Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, the word God is taken formally, as it is a name of the divine nature as distinguished against power: so that the question is not asked about God according to any power whatsoever, but according to substance; as is clear from the introduction of this question, and from the title of the whole treatise¹, up to Question XIV. That this may be better understood, distinguish the word God in two ways: in one way, according to himself; in another way, according to his diffused power. The question here is not whether the divine power diffused into all things exists, but whether God himself, according to himself, is in all things. – The phrase is in is not taken determinately for some special mode of being in, but indistinctly and in common. And note this well: because Scotus, in Book II, distinction II, question I of the second part of that distinction², did not understand this title. But his argument must be deferred until the examination of the conclusion³, so that it may be better perceived.

II. In the body of the article there is one conclusion, responsive to the question in the affirmative, having two parts: God is intimately present in all things.

The first part is proved. God is ipsum esse by essence: therefore He has created being as His proper effect, not only in coming-to-be but also in being preserved: therefore He is in all things as an agent, and not as an accident or a part. Therefore He is in all things. – The first inference is explained by analogy: just as to ignite is the proper effect of fire. And the phrase as regards preservation is explained: just as light is caused by the sun for as long as the air remains illuminated. The second consequence is proved: because every agent must be joined to that upon which it acts immediately. This is proved by the authority of Book VII of the Physics, text 8⁴: the mover and the moved must be together.

The second part of the conclusion, namely the word "intimately," is proved as follows. Existence (esse) is formal with respect to all things that are in reality; therefore it inheres more deeply than all things; therefore it is most intimate to each thing. Therefore God, the proper agent of being, is intimately in all things.

III. Concerning this process, first the form must be explained, then the terms⁵; and afterwards each point will be examined⁶. Note, therefore, that in the text the first consequence does not infer both things, namely that esse depends both in coming to be and in being conserved: but only that it is a proper effect. It seemed good, however, to join both in one consequent, because in the text neither of these is proved at all, but is merely declared by way of the example of light. And since the consequence truly holds, as will become clear below⁷, when there will be discussion of the dependence and conservation of things; therefore they are also manifested here only superficially, because below, in their proper place, they will be proved.

IV. Note second, that in the consequent of the second consequence, the word immediate is understood. For, as is clear from the proof, the discourse is about the proximate agent or the agent acting immediately as such. Nor is the discourse about any immediation whatsoever, but about that of the supposit. For an agent can be called immediate in two ways, as is taught in III Cont. Gent., chapter LXX: namely, by an immediation of power, and by an immediation of the supposit. Now there is an immediation of power when the power of the agent is joined to the effect without begging such a conjunction from any other power. And therefore, the higher an agent is, the more immediately it acts by an immediation of power: since the lower acts by the power of the higher, and not conversely. But there is an immediation of the supposit when between the agent supposit and the effect no subordinate supposit mediates as co-agent. And therefore, the lower an agent is, the more immediate it is by an immediation of supposit. And since here the discourse is about God himself in himself, whether he is in things, therefore a supposital immediation is to the point: so that that consequent intends that God is in all things as an immediate agent suppositaliter, that is, proximate and most near suppositaliter; so that between God and any thing whatsoever, no supposit mediates as agent producing it. – Now that this is the sense of the letter is clear, both from the proof adduced there, which is acknowledged to be verified only of such a proximate agent and mover; and because from an immediation of power alone it does not follow, therefore God in himself is in all things, but according to his diffused and participated power; so that Avicenna, positing ⁸ that the first intelligence alone was produced by God through himself, would concede this. How this is true will easily be made manifest.

V. Note third, that the consequent of the first consequence, namely therefore it has esse as its proper effect, can be understood in two ways, as far as the present matter is concerned. In one way, as the term proper is distinguished against common: and thus the sense is, esse is an effect proceeding from God alone, excluding every intermediate efficient cause. And Scotus takes it in this sense, in Book IV, dist. 1, qu. 1: and wrongly. But of this it will be disputed below in qu. XLV. ⁹ – In another way, as the term proper is distinguished against alien. Now alien, in the matter at hand, is said of everything that is present through another, even if it is present per se: and thus proper signifies the same as per se first. And this is the intended and true sense. For esse is per se first the effect of the first cause, and the reason why anything whatsoever is from the first cause, as will be made clear in the place cited above. And this the consequence of the text directly intends, wishing that all esse as such be derived from esse by essence, as its proper effect, that is, its effect per se first. – And although, as will be made clear there, this can be verified in many ways, nevertheless for the present purpose one suffices, through which the present text is made more evident. It is said, therefore, that esse is the proper or per se first effect of God, because God alone can do all the things required in order that something be, whatever that thing may be. For every thing is either material or immaterial. If material, matter is required for its esse, which is created and conserved by God alone: if immaterial, it is from God alone, as will be proved below, ¹⁰ when creative power is treated of. And from this it is clear that in every thing there is something produced and conserved by God alone proximately and immediately: in material things indeed, the substance of prime matter; but in separate substances, the very substance itself. And therefore God is said to be the agent of all things immediately, by the immediation of the supposit. For the text does not say that God is the immediate agent of all things with respect to all things, but with respect to something, namely with respect to esse: because he acts on all things immediately, with respect to something required for the esse of that thing. And therefore he assumed as middle term the causality that God has with respect to esse itself, esse, which must be common to all things: for that which does not participate esse, is not.

VI. Note fourthly that in the proof of the second part of the conclusion, esse is said to be deeper and more intimate than all things, because it is formal with respect to all. And rightly so: for there is nothing in any thing that is not actualized through esse, whether an essential part, or an integral part, or a substantial or accidental predicate; for esse reaches every grade, every formal account. Many things, however, are in a thing which are not substance, or body, etc. Therefore deeper than all things, and that which remains last in resolution, and that which first terminates composition, is esse, etc.

VII. Concerning the sense of the conclusion and the title¹¹, a doubt arises from Scotus, in Book II, distinction II, question V. There he says, "I ask," "what do you intend to inquire into and conclude? Either God's presence in all things by reason of operation, or by reason of immensity. If the first, then a begging of the question is committed: because the conclusion is God is in all things, that is, joined to all things as agent, and the middle term is this very same thing; as is clear in the text. And moreover, this conclusion is not to the point: because your question is about presence which pertains to God's immensity, as you state in the introduction to the question. – If the second, then the presence of immensity is concluded by you a posteriori, from the presence of an agent as such. And then it follows further, therefore a spiritual substance is in place prior in nature to its operating at all, which you deny in the matter concerning the place of angels."

VIII. To this it is said that the conjunction of God with things can be taken in two ways: in one way, for the very contact by which God himself touches the thing through himself; in another way, for the relation of presence, by which, by a relative denomination, he is said to be present in himself to something. If it is taken in the first way, then for God to be in things is nothing other than to produce and conserve them immediately. But if it is taken in the second way, then it is a relation of reason in God consequent upon the aforesaid contact.

IX. To Scotus's objection, therefore,¹² it is answered that, speaking formally, this is a question about presence as regards immensity: but not about that which he himself imagines to be prior to all contact. But the presence that follows upon immensity, since it cannot be understood without the existence of the extremes unless it is taken in potency, is either the very contact of creatures, by which creatures come to be and are in such a way that it is impossible for anything to come to be or to be that is not so touched by God; just as the presence of an infinite body to all places would be the contact of all places, such that it would be impossible for a place to be posited that was not touched by it (but here imagination errs: because local contact presupposes both extremes; divine contact does not presuppose them, but makes creatures; otherwise it would not be that by which things come to be and are): or it is the relation of presence, by which God is said relatively to be actually present to a creature; and this manifestly follows upon the existence of the creature. In the matter at hand, then, it must be said that the question concerns the presence of immensity taken indistinctly.¹³

Nor does it follow, therefore, that there is given another presence of a spiritual substance prior in operation: since the presence of immensity coincides with presence through operation. — Nor does it follow, therefore, that there is a begging of the question. First, because the question and the conclusion are about presence indistinctly: but the middle term is presence by way of an immediate agent: and thus it is a process from the inferior to the superior in the affirmative. Second, because, granted that the question and the conclusion were about the conjunction of contact, the middle term is the definition of that very conjunction: and thus it is not a begging of the question, since it is concluded as a passion of its subject, through the definition of the passion; while it is shown that God is joined to all things of himself, through the definition of that which is to be joined to things of himself; which is nothing other than to act upon and conserve all things immediately, with the immediation of the supposit. Third, because, if the question and the conclusion are about being in things through a relation of presence, the middle term is as it were the cause, or foundation, of the major extreme. — And thus it is clear that, if this question is understood concerning being in things specifically, the process is a priori, namely from the definition of the passion, or from the foundation of the relation. But if indistinctly, then it is from the inferior to the superior in the affirmative. And thus the vice is never admitted.

X. Concerning the proof of the second consequence¹⁴, a doubt arises from Scotus, in the First Book, distinction thirty-seven, single question, where he holds both that this proposition, taken as an assumption, "an agent must be conjoined to that upon which it acts immediately," is false, and that Aristotle's dictum, "the mover and the moved must be together," holds only per accidens, and that this argument, which infers from these premises that God, by His very being (esse), is present to all things, is invalid.

First, therefore, he proves it thus: The sun acts immediately where it is not; therefore. The antecedent is proved: because the sun generates in the bowels of the earth a mineral or some mixed body; and the proximate eliciting principle of such generation is the substance of the sun; therefore. That the substance of the sun is the principle of the substantial generation of that mixed body is evident. But that it is the proximate principle is proved: because any accident whatsoever, whether light or anything else, cannot be the principle of a substance. — Furthermore, that a natural agent cannot act at a distance unless it first acts on what is present arises from one of these two things: namely, either from the concurrence of two powers subordinated to each other in the same agent, or from the imperfection of the active power, which cannot produce what is more perfect except by proceeding from what is less perfect to what is more perfect. An example of the first: the sun does not generate this unless it illuminates the medium. An example of the second: a generator does not generate unless it alters and disposes, etc. Therefore, that an agent cannot act at a distance without acting on what is present is due to these conditions. Hence it is not necessary simply: for there can be an agent in which neither of these conditions has a place.

And from this the second point follows: because on account of these conditions it is verified of movers and moved things.

And third: because God is an omnipotent agent, in whom none of these conditions is found; and therefore, from the fact that He immediately produces something, it does not necessarily follow that He is present to it by His very self. — And this third point, he says, is confirmed in two ways. First, because if God were in some definite place, He could immediately produce something at any distance whatever, since He would be omnipotent: therefore immediate production does not necessarily imply presence according to essence. Second, because given the prior, the posterior does not necessarily follow: but the presence of God according to power is prior to His presence according to substance: therefore, given the former, it is not necessary to posit the latter. The minor is proved: because a creature by nature terminates the act of the divine power before God is present to it, as is evident in the first production of the world.

XI. For the clarification of these points, it must be known that, because in those agents that are among us there is found a twofold presence of the agent to the patient—one situational, by which their ultimate parts are together, and another virtual, by which the operation of the agent reaches the effect or the patient without reaching any medium, whether something intervenes or not—so too in spiritual agents a twofold presence is distinguished: one according to substance, by which the very substance of the agent is determined, or as it were determined, to this patient; the other according to power, as in what was said above. And on account of this twofold presence, Scotus labored greatly¹⁵, imputing to St. Thomas both sides of a contradiction: namely, that he posited the first presence in this article, and that he denied it in the matter of the place of angels; and, what is more, that in St. Thomas here, presence according to substance is prior to presence according to power. But it is far otherwise. For with St. Thomas, although it is one thing to be present according to substance and another according to power, nevertheless it is not one thing to be present according to substance and another according to power immediately reaching the effect or the patient: for the presence of the power, as is clear in the following article¹⁶, does not require the immediation of the supposit. Yet neither are being present according to substance and being present according to an immediately acting power entirely the same thing: rather they are distinguished as the ratio of presence and the thing present. For immediate reaching is the ratio of presence, not only of the power but of the substance itself: so that just as a situated substance is present by its situation, and yet the substance itself is present, so a spiritual substance is present by immediate reaching, such that the substance itself is present, and not its operation, as that which is present. And thus these two presences, in spiritual things, are not entirely two, nor entirely one: but they stand in a middle way, namely as that by which and that which. And therefore we said¹⁷ that in the text, which concludes the presence of the substance from immediate reaching, the argument proceeds from the definition to the defined, that is, from the ratio to that of which it is the ratio.

XII. To Scotus's arguments, therefore,¹⁸ I reply point by point. To the first, it is denied that the sun acts immediately at a distance; and it is false that the substantial form is the elicitive principle of the generation of a mineral. For substance is not the proximate and elicitive principle of any operation, as will be shown at length in question LXXVII,¹⁹ Nor is it unfitting that an accident be the instrumental principle of the generation of substance: for an instrument is not a cause, but the organ of a cause.

XIII. To the second objection it is said that neither of those causes is why natural agents cannot act at a distance unless they first act on what is near; rather, it is because of an imperfection negatively belonging to the active power insofar as it is limited. And therefore this is reserved to God alone. — We have taken this argument from the senses, whereas Scotus invented those others. Hence Aristotle, in Book VII of the Physics Physics²⁰, proves inductively from sensible things that the mover, even the intentional mover, and the moved must be together; as is clear there in the case of the objects of the senses.

XIV. And if it be asked what the universal reason is that the agent and its immediate patient must be together, or conjoined, the answer is that, since being together or conjoined and immediately touching do not hold uniformly, no uniform reason can be assigned to them. For it has already been said²¹ that the presence of substance and the immediate presence of power are in some cases entirely distinct, while in others they coincide. And therefore it must be said that where these presences are entirely distinct, the presence of operation implies the presence of power by reason of the limitation of the agent; but where they are as it were one and the same, the implication holds by reason of their identity. And therefore that proposition, every agent etc., is universally true in all agents, though from different roots in different cases. And hence from it one could rightly proceed to infer the presence of the divine immensity in all things.

XV. And by this the response to both confirmations is clear. To the first, indeed, the conditional is denied: for from that antecedent follows both that consequent and its contradictory; and hence neither follows. For if God were in some definite place, from the fact that God is omnipotent it would follow that he could be in anything, anywhere; but from the fact that he is in a definite place it would follow that he could be in nothing except through something proximate; for this pertains to the account of what is limited situationally. And thus it is clear that both parts of a contradiction follow at once: and consequently neither. – To the second, however, it is said that although it is true that the prior does not necessarily imply the posterior when they are entirely distinct; nevertheless these presences are not entirely distinct, but, as was said²², they coincide in spiritual things, as the reason and that of which it is the reason. And therefore they stand to one another in some way as prior and posterior.

XVI. In response to the third objection, note first that distance, in the matter at hand, is fourfold: namely, situational, natural, supposital, and virtual. Situational distance is evident; natural distance is a dissimilarity of nature; supposital distance is the mediation of a supposit; and virtual distance, finally, is the mediation of power in a virtual manner. Now that proposition, the more powerful an agent is, the farther away it can act, speaking not of this or that kind of agent but absolutely, is simply true of natural distance alone. – For with respect to the distance of place, it is clear that it is false: since not every agent has a place, even definitively. – With respect to the distance of power as well, it is likewise clearly false: for the higher, and consequently the more powerful, an agent is, the closer it is virtually, as is evident from what was said ²³. – But with respect to the distance of the supposit, it is true in some way, yet simply—that is, totally—false. It can indeed be understood in two ways. In one way thus: the more powerful an agent is, the farther away it can act suppositaliter with respect to something. And in this way it is most true: hence God could, through infinitely many mediating supposits cooperating in a certain manner, draw forth the form of a cow from potency or matter, or do something of this sort, which He Himself does not produce immediately by the immediation of the supposit, but only by His power. In another way thus: the more powerful it is, the farther away it can act suppositaliter with respect to its whole self. And in this way the proposition is utterly false. Indeed, as the text says, this pertains to God's maximal power, that nothing be able to stand at a distance from Him with respect to His whole self suppositaliter: because in every subsistent being something must be produced and continuously conserved by God immediately by the immediation of the supposit, as was said ²⁴. And since the present article speaks of this distance, and of the presence opposed to it, therefore in the text, without any further distinction, that proposition—understood as concerning what is more distant with respect to its whole self, and not with respect to something of itself—was denied, and rightly so. – But with respect to the distance of nature, which the text also mentions, the proposition is simply true: for the more powerful an agent is, the more it can, by extending its power, make something like itself; so much so that the Creator can produce from nothing similar to Himself in no way whatsoever, that is, from no potency, because from nothing.

XVII. Note second, that in the text mention is made of supposital distance, and of a virtual conjunction penetrating and, in a way, overcoming supposital distance, and of supposital immediation. And from the fact that it is not supposital distance, but a virtual conjunction penetrating the supposital distance found there, that pertains to the perfection of power, it is inferred implicitly: therefore not distance, but the conjunction of agent with effect, follows upon the perfection of the agent. And from this it is inferred explicitly: therefore it belongs to God's maximal power that nothing be able to stand at supposital distance from Him with respect to its whole self, but that He must be suppositaly conjoined to all things. And this argument proceeds by the topic from the greater: if in that production in which supposital distance is found, the distance itself does not follow upon the perfection of the agent, but rather the conjunction penetrating it; therefore, absolutely speaking, supposital distance itself does not pertain to the perfection of the agent, but rather conjunction. Therefore, to be able to act upon what is more distant with respect to its whole self suppositaly does not follow upon the perfection of power: but rather that one must be conjoined to all things pertains to maximal power.