Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber III

If a created intellect cannot see the divine essence by the power of its own nature, it remains to inquire what that is which it needs for such a vision ¹. Therefore, wishing to show this, St. Thomas does two things: first, he shows what that requisite is; second, he removes certain doubts, in the following chapter.

Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he proves that a created intellect is raised to so noble a vision through some influence of divine goodness.

Second, because this influence is called by the theologians the light of glory, he assigns the reason for this name ².

I. As to the first, it is argued first as follows. The divine essence is the proper intelligible form of the divine intellect, and proportioned to it: since in God these three are the same, the intellect, that by which it is understood, and that which is understood. Therefore it is impossible that it become an intelligible form of a created intellect, unless in this, that the created intellect participates in some divine likeness. Therefore etc. — The first consequence is proved. Because it is impossible that the proper form of any thing become the form of another thing, unless it participates in some likeness of that whose proper form it is. This is declared by the example of light.

To this argument someone could say that the natural light of a created intellect is that divine likeness which is required for the reception of the divine essence after the manner of an intelligible form. Therefore no other likeness superadded to the intellect is required. — But because St. Thomas excludes this objection in the following chapter, therefore it is deferred until then ³.

II. Second. The divine essence is a form higher than every created intellect. Therefore, in order that it become its intelligible form, which is required in order that it be seen, it is necessary that it be raised for this by some more sublime disposition, namely by some divine likeness. — The consequence is proved. Because nothing is receptive of a more sublime form unless it is raised by some disposition to its capacity: since the proper act comes to be in the proper potency.

2. Concerning the assumption made for the proof of the consequence, note that that assumed proposition holds true of the form which is ultimate and principal: but not of the form which is introduced as a disposition to an ulterior form. For if some disposition is required for receiving the principal form, another disposition is not also required for receiving the disposition. Because something can be immediately capable of some disposition, and will not be immediately capable of the principal form: for in natural forms we see that matter is immediately receptive of some disposition to some substantial form, say to the soul, and yet it does not receive the soul except with certain dispositions as intermediaries.

From this the solution of the argument of Durandus is clear, who argues ⁴ that there would be a process to infinity if the divine essence, because it is a supernatural form, could not be received in a created intellect unless it were disposed with a supernatural disposition: for that disposition too, says Durandus, requires another supernatural disposition; and so one would proceed to infinity.

For it is said that there is no process to infinity. Because the light of glory itself, since it is a disposition for receiving the divine essence, does not require another preceding supernatural disposition, but the intellect is of itself immediately capable of it: although it is not immediately capable of the divine essence, but it is necessary that it be raised to it through the light of glory.

3. Concerning the proof of that assumption, note that from the fact that the proper act must come to be in the proper potency, it follows very well that nothing is receptive of a more sublime form unless it is raised by some supernatural disposition. For if a form is above the natural faculty and capacity of something, it follows that that thing is not its proper potency: because then it would not be above its natural capacity. And therefore, if it must become its proper potency, it is necessary that something be added to it which is above its nature. And so it is necessary that it be raised to its capacity by something above nature.

III. Third. If some created intellect is supposed to begin anew to see the divine essence, it is necessary that the divine essence be anew joined to it as an intelligible species. But not through a change of the divine essence. Therefore through a change of the intellect. Which cannot be, unless it acquires some disposition anew. — The consequence is proved. Because two things cannot be anew united except through a change of both, or of only the other.

The same also follows if it is granted that some created intellect enjoys such a vision from the beginning of its creation. Because, if such a vision exceeds the faculty of created nature, it can be understood that the created intellect remains in the species of its own nature without seeing that essence. And so, for such a vision, it is necessary that something be superadded to nature.

Note the foundation of this argument, concerning the intellect that is supposed to see the divine essence from the beginning of its creation, to be that, although between the nature of one seeing God from the beginning and the vision there is no order of duration, so that the nature is prior in duration per se to its being with the vision; there is nevertheless between them an order of nature and of intellect, insofar as nature can be understood without this, that it have such a vision. And then, since that vision exceeds the faculty of nature, as was shown above ⁵, in that prior in which it is understood to consist without such a vision and in the sole power of nature, it is understood as in need of some disposition raising it to the divine vision. And so it follows no less in one seeing the divine essence from the beginning of his creation that something must be superadded to his nature, than in him who begins to see it anew.

IV. Fourth. The power of a created intellect does not suffice for seeing the divine essence. Therefore, in order that it arrive at such a vision, it is necessary that its power be increased. But an increase through the intensification of natural power does not suffice: because such a vision is not of the same kind as the natural vision of the intellect, as is clear from the distance of the things seen. Therefore it comes about through the acquisition of a new disposition. — The first consequence is proved. Because nothing can be raised to a higher operation except in this, that its power is strengthened. — The second, however, is declared from the twofold manner of strengthening a power: through a simple intensification, I say, of the power; and through the apposition of a new form.

2. Concerning the proof of the minor, when it is said that that divine vision is not of the same kind as the natural vision of a created intellect, and this is declared from the distance of the objects, note that the divine essence is at the greatest distance from any intelligible naturally and quidditatively knowable by a created intellect, because it is of a higher order than anything naturally intelligible perfectly by a created intellect. For a substance altogether immaterial, whose being is nevertheless distinguished from its essence itself, and which is an object proportioned to separate substances, is an intelligible of a higher order than material substance, which is the connatural and proportioned object of the human intellect. But the divine substance is of a higher order than created immaterial substance, and than material substance. Therefore, just as the intellection of separate substances, on account of the height of its object and of the species from which it is elicited, is of another kind than the intellection of the human intellect; so the vision of the divine essence is of another kind than any natural and quidditative vision of a created intellect.

From this, however, it follows very well that a created intellect cannot reach that through the sole intensification of natural power. Because, as is held here by St. Thomas, since there is a twofold increase, namely through the intensification of power, and through the apposition of a new form, the first increase does not raise the power to a higher operation, and one of a higher kind than is the natural operation of that power, but to a more vehement action in the same species; just as, when the power of a hot thing is increased through the intensification of heat, the hot thing, insofar as it is such, is not raised except to this, that it can heat more vehemently. But the second increase can well raise to some action of a higher kind, to which the power previously could in no way reach: just as a transparent body, through the reception of light, can illuminate, which previously it could not do.

V. In the second place St. Thomas shows the reason for the name ⁶, saying that the aforementioned disposition is fittingly called light of glory: not because it makes something intelligible in act, like the light of the agent intellect; but because it makes the possible intellect ⁷ understand in act. For since we come from sensible things into the knowledge of intelligible things, we transfer the names of sensible cognition, and especially of sight, which is more akin to the intellect, inasmuch as it is nobler and more spiritual, to intellectual cognition. Hence we call intellectual cognition vision; and those things by which ⁸ intellectual vision is perfected take on the name of light; as is clear also from Aristotle, III de Anima, assimilating the agent intellect to light.

Of this light of glory Scripture speaks in the Psalms; Apoc. XXI; and Isaiae LX. — By the same reason God too is called light: Ioan. 1; and I Ioan. 1; and in the Psalms. — And in like manner both God and the angels are described in the Scriptures in the figure of fire, on account of its brightness.