Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

On the distribution and the order to be observed in treating the divine attributes.

« The distribution of the divine attributes into negative and affirmative, received among the theologians, has its foundation in the intrinsic reason of the attributes, as they are conceived by us; nor, however, are other divisions excluded, into absolute and relative attributes with respect to what is outside God, into the absolute properties of the divine essence and into attributes more strictly so called; nor do they lack their own best reason. »

When we treat of the distinction of the divine properties and perfections from the essence, and of the partition and distribution of those properties into certain categories, as it were, this can indeed only be understood of the essence and the perfections according to the mode in which they are known by us. The principle of order therefore cannot be drawn from the perfection of God as he is in himself, but from the intrinsic objective connection by which the perfections succeed one another according to our mode of knowing.

Now first, from what has been demonstrated in the preceding theses, both by reason and in revelation, we attain in some measure, only through ideas drawn from creatures, what God is; and therefore there is a twofold way of knowing the divine perfections, one joined with the other, namely through negations of imperfections, and through affirmations of perfections. The general distribution of the divine perfections into those which are expressed by negations and those which are expressed by affirmations is therefore taken from our very mode of knowing, on which every division of those things which in God are one and undistinguished necessarily rests. It is strange, therefore, that certain more recent theologians have wished to reject this distribution, which is frequent among the holy Fathers and universal among the masters of the schools, as merely extrinsic, taken from the grammatical form of names, and, as it seems to them, mechanical, and not flowing from the intrinsic organism of doctrine. So that it may be understood how imprudently these things have been said, the reason of this distribution must be examined somewhat more carefully.

In the very inquiry whether God is, the reason, from the limitation of creatures by which they are known as contingent being and being from another, evidently concludes that there exists necessary being, being from itself. As, moreover, that limitation of contingency and participation affects all the perfections of creatures, so the perfection of being from itself and the fullness of being pervades all the perfections of God. Hence reason and faith, in the question what God is considered absolutely, do nothing other than render the confused concept of being from itself more distinct by an explanation of those things which are comprehended in it.

This, however, takes place in our manner of knowing God from creatures in two ways: a) by declaring the perfection of being from itself through negation of the negation or limitation with which the creature is necessarily affected through all grades and, as it were, in every direction, concerning which mode of knowing it was said above. It is easily apparent from the proper character of such negations that they are nothing but one concept after another of fullness of being under diverse respects of opposition to limited being; therefore by their multiplication we conceive more distinctly what we understand confusedly in Being from itself. « The nearer we approach to the knowledge of the divine substance, the more things we are able to remove from it by our intellect; for the more fully we see its differences from other things, the more perfectly we know each thing; for each thing has in itself its own being, distinct from all others » S. Thom. cont. gent. I. c. 14.

We can now consider the limitations of creatures with respect to origin: thus it is created being and from another; whence formally it is in itself finite being, and therefore multipliable, somehow composite or even material, mutable; with respect to time, enduring with succession at least possible; with respect to place, restricted in its presence, or even circumscribed by space; with respect to knowledge, comprehensible to a finite intellect, knowable as it is in itself, or even sensible, and accordingly explicable by doctrine¹. We understand all these limitations as so many distinct expressions of participated being; and accordingly we understand, in inverse order, that a perfection beyond all these limitations is comprehended in the very reason of being simply and absolute. And since that perfection has no analogous ectype in a creature corresponding to it, by which it may be apprehended and named, but there corresponds to it rather the opposed imperfection in creatures, we conceive it confusedly and express it by negations of these limitations; and hence the theologians call negative attributes those which enumerate that God is without beginning: uncreated Being, infinite, one, simple, and a fortiori incorporeal, immutable, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, invisible, ineffable. It is, I think, quite evident from all this, and it appears even from the very inspection of the names, that it is not a question here of grammatical form, but that the distinction of these attributes from the other affirmative ones is grounded in their own reason, by which they stand in relation to the perfections of creatures, and consequently in the mode in which they are known by us.

We can understand b) being from itself and the fullness of being in some measure by concepts that directly affirm perfections (although only with some confusion, or by a co-signified negation, as was explained above). We attain this by abstracting from the limitation with which perfections, as we apprehend them in and from creatures, are affected. This abstraction from limitation can be made in all those perfections, and in those only, whose most universal concept is analogical, so that it is not of itself restricted to limited being, but can be applied both to that which is simply and from itself, and to that which is by participation. Perfections of this kind are chiefly the transcendentals: being, true, good; then the generic substantial grades: living substance, intellectual (or spiritual); then, among the further attributes, which either exclude or at least do not include the imperfection of material things, are intellect, will, power, and those which follow from these. Those which may seem also to pertain here, duration and presence, are in truth, through the exclusion of all imperfection, resolved in being from itself into negations of restriction to time and place, or into the negative attributes of eternity and immensity.

It is therefore plain that this common distribution into perfections which we conceive through negation, and those which we conceive through direct affirmation, does not at all derive from the grammatical form of names, but has its principle in the intrinsic reason of the perfections as they are understood by us², and its contempt has arisen not from deeper knowledge, but from a more superficial consideration. Nevertheless this does not prevent other distinctions, drawn from another and different consideration and from a different principle of order, from being added to these, and these from keeping their own right.

2°. Certainly the distribution into absolute attributes and relative, which is not infrequent among the theologians, is rightly disapproved by no one. Here, however, relative is not understood of a real relation ad intra, but of a relation of reason to a term distinct from God, that is, ad extra. In this distinction, therefore, those attributes are called absolute which are considered in themselves without co-signifying a term ad extra; those are called relative which co-signify a term distinct from God.

Concerning these relative attributes it may be noted that some of them co-signify a term necessary in the state of possibility, as the knowledge of simple intelligence co-signifies all possibles, or the essences of things, necessary in the state of possibility. Others co-signify a term ad extra existing at some point of time, and therefore not absolutely necessary but free for God; nevertheless the denomination of perfection does not begin with the actual existence of the term. An example is the knowledge of vision as related to creatures. Lastly, others are denominated from the actual existence of the co-signified term, as creation, dominion, providence, and so on. The first are necessary and from eternity; the second are from eternity but free as to formal denomination; the last, as to formal denomination, are both free and begin in time. In order that this may be rightly understood, in all attributes of the second and third kinds just mentioned two things must be considered: one is the perfection in God, which is indeed necessary and eternal; the other is the extrinsic term, not necessary and temporal, from which the denomination is taken, but which is not a perfection in God. Therefore when God is called creator, Lord, provider, sanctifier, and so on, the foundation of these denominations, considered in God, is the necessary and eternal perfection of intellect, will, and power; but what outside God is created, subject, directed, sanctified adds no perfection to God, although these denominations are derived from it.

3°. If the perfections just enumerated are considered more carefully, it readily appears that the transcendentals and substantial grades, both in creatures themselves and as they are conceived by us, are not to be understood as something accruing and superadded to substantial being, but rather as diverse reasons and expressions of being itself; and much the same must be said of the perfections which are designated by negations. Understanding, will, power, and the perfections connected with these, insofar as they are regarded in their acts, are conceived by us, as the Fathers are wont to say, as something about the essence and in some way accruing to the essence. Hence in our manner of conceiving there is a foundation for the other distribution of the perfections of God, adopted by many theologians, into properties (absolute) and into attributes properly so called.

To ourselves this latter distinction seemed the more convenient for arranging the order of the matters to be treated, because in this way we can keep more strictly the logical connection among the perfections, as they are understood by us one from another in synthetic order. In the following chapters of this Section, therefore, we shall consider the absolute properties, at least those which require a more careful treatment, so that we understand one from another according to our manner of conceiving, paying no attention, in constructing the order, to the concept of perfections whether by negations or by affirmations. Next we shall speak of the attributes of intellect and will, which we shall consider chiefly as they constitute supernatural providence and have for their object the salvation of men.