton remarks, “We are more and more to discuss de­
tails in art, politics, literature. A man’s opinion on
tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters;
his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn
over and explore a million objects, but he must not
find that strange object, the universe ; for if he does
he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything mat­
ters—except everything.”
Now, if the average man of the world or the aver­
age leader of thought and of talk would pause long
enough in his worldly career, and in his talk, to face
plain facts, he would not only be amazed, but his
knees would knock together in terror, at the smashingly practical character of this question which he had
regarded as detached and academic. Upon the exist-

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

23

ence or non-existence of God depends the whole
nature of the business of life, and the business of life
in surely practical. If there is a God, and I am His
creature, made to serve His purposes; and if I am
doing nothing of the sort, and am not even trying to
know His purposes, then assuredly i am in a bad way
and there is occasion for terror and quaking knees.
For, quite apart from threatening punishment, I face
the terrifying fact that my whole existence,—-my
views, my aims, my thoughts and ideals, my work and
my amusement, my attitudes, my dreams, my deal­
ings with my fellows,—comes to a sum-total of futil­
ity and failure, of disaster and defeat. I who have
prated of practical things, have been running a race
towards a wrong goal. I who have talked of the needs
of life, have missed them all. I who have demanded
plain facts, have failed to see the plainest fact. I who
have gloried to lead others, have led them all astray.
Surely, there is no imbecility so monstrous, no in­
sanity so vile and inexcusable, as the bland assump­
tion that the question of God’s existence is of no
practical urgency. For fundamentally it is the only
urgent question, and the only practical question, that a
man needs to face. Once that question is rightly an­
swered, the whole pattern of life and of conduct takes
form and lies with meaning before the eyes, and the
one path that it is essential to discover opens clear
before the feet.

24

c)

THEODICY
THEORIES ON THE POINT

Here we shall merely list some of the doctrines that
have been propounded in answer to the question,
“Does God exist; and, if so, can 1 le be known ; and,
if He can be known, how is this knowledge ob­
tained?” We shall not pause to explain these doctrines
in detail, nor shall we here answer those that are
false and to be refuted. Explanation and refutation
will both come in their places in a later part of our
study. But it is necessary for us to have at the outset a
knowledge of these names and a notion of what they
mean.
z. Theism is a general name for any belief in God.
It is not to be confused with deism, which has a
special meaning, although both terms come from
words that mean God, the one Greek (Theos) and the
other Latin (Deus).
2. Atheism is the opposite of theism. The letter a
prefixed to a Greek derivative is usually equivalent to
a non prefixed to an English word. Atheism declares
that God does not exist. Of course, there is no such
thing as atheism in a pure form ; it is never a simple
denial, but is always a replacement. Your atheist finds
himself compelled to substitute for God some such
sterile notion as force, or energy, or nature, or even
that latest pet of the faddists, “value.”
3. Agnosticism,—a term derived from the Greek
agnostikos “not knowing; ignorant,”—is the theory
that God cannot be known, that men must be content

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

25

to remain in ignorance about I lis Being and Essence.
It is not the denial of God's existence, it is denial of
His knowability. Ft is the theory that God is, but no
man can know tvha! He is. It is not the Christian
doctrine that man cannot know God exhaustively ; it
is the anti-Christian doctrine that man cannot know
God at all, beyond the wholly illogical recognition of
His existence. We have spoken in some detail of the
silliness of the agnostic position, and we shall have
occasion to speak of it again.
4. Pantheism,-—from the Greek pan “everything;
all” and lheos “God,”—identifies, in one way or
another, God and the universe. The cruder sort of
pantheism makes the bodily world part and parcel of
the substance of God; it teaches that God has poured
Himself out, like a lake into little inlets about the
shore, or like a fire in leaping flames and flying sparks,
and thus it makes all things outpourings or emana­
tions of God. This type of pantheism is called emanationism. Another form of pantheism makes the world
and all things in it the manifestations of God, not His
physical parts. And since a manifestation is not itself
a substantial thing (think, for instance, of the mani­
festation of happiness which is a smile, or the mani­
festation of anger which is a frown), this type of
pantheism tends to become idealistic, that is, to de­
clare the visible universe only a projection of ideas
or fancies, to deny its solid actuality, and to fall back
on one invisible divine substance as the only thing that

j

I

η , I

26
THEODICY
truly exists. Such an idealistic pantheism is latent in

the doctrines of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the
most influential of philosophers in the modern period
i i
of history, and it was openly developed from his prinI *
ciples by his immediate followers, Fichte, Schelling,
; !
and Hegel.
:
5. Monotheism, as we have seen, means the doc! I
trine that there is only one God.
I
6. Polytheism is the doctrine that there exists a
1
plurality of gods or at least of world-controlling
I
forces.
I
7. Deism,—from Latin Deus “God,”—is the
i
theory which admits the existence of God, and even
His knowability, but which denies His providence
and His governance of creatures. Deism holds that
God has made the world, but has since ceased to care
(for it, and has tossed it aside to fend for itself.

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8. Ontologism,—from Greek on (onto-) “being”
and logos “science; knowledge,”—is the doctrine that
the order of science or knowledge reflects the order of
/ reality or being, and that, in consequence, the First
Actuality is the first thing known by the mind. There­
fore, says ontologism, the very first act of the mind is
a vague but fundamental conception of deity.
p. Traditionalism is the doctrine which holds that
the human mind is not able to demonstrate God’s
existence, but that it gets its knowledge of God by
way of faith in a primitive revelation made to the

ι*ι· n

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

27

1

first men by Almighty God Himself, and handed
down through all the generations of men by oral
tradition.
10. To the foregoing types of theory we may add
a few others that arc not specifically concerned with
the existence of God or man’s knowledge of God, but
which bear more or less directly upon these points.
Skepticism is a theory of doubt or denial about man’s
ability to know anything for certain, and thus it in­
cludes doubt or denial of his ability to know God.
Rationalism is the doctrine that human reason can
fully cope with all the truths that exist or are existible,
and that anything involving a reach into mystery or
an acknowledgment of infinity is,—since reason can­
not cope with it fully,—to be rejected as something
untrue, fictional. Pragmatism holds that the workableness of any thought, scheme, action, or its suitableness in its circumstances, determines its character
as true or as good; thus pragmatism denies or at least
ignores the eternal standard of morality and the
eternal source of truth which,—considered objectively
and fundamentally,—is God, the Divine Essence.

j
j

Relativism (of which pragmatism is one form or
variety) is the general theory that every truth depends
for its being upon the aspect in which it is seen or the
circumstances to which it is referred ; and thus relativ­
ism involves a denial of the absolute, the non-relative,
truth of the existence of God.

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THEODICY
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have defined the terms of the
question of God's existence. We have seen that the
existence here in question is an actual, uncaused,
necessary existence. We have declared what is gen­
erally meant to any mind by the term God, and, in
passing, we have shown the inanity of the agnostic
statement that man can know that God exists but docs
not know what God is. We have stressed the im­
portance of the inquiry into God’s existence as the
most pressing and practical of questions. Finally, we
have listed many theories which have to deal, more or
less directly, with this important question.

Article 2. The Need and Possibility of
Demonstrating God’s Existence
a) Need of the Demonstration
b) Possibility of the
Demonstration
a)

NEED of the demonstration

A demonstration is not a simple synonym for
proof. For a proof may be compelling, or convincing,
or merely persuading. But a demonstration is always
a compelling proof. It is a proof “to the eyes” as an
eloquent Latin expression has it,—not, of course, that
it is limited to the universe of things visible to bodily
eyes. When the teacher of history informs the school­
boy that Columbus discovered America in 1492,
there is, if the lad be skeptical, a wealth of proof avail-

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

29

able, but there is no demonstrating the truth in
question. Of its nature, it is something that depends
on statements and documents and the word of man.
It is not something lhat, given objective data to
examine, the mind sees to be inevitable, as, for ex­
ample, the mind sees that the sum of two and two is
inevitable. But the teacher of geometry has no need
to call witnesses and to adduce the testimony of re­
liable documents for the purpose of convincing the
doubting pupil that the angles of a triangle come to
1800. This is a truth that can be reasoned out so
thoroughly and completely that the person who under­
stands every step of the process is compelled to recog­
nize it. And only such a compelling proof is entitled
in strict justice to the name demonstration.
Now, do we require a demonstration for the truth
of God’s existence? We do unless that truth is selfevident. For there are two sorts of truths that do not
require demonstration. One is the sort of truth
already considered in reference to the history lesson,
in which demonstration is not required because it
does not apply and indeed is not available. The other
sort of truth that does not need demonstration is the
truth that is inevitably recognized at first glance (or
intuitively, by immediate or direct grasp, as philos­
ophers say). You cannot, for example, demonstrate
your own existence and so compel yourself to recog­
nize the fact that you are here. For demonstration is
always a process of analyzing the subject to be proved,

30

THEODICY

of getting it down to terms of its simple elements,
and of seeing how these inevitably fit together. But
your own existence is itself a simple and an elemental
thing, not subject to further analysis. You have a
direct and an intuitive grasp of it; it obtrudes itself
upon your acceptance so inescapably that even if you
deny it you affirm it. Try to deny your own existence,
and to express the denial in intelligible terms. You
may say, “I do not exist.” But why then do you say
“I”? What you have said amounts to this, “I’m here
to say I’m not here.” If you really doubt your own
existence (or any self-evident truth) you must lapse
into complete and endless silence, and, in the dark
despair of your non-existent mind, you must forever
admit that even your doubts are non-existent. Thus
there are truths so simple and inescapable that the
moment we understand the terms in which they are
expressed (whether these be mental terms or speech­
terms) we understand the necessary connection of the
terms and are forced to acknowledge, and to under­
stand, that what they express is necessarily true. Such
truths are called self-evident. Now, manifestly, the
existence of God is not a thing to be proved to us by
historical documents. Indirectly, of course, all human
history is a proof of an existing and provident God.
But directly, and considered absolutely or in itself, the
existence of God cannot be a mere historical truth
like the discovery of America in 1492. Is it, then, a
self-evident truth ? If so, it needs no demonstration.

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

31

If we consult our own experience, each of us will
doubtless say at once, “I learned the truth of God’s
existence, first from my mother’s teaching, and later
by noticing that the world and all things in it re­
quire an accounting Hirst ( ausc.” We may all truly
say (omitting consideration of the divine gift of
faith) that our natural or human knowledge of God
has its origin in human reason dealing with the ob­
jective world about us. Reason approved the accept­
ance of early instruction from those whose constant
care and love made us certain that they would not
mislead or deceive us in a matter of the utmost im­
portance. Reason later recognized the more direct
evidence for God’s existence, presented by the exist­
ence of creatures and an ordered universe. Hence, so
experience testifies, the truth of God’s existence is not
something obtruded upon senses or mind as selfevident. It is something that has to be learned. It is a
truth to be reasoned out, directly or indirectly. There­
fore, we say, the truth of God’s existence is not selfevident, but requires demonstration.
Yet there is a subtle consideration to be made be­
fore we declare with finality that the truth of God’s
existence is not a self-evident truth. It is this: God
exists necessarily, for He is all-perfect, and involves
in Himself the perfection called existence. Existence
is of Elis very essence and nature. Therefore, to a
mind that thoroughly understands the whole meaning
of the idea God, the note of existence is evidently con-

-V'

32

J

-fri-,

ρ^^\ΐ ^^-l·’ ^4ί,» 'i

THEODICY

tained in it; the proposition “God is an Existent Be­
ing” is one in which the subject demands the predicate,
for it contains it; and a mind capable of instantly
analyzing the subject would know the predicate too;
thus the proposition, to such a tnind, would be seitevident. But the human mind is not such a mind. As
we shall presently see, we build up our idea of God by
the laborious process of mental abstraction, and while
the building is wholly justified by fact, and is in no
sense the figment or fictional creation of the mind, it
is, none the less, a process that involves attention,
'abstraction, analysis, synthesis, reasoning. It is an
.. idea that is worked out by the mind from the data of
^experience, and is not intuitively grasped. And even
when the idea has been formed, it is not necessarily
present to the mind with that degree of distinctness
and detail which would make every thought of God a
keen realization of Elis necessary existence. A man
may have the clear idea of God, and may fully ac­
knowledge God as actual, and may make God, as in­
deed he should, the whole goal of his activity and his
life, and yet not advert directly to the fact that God,
who exists, has got to exist. The note of God’s neces­
sity may be entirely overlooked even by the mind that
has a clear and fully usable idea of God. Therefore we
say that while the proposition, “God is an Existent
Being” is self-evident in itself, and would be known
with absolute certitude, not needing or admitting
demonstration, by a mind adequate to understand its

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

33

subject in the fullest and completes! and most instan­
taneous manner, yet this proposition is not selfevident to the limited human mind, and, for that mind,
it is a proposition which, both admits and requires
demonstration. In other words, we say that the propo­
sition in question is self-evident in itself, hut not selfevident to the human mind. To use the old Latin
formula, the proposition is for sc nota quoad sc but
not per se nota quoad nos, “self-evident in itself, but
not self-evident to us.”
Out of the fact that the truth of God’s existence is
self-evident in itself a certain confusion can arise in
the mind that is not acutely attentive, and a mistaken
conviction may be evoked that God’s existence can
actually be proved by the fact that we have the idea
of God. St. Anselm (1033-1 109), a philosopher and
theologian of wondrous mentality, was not prevented
by his great natural gifts from making this mistake.
He elaborated the so-called ontological argument for
God’s existence, and he was followed in it by Des­
cartes (1596-1650), Leibnitz (1646-1716), and
Spinoza (1632—1677), c'ach of whom gave the argu­
ment a special phrasing and shading of his own. St.
Anselm, however, may be regarded as the originator
of the famous argument, and it has intrigued many
since his time. He was fully‘aware of the compelling
nature of the usual demonstration of God’s existence,
a demonstration which proceeds from the created and
contingent universe to the increate and necessary

34

THEODICY

First Cause. But he believed that another true argu­
ment could be developed, which would proceed from
the concept or idea of God in the human mind to the
actual existence of God. 11 is argument may be staled
thus: Everyone understands by God the most perfect
Being that the human mind can think of ; but, if God
does not really exist, then He is not the most perfect
Being thinkable, for He lacks the perfection called
existence : therefore, God must exist. The argument
is not valid. Its conclusion is not justified by its prem­
isses. Let us restate it, drawing the only allowable
conclusion, and we shall see the fallacy of the original
form :
God is the most perfect Being we can think of ;
But the most perfect Being we can think of must be
thought of as existing ;
Therefore, God must be thought of as existing.

Manifestly, we can grant this conclusion and still
have no valid proof that God, who must be thought of
as existing is, in fact, actually existing outside
thought. The argument as proposed by St. Anselm
involves a “jump” from the order of thinking to the
order of actual being, and Logic condemns as fal­
lacious any argument with such a gap or jump in its
structure. Still, we must not think that St. Anselm or
any of the notable defenders of this intriguing
ontological argument were so childish as to suppose
that the mere thought of anything is valid proof for
its existence. One of St. Anselm’s early critics had this

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TREETH

35

silly notion, and he sought to upset the ontological
argument by reducing it to an absurdity, Ide proposed
the following argument as paralleling the ontological
argument, which, of course, it docs not do at all :
I have an idea of a most beautiful and perfect island;
But it is not the idea of a most beautiful and perfect­
island unless the island actually exists;
Therefore, the island of which I have an idea actually
exists.

St. Anselm treated this argument with the contempt it
deserves. For he was speaking of the infinite Being, of
that one and only Being which has existence as one of
the phases or notes or component elements of its idea
in the mind. Of no finite being, such as an island, can
necessary existence be predicated, since the perfection
of such a being is always limited and relative (despite
the fact that one calls it “most beautiful” and “most
perfect”), and existence does not enter into its ade­
quate idea or concept. But, as we have seen, the human
mind is not capable of an intuitive and adequate con­
cept of God as the necessary Being (but derives its
idea of God from the intuitively formed ideas of finite
things in the sense-world around us) and so, even in
the case of the infinite Being, the ontological argu­
ment, based on human knowledge, is not valid. Our
idea of God as the necessary Being, that is, the Being
which necessarily exists, is reasoned knowledge, and
the idea itself is not evidence of the existence of its
object; this evidence is found in the objective reason-

36

THEODICY

ing that justified us in forming the idea. lienee it
appears that reasoning, the working out of demon­
stration, is still required for the truth of God’s exist­
ence to which the human mind assents ; nor is the
ontological argument a valid demonstration.
Thomas Reid (1710—1796) and his followers in
the so-called “Scottish School of Common Sense”
declared that no demonstration of God’s existence is
needed because we have a certain equipment of in­
tellectual judgments that are instinctively formed, and
these neither require nor admit demonstration ; and
among such necessitated judgments is the judgment,
“God exists.” Something of the same sort is the
doctrine of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who taught
that practical reason makes us acknowledge the exist­
ence of God as an inevitable fact, although the think­
ing mind (or theorizing reason) cannot work out a
true proof for it. Then there is the sentimentalist
doctrine of Friedrich Jacobi (1743-1819) which
holds that man has a natural longing for God and a
natural affection for virtuous living, and by force of
this feeling he is inescapably aware of religious and
moral truths and needs no rational demonstration to
support the certainty with which he holds them. To
Reid and Kant we may say that a blind instinct can­
not be one and the same as the intellect or reason
which struggles ever for light and for evidence; the
instinct theory (or the practical reason theory, which
is the same thing ) cuts straight against our whole con-

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

37

cept of reasoning and of intellectual knowledge. Reid
and. Kant merely contradict themselves when they
try to explain intellectual or rational conviction on the
basis of that which is wholly different from intel­
lect or reason. As for the doctrine of Jacobi, it is
sufficient to remark that we can have no longings,
yearning’s, or affections without previous knowledge;
we must know a thing, at least in some measure, be­
fore we can intellectually realize it as desirable. Back
of the sentiment of Jacobi must be knowledge, and
manifestly it must be knowledge of mind, of intel­
lect, of reason, for God is in no wise the object of any
of the senses. But the object of intellectual knowledge,
unless it be self-evident, is capable of rational discus­
sion, or reasoned argument, and of demonstration.
And in as far as an important intellectual object
admits demonstration it also requires it.
The most notable of all the theories which declare
that the existence of God needs no demonstration to
our minds is the theory called ontologism. The theory
itself is very old, but the only famous proponent of it
belongs to the modern era of history. He is Nicole
Malebranche (1638-1715), a learned, a pious, but a
much mistaken man. The theory of ontologism lays
down, without offering proof for it, the following
principle as fundamental : the order of thought (called
the logical order) must parallel the order of existence
(called the ontological order). Therefore, since God
is the first Being in the order of existence, He must be

38

THEODICY

the first also in the order of thought. In other words,
God is not only the first Being, but He is the first Be­
ing we know. Our very first idea, formed when we
come to use our infant minds, is the idea of God.
Ontologism goes on to say that, since God contains in
Himself, as identical with His essence, the archetypal
ideas or “exemplars” of all things creatable, the more
we know God, the more we know His creation.
Indeed, says ontologism, our knowledge of creatures
is explicable only by the fact that it is acquired in and
through our knowledge of God. The theory does not
maintain that we are aware of the first-formed idea of
God, nor that we advert to this idea early in life as
we gather knowledge of creatures through its minis­
tration. Ontologism sets forth its doctrine as a some­
what defiant fact, and not as something that a man
can check by his own memory or his ολνη experience ;
indeed, as we have seen, experience is all against it.
But it is not experience alone that makes ontologism
an inadmissible doctrine ; there are other very definite
and destructive objections to it. For example, ontolo­
gism would make the finite human mind naturally
'adequate for the grasp of an infinite object. In other
words, it would make the human mind naturally finite
and naturally infinite at the same time, which is a
manifest contradiction in thought and in terms. Only
when the finite mind is raised and enlarged, so to
speak, and furnished supernaturally with a medium
called the Light of Glory, is it enabled to see God as

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

39

He is, and, even then, its grasp, while intuitive, is not
exhaustive, but will be eternally enriched in the con­
templation of the Ever Ancient lever New. But never
can the Infinite be the immediate natural and propor­
tionate object of the linite mind. Hence, ontologism is
wholly inadmissible as involving a self-evident con­
tradiction. Further, ontologism renders inexplicable
the fact that imagination (a sentient and material
faculty) constantly co-operates with the human intel­
lect in the forming and using of ideas; imagination
goes along, so to speak, with intellect, and keeps pace
with it in its own way and in the measure of its limita­
tions, even when intellect is engaged in the most
abstruse reasoning. Now, if we behold the essences
of things directly in our intuitive idea of God, this
known service of imagination is not only useless but
it is a thing impossble to explain; it flies straight in the
face of the axiomatic truth that nature does nothing
in vain. Again, ontologism overlooks the fact that
when a man has a direct and intuitive knowledge of
God he is instantly constituted thereby in the state of
heavenly happiness, which is obviously not the case
Avith human beings here on earth. For all these rea­
sons, any one of which would suffice, we reject
ontologism as a wholly fallacious doctrine. And with
ontologism, we reject its thesis that God’s existence
needs no demonstration to the human mind.
Reason and experience, then, assure us that our
knowledge of God’s existence is not self-evident

THEODICY
knowledge for our minds. It is a truth that admits
demonstration and, in that same measure, requires it.
We have need for the demonstration of the truth of
God’s existence. We must now inquire whether ibis
need can he met. We arc to investigate the possibility
of demonstrating the existence of God.
b)

POSSIBILITY OF THE DEMONSTRATION

Against the possibility of demonstrating the exist­
ence of God stand the theories of (a) atheism which
denies that there is a God to prove existent; (b)
agnosticism which declares God existent (or admits
that He may exist) but declares Him unknowable;
(c) traditionalism which teaches that the human mind
is powerless to formulate a true demonstration in this
case, but has its certitude of God’s existence from a
primitive revelation made to the first men and handed
\ down to us by tradition.
Now, we need not here make any direct attack on
the atheistic position, for our whole study confutes
it, and we shall have the pleasure of pointing out the
fact in brief detail on a later page. Here we are to deal
with the agnostic and the traditionalist positions. But
before we take up the rather simple matter of their
refutation, we must mention certain types of demon­
stration listed by logicians, and decide which of these
may be used for our present purpose.
A demonstration is, first of all, either direct or
indirect. A direct demonstration deals with reasons or

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

41

causes which affect the thing demonstrated. An in­
direct demonstration shows that something is true
because its opposite is false, groundless, seif-contra­
dictory, or that it leads, it accepted, to absurdities. Tn
other words, a direct demonstration proves a point
itself; an indirect demonstration proves the contra­
dictory point unacceptable. When you meet the skep­
tic’s claim that the hitman mind is incapable of
achieving true certitude, you may demonstrate the
existence of certitude by showing the character of
objective evidence and its inevitable effect upon the
mind ; then your demonstration is direct. But you may
also confute the skeptic by taking his own word that
no certainty is achievable, and asking him how he be­
came certain of that. Tn a word, a direct demonstra­
tion establishes a position as right in itself ; an indirect
demonstration establishes a position as right by show­
ing that its contradictory is wrong. An indirect
demonstration is valid because, as we learned in
Logic, two contradictories cannot be simultaneously
true nor simultaneously false; one must be true, one
false ; for contradictories exhaust the possibilities
and cover the whole ground : the proof that one is true
is proof positive and complete that the other is false;
the proof that one is false is complete proof that the
other is true. Our present concern is the possibility of .
direct demonstration of the truth of God’s exist­
ence.
Now, a direct demonstration deals with causes

42

THEODICY

and reasons, and the plan of its formulation is always
either “cause to effect’’ or “effect to cause.” The
“cause to effect” type of demonstration is called
priori demonstration. A priori means “from before­
hand”; it indicates the forehanded view, so to say,
which one takes from the consideration of a cause
looking towards the effect that must come from that
cause. If, for example, you argue thus: “Spherical
bodies throw spherical shadows. The earth is a spher­
ical body. Therefore, the earth will throw a spherical
shadow,” you are arguing a priori. You do not take
the shadow as a known effect to begin with ; you take
the cause of the shadow, and from the consideration
of the cause you look forward, so to speak (or a
priori) to the inevitable effect.—If demonstration
(argues from “effect to cause,” it is called a posteriori
demonstration. A posteriori means “from after­
wards” ; it indicates the backward view from an effect
to its accounting cause. The a priori view knows the
effect before it is there by studying the cause and
learning what the effect, when it comes, must be. The
a posteriori view knows the effect after it is there,
and learns from studying it what sort of cause is re­
quired to explain it. If, for instance, you argue thus :
“All bodies which throw spherical shadows are them­
selves spherical. The earth throws a spherical shadow.
Therefore, the earth itself is spherical,” you are argu­
ing a posteriori. You are taking an effect (i. e., the
shadow) and arguing from it to its accounting cause.

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

43

We need not pati>e here io explain or illustrate
further than we have done the type of demonstration
called imlirecL h'or. while we shah not hesitate to
employ it when it offers its service, our present con­
cern is flic possibili! i>f direct demonstration of the
existence of God. We ask: Is direct A monstration in
this case possible; and, if so, are both the a priori and
the a posteriori types of it available to us; or, if but
one type can serve us, which of the two is it :
We answer: Direct demonstration of the existence
of God is possible, for any naturally knowable truth
that is not self-evident is capable of direct or indirect
demonstration ; and when the truth to be demon­
strated stands in a causal relation to known effects,
then direct demonstration is possible. Now the exist­
ence of God is a naturally knowable truth as the whole
history of mankind attests, and God is, by very con­
cept and definition, a Being that stands in causal rela­
tion to known effects, that is, to the visible universe.
Therefore, direct demonstration of the existence of
God is possible.
But it is manifest that the type of direct demonstra­
tion called a priori or cause-to~effect demonstration
will not serve us here. For God cannot be approached
a priori. We cannot, so to speak, get back of God, for
the very concept of God is a concept of the absolutely
first Being. We cannot study God in His causes, for
He has no causes ; the first and necessary Being is
inevitably causeless. Nor can we study the essence of

44

THEODICY

God in an a priori fashion, seeking to know from this
essence what the attributes or perfections of < md must
be, even though, by a special view of our miuds, we
make a distinction in the absolutely simple ( i. c., un­
divided and indivisible) God, and regard the I Heine
Essence in the light of a cause, and the Divine Per­
fections in the light of effects. For to do this we
should have to possess an immediate and intuitive
knowledge of the Divine Essence to begin with, and
that, as a fact, we do not possess. The progress of our
knowledge is all the other way about. We advance
from the knowledge of creatures, and of creatural
perfections, to the knowledge of the Divine Perfec­
tions, and thus our detailed knowledge of the Divine
Essence Itself is built up in the effcct-to-cause or a
posteriori fashion, and not a priori.
We form our knowledge of God a posteriori, and
in four steps : we first recognize God as the First
Cause of all things ; secondly, we attribute to God all
that we recognize in creatures as perfection; thirdly,
we attribute this perfection to God in a manner
eminently superior to that in which individual per­
fections are found in creatures ; fourthly, we remove
from our idea of divine perfection every limitation or
imperfection, attributing to God all possible perfec­
tions in an absolutely infinite or boundless degree and
in perfect unity and simplicity, identifying them all
in the undivided Divine Essence. Thus our knowledge
of God is the result of the convergence of four

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

45

“ways” : the way of causality; the way of attribution:
the way of excellence or transcendence ; the way of
removal or denial of limitation. And clear reason
justifies the approach to the sure knowledge of God
by these four converging· paths. Thus we possess a
distinct idea of God, the Infinite Being, although we
cannot have a perfectly comprehensive idea of Him in
our finite minds. But, for the matter of that, none of
our ideas is perfectly comprehensive; none of them
exhausts the knowability of its object. Our idea of
God is clear, distinct, usable, sufficient. It is a genuine
idea, not a figment of the mind, for it is formed by
the mind working on solid reality and advancing
along the solid paths of abstractive reasoning.
The ontological argument of St. Anselm, which we
have discussed in detail, is an attempt to prove God’s
existence in a somewhat a priori fashion. It is not a
purely a priori argument. Rather, it is an argument
a simultaneo, that is, an argument which proceeds
from the existence of the idea of God in our minds to
the simultaneous actual existence of God outside our
minds. The argument does not pretend to deal with
the cause of God, for the very notion of such a cause
is an absurdity ; it would be the notion of “a cause of
the causeless” which is a manifest contradiction. But,
as we have amply seen, even the <7 simultaneo type of
demonstration fails to afford us a valid proof for the
existence of God.
By exclusion, then, we know that the only type

46

THEODICY

of direct demonstration available in this case,—and
we have seen that direct demonstration is possible,—
is the a posteriori or off cct-to-cause type. By this type
of thinking we build up our knowledge of Cod; by
this type of proof we establish the actual existence
of God. And it is this type of thinking that serves
us, fundamentally, in all our reasoning. For, granted
that there can be such a thing as an a priori argu­
ment, there is ever back of it a truth that was learned
a posteriori. Thus, though you begin your argument
about the shadow of the earth in this fashion : “Spher­
ical bodies throw spherical shadows,” and go on to
conclude that the earth, being spherical, will throw a
spherical shadow, you have learned a posteriori your
original facts that the shadows of bodies conform
to the shapes of bodies, and that the earth is spherical.
To deny value to a posteriori reasoning is to bank­
rupt all human knowledge and to relapse into the evil
silence of complete skepticism.
But, it is objected, the a posteriori type of demon­
stration is an effect-to-cause demonstration ; it involves the dread thing called causality, and there are
philosophers in the world who have no stomach for
causality, and turn sick at the very mention of it.
Since Immanuel Kant (1724—1804) threw his cloud
of prideful doubt across the lightsome land of human
intelligence, the doctrine of causality has been sus­
pect in many minds. The positivists, for instance,
who are one of the many companies in the motley

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

47

regiment of agnostics, will have none of it, for they
cannot put pure causality into a test-tube or on a
scale or cut it in sections on a microtome, and so they
deny it. They fall back upon a theory of succession
or constant sequence, and say that what we call effect
follozvs what we call cause, but we cannot sa)· more
about it nor connect the two essentially. This, of
course, is explaining something by explaining it away ;
it is solving a problem by blotting the problem out, a
strange procedure for a scientific mind. Further, it is
a denial of fundamental and universal human experi­
ence, and, in consequence, it is the denial of the basis
of all knowledge and certitude. Besides, the thing
called succession, and the theory which proposes it,
are not objects that can be sensed or handled in a
laboratory. The positivist neatly contradicts himself
when he essays to attack causality. For the rest, his
argument that only the data of sense can be positively
or scientifically known involves a quite evident ab­
surdity. For what are the data of sense? They are not
things the senses know. The senses do not know any­
thing. The man who has the senses knows something
by their use. The man who has a mind also knows
something by its use. It is the man that knows in
either case, not the senses nor the mind. Therefore,
to say that only what a man knows by the conscious
use of his senses is reliably known, and what he knows
(as he knows causality) by his mind is not reliably
known, is just as foolish as to say that what a man

-? 11

48

-1 ù- ·* ί\ ΐ ίί

A U&

f -. C

THEODICY

learns by the sense of touch is reliably known, but
what he learns by the sense of sight is not reliableknown.
Eut there arc many who sec the absurdity of the
extreme positivistic position and these do a neat ma­
neuver and come up smiling on a new tack. They
say that causality can indeed be known, but that we
cannot carry it “beyond the realm of the phenomenal.'’
In other words, you can know what causes stomach­
ache, and you can know what causes this to cause
stomach-ache, but you cannot ultimately know what
causes the stomach. You can know cause and effect
within the borders of the bodily world, but your rea­
son, which carries you successfully through causality
in this world, cannot take wing and bear you aloft into
the world of the ultimate and primal causality. Why?
It seems that these peculiar people who limit causality
to the phenomenal world (that is, the world of sense,
of bodily appearances) have themselves explored the
outer and invisible realm ; they have been there ; they
know all about it ; and they tell ordinary stupid peo­
ple like you and me that we cannot go there. If we
are not very stupid, we shall resent this intolerable
impertinence. These scientistic people declare that
only the realm of sense-reality can be dealt with sci­
entifically; only in this realm can causality be known.
Does that doctrine belong to the realm of sense? By
what sense does one acquire that knowledge? Again
we come back to the fundamental fallacy involved

~

GGD’S EXISTENCE A TROTH

49

in all this nice assignment of fields and areas in which
sound knowledge can be garnered. Not that we should
not make clean distinctions between the field of sensa­
tion and (liât of intellection; indeed, it is the failure
to notice the fence between these fields that is charac­
teristic of all the muddle of even the finest minds since
Descartes (1596-1650). And it is the very failure
of the positivists and of the positivistic to notice the
distinction, that mixes them all up, and enables them
to propose with serious faces a wholly intellectual and
reasoned conclusion (though their reason be twisted)
as the fundamental principle of an entirely sensistic
system ! Once more we insist that in the case of hu­
man knowledge, whether it be knowledge of cows or
of causality, it is the num who knows, not his senses
and not his mind. And there is certainly no scien­
tific or philosophical ground for admitting value to
one sort of awareness and denying it to the other.
You may indeed follow with critical care any com­
plex line of intellectual procedure; but so you must
do in any penetrating use of the senses. And you
cannot be critical of either sentient or intellectual pro­
cedure without the use of the very mind whose re­
liability is questioned or denied with the question or
denial of man’s knowledge of causality, even of pri­
mal causality. For the rest, any causality belongs to
the supra-phenomenal world. There are phenomena
which mark effects, and show' the presence and the
action of causes, but causality itself is no phenome-

tJS*

id

î-ç ίί-t ΛΛ" i is I* J

5o

THEODICY

non; and what it produces by way of phenomena is
regulari}' only secondary to an underlying and nonphcnomenal effect upon the very essences of things.
To sum up : the knowledge which we possess of
causality is a direct intuition of the mind working with
■the findings of sense. It is a fundamental certitude
that makes us connect cause and effect, and upon it
not only all human knowledge but all human practice
is built up. Even those who twist their minds into an
acceptance of a bizarre theory which denies causality
or limits it to the realm of phenomena (where, strictly
speaking, it does not even apply, except in a secondary
way) are forced in their practice to recognize causal­
ity as true and as validly known. Even if we allow the
positivistic and scientistic people to play about with
names, and to call causality by the name of succession,
or constant sequence, we recognize clearly from their
whole procedure, and even from their terminology in
unguarded moments, that they mean by these names
(neither more nor less than genuine causality. Causal­
ity is simply inescapable in the whole experience of
; man, and it affords to philosopher, theologian, and
( scientist, as to the man in the street, the ground of
‘..argument and of demonstration. Therefore, with
clear minds and spirits unburdened with the intoler­
able positivistic error, we take up the proofs for
God’s existence, basing them on causality, proceeding
in a true and valid a posteriori manner to make clear
the most important truth of all. And to the stubborn

H jjk

GOD’S EXISTENCE A TRUTH

51

positivistic person who refuses to accompany us on
this interesting and all-important journey, we say,
“While you’re waiting, you might try to account for
the succession and constant sequence of things in this
world, and for what these tilings scream at you about
the non-phcnomcnal world. For even a positivist can’t
deny that succession and constant sequence are things
that demand a bit of explaining.’’
The agnostic, then, is wrong when he insists that
God cannot be known. For a cause can be known, and
the effects from which we proceed to the knowledge of
the cause, are, in the present case, all about us. Our
whole procedure in setting forth the demonstration of
God’s existence will be a sufficient refutation of ag­
nosticism, if any further refutation be needed than
that already given. The traditionalist also is wrong.
His theory of a primitive revelation is so far true ;
there doubtless was a primitive revelation. But to say
that there had to be such a revelation, by physical
necessity, so that man could never have had a knowl­
edge of God without it ; and to say that our knowledge
of God is a blind acceptance of the human tradition,
is to make wild assertions that do not square with the
facts; the fact of the human mind is against it; the
fact of the human experience is against it; and noth­
ing really is for it. We have seen in the present study
that God’s existence can be proved, and that there is a
valid way for developing this proof. To the tradition­
alist then we say, “What! Are you answered?” And

S2

THEODICY

if he is not answered, we may say, losing reverence
momentarily for his solemn stupidity, “We can’t
prove God’s existence? Just watch us do it.”
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have explained the meaning of
demonstration, and have discovered that the truth of
God’s existence is not self-evident to our minds, and
therefore admits and requires demonstration. We
have noticed the defects of the demonstration at­
tempted by St. Anselm and others (called the on­
tological argument') and have rejected this as an inept
proof, and one that does not dispense us from the ne­
cessity of finding other and valuable evidence for
God’s existence. We have seen that the true demon­
stration of God’s existence is not furnished by the
instinct theory of Reid and the Scottish School, by
Kant and his theory of practical reason, or by Jacobi
and his theory of religious and moral sentiment.
Viewing all these theories, we find that the need still
exists for valid demonstration of God’s existence.
Further, we have seen that this need can be met by a
proof that is direct and a posteriori, a proof neces­
sarily involving causality. Against the doctrines that
deny value to the argument from causality, and
against the whole agnostic, and traditionalistic posi­
tion, we have established our right to use this argu ­
ment in building up a true demonstration.

CHAPTER It

DEMONSTRATION OF THE EXISTENCE
OF GOD
This Chapter sets forth the traditional a posteriori proofs
for the existence of God. All of these proofs are applications
of the principle of causality, that is, of the fundamental truth
which may be fully expressed as follows : ‘‘Every effect re­
quires, to explain its existence, the existence of an adequate
cause or sum of causes, and it ultimately requires the exist­
ence of an uncaused and necessarily existing First Cause
which is Subsistent Being Itself.” But, although all the
proofs here offered are expressions of causality, all do not
exhibit the same type of causality. Therefore, as a kind of
preface to our demonstration, we offer a short introductory
Article on the chief types of causes. In the succeeding
Articles we present the proofs for God’s existence. The
Chapter is divided into these Articles :
Article i. The Chief Types of Causes
Article 2. The Proof from Efficient Causality
Article 3. The Proof from Formal and Final Causality
Article 4. Certain Supplementary Proofs

Article

i.

The Chief Types of Causes

a) Meaning of Cause
b) Intrinsic Causes
c) Extrinsic Causes
a)

MEANING OF CAUSE

A cause is anything that contributes, in any way
and measure whatever, to the -producing of a thing.
53

yr

54

THEODICY

The thing produced by causes is called an effect. Be­
tween cause and effect there is a constant relation
which, viewed from the standpoint of the cause, is
causality, and viewed from the standpoint of the effect
is dependency or contingency. That which is the effect
of one cause may be the cause of a further effect. In­
deed the world around us is a tissue of causes and
effects.
We distinguish cause and principle. A principle is
that which gives rise to anything, or is its point of
origin. Thus a cause is always a principle, for it is
the point of origin of the effect and it gives rise to the
effect. But some points of origin are merely startingpoints, and not effecting or producing sources. Thus,
the dawn is the starting point, or principle, of the day,
but dawn is not the cause of day. Thus a man’s con­
victions are the true source of his free conduct, but
they are not the cause of his free conduct; this cause
is his will; the convictions are principles but not
causes. Therefore, every cause is a principle, but not
every principle is a cause.
We distinguish cause and reason. A reason is that
which contributes in any way to the understanding of
a thing; it explains, whereas a cause produces. Every­
thing that exists has reasons which explain it and
account for it; but not everything that exists has its
cause or causes. God has reasons, and we arc to in­
vestigate them in our present study. But God has no
causes, for He is the first Being, and not a Being

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

55

consequent upon causes. Now, every cause is a reason ;
that is, when you know the cause of an effect, you
have an explanation of the effect. But there are ex­
planations other than causes ; we explain and even
demonstrate the existence of God but we do not as­
sign causes to God. Therefore, every cause is a reason
but not every reason is a cause. Fire is a reason for
heat and is the cause of heat; heat is a reason for fire
(that is, it manifests or explains the presence of fire)
but heat is not the cause of fire ; it is its effect.
We distinguish cause and occasion. An occasion is
some extrinsic circumstance or set of circumstances
which may induce a cause to act. The sight of a priest
or of a rosary in the hands of a little sodalist may lead
an anti-clerical to curse and swear ; what he sees is
not the cause of the evil language, but its occasion.
There is never an essential and intrinsic connection
between the occasion and the cause which acts on
occasion, but there is frequently a powerful, if ex­
trinsic, influence exercised by occasion. For this rea­
son we have the practical truisms: “Fie that loves
danger shall perish in it” ; “He who wills not to avoid
occasions of sin, does not will to avoid sin” ; “Tell
me the company you keep, and I’ll tell you what you
are,” and so on.
b)

INTRINSIC CAUSES

An intrinsic cause is one that is right in the effect,
not external to it, but part and parcel with it.

56

THEODICY

There are two types of intrinsic cause, material
cause and formal cause. - » 1. A material cause is the bodily matter out of
which an object is made. Thus the material cause of
a statue is wood or plaster or marble. It is manifest
that spiritual things have no material cause, for they
are not composed of matter. The material out of
which a bodily thing is made is a true cause, for with­
out it the effect would not be there. Without wood,
plaster, marble, silver, or some other bodily substance,
there could be no statue. And the production of the
statue truly depended upon some suitable substance
existing that could be carved or moulded into a statue.
Indeed, this statue which I here look upon would not
be this statue if any other matter but that precise mat­
ter which is in it were used in the making. Thus the
matter, the material make-up, of any bodily substance
has the nature of a true cause. Remember the defini­
tiori of cause : that which contributes, in any manner
or measure whatever, to the producing of a thing.
Notice that the material of which a bodily object is
made is right in that object; it is intrinsic to that ob­
ject; thus a material cause is an intrinsic cause.
2. A formal cause is that which constitutes an
effect as the precise kind of thing it is, constitutes it
formally or as such. Now, the precise kind of thing
which the effect is, may mean the precise kind of sub­
stance or the precise kind of accidental being. Thus,
in a silver statue, I distinguish that which makes this

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

57

bodily substance the precise kind of substance it is,
that is, silver, and 1 call this the substantial form or
the substantial formal cause of the statue. Further,
I distinguish in the statue that which makes this
silver object the precise kind of thing it is in its acci­
dental being, that is, in its shape and size and image­
value, and so on; and each point of this kind is an
accidental form of the statue, and its accidental formal
cause. Notice that the statue would not be this precise
thing (substantially) if any other substance than
silver were used to make it ; nor would it be precisely
this identical thing if any accidental determinant or
form were different, if, for instance, it were made of
some other quantity of silver, or were smaller or
larger or represented some other person than it now
does. Thus, every single one of the determinants or
forms (the one substantial form and the several acci­
dental forms) makes its contribution to the effect I
call this statue. Each of these forms is therefore a true
cause. And notice that the forms or formal causes are
right in the effect itself : the statue is silver ; the statue
is marked and determined by this weight, this size,
this location, this shape, and so on. Therefore, a for­
mal cause, whether substantial or accidental, is an in­
trinsic cause.
To sum up. Intrinsic causes are thus distinguished :
Material
Cause. -<

Formal

Γ substantial
t accidental

58
C)

THEODICY
EXTRINSIC CAUSES

An extrinsic cause is outside the effect, not part and
parcel with it.
There are two chief types of extrinsic cause, effi­
cient cause and final cause.
l. An efficient cause is a cause which by its own
activity produces an effect. The sculptor who carved
the statue is its efficient cause. Now the efficient cause
is frequently subserved by instrumental causes, as
the sculptor was served by the tools he used, and by the
natural instruments of hands, fingers, muscles, sin­
ews. The efficient cause is often also served by an
exemplar-cause, that is, the model or pattern after
which the work of the efficient cause is fashioned.
Thus the sculptor (the efficient cause of the statue)
was subserved not only by instruments (that is, in­
strumental causes') but by some model, image, or pat­
tern, which he had physically before him as he worked,
or at least pictured in his imagination (that is, an
exemplar-cause), and which served as his plan and
his guide. Notice that both instruments and exemplar
have their influence on the effect and make a distinct
contribution to it; without these causes the finished
statue would not exist, or it would not exist as the
precise thing it is in every detail. Therefore, instru­
ments and exemplar deserve the name of true causes.
Notice further that the efficient cause, the instrumen­
tal causes, and the exemplar-cause, are things exter­
nal to, or extrinsic to, the effect ; they are not right in

I)Of< )\STRATION OF EXISTENCE

59

the effect itself ; hence the)7 are called extrinsic causes.
2. A final cause is the goal or end towards which
the work of the efficient cause is directed in the active
producing of the effect. Wherever we find efficient
causation, we find some goal, some term, something
aimed at, whether consciously or unconsciously. The
lifeless forces of nature, such as wind and erosion,
tend towards their effect by a natural drive or energy.
In living things, in plants and animals, we notice
an obvious tendency towards development, maturity,
fruitfulness. But only an intelligent or understanding
being (that is, only a rational being) is capable of
setting a goal, proposing an end to itself, and working
to attain it. And every rational creature does so set its
goal in every free act, but always sets it (of necessity)
in the direction of good to be attained; for towards
the Supreme Good every creature is directed by the
inmost requirements of its being. The ultimate goal,
absolutely speaking, sought by man in every free act,
*'is the supreme or highest good, and supreme happi­
ness in the attainment of that good. But any proxi­
mate or remote goal which is not absolutely ultimate
(and which is conceived of as a means to carry one in
the direction of the ultimate goal) is freely chosen by
man (that is, by the only bodily rational creature) in
his deliberate activity. So we say, to illustrate our defi­
nition of final cause, that the sculptor must have had
some reason for making the statue, something that
drew him to the work of making it, something that

THEODICY

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

made its making appear a good thing and led him to
choose it freely. Perhaps it was money, perhaps love
of art, perhaps a mere pleasant way to spend the time ;
but some purpose there must have been, else the statue
never would have been produced. 'This purpose is the
final cause of the statue. For man, a final cause is also
a motive; it moves the human efficient cause to the
free work of producing the effect. But for God, the
final cause is not a motive, since God is in no wise
influenced or moved, but chooses with supreme and
wholly unswayed free choice. God has, in all His tran­
sient operations, a purpose, but no motive ; for man,
purpose is usually a pretty accurate synonym for mo­
tive. The final cause is manifestly extrinsic to the
effect; it is something outside the effect itself, and
something at which the effect is, so to speak, aimed
and directed.
To sum up. Extrinsic causes are distinguished thus :

and as extrinsic to the effect {efficient and final
cause). Tn the subsequent study we shall find that God
is the supreme Efficient and the last Final Cause of
all creation.

6o

Efficient
Cause. -

instrumental
subserved by ~
[ exemplar

Final
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

This brief Article has taught us the meaning of
cause. We have defined cause, and have noticed how
it is distinguished from principle, reason, and occa­
sion. We have classified the chief types of causes as
intrinsic to the effect {material and formal cause)

61

Article 2. The Proof from Efficient
Causality
a) Proof from Motion
Efficient Causes

a)

b) Proof from the Order of
c) Proof from Contingency

PROOF FROM MOTION

By motion or movement is meant any transit, any
change, from one state of being to another. Motion
is most readily illustrated by local movement, that is,
by the movement of bodily things in space. Such
movement is all about us all the time ; it goes on within
us; it obtrudes itself upon our notice constantly. We
find such motion or movement in the sunrise and sun­
set, in the rustling leaves, in the darting fly, in the
beating of our hearts, in the twitching of our fingers,
in the steps we take, in the creeping clouds, in the
heaving ocean. But this movement of bodily things in
space is not the only movement or motion in the world.
There is motion in the transit from ignorance to
knowledge, in the making up of our minds, in the
change from the state of sin to the state of grace.
Any transit, any going-over, from one state of being
(substantial or accidental) to another is motion.
Now, the principle of motion, that is, the self-

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DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

evident truth which is the first source of sound reason­
ing about motion, is this: Whatever is moved is
moved by something other than itself, or, in the famil­
iar Latin formula which we should know, Quidquid
movetur ab alio movetur. For motion requires a mover
as well as a thing moved. And a little attention will
make clear the fact that mover and thing moved can­
not possibly be one and the same thing. As far as
bodily or local movement is concerned the point is ex­
pressed in the physical law of inertia which tells us
that bodies at rest tend to remain at rest ; they never
originate movement in themselves and of themselves;
the thought is as self-contradictory as that of a man
lifting himself by his own boot-straps. To moving
bodies, motion has been communicated; it has been
bestowed and given; it has come from some external
source. And what is true of local motion in bodies is
true of change of quality or quantity and of any mo­
tion at all.
Living bodies are said to move themselves, and life
is sometimes defined as the power of self-movement.
But living bodies do not move themselves into ex­
istence ; nor do they dower themselves with the power
called life. Life-movements depend upon the existence
of an inner substantial principle (which did not move
itself into existence) called the life-principle or soul
or psyche or entelechy; and in the execution of life­
movements in bodies, part moves part. A living body
has been (marvellously and mysteriously) assembled

or “moved together’’ ; it did not assemble its own parts
in the first place for it was not there to do so even if
it could. And so its subsequent movements are not
self-movements in the full sense; these depend upon
the balance of parts, the assembly, the organism or
vital unity, which is not self-originating. It still re­
mains true that whatever is moved is moved by some­
thing other than itself.
To put the matter in the more stately philosophical
terminology ; Anything movable is in the state of po­
tentiality with respect to the movement which it may
undergo. When the movement takes place, the po­
tentiality is actualized. Now, it is a principle of meta­
physics that nothing is actualized except under the
activity of something which is already actual ; no
potentality is self-actualizing. St. Thomas Aquinas
puts the point thus : “Motion takes place inasmuch as
things are changed from the potential to the actual,
and this demands some actual agent to move them
from the potential state.” Now, it cannot be that any­
thing is both potential and actual under the same as­
pect or in precisely the same way; therefore the
mover and the thing moved cannot be identical. What­
ever is moved is moved by something other than itself.
That, then, is the first point to remember. Motion
is not self-originating, and wherever motion exists,
there exists a mover which is something other than
the thing moved. The second point is this : you cannot
go on forever with a senes of movers and things

62

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THEODICY

moved. If Z is moved by Y, and Y is moved by X, and
X is moved by W, and W is moved by V, ibis sort
of thing may go on through a long chain or scries, but
it does not go on endlessly. Somewhere you must conic
to an absolute A which is not moved by anything else,
which, in fact, is not moved at all. For it is one of the
chief of self-evident principles that a “process unto
actual infinity” is impossible. The agnostic may object
that we go too far in demanding a first mover itself
unmoved. He may say, “It’s all very well to follow
the chain of mover-and-moved, but where it slips out
of the realm of bodily reality it slips entirely out of
sight.” Yes, but we can know, and that with full
certitude, that it does not slip out of existence when it
slips out of sight. The chain that hangs a few visible
links before our eyes, one duly supporting the next
below it according to honored custom, may be lost in
cloudy heights, but this fact does not make us less
aware that the invisible portion of it is there, and
that somewhere in the higher reaches there is a link'
hooked over a solid peg, and the peg supports the
whole suspended chain, visible and invisible. To ac­
knowledge the links we see and then to deny that there
is anything knowable about the links we do not see,
and especially the first link, is actually to take away the
only reason there is for believing what our eyes be­
hold. If, out there “beyond,” there is no knowable
first link solidly moored on something that supports
the whole chain, then the thing we see is something

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DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

65

at once more and less than a miracle; it is something
monstrous, and all our talk and reasoning about it
become gibberish. To refuse to sec an argument, or a
chain, to the end, though it be a bitter end or a bitterly
disliked end, is not to acknowledge, with humility,
the powerlessness of the human mind to investigate
invisible reality ; it is to assert the powerlessness of the
human mind to recognize visible reality.
It is manifest that this argument from motion is
a phase or aspect of the requirements of efficient cau­
sality. For the mover is the efficient cause of the
movement. Hence, with St. Thomas who puts this
argument first, we list it, with the two that follow,
under the general heading of Proof from Efficient
Causality.
We may sum up our argument thus :
If there is motion in the world, there exists a mover,
and ultimately a First Mover Itself Unmoved.
Now, manifestly, there is motion in the world.
Therefore, there exists a mover, and ultimately a First
Mover Itself Unmoved. This First Mover we call
God. Therefore God exists.
b)

PROOF FROM THE ORDER OF EFFICIENT CAUSES

An efficient cause is, as we have learned, a cause
that by its own action produces an effect. Now, this
effect may, in turn, be the efficient cause of another
effect, and this of another, and so on. Tn a machine,
one part moves another, and this another, the whole
movement of all the parts depending upon the steam

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THEODICY

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

or electricity or water or other force which moves
the first of these parts. We sometimes see a large fac­
tory full of moving machines and travelling belts,
and all movement is communicated from one master
engine or one enormous fly-wheel; efficient causality
is communicated from point to point and from part to
part, each movement being first an effect of an effi­
cient cause, and then an efficient cause of a further
effect. In nature about us we may observe exam­
ples of the same “subordination or order of efficient
causes.” Thus the sun acts as an efficient cause in
shedding its light and warmth upon the plant; the
plant, availing itself of the sun’s contribution, grows
and flourishes and puts forth fruit. Again, the golfer,
surely one of nature’s noblest sights, moves his arms ;
the arms move the club ; the club (perhaps) moves the
ball; and here is a neat chain of connected efficient
causes. It is needless to multiply examples, for there
are such chains of efficient causation (or such “an
order of efficient causes”) to be observed on all sides.
Now, just as motion cannot -arise-of itself ; just
as a thing moved cannot be its own mover, so a thing
efficiently caused cannot be its own cause. As. St.
Thomas says, “It cannot be that anything is its own
efficient cause; if it were, it would exist before itself,
which is impossible.” Therefore, where we find a
thing efficiently produced or effected, we must look
for its cause in something other than itself.

To quote St. Thomas once more, “In every con­
nected series of efficient causes, the first is the cause
of the intermediate (one or many), and the interme­
diate is the cause of the last. Remove the cause and
the effect is gone; remove the first cause and there
remains neither intermediate nor last.” Therefore,
he concludes, one cannot say a chain of efficient cau­
sality reaches back unto infinity, for to say that is
to deny actuality to the first cause, and so to deny it
to all the rest of the chain. One must come to the first
cause in any series or chain of efficient causes, and one
must come to the First Cause to account for all the
chains, and this First Cause must be itself uncaused.
For it is first, no cause is prior to it, nothing produces
it; it is causeless, unproduced. Reason demands that
such a Being must exist to account for the efficient
causation we behold all about us in the world, and
for the universe itself which is demonstrably an ef­
fect, that is, the product of efficient causality. We call
this Uncaused First Cause, God. Therefore, God ex­
ists.
We may sum up the argument in this way :

66

67

If there exists a true order or connection of efficient
causes, there must exist a First Cause, Itself Un­
caused.
Now, there does exist, as is manifest all about us, a true
order or connection of efficient causes.
Therefore, there must exist a First Cause, Itself Un­
caused. This we call God. Therefore, God exists.

68
C.)

THEODICY
PROOF FROM CONTINGENCY

Contingence or contingency means dependency ; it
is the converse of causality· If causality is “heads,”
contingency is “tails.” A thing caused is said to be
contingent upon, or dependent upon, the action <>i the
efficient cause (or causes) that produced it. A thing
uncaused (and such a Being is only one, namely, God )
is said to be necessary; it is not dependent upon causes ;
it is not contingent ; for it is causeless and unpro­
duced and exists of necessity, that is, it cannot be non­
existent. Thus there is a. fundamental classification of
reality into necessary and contingent reality. All creatural reality, all worldly, reality, is finite and hence
contingent.
Now, a contingent thing may exist, but, if it does
exist, it exists by grace of the causes that gave it
existence. In itself it involves no necessity for ex­
istence ; it didn’t have to exist, and it does not contain
in itself the explanation of its existence. In itself, it is
possible, and that is the most that can be said for it.
That finite or contingent things exist is proof posi­
tive that they can exist, but it is equally proof positive
that they might not have existed. Well, if everything
is of this character; if everything is contingent; if
everything is something that might not exist, there
must have been a time when absolutely nothing ex­
isted. And, by that token, it must still be true that
absolutely nothing exists. For in the blank of absolute
nothingness there is no actuality that could draw pos­

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

69

sible things into existence; absolute nothingness is
simply nothing, and nothing it must remain. ] fence,
the very existence of contingent things (and all crea­
tures are contingent) is indisputable proof that there
exists a Being that is not contingent, but necessary.
And, as necessary, it must be prior to all the contin­
gent things that ultimately depend upon it for their
existence; it must be first. Therefore, there exists a
First and a Necessary Being, and this we call God.
Therefore, God exists.
When we say that a thing is contingent or depend­
ent we label it as a thing subject to change, to mo­
tion, to efficient causality. It has been changed from
its state of possibility or potentiality to actuality; it
has been moved from non-being into being; it has
been efficiently caused. Ponder these words of the
great G. K. C., applying them to the three arguments
we have thus far considered : “Mr. Wells must surely
realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes that
sit by the springs of truth. He must surely see that the
fact of two things being different implies that they
are similar. The hare and the tortoise may differ in
the quality of swiftness, but they must agree in the
quality of motion. The swiftest hare cannot be swifter
than an isosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness.
When we say the hare moves faster, we say the tor­
toise moves. And when we say of a thing that it
moves, we say, without need of other words, that
there are things that do not move. And even in the

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DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

act of saying that things change, we say that there
is something unchangeable.”
We may put our argument from contingency in this
brief form :

ficient Cause Itself Uncaused, a First and Necessary
Being. This Being we call God.

7°

If contingent things exist, they demand as their ulti­
mate explanation (that is, as their sufficient rca.-on
for existing) the existence of a Being which is neces­
sary and non-contingent, a First Being which does
not depend on causes.
Now, it is undeniable that contingent things exist.
Therefore, there exists a Being which is necessary and
non-contingent, a First Being which does not de­
pend on causes. This Being we call God. Therefore,
God exists.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have presented the first three
arguments for the existence of God in the order in
which they are set forth by St. Thomas Aquinas. It is
manifest that these three arguments, or proofs, as we
are fully justified in calling them, are all applications
of the principle of efficient causality. This principle
may be succinctly stated in these words : No effect is
efficiently produced without an adequate producing or
efficient cause. We have considered efficient causality
as it is manifested in motion, in the subordination or
order of causes, and in contingency. Any one of these
proofs is conclusive. Their cumulative force is abso­
lutely compelling to sound reason. Reason therefore
demands the existence of a Prime Mover, a First Ef-

71

Article 3. The Proof from Formal and
Final Causality
a) Proof from Grades of Perfection
b) Proof from
Government of the World
c) Proof from Alan’s
Ultimate Goal

Things bear the impress of their efficient cause in
two notable ways. They manifest its power and skill
and, in a sense, its character, in their formal struc­
ture, their being considered formally or as such. And
they manifest its purpose in the way they work. In
the first of the three arguments here to be presented
we view creatures in the light of what may, at least
analogously, be called their formal cause. .Many au­
thors prefer to see in this argument a further applica­
tion of efficient causality (and indeed this is not to
be denied) with a tinge of exemplar-causality. In the
second and third arguments we view creatures in the
light of the end or goal for which they are made
and to which they tend ; in a word we see them in the
light of their final causality.
a) proof from grades of perfection
By the perfection of a thing we mean its thorough
making. The word perfection comes from the Latin
per and factum which, freely rendered, means “made

V

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THEODICY

through and through.’’ A thing is perfect or lo'S per­
fection when it is all that it ought to he, when no
item or element that should be present in it is lacking.
Of course, there is a pedantic quibble about the pro­
priety of speaking of grades or degrees of perfection ;
it is sometimes asserted that a thing is perfect or it is
not perfect, and that nothing more may be said of it.
In other words, it is said that perfect is an absolute
term, not admitting comparison; it is a positive with­
out comparative or superlative. Now, this is true
enough when one considers a single thing, or a single
essence in the abstract. A reality either measures up
to the full stature of what it should be, or it falls short.
But when we contrast things essentially different, it
is manifest that one fulness may be less than another
fulness ; as the stone, for instance, is less in the order
of fulness of being and activity than the plant, and in
that sense is less perfect than the plant. The same is
true of contrasted qualities like wisdom and goodness
and virtue and beauty. Outside all the individuals and
the classes of which such qualities may be predicated
there is some absolute standard, which the mind per­
force conceives, and with which it compares the indi­
viduals and classes and rates them as lesser and greater
in perfection as they share less fully or more fully
the impress of the absolute standard. Thus the argu­
ment about the terms perfect and perfection appears
to be one for grammarians and purists rather than
for philosophers; for, whatever the requirements of

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73

diction and pure style, the thought or idea that is ex­
pressed by the phrase degrees of perfection is quite
clear and quite valuable. Perhaps, however, it would
be wiser (and certainly it would silence the grumbling
of the pedants and pundits) if we were to have the
words perfect and perfection and use some such words
as good and goodness; there can surely be no quibble
about the meaning of good, and better. And indeed
St. Thomas Aquinas uses tins very set of terms (with
others) in his presentation of the argument under
discussion.
“We find in things,” he says, “degrees of more and
less, and they are called more or less good, more or
less true, more or less noble, and so on. But more or
less is predicated of things inasmuch as the)- bear
reference to a most.'" In other words, there must be
a supreme standard, which is not itself subject to
measurement by comparison with a further standard
(for it is supreme}. Things are more or less (good,
noble, true, etc. ) by a kind of measurement ; a measure
is applied to them in a manner analogous to that in
which a yardstick is applied to a piece of cloth and
which is found to he more or less than a yard. But
the first source and standard of measurement cannot
conceivably be measurable itself. The things that have
more or less may'be said to share or participate in a
limited measure what the ultimate standard possesses
simply and unshared in a measureless and absolute
way. Things, therefore, which have degrees of good

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THEODICY

and better; more noble, less noble, etc., require the
existence of that which is measurelessly most, best,
truest; noblest, as the ultimate source and standard of
their shared goodness, truth, nobility.
We may set the argument in this form :
If there are real degrees of more and less in things
about us in this world, there must exist a most, a
maximum, a greatest, not only in a relative sense as
the greatest in a certain order, but in an absolute
sense as boundlessly greatest.
Now, as is manifest, there are real degrees of more and
less in things about us in this world.
Therefore, there exists a most, a maximum, a greatest,
not only in a relative sense, but in an absolute sense.
This Greatest we call God. Therefore, God exists.
b) PROOF FROM GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD

This proof is sometimes called the teleological ar­
gument, the term deriving from the Greek telos which
means “end,” that is, in the present use, “goal, aim,
purpose.” Sometimes the proof is called the argu­
ment from design, since things in the world are mani­
festly made and designed, planned and built, to do a
certain thing, that is, to achieve a certain end. Now,
when we speak of the teleological tendency of things,
or of their design in structure and function, we are
necessarily speaking of how things are governed in
their being and their operations, and of how they
are guided to their end or goal. For this reason we
keep the older name for this argument and call it the
proof from the government of the world. The proof

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

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is an appeal to final causality; it calls attention to the
fact that things are made for an end; it points to their
final cause.
The world as a whole, and all things in the world
taken in groups or classes, and all members of all
classes, manifest the most amazing arrangement and
design, harmony and balance. Be they lifeless or liv­
ing, great or small, bodily creatures are structurally
and functionally fitted for certain definite activities,
and these they tend, by a resistless bent of nature, to
exercise and fulfill. They are subjected to definite
laws of being and activity, laws which they could
not have imposed upon themselves. Their manifest
arrangement,, balance, harmony of partsÿ direction of
effort^ mark them as suited for an end (that is, for
the doing of a definite thing), as made for an end,
designed· for an end ; and their activities or opera­
tions show them steadily tending to the end for which
they are fitted and designed, and so show them as
governed to their end.
Consider the structure and the operations of the
simplest plant. Notice that it is made of various parts,
yet its life is one force which holds the different parts
in a compact anti active unity ; it feeds them all, draw­
ing sustenance from alien substances and turning this
into the very substance of the plant itself; it directs
and unifies, it builds up and maintains the interrela­
tion and interdependence and the sympathy of all
the parts. Surely here is order, balance, government.

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THEODICY

Surely here is an object built and arranged for a pur­
pose. And the plant manifests and achieves its purpose
by growing to full stature and maturity and becom­
ing fruitful. Or consider the pebble by the roadside;
its activities are not vital, but they arc none the less
real; it holds its elements (even its accidental elements
of cpiantity) in unity by the law of cohesion; it obeys
the laws of inertia and gravitation. Or look oui into
the vast reaches of the firmament where the countless
heavenly bodies move in their ordered procession with
almost unimaginable speed and with split-second pre­
cision. Ask the sciences of chemistry, botany, biology,
physics, mechanics, to reveal to you their secrets, and
they will show you a litany of “laws,” all of which
are man’s recording of order, harmony, direction,
purpose, government, observed in the universe. Read
these words with the marvellous human eye, and as
you read, consider the delicate balance and structure
of the organ of sight, and ask yourself whether this
most complicated and delicate structure is made and
designed for a particular service or not so designed.
There can be no doubt about the answer. Now, where
there is design, there is an end to be served by the
thing designed ; there is a thing for it to do. And
where there is an end, there is a direction to the end.
And where there is direction to an end there is govern­
ment. Government is manifest in the world.
Deny the government of the world, deny desigii
and purpose in things, deny structural and functional

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

77

direction and tendency, and you assert a theory of
chance. Now, chance is. by definition, an unforeseen
or incalculable ciiirimmtaiicc observed in an effect;
chance is never, even c< meetvably, a cause. To posit
chance as cause is, there!orc, to be guilty oi an ab­
surdity. Besides, the more of complexity and detail,
together with harmony and balance, we find in a
thing, the more we know that the thing had not only
a cause (which is manifest of all creatures) but that
its ultimate or supreme cause foresaw and planned
this effect, and meant it to do the thing which its
involved and delicate structure fits it to do. A man
might throw scraps of metal from the window of his
workshop, and, after the lapse of weeks, be astonished
to find that the heap of refuse had grown to such un­
expected proportions. But a man could not conceiv­
ably throw bits of metal into a case and presently be
astonished to find that he had a splendid time-piece
ticking merrily away. And the design of the finest
chronometer is, in comparison with that of a cell or
of the universe, like the pencil-drawing of a threeyear-old compared with a most intricate and detailed
piece of expert draughtmanship.
Plan, design, direction to an end, government—
these are facts in the world, and the sane mind ac­
cepts them. Afore : the sane mind must and does real­
ize that where there is a plan, there is or has been a
planner; where there is a design, there has been a de­
signer ; where there is direction, there is one who di-

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THEODICY

rects; where there is government, there is a governor.
And ultimately there is, and must be, a First Designer,
a First Planner, a First and Almighty Director; a
First Lawgiver and Governor.
Let us read the simple, direct, and unanswerable
language of the great Aquinas, speaking on this point :
“Some things have no knowledge yet they work
towards an end, and usually work in a way that is
suited to obtain what is best for them. Hence is it
clear that they reach their end, not by chance, but by
intention. Since, however, the things here in question
are without knowledge, it cannot be their own con­
scious intention which directs them but the conscious
intention (that is, the knowledge) of some other be­
ing. They reach their end because they are directed to
it by a knowing and intelligent Being, even as the
arrow is sent to the mark by the knowing activity of
the archer. There must be, therefore, an Intelligent
Being who directs all natural things (that is, creatures
that lack knowledge) to their end. This Being we
call God.”
In the face of the wondrous order, the government
to an end, which we find in the world, the objection
that some have found in apparent irregularities, and
in things which appear to be out of line with the gen­
eral management of the universe, fades into utter
insignificance. Were it here our province, we might
offer abundant evidence for the original Fall, that is,
for the fact that man has made a wreck out of his

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earthly residence ; and yet, in spite of the evil man
has wrought, the ruins are still so noble and beauti­
ful, that the original design is manifest ; and even the
harsh details of the wreckage have their place and
purpose in the present adjusted design. Father Koch
(translated by Dr. Charles Eruehl) remarks in his
A Manual of Apologetics, “Much that seems to dis­
turb the course of nature serves to warn man against
pride and recklessness, to sharpen his intellect, to
strengthen his will, and to give him an opportunity
to practise patience, mercy, and charity.” Thus the
very irregularities, the so-called “imperfections” of
the world, are a revelation of purpose and design and
government.
We may present our argument in this essential
outline :
If the world exhibits a most wonderful and constant
order and design, and is directed, in itself and in its
parts, to an end, it has an intelligent designer and
governor, and, ultimately, a First Designer and First
Governor who can be no other than the First Neces­
sary Being or God.
Now, the world does exhibit a most wonderful and
constant order and design, and is directed, in itself
and in its parts, to an end.
Therefore, the world has an intelligent designer and
governor, and, ultimately, a First Designer and First
Governor who can be no other than the First Neces­
sary Being or God. Therefore, God exists.
c)

PROOF FROM MAN’S ULTIMATE GOAL

The sciences of Ethics and Psychology set forth,

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THEODICY

with full panoply of proof, the fact that man (ends,
by the whole force of his rational nature, to lay hold
of and endlessly possess the Supreme and Infinite
Good, and to find therein his supreme happiness. We
cannot pause to offer proofs for this truth here, but
we may justly take it as a postulate, (hat is, as a truth
definitely established and certainly known and demon­
strated in another department of philosophy than that
in which we are now engaged.
It is one of the most striking and depressing facts
about this age of sentimentalism in which we live that
it believes itself an age of stern realism and unsenti­
mentality. We hear the crisp dogmas that business is
business and has no place for sentiment ; we hear of
go-getters go-getting after hard facts; we hear oi
machine-like precision of methods in everything from
medicine to education; we are surrounded neck-deep
with deep-green filing-cabinets which, presumably,
contain “the facts.” No time is wasted, no moment is
allowed for emotion to expend its force. The business
letter comes to a sharp point, even when it is a point­
less point. The executive says that time is money,
even when he wants money only to make more
money, and not, as might be expected, to enable him
to have a time, not to say a high old time. And yet
this age and this country, in the most poignantly
realistic moment of its recent history, solemnly pon­
dered the propriety of calling its soldiers “Sam­
mies” ! Is there any need to go further in proof of

DEMONSTRATION OF E.XÏSTENŒ

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the incurable and even maudlin sentmicniahty of the
age? If there is, we need not look: into the learned
writings of wise men; we may imd all the evidence
w’C require in advertising columns, or catch it by an
from our radios. Was ever an age so apt to glow
lyrical over such trivial tilings, such as brands of
mayonnaise or of toilet soaps. Was ever an age so
determinedly set upon calling things by sentimental
names, one might even say pet names t We no longer
content ourselves with saying a simple word like
“food”; we must say “breakfast food” or “luncheon
menu” or “items for the dinner.” Nor may we even
speak of breakfast food (that abysmal mystery in
a world that wants the facts) without caressing it
with some sort of baby-talk like “Mush-Mushies”
or “Tweet-Twccties.” Yet this is the age, and this
the land, in which it is considered soft and senti­
mental to speak of happiness, and to say that man
has a natural desire to be happy. A popular lady
author who has achieved a degree of “publicity”
(saddest and maddest of sentimental things) that
claims for her lightest word,—and some of these are
extremely light,——a reverent attention, has recently
inveighed against the common custom of wishing a
newly married couple happiness. She doesn’t like it.
She says the young man and his bride are in for
hard work and possibly hard knock’s, and,—such is
the sentimental muddle of her mind,—she cannot
see how these things are compatible with happiness.

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She does not see because she does not know what
happiness is; she thinks it is the same as pleasure,
which is sometimes something like it, and sometimes
quite unlike it, and never identical with it. But it
is the lady author, and not the kindly wish, that is
soft and sentimental. Now, we are far from feeling
or saying that sentiment is never a good thing. We
are merely elaborating the fact that, when we use
a plain word in its plain meaning, we ought, in all
fairness, to be free from the charge of sentimen­
talism brought by an age and by people that are
simply sodden and soggy with sentiment. We shall
dare, therefore, to speak of man’s incurable desire
to be happy. We shall, all unafraid, proceed to speak
of happiness as the supreme subjective end of human
activity. And if our critics will not concede us the
right; if they find this sort of thing soft and baby­
ish, we shall leave them to hover tenderly over the
morning bowl of Wootsie-Tootsies (They Are Am­
brant With Vivacious Vitamines) and so fortify
themselves for a stern day of unemotional data and
unsentimental facts.
Man, in every deliberate act, in every free and
knowing thought, word, and deed, tends by a con­
natural bent of his rational being towards something
that is conceived as good. And man’s desire or ap­
petite for good knows no limit, he wants all possible
good and wants it endlessly. And, as we have seen,
a thing is good, or is conceived as good, only when

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE
it is the best or has reference towards the best. In a
word, man tends. in every human act, towards a
Su mm i tin B on it m, a Supreme Good. And why does
man tend towards good, and towards the Supreme
it. And what will its possession
mean to man? Tt will mean happiness. It will mean
the satisfaction of all rational desire, the filling up of
all rational appetite, the crowning in endless and
boundless measure of man’s finest capacities. The
objective end desired is the Good ; the subjective
end, the end inasmuch as it affects the subject attain­
ing it, is happiness in the possession of the Good.
' Now, does the fact that man is, by nature, a
seeker of the Supreme and Boundless Good, and a
seeker of endless and perfect happiness in the pos­
session of that Good,—does this fact prove that
such a Good actually exists? Yes, it does, if we
accept the universe as an ordered universe, as a prod­
uct of a Wise Designer and Governor. For it would
not be a wise design that should create a resistless
tendency towards a non-existent object. Just so, to
cite a parallel instance, it would not be a wise design
that should create the wondrous power and the com­
plicated organ of vision, and then leave the world
wrapped in impenetrable darkness in which both the
power of sight and the delicate structure of the eye
would be meaningless. If the world is an ordered
world, a planned and a governed world, there is con­
clusive force in the present argument that the human

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THEODICY

tendency towards the Supreme Good is proof that
the Supreme Good exists. And we have already
shown that the world is ordered, planned, governed.
Therefore, the Supreme Good exists. I hit the Su­
preme Good cannot be a shared or communicated
good; it must be the First and the Necessary Good.
In a word, it must be God.
We may present the argument in this form :
If man, by a resistless tendency of his rational nature,
appetizes a Supreme and Infinite Good as his ulti­
mate goal or final cause, such a Good actually exists.
Now, man, by a resistless tendency of his rational na­
ture, does appetize a Supreme and Infinite Good as
his ultimate goal or final cause.
Therefore, such a Good actually exists. And a Supreme
and Infinite Good is the one Infinite Being or God.
Therefore, God exists.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have presented three proofs for
the existence of God, drawing them from the prin­
ciple of formal and final causality. We have shown
that the grades of perfection in the world prove the
existence of an Absolutely Perfect Being; we have
seen that the design and government of the universe
demands a supremely wise and intelligent Designer
and Governor ; we have proved that, in an ordered
universe, the existence in man of a connatural bent
for the Supreme Good, and for happiness, is conclu­
sive evidence of the existence of such a Good. From

—1^—--------

i*

C·

DEMONSTRATION Ob' EXISTENCE

85

the arguments developed in ibis and in the preceding
Article, it is clear that Cod is the hirst Ll'ticicnt and
Last Final cause of all things in the world, and not­
ably of man.
Article 4. Certain Supplementary Proofs

a) The Moral Proof
b) The Historical Proof
c) Indirect Proofs

a)

THE MORAL PROOF

The word moral is a derivative from the Latin
mos (stem mor-) which literally means “custom” or
“characteristic way of acting.” Now, the character­
istic way of acting which distinguishes man from
all other creatures is found in the fact that he acts
with responsibility ; in other words, he acts in a
characteristically human way when he exercises his
free-will. Free-will acts are therefore moral acts.
And, since these acts are free, and man is their
author and their responsible agent, it is of first im­
portance to know of them whether they measure up
to what they ought to be or fall short and fail of
what they ought to be. For, while man is free to
choose, he is not independent in his choice; he is
under obligation and law; he has a goal to achieve
and heTiimsclf has not set the ultimate goal; he is
free in the physical choice of this or that act which
is meant to carry him towards the goal, and he may
choose wisely and advance, or perversely and fall

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THEODICY

away. But the ultimate goal is there, and the deepest
forces of man’s rational nature incline him towards
that goal (the Summum Bonum), nor is he free to
set another goal; he is free in his choice of means,
not of the ultimate end. Man necessarily tends
towards the Supreme Good and supreme happiness
in the possession of that Good, even when he per­
versely seeks these ends in the wrong places or by
the use of wrong means, as he does when he sins.
Sin is a perversity; it is an abuse, not a use, of free­
will. Necessitated in the tendency towards the Ul­
timate Goal, man is not necessitated in the choice of
things he elects to bear him to that Goal. In his char­
acteristic action, his freely chosen and knowing con­
duct, man needs a guide so that his choice will be a
wise one and really advance him towards his ultimate
end. He needs law, objectively existent and subjec­
tively realized and applied. And the law is there and
is recognized by right reason (called, in this service,
conscience), and so a man’s characteristic or moral
activity is always to be judged in the light of law
and conscience, and, by that light or standard, it will
be found good or bad, right or wrong. And so the
word moral has come to suggest that quality of
human conduct by which it is good or bad, right or
wrong. And morality is the relation which exists be­
tween free human conduct (that is, moral conduct)
and the norm or standard of what that conduct ought
to be; this standard is law (ultimately, the Eternal

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'ji

Law or God Himself) as applied by conscience (that
is, by human reason pronouncing on the right or
wrong, the lawfulness or unlawfulness, of something
here and now to be decided upon as a thing to be
done, permitted, avoided).
The moral proof for the existence of God is a
proof drawn from the fact of man’s responsibility,
of his subjection to moral law, of his realization of
the rule of conscience. For man, however bad and
perverse, is aware of obligation, of duty, of moral
requirements. These things he may ignore, to a great
extent, in his practical life, but while he may ignore
them he cannot be ignorant of them. The idea of
right and wrong, of moral good and evil, is acquired
so early and so clearly in life, that it amounts to one
of the most evident facts of human existence and
experience. No theory of custom, or of tyrannous
ruling classes, or of racial or tribal evolution in
things of the mind, will ever suffice to explain it.
The dawning reason grips, and henceforth holds fast
forever, the fundamental moral truth, “There is such
a thing as right, such a thing as wrong; I must do
the one, I must avoid the other.” It is vain for the
mechanist, and the anti-moralist, and the materialist
of any description, to try to explain the human con­
sciousness of this truth by pointing out the fact that
different objective things have been called good and
bad, or right and wrong, in different ages and among
different peoples. Of some objective facts and prac-

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DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

88

THEODICY

tices, this is true; it is not true of certain very ob­
vious and important matters, like the authority of
parents over the young, the respect due to the life
and property of one’s fellows, the duty of telling
truth. And even if it were, the question of a change­
less moral law would be untouched in its essential
nature; for the essence of the question lies in this
fact that every normal human being, once he has ad­
vanced out of infancy and crossed the threshold of
earliest adolescence, is naturally adjudged respon­
sible, that is, answerable at the bar of a require­
ment and a law which says irrefutably, “There is
such a thing as right ; there is such a thing as wrong ;
I must do right; I must avoid wrong.” To say that
morality is a changing thing because the ancient
Kanakas thought it a great evil (which they pun­
ished with death) to step on the shadow of the king,
while modern man does not think it evil to step on
the shadow of the king,—or even, sometimes, to
step on the king,—is as silly an argument as to say
that the sense of smell is not a constant human fac­
ulty because some people, such as the Eskimos, like
the odor of oil and grease, and some people find it
repulsive. The point is that all normal men can smell ;
the point is that all normal men recognize the fact
that there is such a thing as right and such a thing
as wrong. Perversity, custom, education, and other
influences can, in certain cases, account for mistaken
judgment about what particular thing is right or

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

89

wrong; but about the essential human recognition of
right and wrong as such (here can never be any seri­
ous question, nor can there be any sense in the cant
phrase about “changing morality.’ Morality is as
eternal as the relation of thirty-si.v inches of doth to
a yardstick. And that relation will not change, even
if the more cultured and evolutionary merchants suc­
ceed in convincing large numbers of customers that
thirty-five inches is a much more stylish kind of
yard. Alan is aware of right and wrong; he is aware
of obligation or law* requiring him to do right and
to avoid wrong; this awareness is an awareness of
natural reason; it is therefore something as natural
to normal man as his eyesight, and is manifestly
given to man for as practical a purpose as eyesight.
But if it is given to man (and certainly man did not
make it or give it to himself, for in many instances
man would find it a great convenience to change the
law if he could) it is given by man’s Designer and
Author ; it is given as a rule and direction by One
who would guide man’s fife to its goal. In a word, it
is a law incumbent upon man, and where there is an
unmistakable law, there is unmistakably a lawgiver.
And where there is a lawgiver, there is ultimately a
First and Supreme Lawgiver. And the First Law­
giver must be identical with the First Being and the
First Necessary Cause. In a word, the First and
Supreme Lawgiver is God.
We may put the argument briefly in this form :

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THEODICY
If all normal men are inevitably aware of an absolute
law which requires free-will (but docs not force it)
to do good and avoid evil, then there exists a law­
giver who is ultimately identified with the First and
Necessary Being called God.
Now, all normal men are inevitably aware of an absolute
law which requires free-will to do good and avoid
evil.
Therefore, there exists a lawgiver who is ultimately
identified with the First Necessary Being called God.
Therefore, God exists.
TÎÏE HISTORICAL PROOF

The argument from history is often called the
argument from universal human consent, that is,
universal human agreement or consensus. Briefly, it
amounts to this : that history assures us that all men
of all past times, and indeed of present times, have
been thoroughly convinced of the existence of Deity,
however oddly some of them may have given expres­
sion to the conviction in their imaginative and prac­
tical religious life; and that, in consequence, the
thing must be fundamentally true. In other words, it
is the witness of history that all men believe in God ;
therefore, God exists. The point of the argument
may be put, somewhat flippantly, in the well known
phrase, “You can’t fool all of the people all the
time.” Now, what is the value of this argument?
First, it may be objected that not all of the people
have a belief in God. For there are a few emphatic
persons in every age who make a very excitable
business of rushing about denying God, or, to take

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

91

them at their own word, making much ado about
Nothing. In our own cultured period of history the
energetic atheist seems to have made a specialty of
appearing on public platforms, watch in hand, and
allotting the non-existent Almighty two or three min­
utes in which to hurl a destructive thunderbolt or
forever hold His peace. In some districts this prac­
tice has been considered very daring, and its logical
force has been admitted as conclusive. Of course, it
is obvious that, if the atheist is sincere, there is no
daring in his action of inviting Nothing to do some­
thing; and the logical force of the little prank is, in
any case, manifestly nil. There can be question as to
whether the atheist has really any religion; there can
be none as to whether such an atheist has any logic
or even common sense. But of the vagaries and con­
tradictions of atheism we shall speak in another
place. Here we wish merely to point out the fact that
the comparatively few individuals who, in any age,
profess Belief in No-God rather than belief in God,
does not come in conflict with our present argument.
For the argument from history is an argument from
the general, the normal, and the usual, conviction of
mankind about the existence of God. In this case, it
is literally true that exceptions prove the rule ; and
it is of the rule alone that we make use in our argu­
ment.
Another objection may at once arise in the mind,
and it may be put in something of this form, “You

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THEODICY

can fool all of the people. The whole human race,
barring exceptional individuals here and there, be­
lieved for centuries that the earth is a relatively Hat
expanse of land, and that the sun actually travels
around the earth every twenty-four hours.” It might
be quickly retorted that this objection falls before
the fact that the human race didn’t stay fooled, and
that men now know better. But such an answer
would be short-sighted. The true answer, like so
many true answers, is to be discovered by making a
very plain and necessary distinction. We must distin­
guish the different kinds of thing that men may
know. They may recognize physical facts by their
senses, and recognize them truly, and they may make
snap-judgments on mere appearances about these
facts and be wrong. Their senses do not deceive
them; for what their senses report is there; only
when, without sufficient evidence, they judge about
the nature, the hidden and non-sensible character, of
what is there, may they go wrong. Thus men judged
wrongly about the nature of the movement called
the daily travel of the sun ; they were truly aware of
movement, but in judging the sun, instead of the
earth, as the moving body, they made a mistake.
Therefore, in judgments based upon mere appear­
ances of physical.ffacts, .men may go wrong, and
even most men may go wrong for a long time. But
there is the other side of our distinction to consider.
Men may draw reasoned conclusions by legitimate

\ DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

95

deduction from certainly known data, and in this
they cannot be wrong. AH men cat; Lie wrong in
judging tlie moi ion of tlie. sun or the shape of the
unexplored earth ; they cannot be wrong in their con­
clusion that every movement requires a mover and
ultimately a hirst Mover. All men may be wrong in
judging that a certain figure is perfectly circular,
basing their judgment on its appearance. They can­
not be wrong in their reasoned judgment about the
ratio of radius to circumference in any true circle.
That men may be wrong in snap-judgments on phys­
ical appearances is due to a certain carelessness and
inattention. But when reason is brought to bear ac­
curately upon known data which involve some latent
truth, then care and attention will insure a certainly
known result, at least in direct and simply reasoned
conclusions. If all men could be wrong in their
reasoned conclusions from certainly known data,
then all human knowledge is bankrupt and there is
no use talking of certitude about anything. Of
course, our whole discussion is about the things men
may know by mediate evidence. There are selfevident truths, like the truth of one’s existence, or
that of other people, that require no medium to rec­
ognize, but arc luminous with inevitable truth in
themselves. But, if tlie power and trustworthiness of
human reason is called in question, even these in­
escapable self-evident truths would lose force. How­
ever, that is not our present concern. For the truth

ÜH8S

THEODICY

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

of God’s existence is a mediately known truth ; it is
a truth that is simply and quickly reasoned out ; it is
recognized by sound human reason working from
the data of immediate experience, arguing from
manifest effect to adequate first cause, from obvious
motion to a first mover, from contingent being to
necessary being, and so on. In such a truth, so reas­
oned out, it is impossible that all men of all times
should go wrong, or that the generality of men
should be in error. About such a truth, you can't
fool all of the people all the time. On this point the
witness of history is of incontestable value.
There used to be an opinion,—and certain ex­
plorers went to a great deal of trouble to find evi­
dence for it,—that here and there whole tribes or
races of men were without any notion of a supramundane Being more or less in charge of the uni­
verse. It was thought that certain peoples had no
notion of God. But the opinion has ceased to be even
entertaining, and no evidence for it was ever estab­
lished. Some notion,—however dim, and indeed
however monstrous,—of divinity and of God or
gods, exists and manifestly has existed everywhere;
some idea of religious duty appears to be absolutely
connatural to normal man. The reasoned conclusion
which men make about the existence of Deity is a
very direct and simple inference, suggested by the
commonest experience. When anything happens in
casual daily life,—such as a sudden pain, or the ar-

rival of a letter, or the disappearance of the tea­
spoons,—it does not take the brightest of minds to
discover the fact that “something caused it,” “some­
body wrote it,” “someone took·: the spoons.” And
when the simplest of men comes face to face with the
universe about him, it docs not require a great effort
of his mind to recognize the truth that “Something
or somebody macle it.” To carry the thought further,
to reason clearly in the more complex domain of the
character and attributes of that “Somebody or some­
thing” may be a tricky business for an untutored mind
and may lead to strange and even grotesque conclu­
sions. But about the first, direct, and cleanly rea­
soned truth, there can be no doubt or question. Here
the voice of human reason speaks in simplest and
plainest language, and if this language be deceiving,
then no truth is knowable to man.
We may present the historical argument for God’s
existence in the following way :

94

95

If all men of all times agree, by a judgment of reason
working simply and directly from the manifest facts
I
of commonest experience, that Deity exists, then the
I
real existence of Deity must be admitted or one must
I
lapse into the utterly self-contradictory and imposi
sible condition of absolute skepticism.
j
Now, history attests the fact that all men of all times
;
do agree, by a judgment of reason working simply
I
and directly from the manifest facts of commonest
I
experience, that Deity exists.
'.
Therefore, the real existence of Deity must be admitted
\
or one must lapse into the utterly self-contradictory
V..........

96

THEODICY
and impossible condition of absolute skepticism. The
alternative is unacceptable. Therefore, God exists.

C) INDIRECT PROOFS

As we have seen, an indirect proof is one that
establishes the truth of a position by showing the
impossible character of its contradictory. Now, the
contradictory of the theistic position (expressed in
the terms, “God exists”) is the atheistic position
(expressed in the terms, “God does not exist”). It
is our present purpose, therefore, to show the im­
possible character of the atheistic position, thus in­
directly proving the truth of the theistic position.
We shall establish two points: first, that atheism in
a pure form cannot be formulated as a doctrine or
held as a philosophy ; secondly, that atheism, in what­
ever qualified form it is professed, is a theory in flat
conflict with reason, it takes the meaning from
man’s finest tendencies, and it leads to absurd and
impossible consequences.

I. Atheism in pure form cannot be formulated as
a doctrine or held as a philosophy. For, as Karl
Adam rightly observes, “Man cannot live by mere
negation.” When a man has denied God, he has
nothing further to say; his remarks on ultimate
things and his deep explanations have all been made ;
they are all in that one little statement of denial, and
he has come to a full stop. Of course, as a fact, the
atheist does not come to a stop; he goes on almost

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

97

endlessly making gods to take the place of the God
he has denied. For the denial of God leads inevitably
to the answering of a lot of questions; take away
God and you knock- all sorts of gaps into any con­
sistent theory which seeks to interpret the uni verse,
or to assign place and character and function to man.
And so the statement of the atheist is never a simple
denial; it is always a substitution, it is so with the
denial of any fundamental truth in theology, philos­
ophy, or science. Those, for instance, who deny the
existence of real substances in the world, always end
by substantizing accidentals. And those who deny
the existence of a life-principle in a living thing, end
by assigning a separate life-principle to every cell of
every living thing. And those who deny God end by
multiplying gods. The universe, after all, is here be­
fore our eyes, and even if it be regarded as an un­
real universe, a dream-universe or a ghost-universe,
it still calls imperatively for some explanation, and
for ultimate explanation. Even to deny the favorite
explanation of the ghost is to assert that there is
some other explanation for the ghost; the need of
explaining the ghost is not in the least ghostly but a
solid and real necessity. And whether or no the
atheist professes to have the answer when he denies
what the generality of mankind have always reason­
ably considered the right (and indeed the inescap­
able) answer, he professes at least to know that
there is a right answer, and in so far he is not a pure

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THEODICY

atheist but a qualified atheist, that is, an atheist who
is also a vague theist.
Sometimes the atheist denies God and makes man­
kind divine, and then he is called a humanitarian, a
terrible fate for any son of Adam. Sometimes the
atheist wipes the image of God out of the cosmos,
and then finds it at once in the mirror. Sometimes he
denies God, and mumbles something half-witted
about a superman and the universe tending to build
up its god in the man of the future. Sometimes he
worships the clock and the calendar and spends his
time going about crying, “But this is the twentieth
century.” Often he makes gods of vague names and
labels, and speaks piously of forces, and energies,
and impulses, and elans, and of Nature with the
capital initial. It is absolutely impossible to frame a
theory or doctrine in terms of simple denial, that is,
of simple negation. Such is the structure of the hu­
man mind that it requires affirmation, thesis, positive
statement of fact or theory. It is impossible to go on
forever saying what a thing is not, and the mind has
no use for such a process, even for a limited time,
except in so far as it is a process of gradually weed­
ing out error for the purpose of clarifying some
central and obscured positive truth. And for this
reason it is manifest that atheism in pure form is not
to be formulated as a theory and cannot exist as a
philosophy.

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99

2. Atheism conflicts with reason; it balks man’s
finest tendencies; it leads to impossible consequences.
First, atheism conflicts with reason. Reason de­
mands an explanation of things, and it wants an ex­
planation that really goes back to beginnings. In
outlining our direct demonstration for the existence of
God, we have presented the careful and incontro­
vertible findings of reason, and with these atheism
is in open conflict. No normal man who has the use
of reason can be in ignorance of the fact that the
visible world around him, and he himself as part of
that world, are contingent things, things that do not
have to be here; but, as a fact, they are here, and
their presence requires an accounting. And the mo­
ment an accounting is made, a god is set up. And
when the careful and strictly reasoned accounting is
made, the one True God is recognized. This is the
status of reason on the point, whether one regards
reason in its own nature or takes the record of what
it does from history. And with this status of reason
atheism is in conflict. Therefore, atheism conflicts
with reason.
Secondly, atheism balks man’s finest tendencies.
The tendency of man towards happiness, which, as
we have seen, is an elemental and essential and nec­
essary human tendency, is made illusory and cruel if
the atheistic denial have any value. Man tends, by
heart and will, towards goodness and happiness, and

ΙΟΟ

THEODICY

out of this tendency rightly and reasonably con­
trolled, come all the acts of devotion and of heroism,
all the lives of nobility, all that approaches to what
normal and decent men acknowledge as ideal. But
the tendency is meaningless if its ultimate Object is
taken away, as it is taken away by atheism. Atheism
in its chill denial, and in its dead substitutions, has
nothing of lasting value to offer to human hearts and
wills. Therefore, atheism balks man’s finest tenden­
cies.
Thirdly, atheism leads to impossible consequences.
For atheism takes away the only foundation for de­
cency and good moral conduct. If man is not respon­
sible to a Supreme Judge, his morality amounts to
little more than a set of rules of etiquette and to
what Bill Nye calls “a rugged fear of the police.”
Atheism makes pure tyranny of all human govern­
ments, since “all authority is from God,” and a hu­
man government is always based upon the concept
of some higher and invisible authority which will
back it up; this is true even of bad governments and
of such caricature-governments as we find today in
Russia and Red Spain. Now, if the moral law and
human law are only conveniences that bind exter­
nally, their force cannot long endure, and the human
race is doomed to early destruction. Towards this
unthinkable end atheism clearly points. For this
reason we assert that atheism leads to impossible
consequences.

DEMONSTRATION OF EXISTENCE

ιοί

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have explained and set forth
the moral proof for the existence of God, showing
how man’s awareness of a moral law binding upon
him points unmistakably to a First Lawgiver. We
have considered the historical proof, and have found
that the reasoned conviction of all men of all ages
cannot be fallacious in its indication of the exist­
ence of God. We have presented an indirect proof
for our position by showing that the contradictory
position (that is, atheism} is impossible in theory,
for it cannot even be formulated in pure form and
it is in conflict with man’s reason and finest tenden­
cies ; and that it is impossible in practice, for it would
turn the world into chaos and destroy the human
race if its practical consequences were allowed to
develop.

BOOK SECOND

THE NATURE OF GOD
In the First Book we established the truth of God’s exist­
ence; here, in the Second Book, we are to discuss God’s
nature and attributes. We have learned and demonstrated
the truth that God is ; we turn now to the study of what God
is, in a far more detailed way than was requisite for the
establishing of His existence. The present Book is divided
into two Chapters :
Chapter I. The Essence of God
Chapter II. The Attributes of God

MMBMai

ami

CHAPTER I
1 i

■

-

essence of god
This Chapter presents a study of what God is in His in­
most Being, His actual and infinite Self. It also studies what
special note in the concept of God is the root in which are
contained all the perfections predicable of the Divine Being.
In a word, the Chapter studies the physical essence and the
metaphysical essence of God. The Chapter is accordingly
divided into two Articles :
Article i. The Physical Essence of God
Article 2. The Metaphysical Essence of God

Article i. The Physical Essence

of

God

a) Meaning of Terms
b) The Perfections of God
c) The Physical Essence of God

a)

MEANING OF TERMS

By the essence of a thing we mean that which the
thing is in its fundamental being or constitution.
Essence is a term derived from the Latin esse which
means “to be/’ The term and the idea which it ex­
presses are simple things; they are elemental; they
defy analysis into simpler forms or elements, and
hence they defy definition. For a definition is always
the explanation of a thing, made by analyzing the
thing and presenting its elements in their clear and
105

io6

THEODICY

manifest relationships. Hence, if a thing is itself
elemental and not composed of constifutents. there
is no analyzing it and no defining it. Of course, such
a thing may be more or less satisfactorily described.
If we cannot explain it by analyzing it and stating
the results of analysis (that is, by definition), we
can at least make a close scrutiny and study of it ;
we can “walk around it/’ so to speak, and see it in
various lights and phases, and end by telling what wc
have so discovered about it (that is, by description).
Sometimes description does not appear to give much
information or to be very meaningful ; but it is best
to weigh description carefully, and not toss it aside
as a mere mumbling of words. Thus we must show
no puerile impatience when we hear essence described
by very learned and solemn philosophers as “that
whereby a thing is what it is,” id quo res est id quod
est. Turn the description over carefully in mind, and
presently it will be found to be at least dimly illu­
minating. Perhaps an illustration will help to bring
out its value. We may ask : what is the essence of a
man? The answer must tell us what man is in his
necessary constitution as man; it must name the
items or elements that constitute man and only man ;
it must name all and only the elements required by
man to be man at all. We learned the answer to this
particular question long ago when, as little children,
we recited our first lessons from the catechism, and
said, “Man is a creature composed of body and

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

107

v<W. . . .” There is the definition of man, and a
strict definition expresses the essence of the thing
defined; and there, in consequence, you hate the
essence of man. Body and soul, nut merely side by
side, but in composition ; (hat is the essence of man.
That it is by which “man is what l\c is.”
Our illustration has indicated,—clearly, it is
hoped,—the meaning of what is called the physical
essence of man. The term physical is really Greek
for natural, for the Greek noun physis means
“nature.” And the term nature itself comes to Eng­
lish from the Latin natus “born,” and literally
means that which a thing is born,—or comes into
beings—be and
do. For this reason, we often
hear nature defined as essence considered as the root­
source or principle of operation, or, somewhat priggishly, as essence in its dynamic aspects. But this is
by the way. The physical or natural essence of a
thing is the essence of the thing in itself as it exists
(or is existible) among other things. Now, the meta­
physical essence of a thing,—and the term meta­
physical means after or beyond- the physical, and
suggests in another realm than the physical,—is the
essence of the thing inasmuch as it is conceivable in
the mind. Carefully notice that the metaphysical es­
sence is the essence of a thing; it is no mere view­
point of the mind, nor is it a logical entity, like an
idea considered nw such without reference to what
it represents. The metaphysical essence is the essence

io8

THEODICY

. ,ρ£ aJ^KÎÆ,jDASmu.dl.a_s, this thing has, or can have,
cognitional existence in the mind that rightly knows
it. The physical essence of a reality is capable of
expression in terms that point to actual elements or
ingredients or parts (if it be a bodily being) ; and
thus the elements body and soul which doline the
physical essence of man are actual parts of a man.
These elements of a man constitute him in his
rounded being as a thing “in nature,” that is, as a
thing among things. But consider the reality called
man, not in his natural existence or existibility as
a thing among things, but as a thing known or know­
able to the mind. By analyzing the idea man ( for
in this idea is man known to the mind; by this idea
man has cognitional existence in the mind) we find
what the idea means; we find that the idea in ques­
tion represents in the mind a reality that is at once
animal and rational. It represents a reality that is
animal, for man means all that animal means ; man
means a bodily substantial being that is alive and
has sentiency. The idea represents a reality that is
rational, for man, in addition to having all that
makes an animal an animal, has that which makes
a rational being rational, namely, understanding and
will. Therefore, the idea man represents in the mind
a reality that is (and notice that it is not merely
so regarded, or viewed) both animal and rational.
Therefore, the mind sums up the intelligible essence
of man as animality plus rationality. But you cannot

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

109

distinguish animality and rationality as parts or ele­
ments of John Jones, as yon can distinguish body
and soul as parts of that interesting individual. John
Jones has animality and rationality as truly as he
has body and soul. But he has not these abstractly
named items as physical parts, as he has body and
soul as physical parts. Thus we see that,—at least
in bodily creatures which most readily serve us for
illustration,—the physical elements of a thing, the
items or parts or actual constituents or ingredients
of its being, are things that exist as such, and dis­
tinctly, in the thing itself, independently of the mind
that knows the thing. But the metaphysical elements
of a thing, the items of its metaphysical essence,
are distinct elements or analogical “parts” of the
thing as it has cognitional existence in the mind
that correctly knows it. When you define man as,
“A creature composed of body and soul,” you define
man’s physical essence, and your definition is a
physical definition. When you define man as, “A
rational animal,” you define man’s metaphysical es­
sence, and your definition is a metaphysical defini­
tion. In giving the physical definition of a thing,
you define it by listing its necessary elements or
parts; you tell how it is made up. Tn giving the
metaphysical definition of a thing, you define it by
listing the essential notes of the idea in which it
is known; you tell what it means.
We may close this investigation by two heavy

no

THEODICY

definitions: (a) A physical essence is an essence as
is exists or is existible in the order of things out­
side the mind (or, as philosophers say, in rcru.ni
natura, that is, ‘fin order of nature”) ; such an es­
sence is the sum-total of constituent parts or per­
fections which make the thing the reality that it is.
(à) A metaphysical essence is the essence of a thing
rightly conceived or known, and consists in the
knowable points of reality about the thing which
mark it off in his own character, and mark it as
basically distinct from everything else; and, further,
these knowable points constitute the root-reason
for all· other points that belong to the idea of the
thing.
Our immediate purpose here is to determine the
physical essence of God. Now, it is clear at the
outset that God is not like the sun in the sky or like
a man in the street; it is clear that God is not bodily.
Therefore, let us eradicate sternly from our minds
the too common error which identifies in meaning
the terms physical and bodily, or the terms physical
and material. It is true that we often use the phrase
“the physical order” to indicate the realm of bodily
things. But the term physical strictly means “natu­
ral” or “pertaining to nature,” and a spiritual being
has its nature as truly as a bodily being. The custom
of speaking of “the physical order” when we mean
the bodily universe and all that pertains to it, is
easily explained. For the most obvious natures are

WKiiligiiîiWm

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

ni

those that He all around us demanding our attention
and obtruding themselves on our notice. Hence, the
phrase, “the physical order,’'’ is really an elliptical
phrase, a handy substitute for the more cumbrous
, expression, “the order of bodily physes or natures.’’
We may use this phrase as we like, but let us keep
clear minds the while and refuse to take physical as
a synonym for bodily or material. As a convenient
check and reminder, we may frequently recall the
fact that the physical parts of a man (that is, his
essential physical parts) are his body and his soul,
and the soul is spiritual, not material or bodily. And
so, when we come to discuss the physical essence of
God, we are not to be nonplussed by the term physi­
cal used in this connection, and to feel that there
must be some mistake about the whole business.

b)

THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD

The term perfection (as well as its adjective per­
fect} is sublimated to its present use. Literally, it
means something thoroughly and completely made.
Of course, God is not made. God is, as we have
proved, the First Cause and the Necessary Being,
and anything that is made can be neither first nor
necessary. For it is consequent upon and therefore
“second to” its maker ; and it is contingent upon
and “second to” its producing cause. So we lift the
words perfect and perlection above their literal
meaning, and understand them to mean the full and

112

THEODICY

complete being which is hampered by no limitai a >ns,
boundaries, drawbacks, hindrances; which is abmlutely free from dependencies and influences: which
is boundless and infinite. And by a perl eel mn of
God, we mean one of the special phases in which llie
indivisible Divine Essence is viewed by the human
mind.
In the next Chapter we shall discuss certain per­
fections oi God, which, for lack of a better term,
we call His properties or attributes. But here we
must consider what may be called the fundamental
perfections of God, and in these we discern His
physical essence. We may limit these fundamental
perfections to four. These indicate that God is one
in Himself and one in His kind, that is, that God is
one and that God is the only God; that God is with­
out parts or divisions or divisibility ; that God is
limitlessly or boundlessly perfect ; that God is a
’^spirit. In a word, The.„fundamental perfections of
' God. ..are .uyaity.,. simplicityt^itlfinity, spirituality. We
must speak briefly of each of these perfections :

I. The Unity of God. By the unity of God we
indicate the one single Essence of God. By faith we
know that God, who„ is. Qne-ixiJEssence,...is. ...Three. in.
Person, but this fact does not touch our present
inquiry in any way. The mystery of the Blessed
^Trinity cannot be handled by philosophy; human
reason unaided by revelation cannot prove or dis-

the essence of god

113

prove it; all that can be certainly known by reason
is that the mystery docs not come into contradiction
and conflict with rationally known truths, there­
fore, the question of the d rinity is strictly theo­
logical, and has no place in (lie discussions of
theodicy. But faith and reason are at one in their
unqualified assertion that God is one Essence, one
Nature, one Substance. 'This is what we mean by
the unity of God. And the term unity also involves
in itself (in the present instance) the perfection
called unicity or uniqueness, that is, the perfection
whereby the one God is the only God. It is a basic
truth of metaphysics that every being is one; inas­
much as a thing is a thing, it is that one thing. But
limited things can have others of their kind. No
being can be a plurality of itself; but it can admit
an equality of other things with itself. Thus Socrates
is one man; there cannot be a plurality of Socrates,
even if a million men are called by the same name.
This one man is this one man; he has unity. But he
has not unicity, for there are many other men, many
other beings of the same essential kind as himself.
With the I'irst and Necessary Being this is not so.
Not only is this Being one in itself with perfect
unity, but it is the only thing of its kind. It has unity
and unicity. It is not only one; it is also unique.
These points we are now to prove.
There have been people in the world's history
(and there are still some today) who thought that

s
8

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ς
(

I
/
/
\

THEODICY

many gods exist; these people arc polytheists, and
their doctrine is polytheism. Polytheism is some­
times a belief in, and worship of, a host of invisible
beings, good or bad; this variety of polytheism is
demonohttry or demon worship, using the term de­
mon in its Greek sense as a kind of angel or a kind
of devil; thus the term demonolatry docs not neces­
sarily mean devil-worship. Sometimes polytheism
finds expression in the worship of ancestors (this
is religious animism, also anthropolatry). Sometimes
it is the worship of animals (this is sodlatry) ; some­
times, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars
(Sabeism) ; sometimes, the worship of natural or
artificial objects in the bodily world (fetichism).
A special form of polytheism limits the deities to
two, a supreme Good Being and an equally or al­
most ecjually supreme Evil Being ; this doctrine
(called religious dualism') was professed by the an­
cient Manichaeans and, somewhat later, by the
Gnostics, Against all these, stands our doctrine that
God is one and the only God. Against polytheism
we assert the truth of monotheism.
That God is one and the only God is, first of all,
manifest in the unity and order of the world around
us; in the harmony of the universe. We find such
unity and harmony in the smallest creature as well
as in the whole complexity of the cosmos. Now,
where there is a great and most complex design, and
where this design exhibits, in the large and in its

THE ESSENCE OF GOD
most minute details, an amazing harmony, balance,
unity, it is manifest that the design is not the
product of a plurality of beings but of one. Even in
the little works of art and of practical utility (of
art and of artisansbip) that are designed and exe­
cuted by men, we find one controlling plan; one ar­
chitect designs a building, and though many may
confer about the plans, the finished product is a uni­
fied decision which comes from, or is adopted by,
one controlling or master mind. The most clever
artist cannot finish a picture left incomplete, in such
a manner as to deceive experts about the points or
parts where the one artist left off and the other be­
gan. A lover of Dickens would instantly detect thé
fact that a completed Edwin Drood was not all the
work of his beloved novelist, even if he had never
read the part that Dickens wrote, before taking' up
the completed story. Now, the unity of the world, in
its smallest and largest aspects, is such a unity as no
human work of art or craftsmanship could ever re­
motely approach. It is surely manifest to the fair
mind that the universe has a single Author. This is
not a compelling argument; but it is a fully legiti­
mate argument, and an extremely strong one. Even
John Stuart Mill admits its force and value. He is
quoted by Father Boedder, S.J. (in Natural The­
ology of the famed Stonyhurst Series; pp. 69-70),
and from the quotation we select a sentence or two :
“When once the double conviction has found entry

116

mil
h!|n '
I
I

THEODICY

into the mind—that every event depends on ante­
cedents ; and at the same time that to bring it about
many antecedents must concur, perhaps all the ante­
cedents in Nature, insomuch that a slight difference
in any one of them might have prevented the phe­
nomenon, or materially altered its character—the
conviction follows that no one event, certainly no
one kind of events, can be absolutely pre-ordained
or governed by any Being but one who holds in his
hand the reins of all Nature and not of some depart­
ment only. . . . The reason, then, why monotheism
may be accepted as the representative of theism in
the abstract, is not so much because it is the theism
of all the more improved portions of the human
race, as because it is the only theism which can claim
for itself any footing on scientific ground” (Mill,
Three Essays on Religion, pp. 132ft'.).
We have proved, by compelling argument, that
God is the First and the Necessary Being. Now,
there cannot conceivably be a plurality of such
Beings. How can a plurality of beings all be first?
And, if they could, how could they be distinguished
one from another, not in our minds but among
themselves? For a being which exists of necessity
is Self-existent Being. If two or more such Beings
could exist, how could they be distinct Beings, that
is, really a plurality and not one single Essence ?
Could they be distinguished by self-existence itself?
No; for in this they are at one. Could they be dis-

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

117

tinguished by something necessarily connected with
self-éxistence? No; for what is necessarily connected
with self-existence belongs to all self-existent things
and is not conceivably a mark of distinction among
them. Could they be distinguished by some charac­
teristic which does not necessarily belong to self­
existence? No; for such a characteristic would be
an accidental thing (or an accident, as philosophers
say), and there cannot be anything accidental in a
being which is not subject to causes ; and no selfexistent being is conceivably subject to causes; it
cannot be affected by accidents at all. We are driven
to conclude that the apparent plurality of selfexistent Beings is only apparent ; that in reality
there can be but one Self-existent Being. This must
be the First and the Necessary Being, or God. There­
fore, God is one. Therefore, God is unique.
St. Thomas Aquinas puts the argument in this
way, “If Socrates were this man by the same thing
" that makes him a man, there could not be a plurality
of men any more than there can be a plurality of
Socrates. But God is His nature. That whereby God
is God, is that whereby God is this God. And hence
it is impossible that there should be more than one
God.”
The unity of God is quite simply and directly
proved by the fact that He is infinite and by the
fact that He is absolutely simple. We do not offer
these proofs here for we have not yet established

n8

THEODICY

the infinity and simplicity of God. But we shall
presently set forth these truths, and then we shall
hark back to the present consideration, noticing how
the unity of God is inescapably proved in the perfec­
tions mentioned.
\ fl·, '. The Simplicity of God. By the term simple
we mean indivisible. A simple thing has no parts,
and hence it cannot be divided into parts. Contrasted
with a simple thing is a composite or compound
thing; such a thing has parts, and can be distin­
guished, and often physically divided, into its parts.
Some creatures are physically simple ; such, for in­
stance, is the human soul; such also is any substan­
tial form of any substance. But creatures all admit
a metaphysical composition, inasmuch as they are
essences which have received existence, they are sub­
sistent things in certain respective orders of nature,
and so we say they are compounded of essence and
existence and of subsistence and nature. Moreover,
all creatures are compounds of potentiality and ac­
tuality, for they are actualizations of what could be,
and they are subject to (substantial or accidental)
change, and thus they are (actually) what they are,
and they are (potentially) what they can become.
Further, there is in creatures a logical composition
inasmuch as they can be classified by the mind in
groups, classes, kinds, marked by generic and specific
differences ; in this sense the essence man is seen by

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

?

the mind to be "composed” or "compounded” of
the genus animal and the specific difference rational.
Now, when we say that God is simple we mean that
there is in God no composition, no compounding, no
putting together of elements or parts ; and we assert
that from God all composition is excluded, physical,
metaphysical, logical. Although, as we shall see, the
mind does make distinctions in God, and we speak
of different and distinct attributes and perfections
of God; and, although the mind has some ground
and justification for such distinction, the mind,
nevertheless, does not consider God in any sense as
a composite of all these perfections, but always re­
minds itself of the fact that in God all perfections
are identified in the absolutely simple unity of the
one and indivisible Divine Essence.
God is the First and the Necessary Being. Now,
such a Being cannot conceivably be compounded or
composed. The First Being cannot be a composite
being, for any compounding requires a cause that
is prior to the being compounded, that is, a cause
which brings the elements into union. And the Neces­
sary Being cannot be a composite being, for a com­
posite being is contingent upon the union of its parts
or elements ; and contingency is the flat contradictory
of necessity. So much for a general proof. We may
profitably say a brief word to show that the various
types of composition are necessarily excluded from
God.

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THEODICY

In God there is no physical composition. For
physical composition means the putting together of
literal parts, that is to say, of parts of which some
at least are bodily parts, and the whole composite
resulting is a body. But God is not bodily. For a
body is always a thing that is subject to movement
by something not itself, whereas, as we have dis­
tinctly proved, God is the First Mover Himself Un­
moved.
,χζ&) In God there is no metaphysical composition.
God is the First and Necessary Being, and is there­
fore self-existent, that is, He exists by His essence ;
existence and essence in such a Being must be ab­
solutely identified. Further, God is Pure Actuality,
for the First Being owes nothing to causes and can­
not be affected by causes, that is, cannot become or
be actualized ; in a word, such a Being has no poten­
tiality in Itself, but is purely Actuality. Hence, God
is not a compound of essence and existence, of ac­
tuality and potentiality. In a word God is not meta­
physically compounded.
In God there is no logical composition. For
we have seen that God is one God and the only God,
and this by a requirement of His Being and Essence.
He is not, therefore, classified by the mind as a
certain kind or a certain genus of reality, marked off
by special difference from other realities of the same
general kind. For the Divine Essence is the only
thing of its kind; it is absolutely unique, and so is

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121

not subject to a literal classification by the mind. In
God, therefore, there is no logical composition.
God is thus seen by reason as a Being that is
necessarily simple with complete and absolute (i. e.,
unqualified, unconditional) simplicity. But how does
it happen, then, that we speak of God’s perfections
as distinct realities? We speak of God’s unity, Ilis
simplicity, Elis infinity, Ilis spirituality. Presently
we shall speak of His power, Ilis immensity, His
ubiquity, His knowledge, His will. In a word, we
"ma^ëP’distinctions in God, and we ask how we may
do so if God is wholly one and simple in Himself.
The answer lies in the fact that the limited human
mind cannot deal with the unlimited Divine Essence
except by taking aspects and views suited to its own
limited nature. The mind can obtain knowledge of
God, granted that this knowledge is never adequate ;
and it must do this in its own way according to the
old axiom, quidquid accipitur ad modum accipientis
accipitur, “Whatever is taken in, is accepted accord­
ing to the capacities of the receiver.” Well, then, are
the distinctions we make in God purely rational or
purely logical distinctions? That is, are they distinc­
tions which have no foundation outside the mind,
but are invented, so to speak, by the mind itself to
enable it to deal in some fashion with the object
considered? No; the distinctions we make in God
are indeed rational or logical; they are not real dis­
tinctions, that is, they are not distinctions on the

II Illi HIT

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1

THEODICY

part of the divine Reality considered; we have just
seen that there are no real distinctions in God (ex­
cept, of course, that one real distinction of Rersoas,
with which theodicy has no concern). But the mind
has some basis in reality for its distinctions in God.
For, granted that all the perfections of God are one
with His undivided Essence in the most perfect
identity, the human mind which apprehends these
perfections and this Essence has its direct and proper
experience with limited things which, in point of
power, knowledge, will, and so on, present really
distinct aspects to its view. In a creature, power is
really distinct from knowledge, mercy is really dis­
tinct from justice; unity is really distinct from will.
And, while the perfections of creatures are referred
to God, partly in a figurative or analogical way, and
partly in a formal but transcendent way, it is these
perfections of creatures that give the mind its basis
for making distinctions in God. Therefore, the mind
has not a literal and perfect foundation for such
distinctions, nor is it without foundation altogether ;
it is said to have an imperfect foundation in reality
for the distinctions it draws in the one indivisible
God.
From .the; simplicity of God[ it follows, that. God is
per fectly’completein .HimselL.
,H e
is not conceivably the part of something else. For
God, the First Cause of all things cannot be iden-

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

J23

lifted with the effects which He produces; the effi­
cient cause is always essentially distinct from its
effect, and God is the Efficient Cause of all positive
reality. Further, if God were to enter into composi­
tion with any creature as its part, He would have to
do this as its matter or its form. But God is not
matter, for matter is potential and God is Pure
Actuality/ Nor can God be the form of anything,
for such a form is shared or participated unto the
in-formed and completed reality of which it is a
part, and as such, that is, as a part, it is subsequent
to what it is in its own distinct essence. But God is
not subsequent to anything ; He is absolutely and
perfectly the First Being. Further, the form of any­
thing, coming into union with matter to constitute
the thing, actualizes its own potentiality; but God is
in no sense potential, but is Pure Actuality. Hence
God cannot be part of anything else. He cannot be
the “soul of the world” as the Stoics thought; He
cannot be spread out or manifested “in parts” as the
pantheists think ; He cannot be identified with the
creatural world as a whole (for the world is not
simple) nor as its part.
The simplicity of God is a cogent proof of His
unity.. For that which is simple is manifestly one in
itself. And if the simple being is also the First and
the Necessary. Being, it follows that it cannot be. a
plurality, but is one and tinique.

!24

THEODICY

j. The Infinity of God. The term infinity, with its
adjective infinite, comes from the Latin in, a nega­
tive particle, and finis “end,” “boundary,” “limit.”
Thus the literal meaning of infinity is “boundlcssnessT”’ fruhlimitcdncss.” When we say that Cod is
infinite, we mean that there is, and can be, no limit
or boundary to His being or His perfections. And,
since God is simple, His infinite perfections are not
parts or elements of Elis Divine Essence, or qualities
which that Essence enjoys, but they are identified,
in measureless degree, with the Divine Essence Itself.
The First and Necessary Being must be infinite.
For limitation always involves a cause of limitation,
and there is no cause that can exercise causal limit­
ing action upon that which is absolutely first and
therefore prior to every cause of every kind. One
might be tempted to say, “A limitation means a lack,
and a lack does not require a truly efficient cause,
but is a deficiency.” But such a limitation as we here
consider is not a mere lack, but a positive imposition
of boundaries. And such a limitation certainly does
require a true efficient cause.
ConsidêFYhF poifif from this angle : When any­
thing is given, it is given in a certain measure, for
that which is capable of transference by gift is not
infinite or, at least, cannot be infinitely imparted. If
a man gives his boy ten dollars he gives so much;
but he also, quite as definitely, gives no more. What
is given is necessarily finite. But the truth goes

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

125

farther than this. What is not given,—and we mean,
of course, actuality winch is not given,—is necessarily
infinite. For perfection (i. e., actuality ) which is unr_eceivgd, ungiven, has about it nothing that could
limit it. An unmixed perfection contains in itself no
requirement for limitation, and indeed no possibility
of being, limited except under the action of limiting
external causes. Now, the perfection of God is un­
given and unreceived; it is perfection in the highest,
purest, unmixed sense; it is perfection not subject
to causal action since it is identified in the simple
and first Actuality with the Divine Essence of that
Actuality. Nothing conceivable, then, could limit it;
it"ïffffêt, of necessity, be infinite.
There is ever a tendency on the part of proud and
impatient minds to dismiss as impossible what is
found to be unimaginable. The imagination cannot
adequately picture infinity, and hence there is a
temptation in certain minds to say that infinity is
either impossible or unknowable. But, it may justly
be retorted, the mind can understand infinity, can
know what it means, even though the imagination is
powerless to picture it adequately. The imagination
cannot picture the object of any idea adequately,
even the object of the most finite or least universal
of ideas. But this does not hinder the mind from
knowing that object. The imagination is ever a great
help to the mind, offering its images in illustration
and analogy w’hen they are not available as more

1

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THEODICY

direct expressions of the meaning of the mind’s ideas
and thoughts ; and indeed the mind arises to its
concepts from the images of the imagination which
reflect the findings of the other senses. The imagina­
tion is tireless in its presentation of images; it fur­
nishes endless illustrations. And, as a man, studying
the copious printed pictures which accompany a sci­
entific treatise, may learn from them something of
the nature and trend of the treatise itself, though he
be unable to understand its terms, so may the mind
(even more surely and powerfully) come to the
knowledge of the realities which imagination most
imperfectly suggests. For the rest, if imagination
cannot adequately picture infinity, neither can it ade­
quately picture an actuality which is first and yet not
infinite. The mind inevitably reaches out and infers
infinity; it affirms infinity; and this is true of the
mind of the doubter and the atheist as surely as it is
true of the mind that stands.
Jq Tact-and to .
faith. To the one, infinity is doubtful, but the region
of the dubious stretches away endlessly unto the very
infinity that is doubted; to the second, infinity is
denied, but an infinite nothingness remains. Those
that complain of the limitations of the imagination,
and base their doubts or denials of infinity upon that
limitation, are most unreasonably trying to make
the imagination something other than it is; they are
trying to make it in all respects the equal of the
mind or intellect itself, whereas it is, by its nature,

THE ESSENCE- OF GOD

127

on a lower plane, and is meant as a means by which
a man mounts upward to the region of intellectual
knowledge. No man complains that his eyes cannot
take in all the world at one glance, nor docs he de­
clare world-travel impossible because he does not
clearly see at the outset all possible paths that his
eager feet may follow. In his own way, man cer­
tainly can know, and indeed must know, what in­
finity means; man can know, and inevitably does
know, that the absolutely first actuality must be in­
finite. Human knowledge of infinity, like human
knowledge of anything, is necessarily finite and not
fully comprehensive; but it may be true knowledge
as far as it goes. Therefore, it is a foolish and futile
objection to infinity that finds it inadmissible on the
grounds of limitations in a necessarily limited hu­
man faculty.
The infinity of the First and Necessary Being is
a compelling proof of the unity of that Being. Per­
haps the most forceful way of setting out that proof
is that called the demonstratio per absurdum which
is the indirect but inescapable evidence of the truth
by reason of the impossible character of its contra­
dictory. Let us suppose then that there can be a
plurality of infinite beings, at least two. We shall
call these A and B. Both are infinite. How, then,
will you distinguish one from the other? The minute
you draw a line of distinction or of demarcation1 be­
tween them, you put a limit on both, and neither is

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THEODICY

infinite. Here you have the absurdity (which you
cannot escape if infinity is pluralized) of two beings
which are infinite and not infinite at one and the
same time! Look at the same thing in a slightly dilferent way : The infinity called A has its own perfec­
tions in measureless degree, identified with its es­
sence. It is infinite, remember, and therefore no
conceivable perfection is absent from it. Now, the
infinity called B also has its own perfections in meas­
ureless degree, identified with its essence. B is in­
finite, and no conceivable perfection is absent from
it. But if A’s perfection is its very own, it is absent
from B, and B is not infinite. So too, B’s perfection
belongs to B (not to A) and therefore A is not
infinite. Again we come to the absurd and impossible
conclusion that A and B are both infinite and not
infinite. Manifestly, this cannot be. We can only
conclude that a plurality of infinities is impossible.
The infinite Being is necessarily one and only; It has
unity and unicity.
Further, the infinity of God is absolute proof of
the simplicity of God. For no separate and distinct
perfection can be infinite in its own sphere, since a
plurality of infinite perfections is a plurality of in­
finities, which we have just shown to be impossible.
God’s perfections are therefore identified; they are
one. But God cannot be one in Being with one in­
finite perfection distinct. from. His Being, for here
again would be a plurality of infinities. Therefore,

ίί

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

1.29

God, in Being (essence, existence, nature, substance)
and in perfections must be absolutely one and in­
divisible, and all perfections must be one identical
thing with the Divine Essence Itself. In a word, God
must be absolutely simple.
Thus we see how the fundamental perfections of
God (called distinct perfections to suit our mode of
understanding and of study, and distinct, in conse­
quence, by a rational or logical distinction, granted
such distinction has a basis in reality) are proof one
of the other. Here again, we see suggested the truth
that any serious consideration of the human mind
leads to and indicates God, if carried far enough.
Take up what subject you will in the wide circle of
human experience and you take up a point on a
definite radius that inevitably leads direct to the In­
finite Centre of all.
4. The Spirituality of God. That God is a Spirit
is already proved in the foregoing arguments. For
God is simple, and no bodily actuality is simple. God
is one and unique, and no bodily being is necessarily
so. God is infinite, and a bodily being is, by defini­
tion, mensurable (at least internally, as philosophers
put it) and is so limited. Therefore, God is not
bodily. But, you may say, granted that 1 le is not
bodily, it need not follow that He is a Spirit. There
are creatures (like any minor substantial form; say,
for example, a plant-soul) that are simple but not

Ï30

THEODICY

spiritual. True, but such simple creatures are not
χ also unique and infinite ; they are ever dependent for
^existence and operation upon other and, indeed.
bodily things. But God is Pure Actuality, completely
pelf-sufficing, completely self-existent, entirely necesysary. Such a Being has no dependencies, but must
/ exist in a supersubstantial way in Its own right.
/ And a being that exists in its own right is either a
( body or a spirit. But, as we have seen, God is not
Xa body. God, therefore, is a Spirit.
c) THE PHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD

The physical essence of any actuality is, as we
have seen, the sum-total of the perfections that con­
stitute it. Now, the sum-total of the perfections that,
so to speak, constitute God in His own proper Being
independently of the view of the mind, are the per­
fections we have just considered: unity, uniqueness,
simplicity, infinity, spirituality. These perfections, in
boundless and essential identity, constitute the physi­
cal essence of God| We may put them all briefly in
the little formula we once learned fTomTour cate­
chism, and declare that, <fGod is a Spirit infinitely
perfect”frhis is a physical definition of God ; it ex­
presses GodJs-phÿsicârêsTenœ7THàt God is a Spirit,
we have amply pfoWctd And the“ phrase''”'rrinfimtely
perfect” necessarily includes boundless simplicity
and unity; for the phrase 'means infinite and all­
perfect.

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

131

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have learned the meaning of the
terms essence; physical essence; metaphysical es­
sence. We have found that the physical essence of a
thing is the sum of elements or perfections that con­
stitute it in its proper being, independently of the
view of the mind that knows it. We have defined
metaphysical essence as that item or element in the
reality under examination (radically present to the
reality but not necessarily a formal part in the reality)
which evokes in the mind which knows the reality a
^true and penetrating knowledge of it, and which
serves the mind as the basis of all that is es­
sentially referable to the known reality. We have
^discussed the fundamental objective perfections of
the First and Necessary Being, that is, of God, and
we have found these to be unity (with uniqueness
or unicity), simplicity, infinity, spirituality. We have
summed up these perfections in a physical definition
of God, that is, in a definition which expresses the
physical essence of God. Such a definition may be
formulated as, “God is the one, simple, infinite,
Spirit,” or, “God is a Spirit, infinitely perfect.”

Article 2. The Metaphysical
Essence of god
a) Theories on the Point
b) The True Metaphysical
Essence of God

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132

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THEODICY

We have mentioned more than once that the mctaphysical essence of any reality is the fundamental
and objective meaning which the thing has to
the mind which knows it. Such an essence is not
a mental viewpoint; on the contrary it is objective
and real. It is that, reality in an essence which is the
first and foremost point by which, the mind recognizes the essence; and which is the root of all that
must be predicted of that essence. We keep this description of metaphysical essence clearly in mind in
the study we are now to undertake. We ask, “What
point or note in the idea of God represents Him (as
Actuality, not merely as idea or concept) most fun­
damentally?” We know that God is one, is simple,
is infinite, is spiritual ; we know that He exists neces­
sarily and of Himself; we know that all these perfections are actually one with the Divine Essence,
But we know too that one of these perfections must
be, in our mind, regarded as the radical principle of
all the others ; some perfection that really belongs to
God and is identified with His Being is first in its
appeal to the mind which seeks the most thorough
and penetrating knowledge of God, and this perfec­
tion is, so to speak, the point from which all the
other perfections (conceived as distinct) radiate out
and form the rounded representation of what God
actually is. Which of the perfections is it? In which
perfection consists the metaphysical essence of God?

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

133

Remember another point. God is simple. We do
not make divisions in God, despite the fact that we
discuss an objective and real Divine Perfection which
is basic to an understanding of God, and is the root
of all the other understandable perfections which
must be attributed to God. ll'c do make distinction
between and among the Divine Perfections; we do
not make division, for God is indivisible. Our dis­
tinction, to repeat, is a logical distinction, a mental
distinction, a rational distinction; it is a distinction
of ideas and not of the indivisible Thing which the
ideas come together to represent. But it is not a
purely mental distinction, since the mind has grounds
for it in reality outside the mind. All this we have
learned ; we must remember always, and especially
in the present study, that we have learned it.
The most notable theories which have been pro­
posed as the expression of the metaphysical essence
of God are the following :

The N ominalists (who deny objective or trans­
subjective value to all ideas and reduce them to
mental names handily invented by man to indicate
unknowable essences) say that God’s metaphysical
essence is neither more nor less than the collection
of all the perfections (so called, so named) which
we attribute to God. Of course, the Nominalists do
not mean what we mean when we say that such a

i i—iffwi

134

THEODICY

sum-total of perfections constitutes the physical es­
sence of God, not the metaphysical essence. '1 hey.
by their principles, can allow no real value to idea:?
beyond names, and hence they are logical enough in
saying that the collection of names (i. e., menial
names) which are applied to God is all that is know­
able about God, and that it is futile to pick and
choose among names,—none of which has any true
trans-subjective value,—to find one that is a radical
source of all the others.

The Scotists (followers of the great Duns
Scotus—died 1308—one of the most brilliant of
Scholastic philosophers, and the pride of the Fran­
ciscan Order as St. Thomas Aquinas is of the Do­
minican Order) hold that the metaphysical essence
of God is what may be called root-infinity or radical
infinity; irpother words, thejjietaphysical essence of
God (which the mind ^grasps^as the basic note in
“the idea"* of God) is
God’s
Being requires all perfections in infinite degree.
3. Some Thomists (followers of St. Thomas
Aquinas—1225-1274) make the fact of God’s un­
derstanding His metaphysical essence ; in other
words, they say that the root-grasp of God is a
grasp of the all-beholding, of the all-comprehending
God. Some of these Thomists assert that this does
not mean God’s actual understanding of all things

s

wsssa

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

135

knowable, but Elis radical or fundamental under­
standing. |[n a word, they say that the rnind need
not advert reïïëxly to the actual infinite extent of
God’s;exisfinglknowledgc, but finds its idea of God
first and foremost in I lis infinite understanding con­
sidered as such and not necessarily in exercise. ( fihcr>
declare that the actual understanding of God is His
xqetaphysical essence, ί
4. Other Thomists declare that God’s metaphysi­
cal essence is discerned in the fact that lie exists
necessarily of Himself. The phrase “of Himself”
is, in Latin, a se, and the doctrine here mentioned is
expressed in the coined term aseity, which might be
literally, if awkwardly, translated into “of Himselfness.” In a word, the fact that God exists of
Himself, without cause, necessarily, independently,
self-sufficiently, is the fact that the mind lays Hold
of in getting a root-grasp of what the term "God
means.
5. Most Thomists (and these insist that their
doctrine is that of St. Thomas himself) declare that
the metaphysical essence of God consists in the fact
that He is Subsistent Being Itself. A being is sub­
sistent when it is complete and substantial and ex­
isting and autonomous. All finite substances which
subsist do so in virtue of their constituting and sup­
porting causes. But God has no such causes. He sub-

136

THEODICY

sists Himself, causelessly, necessarily ; and since He
does not have subsistence, but His subsistence (like
every perfection predicable of Him) is one with His
essence, He is Subsistent Being Itself, Ipsum Esse
Subsistens. In this, it is claimed, consists the root­
point of realizing what God really is.
Omitting the Nominalist theory (for it is inad­
missible on epistemological grounds) we may sum
up the other doctrines thus : God’s metaphysical es­
sence is found in one of these four perfections : radi­
cal infinity, radical or actual comprehension of all
knowables, aseity, self-subsistence.
b) THE TRUE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD

I. It seems that radical infinity is ineptly proposed
as the metaphysical essence of God. For to our
minds infinity first suggests the way in which God
exists rather than God Himself. Of course, we
realize upon reflection that God’s infinity is abso­
lutely identified with Himself. But the present quest
is for that note in the idea of God which, first and
foremost, puts the Divine Essence before the view
of our understanding in so far as this may be done
at all. And, we repeat, to say that a thing is infinite
seems to be saying something about a thing already
there, already grasped. Such a note or predication of
the mind is made in the second place after the grasp
of the essence is made in the first place. For we
conceive of a thing as existing (or, more accurately

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

137

in the present case, as subsisting, that is, existing as
a complete, autonomous, substance) before we con­
ceive it as existing in infinity; we conceive it to be
before we conceive it to be infinite. For tin’s reason
we do not favor the view of those who declare that
God’s metaphysical essence is discerned in 11 is radi­
cal infinity.

2. For the same reason we find unacceptable the
doctrine that God’s metaphysical essence is found in
His infinite understanding or boundless comprehen­
sion of all knowables. If this means the actual com­
prehension of all things by Almighty God, it suggests
an operation of the Divine Essence ; and, of course,
an operation presupposes an operator; the idea of
an operation is not the first or fundamental note,
but the secondary note, in our knowledge of an
existing and operating being. And if the doctrine
means the radical comprehension or understanding
of God (that is, the understanding considered, not
as an operation exercised, but in itself, so to speak,
as a capacity') then it suggests a power or a faculty,
which, to our way of understanding, presupposes
the existence of one that has the power or faculty.
Again, the idea of God as the all-comprehending
(whether as actually or radically comprehending) is
not the first and fundamental note in our knowledge
of God, but is secondary to, and consequent upon,
our knowledge of God as subsisting.

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THEODICY

3. Is God’s metaphysical essence discerned in the
fact that He is Ens a se, that is, a Being who is of
Himself ? In other words, is God’s metaphysical es­
sence found in His aseity? Well, to give an un­
qualified “Yes” as the answer, might be misleading.
For the implication of the phrase “of Himself’ is
“not of another.” That is, to declare that God exists
or subsists of Himself stresses the truth that He is
not dependent upon any cause, but is self-sufficient
and self-explanatory because He is Necessary Being.
But the implication that God is not ens ab alio (that
is, a being dependent on its causes) is not pertinent
to the first and basic grasp of the Divine Essence by
our minds. That God is is grasped first, and then
comes the realization that He is independently of
causes. To put the point in another way: if you say
the fact that God exists of Himself is the first and
basic fact our minds grasp in knowing God, it may
be asked, “Why does the mind so grasp Him?” In
other words, a question is possible which delves be­
low, or back of, what you propose as the first and
deepest note in the knowledge we have of God. The
answer to the question seems to disclose bed-rock.
For the answer is, “We know God is Ens a se, we
know He exists of Himself, because He is Self­
subsistent Being Itself.
4- We therefore favor as the most adequate expression of the true metaphysical essence of God,

BMawmiw

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

J .39·

the doctrine which reposes this essence in the fact
that God is Self-subsistent Being Itself. If it be
said by the defenders of the aseity-doctrine, ‘'Well,
that's what our doctrine means ; we assert radical
aseity,” we can only reply with much happiness thcit
then we are in perfect agreement with them. The
fact of God’s self-subsistence, therefore, or, if you
prefer, the fact of God’s radical aseity. is the First
and the fundamental note in our mind’s grasp of the
Divine Essence. It is the metaphysical essence of
God. And God Himself gave to Moses His true
and most penetratingly expressive name when He
said, “I am Who am . . . thus shalt thou say to the
children of Israel: He Who is hath sent me to you”
{Exodus Hi, 14).
By way of positive argument for the doctrine
here proposed as true, we may consider the follow­
ing points :
The metaphysical essence of anything is that real­
ity in the thing which, first and foremost, makes
it understandable to the mind, and explains to the
mind the properties that must be attributed to it.
Now, the fact that God is Subsistent Being Itself
{Ipsum Esse Subsistens) is that reality in God
which makes God understandable and explains the
properties or perfections that must be attributed to
God. For the actuality of God, the fact that God is
Himself there, is our answer to the most penetrat-

!4o

THEODICY

ing questions about Him, such as why He is the
First Cause, why He is the Necessary Being, why
He is infinitely perfect, why He is simple or uncompounded, why hie is necessarily one. And the
implications of that boundless and independent actu­
ality of God are brought out by the questions, and
thus that actuality explains the Divine Perfections.
But this actuality of God is neither more nor less
than His subsistence and His self-subsistence.
Therefore, the metaphysical essence of God consists
in His self-subsistence, that is, in the fact that He
is Self-subsistent Being Itself.
God is Pure Actuality. The phrase Pure Actual­
ity or Actus Purus is recognized among philos­
ophers as the true metaphysical definition of God.
Now, a true metaphysical definition expresses the
true metaphysical essence of the thing defined. But
Pitre Actuality means Self-subsistence. A thing is
actual when it exists; it is purely actual when it has
no potentialities or dependencies about it, but is
self-existent ; and its self-existence must be more
than the existence of some accidental thing, it must
be the existence of that which is a substance in the
completest and most perfect sense ; in other words,
this self-existence must be self-subsistence. Hence,
God’s metaphysical essence consists in the fact that
He is Self-subsistent Being Itself. The concept of
Pure Actuality is the concept of Self-subsistent
Actuality, and the latter phrase is more clear to the

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

141

mind than the former. Hence, once more we assert,
that the true metaphysical essence of God is found
in His Self-subsistence.
That which first distinguishes God from all other
things is the fact that I lis existence is not an im­
parted existence; it is not something given and re­
ceived, as it always is with things other than God.
Now, the mind may not advert, and does not ad­
vert, first and foremost to the distinguishing fea­
tures of a reality, but first sees the reality and then
notes its background or distinctions more carefully.
But the metaphysical essence of a thing must serve
the mind in both these functions: it must present
the reality in its root being, and it must serve to
explain the distinction of that reality from other
things. Merely to distinguish it would not be
enough; that is why we reject the theory of actual
aseity as the metaphysical essence of God. But we
accept, as synonymous with our own doctrine, the
theory of radical aseity. For this grasp of God in
radical aseity or in the fact that He is Self-subsistent
Being Itself is at once the direct and primal grasp
of the Di vine Essence by the human mind, and the
fundamental, root of . the distinction of. God from
"all other things. Again we declare that the true
metaphysical essence of God consists in the fact
that He is Ipsum 'Esse Subsisfèlif·.
That God’s Self-subsistence is the root of all the
other Divine Perfections is manifest. St, Thomas

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THEODICY

Aquinas says, “Being taken simply as including
every existible perfection, is preeminent above all
the individual perfections, such as life, which belong
to and follow from it.” And our doctrine ascribes
to Cod “Being taken simply as including every- cxistiblc perfection,” for that is what is meant by
Subsistent Being Itself.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have reviewed our definition
(or description) of metaphysical essence. We have
set forth very brieffy the five most notable doctrines
about the metaphysical essence of God. We have in­
vestigated these doctrines thoroughly, and have
found that the most acceptable of them is the more
common Thomistic doctrine that the metaphysical
essence of God is found in the fact that He is Sub­
sistent Being Itself.

CHAPTER II

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
This Chapter studies the perfections of God which we
know must be present in Him, and of Him, by reason of
His metaphysical essence. These are the perfections that
belong to God by natural necessity. Now, what belongs to
a reality by natural necessity is an attribute or a property
of that reality. And so we speak here of the proper per­
fections or the attributes of God. Still, the term attribute is
used here in an analogous, and not in a literal, sense. For
the literal meaning of attribute is a perfection that belongs
to an essence, but is not one with that essence ; it is not a
substantial thing, but an accidental one in its being, how­
ever necessary be its connection with the essence or the
substance to which it is ascribed. In God, however, the
perfections called attributes are really one wdth the Divine
Essence Itself and wholly inseparable from it ; they are the
identical supersubstance that God Himself is ; they are in
no wise accidents in God (there can be nothing accidental
in Pure Actuality) ; they are God Himself. Keeping this in
mind,—and realizing that, while we have good grounds in
creatures for making a distinction in God between Himself
and His perfections, and among the several perfections
themselves, the distinction is, after all, a mental or logical
one, and not a real distinction,—we discuss the Divine At­
tributes in two Articles, as follows :
Article i. The Divine Attributes in General
Article 2. The Divine Attributes in Special
M3

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THEODICY
Article i. The Divine Attributes in­
General

a) Meaning of Divine Attributes
b) Classification of
Divine Attributes
a) MEANING OF DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

By the Divine Attributes we mean those perfec­
tions that, in our limited understanding, must be
predicated of God as though they were distinct
qualities which, by natural necessity, follow from
and characterize the Divine Essence Itself.
An attribute is something that must be attributed
to a nature because that nature demands it. For ex­
ample, the attribute of infallibility follows from
the nature of the Church. For the Church is a divine
institution, a work of God Himself, and, in its
founding He declared that it was to speak in His
name and to lead men to God. Now, such being its
nature, how can it conceivably lead men astray? In
other words, how can it be denied that this divinely
founded and dowered institution is infallible ? The
fact of infallibility follows from and attends upon
the nature of the Church. Precisely because the
Church is the essential thing that it is, it must be
infallible. Therefore, by a necessity of its nature
(i. e., by natural necessity) the Church must be
infallible. And so we say that infallibility is an at­
tribute of the Church. Take another example. We
say that the actual exercise of reason (that is, the

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THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

145

function of thinking things out. of drawing con­
clusions, of recognizing that two and two make
four) is an attribute of man. For, when man's na­
ture is ftilly constituted, and when no element of
it is lacking, and when its operations are uuthwarted
by immaturity, unconsciousness, disease, man will,
—because he is of the nature that he is,—inevitably
use his reasoning power. Such a use follows by nat­
ural necessity upon the fully constituted and opera­
tive essence (i. e., the nature} of man. The act of
reasoning, or the ability to exercise that act, is there­
fore an attribute of man. The examples show us
plainly that in creatures an attribute is something
that follows from, and attends upon, the rounded
and operative essence of a reality, but is, in itself,
an accidental thing, not to be identified with the es­
sence to which it belongs. The Church, for example,
is not its infallibility; the Church has infallibility.
Nor is man his power to reason ; man has the power
to reason. That man be rational (i. e., radically
equipped to come to the use of reason) is of his es­
sence, and man is defined as a rational animal ; but
man is not necessarily a reasoning animal ; he may
not come to the use of that for which he is radi­
cally or fundamentally equipped. The actual use of
reason is something that a man has, not something
that a man is. But it is something that he has by
natural necessity, that is, it is something that neces­
sarily follows, attends upon, and characterizes man’s

146

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THEODICY

nature, when this nature is fully developed and un­
thwarted in any way. Thus we see that an attribute,
in proper sense, is something that is really distinct
from the essence, nature, substance, to which it is
ascribed. And here we notice again that attributes
cannot be predicated of God in strict sense, but only
in an analogical sense, for all that God has He A,
since He is Pure and Simple Actuality. There is
in God no real distinction except the real distinc­
tion of the Three Persons of which we have no
right to speak in philosophy beyond the mention ol
the fact that philosophy finds in such distinction no
contradiction of its own facts and principles.
Now, an attribute is not only something that
belongs to, and attends upon, a rounded and fully con­
stituted essence. It is also something that characicrizesjhat essence?" If maries the'essence as this essence
and no other. It is proper Jo this essence, and to this
essence alone. Therefore, an attribute is often called
a property. The term propertyy derives from the
Latin proprius which means “one’s own.” Hence,
the attribute of infallibility belongs to the Church
alone among all institutions found on the earth; it
marks it ; it points it out ; it is its sign and seal and
“trade mark” and stamp of identification. So too
the ability to use reason is a true property of man.
There are other rational beings than man, for every
spirit is rational, be it angel or devil, and God is

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

147

rationality itself. But the term rational means pos­
sessed of (or, in case of God, identified with) un­
derstanding and will. It docs not necessarily mean
the power, and the limitation, involved in the process
of thinking things out. God knows all things per­
fectly and eternally in His own essence; angels (and
devils, who are fallen angels) know all they can
know in an instantaneous grasp of mind, and have
no need for the laborious mental process of working
out an understandable truth by successive steps. No.
man alone among rational beings has the need and
the ability to use reason so, and this use is therefore
an index of man, a characteristic and mark of iden­
tification ; it belongs to man and to no other ; it is
a property of man. Attribute and property are syn­
onymous terms, jet there is this shade of distinc­
tion between them : the term attribute suggests what
must be attributed to a reality by natural necessity ;
the term property indicates the ground for this
necessity of attribution inasmuch as that which must
be attributed to a reality belongs to this reality as
its very own and is ascribable, in the exact and
strict sense of the attribution, to this one reality and
to no other. From all this we learn that the proper­
ties (or attributes') of an essence are revealing
things; they are the source of our accurate knowl­
edge of essences. For “Handsome is as handsome
does”; “Actions speak”; “as a thing is so it acts,—

i48

THEODICY

that is, so it shows itself in its operative properties”;
“Agere sequitur esse—function follows essence”;
“By their fruits you shall know them.”
To sum up. An attribute or a property is a per­
fection which necessarily belongs to an essence when
that essence is fully constituted and unhampered;
it is a mark and an indicator of that essence. In finite
things, attributes or properties are, in themselves,
non-substantial ; they are of the order of accidents
or accidentals; they mark and qualify substances.
But in the one Pure and Simple Actuality attributes
are phases of an undivided Infinite Essence, phases
which the limited human mind must take to appre­
hend the Divine Essence at all, and phases which in­
dicate no real distinction in God, but only a rational
or logical distinction grounded upon the nature of
the finite mind and upon its experience with creatural
reality; a distinction, in short, which is logical with
a foundation (an imperfect one) in reality.
We have already studied some of the Divine At­
tributes. In our investigation of the Divine Essence
we had to approach the subject by way of certain
fundamental perfections, and all perfections, in pur­
est sense, are attributes of God, and properties of
God too, since they are ascribable to Him infinitely
and of His Essence and are not so ascribable to any
other reality than God. So we learned about God’s
unity and unicity, His simplicity, His infinity, His

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

■b
;v'

149

spirituality. These are attributes of God. These are
properties of God. These are Divine Perfections.
To our minds, these (though identified among them­
selves, and identified with all the other perfections
we are yet to consider, and identified with the one
Divine Essence itself) arc basic or fundamental per­
fections; in a figurative sense, they are constitutive
of the Divine Essence. In our present study we are
to consider certain other perfections which follow
from the constitution of the one, simple, infinite
Spirit.
.
. . ........... .............
..

^’^b) CLASSIFICATION OF DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

The Divine Attributes are classified as absolute
and relative; the absolute attributes are further
classified as positive and negative.
I. Absolute Divine Attributes are those which we
consider in studying God in Himself, without bring­
ing into our consideration any reference to creatures
that depend on God. The term absolute is from the
Latin absolutus which means “loosed from,” “freed
from,” “unconditioned.” So when we consider God
as “loosed from” all relations which creatures have
to Him, and study Elim in Himself alone, we are
investigating the absolute perfections of God, that
is, the absolute attributes. Such attributes are, for
example, the infinity of God, His immutability or

150

THEODICY

changelessness, His knowledge or wisdom. Absolute
Divine Attributes are positive or negative.
(a) Positive Divine Attributes are those which
a ffirm a perfection as belonging by necessity to God,
and identified with His Being and Essence. Such,
for example, are the divine life, the divine will, the
divine understanding.
(&) Negative Divine Attributes are those which
deny imperfections in God. Such, for example, are
the divine infinity which denies limitation, the di­
vine simplicity which denies composition, the divine
immutability which denies in God the slightest
change or shadow of alteration.
2. Relative Divine Attributes are those which in­
volve the relation of creatures to God. Thus the
perfection called providence,—that is, the perfection
whereby God looks out for His creatures, and not­
ably His rational creatures on earth, seeing that all
things work together for good,—is an attribute of
God. Manifestly, this attribute implies creatures; it
brings creatures “into the picture’’ ; it is a relative
attribute. It is to be noticed that relative attributes
in God are those that bring creatures into relation
with Him; it is inaccurate to say that these at­
tributes bring God into relation to creatures. There
is no real relation in God to creatures, but complete
and perfect independence; but there is a real and
essential relation to God on the part of creatures.

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
SUMMARY

151

OF THE ARTICLE

' This brief Article has given us an accurate under­
standing of what is meant by the terms attribute
and property in their strict and literal meaning as
applicable to creatures, and in their analogical mean= ing as predicable of the Pure Actuality and Infinite
■ Simple Essence of God. We have shown that at­
tributes and properties are revealing things, and that
,Jtheir study leads to a knowledge of essences. There­
fore, in our present study about God, we approach
/ito Him by way of Idis perfections or attributes. We
have classified the Divine Attributes as absolute
.and relative, and have seen that the absolute at, ..tributes are either positive or negative.

Article 2. The Divine Attributes in
Special
a) Goodness b) Immensity

c) Immutability d) Eternity

a) goodness
It is a truth manifested in ontology that every
being is good. For good means desirable or appetizable, and every being, inasmuch as it is a being, can
be the object of appetite or desire. Hence the mea­
sure of being is the measure of goodness, and, view­
ing the terms in their most abstract meaning, good
and being are strict synonyms. It follows at once
that the Infinite Being is the Infinite Good.

i

ÎIWIWMi

152

THEODICY

In our proof for the existence of God, taken
from the grades or degrees of perfection observable
in the world, we developed the truth that the ex­
istence of good and bettor (that is, of a lesser or
greater fulness of being) points inevitably to the
existence of that which is absolutely best. For there
is need of an absolute standard before there can be
any degrees resulting from a closer or more remote
approach to that standard. And we concluded our
argument by establishing the existence of the su­
premely perfect and absolutely boundless Good, the
Summum Bomim called God. God, therefore, is in­
finitely good; and, since His attributes are one with
His essence, God is Infinite Goodness.
When we speak of creatures, we make a distinc­
tion between goodness and perfection. Every being,
as such, is good; but every being is not perfect. A
being may lack some element, some essential or in­
tegral item, and in so far it is imperfect; but even
an imperfect being is good as far as it goes, that is,
as far as it has being. So the case stands with finite
things. To prove a finite thing good is not to prove
it perfect. Contrariwise, however, to prove a thing
perfect is to prove it good. Hence, to prove God All
Perfect is to prove Him the Infinite Good. But,
indeed, the terms good and perfect are synonymous
when used with reference to the Infinite Being, and
whether we take up the point of goodness to estab­
lish the Divine Perfection, or take up the point of

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

i53

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perfection to prove the Divine Goodness, we arc
following a fully justified mode of procedure. Here
we choose to establish the Divine Goodness by showing that God is the All Perfect.
God is Pure Actuality. This point we have men­
tioned repeatedly and have demonstrated more than
once. Recall here, that the first actuality can have
nothing whatever about it that has been received;
for no receiver is first; the giver is prior to the re­
ceiver. All, therefore, that the first being has belongs to its own essence and is not ascribable to any
causes. In other words, the first being stands selfsufficient and self-explaining and self-justifying to
reason. It is a necessary being. Now, a necessary
being is not conceivably subject to development or
change, for such processes alwrays result from the
action of causes upon the being affected by develop­
ment or change; and the first being, the necessary
being, is in no wise subject to causes. Hence there
is in the first being no potentiality, no possibilities
to be realized, no capacities to be filled up or filled
out, no limitations to be extended. But that which
is not potential is actual. In our concept of the first
being there can be no note except the actual. Such
a being is purely and entirely and unmixedly actual.
And, since such a being is also, and necessarily,
simple, its actuality is identified with its essence.
Therefore, God, the First and the Necessary, and
the Simple Being, is Pure Actuality. Now, the word

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THEODICY

potentiality is synonymous with imperfection. A
thing is said to have potentiality inasmuch as it has
about it some capacity not yet filled out, some pos­
sibility not yet actualized; in a word, it lack's some­
thing, and is in so far imperfect. But Cod has about
Him absolutely no potentiality; therefore, lie has
no lack; therefore, He has no imperfection what­
ever; He is the Pure Actuality and by that token 1 le
is Pure Perfection. God therefore is purely or
boundlessly perfect; He is All Perfect. And this is
saying that Pie is Infinite Goodness.
In casual speech the term good often suggests
kindness, consideration, devotion, thoughtfulness
for others. Thus we say that a devoted mother is a
“good mother,” or that a kind person is “very good
to everybody.” Now, when we speak of the absolute
goodness of God, all that is fine and perfect about
this common colloquial meaning of good is included
in our use of the term, but this is not the special
point of the present consideration. This rather be­
longs to the study which we shall make later in its
proper place, the study of the perfection of the Di­
vine Will and, in special, of that Will as expressed
in Divine Providence. Here we take a more abstract
view of the matter, considering goodness rather as
an absolute perfection than a relative perfection in
God, that is, as a perfection which reveals God in His
own Being rather than one which reveals Him in His
dealings with creatures.

âSSH

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THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

155

Let us take just one more compelling argument to
show that God is the All Perfect or the All Good in
Himself.
God is the first cause of all things. Now, what­
ever of perfection is found in any effect must be
found in the cause that produced that effect, either
in the same way (if the cause be univocal, that is,
if the cause be of the same nature as the effect, as it
is, for example, in the case of living creatures re­
garded as the causes of their offspring) or in a su­
perior way (if the cause be analogical, as it is, for
example, in the case of the sculptor causing the ‘
statue to exist as an image). Hence, all the perfec­
tions of creatures must be found in the cause of all
creatures, that is, in God. And, since God is not the
univocal but the analogical cause of creatures, these
perfections must be found in Him in a way superior
to that in which they are found in creatures. St.
Thomas Aquinas puts the point thus, “It is evident
that an effect preëxists in the power of the cause
that can produce it; and such preexistence is not
of a lower but of a more perfect order as a mode of
existence. Since, then, God is the first cause of all
things, it follows that in Him the perfections of all
things (existible) are present in an eminent way.”
Now, “the perfections of all things existible” is a
phrase that might be formulated as “all possible per­
fections.” But if all possible perfections are present
in the First Cause, and in an eminently superior

THEODICY

156

manner, then the First Cause is simply /XII Perfect.
Therefore, God is the All Perfect. Therefore, God
is the All Good. In a word, God is Infinite Goodness.
b)

.

Bi
1e

IMMENSITY —

The term immensity is from Latin, and literally
means mcasurelessness. Λ thing is immense when it
cannot be measured, confined, estimated, quantified.
As a Divine Attribute immensity may be defined as
“A perfection whereby the Divine Substance is en­
abled to be present in all things and in all places with­
out being limited or measured by them.” Immensity
is not the attribute whereby God is in all things and
everywhere. This is His ubiquity or actual omni­
presence. Immensity is rather God's radical omni­
presence. It is viewed by our minds as God’s pozver
to be everywhere, whereas ubiquity is the fact of
.plod’s being everywhere.
We notice here the marked inadequacy of human
speech to deal with the Infinite. We speak of the
attribute of immensity as that by which God is “en­
abled” to be present everywhere, and we are forced
by reason to make a mental apology for the term
even as we use it. We know, of course, what is
meant, yet words do not adequately serve to ex­
press what is meant. That is why we say that God
is ineffable or “inexpressible in speech.” Our lan­
guage only approaches accuracy when dealing with
the Infinite Being; it is what priggish people like to

ΓψΗΕ ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ‘

157

call “asymptotic,” meaning that it comes near what
is meant but never quite reaches perfect expression.
Well, we do what we can, and keep reminding our­
selves of the limitations of speech, and indeed of
thought, and ever and anon we say to ourselves,
“Do not forget that all that God has He is; the Di­
vine Attributes are one with the Divine Essence.”
If a person asks, “Where is God?” we have our
answer ready, for we know our little catechism, and
we say, “God is everywhere.” If the inquirer says,
“Is God in this room?” we answer, “Yes.” If he
says, “Is God in me?” or “Is God in that tree?” we
answer, “Yes.” But God is not in things in such wise
that the things limit, or measure or confine Him,
And this suggests that we review our knowledge
of how a thing may be in a place.
A thing is said to be in a place circumscriptivcly
when its own dimensions are co-dimensional with
those of a surrounding body. A baseball flying
through the air is, at any given moment, completely
surrounded by a perfectly fitting pocket of atmos­
phere, the inner concave surface of which meets at
all points the outer convex surface of the ball, and
determines its proper external place in the air. This
is circumscriptive presence, location, or ubication.
The term comes from the Latin circumscriptum
“written around,” for the containing body (in our
example, the air) is drawn around the located body
somewhat as a line is drawn or written around a

Ip

THEODICY

coin laid flat on a piece of paper. Circumscriptive
presence or location depends upon the external mea­
sures or dimensions of a body perfectly meeting the
enveloping surface of a containing body. W’c say
external dimensions, for a body has also ils internal
extension, and this may best be viewed as the body­
mass contained within its own dimensions as within
a film or skin. Wherever the body is, as long as it
remains the same body with the same quantity, its
internal extension is the same, and its “location”
in this internal sense is immovable. Thus the in­
ternal extension and location of the baseball is ever
the same, though its outer or external location is
changing at each successive moment of its flight.
Now, God is not in things circïimscriptively. Such a
presence is manifestly a bodily presence, a presence
by outer material dimensions, and God is, as we
have seen, the Infinite Spirit. Besides, circumscrip­
tive presence is a limiting and determining thing,
and God is not limited nor determined by Elis crea­
tures. For any determination is an actualization of
potentiality and God is Pure Actuality.
Now, a thing may be placed or located or present
informatively. This mode of presence is verified
when the located reality is a determining factor, a
determinant, a form. Thus the substantial form of
any body is in the body. Thus the human soul
(which is the substantial form of the living human
body) is in a man. Thus beauty of feature is in the

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

159

beautiful face. Thus the hardness of marble is in
the marble. These forms (substantial or accidental)
are said to be in the bodies which they determine,
establish, or characterize, but it is manifest that
they arc not present according to measurements and
dimensions. A man’s soul, or his strength, or his
appearance, is not in the man in the sense in which
the ball is in the air, or a boat is in the water, or a
root is in the ground. This is not circumscriptive
presence, but informative presence, and the reality
so present is said to in-form the thing that it de­
termines, marks, qualifies, limits, characterizes. Our
casual use of the terms “inform” and “information”
illustrate the root-meaning of the words ; for our
knowledge of things in-forms the mind; it gives
“shape,” so to speak, to our understanding; it is
present in (or “located in”) our minds, not circumscriptively, which is absurd to say in the present
case, but informatively. In a word, a thing is pres­
ent or is located informatively when it is a determi­
nant or form (substantial or accidental) affecting
that in which it is said to be present or located.
Manifestly, God is not in the world informatively.
He is not the substantial form of the universe. The
old Greek Stoics thought Fie was, and called God
the soul of the world. Nor is God the accidental
form or determinant of the world,—the shape of
the world or its temperature or its appearance or
any other item of its accidental determinate being.
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ζ6ο

THEODICY

For God is the supersubstance, the All Perfect and
Self-subsistent Being; He is not the accident (i. e.,
accidental form) of anything.
Thirdly, a thing may be placed or located or pres­
ent in another thing operatively, and it is so present
when it exercises activity there. This may happen
in such wise that the operating or active power (the
thing located) is limited to one single substance, and
then it is present operatively and definitively ; thus
the soul is present in a man; thus the life-principle
is present in a tree. Or the operating or active thing
may be present to a plurality of things, spreading
its power among them, and then it is present opera­
tively and extensively ; thus the sun is said to be
present in all the places on earth that enjoy its light
and its warming rays. Or a power may be present
unlimitedly to all things, and then it is present opera­
tively and incircumscriptively. In this last named
manner, God is present in the world and in every
creature; He is present operatively, for all things
depend upon Him as their producing and sustaining
cause (their cause in being as well as their cause in
becoming') and they discharge their connatural func­
tions only in virtue of their God-given equipment
and by reason of God’s preserving and concurring
action. God is present in all things operatively but
incircnmscnptivcly, for He is in no wise measured,
limited, or contained, by the universe or any item of
it, while He sustains it in being and operation.

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THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

161

Thus God’s immensity means H is radical opera­
tive and incircttmscriplvvc presence everywhere and
in all things. His actual operative and incircumscripive presence everywhere and in all things is I lis om­
nipresence or ubiquity.

The proof of God’s immensity is drawn from IJ is
infinity and from His boundless power.

J. God possesses in an eminent degree, as an actu­
ality which is truly identified with His own Divine
Essence, every pure perfection. Now, immensity is a
pure perfection. For the definition of a pure perfec­
tion is that it involves in itself no limitation or lack
or imperfection, and immensity is just such a per­
fection, consisting as it does, in the absence of all
limitation. Therefore, God possesses this perfection
in an eminent degree, as an actuality which is truly
identified with His own Divine Essence.
2. God must be present wherever Fie exercises
His power. But God exercises His power every­
where, giving to all things their being, and con­
serving them in existence. Hence God is present
everywhere and in all things. For wherever God’s
power is, there also is the Divine Essence, since the
power of God is identified with His essence. Nor
is the power of God in any way limited,—-for God is
infinite,—and therefore God is not bounded or mea­
sured by actually existing realities in the world.

162

THEODICY

Hence, it cannot be said that God is merely coexten­
sive with the universe. God is not only omnipresent
in the sense that He is in every actual place and
in every actual reality; l ie has true immcnsity whieh
knows no limit or measure by reason of the creatural
realities to which and in which God is present.

ί

There is, of course, a deep mystery in the omni­
presence of God. Our imagination is wholly incap­
able of picturing it, and for this reason it presents
some difficulty to our grasp. But the fact of God's
omnipresence is inevitable; reason not only allows
it, but demands it. The limitations of imagination
cannot dim the clarity of that outstanding truth.
Nor can the imperfections of mind or the character
of our human experience allege anything that avails
in the least to weaken the certitude with which the
truth is known. We know the truth, and we know
why it is truth; to explain in last detail how the
truth finds actual expression is beyond our best ef­
forts. Nor is this to be wondered at, since the finite
mind cannot fully and adequately comprehend the
Infinite. The point to remember is that the mind can
and does apprehend the Infinite, that is, knows It
with certitude as a fact, and knows about It much
that lies within the capacity of the human grasp.
Just as the eye cannot take in the whole earth at a
glance, but sees that it is there, and takes in much
that lies within the immediate range of vision ; just

I

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

163

as the cup cannot take up the entire ocean, but is
dipped into a sea that is unquestionably there, and
takes up what its little capacity allows, so docs the
mind view Infinity, so docs it take up of Infinity,
always sure of Infinity Itself as an actual and an in­
evitable Fact. And the immensity and omnipresence
of God are phases of Infinity that the mind acknowl­
edges, and indeed is forced to acknowledge, as fac­
tual; but to picture the immensity of God in imagina­
tion, or even to have a complete and adequate
comprehension of it in intellect, is manifestly not
to be expected of a creature of strictly and narrowly
limited capacities.
A thought has sometimes found expression in
the form of an objection to God’s immensity, an
objection which appeals to the Infinite Dignity as
its grounds, and, like most specious objections
which have a pious cast, it is very shallow. It
amounts to this. There are things in the universe
that the human mind and taste find unclean, foul,
nasty. Can God be present in these things? If He is
present everywhere He is certainly in everything,
even in things that are repulsive to the sense of sight
and of smell. But is there not some indignity in the
thought of God’s presence in such things? Not in the
least. St. Augustine remarks that the sunlight is not
soiled because it sheds its glory upon fetid refuse.
Nor is the Infinite soiled or tainted by His presence in

164

THEODICY

such things. Remember God is not contained, con­
fined, restricted, limited, measured, by circumscriptive
presence in any reality. For the rest, remember that
all being, inasmuch as it is positive being or reality,
is good, that is, transcendently or metaphysically
good, regardless of what effect it may have upon
human palates and noses. Because of our own limita­
tions, nay, because of our own original defilement,
we have certain trials of sense and of taste to bear
in this world ; but we must not ascribe our limita­
tions to the Almighty, nor think that what affects
bodily things in their circumscriptive location can
affect in like manner that Infinite who is present to
them and in them incircumscriptively.
Since God is present in all things and everywhere
in an incircumscriptive manner, we must banish
from our understanding of His immensity and om­
nipresence all notions of extended parts. God is not
partly here and partly there. He is not to be con­
ceived in a bodily manner as a being of immense
size. God has neither parts nor size. Such things are
the mixed perfections of bodies, and God is Pure
Perfection entirely unmixed. Wherever God is, He
is wholly present; by Elis essence, by His power. St.
Thomas says, “God is in all things by power inas­
much as all things are subject to His will and con­
trol ; He is present in all things by a true presence,
inasmuch as all things are open and naked to His

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THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

165

knowledge; He is present in all things by essence,
inasmuch as He is the cause of their being.”

c)

IMMUTABILITY

The literal meaning of the Latin derivative immutalibity is changclessncss. It is a negative term,
for it denies something; it denies change or move­
ment or alteration in God. But the. term indicates
a positive perfection, for its denial is directed against
imperfection or potentiality and hence amounts to
an affirmation of perfection or actuality.
Here we see illustrated the manner of our progress towards a detailed knowledge of God. We
learned long since that our procedure in acquiring
such knowledge goes by three steps (after recogniz­
ing Primal Causality, as a preliminary step) called affirmation, denial, and excellence, or, to vary the ex­
pression, attribution, élimination, and transcendence.
We affirm of God, or attribute to Him, all perfection ;
we deny of God, or eliminate from our concept of
Deity, all imperfection ; we predicate pure perfection of God in a manner more excellent, more tran­
scendent, than that which we employ in predicating
perfection of creatures. In the present instance,
when we declare God immutable, we discern the need
of attributing to God a complete identity of Being
and Activity; the need of eliminating from our con­
cept of God all change or movement ; the need of pre­
dicating changelessness of God in a truly transcendent

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THEODICY

way so that it does not convey the idea of mere fixity,
which is a limitation, but suggests perfect freedom
and boundless eternal action.
Therefore, when we say that God is iininiilable,
that is, when we assert Divine Immutability as iden­
tified with the Divine Essence Itself, we mean that
God is in no wise subject to change; that Ik is in­
deed the Being “with Whom there is no change or
shadow of alteration” ; that God is not thereby set
in a frozen fixedness but is changelessly free and
eternally active.
Now, when a creature is called changeless, the
predication indicates a mixed perfection, that is, a
perfection mingled with imperfection. For, while
there is perfection in endurance or duration, there is
limitation and imperfection in a merely unvaried
duration or fixity in being and activity. Of course,
no creature is changeless in any absolute sense; but
in a limited and relative sense some creatures are
called so. Thus, the human soul is a changeless spirit­
ual substance. Thus, the unvaried opinion of a stub­
born man is a changeless accident. Thus, the more
lasting bodily materials are metaphorically change­
less in the sense that change in them occurs very
gradually, and that they last a long time. But,
whether we speak of substances or accidents, crea­
tures are never changeless in the full and perfect
sense of that term. And, when we come to consider

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167

the Divine Changelessncss, we arc ali too likely to
bring to our study the notion of the limitations that
associate necessarily with what is called changeless­
ness among creatures. By reason of our whole hu­
man experience, our first mental reaction to the
thought of changelessncss in God is very likely to
be a mistaken one ; we are apt to think of His
changelessness as a thing that freezes and fixes God,
as a thing that limits Him. Yet we know, upon a
moment's reflection, that this cannot be, since God
is infinite and subject to no limitation at all. But
first we shall look at the compelling proofs for Di­
vine Immutability ; then we shall notice certain mis­
taken thoughts about it which we must avoid for
ourselves and correct in others. We shall see that
God must be immutable because of His actuality,
His simplicity, Elis infinity.

r
l

I. Where there is change or movement (and
movement is synonymous with change} there is
manifestly the actualization of a potentiality. The
thing changed is, to begin with, changeable. It has
a capacity for change; and when the change occurs,
this capacity is filled out, realized, actualized. Now,
God is Pure Actuality. There is no conceivable capac­
ity in God; nothing in God can be regarded as not
yet filled out. lienee, there is in God no possibility
of change. God is immutable.

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THEODICY

2. Where there is change, there is always some­
thing that undergoes the change; something which
remains the same while the change takes place in it
and transforms it in substance or in accidentals. But
this means that a changeable reality is a compound
of elements, namely, of the underlying thing that
supports the change and of the shifting thing that
is lost or gained in the change. In a word, a change­
able thing is not simple, but composite. But God is
absolutely simple, as we have amply proved in an­
other place. Therefore God is not changeable. God
is immutable.
5. Every change means both a loss and a gain.
It means the loss of one state or condition and the
gain or acquisition of a new state or condition. But
there can be neither loss nor gain in God. For God
is infinite; and an infinite Being has all perfection
in boundless degree, and there is no perfection still
to be gained ; and an infinite Being cannot lose any­
thing or it would cease instantly to be infinite, since
the loss would mark a lack and a limitation. There­
fore, there can be no change in God. God is im­
mutable.
When we say that God is immutable, we mean
that Fie is entirely so. Ele is immutable in substance,
For He is the Infinite Spirit and a spirit is not
substantially changeable but is incorruptible ; be-

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

169

sides, God is the Necessary Being, and cannot con­
ceivably fade, diminish, fall away, corrupt. God is
immutable in nature, that is, specifically, in under­
standing and in will. For God’s understanding em­
braces all truth changelessly and eternally; and God’s
will is changeless, since a change of will is always
consequent upon a change of substance or of knowl­
edge, and we have just seen that neither substance
nor understanding is changeable in God.
Now, it is here that a difficulty may arise in our
imperfect minds. We are apt to think that if God’s
will does not and cannot change, we are all the
helpless victims of an iron destiny and free-will is
an illusion. Or, even if we brush aside this basic
difficulty, we are likely to think that our prayers of
petition to God are valueless, since nothing can lead
to a change in the Divine Will. Of course, these
difficulties are mere seeming. They occur to us be­
cause, unconsciously, we attribute to God our own
human limitations, and misunderstand Elis eternal
immutability, making of it a mere fixity. We must
remember that God is eternal and infinite. All things
knowable are present to God’s knowledge, in fullest
detail, from eternity. Hence, every circumstance that
conies to our knowledge and bears upon our freechoice is fully known to God from eternity, and
from eternity He decrees to concur with our free­
will and, indeed, from eternity He moves it to its
free choice. Therefore free-will is not thwarted

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THEODICY

nor macle illusory by God’s changelcssncss. Further,
God from eternity knows every possible petition that
can ever be offered to Him, and, for those that are
actually made, He has, from eternity, prepared the
answer. Hence our petitions can and do have their
effect. And the petitions must be made, since the
answer to them is prepared from eternity as con­
tingent upon our making them. When God grants
our requests there is no change in God. From eter­
nity He decrees the answer that comes to us in time.
Thus our prayers make all the difference in the
world. But they make no change in God. We must
avoid the mistake of attributing to God a manner
of dealing with us that resembles our dealing with
others. For we must take things one after another;
we must live and act in a succession of moments,
hours, days, years. It is not so with God. All things,
past, present, and to come, are perfectly present to
God from eternity. Hence, an event that looks to
us like an exceptional thing,—such as the answer
to a special prayer, or the intervention of God in a
miraculous happening,—is just as much a matter
of eternal and changeless decree as that which ap­
pears to us as the fixed course of nature continu­
ously sustained. The raising of Lazarus was as
much a matter of eternal Will as the universal law
that all men must die. The healing of St. Peter’s
mother-in-law was just as much a matter of eternal
Will as the constant “law” of nature which requires

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

i7l

the cooperation of much time in the curing of a
fever, and produces no instantaneous cures.
It is interesting to notice that the persons who
find difficulty in the thought of God’s immutability
are usually the same persons who talk pityingly of
the Christian’s “anthropomorphic concept’’ of God.
The overwhelming term anthropomorphic is a sim­
ple combination of twO Greek words, anthropos
“man,” and morphe “form,” and means, when ap­
plied to our knowledge or concept of God, that we
think of Him as a kind of superman. That there is
danger of such a concept (or of such an imagina­
tion-image) of God occurring to the mind, is mani­
fest. All mythology is proof of it, and there may
be some in our own enlightened age who think of
God as a gigantic human figure with flowing beard
and piercing eye. Perhaps we might dare to say that
one of the reasons,—or, at all events, one of the
effects,—of the Incarnation, was to give weak man
the true God in human form, so that henceforth the
concept of God as man shall be a true concept. But
the point we wish specially to make is this : the per­
sons who take a superior attitude and offer criticism
of the “anthropomorphic concept” of God, are them­
selves hopelessly and falsely anthropomorphic in
their own conception of Deity. For they limit God
as they would limit a creature; His immutability
is a puzzle to them; Elis eternity baffles them; His
infinity and immensity suggest only largeness to them.

J 72

THEODICY

And in all this, they manifest an idea of God that is
only an enlarged idea of a creature. They are doing
the one thing that they particularly profess to amid
and to censure in others : they are evidencing anthro­
pomorphic limitations in their notion of God.

cl)

ETERNITY

The term eternity means not only endlessness but
it means also an absence of beginning and an ab­
sence of successive duration. Only that Being which
has had no beginning and will have no end, and
whose existence is not a matter of successive days
and years but is all present at once, meets the re­
quirements of the term eternal in the strictest sense.
And it is in this sense that the terms eternity and
eternal are applied to God.
Ponder this definition of eternity, made by Boe­
thius about fifteen hundred years ago: “Eternity is
the possession, at once, complete and perfect, of
boundless life.” Notice the force of every word in
the definition. It is the complete possession of endless
life, and of beginningless life, that is, “of boundless
life.” There is nothing lacking in this possession ;
there is not some of the life yet to come, not any
of it that has slipped away. And it is the perfect
possession of boundless life; it is not held vaguely,
as a man might hold great riches without knowing
their exact extent or how every penny is stored or
invested ; no, it is a perfect possession, a fully real-

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

173

ized possession, with nothing vague about it, with
nothing running off into the region of misty de­
tails. Further, this complete and perfect possession
of boundless life is simultaneously complete and per­
fect; it is not a matter of a clearly remembered past
and a clearly envisioned future; it is the perfect
possession of boundless life which is all there al
once; and that “once” is a changeless eternal now.
Consider, too, why Boethius speaks of eternity as
the possession of boundless life. He does so because
existence or duration has no perfect form but that
called life, and the perfect form of existence or dura­
tion must be attributed to the infinite Being.
There are three conceivable sorts of duration, and
these we call time, aeviternity, and eternity. Time is
a measure,—at least, it is ever conceived as such, and
in this phase of its concept it is a logical entity,—
of existence in bodily things ; it measures and marks
existence and operations, happenings and events, in
a bodily universe. Time has been pretty well de­
scribed as, “the measure of movements (or events)
considered with reference to before and after.” Of
the nature of time, and of what modern philosophers
are trying to do with it, a full account is given in
both Ontology and Cosmology, but we have no need
to say more of it here. The second type of duration,
aeviternity, is the measure of duration in things that
are substantially unchangeable, once they are created,
but which are changeable in operation. This term,

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THEODICY

aeviternity (and the adjective acviternal}, is applied
to beings that have had a beginning but will never
have an end. Human souls, and angels, arc aeviterna!
beings. And, as we have seen, eternity and eternal
are terms that find just application only to that Be­
ing which is wholly changeless,- which admits no
variation in substance or nature or operation; which
has neither beginning, end, nor succession in ex­
istence.
Now, it is manifest that eternity, like all the Di­
vine Attributes, is not a thing that our imagination
can depict. Imagination tries to depict it; it does its
best; but it falls far short of success; indeed, it
falls short of making even a proper beginning of
what would have to be an infinite image. But our
mind can know what is meant by eternity, and our
reason can, and must, recognize the compelling need
for attributing it to God. And thus, though we be
finite in all our powers, we can and do realize the
eternity of God as a fact, although we acknowledge
its appreciation as utterly beyond us. When fancy
tries to picture eternity, or even aeviternity, it merely
presents an image of tremendously lengthened time.
Of course, such imaginative efforts are often of
great practical value. A man may dwell upon the pic­
ture of staggering reaches of time, and find in it a
strong motive for working to gain an endless heaven
and to avoid an endless hell. But the picture is ever

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

175

an image of greatly protracted time, and never of
endlessness. We have all heard the story of the negro
preacher with his graphic description of eternity,
the story which describes a little bird taking a drop
of water from the Atlantic Ocean, and carrying it,
not through the air, but hop by hop across our con­
tinent, to deposit it in the Pacific; then going back,
hop by hop, for another drop. The conclusion of the
story is that when the little bird has completely
emptied the Atlantic into the Pacific by this unbe­
lievably slow process, then eternity shall just have
made a start. Or we may have heard and pondered
the other graphic description of eternity, or rather,
of aeviternity, which is sometimes proposed in some
such form as this : “Suppose the earth were a ball
of the hardest steel. Now suppose that once in every
hundred thousands years a tiny insect were to crawl
a few feet on the surface of this enormous steel ball.
When the ball is entirely worn away by the crawling
insect, then eternity will have just begun.” These
descriptions are amusing; and they are not without
a certain element of terror for the mind ; and they
may serve, as we have said, a very necessary practical
purpose. But even such staggering descriptions as
these cannot enable imagination to picture eternity
or aeviternity. AH they can do is to overwhelm one
with enormous reaches of imaginary time. They
stress the point of successive duration and of change.

ij6

THEODICY

Yet all succession is excluded from the concept of
eternity; and substantial change is excluded from
the concept of aeviternity.
Ί hat God is necessarily eternal, or (hat eternity
is but one phase of the indivisible Divine Essence,
is easily proved. It may be proved by appealing to
God’s infinity, to His simplicity, to His immutabil­
ity, to His necessity. We choose to present two
short proofs, taken from the fact that God is Neces­
sary Being and from the fact that He is immutable.
I. God is Necessary Being. He is Pure Actuality.
He is wholly independent of causes. Now, such a
Being cannot conceivably have a beginning (else It
would be caused; It would be actualized; It would
be contingent). Nor can such a Being have an end­
ing (else It would suffer the action of a cause which
would bring It to an end ; It would be contingent
upon such cause ; It would be in potentiality towards
the action of such cause). Nor can such a Being
have any succession of times or moments in dura­
tion (else It would be continuously actualized and
would not be Pure Actuality to begin with; It
would be contingent upon the coming of moments
not yet lived ; It would be affected by the causal
action of such moments). Hence, the Necessary Be­
ing, the Pure Actuality, the Causeless Being, cannot

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177

be subject to beginning, ending, or succession in
existence. Therefore, God is eternal.

2. We have proved that God is immutable. But
what is immutable is. necessarily eternal. A being
that comes into existence is not immutable, for it
comes. A being that has an ending is not immutable,
for it goes. A being that suffers succession in its
existence is not immutable, for it progresses from
moment to moment. Therefore God does not come
into existence; Fie does not pass out of existence;
He does not undergo the passing of successive pe­
riods, stages, or moments. Therefore, God is eternal.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have considered certain Divine
Attributes, namely, God’s Goodness or Perfection,
His Immensity, His Immutability, His Eternity. In
a former Chapter we established the fundamental
Divine Attributes of Unity, Simplicity, Infinity,
Spirituality. We have based our proof of God’s
goodness on the fact that He is Pure Actuality. We
have proved the immensity of God, and His ubiquity
or omnipresence, from His infinity, and from the
fact that He is the necessary ] first Cause which gives
and supports the existence of all things. We have
found that God is present everywhere and in all

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THEODICY

things operatively and incircumscriptivcly. We have
proved the immutability of God from J lis actual­
ity, simplicity, and infinity. We have shown the true
meaning of eternity, and have seen that God must
be eternal since He is the Necessary Being and is
immutable.

BOOK THIRD

THE OPERATIONS OF GOD

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This Book discusses the operations of God in so far as
unaided human reason may apprehend them. It makes no
study of the divine activity which theologians call the
eternal generation of the Son of God and the eternal pro­
cession of the Holy Ghost : this is a matter of Revelation,
not of philosophy. This Book studies the activity of God’s
intellect and will, wherein God is the Creator, Conserver,
and Governor of creatures and the Concurring Principle in
their activities. In a word, this Book studies the internal or
immanent operations of the Divine Intellect and the Divine
Will, and the transient effects (or, less accurately, the
transient operations of God) whereby all creatures stand
in an essential and real relation to their Creator, Conserver,
Governor, and Concurring Principle. The Book has two
Chapters :
Chapter I. The Immanent Operations of God
Chapter II. The Transient Operations of God

NEW,; gàj ΑΤΓ i J

CHAPTER I

i
I

/THE IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD
This Chapter studies the operations of understanding and
willing which are identified with the Divine Essence, and
which, so to speak, constitute that Essence as a Personal
Nature. An immanent operation is one that remains, in it­
self and in its main effect, within the principle that gives
rise to it. It is a vital operation, a life-operation. Now, the
life of God is not an organic life ; there can be no question
of vegetal or sentient operations in God ; but there can and
must be the perfect, the infinite, operations of intellect and
will. These operations are not accidents in God, as under­
standing and willing are in man. For in God there are no
accidents; all that God has He is; all perfections are identi­
fied in God with the simple Divine Essence. The Chapter is
divided into three Articles, as follows:
Article I. The Operations of God’s Intellect
Article 2. The Operations of God’s Will
Article 3. The Personal Nature of God

Article i. The Operations of God’s
Intellect
a) The Divine Knowledge
Divine Knowledge

b) Classification of the
c) The Divine Ideas

a) THE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

We have seen that God is the All Perfect. Every
pure perfection is found in God in infinite degree.
181

A. CW WA:.T ;T

182

THEODICY

Now, knowledge is a pure perfection. Therefore,
we see how right and reasonable is the statement of
our little catechism, “God knows all things.”
God’s knowledge not only extends to all things,
but it exhausts the knowability of things. Such
knowledge is called comprehensive knowledge. Truly
comprehensive knowledge is beyond the capacity of
any creature; all creatural knowledge is apprehen­
sive merely. For to comprehend a thing is to know
it thoroughly in itself and in all its actual and pos­
sible relations with other things. To comprehend a
thing is not merely to know what the thing is, and
how it stands with reference to other things; it is
also to know all that the thing could be and how it
could stand with reference to all other things actual
and possible. Manifestly, such complete knowledge
is not within the grasp of a finite understanding. Yet
such knowledge must be predicated of the Infinite
Understanding.
Truly comprehensive, and hence infinite, knowl­
edge is called perfect science. It is our purpose to prove
that this perfect science exists in God and is one with
the Divine Essence Itself. The proof is direct and
compelling.
The infinitely perfect Being must possess, in a
transcendent or eminent way, all pure perfections.
( Now, knowledge is a pure perfection, for it involves
j in itself (omitting consideration of the manner in
i which some creatures must laboriously acquire it)

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

183

no imperfection. Hence knowledge must exist in the
infinitely perfect Being in a transcendent or eminent
way. But knowledge cannot exist in the infinitely
perfect Being in a transcendent way except it be
comprehensive knowledge, that is, perfect science.
Therefore, perfect science exists in the infinitely per- .
feet Being, that is, in God. But, since God is abso- '
lutely simple, His knowledge is not something added \
to His essence, or compounded with His essence;
it is something identified with Elis essence. Hence,
God not only has perfect science; He is perfect sci­
ence; He is infinite understanding.
In Criteriology we learn that non-materiality is
the root of knowledge and of knowing. A thing that
is wholly material, such as a stone, has no amplitude
of function, no power of taking in the “forms” of
other things as such (that is, as of other things),
but is limited to its own form ; and any accidental
form which it receives it makes its own. But a
knowing-creature (animal or man) can receive or
take in other things cognitionally ; it can know them ;
it can take in their forms without making them its
own; it can possess the forms of other things (that
is, can know other things) as other things. In a
word, a knowing-creature is less limited than a non­
knowing creature because it has less of the limita­
tion imposed by sheer materiality or bodiliness. And
the less of materiality about a knowing-creature, the
wider and deeper its range of knowledge, and the

i 84

THEODICY

more pure, universal, and abstract are the items or
elements of its knowledge. Thus the intellectual
knowledge of man is of wide and deep range, is
universal and abstract, while the sentient knowledge
of man or beast is limited to concrete and singular
things. In a word, the more a thing is removed
from materiality and the limitations that come with
materiality, the more perfect is its operation of
knowing and the more embracing and complete is
its knowledge. Now, God is the Infinite Spirit. In
God there is no materiality whatever. Therefore, in
God there is nothing to limit and qualify know ledge.
It follows that God’s knowledge must be the most
perfect possible. In God there is perfect science. God
is perfect science; God is infinite understanding.
Now, it may be asked, “What is the object of
God’s knowledge?” The simple answer is, “All
things knowable.” But there is need to make a dis­
tinction here, and to discern what is the primary,
and what the secondary, object of the Divine In­
tellect.
The primary object of a knowing-power (or sim­
ply the primary object of knowledge in any knower)
is that which is attained by the knower directly, immediately, and in itself. The secondary object of a
knowing-power is that which it can know through or
by reason of the primary object.
The primary object of the Divine Intellect is the
Divine Essence Itself. For, in any knowing-being,

j
1

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I
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ί
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IMMANENT OPERATIONS OE GOD

185

there is a proportion, an equality, between the thing
it is framed to know and its power to know it. But
between the Infinite Understanding and what it can
know there can be a proportion or equality only if
the object known be itself infinite. And the only
infinite object is the Infinite Being, that is, the Di­
vine Essence Itself. There tore, God knows Him­
self, first and foremost (that is, as primaiy object).
Nor is there any force in the objection that if God
knows Himself perfectly He is, so to speak, defined
and limited by that knowledge, and, since God is in
no wise limited, this involves a contradiction and
cannot be; therefore, says the objection, God does
not perfectly know Himself. The objection is short­
sighted. For if there is anything that God’s knowl­
edge does not include, it is imperfect knowledge,
and is therefore a lack and a limit in the perfect and
limitless God. In a word, the objection seeks to
avoid a difficulty which is merely apparent by diving
full force into a difficulty which is real and unan­
swerable. Of course, if God's knowledge were a
thing which God merely has; if it were an acquisi­
tion of God; if it were something superadded to the
Divine Essence, it would be a limiting thing, and for
God to know Himself would be for God to know
the boundaries of the Boundless and to recognize
limits in the Limitless. But, as we have seen, God’s
knowledge is one with Himself. It is not something
acquired by God as creatural knowledge is acquired

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THEODICY

by a knowing-creature. What we call God’s knowl­
edge is only one phase of God’s infinite essence. And
to say that God knows Himself perfectly, and that
the Divine Essence is the primary object of the Di­
vine Understanding, is merely to say that God is
Himself. Hence the objection is manifestly founded
upon a seeming difficulty merely, and not upon a
real one.
In knowing Flimself perfectly (that is, compre­
hensively) God knows the full extent of all His
powers. He therefore knows all things creatable,
all things sustainable, all things with which Ide can
concur in being and in action. In a word, in and
through His knowledge of Himself, God knows all
other things. Now, what is known in and through
the primary object of knowledge is the secondary
object of knowledge. Therefore, all things other
than God, all creatures and all their actual and pos­
sible relations, constitute the secondary object of
God’s knowledge or of the Divine Intellect.
St. Thomas Aquinas puts the matter thus, “It is
clear that God knows Himself perfectly, else He
would not be perfect in being, for His very being
is to know. Now, if anything is known perfectly, its
pozver is known. And if a power is perfectly known,
there are known also the realities to which the power
extends and in which it produces its effects. There­
fore, since the Divine Power extends to all things
as their First Efficient Cause, it follows that God

I

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

187

in knowing Himself knows all things other than
Himself.”
God’s knowledge of all things other than Him­
self, that is, His knowledge of all creatural reality,
is not a mere general knowledge, but is perfect in
all details, ft is truly comprehensive knowledge,
since it is knowledge in and of the Infinite Being.
Therefore, God knows every single thing that now
exists, has existed, will exist, or could exist. All
things, actual and possible, necessary and free, sub­
stantial and accidental, are perfectly comprehended
by the Divine Intellect.
God knows Himself perfectly, and He knows all
other things in Himself. In this the Divine Knowl­
edge is different from creatural knowledge, say human
knowledge. For a man knows things in them­
selves by reason of a species or cognitional image
which the realities known impress upon his knowing­
powers or faculties. A man receives his knowledge;
it is something over and above his essence and not
part and parcel with his essence itself. A man gathers
his knowledge, beginning with the sense-grasp of
bodily things which he finds about him in this world.
From this he rises to intellectual concepts, and to
the knowledge of things bodily and non-bodily in
their essences. Thus we say that a man knows reali­
ties in themselves and not in himself. But God’s
knowledge is not acquired, not gathered, not built
up, not reasoned out or abstracted. God’s knowledge

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THEODICY

does not result in God from the impression upon
the Divine Mind of the images or species of crea­
tures. God’s knowledge is necessarily one with the
Divine Essence, and is therefore changeless and
eternal. God’s knowledge of creatures does not de­
pend upon the creatures being here to impress them­
selves upon His notice; God needs no experience of
creatures to form in Himself the ideas by which
they are known; His knowledge of creatures is full
and perfect from eternity and was thus full and per­
fect before any creature existed. Nor is God’s knowl­
edge improved or in any wise altered by the fact
that certain creatures come into existence at a mo­
ment and in a manner eternally decreed by the Di­
vine Will. From eternity God knows all possible
creatures, in all their possible relations, in Himself,
and not in themselves. In the single and simple and
eternal grasp of Elis unchanging essence, God per­
fectly and eternally knows all creatural realities.
N

Λ

A special question which has been the subject of
a prolonged and still unsettled controversy must here
be presented. It may be expressed in these terms, “In
what manner does God know future free events
(called ‘future contingencies’), that is, things that
arc actually going to happen, but are not in them­
selves things that need to happen since they depend
upon the free choice of rational creatures?’’ A fu­
ture contingency or future free event depends upon,

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

189

or is contingent upon, the- operation of causes that
are not truly prediciablc, since these causes arc not
necessitated but free. That John, who is three, will
marry Jane, newly born, twenty years hence on a
certain day and at a certain hour, may be a fact, but,
at this moment, it is a future contingency. That
James will quarrel with his employer next year and
throw up his job, may come to pass in actual fact,
but right now it is a future contingency or future
free event. God knows that these future contingen­
cies will come to pass; there is no doubt or question
on that point. But the controversy focusses upon
the manner or the mode of God’s knowledge of fu­
ture contingencies. Iloiu does God know these future
free events? The following opinions are offered in
answer to this question :
I. The Doctrine of Molina. Molina, a famous
Spanish Jesuit of the sixteenth century, notable both
as a theologian and a philosopher, held that God
knows future free events in his “supcrcomprehension of causes,” independently of any decree of the
Divine Will. This opinion seems inadequate. For to
know a contingent or free event in its causes, is to
have only a more or less perfect conjectural knowl­
edge of the event ; it is to be in position to make a
more or Jess perfectly accurate guess about the event.
But God’s knowledge is in all ways most perfect and
most certain, with no guesswork about it.

j go

THEODICY

2. The Doctrine of Banes. Banez, famous Dom­
inican contemporary and countryman of Molina,
held that God knows future free events in the eter­
nal decrees of I fis will. This doctrine, baldly stated,
seems misleading·. Bor the divine decrees arc not
blindly issued laws, nor arc they decrees which de­
stroy the real freedom of free causes. Yet, in itself,
the blunt doctrine of Banez seems to suggest both
of these impossibilities.

5. The Doctrine of Cajetan. Cajetan, sixteenth
century Italian theologian and philosopher, holds the
opinion commonly accepted as the Thomistic doc­
trine (that is, as the true interpretation of the doc­
trine of St. Thomas Aquinas). lie teaches that God
knows all future events, including future free events,
in His own essence, as present, and in the light of
His eternal determining decrees. This doctrine ap­
pears to be the most acceptable of all. We pause
upon its several points for a brief word of explana­
tion and proof.
«) God knows future contingencies as present.
For the process of time has no limiting effect upon
the Infinite Mind; to God there is no future and no
past; all things are present to His knowledge. And,
granted that future free events are future to finite
minds, and hence are but a matter of conjecture or
uncertain knowledge, they are present to the Infinite
Mind and are thus the object of certain knowledge.

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

191

Again, the future free events that are actually going;
to happen, have, when they happen, the necessity of
fact. In themselves, considered abstractly, they do
not need to happen; they depend upun free choice;
but when the choice is once made and the events actu­
ally come to pass, then they have to he what they
are. Now, the Infinite Mind actually beholds these
events, as present, and hence as having the necessity
of fact, which does not in the least affect their es­
sentially free character, but which renders them ob­
jects of certain knowledge in the Infinite Mind.
&) God knows future contingencies in His own
essence. For the Divine Essence, viewed as the Di­
vine Knowledge, embraces completely all possibili­
ties, and so embraces all future realities. Thus the
Divine Essence Itself is sufficient reason to account
for God’s knowledge of future free events.
c) God knows future contingencies in the light
.of His eternal determining decrees. For all things
■' have their being in the will and power of God to
bestow it, and in the will and power of God to con­
cur in creatural activities and operations. Hence,
while the free wills of rational creatures are truly
free, and they truly choose their proximate objects,
such freedom and such choice is dependent upon
God’s eternal decrees to create the free wills, to sus­
tain them in freedom, and to move them and to concur
in their free choice. Ontology teaches us that the root­
principle of sheer possibility is the Divine Intellect;

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THEODICY

tilings possible have their possibility, in last analysis,
because they are known as possible in the Divine
Mind. And their extrinsic possibility (that is, their
possibility as things c.xistible, not merely as things
thinkable) depends upon the Divine \\ ill, and hence
on the eternal decrees of God. Now, future free events
arc more than merely possible, since they are, as a fact,
going to take place. But if the Divine Will and its
decrees are requisite for extrinsic possibilité··, it is
still more evident that the Divine Will and its de­
crees are required for future actuality; for if even
the lesser mode of being requires the Divine Will,
certainly the greater or more perfect mode of being
requires It.
/' b) CLASSIFICATION OF THE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

/

's

\
i

We may distinguish in God (by a distinction of
reason based on reality) knowledge that is : I. Spec­
illative or Practical; 2. Necessary or Free; 5. Approving or Non-approving; 4. Knowledge of Simple
Intelligence or Knowledge of Vision. The last clas­
sification is, far and away, the most important we
have here to consider. But we shall say a word of the
other types too.
I. Speculative knowledge means knowledge that
contemplates truth but has no direct concern with
action. When a man studies ancient history for the
sake of information, he does not propose to do any-

ΐΙιΐιίΠΤΙΜΓ^Γ^^^^λ.:^··^·^-·^:^ -

.. '

A-J-T .

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

193

tiling with the knowledge acquired. fl is aim is specu­
lative. He wants knowledge for the enlightenment and
enrichment of mind it gives him ; he wants truth to
know it, to contemplate it. Such, in general, is spec­
ulative knowledge. The term spcci/laiivc conics from
the Latin verb speculari “to look at.” But when a
man studies carpentry, or engineering, he intends to
use his knowledge in doing things. His aim is prac­
tical. He wants to know that he may do something
in consequence. Such is practical knowledge. The
word practical has its roots in the Greek prattcin “to
make, to do.” Now, God’s knowledge of Himself
is manifestly speculative knowledge. His knowledge
of things other than Himself is at once speculative
and practical. Of things sheerly possible, not con­
sidered as to be made or not made but seen merely
in themselves as what could be made, God has specu­
lative knowledge, and, inasmuch as possibility in­
volves something practical (namely, what could
actually be made or done) His knowledge is also
practical. Of things that are not but are going to be,
it is manifest that the Divine Knowledge is both
speculative and practical ; speculative inasmuch as
it knows them as things, practical inasmuch as it
knows them as things to be made. Of existing things,
God’s knowledge is speculative inasmuch as these
things are knowable objects and, indeed, are per­
fectly known in the Divine Essence ; and practical
inasmuch as God knows how to sustain these things

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THEODICY

in being and operation. God's knowledge of evil is
mainly speculative, yet it is also practical inasmuch
as it is knowledge of what God permits, impedes, or
draws into place in Ilis providence.

2. God’s knowledge of Himself is necessary
knowledge, that is, He knows Himself perfectly and
cannot be ignorant of Himself; as He is Necessary
Being, and as His knowledge is one with His Es­
sence, so He is Necessary Knowledge. God’s knowl­
edge of things that depend for being upon His
perfectly free and infinite Will is called free knowl­
edge. God cannot be ignorant of these things, but
they are not one with Himself as Necessary Knowl­
edge, even though they be known in His eternal
Essence.
5. God’s knowledge of creatures in their positive
being, that is, in their essential and transcendental
goodness, is knowledge which involves approval. So
the Creator, looking upon and knowing the works
of His hands, “saw that they were very good.”
God’s knowledge of things in their positive being or
goodness is not something aloof and detached ; it is
not knowledge merely, but it is causal knowledge,
since God, whose essence and knowledge are really
identified, is the cause of these things ; hence, neces­
sarily, He approves them. God’s knowledge of evils,
of deficiencies, is non-approving, since God is only

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LMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

195

the accidental cause of physical evil, and is in no
sense the cause of sin or moral evil.

4. The most important distinction of the Divine
Knowledge is that which classifies it as (<z) The
Knowledge of Simple Intelligence or Simple Under­
standing, and (έ>) The Knowledge of Vision.
(u) The Knowledge of Simple Intelligence is
that Divine Knowledge which has as its object (that
is, as the thing known) all things possible but not
things that arc ever to be. All that could be, but
have not been, are not, nor wall be,—these things
are the object of the Divine Knowledge of Simple
Intelligence.
(ά) The Knowledge of Vision is that Divine
Knowledge which has as its object all that has been,
is, or will be actual. Things that have existed in the
past, or exist now, or will exist in time to come,—
these are the object of the Knowledge of Vision;
these things lie within the direct view, so to speak,
of God, which beholds them as present, no matter
what be their position in the time-limited view of
finite minds.
Now, Molina and many other philosophers have
taught that a third classification is to be made in
the Divine Knowledge, and that ibis holds a middle
place between the two types just mentioned, and is
to be called, in consequence, scientia media, or “Mid­
dle Knowledge.” The Latin term, scientia media,

-

. * j _.

.... ...

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THEODICY

is universally used when this classification of Divine
Knowledge is in question; one never hears or reads
the English translation of it. The Molmist doctrine
amounts to this: God knows thim/s merely possible
by His Knowledge of Simple Intelligence ; lie
knows all actual things, including those truly future,
by His Knowledge of Vision. .Bui there is a special
class of things not included among the objects of
these two types of knowledge. There arc the things
which a man would do if certain conditions were to
be fulfilled, but which, as a fact, he will not do be­
cause those conditions will not be fulfilled. These
things are called “conditionally future events” or,
in the commonly used Latin term, futuribilia. The
futuribilia (things that are not truly future, since
they will never come to pass, but things condition­
ally future because under certain conditions, that
will not be realized, they would come to pass by the
free choice of man) are the objects of the scientia
media.
We do not find acceptable the doctrine of Molina,
nor are we prepared to recognize the scientia media
as a necessary classification of the Divine Knowl­
edge. We do not agree that the futuribilia consti­
tute a special class of knowables, distinct from the
respective objects of the Knowledge of Simple In­
telligence and the Knowledge of Vision. And where
we find no truly and definitely distinct object of

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

197

knowledge, we must not assert the existence of a
definitely distinct type oi knowing.
Certainly, we admit, and emphatically assert, that
God knows all things knowable, including the futuri­
bilia. Our Lord gave expression to His knowledge
of such conditionally future events when I le said
(Luke x, /5) : “Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee.
Bethsaida. For if in Tyre and Sidon had been
wrought the might)- works that have been wrought
in you, they would have done penance long ago,
sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” God knows the
futuribilia. But we assert that this knowledge is
Knowledge of Simple Intelligence. We find no need
for declaring the existence of a scientia media. We do
not find acceptable the Molinist argument that the
futuribilia are an object distinct from the respective
objects of the other two types of Divine Knowledge,
and that futuribilia are something more than things
sheerly possible (which fall under Simple Intelli­
gence) and something less than things to be actual in
future (which fall under Vision).
God's knowledge of things to come is Knowledge
of Vision, for the time element does not affect the
Infinite Mind, and things to come are seen as pres­
ent. God’s knowledge of things that would come
under certain conditions is cither knowledge of
what will be when conditions are fulfilled (and this
is Knowledge of Vision) ; or it is knowledge of

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THEODICY

what would be, but actually will not be. since the
conditions arc not to be fulfilled, and this amounts
to knowledge of things possible, and comes under
the Knowledge of Simple Intelligence.
Father Boedder, S.J., in his Natural 7 hcology
(p.2<Sg), says, “We ourselves hold strongly to what
is meant by the term scientia media, without insist­
ing upon the necessity of retaining this term as
such/' Well, certainly we all hold strongly to the
manifest truth that God knows all knowables, in­
cluding the futuribilia, and that appears to be the
essence of “what is meant by the term scientia
media.” If we reject the term itself, and the special
and distinct type of Divine Knowledge which the
term suggests, we have solidly scientific grounds for
our action. For the axiom, “Things are not to be
multiplied without necessity’’ forbids the forming
of distinctions in the Divine Knowledge without
definitely distinct objects of knowledge which de­
mand them.
We may conclude our brief discussion of this
question by defining, the scientia media in terms ac­
ceptable to the Molinists : “The scientia media is
that Divine Knowledge whereby God, antecedently
to His decrees of fulfilling or not fulfilling condi­
tions for action, knows for certain what a man
(i. e., a free creature) would do if such conditions
were actually fulfilled.”

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

199

The discussion of scientia media is rather aca­
demic than practical. But there is another, and a
most practical, question which we must mention
here. It is the question of God's foreknowledge and
man’s free-will.
God knows all things, future as well as past and
present, and even things conditionally future. But
things are necessarily as God knows them to be.
Therefore, it appears that human freedom is illusory.
For if God knows what I am going to do at every
moment of my future, that is what I am surely
going to do. How, then, am I free? We answer that
knowledge does not necessarily create or cause its
object. God knows what I will choose and that I
will freely choose it. His knowledge does not im­
pose necessity upon my choice. A man knows that
excessive drinking will produce intoxication, but his
knowledge does not make him drunk. A sportsman
knows that the race will start at a given signal, but
his knowledge does not cause the horses to run. The
college chef knows that when he rings the dinner­
gong, there will be a prompt assembling of students
in the dining-hall, but his knowledge does not take
away the freedom of the students. There is no real
difficulty in this matter of Divine Foreknowledge
and human free-will. The difficulty is mere seeming.
There is a more intriguing, yet not a more real,
difficulty in the question of God’s requisite support

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THEODICY

and movement in man's actual free choice. Tins dif­
ficulty we shall consider in the next c hapter.

c)

THE

DIVINE

IDEAS

When we speak of ideas or concepts we mean,
first and foremost, those mental re-presentations of
essences which arc formed by the human mind act­
ing upon the findings of the senses. Here, when we
speak of the ideas in the Divine Mind, our language
is analogical. For God knows the essences of all
things without having to form the representations
of them within Himself; He does not require that
things exist to be known, nor does He need to be
impressed by the species or images of things to have
them cognitionally present in His essence. Since
God is the First Being, He exists before all crea­
tures, and His perfect knowledge of creatures is
not gained or acquired from them, but is present
in and of Elis essence from eternity before any crea­
tures exist. Further, the cognitional presence (that
is, the idea or concept) of any reality is not in God,
as it is in man, an accidental thing; it is really identi­
fied with the Divine Essence Itself, as we know
from the perfect and pure simplicity of the Infinite
Being. We must keep all this in mind as we discuss,
in human and therefore in metaphorical terms, the
ideas in the Divine Intellect.
It is manifest from the order and beauty of the
universe that its Efficient Cause is a most intelligent

201

cause. The Designer and Governor of the world
knows what He is about. Now. where there is design
and governance, there is antecedent knowledge, and
in accordance with this knowledge the plan is formed
and executed. God, therefore, antecedently to the
existence of any creature, knows the univcise in
general anti in every smallest detail. We say that
the “elements” of this knowledge are the Divine
Ideas.
God is an intelligent agent, that is, one who acts
with understanding of what is being done and with
the will to do it. We find around us here in the
world, and indeed we find within ourselves,—in the
body-processes of digestion and nervous reaction,
for instance,—forces or agencies at work which are
not themselves intelligent. The stone manifests the
action of cohesion and gravitation ; the plant grows
and matures and reproduces its kind; the animal
sees, hears, experiences appetite or tendency; and
in all these agents (that is, actors or doers or per­
formers) we find no understanding and no con­
scious free direction of the activities mentioned.
Such agents are called natural agents {agentia per
naturam) to distinguish them from intelligent agents
{agentia per intellectum). Alan, dowered as he is
with understanding and free-will, is, in his human
or free acts, an agens per intellectum; he is an in­
telligent agent. And, since intelligent activity is of
its nature a finer and purer perfection than natural

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IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

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THEODICY

activity; since, indeed, intelligent activity is. in it­
self, a pure perfection, it must be attributed in a
transcendent or eminent manner to the 1· irst Being.
God must be the agens per intellectum par excel­
lence. And this means (hat the ideas ot all creatable
things, of all tilings possible, must be perfecti)· pres­
ent in and of the Divine Essence from eternity.
Now, the ideas according to which, and in the
light of which, free intelligent activity is c.xercised,
are the exemplar-causes of the effects which such
activity produces. The stately building which wins
the admiration of the beholder, was envisioned in
the mind and imagination of the architect before a
stone of it was actually laid. It was known by the
architect before it was given actuality or existence,
and the knowledge was the light and guide of the
work that produced the building. The knowledge of
the architect, which was first expressed in plans and
blue-prints and afterwards in steel and stone, was
the exemplar-cause of the activity of building and
of the finished edifice itself. In a similar manner,
God’s perfect knowledge (or the Divine Ideas) of
all things created is the exemplar-cause of all crea­
tures. We say that in God there are archetypal ideas
of all that .He has made, and indeed there are in
God archetypal ideas of all things that arc possible,
of all that can be made. The word archetype liicrallj'
means the “first model,’’ or the “first or earliest
pattern,” or the “first exemplar-cause.” The Divine

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

203

Ideas, therefore, are exemplary ideas; they are
exemplar-causes ; they arc archetypal ideas of all
crcatablc reality.
A seeming difficulty here arises. God is one, but
the world is manifold, that is, creatures are many
and various. How can the ideas of all these various
creatures exist in the Divine Mind without inducing
plurality there, and thus creating a conflict and con­
tradiction in the Divine Simplicity? W'e answer that
it is not the knowledge of a plurality of things that
induces plurality in the understanding mind, but the
fact that the mind requires, for each item of the
several things known, a distinct species or cognitional image. But it is only the finite mind that re­
quires a plurality of species for the understanding
of a plurality of objects. The knowledge of God is
one with God’s very essence, and if we use the ter­
minology of human knowing when we speak of
God, we must say that the only species in God’s
knowledge is the Divine Essence Itself. In man, the
species is the medium of knowledge ; it is that
whereby the object is known. But God, the Infinite
Being, does not require a medium for knowing ; He
does not require any means by which knowledge
may be acquired, for He does not acquire any knowl­
edge ; He has perfect knowledge in and of His
essence from eternity. Hence, the Divine Essence, as
the species of all knowables, is not that whereby God
knows; it is that which God knows. God, knowing

THEODICY

îao.iy

Himself, knows necessarily all 11 is powers and all that
His powers can produce. Therefore, in the simple un­
derstanding of Himself, God uudcrsiand.s (he whole
manifold universe of possibilities. It is. therefore, not
true to say that the plurality of Divine ldea> (called so
analogically) means a plurality in what G essentially
non-plural or simple. No plurality is induced in God by
His perfect comprehension of all things in the one
indivisible and infinitely simple species which is His

own essence.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have learned, by strict reason­
ing, that in God there is the most perfect knowledge,
perfect science, infinite understanding, and that this
knowledge is really one with the Divine Essence It­
self. We have seen that God’s own essence is the
primary object of the Divine Mind, and that the
realities other than God (that is, all creatural possi­
bilities) constitute the secondary object of God’s
knowledge. We have learned that God, in knowing
Himself, knows all other things perfectly and eter­
nally, and thus He knows creatures in Himself,
and not in themselves. We have studied the question
of God’s knozvledge of future contingencies or
future free events, and have found the doctrines
of Molina and Banez less acceptable than that of
Cajetan, who, following St. Thomas Aquinas, holds
that God knows all future events, including future

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

205

contingencies, in His own essence, as présent, and
consequent upon His eternal determining decrees.
We have classified the Divine Knowledge as specu­
lative and practical, as necessary and free, as ap­
proving and non-approz'ing, as Knowledge of Simple
Intelligencc and Knowledge of Kision. We have re­
jected die scientia media theory as unnecessary to
explain God’s knowledge of futuribilia, that is, of
events that depend upon human choice, and which
will not take place actually, hut would take place
were certain conditions to be fulfilled. We have seen
that there is no real conflict between God’s fore­
knowledge and man’s free-will. We have studied the
Divine Ideas or exemplars or archetypes of all creat­
able things, which exist in the mind of God; we
have found that these ideas are not formed severally
by any knowing-proccss or knowing-effort of the
Divine Intellect, but exist perfectly in and of the
Divine Essence from eternity. We have learned that
God’s essence is the single and simple and infinite
species in which He eternally knows all things.
Article 2. The Operations of God’s Will
a) The Divine Will
b) Classification of Will-acts in God
c) Object of the Divine Will
d) The Divine Will and Evil

a) THE DIVINE WILL

The will is the tendency to follow intellectual
knowledge by appropriate action. It is the intellectual

2θ6

THEODICY

appetency. Tt is the power or faculty to choose a
course of action which is intellectually manifested as
good to follow. All these descriptions of will are.
of course, literally applicable to the facalhy of will­
ing in a ratio nul créai arc, that is, in a creature en­
dowed with understanding and the ability to act
with conscious purpose in consequence of its find­
ings. When we speak of God, we must remove from
our concept of will all that makes it a limited and
imperfect thing, all that makes it a faculty or ac­
cidental power, all that makes it something really
distinct from understanding and from the essence
of the being which understands. For in God there
is no real distinction save that of the distinction of
Persons in the Trinity, a distinction which we have
no right to discuss in a purely human or rational
science. God’s will must exist, for will is a perfec­
tion and God is identified with the infinity of all
perfections subsisting in simple and eternal unity.
But God’s will is not, as our wills are, a power which
God has; no, God’s will is a perfection which God
is; it is one with the essence of God. Therefore, just
as it is correct to say that God is infinite mind or
infinite understanding or infinite knowledge, so it is
correct to say that God is infinite will. Still, we are
limited by the inadequacies of creatural understand­
ing and of human speech, and, if we are to discuss
the Divine Will at all, we must perforce discuss
It in terms that express It as something akin to the

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

207

creatural faculty of will that we know and experi­
ence within our limited selves. Our language is neces­
sarily analogical in this discussion, as it is in the
discussion of all the Divine Perfections.
Now, can God be truly and factually regarded as
Will? Is God infinite will? In more understandable,
but less accurate speech, is there a will in Godr
I. In God there is, formally or as such, and in
an eminent or transcendent way, all that our knowledge of creatures discloses to us as pure and unsrjymixed perfection. Now, will in itself (and not in its
halting and limited creatural exercise) is unquestion­
ably a pure and unmixed perfection. For there is
nothing of imperfection in the tendency to follow
knowledge with appropriate action ; on the contrary,
knowledge without tendency or ability to act upon
it would be itself imperfect, since knowledge finds
its fulfillment and rounded meaning in being carried
out ; and hence this capacity or faculty for carrying
out knowledge is itself a perfection. In creatures,
the will is subject to influences that hamper and
thwart it; it is capable of an abuse that turns it
against the very purpose of its existence; it is pos­
sible to employ it in a fashion that is morally evil
and to make it the directive force behind movements
that are both physically and morally bad. We say
that every human will is weak; we say that many
a human will is a bad will (not in itself indeed but

ΣΖΞΣΣΖΖΗΖΖΖΣΣ

208

deficiencies, and defections is an evil in the willingpower itself. Tn will, considered purely in itself,

there is nothing that the mind can discover but pure
perfection. Therefore, this perfection is a pure and

unmixed perfection, and it must be attributed for­
mally to the Infinite Being. Hence we must attribute

will to God. God is Infinite Will.
2. Wherever there is understanding there must
be will. For wherever there is knowledge there is
tendency to follow knowledge. This truth is evident,
almost self-evident, and it receives full confirmation
in the check-up of our own experience. For knowl­
edge is seldom purely and entirely speculative ; very
frequently,—and in some measure always,—it points
on to something-to-be-done. Knowledge is a light
that frequently reveals a path that may be followed;
it discovers not only facts, but ways and means ; it
illumines no meaningless universe with a merely
entertaining light, but shows ends to be attained.
And this truth which is predicable, in due measure,
of all knowledge, even sentient knowledge, is mani­
festly most truly and inevitably predicable of in­
tellectual knowledge. Rightly do we declare that
where there is understanding there is a drive and
tendency to use understanding practically, to act on
it, to carry out its plans for good, to achieve the

TO-.1- ai·,.

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

THEODICY

in its use) ; and these declarations point to defi­
ciencies, limits, evils. But none of these limitations,

,i .λ H-.-C.

209

objects it shows to be desirable or necessary. In a
word, rightly do we say that where there is an un­
derstanding there is a will. Now, as we have seen,
God is Infinite l/nderstanding; therefore (since God
is simple and all perfections are identified with His

essence) God is also Infinite Will.

b)

CLASSIFICATION OF WILL-ACTS IN GOD

We distinguish in God will-acts that are ante­
cedent and those that are consequent, and so we
speak of God’s antecedent will and His consequent
will.
God’s antecedent will is the Divine Will inasmuch
as it wills good and rejects evil simply, without tak­
ing into account (hence antecedently to) any condi­
tions or circumstances that might make what is
simply or generally good a non-good or evil in cer­
tain cases. Thus, by His antecedent will, God wills
all men to be saved. For salvation is the highest
good of man, and God wills it simply or antecedently
for all, without consideration of the circumstances
which, in individual cases, might make it unjust.
God’s consequent will is the Divine Will inasmuch
as it wills what is good and rejects evil, not abso­
lutely, simply, unconditionally, and in a general way,
but in the special circumstances and conditions of
each complex situation. Taking into account (and
hence consequent upon but not dependently on) these

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THEODICY

special circumstances and conditions, God's conse­
quent will decrees the punishment, and not the salva­
tion, of the unrepentant sinner, even though, by His
antecedent will, God wills the salvation of all men. Of
course, the consequent will decrees what is good, and
this in a more special way than the antecedent w ill. It
is good, in general, that all men be saved, and the
salvation of all is willed or wished by the antecedent
will of God. It is good, in each special case, that full
justice should be done, and it is evil for justice to be
traversed or offended; the consequent will of God
wills that the unrepentant sinner should have justice.
In the case of the unrepentant sinner, punishment is
good, as being required by justice.
c) OBJECT OF THE DIVINE WILL

The object of any faculty is what that faculty ob­
tains or achieves in its normal function, and that
which it is connaturally fitted to attain and towards
the attainment of which it tends. Now, while the
Divine Will is not a faculty, but is identified with
the Divine Essence, we speak of It in human terms
as though It were a faculty.
The object of any faculty is twofold, namely,
primary and secondary. The primary object, as we
have seen in discussing the Divine Intellect, is that
which the faculty tends to attain by its direct and
immediate and first-and-foremost action; it is that
which the faculty tends per se primo (of itself and

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

21 r

primarily) to attain. The secondary object is that
which the faculty tends to attain in, through, or
by reason of its primary object. Thus, for instance,
the faculty of sight in man tends to attain, that is,
to perceive, colored surface. This is the primary
object of sight. But because sight perceives colored
surface, it perceives also where such surface termi­
nates, and thus perceives the shape or figure of visi­
ble objects. This is a secondary object of sight. We
have already learned that the primary object of the
Divine Mind or Intellect is the Divine Essence It­
self. And we have also seen that, in comprehending
the Divine Essence, the mind of God comprehends
all the Divine Powers and all that these can accom­
plish, and hence comprehends all creatures. In and
through and by reason of the perfectly compre­
hended Divine Essence (primary object), the mind
of God comprehends all creatable things (secondary
object). Now, as it is with the Divine Mind, so is
it also with the Divine Will. The primary object of )
the Divine Will is the Divine Essence Itself, and the J
secondary object is all that is in line with the pri­
mary, and may be viewed as related to it as means
to end. But, before discussing and proving this point,
we must say a word about the nature of will-acts in
general.
The intellect tends to embrace and understand all
truth. The will tends to attain and possess and en­
joy all good. Now, the tendency towards good is at

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THEODICY

the same time a tendency away from evil. And this
tendency may, in all cases, be truly regarded as
love. The acts proper to the will itself are often
listed as these six: wish ; intention; consent to the
requisite means of carrying out intention: choice
of suitable means; use of such means, enjoyment
of the good attained. Every one of these six will-acts
is an aspect or expression of love. To have a wish
is to entertain a simple love of the thing wished
for; to intend a thing is to like or love it enough
to have the purpose of attaining it ; to consent to
the means required to achieve an end is to like or
love that end enough to undertake or undergo what
is necessary to attain it; to choose means is to like
the end enough to take pains in the election of ways
to come by it; to use the means chosen is a further
expression of this love ; and to enjoy the beloved
object when attained, is to rest in'it complacently or
lovingly. And where there is love there is hatred,
where there is choice there is rejection; just as a
step towards the north is inevitably a step away
from the south. Hence, to wish an end or object is
to reject what is opposed to that object and its at­
tainment ; to intend an end is to turn away from
its opposite ; and so with all the will-acts. Thus rejec­
tion or hatred is, so to speak, the under-side of love;
it is part and parcel with love itself. Therefore, we
repeat, all will-acts may be considered in terms of
love. And when we come to the study of the object

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

213

of the Divine Will, primary and secondary, we seek
to learn what the Divine Will loves.
We have two points to establish. First, God loves
Himself necessarily, as the primary object of the
Divine will. Secondly, God loves things other than
Himself freely, as the secondary object of the Divine
Will.
I. God loves Himself necessarily as the primary
object of the Divine Will. This truth has two dis­
tinct parts; God loves Himself as the primary ob­
ject of the Divine Will ; and this love is not free but
necessary. («) The primary object of any will is
that which is the ultimate and full answer to the
will-tendency. Now, the Divine Will is an infinite
tendency or appetite for good, and Its ultimate and
full answer must be Infinite Good Itself, that is to
say, the ultimate and full answer to the tendency
called the will of God must be the Divine Essence
Itself. For only the Divine Essence is an Infinite
Good. Again, as we have already seen, will is con­
sequent upon intellect. Will is a tendency to follow
understanding, and to lay hold of and possess (that
is, to love) what the understanding knows as good
and desirable (that is, as lovable). Now, the Divine
Intellect or Understanding knows the Divine Essence
as supremely perfect and lovable, and hence the Divine
Will tends primarily towards the Divine Essence as
Its end. God, therefore, loves Himself; the Divine

214

THEODICY

Essence is the primary object of the Divine Will. (&)
The tendency of any faculty towards its primary
object is a necessary tendency; it is what llic faculty
is for; it is that which defines the faculty and gives
it meaning. But, as we have seen, the primary object
of the Divine Will is the Divine Essence. I lence,
the Divine Will tends towards (that is, loves) the
Divine Essence necessarily. This does not involve
any limitation in God ; it does not mean that God is
necessitated by anything extrinsic to Himself. Tn
creatures, it is true, the perfect object of a faculty
necessitates that faculty and, by the same token,
limits the faculty and indicates its finite character.
This is because the determining or necessitating
factor in the case is extrinsic to the creatural faculty
itself. But in God, the necessary object is Himself;
it is not something extrinsic to the Divine Essence
which forces, directs, or limits It ; it is the Divine
Essence Itself. Therefore, to say that God neces­
sarily loves the Divine Essence is merely to say that
God is God ; it is not to say that God is necessitated
by anything that bears upon Him, so to speak, from
without, for this (as is manifest, since God is the
First Being and the only Necessary Being) is wholly
impossible.

Gocl freely loves things other than Himself, as
the secondary object of the Divine Will. Three
special points are to be distinguished in the declara-

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

215

tion. (a)God loves or wills things other than Him­
self. The fact that creatures exist is ample proof
that God wills them to exist; otherwise their exist­
ence is inexplicable. And, even abstracting from the
actual existence of creatures, we may prove that
God loves or wills things other than Himself, for
God is Infinite Goodness and goodness is, of its
nature, a thing that tends to communicate itself and
to spread itself abroad (bonum est diffusivum sui).
Now, the only way in which Infinite Goodness can
communicate Itself is by the sharing out, so to
speak, of Itself in finite beings. “All creatures,” says
St. Thomas Aquinas, “are but the participations of
the Divine Goodness.” This does not mean that God
■must create, or that His goodness forces Elim to
bring creatures into being; we shall see in a moment
that God’s love or will towards creatures is perfectly
free and not necessitated. It means only that the
tendency of the perfect love, that is, the Divine A'Vill,
is to give of its goodness ; it means that God wills
or loves things other than Himself, yet in Elimself,
and not as though creatures could be (which they
cannot) independent of Elimself or endowed with
any excellence of their very own. (b) _God wills
things other than Himself as the secondary object
of the Divine Will. For God, in His perfect compre­
hension of the Divine Essence, which is the primary
object of the Divine Will, perfectly comprehends all
that is within His power to create, and .wills the...

2l6

THEODICY

precise items of this infinite knowledge which shall

have actual existence as creatures. Now, the knowl­
edge of creatables in the Divine Essence is the
secondary object of the Divine Aliud, and, since will
follows understanding, in mode as in fact, the actual
choice of what creatables arc to be creatures is the

secondary object of the Divine Will. Tn a word, God
wills or loves the creatures Tie is to create as the

secondary object of the Divine Will. Take up the
point in another way: All creatures are means to
manifest the perfections of God. But means arc
never the primary object of the will; they are
secondary to the end towards which they are directed
by the will. Hence, creatures (that is, things other
than God) are loved or willed as the secondary ob­
ject of the Divine Will, (c) God loves things other
than Himself in a manner that is not necessary but
free. For the will, even of a creature (man or angel)
is not necessitated to any means without which its
end can be achieved. But God is Himself the end of
the Divine Will, and this end is perfectly possessed,
perfectly achieved, without creatures. AVhilc crea­
tures serve to manifest the Divine Perfections, noth­
ing is added to God Himself by such manifestation;
it does not supply any lack in God ; it is something
extrinsic to IIim without which He is infinitely per­
fect. The manifestation of the Divine Perfections
effected by the creation, conservation, and govern­
ance of creatures, is no more an addition to God

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

217

Himself than a picture of a man is an addition to
the man himself. Jt is an external manifestation.
The end or primary object of the Divine Will (which
is God Himself, or, in other words, the Divine Es­
sence) is perfectly and eternally and necessarily at­
tained, without reference to creatures, and would be
so attained if no creature ever existed. Hence, if
creatures are loved or willed (as we have seen that
they are) this must happen in a way that is not
requisite, not needed, not necessary, to fill up or fill
out any perfection in God Himself. But that which
is not requisite, nor needed, nor necessary, is free.
Therefore, God wills (or loves) things other than
Himself freely. It is wholly wrong, therefore, to
assert, as some learned but mistaken men have done
in times past, that God is forced by His goodness to
create. God freely chooses to create. And His choice
is an expression of the Divine Will (or the .Divine
Love) freely attaining a secondary object. It is plain
that God is not forced by any of His perfections to
any activity affecting things other than Elimself, for
every one of His perfections is infinitely identified
with every othei' and with the Divine Essence Itself,
and the Divine Essence, which is the only Necessary
Being, is wholly self-sufficing and requires nothing
beyond Itself for Its infinite being and existence.
The point is manifest, but it may be effectively
proved to the most stubborn or stupid of minds by
a brief reductio ad absurdum, that is, by an argu-

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THEODICY

ment which shows the impossible and silly and self­
contradicting consequences of the assertion that God
is forced to create. For, were God compelled by His
goodness, or by any other of I lis perfections, to
create, He would be forced to create all crcatable
things, since Infinite Perfection is not to be satisfied
by any limited expression. Further, all creatable
things would necessarily be created from eternity,
for the inner force (or perfection) compelling God
to create would exist as long as God is God. Hence,
all creatable things would of necessity exist from
eternity; none would come into existence in time;
none would suffer change or dissolution. Here we
have a twofold absurdity, namely, the eternal exist­
ence of an infinity of finite things, and the eternal
necessity of what is itself a contingent world. The
conclusion is inevitable : God’s will is not forced
with reference to its secondary object, but chooses
this object freely.

A seeming difficulty may here be considered. God
is absolutely simple, uncompounded, uncomposed.
But we have just seen that the one identical and
simple Divine Will embraces Its primary end by a
necessary action, and Its secondary end by a free
action. Is there not a conflict here ? How can one
simple activity of one simple Infinite Will be at once
necessary and free? And, with reference to creatures,
how can the one Divine Will, which is simple and

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

219

changeless, choose freely to create certain finite
beings; does not Its changelessness involve the neces­
sity of creating just those things which are created
or to be created, and so destroy the Divine freechoice? The difficulty here arises from the imperfec­
tion of our human concepts, and from our too-great
readiness to attribute (unconsciously) human limi­
tations to the unlimited God. To solve the diffi­
culty, remember that God’s necessary will (or love)
towards Himself is merely a phase or expression
of the truth that God is God. And freedom (which
marks God’s choice of the secondary object of the
Divine Will) does not formally consist in a plu­
rality of various acts, or in an ability to “change
one’s mind”; indeed such plurality and such change­
ableness or hesitation indicate limitation and im­
perfection. Freedom consists fundamentally in an
independence from outside influences. Now, God is
wholly independent of creatures, and therefore His
relation towards them is wholly and perfectly free.
But how shall we compose the apparent difficulty
which arises from the fact of God’s changelessness
when seen in conjunction with God’s free choice of
creatures ? Is not a choice a kind of change ? And
creatures are essentially changeable things, contin­
gent and non-necessary ; it would seem that they
must be the fruit of a will that has come to a deci­
sion about them, and so has changed. We must re­
call that the will of God is identified with the essence

Mil

THEODICY

of God, and that this essence is eternal. What God
wills may be itself contingent and changeable with­
out inducing change and mutability in the Divine
Wil! Itself. God, from elernit}', knows all things by
perfect comprehension; from eternity His will ex­
ercises Its eternal and changeless, yet free and in­
dependent, choice of creatures. By one simple act
God knows all things; by one simple eternal act God
wills all that He wills ; by one simple act, nay, by
the One Simple Divine Essence, God stands in
changeless relation towards Himself necessarily, while
He freely brings all things other than Himself into
their relations towards Him.
d) THE DIVINE WILL AND EVIL

Evil or badness is the absence of good. It is not
a positive thing but a negative thing. It is not the
presence of something that has its own formal con­
stitution as a thing or being; it is the absence of
something that ought to be present. Evil is a defec­
tion, a falling away, a failing, a lack, an absence. It
is impossible to conceive of evil or to define it except
in terms of absent good.
Every being is good inasmuch as it is being at all.
This is one of the basic truths of fundamental meta­
physics or ontology, and is fully explained in that
science. This goodness of being as being is called
transcendental or metaphysical goodness, and such
goodness is identified with actual being. Being and

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

221

goodness are synonymous terms when understood in
their abstract and metaphysical sense. Hence there
is no being which as such is evil. In other words,
there is no such thing as metaphysical evil.
Eut there is such a thing as physical evil, and
there is such a thing as moral evil. When a thing has
all that its nature demands for normal being and
function, it is physically perfect and physically good;
any lack of natural item or element or ingredient
renders the thing physically evil or bad. Thus when
we say that bread is good bread, we mean that it
has physical goodness; that it is properly made and
baked; that no item or ingredient or element that it
should have is lacking to it. And when we say that
bread is bad bread, or that it is “no good,” we mean
that some item, ingredient, or element, is lacking.
Here we see that physical evil is a lack and an ab­
sence of something that should be present. So sick­
ness is a physical evil, for it is the lack of normal
function in an organic nature. So death is a physical
evil, for it is the absence of life in what was once
an organism supporting life. Other physical evils are
wounds, hunger, plagues, harsh climate, inasmuch as
these things afflict men or animals, and hence induce a
lack, an absence of natural and normal condition and
function. But we must make careful distinctions.
Poison is a physically bad or evil thing when used
as food or medicine; in itself, as poison, it may be
physically good : it is good poison, but not good food

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THEODICY

for man. As with physical evil, so with moral evil
or sin; it is an absence and a lack. It is the absence
and lack of the agreement and conformity that
should be present between free human conduct
(thought, word, deed, desire, omission) and the rule
or norm of what that conduct ought to be. It is the
lack of conformity between free human activity on
the one hand, and the Eternal Law (which is proxi­
mately applied by consicence, that is, by human rea­
son) on the other.
Now, it is manifest that physical evils, and moral
evils or sins, exist in the world. The question that
here arises is : how far are such evils ascribable to
the Divine Will? Is God in any sense the cause of
any evil? Before answering this question, we recall
the fact that, since evil is always a deficiency and a
lack, it requires not so much an effecting cause as a
deficiency of cause, a cause that fails to function.
With this consideration in mind, we give a direct
answer to our question.
I. God is in no sense the cause of moral evil or
sin. The statement means that God does not will
sin either per se (that is, in itself) or per accidens
(that is, as accidentally and contingently involved in
something that He does will). If God could will
moral evil per se or in itself, we should be con­
fronted with the absurdity of Infinite Good contra­
dicting Itself, and showing an intrinsic tendency, so

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

223

to speak, towards all that conflicts with It. God
would be a contradiction in Himself, and hence
would be, not only imperfect, but impossible. We
should have the Perfect Being as imperfect; the
Necessary Being as impossible. Reason cannot ac­
cept such absurdities and contradictions, but is
forced to acknowledge that God cannot will per se
the existence of moral evil or sin. The sinner, there­
fore, is the sole author of sin ; to him alone it is
ascribable ; his will is its cause. This does not mean
that the sinner is a self-sufficient being, and the
creator of his acts ; it means that the sinner is wholly
responsible for his failures, his lack of due action,
the absence of good which should mark his moral
conduct. Remember the truth that sin, like every
evil, is a lack and a failure, and in itself requires as
cause a defecting, a failing, rather than an efficient
or effecting agent.
Neither does God will moral evil per accidens. To
will evil per accidens is to will it as involved in some­
thing willed in itself, directly or per se; it is to will it
on account of a good greater than that to which the evil
in question stands opposed. Thus, to borrow an illus­
tration from the physical order, a man walls the pain
and inconvenience and expense of a surgical opera­
tion (evils which stand opposed to comfort of body
and peace of mind) on account of a good that is
greater than comfort or freedom from money­
worries, namely, life itself and solidly established

rabiito.... te'

THEODICY

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

norma! health. Now, God cannot will moral evil on
account of a greater good than that ίο which the evil
in question stands opposed. For the evil in question
(that is, moral evil or sin) stands opposed, directly
and inevitably, to God Himself; for moral evil is
evil of human conduct inasmuch as this is out of line
with the Eternal Law and is thus opposed to the
Divine Essence. And there can be no greater good

in no sense the cause of his crime. Your gift involves
the possibility op an abuse which is entirely outside

224

than God who is the Infinite Good. Therefore, God
cannot will moral evil per accidens.
Now, evil that cannot be divinely willed per se or
per accidens cannot be divinely willed at all. For there
are no other ways of willing moral evil but these two.
Therefore, we are forced to the conclusion that God
does not will moral evil at all. God is in no sense the
cause of moral evil or sin.
God is the author of human nature, which is under­
standing and free. Now, human freedom consists es­
sentially in the capacity of a man to choose this or that
lawful thing, to act or to refrain from acting when
either course is in line with reason ; it does not consist
in man’s capacity to obey or disobey, to do good or
do evil. To disobey, to do evil, is always an abuse and
not a true use of freedom. God, the Creator is the
author of human freedom and of its true use, but not
of its abuse or sin. If you give a poor man clothing to
cover and warm him, you are the true cause of his
comfort and warmth ; but if the man uses the clothing
to make a rope with which to hang himself, you are

225

your will and intention, and even opposed to your
will. So the gift of freedom involves the possibility
of abuse, that is, of sin, though sin is entirely opposed
to the will of God who bestows the gift. God gives

freedom, and lie does not take it away again from
normally functioning man, even when the gift is used
for a purpose directly opposite to that for which it
was given. To give anything to an unperfected being
for proper use is to face the possibility of an improper
use, and this fact is particularly evident in the case
of the gift of freedom. But to give a thing for use,
is not to cause or to will its abuse ; on the contrary, it
is to will and to make possible its proper use. There­
fore, though God has given man the freedom which
man abuses when he sins or commits moral evil, God
does not will, even per accidens, this abuse of what
was given, and willed, to be properly used.
2. God does not will physical evil per se, but only
per accidens. Physical evil is not merely a limitation ;
it is a limitation or falling short of a due perfection,
that is, of something that should be present. The
natural limitations of any finite thing, each in its own
order, are not physical evils ; normal limits are not
imperfections in the creature which they mark and
determine, but, rightly seen, they are perfections. If
mere finiteness were a physical evil, the universe and

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THEODICY

all things in it would necessarily suffer this evil, and
there would he no such thing as physical perfection;
further, the Creator would be the cause /><·/- st of the
universal physical evil, even as He is the cause of the
existence and nature of creatures. What we mean by
physical evil is a lack of normal and finite perfection
that should be present in a creature. Sight is a perfec­
tion in man, even though its range be strictly limited ;
and lack of sight is an imperfection in man, that is,
it is the absence of a natural perfection that ought to
be present, and hence it is a physical evil.
God the Creator wills the existence of creatures as
the secondary object of the Divine Wilk And God
wills that creatures should have their being according
to the eternal ideas, archetypes, or exemplars in the Di­
vine Mind; these ideas are objectively perfect, each
in its kind. Now, we cannot envision an artist or
architect turning out broken and incomplete work
for its own sake. Nor can reason accept the suggestion
that the Divine Architect should will broken and in­
complete creatures for the mere sake of brokenness
and incompletion. Hence we declare that God does
not will physical evil per se} that is, in or of itself, and
for its own sake.
Nevertheless physical evils do exist in the world,
and they cannot be wholly ascribed to rebellious and
defecting human wills as moral evil must be ascribed.
Physical evils must, in some manner, be ascribed to
God. But we have seen that they cannot be ascribed

am-

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

227

to Him per se. It remains that physical evils are ascrib­
able to God per accidens.
To say that God wills physical evils per accidens is
to say that God docs not will such evils in themselves
and for themselves but inasmuch as they are involved
in the accomplishment of a greater good than that to
which the evils stand opposed. In other words, God
wills this greater good, and the physical evils that
accompany its accomplishment are permitted and
endured. Now, the great, the controlling, and the allimportant good in the world, in view of which physi­
cal evils must be endured (and thus are divinely willed
per accidens') is the right order of the universe, that
is, the proper arrangement of fact and function that
keeps all things harmoniously tending towards their
Last End. The world and all that is in it are to mani­
fest the external glory of the Creator, and man, who
holds the highest place among worldly beings, is to
know and serve God, by intellect and will, to practise
virtue, and so to attain God and happiness for eter­
nity. This is the Last End of visible creation—the
manifestation of God’s glory and the service and at­
tainment of God by human beings. This is the great
good in view of which or by reason of which order
must be conserved even when it involves the enduring
of physical evils. Of course, most physical evils would
not exist had man not upset the universe by his origi­
nal sin. But since he has done so, physical evils have
come upon the world, not by way of punishment

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Ίι

THEODIO

merely, but as out of a rearrangement and an ac­
commodation without which man would .surely fail
the purpose of his being. For it is a truth capable of
clear proof, if not of strict demonstration, that, were
(he world still the original paradise, no man would
save his soul.
A homely and very imperfect analogy may help us
understand the place of physical evils in the mainte­
nance of order in the universe. If a family is to have
the happiness and the comfort of seemly home-life,
right order must be preserved in the home. And this
order must be a moral order, touching the relations of
the members of the family in point of obedience,
mutual respect, affection, deference, consideration,
and sacrifice; and it must be a material order touching
all the physical details of homemaking and housekeep­
ing. There can be no peace and joy in the home that is
torn with dissensions, marred by disobedience and
want of respect, spoiled by selfishness. Nor can there
be happiness in the home that is carelessly managed,
unclean, needlessly disordered. If the family is to
have peace and happiness, there are sacrifices to be
endured; if it is to have decent comfort, there are
inconveniences to be undergone. Peace is purchased
by much self-sacrifice; rest is purchased by labor;
cleanliness is bought at the price of continual care and
effort. Now, if the right order of the home is bound
up with the hardships of self-sacrifice, self-denial,
wage-earning, washing, sweeping, cooking, endless

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

229

putting to rights, so the right order in the universe is
bound up with the enduring of physical evils. And,
as the homemaker wills per se the peace and happiness
of family life, and thus wills per accidens all the in­
conveniences, sacrifices, and discomforts that are in­
volved in maintaining that life, so the Divine Ruler
of the world wills per se the eternal peace and happi­
ness of men, and thus wills per accidens all the hard­
ships (called physical evils) which are involved in the
ordering of the world in view of that great end.

The order of the universe, like that of the home,
is both a moral and a material order. Towards the
maintenance, and the continual restoration, of this
order, physical evils are divinely willed per accidens.
The destruction of vegetal life is a physical evil for
the plants involved, but it is necessary for the main­
taining of the material order: without it animal life
could not endure, nor could man be properly housed
and clothed. So also the destruction of animal life for
the support of human life is a physical evil for the
animals concerned ; yet it is necessary to preserve the
order of a world which is for man before all other
creatures. And the suffering that man must endure
in his body during life, and the hardship of death
which must come to all, are stern reminders of moral
duty ; they keep a man aware of the fact that his last­
ing good is not here, and that he has a great task to
perform and small time in which to accomplish its
proper performance. Further, these physical evils are

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THEODICY

means of penance by which a man may remedy the
faults of the past, and they are apt exercises by which
he may strengthen himself for meeting the trials of
the future. Even the suffering of animals, their pains,
their diseases, and their death, are, to a thoughtful
man, strong incentives to eternal human weal ; they
show man what havoc the original sin has wrought
upon earth; they impress upon man a better under­
standing of the awful evil of sin; they stir man to
penance and reparation.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have studied the meaning of the
Divine Will, and we have learned that God is truly
Infinite Will just as He is Infinite Intellect. We have
discussed the antecedent wilt and the consequent will
of God. We have learned that the primary object of
the Divine Will is the essence of God, or God Him­
self, so that God necessarily loves Himself by infinite
and eternal Love which is identified with His own
Being. We have seen that the secondary object of the
Divine Will are creatures, that is, things other than
God, which He wills freely. We have considered the
existence of evil (moral and physical) in the world,
and have found that God’s will has no part whatever
in moral evil, so that He wills it neither per se nor
per accidens; and that Lie wills physical evils only
per accidens, that is, inasmuch as these are involved
in the good which He wills per se.

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD
Article

3. The Personal Nature

of

231

God

a) Meaning of Person
b) The Personality of God
c) Mistaken Notions on the Point

a)

meaning of

person

Philosophers define person as “a complete indi­
vidual and autonomous substance of the rational or­
der.” It will be well for us to examine this definition
carefully, weighing the meaning of every phrase.
I. A person is a substance. The world of creatures
is classified as substances and accidents. A substance
is a being that is fitted to exist itself, and not merely
as the mark, modification, or qualification of some­
thing else. An accident is a reality that is fitted to
exist, not in itself or by itself, but as the mark, modi­
fication, or qualification of something else. A man is
a substance; the man’s weight, his height, his name,
his abilities, are accidents. An apple is a substance ; its
size, color, flavor, hardness or softness, roughness or
smoothness, are accidents. Now, it is manifest that
the substantial mode of existence (that is, existence
of a thing as a substance) is more perfect than the
accidental mode. When, therefore, we apply to God
the terminology which belongs, in strictest sense, to
creatures only, it is inevitable that we should attribute
to the Infinite Being the more perfect, and not the
less perfect, mode of existence. We say that God is
a substance. For, while God is not merely fitted to

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THEODICY

exist Himself, but is the Necessary Being which exists
Itself and of Itself (hence, causelessly), we use the
term substance as the best we have, and the nearest
in meaning, to express the Divine mode of existence.
God is a substance; nay, lie is a super-substance ; He
is the substance far excellence. And God is purest
substance, for there is about Him nothing accidental.
All that God has, God is; God is not qualified, marked,
or modified by anything attached to or added to His
essence. When, therefore, we call God a personal God,
we mean, first of all, that God is substantial; He is a
substance ; He is no mere abstraction, no vaguely con­
ceived Energy or Power or hovering Atmosphere
which men assume in any effort to interpret the uni­
verse. We have already proved that God is the Infinite
Spirit. And a spirit is a substance. God is Infinite
Spiritual Substance.

2. A person is a complete substance. Among crea­
tures, a complete substance requires no co-substance
with which to join in producing a rounded substantial
existence. A man, for example, is a complete sub­
stance. But a man’s body, considered alone, is not a
complete substance. A man’s body cannot exist as a
human body unless the soul in-form it and make it a
human body; it is a substance, but not a complete one,
since it requires the existence and co-operation of an­
other substance (the soul) to give it completeness
and its being and operation as human. Now, a person

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

233

is not a substantial element of something else ; it is a
complete substance. It is manifest that God, the Di­
vine Substance, is a complete substance, for God is
simple, and there cannot conceivably be any co-substance added to Him to round out His essence. God
is a complete substance. When we say that God has a
personal nature, or that God is a personal God, we
mean, first of all, that God is a complete and perfect
substance.

5. A person is an individual substance. An indi­
vidual is a being that is not distinguished as a plu­
rality; it is just that one thing; and it is distinguished
or marked off from everything else. “An individual,”
says St. Thomas Aquinas, “is that which is undivided
in itself, and is divided off from everything not itself.”
Of course, the first suggestion in the idea of individu­
ality is that of a plurality or group of things which
are of the same essential kind (as, for example, a
group of human beings), each member of which is
individuated or marked off from each other member.
When we use the term individual with reference to
God, we do not accept this first suggestion of the idea
of individuality. We do not mean that God is one
God among several Gods all of whom have the same
kind of nature or essence. For God is one, and the
only God, as we have elsewhere proved. We mean,
when we call God an individual substance, that He
is not plural but one in His essence and nature. We

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THEODICY

cannot employ unaided reason in the discussion of
the Trinity of Persons in the One Divine Essence and
Nature. But we may say that reason can discover no
disproof, no difficulty, in the concept of the Trinity.
For a rational essence or nature subsists inasmuch as
it lias personality ; and there is nothing in the concept
of nature and essence, or in the concept of personality,
to manifest a contradiction and an impossibility in
the thought of one essence, one nature, subsisting in
a plurality of persons. This subject, however, is not
for our present discussion. We are concerned here
with the individuality of God, which means the indi­
viduality, the oneness, completeness, undividedness,
of His Divine Essence. Individuality of essence is requisite for personality, whether that personality be
singular or plural.
4. A person is an autonomous substance. The word
autonomous mean “operating by its own law.” The
ancient Latin phrase for this term is sui juris “operat­
ing by its own right.” Not every substance is autono­
mous. A man’s hand, for example, is a substance;
but its operations are not its own; its operations are
operations of the man who has the hand. Another way
of putting the matter is this: a man’s hand is a sub­
stance; it has substantiality; but it is not subsistent,
it lacks subsistence of its own. That which constitutes
a substance as sui juris or autonomous is the crowning
oerfection of an individual complete substance, and

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

235

the name of this perfection is subsistence. Every com­
plete individual substance has subsistence or is auton­
omous. God is, as we have seen, a perfect, complete,
individual substance; He is, therefore, a subsistent
substance, an autonomous substance.
5. A person is a sub stance of the rational order. A
being is said to be “of the rational order” when it is
endowed with understanding and will. Now, we have
seen that God is Infinite Understanding and Infinite
Will. He is therefore, perfectly and infinitely, “of
the rational order.” The crowning perfection which
sets up a substance as autonomous in its own order is
its subsistence, and that special subsistence which con­
stitutes a substance as a being of the rational order
is called personality. Any complete individual autono­
mous substance of the rational order has personality
or is a person. God, therefore, has personality or is a
person. That His personality is not single but trinal,
is not of present concern. The only point here to be
established is that God is truly personal.
b) THE PERSONALITY OF GOD

When we speak of God as “a personal God” we
mean that God is a true person. Faith informs us that
God subsists in three Persons. But that point does not
touch our present discussion at all. For we mean,
when we call God “a personal God,” that He is truly
a substantial Being, complete and perfect and autono-

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THEODICY

mous, and that He knows all things and rules all by
His will.
Those who deny the personality of God, or profess
to believe in “a God but not in a personal God," have
some dim notion of a world-force or world-energy
directing things blindly, or unfolding itself uncon­
sciously in what we call the development of the world
and the progress of events. It is strange that men
should be content with such a doctrine, for it conflicts
with plain reason and it defeats all the finest tend­
encies of human nature. Yet it is a sad fact that
many men, who are very keen on matters of business
or sport or pleasure or sin, are very dull on the one
matter of overwhelming importance which the human
mind has to face, in some manner, and the human
will, directly or indirectly, to embrace or reject. Some­
times one hears from unexpected sources a remark
which presents in concentrated form all the proud
smugness, all the deep stupidity, all the imbecility of
which the twisted mind of fallen man is capable. It is
the remark that “an intelligent person cannot admit
the need or the existence of a personal God.” Precisely
the opposite, exactly the contradictory of this state­
ment is true. An intelligent person,—that is, a truly
thoughtful and reasonable person, not one who has
been labeled intelligent by a college or university, for
such labels are cheap and often meaningless,-—is in­
evitably aware of the existence of God; and the
measure of intelligence in such a person is the measure

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

237

with which he recognizes the fact that God is ail-wise
and all-provident; in a word, that God is infinitely
personal. All the world’s best minds have recognized
the personal character of God, almost without excep­
tion. And if the man of importance in college or club,
in business or profession, is found to be a scoffer,
he may be marked down as a man of no lasting conse­
quence; the whole of human history will back that
judgment. Make the rounds of the modern secular
(and sectarian!") universities, and look for the
faculty-members who profess atheism, agnoticism, or
disbelief in a personal God. You will find them, nine
times out of ten, in the ranks of the callow instructors,
and not among the seasoned professors and heads of
departments. For the rest, the gloss of what we have
come to call “education” is not a proof of wisdom or
of intelligence. Mr. Dooley did not say a contradictory
thing, but rather a thing to provoke thought, when he
declared, “Hogan is the best read and most ignorant
man I know.”
It is a demonstrable truth that man cannot come to
the full and practised use of his faculties without
recognizing the existence of God. If a normal and
mature man could be ignorant of God’s existence, his
ignorance would certainly be his own fault ; it would
be culpable ignorance ; it would be what philosophers
call vincible ignorance, that is, ignorance that can be
dispelled by ordinary effort and attention. And as a
matter of fact (which we have elsewhere considered),

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238

THEODICY

a man who fails to know, or who ignores, the true
God, inevitably sets up false gods. But the truly
intelligent man cannot be satisfied with false gods.
Nor can such a man dwell long upon the facts pre­
sented to his consideration by the world around him,
without coming to some understanding of the person­
ality of the true God, the one and infinite First Being.
Personality is a pure perfection. But, as we have
repeatedly noticed, all pure perfection, in transcendent
degree, must be attributed formally to the First and
the Necessary Being. Therefore, personality must be
attributed to God. God is a personal God.
c)

mistaken notions on the point

The reason which leads many men to reject the
terminology of “a personal God” lies in their own
mistaken concept of person. To them, a person is a
hitman person. The term person suggests not only a
substance of the rational order, but a being with body
as well as mind (not to utter the terrible word soul').
To them a person is a being with eyes and ears and
hands and feet. And, of course, a person need be no
such thing. An angel is a person, but it has no body.
A human soul is personal, and indeed a person, al­
though not the whole of the human person, and a soul
has no bodily members. It is a sad mistake on the part
of the “intelligent” men who find it hard to accept “a
personal God” that they misconceive person to begin

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

239

with, and then attribute their own misconception to
others and find fault λ\ ith these for accepting it. In
brief , these “intelligent” men set up a wholly '(anthro­
pomorphic jidea of God, which is false on the face of
it, and then declare that this idea is what other men
mean by a personal God.
It is a mistake to conceive of a personal God as a
kind of benign human giant who has great forces
under his control, a penetrating mind, a keen eye, a
watchful concern for the affairs of men. It is a mis­
take to think that religion consists in a kind of
friendly feeling for this gigantic and powerful being.
It is a mistake to conceive of morality as the effort
to please this mighty giant and to avoid what offends
him. These notions are all false because they all limit
God and reduce Elim to the horrid status of a mere
superman. The idea of personality in God really in­
volves no such belittling absurdities. Of course, we
use human and analogical terms in speaking of the
true God, but no truly intelligent man is misled by
the limitations of human speech. We do say that God
hears our prayers, that Elis eye is ever upon us, that
He is concerned for our welfare, that He leads us by
His mighty hand. But we recognize, in all these ex­
pressions, the material and figurative expression of
what is strictly inexpressible in the essentially limited
terms of language, and even of thought. God is in­
comprehensible and ineffable ; He is not to be ade-

μημμμββ

240

THEODICY

quately known or adequately expressed by human
(that is, by finite or limited) means. But what cannot
be exhaustively understood and expressed can be
understood and expressed in some measure; and it
is futile to find fault with human minds and human
tongues for their connatural limitations; it is un­
reasonable, too, to belittle human thought because
language does not adequately express it. Indeed, we
use many expressions, even with reference to worldly
and material things, which are, upon strict analysis,
faulty and even untrue ; yet these expressions do not
mean that the things which they inadequately express
are untrue. We speak of a sunrise or of a sunset, and,
of course, there is no such thing. But we do not ac­
cuse the man who tells us that he saw a fine sunrise,
of a lack of intelligence. We know what he means;
we understand that the handy term “sunrise” ex­
presses what would otherwise have to be expressed
in a roundabout and lengthy description of the move­
ment of the earth on its axis and its relation to a
relatively stationary sun. So when we hear a man
speaking of God as hearing our prayers, or seeing
our actions, we know what he means ; we do not ac­
cuse him of lack of intelligence; we do not (unless
we are of the stupid intelligentsia) imagine that his
concept of God is that of a giant with immense ears
and with eyes that pierce the clouds above our heads.
We know that the man is merely expressing in human
and understandable terms the fact that God knows

IMMANENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

241

all things and infinitely provides from eternity for
all human needs. In a word, we know that the man is
speaking of the Infinite Personal Being in the limited
terms of a human and· finite personal being, but we are
not deceived into thinking that these limited terms
mean a similarly limited concept of God in the mind
of the speaker.

The mistake we have been considering comes, in
last analysis, to this : the objectors to “a personal God”
always understand by the phrase a being that can be
pictured in the imagination. Now, the imagination
is a sentient faculty, and its images are all limited and
material. God, on the other hand, is non-limited and
non-material. It is manifest that there can be no
imagination-image, no fancy-picture of God. Nor in­
deed can there be a picture in imagination of any
spiritual, that is, non-material, being. Still, imagina­
tion is always trying to serve mind ; it does its best,
however little that best may be; and the result of its
efforts lies before us in symbolism and art. Of course,
this effort of imagination may be very beautiful and
very serviceable, but one must never forget that its
character is symbolic and not literal. There is no
harm, and there may be much good, in picturing an
angel as a princely figure, clothed in flowing robes,
beautiful of feature, equipped with manifestly inade­
quate wings which seem rooted in the shoulder-blades.
There is no harm even in tlie added details of such a
picture, details with which we are all familiar, such as

242

THEODICY

the obese violin, the foreshortened bow, the ecstatic
turn of the angelic eye, the fetching curl of the angelic
hair. But it would be a stupid blunder to suppose that
this pictured figure is a portrait of an angel, that this
material image is a literal likeness of a being that is
not material at all. We can take emotional inspiration
from a pictured angel ; we can allow the high emotion

to influence will and conduct; but we are never for a
moment deceived about the image itself. We know
that it is a material symbol of a spiritual substance.
So too we may find muth that is helpful in the art
which seeks to express the Infinite Being in sensible
terms. We may be reminded of the Divine Knowledge
and of the Holy Trinity by the picture of a great
human eye, enclosed in a triangle which suggests the
Trinity. But we are not thereby deceived into thinking
that God is an eye or that the Trinity is a plane figure
of three straight lines and three angles. If we have
imagination to serve us in the evolving of symbolism,
we have mind which makes us understand symbolism
as symbolism and not as literal fact.
The educated Catholic has no apologies to make to
the objector who finds the idea of “a personal God”
unacceptable. The Catholic need not side-step, need
not offer the least compromise. What he needs to do
for the objector in question is to exercise one of
those splendid social virtues called the spiritual works
of mercy; he needs “to instruct the ignorant.”

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IMMAXTNT OPERATIONS OF GOD

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SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have learned, by careful analysis
of the definition, the true meaning of person, and we
have seen that God is a person, that He is a personal
God, and not some vague world-force or some un­
conscious energy evolving itself in what we call the
visible universe. We have not dared to overstep the
boundaries of philosophical science and to discuss
the threefold personality of God in the Blessed Trin­
ity. We have merely mentioned in passing that human
reason is inadequate to deal with this surpassing mys­
tery, either to prove it or to disprove it, either to find
it manifested to reason or to find it in conflict with
reason. But our point of discussion has been found
unaffected by the Trinity of Persons in God, since
God is a personal God regardless of the singularity
or the plurality of persons in which the one undivided
Divine Essence subsists. It is the Divine Essence, the
Divine Nature, that we find a personal Nature. It is of
the Divine Nature that reason is forced to predicate
personality and to declare that God is a true person.
We have discussed the common errors about the
personality of God which lead unthinking men to dis­
like and even to reject the idea of God as a person.

CHAPTER Π

THE TRANSIENT OPERATIONS
OF GOD
This Chapter discusses what are inaccurately called God’s

transient operations, that is, the operations which make a
transit or go across from God to things other than God;
in a word, the operations that proceed from God to the uni­
verse to produce, preserve, control and govern it, and to
concur with it in its connatural and dependent activities.
Now, while there is a real relation to God on the part of
creatures, there is no real relation to creatures on the part
of God; God would be God in eternal and infinite com­
pleteness were there no creatures; nothing is added to God
by the existence or function of creatures; nothing can be
taken from God by the being or activity of creatures, nor
by the non-existence of creatures. But creatures depend for
their whole being and operation upon God. Creatures are
effected and affected essentially by God ; God is not affected
at all by creatures. This is the reason for our statement that
there is no real relation to creatures on the part of God,
while there is an essential and real relation to God on the
part of creatures. Further, what we call God’s transient
operations involve no transiency, no change or mutability,
in God Himself. Among finite things, transient activity
proceeds from an agent (or actor or doer) and primarily
affects something other than the agent ; yet there is always
some change or passing movement in the agent itself as the
transient activity is accomplished. But when God is the
agent, this is not so. There is no change, no transiency in
God, as His eternal and changeless decrees find their ac-

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 245
tualization in temporal anti changeable creatures. Thus the
term transient operations is not to be taken in literal, but
in analogical, meaning when it is applied to God, The socalled transient operations of God may be lifted as four:

creation, conservation, concurrence, governance (101th
providence). These operations we discuss in four Articles,
as follows.
Article I.
Article 2.
Article 3.
Article 4.

The
The
The
The

Divine Operation of Creation
Divine Operation of Conservation
Divine Operation of Concurrence
Divine Operation of Governance and
Providence

Article i. The Divine Operation

of

Creation

a) The Power of God
b) Meaning of Creation
c) The Fact of Creation
a)

the power of god

Before discussing the exercise of God’s power in
the transient divine operations it may be well to say
a word on this power itself. We have already seen
that God is infinite in all perfection, and power, that
is, the ability to make and to do and to accomplish,
is in itself a pure perfection. Therefore God must
have power. Further, since God is infinitely simple,
all that God has, He is. God’s power is, therefore,
really identified with the Divine Essence Itself; God
is Infinite Power. We express this truth about God
when we say that He is omnipotent or almighty. Our
catechism expresses the same truth when it declares
that “God can do all things, and nothing is hard or
impossible to Elim.”

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THEODICY

There are several points to be noticed about the

power of God. First, it is not a power that is exer­
cised by effort. Effort suggests imperfection; it
means the expenditure of power to overcome ob­
stacles; but there can be no obstacles (or limits) in
the way of illimitable power. God’s power is exer­
cised by the Divine Intellect and Will. God is the
perfect agens per intellectum et voluntatem (“Agent
or actor by intellect and will”). With God, to will

is to accomplish.
Secondly, God’s infinite power is humanly ex­
pressed as an ability to do all things. And “things”
is a word that means what it says; it does not mean
contradictions, that is, denials of things. That God
cannot make a square circle, or that God cannot
make a “two-year-old colt in a minute,” is not a
limitation of the unlimited Divine Power. For a
square circle means a circle that is not a circle; in a
word, it means nothing; it means not a thing but the
cancellation and the denial of a thing. So a two-yearold colt that is only a minute old, is a two-year-old
that is not a two-year-old, a manifest contradiction.
Now, contradictions are intrinsic impossibilities;
they are inconceivable as things because they are the
opposite of things. This point we have already dis­
cussed and evidenced in the First Book of this
manual.
Thirdly, God’s power, looked at simply in itself
is God’s absolute power. And God’s power, re-

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 247
garded as it stands aligned with the other Divine
Perfections,—such as Goodness, Wisdom, Justice,—
is God’s ordina ted power. Of course, this distinction
is one required by our limited minds; for in God
Himself all these Perfections are identified with
each other and with the Divine Essence Itself. We
say that all things are possible to God’s absolute
power, but certain things are not possible to God’s
ordinated power. .For example, it is within the ab­
solute power of God to take an unrepentant sinner
into the glory of Heaven. But, since such an act on
God’s part would conflict with the freedom of the
human will on the one hand, and with Divine Jus­
tice on the other, we say that it is not within God’s
ordinated power so to save a sinner against his will.
When, therefore, we say that God is almighty or
omnipotent, we mean that God, by the effortless ex­
ercise of the Divine Will (eternally illuminated by
the Divine Intellect) can bring into being anything
that is not a conflict in itself (and hence a non­
entity, a nothing) or in conflict with the Divine Per­
fections.
b)

meaning of creation

Creation is a term often used in English in a two­
fold meaning. It is used to indicate the act or opera­
tion of creating, and it is used to indicate the fruit
or product of this act. Thus we speak of the creation
of the world as the operation whereby God produces

248

THEODICY

the world. And we may, in emotional moments, sing
“All up and down the whole creation:” using the
word creation to indicate the world itself which is
the fruit or product of the operation <>f creating. Tn
our present study we use the terni creation in its
active or dynamic sense; we use it to indicate the
divine activity or operation whereby God produces
things out of nothing. There is a third use of the
term creation which we must notice and wholly re­
ject for philosophical purposes; it is that use in
which the term is taken as a synonym for product;
arrangement; thing made of elements or materials.
Thus the milliner may speak of a hat as a “Parisian
creation”; thus the poet may speak of his newest
sonnet as the creature of his fancy, that is, as a thing
created by his mind and imagination. Our study of
the definition of creation will show us that this ex­
tended meaning of the term creation is wholly alien
to our understanding of it in philosophy.
Creation is the active producing of a thing in its
entirety out of nothing. It is the producing of a
thing, whole and entire, without using any materials
of any sort. Philosophers say that the creation of a
thing is the total production of the thing ex nihil sui
et subjecti, that is, without any element or seedling
of the thing being there to begin with (ex nihil sui),
and without any materials or subject-matter (ex
nihil subjecti} out of which the thing is to be formed.
When we say that the Creator makes things out

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TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

249

of nothing, we do not mean that “nothing” is itself
a kind of material which is divinely shaped into
realities. We mean that, whereas there is nothing to
begin with, now, by an act of the Divine Under­
standing and Will, there is something real, lienee,
our idea of creation involves no conflict with the
axiom ex nihilo nihil fit (“Out of nothing, nothing
is made”) since the axiom means that the produc­
tion of things out of elements or materials requires
that the elements or materials be there at the outset.
But creation is not the production of things out of
elements or materials, and hence the absence of these
things is in no wise a difficulty to one who can create.
Some philosophers, like Victor Cousin (17921867) and Aloysius Ferri (1826-1895), have de­
fined creation in a way that suggests that God draws
all creatures out of Himself. This sort of definition
is pantheistic in implication, and seems to make the
world of creatures part and parcel with the Divine
Essence. We cannot accept such a definition of cre­
ation, for it would involve us in hopeless contradic­
tions, making the changeless God one with the
changeable world, and the Infinite and Necessary
Being one with the contingent universe. Of course,
if the phrase “out of Himself” is interpreted to
mean “by means of His own unaided power and ir­
resistible will,” it may stand unchallenged; but it is
manifest that the phrase is not necessarily to be so
interpreted ; it is an indefinite phrase, capable of con-

2.5θ

THEODICY

dieting interpretations, and hence it is unsuitable for
scientific expression.
When we say that God creates, we mean that God,
by the power of Ilis will, causes things to come into
actuality without using any '‘materials'’ of any sort.
We mean that God makes substances without re­
quiring any source-substance out of which to make
them. All bodily substances have their first origin in
creation ; thereafter,—since bodies are substantially
changeable,—they normally produce other bodies by
the process of substantial transformation called gener­
ation and corruption. All spiritual substances are di­
rectly created, nor can these generate further spiritual
substances or undergo any corruption, for spiritual
substances are not subject to substantial transforma­
tion.
It may be asked whether this thing called creation
is possible ; whether there is not in the idea of creation
an involved conflict or contradiction ; whether there
is not something in creation that is in conflict with
God’s ordinated power; whether, finally, there is not
something on the part of finite things that resists the
notion of sheer production by way of creation. We
must consider this question in its three points.
Wj. Creation involves in itself, that is, in its very
Concept or idea, no contradiction or conflict. It is not
an unthinkable thing like a square circle. Indeed, the
concept or idea of creation is so far from being self-

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 251
contradictory that it imposes itself as necessary upon
the mind that seeks to account for the existence of
contingent realities. For such things do not have to
exist; their existence is explicable only on the
grounds that they have been given existence, that they
have been brought into existence. And, in last analy­
sis, their being brought into existence must mean
their being brought out of nothingness, that is, in
their being created; for there can be no endless process
of one such thing coming from another, and this from
another, and so on forever. There must have been a
first production of contingent things ; there must have
been a beginning, and a truly first beginning, of things
that have in themselves no necessity or absolute re­
quirement for existence. But a truly first production
of contingent things is inconceivable except as crea­
tion. Therefore, on the score of the very idea or
concept of creation, we find no conflict, no selfcontradiction, no impossibility. On this score, crea­
tion means something entirely possible.

2. Creation involves no contradiction or conflict
among the perfections of God; it does not suggest
something that is out of harmony with the ordinated
Divine Power. For it does not involve the notion of a
filling-up or filling-out of the Infinite Being by the
existence of finite beings. If creation were conceived
of as a thing required by God, or as an activity im­
posed upon God by extrinsic force or even by His

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THEODICY

own goodness, it would conflict with the Divine Per­
fections and so would be impossible to Cod's ordinated power. But we have already seen that Cod is
not affected by creatures ; that there is no real relation
on (Sod’s part towards them, even though there is an
essential and real relation on the part of creatures

towards Him; God is wholly and infinitely complete
and perfect in Himself without creatures. I?or the
rest, God’s power would be incomplete, and not in­
finite, were creation impossible to Him. The idea of
creation as truly possible is included in the very idea
of the Divine Power. Nor is the idea of creation in
any conceivable disagreement with the Divine Wis­
dom, the Divine Justice, the Divine Goodness, or any
other of the perfections of God; on the contrary, it
appears, both at first sight and upon penetrating study,
to be in complete harmony with all the Divine Per­
fections and a worthy external expression and mani­
festation of them. Therefore, on the score of God’s
ordinated power, we find no conflict or contradiction
in the idea of creation. On this score, creation means
something wholly possible.
5. Creation manifestly involves no conflict on the
part of things created, that is, on the part of creatures.
For such things are existible; they can exist, as is
evident in the fact that they do exist ; they can receive
existence, and indeed must receive existence if they
are to have it at all. But creation is neither more nor
j1

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

253

less than the very Erst giving (and receiving) of ex­
istence: it is the giving of existence by the Creator,
the receiving of existence by the creature. So far
from being out of harmony with the notion of con­
tingent things, creation is necessary to explain the
first existence of such things.
The meaning of the term creation is, therefore, a
consistent and an intelligible meaning. Creation as the
fundamental production of contingent substances is
conceivable as something entirely possible. We have,
later on, to discuss it as something inescapably actual,
as an incontrovertible fact. But first we must round
out our study of the meaning of creation by inquiring
whether it means an activity proper to God alone, or
one communicable by God to creatures so that crea­
tures in their turn may create.

We must assert at once that creation is so entirely
proper to God alone that creatures cannot serve, even
instrumentally, as creating agents. Only God can
create; creatures cannot be creators either as principal
agents or as instrumental agents. We pause upon the
three points of this statement.
I. Only God can create. A being capable of creat­
ing, that is, of bringing substances into actual exist­
ence without using any pre-existing materials, is a
being wholly independent of such materials; such a
being has no dependency on substances outside itself.

THEODICY
This is manifestly true. For where there is nothing of
finite substance to begin with, nothing by way of
start or element or seedling, and nothing by way of
materials out of which to construct a substance (mini
sui et subjecti) there is no conceivable way of effect­
ing the production except by sheer intellectual power,
that is, by sheer will. And a will that can produce sub­
stances by its own simple exercise is manifestly an
independent will, an effortless will, an unhampered
or unlimited will. Now, the concept of such a will is
the concept of an infinite will. And only God is in­
finite; only God is Infinite Will. Therefore, only God
can create.
2. Creatures cannot create as principal agents. This
truth is manifest from the foregoing argument, for
no creature is possessed of infinite will, and infinite
will is required in the principal agent or principal
cause of the creative act.

5. Creatures cannot create as instrumental agents.
The statement means that no creature can serve God
in creating, as a tool or instrument or bodily member
can serve man, for example, in his activities. In the
act of writing, for instance, man uses the conjoined
natural instruments of arm, hand, and fingers, and
the artificial instrument of pen or pencil. The man
is the principal agent or cause of the writing, but to
effect the writing he uses the instrumental causes or

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255

agencies of bodily members and writing-tool. Now
we assert that God cannot use creatures as His instru­
ments in creating, nor does this mean a lack of perfec­
tion in God; on the contrary, it indicates the Divine
Sufficiency which requires no instruments for its
activities. For the requiring of instruments is a
mixed or non-pure perfection, involving imperfec­
tion. That a man can write with movements of hand
and application of pen or pencil, is a perfection; that
a man must employ these instruments to produce the
writing, is a limiting thing and an imperfection. But
in God there is no shadow of imperfection. Certainly,
then, God could never require the service of instru­
ments in creating. But neither is it limiting the power
of God to say that He cannot use instruments in the
creative activity. For an instrument must have some
connatural fitness for the service in which it is em­
ployed, and no creature has the fitness, the infinite
fulness, requisite to serve as the physical channel of
creative power ; hence, the impossibility of using
creatures as instrumental agents in creating is the in­
adequacy of creatures and not the inadequacy of God.
To convey infinite power physically by means of an
instrument (were that even conceivable) would re­
quire infinity in the instrument as well as in the princi­
pal agent or cause. But the thought of an infinite
instrument (that is, an infinite creature) is a selfcontradictory thought ; it indicates something sheerly
and intrinsically impossible, as a square circle is im-

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THEODICY

possible. Hence, since finite instruments arc inade­
quate, and since infinite instruments arc unthinkable,
we say that no instrumental cause or agency can be
used in creating. Further, the use of an instrument
is always the employment of it upon some subject,
upon something preexisting which récriées the in­
strumental action. But creation is an activity which
deals with no subject, no preexisting item, element,
or material, for it is the production of a thing in its
entirety out of nothing. Therefore, no instrument

could render any conceivable service to the creating
God.
By creation, then, we mean that activity,—which
is so proper to God alone that creatures cannot serve
even instrumentally in its exercise,—whereby the Di­
vine Power produces realities in their entirety, using
nothing preexisting as the font or source of the pro­
duction.
c) THE FACT OF CREATION

The world of finite realities challenges our atten­
tion and demands a sufficient accounting. We must
face and answer the question of the first origin of
contingent things. And our answer must be one of
three : for I. either the world,-—that is, the universe
of finite, changing things about us, and ourselves as
part of that universe,—has had no beginning, or 2.
the world is only a part or phase of God’s own being
and substance, or 3. the world has its origin in the

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

257

creative action of God. All theories on first origins in
the universe are reducible to these three and to these
only. Now, we find the first two of these theories
wholly unacceptable as in open conflict with experi­

ence and with reason, and thus we arc compelled to
accept the third theory, the theory of creation, as the
true and factual doctrine. The world had its first
origin in creation; the world was created ; the world
is a world of creatures. Let us glance at some reasons
which compel this conclusion.

I. The world cannot be, as the materialists say, an
eternal and unproduced universe. For what is eternal
and unproduced must have in itself the sufficient
reason for its existence, the ratio sufficiens existentiac
suae, which is required to account for every actuality.
But an actuality that has in itself the sufficient reason
for its existence is pure actuality; it is necessary being,
and, by that fact, it is infinite, absolutely simple or
uncomposed, and changeless. Now, it is manifest that
the world is not necessary, but contingent ; not purely
actual, but also potential, not infinite, but limited; not
simple, but a manifold or compound ; not changeless,
but full of motion or change. Therefore, the world is
not eternal and unproduced. But if it is not eternal
and unproduced, it has had a beginning, an origin.
We cannot, therefore, accept the theory which de­
clares that rhe world has had no origin, no producing
cause.

25«

THEODICY

2. The world cannot be, as the pantheists say, an
outpouring of God, or a phase of God's being and
substance, hirst of all, such an outpouring or phase
would be a kind of evolution or development of the
Divine Substance, and this would involve potentiality
in God who is Pure Actuality ; it would involve change
in the Immutable Being; it would involve develop­
ment or improvement in the All Perfect. These are
manifest contradictions and are wholly impossible.
Further, to identify God in any manner with the
world is to impose upon God the properties and in­
separable characteristics of the world. It is to make
God finite, compounded, contingent, whereas, as we
have already proved, God is infinite, simple, neces­
sary. Reason forces us to reject the pantheistic theory
of the first origin of the world.
5. If the world is neither unproduced, nor somehow
identified with the Divine Substance, it is a world that
has had its origin as something other than God. Now,
there is no conceivable first origin of things other
than God except an origin by way of creation. There­
fore, the world has had its first origin in creation ; the
world was created ; creation is an actual fact.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have discussed the Divine Power,
and have seen that God is necessarily almighty or

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

259

omnipotent, and can do all things which involve no
intrinsic contradiction (and hence are nothings or
not-things). We have distinguished the power of
God as absolute and ordinated, according as it is con­
sidered in itself or in conjunction with the goodness,
justice, wisdom, and other perfections of God. We
have defined creation as the active producing of a
thing in its entirety out of nothing. We have justified
this definition and have rejected faulty ones, such as
those proposed by Cousin and Ferri. We have seen
that creation is something wholly possible, since it is
thinkable in itself, it does not conflict with the Divine
Perfections, and it involves no conflict on the part of
things to be produced by it. Further, we have found
that creation is inevitably a direct, exercise of infinite
power, and is therefore an activity so proper to God
alone that creatures cannot serve, even instrumentally, in its exercise. We have seen that creation is
not only possible but that the first origin of things
other than God must lie in God’s creative action, and
that, in consequence ; creation is a fact.
Article

2.
of

The Divine Operation
Conservation

a) Meaning of Conservation
b) The Fact of Divine
Conservation

a) MEANING OF CONSERVATION

Conservation means preservation. As an activity

26ο

ΤΗ EO DIC Y

or operation, conservation is the preserving of an
effect in existence.
There are causes in fieri and causes in esse. A. cause
in fieri (or “in becoming’’) is required to firing an
effect into existence: a cause in esse (or “in being’’)
is required to maintain an effect in existence. A cause
in fieri is a producing cause; a cause in esse is a con­
serving cause. Conservation is the exercise of a
cause in esse.
When an effect depends essentially for both pro­
duction and permanence (for fieri and esse) upon a
cause, that one identical cause must continue in ac­
tivity or exercise as long as the effect exists. Thus
fire is required both to make iron hot and to keep it
hot; the sun is required to produce daylight and to
maintain daylight. For there is an essential depend­
ency, for both production and permanence, of heat
upon fire and of daylight upon the sun. But when the
dependency of effect upon cause is essential only in
point of production and not of permanence, the effect
may be supported in being by another cause than that
which gave it being. In other words, the cause in fieri
need not, in this case, continue on as the cause in esse.
Thus, the sculptor is the cause in fieri of the statue
which he carves, but he is not its cause in esse; the
accidental form or being which the sculptor confers
upon marble by shaping it in a certain way finds a
sufficient supporting or conserving cause in the en­
during stuff of which the statue is made; its cause

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

261

in esse is the marble itself, and the statue may con­
tinue in c.xistcnce for centuries after the sculptor is
in his grave. Eut, ultimately, as ah things work back
to first creation as their cause in fieri, so they workback to that same single creating cause as their radical
cause in esse ; the creating cause must continue on as
a conserving cause, else creatures must fall to noth­
ingness. Here we sec what is meant by the statement
that conservation is a continuation of creation. For
creation does not bestow being upon something that
is already there to receive and hold it; it produces
being in entirety out of nothingness; the creature is,
in consequence, dependent for both production and
permanence upon its creating cause, and this one
identical cause must continue in activity or exercise
as long as the creature exists.
Conservation is the activity of a cause in esse. It
means the preserving of an effect in being and exist­
ence.
Conservation is direct or indirect. Direct conserva­
tion is the positive preserving of an effect by an ac­
tivity which supplies actual being to the effect or
contributes what actively supports the effect in its
being. Thus, fire directly conserves the heat in hot
water; thus the sun directly conserves the daylight;
thus the eating of food directly conserves life and
strength. Indirect conservation is the negative pre­
serving of an effect by the exercise of a cause which
protects the effect, shields it, wards off or prevents

ββ

s

262

(fpiEODICv

what would harm and destroy it. The placing of a
manuscript in an air-tight case is an act of indirect
conservation. The enclosing of a delicate vase in a
cabinet where it is safe from the sweep of careless
hands is also an act of indirect conservation. The
nurse-maid who watches an infant so that it does not
fall into the fire, or climb to perilous places, or eat
what would harm it, is indirectly conserving the wel­
fare of the child. Direct conservation may be called
promotive conservation; indirect conservation is,
rather preventive.
ΐ
It is our contention that Divine Conservation is a
fact in the world, and that this is not merely indirect,
but direct conservation.
b) THE FACT OF DIVINE CONSERVATION

I. Creatures are contingent realities. They have
not in themselves any requirement for existence.
They are not self-accounting, self-explanatory, selfsufficient. That they exist is a patent fact; that they
do not have to exist is equally evident, for they come
into being, they change, they are limited, and things
subject to beginning, change, and limitation, are sub­
ject to the action of causes; such things are effects;
they are dependent or contingent or non-necessary
things. Now, manifestly, contingent things do not
lose their contingency when they are created. They
require positive production of their entire being in
the first moment of their existence, and they require

4^^-ftOS-^^ÎÎS^S™

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

263

a continuance of the producing power at every suc­
cessive moment of their existence. No other or lesser
power than their first-producing power (that is, their
creating power) will account for their continued
existence, since their entire being rests wholly and
undividedly in that power. Therefore, contingent
beings require for their existence the continuation of
the creating power which is the power of God alone.
And the continuation of this power is Divine Con­
servation. Hence, the contingent beings in the world
around us, and the world itself, require and have the
support of the activity called Divine Conservation.
Divine Conservation is, therefore, a fact.

2. An effect which depends for production and
permanence upon a certain cause requires the direct
conserving activity of that cause. For such an effect
has an essential and entire dependency upon its cause ;
it requires the cause to hold it in being. No mere pro­
tection from destructive forces will insure its exist­
ence, for it cannot, in itself, maintain existence.
Hence, indirect conservation is not sufficient to
account for such an effect in continued existence;
direct conservation is required. Now, all crea­
tures are, as we have seen, contingent upon their
First Cause by an essential and entire dependency;
creatures depend for production and permanence
upon causes which are ultimately focussed and
founded upon the First Cause, and which have their

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THEODICY

own existence and aciivitv by virtue of the operation
of the hirst Cause. Only the hirst 1
lias in itself

the snfhciency of sc)f-existence without dependency
upon any other agency or force or factor. Ί here fore
the First (.’anse, by Its positive exercise ol causal
activity, is required to account for the sustained exist­
ence of creatural reality, in other words, the exercise
of direct Divine Conservation is required to explain

the existence of the world and all things in it. Direct
Divine Conservation is, therefore, a fact.
5. A creature depends for existence upon its
Creator. It exists by reason of the positive will of the
Creator to bring it into existence. It does not exist by
reason of the Creator’s mere willingness to leave it
alone and not to destroy it. And a creature continues
in existence by the sustained positive will of the
Creator, not by His merely negative or indirect will.
Now, the positive will of the Creator, which is thus
manifested in the production and continuation of
creatural existences, is neither more nor less than
direct Divine Conservation. Therefore, direct Divine
Conservation is a fact.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this very brief but important Article we have
learned the meaning of conservation in general, and
of Divine Conservation in special. We have seen that
conservation is the exercise of a cause in esse, and

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

265

that it may be direct or indirect, that is, promotive
or preventive. according as it is a positive or a nega­
tive contribution to the continued existence of an
effect. We have proved that Divine ( 'onservation is
a fact in the world, and that it is direct conservation.
We have drawn our proof from the contingency of
creatures, from their entire and essential dependency
upon the First Cause and upon the positive choice of

the Divine Will.
Article

3. The Divine
of

Operation
Concurrence

a) Meaning of Concurrence
b) The Fact of Divine
Concurrence
c) The Mode or Manner of Divine
Concurrence
a) MEANING OF CONCURRENCE

All actuality rests fundamentally upon God. Crea­
tures cannot bring themselves into existence, nor can
they conserve themselves in existence once the Divine
Power has brought them there. In other words, crea­
tures need God the Creator, and God the Conserver.
This fact we have already seen to be inevitable. But
we must go further and express a third need of crea­
tures. Creatures are created and conserved not only
as essences but as natures; not only as things of a
certain type or kind, but as things with certain con­
natural powers and functions ; not only as things
existible, but as things operable ; not only as things

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THEODICY

static, but as things dynamic. In a word, creatures
have activities and operations, and these (in the radi­
cal equipment or power whence they flow, and in their
actual exercise) require the aciion and cooperation
of God to explain their existence. Here then is the
third need of creatures : the cooperation or concur­
rence of God in their powers of action and in the
exercise of these powers. Creatures therefore require
God the Creator, God the Conserver, and God the
Cooperator or Concurrer.
Now, the word concurrence is, in its literal force,
a weak word in the present use. For to concur means
“to run alongside,” “to go along with,” and it sug­
gests the working together of partial causes which
conspire to produce an effect. But it is a demonstrable
truth that in creatural actions, the creature is the
total cause of the effect, and, in another way, God is
the total cause of the effect. God and creature do not
conspire together to produce the effect, each giving
out a part of the efficacy which produces the effect.
No, God the Primary Cause, and the creature which is
a secondary cause (since God alone is Primary Cause)
produce the effect, each wholly, in respectively differ­
ent ways. When,—to employ a very crude example,
—two horses pull one wagon, each horse contributes
part of the power that is required to move the wagon;
the horses are partial causes of the effect which is the
moving of the wagon. But when a man uses a pen
to write a letter, both the man and the pen, each in

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

267

its own way, is a total cause of the letter; the whole
letter comes from the man, and the whole letter is
written with the pen. Man and pen are not partial
causes which stand on a plane, so to speak, and work
together, each contributing a part of the effect. The
man writes the whole letter ; so does the pen. But the
man writes as the principal cause, the pen as the
instrumental cause, and from the principal cause
through the instrumental cause the finished effect
emerges. In an analogous manner, the effects pro­
duced by creatures in action are wholly ascribed to
creatures, and wholly ascribed to God; to the crea­
tures as secondary causes, and to God as Primary
Cause. For creatures are contingent beings; contin­
gency extends to everything in fact or function in the
realm of creatures ; creatures have nothing of their
own which can stand independent of the First Cause
as the basis of their existence or of the existence of
their smallest operation. Hence, creatures require the
active influence,—the inpouring of power, force, di­
rection, support,—of God in all that they do as well
as in all that they are; they require the Divine Co­
operation as well as the Divine Conservation. And,
as we have said, the word concurrence (or even the
word cooperation') is a weak word in this connection.
St. Thomas Aquinas used the expressions, “the in­
fluence or inpouring of God,” “the action of God,”
“the Divine Motion,” “the operation of God” (in­
fluxus Dei, actio Dei, motio divina, Dei operatio') to

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THEODICY

express the activity of God which we consider here.
These terms arc accurate, but usage .-vcnis to have
established the term concurrence (or the Latin con­
cursus) as the acceptable one. We may well use this
word if we keep dear minds about its meaning and
are not led by its etymological structure into misun­
derstanding its true force. Divine Concurrence means
the Divine Power actively exercised upon the creature

(that is, secondary cause) to elicit operations, to
determine and direct them, and to support them in
being, in such wise that these operations are wholly

ascribable to the creature as their secondary cause,
and wholly ascribable to God as the sole Primary
Cause.

b)

THE FACT OF DIVINE CONCURRENCE

I. It is a truth established in Ontology that noth­
ing can act except in so far as itself is actual. A thing
cannot operate unless it be there to operate, unless it
be equipped to operate, unless it be determined in
operation, unless it be stirred or moved to operate.
Now, creatures depend entirely upon the First and
Necessary Being (that is, upon God) and they have
no actuality whatever independently of that Being.
This does not mean that creatures are identified with
God (for to say so would be to profess pantheism
which is a debased and an absurd doctrine) but that
creatures have an entire dependence upon God for
their being and operation ; it means that creatures in

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

269

themselves and in their operat ions arc entirely con­
tingent upon God. In other words, creatures can act
only in so far as the Divine Power concurs in their
action, that is, only in so far as the}- arc made. are
made capable of action, are determined in action, are
moved to action, arc supported in action, by the exer­
cise of the Divine Power. I'or all these points (exist­
ence, equipment or nature, determination, movement,
support) are points of actuality, and no actuality is
wholly independent of the Pure and First Actuality
which is God. Therefore, creatures cannot exist and
function unless Divine Concurrence is a fact. But it
is manifest that creatures do exist and do function.
Therefore Divine Concurrence is a fact.
2. The order of effects manifests the order of
causes whence these effects come. Now, in any effect
which comes from a creature-cause (or secondary
cause, to use the technical term) we discern an effect
that is proper to the Creator-cause or God. For it is
God’s own proper Being to exist of Himself, and it
is God’s own proper operation to give existence where
it is not to be found of itself. And in every effect
that comes from a secondary cause we have some­
thing that really exists; every such effect is a real
existence, and one that does not account for itself ; it
is an existence but not a self-existence; it is an exist­
ence that can be explained only as an existence given,
and only God can give existence. The creature-cause,
or secondary cause, truly produces the effect as this

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THEODICY

or that sort of thing; but that it is an existing thing
at all, and not self-existent, indicates the action of
creative power, the power of God alone. The creature­
cause produces the effect in such a way that it is the
creature’s work; it is wholly his operation and pro­
duction ; yet radically it is a thing, an existence, which
is also wholly the production of God. Therefore,
every effect produced by a creature-cause is also an
effect produced by the Creator-cause. Every creatural
effect has both God and creature as total cause, from
respectively distinct viewpoints; it has God as total
Primary Cause, and it has the creature as total
secondary cause. Now, the effects produced by the
operations of creatures actually do exist in the world.
These effects manifest an order or alignment or a
presence of causes, the Primary, and the secondary.
And the manifestation of Primary Causality in the
effects of secondary causes is neither more nor less
than the manifestation of Divine Concurrence in the
operations of creatures. Hence, as the existence and
operation of secondary causes is a fact, so also is
the existence and operation of Divine Concurrence
a fact.
3. Nothing has being or perfection except in so
far as it has reference to, and dependence on, Being
and Perfection, that is, except in so far as it funda­
mentally rests in God. Now the capacity or equipment
of a nature for operation is being and perfection; so
also is the actual exercise of operation. Therefore,

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

271

the capacity of a creature for action, and the actual
exercise of action, rests in God. In other words, such
capacity and such action requires the Divine Concur­
rence. Therefore, Divine Concurrence is a fact.
c) THE MODE OR MANNER Ol·' DIVINE CONCURRENCE

God acts or concurs in all the operations of crea­
tures as First Efficient Cause, as Ultimate Final
Cause, and as Radical Formal Cause, (n) God is the
First Efficient (or “actively producing”) Cause of
creatural action because God alone gives to creatures
their being, their existence, their power to act, and
God alone applies the operating power of creatures to
its connatural function. Nothing is moved, says the
adage, except it be moved by something other than
itself, and ultimately by the First Mover Himself
Unmoved, that is, by God. Hence all movement, all
operation, has its radical origin in God ; God is truly
the First Efficient Cause of all. (&) God is the Ul­
timate Final Cause (or “Last End”) of all creatural
action. For God is the Creator, the Framer of every
nature ; He sets all creatures in being and directs to
Himself as to the ultimate Goal all the acts and opera­
tions of creatures. Hence God is the Ultimate Final
Cause of creatural operation, (c) God is the Radical
Formal Cause of all creatural action. A formal cause
gives specific character to anything which proceeds
from it as an effect; it makes the effect the precise
kind of thing that it is. Now God is the Creator and

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THEODICY

Determiner of creatures in their specific structure
and powers, and hence He is the Determiner of what
proceeds from such structures and powers. Therefore
God is truly the fundamental Formal Cause oi all
creatural operation. “God,” says St. Thomas, “is the
cause of every action inasmuch as 1 Ic gives the power
to act, conserves it, applies it to function; and inas­
much as by His power every other power operates.”
There is no difficulty in understanding the mode
of Divine Concurrence, that is, the causal activity of
God in the actions and operations of creatures, until
the special question is raised about those operations
which proceed from the free-will of man. On this
score there is a notable controversy among philoso­
phers. All agree, of course, on the fad of Divine Con­
currence in man’s free activity, but there is no general
agreement about the precise manner in which the
Divine Concurrence is here exercised. The question
is one that calls for clear minds and clean distinctions,
for, if the doctrine be stated inadequately (and it
can hardly be stated with full adequacy for it is not
without deeps of mystery) it may easily lead the un­
wary to false conclusions. If the Divine Concurrence
in free-wdll acts be too lightly taken, it may seem to
endow man with creative power and to make human
freedom an independence of God, the sole Author of
all actual being. On the other hand, if too rigidly
conceived, Divine Concurrence may seem to make
man but an inert instrument of God, and to ascribe

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 273

all man’s acts and operations (including his sins!) to
God as their true Author. We shall presently list the
more notable opinions on this difficult point, but be­
fore coming to that we ask the student to keep steadily
in mind the following inevitable truths about which
there is not, nor can be, any controversy whatever :
(a) God is the sole Creator ; He is the only Author
of being or perfection; nothing has positive actuality
except from God the Pure Actuality; God is a true
and total Cause in every actual operation of every
creature, (b) Man is truly endowed with free-will,
and by its exercise he is the responsible author of
his moral acts, (c) God is in no sense the cause of
sin, which is not being or perfection but the lack of
perfection, the defection from being; man alone is
responsible for that lack and defection which we call
moral evil or sin. Keeping these truths clearly and
fixedly in mind, we may indicate the doctrines offered
by philosophers about God’s concurrence in man’s
free acts. As a preliminary to that statement we offer
a brief description of various possible types of con­
currence :
(a) Mediate concurrence is that whereby God con­
serves creatures in existence as beings endowed with
the power to act or operate. Immediate concurrence
is that whereby God actually operates with the crea­
ture in exercising an action.
(ό) Physical concurrence is the active and effec­
tive physical influence of the Primary Cause upon the

274

THEODICY

secondary. By this concurrence the creature (or
secondary cause) is moved to action, applied to func­

tion, actuali)' set in operation. Moral concurrence is
a persuasion, exhortation, allurement, whereby the
.Primary Cause draws the secondary free cause to
determinate action.
(c) Previous concurrence is the influence of the
Primary Cause upon the secondary antecedently to

the creatural operation. Simultaneous concurrence is
the influence of the Primary Cause concomitantly
producing the effect together with the secondary cause.
The force of previous concurrence falls directly on
the secondary cause; the force of simultaneous con­
currence falls directly upon the effect, that is, on the
operation exercised.
(d) Efficacious concurrence is that which, of its
very nature, infallibly has its effect. Indifferent con­
currence has its effect dependently on the cooperation
of the secondary cause.
(e) General (or indeterminate') concurrence is a
supporting causal influence which is not directed to
one definite effect to be produced. Special (or deter­
minate) concurrence is directed to one definite and
determined effect.
(/) Intrinsic concurrence (or concurrence ab in­
trinseco) is entwined, so to speak, in the very being of
the action of the secondary cause. Extrinsic concur­
rence (or concurrence ab extrinseco) is an influence
which is, so to say, applied from without, or exter-

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 27.5
nally, and so supports, moves, and directs the second­
ary cause in operation.
The more notable philosophies of concurrence may
be reduced to two, namely, that of the Molinists, and
'that of the Physical-Premotionists. I’roponcnts of
'cachot these theories claim harmony with the doctrine
of St. Thomas Aquinas, but the name Thomists is
generally applied to the Prcmotionists only.
We shall merely outline the theories here.

I. The Molinist Theory (cf. Book Third, Chap.
I, Art I, a and b) holds that God gives to man’s free­
will a concurrence that is immediate, moral, indiffer­
ent in itself, simultaneous, extrinsic. God, by Plis
scientia media, clearly foresees how man will choose to
act in given circumstances, and accordingly makes
His concurrence (which is in itself indifferent and
indeterminate) an efficacious and determinate con­
currence which comes into actuality simultaneously
with man’s free-action, to support it and give it being.
The Molinists admit that God “pre-moves” all crea­
tures to their connatural operations by creating them
with definite natures and conserving them in the ex­
ercise of their natural powers. Tn the realm of man’s
free-action, God’s “premotion” consists in the fact
that He has created the will of man for good in gen­
eral, has impelled it infallibly in the direction of such
good, and, in every exercise of human choice, Fie

216

THEODICY

allures it by moral influence towards flic actual good.
For the rest, man’s individual will-acts (which are
ever choices of means towards the general and pre­
determined end or universal good) are determined
by man alone, God simultaneously concurring in
man’s choice. God is a true cause, and a total cause,
of the human act of free-willing, for lie is not only

the Creator and Conserver of free-will, but actual­
izes, by His simultaneous concurrence (eternally de­
creed in accordance with His perfect knowledge
through scientia media of what man will freely
choose) the action of His human creature, and is the
support and guarantee of true freedom in the action
itself. Thus God’s simultaneous concurrence in hu­
man free-acts is a true cause of such acts without
making them, by the very force and nature of Divine
Concurrence, imperative upon man as inevitably to
be performed.—The opponents of this theory object
that, while the doctrine is a manifestly agreeable ex­
planation of human freedom, it slights the absolutely
supreme and necessary operation of God in every
creatural action. It even seems to suggest, say the
objectors, that man, in the moment of free-choice,
is either independent of God or is the actual deter­
miner of God’s own action, thus reversing the true
order of things and putting man in God’s place.

2. The Physical-Premotionist Theory holds that
God moves every secondary cause (including human

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 277
free-wills) to connatural action by a concurrence
aptly called physical premotion or even physical pre­
determination. This concurrence is physical, previous,
immediate, special, intrinsic. In the actual exercise
of free-will acts, there is also a simultaneous concur­
rence of God which rounds out and brings to com­
pleteness the previous concurrence or promotion
whereby God physically moves and applies the free­
will to determinate action. Now, while the free-will
in infallibly and inevitably moved (or pre-moved) to
determinate action, its choice remains truly free, be­
cause God moves every being in a manner consistent
with its nature, and therefore moves free-beings in
such a way that they act freely. This doctrine, say the
Premotionists, is so far from destroying human free­
dom that it is its only safeguard and sane explana­
tion. For the human will is in itself a potentiality or
power, and, like all creatural powers, it is incapable
of absolute ^//-determination; all creatural move­
ment must have its absolute source in the First Mover
Himself Unmoved. God moves the free-will by an
infallibly effective and immediate predetermination
which does not take away the freedom of the will,
but moves the will to determine itself freely, and
thus renders free-choice both possible and actual.
Nor is God thereby the Author of man’s sinful acts;
sin, like all evil, is a defection and a lack, and is
ascribable to the bad dispositions of the will which
is moved by God to good. The matter of evil, the

278

THEODICY

material clement of action which is itself good, is
indeed ascribable to the premotion of Cod ; the fonn,
or formal element of evil action (i. e., that which
makes evil such) is ascribable solely to the bad will
of man, so that God is not even its accidental cause
(of. Hook Third, Chap- I, dirt. 2, d). The same sun­
light which makes damp earth hard, makes wax soft.
The same object is reflected in a clear mirror as beau­
tiful, and in a faulty mirror as distorted and ugly.
In a somewhat analogous manner, the same Divine
Movement, and the one action to which it infallibly
moves the free-will, are morally good or evil accord­
ing as the free-will is well or badly disposed, that is,
according as the free-will which is moved to the ac­
tion measures up or falls short. Inasmuch as the free­
will measures up to the possibilities of reflecting and
expressing the force of the Divine premotion, the
result is good, and finds its true and total cause in
God, even as it finds its true and total secondary cause
in the will itself ; inasmuch as the free-will freely falls
short of reflecting and expressing the true force of
Divine premotion, the result is moral evil, and its
only cause is the bad disposition of the free will itself.
—The opponents of Premotionism declare that this
doctrine makes the explanation of human freedom
needlessly mysterious, while they admit that it ad­
mirably vindicates the necessary place of the First
Mover Himself Unmoved in every creatural activity.

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 279

With this brief outline of the two chief theories
on Divine Concurrence we are disposed to leave the
matter. The point controverted is one for the special­
ist. Students who have the capacity for a penetrating
study of the arguments offered by the proponents of
the respective theories will find instructors glad to
direct their further reading. For others, great elabo­
ration of argument, a setting up of points and re­
buttals, of claims and objections, would be but tedious
and profitless labor. The thing to be remembered is
this : all controversialists agree perfectly upon the
fact and the necessity of Divine Concurrence in hu­
man free-acts ; all admit the absolute sovereignty and
requisite efficacy of God in every creatural operation ;
all unreservedly teach the true freedom of choice with
which the human will is endowed. The question is
not whether God concurs in the free operations of
man, but hozv God concurs in these activities. We
have here a question, not of fact, but of manner or
mode. For the rest, if we dare to express an opinion
in the face of most deep and learned argument on
both sides of this controversy, we must say that
reason seems strongly to favor the Premotionist posi­
tion. For, despite its depths of difficulty and of mys­
tery, this doctrine rests squarely on the metaphysical
principle that only the movement, the premotion, of
the Creator and First Mover can be assigned as the
absolute beginning and the absolute continuing sup­

28ο

THEODICY

port anti the absolute determining direction of any
creatural movement whatsoever, even that of a will
that is truly free. Quidquid movetur ab ab io movetur:
anything· thaï is moved is moved by something other
than itself, and ultimately by the First Mover Him­
self Unmoved.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In the Article we have learned the meaning of
concurrence in general, and of Divine Concurrence
in particular. We have noticed the etymological in­
adequacy of the term concurrence in this connection,
and we have therefore learned to use it with caution
lest its surface-meaning lead us astray. We have
proved that Divine Concurrence is a fact in the world,
basing our arguments upon the contingency of crea­
tures, the order of causes reflected in creatural effects,
and the reference of being to the All-Perfect. We
have discussed the manner in which God and crea­
tures are, each in respective order, total causes of
creatural operations, and we have found that God
operates in every activity of creatures as First
Efficient Cause, as Ultimate Final Cause, and as
Radical Formal Cause. We have briefly explained
the controversy which exists among philosophers on
the manner in which God concurs with human free­
will activities, and we have outlined the doctrine of
the most important of the controversialists, the Molinists and the Premotionists.

ρΜΜ7ΤΓ'ΓΤΤ

—.

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD
Article 4. The Divine Operation
Governance and Providence

281

of

a) Meaning of Terms

b) The Fact of Divine Providence
c) Certain Difficulties

a)

meaning of terms

Providence is a term derived from the Latin pro
“for; before,” and videns “seeing.” Thus it means
“a looking before,” “a looking out for.” It means
seeing beforehand what is required and planning to
meet the requirement. We call a man provident if
he carefully manages his affairs, looking to the fu­
ture, estimating his income and computing necessary
expenditures; we call a man improvident if he lives
for the moment, without plan or policy for the future.
It thus appears that the term providence is aptly used
to designate a plan of action, a way (that has been
worked out before being put into execution) of di­
recting things to a goal or end. Now, Divine Provi­
dence is God’s Understanding and Will (that is, the
Divine Reason) inasmuch as It eternally and infal­
libly directs things towards their last end or purpose,
meeting with boundless wisdom every situation in its
every detail. The result of Divine Providence in the
world is the fact that creatures are governed, each in
accordance with its nature, towards their ultimate end,
which is God Himself, that is, the manifestation of
God’s glory. Thus goverance and providence go to­
gether. The one operation of God is Divine Provi-

282

THEODICY

deuce when we consider it in God, and it is the Divine
Governance of creatures when we consider it in its
application and workings in the world of linite things.
St. Thomas Aquinas puts the point thus: “Two
things belong to the domain of providence : the know­
ing how to direct and arrange things, and this is
providence properly speaking; and, secondly, the
actual directing and arranging of things in accord­
ance with this knowledge, and this is called govern­
ment. The first is eternal ; the second, temporal.” In

a word, providence in God becomes government in
creatures.
b) THE FACT OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

We assert that there is a Divine Providence which
effectively extends its governing influence to every­
thing in the world, not only in a general way, but in
particular, so that it touches all reality in its minutest
details. That this must be so is evident from the fol­
lowing arguments :
I. In God there is a Providence. Providence, as
we have seen, is the understanding of how to manage
and direct things to their due ends. Now, as we have
elsewhere proved, God is Infinite Understanding; in
God there is the most perfect knowledge of how to
manage and direct things to then- ends. Therefore,
it is manifest that in God there is a Providence, or,
more exactly, that God is Infinite Providence.

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 283

2. In God there is all First Causality and Infinite
Wisdom. Creatures are wholly dependent or contin­
gent upon God for their existence and for their opera­
tions; hence, they are dependent upon God for the
achievement of their goal or end, for this is to be
attained by the exercise of their operations. Now, it
would not be wise for God to create without a pur­
pose, nor to create beings in themselves helpless to
achieve their purpose and leave them so. It follows
that, since God is the sole Creator infinite in Wisdom,
He has made creatures for a purpose and directs them
in its achievement. Therefore God is Provider and
Governor; there is Providence in God and provi­
dential Divine Government in creatures.

5. Things different in nature are not drawn into
one harmonious force except under the direction of
one master-director and master-plan. Now, the uni­
verse is made up of a staggering multitude and
variety of objects that not only differ in nature but
are frequently contrary, one to the other. Yet it is
very manifest that there is here a world-order, a great
and magnificent harmony. Therefore there must exist
an Orderer and GoAærnor; there must be a provident
and governing God. In other words, in God there
must be Providence, and in creatures providential
Governance.
4. This Providence must extend its influence to
everything in the world not only in general, but in

284.

THEODICY

particular. For the First Causality of God reaches
all reality, and individual things, in their smallest
parts and movements, are realities. Therefore God’s
providence is no general plan, hut a most detailed
plan which leaves nothing out. It follows that all
creatures, down to the last and least, come under the
application of Divine Providence and are divinely

governed.
C) CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES

Those who deny the existence of God as Provi­
dence (and among these we count the Fatalists who
contend that everything is subject to the inevitable
action of a blind drive or force ; and the Deists who
declare that God, having made the world, has aban­
doned it now to get on as best it may) are deceived
by the apparent difficulties which lie in the way of the
true doctrine. These difficulties are reducible to two:
the fact that so many things appear to happen by
chance, and, secondly, the fact that there is evil in
the world. We must pause upon these difficulties for
a brief space.

i

,

nil
<1

I. The Question of Chance. If things in the world
happen by chance and not by plan ; even if only a few
events, or even one, were to occur by sheer chance,
then, certainly, our whole doctrine of Divine Provi­
dence and Governance is done for. But let us be clear
on what we mean by the phrase by chance. We do not

Μ»

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 285

mean without cause. Chance cannot be conceivably
the cause of anything, nor does it mean the absence
of cause. Chance merely means some unexpectedness
or “unforeseenness” in an effect. And, however un­
foreseen by finite minds, however unexpected, the ef­
fect which we call chance-effect has its adequate
accounting cause in every case. Nor can the fact that
an effect is unexpected or unforeseen by finite minds
carry unexpectedness or “unforeseenness” to the In­
finite Mind. In a word, what happens by chance in our
view, does not happen by chance in God’s view. What
is no part of our plan, is certainly a part of God’s
plan, and this must be so even when God’s plan is not
wholly, or even partially, revealed to us, but is
wrapped in mystery. Every normal adult has had
enough experience of life and its happenings to un­
derstand that apparent evils often turn out to be bless­
ings. Everyone knows that his little mind can take in
but a small part of the universe of possibilities, and
that the complexities of detail in this vast cosmos,
complexities of events, of movements, of effects,
must, in the main, be mysterious to him and full of
unexpectedness and so-called chance. But a man does
wrong to attribute his own limitations to the Infinite
Being. He is guilty of gross “anthropomorphism”
in putting upon God the limitations of under­
standing and of will, and those of time and space,
which characterize human existence. God’s plan is
an eternal plan, eternally viewed in its entirety and

286

THEODICY

in full detail; it is not something that unfolds to
God as it unfolds to creatures. Therefore, the notion
that things happen by chance, as though (hey hap­
pened in a manner surprising and even balding to the
Almighty, is a false and unreasonable notion. And
to allege the fact that we do not always understand
the design of God in I I is government of events
as a reason for denying the existence of that design,
is a proud and stupid thing to do. Now, reason com­
pels us to the acknowledgment of an existing Infinite
First Cause upon Whom all things utterly depend.
Reason, following up that first fact, compels us to
recognize the Infinite Being as boundlessly capable,
so to speak; as perfectly able and willing to take full
charge of the universe and to manage it most
thoroughly in its every fact and movement and
event. Further still, reason compels us to acknowl­
edge that this Infinite Adequacy is infinitely effec­
tive. In a word, pure and unclouded reason makes
manifest to us the existence and effectiveness of
Divine Providence and Governance in the world.
And that fact, once known, must not be allowed to
slip from notice. If events seem in conflict with it,
then this must be only seeming and not fact. For
reason compels us to recognize Providence, but it
does not enable us to explain in full, and in every
event, the actual working-out of Providence. The
right attitude of mind, the philosophical attitude, is
that of humility and calm recognition of the limi-

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 287

tations of the human mind. It is not only piety, it is
true philosophy, that enables a man to know that
“all things work together unto good.” Nor does this
mean a fatalistic acceptance of all that happens as
inevitable, and as inevitably the best that could hap­
pen. No; as we have seen in discussing the concur­
rence of God with free-wills, man is a true and total
cause of his own free-acts, and man may be perverse.
And yet, as we shall see, man is wholly unable to
upset Divine Providence or to distort its plan, how­
ever much damage he may do to himself. We shall
touch this point in our consideration of the next dif­
ficulty, namely, that of Divine Providence and ex­
isting evil.

2. The Question of Existing Evil. In an earlier
part of this manual (c/. Book Third, Chap. I, Art. 2,
d) we have defined evil, distinguishing it as physical
and as moral evil, and we have proved that God wills
physical evil accidentally (or per accidens) but does
not will moral evil (or sin) in any way whatever.
But the point we have to consider here may be
raised in this question : How does God, if He is the
Infinite Provider and Governor, even tolerate evil,
especially moral evil, in the world which Pie rules
so absolutely? To find the true answer to this ques­
tion we must bring to our study a clear recognition
of two truths : first, that God’s Providence and Gov­
ernance is an infinitely wise and absolutely effective

288

THEODICY

direction of things to their true end; secondly, that
human freedom is a fact which involves (he possi­
bility of abuse. With these two truths held steadily
in mind, we attack the problem of Divine .Providence
and existing evil.
Providence directs realities and events to their
true end. What is this end? Manifestly, it is the ul­
timate end, the last end, the absolutely final end, for
this end it is that gives meaning to all subordinate
and partial ends. Now, the final or ultimate end of
all creatures is the manifestation of the external
glory of God. And this end is absolutely achieved.
We call the end of creation the external glory of
God, for nothing internal or intrinsic can be af­
forded to the Infinite Being which already possesses
the fulness of all perfection. And by objective ex­
ternal glory, we mean the character of creatures as
an expression of God's power and wisdom and good­
ness and beauty. Just as a well executed painting, or
a finely sculptured statue, is a credit to the artist who
made it, so is God’s world of creatures a credit to
God; the work of art manifests the power and skill
of the artist, his intelligence, his taste, his ability;
the world of creatures manifests the perfections of
the Creator. Such is the external and objective glory
of God revealed in His works. Revealed? Yes, but
to what or to whom? To intelligences, to minds, to
persons. And here comes in the second note, the sec­
ond determinant, in the final end of creatures; they

"5

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD 289

exist to manifest God’s perfections to mankind, and
thus to win mankind to a recognition of what they
express. And we call that glorv, that credit, that ex­
pressed perfection in a work which is recognized
for what it is, the formal glory of him who wrought
the work. The work of art is a credit to the artist in
itself whether anyone ever sees it or not ; it expresses
his glory objectively. Yet the artist has not formal
glory unless the work of art be known and in some
sense appreciated. Now, creatures exist for the ob­
jective and formal glory of God; they exist to ex­
press this glory. And this they infallibly do. For in
themselves, by their very being, they are expressions
of God’s objective external glory; and men must al­
ways recognize that objective glory and make it
formal, even when they do not turn the recognition
to their own account and through it obtain happi­
ness. For man will forever render objective and
formal glory to God, and in himself, his works, his
mind, he will eternally manifest God’s glory by
■ showing forth the Divine Perfections; the souls in
heaven manifest God’s mercy, love, goodness; the
souls in hell manifest God’s justice. Thus, whether
a man save his soul or lose it, the ultimate end of
creation is absolutely achieved, and man is power­
less to defeat it. It appears, therefore, that moral evil
(that is, sin) which leads human lives to ruin and
to endless misery, does not stand in the way of the
attainment of the absolutely ultimate end of all créa-

290

THEODICY

tion towards the attainment of which all I kings are
guided by Divine Providence and Governance. In a
word, moral evil docs not come in conflict
ilh the
fact of Divine Providence al all. Nor does physical
evil conflict with Providence. The defects that we
call physical evils (sickness, suffering', harsh, climate,
etc.) are really a kindness to fallen man, who, with­
out them, would never turn to God or to the practice
of virtue. Even in a world that is marked by so many
hardships, or physical evils, multitudes of men are

constantly looking for a temporary heaven and an
earthly Paradise, uncaring for that true and eternal
beatitude for which they are meant to labor in the
brief workday of earthly life. All men would do so
were it not for the presence and pressure of physical
evils which keep us reminded that we have not here a
lasting city. Further, physical evils bring out the best
in men ; without them, there would be no occasion for
the development of that stamina, that character, that
heroism, which all men justly admire. It is mani­
fest, without further argument, that physical evils,
far from being in conflict with Divine Providence,
are not in contact with its main character and pur­
pose, and are apt instruments for the achievement of
its secondary end which is the happiness and eternal
well being of mankind.
It is when we forget that man’s welfare is the
secondary end of Divine Providence, and not the
primary and absolutely ultimate end, that we find the

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

291

existence of moral evil a difficulty. With this second­
ary end of Iwovidence, moral evil is indeed in con­
flict, for it works the ruin of men. But here we must
recall the fact that moral evil, like every sort of evil,

is ίΐιι absence and a lack, a defection ami a
and not something with its own positive and

failure,
formal
constitution. And the failure and lack, the defec­
tion and fault, which we call sin or moral evil, is clue

to the non-conforming of free man with the full
measure of God’s concurrence and premotion to
good. Human freedom is a fact, and, as we have
seen, it is something of its very nature subject to
abuse in a finite creature which has not yet attained
its final end or goal. Given to man for his own good,
as well as for the expression of God’s formal and
objective glory, freedom of choice (or freedom of
will) is incapable of missing the ultimate end of
Providence, but quite capable of missing the sec­
ondary end. It can be misused to harm man, although
it cannot be misused to harm God or to upset the
ultimate plans of God. God does not will its misuse,
even indirectly or accidentally, or even in so far as
such misuse harms man ; Ide wills its proper use.
But he wills that man act freely, and if man freely
falls short of what nature and grace enable him to
do, the failure is man’s own entirely, and it touches
man alone, and in no wise conflicts with the ultimate
end of Providence. And even in its secondary end
the Providence of God is often indirectly served by

i

2Q2

THEODICY

moral evil. Out of the evil of persecution came the
glory of the martyrs; out of the hardships vilely im­
posed upon the poor come nobility of life, strength
of character, and the field for the exercise of the
splendid social virtues that we call the spiritual and

corporal works of mercy. To a thoughtful man.—
and especially to one who is “of the household of
the Faith” with that understanding of the family­
life of Christendom which an outsider has never
experienced and cannot rightly know,-—it is abun­
dantly evident that the Providence of God is con­
stantly drawing good out of evil. Such a man
requires no great effort of mind, as he traces in
memory the course of his own life, and weighs the
facts and events that have shaped it, to see God’s
“good and gracious purpose working in all the evils”
that have come upon him. It appears, then, that there
is no real conflict between the fact of Providence
and the fact of evil; no, not even when the evil is
that moral evil which brings man to an eternal mis­
ery and an endless suffering.
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have defined providence in gen­
eral, and Divine Providence in particular. We have
noticed that Providence on the part of God means
Divine Governance exercised over creatures. We
have proved the existence of Providence as a fact,

TRANSIENT OPERATIONS OF GOD

293

drawing our arguments from the Infinite Under­
standing of God, from ilis essential First Causality,
from His Wisdom, from the world-order. And we
have indicated, as an inevitable conclusion of rea­
son, that Divine Providence and Governance arc ex­
tended to the last and least details in the universe
of realities, and are 110 mere general movement or
control in the wide direction of ultimate good. We
have considered certain difficulties that assail the
unthinking mind when the subject of Providence is

considered in the face of a world in which so much
seems to happen by chance, and in which there are
manifest imperfections (or physical evils) and much
moral evil (or sin).