Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber III

After St. Thomas has shown that all things desire the divine likeness in causing, and that all things act for an end, he now wishes to remove certain doubts concerning these points ¹. For, since two things were said—one, that all things act for an end²; the other, that all agents act for assimilation to God³—he wishes to satisfy, concerning both, certain arguments that could be brought against the established truth.

For against the first it could be argued as follows. Natural things do not act for an end. Therefore not all things act for an end. — The antecedent is proved. Because natural things lack cognition. But nothing intends something determinate by its action unless it is directed by some cognition.

Against the second it could be urged as follows⁴. All things act by natural appetite for their own perfection as for an end. Therefore not for the divine likeness.

I. To the first of these he answers that natural things tend toward an end as directed by an intelligent substance, in the manner in which an arrow is directed by an archer: because they acquire an inclination toward natural ends from intellectual movers, from which they receive their forms and virtues and motions, just as an arrow from the impulse of the archer tends toward a determinate target. — From which it follows that every work of nature is a work of an intelligent substance: since an effect is attributed more principally to the first directing mover than to the instruments directed by it.

He shows the proposition in two ways: first, from the order of agents; second, from the order of the works of nature⁵.

As to the first way, he argues as follows. The celestial body is moved by an intellectual substance. But the motion of the heaven is ordered to generation in these lower things. Therefore the generations and motions of these lower things proceed from the intention of an intelligent substance. Therefore all lower bodies are directed by an intellectual substance to their proper ends.

The first consequence is proved⁶. Because the heaven is like an instrument of the intellectual substance: since it is the cause of lower motions according to its own motion, by which it is moved by such a substance. But the end and intention⁷ of the principal agent and of the instrument are directed to the same thing.

The second consequence is proved⁸. Because that which is moved per se by something, and not per accidens, is directed by it to the end of its motion. But the heaven is moved by an intellectual substance, and causes through its motion all motions in these lower things. Therefore it is directed by it to the end of its motion. Therefore etc.

2. From the first consequent St. Thomas infers that the truth is had of what is said by Boethius, in the book I de Trin., ch. 3⁹, and by Plato, concerning the procession of material forms from immaterial forms. Because, since the species of those things that are caused and intended by an intellectual agent pre-exist in its intellect and are derived from them into the effects, as from exemplars, as is evident in a craftsman; all sensible forms, and their motions, are determined by the intellectual forms that are in the intellect of some intellectual substance—namely, if they are moved by one only, say by the first; or of some substances, if they are moved by several, say by the first by means of second causes. But we differ from Plato in two respects: because Plato posited that those forms are subsisting per se, and immediately cause sensible forms; but we posit that they exist in the intellect, and cause lower forms through the motion of the heaven.

II. Concerning the reason by which it is proved that the heaven is an instrument of an intellectual substance, it should be noted, as is held in the preceding book by St. Thomas ¹⁰; and in De Verit., q. xxvii, a. 4; and in many other places, that the definition of an instrument, in so far as it is an instrument, is that it moves in so far as it is moved by the principal agent. And therefore, if the heaven has it that it is the cause of lower motions through the motion by which it is moved by an intellectual substance, it follows very well that it is its instrument.

2. Concerning that proposition, The end and intention of the principal agent and of the instrument are directed to the same thing, it should be noted that, although an instrument accomplishes something from its proper form, yet in so far as it is an instrument moved by the principal mover, as is said in the Fourth Book, d. 1, a. 4 ¹¹, it always accomplishes something beyond its proper power. Therefore, although the intention of the principal agent and of the instrument in so far as it operates precisely by its proper power can be different, yet in so far as it operates in the manner of an instrument, it must tend to that to which it is ordered by the motion of the principal agent. And thus the same intention and the same end must belong to both in so far as they are of this kind. St. Thomas is therefore speaking of the intention and end of the instrument formally, namely, in so far as it is an instrument.

But it should be noted that either the text is corrupt ¹², and ought to read thus, For into the same end is directed the intention of both the principal agent and the instrument: or the word and is to be explained as that is, so that the word intention is an exposition of the word end, and the sense is: To the same is directed the end, that is, the intention. For sometimes we use the name of the end for the intention, because the intention is only of the end: for we say, "My end is to attain beatitude," that is, "I intend to attain beatitude."

3. Concerning the proof of the second consequence ¹³, it should be noted first that, since a mover per accidens (that which, I say, is joined to a mover per se: as St. Thomas speaks in this place of a mover per accidens) works nothing toward the effect, and does not act for an end, that which is moved does not have it that it is directed to anything by such a mover. We do indeed say that a white man builds per accidens, because it happens to the builder to be white: yet the house is directed to no end by the white man, in so far as he is such. But a mover per se, that is, from its proper form and power, has it to direct that which is moved to the end of the motion: because every agent and mover per se acts and moves for some end, to which it intends to attain through motion; just as the house-builder directs the moved stones and mortar and wood to the form of the house, to which one attains through their motion. For that reason St. Thomas very well assumes that everything that is moved by something per se and not per accidens is directed by it to the end of its motion.

It should be noted secondly, that for this reason St. Thomas deduces as manifest, from the fact that the celestial body is directed to the end of its motion by an intellectual substance, that all lower bodies are directed by such a substance to their proper ends, because both are deduced from the same foundation: from this, I say, that everything that is moved by something per se is directed by it to the end of motion. For since lower bodies are moved per se by an intellectual substance just as higher bodies are, it follows that, just as on this account higher bodies are directed to the end of their motion by an intellectual substance, so also lower bodies are directed by such a substance to their ends, to which they attain through their motions.

III. The second reason is from a sign: namely, because the operations of nature are found to proceed in an orderly way, like the operations of a wise person ¹⁴.

Note, as is said in the Second Book, dist. xli, q. 1, a. 1, that to order by way of showing the end absolutely belongs to reason; but to order by way of showing the end perfectly belongs to reason perfected by a habit, say wisdom; and therefore in I Metaphysics ¹⁵ it is said that it belongs to the wise person to order. For that reason, where an ordered process is found in operations, it is a sign that operations of this kind proceed, either immediately or mediately, from someone who is wise and acts through intellect.

IV. To the second doubt ¹⁶ St. Thomas answers by denying the consequence: because, I say, it makes no difference whether this or that is said:—that is, whichever of them is said, it is maintained that they desire the divine likeness, and one does not exclude the other; rather, one entails the other.

Moreover, this is shown in two ways ¹⁷. First, thus. In that natural things tend to their proper perfection, they tend to the good. But in that they tend to the good, they tend to the divine likeness: because something is assimilated to God in so far as it is good. Further: a particular good has it that it is appetible in so far as it is a likeness of the first goodness. Therefore each thing tends to its proper good because it tends to the divine likeness, and not conversely. Therefore all things desire the divine likeness as their ultimate end.

Concerning that proposition, A particular good has it that it is appetible in so far as it is a likeness of the first goodness, it should be considered that in the thing that is desired, there is the very being that is desired, and the ground of appetibility: just as in the visible there is that which is seen, say Socrates, and the ground of seeing, namely color. Therefore, to say that this good has it that it is appetible in so far as it is a likeness of the first goodness is to say that likeness to the divine goodness is for it the reason why it is desired. From which it follows that something cannot tend to the good by way of an appetible thing without tending to the divine likeness, just as something cannot be seen without color being seen: for the same act, as is said in I-II, q. xii, a. 4, falls upon the object and upon the formal reason of the object. It also follows that in such an appetition the first thing desired is the divine likeness: and consequently the ultimate end, because that which is the formal reason of the appetition of something is the more principally desired. Therefore St. Thomas very well deduced from that proposition that all things desire the divine likeness as their ultimate end.

V. Secondly, it is declared thus ¹⁸. The more something is of more perfect power and more eminent in the degree of goodness, the more common an appetite for the good it has ¹⁹, and the more it seeks and works the good in things distant from itself. Therefore God in the diffusion of his goodness is the exemplar and measure of all things diffusing goodness. Therefore each thing, in tending to be the cause of other things, tends to the divine likeness, and nonetheless tends to its own good.

The antecedent is declared from two things. First, from the diverse mode of desiring one's own good. For a thing desires its good sometimes according as it is proper to it by reason of the individual. And thus an animal desires its good when it desires food, by which it is preserved in being. — Sometimes according as it belongs to it by reason of the species, that is, according as it is the good of the species. Thus also an animal desires the generation of offspring and its nourishment, and whatever preserves and defends the individuals of its species. — Sometimes according as it belongs to it by reason of the genus. And thus an equivocal agent, as the heaven, desires its proper good in causing: namely, by desiring the good of its genus, say of body. — Sometimes according as it belongs to it by reason of the analogy of things originated to their principle. And thus God on account of his own good gives being to all things.

Secondly, the antecedent is declared from what is said by some, namely that the good, in so far as it is such, is diffusive. For the better something is found to be, the more to more remote things, that is, to things more distant according to nature, does it diffuse its goodness.

2. But the first consequence is proved. In every genus, that which is most perfect is the exemplar and measure of all things that belong to that genus. But God is most perfect in goodness, and diffuses his goodness most universally: from which, namely, he has it that he is most perfect in the genus of cause, because in so far as each thing diffuses goodness more into other things, it becomes a higher cause ²⁰. Therefore etc.

The second consequence, however, is not proved, but is left as manifest. For if other agents are modeled in acting upon God and his goodness, it follows that by acting they tend to the divine likeness and to their own good.

From this is excluded a certain objection touched upon also above ²¹, by which it could seem to someone that the motions of celestial bodies, and the actions of their movers, are not for the sake of the bodies that are generated and corrupted: since they are less noble than them. For it is said that it is not unfitting that they are in some way for their sake: since they are not for their sake as for an ultimate end, but for the sake of their own good and for the sake of the divine likeness.

VI. Concerning that proposition, The more something is of more perfect power and more eminent in the degree of goodness, the more common an appetite for the good it has ²², a doubt arises. For from this it follows that God acts on account of an appetite for the most common good: since he is of the most perfect goodness. Which is also manifestly said here by St. Thomas, where he says that God gives being to all things on account of his good according as it is his by reason of the likeness of the analogy of things originated to their principle. — But the opposite of this seems to be had in De Potentia, q. iii, a. 15, ad 14, where it is said that God acts from love of the end, but not from appetite for the end.

2. For the evidence of this, it must be considered that we use the name appetite in two ways for the present. Sometimes indeed as the name of a certain particular act of appetite, which is called by another name desire. And thus God does not act on account of an appetite for the end: because appetite taken in this way is for a thing not possessed; but to God nothing is lacking that he would wish to acquire for himself by his action. — Sometimes, however, we use the name appetite as a common name for all operations of the appetite, so that even to love is a kind of desiring. And thus it is not unfitting for God to have an appetite for the most common good, and to act on account of the appetite for such a good, in so far as he works and gives being to things because he wills a good of this kind. And in this way the name appetite is taken here. But in the Disputed Questions on the Power of God it is taken in the first way.

3. But it should be noted, when we say that God acts on account of his good by reason of the likeness of analogy etc., that we can understand this in two ways: in one way, that this good of his is his goodness by which he is formally good in himself; in another way, that this good of his is the good formally inherent in the creature.

If we take it in the first way, thus the sense is that on account of the love of his goodness, to which all things have a certain analogy and likeness (on account of which it is called the most common good, as participated in by all through a certain likeness), he gives being to all things. And then his good with respect to him has the character of the end of the agent: according to the distinction concerning the end posited by St. Thomas in II Sent., dist. 1, q. ii, a. 1.

If we understand it in the second way, the sense is that God gives being to all things because he wills the good of all things, which is a certain participated likeness of the divine goodness, and thus has a certain analogy and proportion to it; so that even the good of the creature itself is called the good of God proportionally, in so far as it is a likeness of his goodness. And then his good has the character of the end of the work, but not of the agent. For he wills that every creature from the divine operation attain a certain likeness of the divine goodness: but the divine goodness itself is that from the love of which he wills that its likeness be communicated to the creature.

Although what is said here can have truth in both ways, it seems nevertheless to be taken in the second sense, when he says that his good which God wills is his by reason of the likeness of the analogy of things originated to their principle. For from this he gives to understand that the good intended by him in the creation of things as the end of the work is the good of things originated, which is also the good of God according to a certain analogy and proportion to his essential goodness.