Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

ON THE FULLNESS OF PERFECTION IN ABSOLUTE BEING.

The fullness of absolute perfection is expressed in the Scriptures by the name of God who is.

« The name, who is (ὁ ὢν), revealed by God himself, is 1° the proper name of God, signifying immediately the very substance of God, and not, as seemed to some learned men, his efficacy or a special relation of God to the people of Israel; and so, admitting no analogical signification, it is an incommunicable name; 2° by this name is designated, as is expressed in the Scriptures, absolute Being itself, actually, as the essence of God and as the fullness of perfection. »

I. The ten names of God are listed by St Jerome in letter 25 to Marcella: El, Elohim, Eloe, Sabaoth, Elion, eser ieie, Adonai, Ia, « τετραγράμματον ineffabile, which is written with these letters Iod, He, Vau, He; which some, not understanding because of the similarity of the letters they had found in the Greek books, were accustomed to read πιπι »; Saddai¹. Of these, only four are properly substantives: El, Elohim, Adonai, Iehovah²; the rest either differ from one of the enumerated names by almost only their grammatical form: Eloah, ascher ehieh, Iah; or are epithets designating some attribute of God: Elion, Schaddai; or designate an extrinsic term of divine dominion: Sabaoth. Of the first four, Adonai (Dominus, ὁ κυριος) signifies an extrinsic term. The other two, El and Elohim, are used in exactly the same way as the Latin name Deus; for whatever you think of the etymology of these names³, in common usage they certainly signify the supreme deity, surpassing all in power and majesty, which in truth can only be one; but by false opinion several deities can nevertheless be thought to exist: « for although there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, since there are many gods and many lords, yet to us there is one God » 1. Cor. VIII. 5. 6.⁴ Hence, although among those who rightly think of the supreme deity these names (El, Elohim, Deus) signify the one God in his substance, nevertheless they are also applied to designate false gods, and so they take on, as it were, the character of appellatives. By contrast, the tetragrammaton יהוה is altogether the proper name of the true God, and was never used to designate anything else. This distinction between a proper name and, in a sense, an appellative is best perceived in those places where the Scriptures predicate of God under the name יהוה that he alone is El or Elohim, in opposition to and to the exclusion of false gods. « Know therefore this day that the Lord (יהוה) is God (Elohim) in heaven above and on earth beneath, and there is no other » Deut. IV. 32⁵; « O Lord God (יהוה), you have begun to show ... your strong hand; for there is no other God (El), either in heaven or on earth, who can do your works » ib. III. 24. etc.

Connected with this property of the name is its incommunicability; and each must be explained from the mode of signifying. The holy Fathers frequently teach that all the other names, not excepting this very name God, are derived from the efficacies of God⁶; whence when men ascribe these efficacies to false divinities, those too are called gods in the Scriptures, θεοί, אלהים, not indeed from the truth of the matter but from the opinion of men; for in the truth of the matter they are, and are called « lies, vanities, nothing⁷. » Moreover, since God is named by these names insofar as he is known from his efficacies, they stand in the place of affirmative attributes, of which some imitation is found in creatures; whence in the Scriptures themselves the name God, θεός, אלהים, is transferred in a certain analogous signification (in the plural number only, see Tract. de Incarn. th. III.) to designate angels or men who exercise the authority of God. Cf. S. Thom. 1. q. 13. aa. 8. 9. 10.

But the name יהוה is derived from none of the efficacies of God. For God is not named by this name (who is) as the exemplar and efficient cause of existing creatures; but rather, as will presently appear, by this name, as ὁ ὢν, as who is through essence, he is set over against everything that can be conceived apart from him. Accordingly what is signified by this name holds the place of those perfections which we express by negations, or which we conceive in some measure not by likeness but by the removal of the imperfection found in creatures. By the name itself, therefore, is signified the eminence of essence (ὑπερουσία) and perfection, formally as incommunicable; from which it follows that it admits no analogical signification, and therefore cannot be transferred to the designation of others, which have a likeness of God through participation, or to which some attributes and efficacies of God have been ascribed through error; and so it is an altogether incommunicable name, just as the essence which it signifies is incommunicable ad extra.⁸

This property of the name יהוה, and the signification of the divine Being itself, is confirmed from the very context of Exod. III. 14. 15. collated with VI. 3, where God revealed himself by this name. « Moses said to God: behold, I shall go to the children of Israel and say to them: The God of your fathers (אלהי אבותיכם) has sent me to you. If they say to me: what is his name? what shall I say to them? » It was not enough for Moses to know « the God of the fathers », who called and protected Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and whom they worshipped as God almighty (אל שדי VI. 3.); but he manifestly asks, in opposition to the appellative name God אלהים, for a proper name, which is incommunicable, so that it may not be given to another. God, answering this request of Moses, declares first the very actual necessary existence as the distinguishing mark by which he alone can be called. « God said to Moses: I am who I am » (אהיה אשר אהיה ἐγω εἰμι ὁ ὤν)⁹. Hence from this act of being the proper name, which Moses had sought, is derived as that by which he himself declares himself: « Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: who is (in Hebrew אהיה, I am, that is, he who declares what he is by this word: I am) has sent me to you. » Finally, he changes the form of the first person אהיה, by which he declares what he is, into another, either substantival or of the third person יהוה, by which he is called by his faithful ones: « Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: The Lord יהוה, God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever. » The comparison made with the request of Moses and with the preceding verse shows that the designation « God of the fathers » cannot, as some have thought, be taken as an imposed name; but the proper name is יהוה, and the apposition « God of the fathers » declares that the true God himself, whose name is ὁ ὢν, is the God who chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their seed.

From this whole context the property of the name יהוה is clear first; and it is clear next what is chiefly sought, that by this name the Being of God himself is directly signified, and not fidelity in fulfilling promises, as some more recent writers have thought. For this is shown a) by the etymology of the name itself and by the declaration given by God himself. b) In the absolute signification of Being itself the name is explained in the Scriptures themselves, Apoc.I.4.8; IV. 8: ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος; in which resolution of the name the form of indefinite time is declared as a unity of past, present, and future, which is nothing other than the negation of succession, and accordingly an eminence above every relation to time. c) In this sense all the ancient interpreters, Jews as well as Christians, understood the name. d) That more recent interpretation rests on a false supposition. For they think that from Exod. VI. 3 the name יהוה can be understood only insofar as God is shown faithful in carrying out what he had promised, because only in this sense does it seem true to them that God, insofar as he is יהוה, did not manifest himself to the patriarchs. But it is one thing that fidelity in keeping promises is directly signified by the name, and another that this fidelity follows from what the name signifies; the former we deny, the latter we concede.

As to the question whether the name יהוה itself, even considered materially, was first revealed to Moses at Exod. III. 14, we say that the cause we are now treating does not depend upon it. For if some contend, on account of certain names and sayings which occur before this theophany, e.g. Gen. XV. 7. 8; XXII. 14, that the name had been known long before, it must at least be conceded that the thing signified by the name was more distinctly revealed to Moses, l. c. For this at least is said at Exod. VI. 3. Now by what argument, I ask, will they demonstrate that this more distinct revelation refers only to the fidelity of God or to his special providence toward the people of Israel, and not rather to the very perfection of the divine essence, from which, to be sure, that fidelity in fulfilling promises follows? « Under the law, says St Thomas, the prophetic revelation was made concerning the things that pertain to the faith of the deity more excellently than before ..... Whence the Lord says to Moses: I am the Lord, who appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in God almighty, and my name Adonai (יהוה) I did not reveal to them: because, namely, the preceding Fathers were instructed in faith in the omnipotence of the one God, but Moses was afterward more fully instructed concerning the simplicity of the divine essence, when it was said to him: I am who I am » S.Th. 2. 2. q. 174. a. 6. Moreover, the words of God at Exod. VI. 3 are so worded that the earlier manifestation of the name יהוה seems altogether to be denied. If this is admitted, it must be said that the use of this name in Genesis, even in the somewhat more difficult passages Gen. XV. 7. 8; XXII. 14, is by a figure of anticipation¹⁰.

II. What we have said so far pertains rather to determining the nominal signification, so that it is clear what term is signified. But it is our concern to know the mode of signifying, so that from it (as far as may be) we may understand the thing signified, what it is. We say therefore that by this name ὁ ὢν, Exod. III. 14, Being actually is defined as the divine essence, and consequently that in the Scriptures Absolute Being is declared as the fullness of absolute perfection.

1°. God, l. c., does not obscurely declare, by the very form of the enunciation, that Being actually is his own essence, as that to which the question what God is is answered (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, which the Scholastics called quod quid esse and quiddity). For before he assigns to himself the name ὁ ὢν, אהיה or יהוה, and makes it known to Moses, he declares by a certain definition the thing signified by that name. The definition is: « I am who I am »; where manifestly the term who I am constitutes the predicate, and therefore states of the subject I, what it is. The sense therefore is equivalent to this other: I am Being itself; therefore Being itself is declared by God as his own quiddity or essence. We may illustrate this somewhat by comparison with the essence of a creature. The essence of a creature is in itself in the state of objective possibility, and is brought forth into the state of real existence only by the will of the Almighty; being therefore is not part of the concept of the creature's essence, but supervenes upon it through an efficient cause. But because in God essence is Being itself, the essence of God cannot be conceived in the state of possibility, and apart from Being actual, any more than the essence of a creature can be conceived in the state of impossibility; for just as objective possibility enters into the very essence of a creature, so Being, itself actual, is the essence of him who says: I am who I am. It is therefore expressed directly and formally by this utterance, and accordingly also by the proper name of God, I am or who is, the necessary Being of God, of which there is no cause or other reason than the intrinsic quiddity and essence of God himself; which we express by saying being from itself, by which we both deny the cause from which it is, and affirm the intrinsic necessity of actual Being¹¹

2°. God, according to the context described above, Exod. III. 14. 15., claims the name I am (ὁ ὢν) simply and without addition for himself

אני הוה ונמצא מצד שאני הוה ולא מצד שזולתי נמצא claims it as its own, and as distinguishing it from all things that exist or can be conceived apart from it. It cannot therefore be understood as being in common, as the most simple mark opposed to non-existence or to nothing; but it is necessarily understood as Being of its own proper reason, distinguishing itself and distinct from being of any grade and reason, which is not God. This divine Being is therefore first of all determinate, singular, personal, and not universal and indeterminate being. This is already clear in itself, and by the personal form not only of the subject I but also of the predicate who I am it is evidently expressed; it is not an indefinite ὄν but a personal ὁ ὤν; it is ὁ αὐτός¹². On the other side, this Being, supremely determinate and distinct from all others, has no determination according to some grade of being, but is called Being simply. Being is moreover the same as perfection. Whatever therefore of perfect Being or of absolute perfection can be conceived, all that is he, whose essence is Being, not according to any grade beyond which it would not extend, but simply, and therefore without limit. « The purest Is, says St Bonaventure, is found only in the full flight from not-being... for Being itself has nothing of not-being » Bonavent. Itiner. c. 5. Read St Thomas cont. gent. I. c. 28; 1. q. 4. a. 2. Dionysius admirably circumscribes the name who is (divin. nom. c. 5. §. 4.): « God is not in some measure being, but simply and infinitely, as one who has embraced and anticipated all Being in himself »¹³.

3°. This fullness of being, indicated by God himself through the revelation of his own proper name and, as it were, of its definition, the same divine revelation declares more distinctly in other places of Holy Scripture. « Where are their gods........ see that I am alone (כי אני אני הוא) and there is no God besides me... I live for ever ». Deut. XXXII. 39. 40. « I, the Lord (יהוה), am the first and the last ». « I myself am; before me no God was formed, and after me there shall be none; I am, I am the Lord (יהוה), and there is no saviour besides me ». « Thus says the Lord (יהוה), the king of Israel..... I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no God. » « The Lord of hosts (יהוה צבאות) is his name... I myself, I am the first and I am the last. My right hand also founded the earth » Is. XLI. 4; XLIII. 10. 11; XLIV. 6; XLVIII. 12. 13.¹⁴ « I, the Lord (יהוה), do not change » Mal. III. 6. « I am α and ω, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the almighty. » « I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end » Apoc. I. 8; XXI. 6; XXII. 13.

In these passages, a) by affirming, he is declared whose name is I am, the first and the same last, the beginning and the same end, himself the α and himself the ω; in whom, as is, was, and will be are not successions but one immutable Being; nor is there one thing first, another last, another α and another ω; but the same himself is, if he is conceived as first, beginning, α; and if he is conceived as last, end, and ω. Thus he who is comprehends the beginning, the middle and the end, and the whole fullness of absolute being and of absolute perfection, to which nothing can be added nor anything taken away. « He who is before the world and unto the world; nothing is added to him, nor is anything diminished » Ecclesi. XLII. 21. Therefore, as Dionysius says (div. nom. c. 5. §. 8.), « he who in the Scriptures essentially pre-exists according to every notion of the things that are, is predicated in many ways, and is properly sung as was and is and will be; for he has anticipated in himself, absolutely and eminently, the beginning and the middle and the end of beings¹⁵. » In an eminent and transcendent manner (for these are what the Greek words mean) he is said to have anticipated the whole in himself; that is, not as a principle of the same order, like unity among numbers, but as absolute Being and supereminent cause¹⁶¹⁷. Hence b) in the same places of Scripture is inferred by denying that, apart from him who is the whole fullness of being, there is nothing of absolute, independent, divine being, nothing that is Elohim.

4°. If the texts cited a little above are rightly considered, it is readily understood that Being simply, and that fullness of being, is everywhere presented as the reason and cause why other things besides God and outside God can be, and really are: because God is יהוה ὁ ὤν, therefore he alone is the one who knows all things and declares things to come; he alone, and no one with him, founded the earth; he alone, and no one besides him, is Saviour, etc. For as God alone is ὁ ὤν, Being intrinsically necessary, comprehending the first and the last, that is, the whole fullness of absolute being, and beside him nothing can be of absolute being: so in his very absolute perfection is the reason why can there exist outside him analogical imitations and beings by participation; and in the free application of his will and infinite power is the cause why such beings really are. For both pertain to the fullness of absolute being: that outside him nothing of absolute and independent being can exist (otherwise God would not be the fullness itself); and that by his will can there be imitations of his perfection in created realities, all depending on him in every way (otherwise God would not be perfect according to all reasons, and so would not be the fullness of being or of absolute perfection). God alone is because he is, nor can any reality such as he is exist or be conceived beside him and outside him; the rest can be because God is, and they actually are because God wills them to be. « They adored him who lives for ages of ages.... saying: worthy art thou, Lord our God¹⁸ to receive glory.... because thou hast created all things, and by thy will they were and were created » Apoc. IV. 10. 11. From him as from the beginning of the necessary intrinsic and extrinsic possibility of all things, and through him as from a free cause, not only that it may begin but also that it may persist, existence of created things dependent on him in every way; and unto him as unto the end of all; from him as beginning, middle, and end, α and ω are all things, Rom. XI. 35. 36; Hebr. II. 10. Whatever therefore of perfection is not only in real creatures but can be in all possibles, all is comprehended in God, not indeed formally, as it exists or can exist in creatures (for thus it is something dependent, created, limited, and an analogous being in comparison with being simply); but it is comprehended eminently as one, absolute perfection, imitable outside itself, of the exemplar and efficient cause. « That eternal and unchangeable nature, having in itself that it is, as was said to Moses: I am who I am, far otherwise, of course, than those things which were made.... none of those which he made, existing and having all things first as he himself is... nor would he have those things which were not yet made, unless as he himself is, not made » S. Aug. Gen. ad litt. l. V. n. 34.

Hence being and to be, which is understood apart from God, is not said univocally with the divine Being, nor can it be numbered along with it, because in the very reason of being it is plainly diverse; nor yet is it said equivocally, but analogically, because it is some imitation and shadowing of the divine Being: whence the community of the name is not arbitrary but is founded on the likeness and relation of the lower to the higher. Therefore in the Scriptures, creatures which, considered in themselves, are indeed said to be, in comparison with the divine Being are sometimes said not to be, Is. XL. 15. 17; Sap. XI. 23. Cf. 1 Tim. VI. 16; Matth. XIX. 17.¹⁹ We shall speak more distinctly, a little later, of the difference between divine being and participated being.

The signification of the name, who is, and the absolute perfection of God, is declared by the holy Fathers.

• The doctrine which we have so far shown to be expressed in the Scriptures, the holy Fathers have illustrated in many ways; for from their sense and consensus: 1° by the very name of God « who is » Exod. III. 14., the eternal divine Being and its intrinsic necessity of existing ought to be held to be revealed; 2° this necessary being ought to be understood as Being absolute and Being simply, because all absolute perfection is comprehended in it; whence 3° the divine Being differs by an essential difference from the reason of being which can be, or be conceived, outside God. »

There is now no need to say anything about the most eloquent teaching of Philo (see Petav. l. I. c. 6. n. 5.) and of the later commentators of the Jewish people (see de Voisin, Theolog. Iud. l. I. c. 5., and elsewhere passim); for our purpose in this thesis is to confirm and illustrate, by the authority of Christian interpretation, the sense deduced in the preceding thesis from the sacred text and context of Exod. III. 14. 15.; VI. 3. The LXX interpreters above all expressed this sense in their version: ἐγω εἰμι ὁ ὠν... ὁ ὠν ἀπεσταλκε με. How great is the worth of that version, used by the Apostles themselves and handed down to the Churches as the genuine word of God, in a text eminently dogmatic and liable to no suspicion of corruption, is easily seen.

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church have defended the sense enunciated in the thesis in all its chapters, and illustrated it with ample commentary. Those who had read the Hebrew text hold this doctrine: Origen (de Princip. l. I. n. 6; hom. I. in l. Regnorum n. 12; in Rom. l. X. n. 8.); Jerome (in Eph. III. 14. T. VII. p. 600. ed. Vallarsii; ep. 15. alias 57. ad Damas. n. 4. etc.); Ephrem the Syrian (adversus scrutator. serm. 63. Opp. Syr. Lat. T. III. p. 123.). Others agreed, who had read the Greek and Latin version: Justin (cohort. ad gent. n. 25.); Clement of Alexandria (Paedagog. I. c. 8.); Gregory Nazianzen (or. 30. al. 36. n. 17.18; or. 38. n. 7; or. 45. al. 42. n. 3.); Cyril of Alexandria (dialog. de Trin. I. T. V. P. I. p. 392.); Damascene (de fid. orthod. l. I. c. 9.); Hilary (de Trin. I. n. 4-6.); Augustine (often, e.g. in Ps. 134. n. 4; Genes. ad litter. l. V. c. 16; de Trin. l. VI. c. 7.); and very many others, of whom some testimonies can be read in Petavius l. I. c. 6., and, from Petavius, in Card. de Aguirre, Theol. S. Anselmi T. I. disp. 24. sect. 2. We reduce their doctrine, as stated in the enunciation of the thesis, to three chapters.

I. They declare that Esse, a name which might seem to designate what is common and universal, belongs wholly and properly to God, because he alone necessarily is, and in his essence has the ground of existence. « God claims as his own proper name the common name of substance (existence), since all other things received their being by God's favour; God always is and has no principle from elsewhere, and he is his own origin and the cause of his own substance » S. Hieronym. in Eph. III. 14. It is clear enough in itself that he is not called origin in the proper sense, nor cause as efficient cause; but negatively, to exclude an origin from another and a cause distinct from himself, and positively, to indicate the ground of necessary existence from the very nature of that Esse, which can be called formal cause¹. Jerome expressed both of these again, in ep. 15. al. 57. ad Damasum. « One and alone is the nature of God that truly is, for what subsists has not from elsewhere, but is its own. » And so « he alone is, to whom what he is has been given by no one » Orig. hom. I. in l. Regn. n. 12. They say that this name qui est is most proper to God, « because he could not not have been, nor will ever be able not to be » Hilar. Trin. l. I. n. 5; Ambros. in Luc. l. X. c. 23. Hence at times they further say that the name ὁ ὢν embraces the three tenses, was, is and will be, Iustin. l. c.; Clemens Alex. l. c.; and therefore that God holds beginning, middle and end, Iustin. l. c.; Dionys. de div. nom. c. 5. §. 8. At other times, on the contrary, they teach that by the name ὁ ὢν the past and the future are excluded. « In the truth that remains, I find no past or future but only the present, and this incorruptibly » Aug. in Io. tract. 38. n. 8-10; Gregor. Naz. or. 38. n. 3²; Dionys. l. c. §. 4; Cassian. de Incarn. l. V. c. 8. Precisely by the fact that God is ὁ ὢν simply and a se, just as no beginning can be conceived in him, nor ever any end, so he is Esse persevering without any change or succession, or any possibility of succession; nothing therefore can have passed in him that is no longer; nothing can arrive that is not yet; and so nothing can be conceived as before and after, as past and future; but the whole is Esse unchangeably abiding, which we conceive as present, as a perpetual now: although it is not the present of time, which has relation to past and future; but it is a permanence eminent above every relation of time³. « For there is that which neither begins at a beginning nor ends at an end, where neither is there waiting for what will come, nor running over what ought to be recalled; but it is one, which always is » Gregor. M. Moral. l. XV. c. 20. But if the succession which is in things outside God be compared with the unchangeable permanence of him who is; the past, present and future coexist, the changeable with the unchangeable, the flowing with the permanent, for whatever difference of time by which the temporal thing exists; and thus the permanent Esse of God comprehends the past, present and future, which are differences in the coexisting creature, not in God who abides unchangeably.

II. The Fathers no less plainly declare the other head which we have indicated: that by the very fact that Esse is revealed as the proper name of God, the fullness of absolute perfection is shown. Gregory Nazianzen says that God ascribes to himself the name ὁ ὢν as his own, « because the whole Esse (ὅλον τὸ εἶναι) must be placed in him, from whom other things have that they are » or. 12. n. 12; « because Esse, and indeed the whole Esse, is essentially proper to God (τὸ δὲ ὂν ἴδιον ἐντως Θεοῦ καὶ ὅλον), and is neither bounded nor circumscribed by anything, whether before him or after him » or. 30. n. 18; because « he holds the whole Esse comprehended in himself, without beginning and without end, like a certain infinite and boundless sea of essence »⁴ or. 45. al. 42. n. 3; or. 38. n. 7. John Damascene, de fide orth. l. I. c. 9, set down this last opinion entire. Hence God « is not in some measure being, but simply and infinitely embraces the whole Esse in itself »⁵ Dionys. div. nom. c. 5. §. 4. Now just as esse contracted and bounded to one particular species is the perfection of one order but not of every order; and as esse bounded by some degree, beyond which it does not extend, is some limited and finite perfection: so he who is « Esse simpliciter » and « totum Esse » and « oceanus infinitus essentiae » is assuredly all absolute perfection. « God is indeed called many things: great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatever else seems fittingly to be said; but his greatness is the same as his wisdom, for he is great not by bulk but by power; and his goodness is the same as his wisdom and greatness; and his truth is the same as all those; and there is not there to be blessed as something other than to be great and wise, or true or good, but all are Esse itself » S. August. de Trin. l. VI. c. 7. Plainly all those perfections, and any others we can conceive, are esse considered according to some aspect of nobility; Esse therefore simply is said by the Fathers to be every perfection according to every aspect of nobility⁶ and according to every degree; or rather, he has no degree beyond which he is not perfect. St Bernard says this very thing in that famous consideration of God (de Consider. l. V. c. 6.). « Who is (God)? Surely nothing better occurs than who is. He himself willed this to be answered of himself; he taught this when Moses said to the people: he who is has sent me to you: rightly indeed, for nothing is more fitting to eternity, which God is. If you say good, great, blessed, wise, or whatever such thing of God, it is restored in this word, which is Is. Indeed, to be him is to be all these. Even if you add a hundred such, you have not departed from Esse; if you say them, you have added nothing; if you do not say them, you have diminished nothing. Now if you have seen this so singular and so supreme Esse, do you not, in comparison with it, judge whatever is not this to be rather not-being than being? What again is God? Without whom nothing is. As nothing is without him, so neither can he be without himself. He is to himself, he is to all; and thereby in some way he alone is, who is of his own and of all Esse..... from whom all things are creabiliter, not seminaliter »⁷. Clearly God is understood as Esse of himself and of others in a very different way: his own Esse is formal, that of others is not formal, but as exemplar, efficient, conserving and final cause.

III. From the teaching of the Fathers just described concerning the nature of divine being, it is now also established that the eminence of the same divine Esse and its transcendent diversity from all things that are outside God or can be conceived outside God are real. The Fathers repeat and inculcate this diversity explicitly, and with deliberate effort, very frequently.

The fullness of divine Esse cannot indeed be understood in an extensive sense, so that whatever is in any way something would be divine Esse. For God is being from himself, singular, existing necessarily from the intrinsic reason of his essence, in intensive fullness of perfection, so that he himself is every unlimited, independent perfection, which in one word we call absolute Esse. Hence no absolute perfection can be conceived that does not really exist, and nothing can really exist except God himself. From this, however, as we have already indicated above, it does not follow that limited, dependent, contingent realities created by the absolute Being, as by exemplar, final and efficient cause, are not possible or do not exist. Rather it follows, from the very reason of infinite reality, that such participations and imitations outside God are possible without end; and likewise it follows that limited, dependent perfections are in God not formally but eminently: namely, the limited, created or creatable perfection itself is not in God; but in God there is absolute perfection, inadequately imitable by many limited, dependent and created perfections. Plainly therefore the reason of divine Esse and of any being that is not infinite is otherwise.

In this sense, first, the Fathers teach that divine Esse rises above every essence and above every esse, if by these names is signified whatever is in this universe, or whatever can be conceived in any way apart from that one most simple perfection of absolute being. « The superessential infinity surpasses essences (ὑπερούσιος ἀόριστα al. ἀπειρία)... existing as none of those things that are, since he is the cause for all things that they be, but he himself is not (in respect of common being), inasmuch as he is placed beyond every essence » Dionys. de div. nom. c. 1. §. 1; Naz. or. 6. al. 12. n. 12; August. Genes. ad litt. l. V. c. 16; Damasc. Fid. orthod. l. I. c. 12. 14. The Fathers are to be understood in the same sense when they say: « divine Esse is joined with none of those things which are » Maxim. praefat. ad theol. mystagog.; Naz. or. 30. al. 36. n. 18; and when God is called « a nature proper to himself and in no way associated with these things of ours » Naz. ibid. n. 17. and « imparticipability (ἀμεθεξία), with which there is no communion of mixture with participants » Dionys. div. nom. c. 2. §. 5.

2°. The Fathers describe in many ways this singular and necessary supereminence of divine Esse, by added clarifications of the property of divine Esse in opposition to creatable or created esse. God alone is, naturally⁸ (by the intrinsic perfection of his nature): he alone is ὄντως; or essentially⁹ and singularly¹⁰: he is per se¹¹: he is simply, not in any measure¹²: the rest are what, and so far as, God willed them to be¹³: and so they are by participation in a particle of good¹⁴; and by this reason God is his own self (formally) and of all Esse (as cause)¹⁵.

Hence creatures are not nothing, they are not mere φαινόμενα; but they have esse of their own from God through creation, not of God through communication of their nature¹⁶. They are therefore: but because the reason of esse participati and of Esse a se is plainly different from what has been said, therefore esse is denied of God if it is regarded according to the mode in which we conceive being and esse from creatures. Conversely, however, God alone is said to be esse, and creatures non esse, when Esse principale is considered, and « Est, the purest, which has nothing of non esse », and « Esse totaliter, from which non-being wholly departs », as St Bonaventure and St Thomas speak (above). Accordingly « he is such that, in comparison with him, the things that were made are not. Not compared with him they are, for they are from him; but compared with him they are not, because true esse unchangeable esse is what he alone is » Aug. in Ps. 134. n. 4. For « there is one thing to be, another to be principally; one thing to be changeably, another unchangeably. For all these (created things) are, but they are not principally, because they do not subsist in themselves (by their own independent power); and unless they are held in the hand of the one who governs, they cannot be at all » Gregor. M. Moral. l. XVI. c. 6; XVIII. c. 17. St Augustine in many places, Origen in l. Regn. hom. 1. n. 12, Jerome in Eph. III. and ep. 25. ad Marcellam, and Dionysius and his interpreter Maximus, and others whose words may be read in Petav. l. I. c. 6. n. 6. sqq. and in Thomassinus l. III. c. 1. sqq., all hold teachings wholly like these.

On the infinite difference of divine being from universal being.

« They err without doubt who teach that the idea of being, under which we understand « whatever we conceive intellectually to be the idea of God; and so being, « which is the object of that idea, to be God, although known only directly and not yet reflexively. »

He who has understood the reason of being which God is, demonstrated in the preceding theses, and has at the same time attended to the reason of being which we apprehend in all things we conceive, will readily perceive that the certainty of the proposition we defend has already been demonstrated in what precedes, and that this thesis is in the manner of a corollary which spontaneously follows from what has gone before. For that which is comprehended in that most universal idea is not some singular being, determined in itself; but it is a most abstract note of reality, whether possible or actual (when it is called being), or of reality in act (when it is called esse in act), in which, beyond opposition to nothing and to non-being, there is no determination. Divine Esse, in the very simplest reason of essence, is from what has been demonstrated a singular Esse, determined by the highest determination, beyond which a more intense being cannot be. Whence it is plain that that being, under whose aspect we conceive all things, is not only not known by us under the formal aspect of divine essence as it is in itself, which our opponents indeed willingly grant; but also is not divine being, and in its whole reason is different from divine being.

Certainly the difference is greatest, first, in the very mode by which we conceive being in both ways. By the proper concept of being there is presented to us what is in created things, since from these we abstract it immediately; but then, from created things, by inferring, we arrive at thinking of Esse exemplare itself, the principle and fountain of all created and creatable esse¹. Therefore we do not have a positive proper concept of this Esse divine, because it is not presented to our cognition immediately in itself, but only from equivocal effects (of an order diverse from it), and from shadows and likenesses; by inferring (« by a touch of reasonings », see above p. 151.) we attain it. Hence the Fathers teach that if being, as it is presented to us by abstraction from created things through a proper concept, is considered, God must be conceived through negation and through ὑπεροχή, and it must be said that he is not being, and is above all beings (above th. XII. XXIII.).

2°. The difference is infinite in the intrinsic reason of being itself, from which that different mode of conceiving arises. That reason of being, which is first and under which our mind conceives all things, is most abstract, consisting indeed in a single note in opposition to non-being; and therefore it is intensively minimal, and so its universality or extension is greatest; for it is found in all things that are or can be thought, pertaining to their intrinsic formal reason: although in the actual esse of individuals there can exist only determinate being, concrete according to the proper reason of each and the diverse degrees of participation, from all of which determinations, by abstracting through the operation of our intellect, we conceive that very idea of universal being. On the contrary, being which God is, in his very reason of being, is the fullness of all absolute perfection; and therefore it is infinite intensively, and by this very reason of absolute being is determined to the esse of singularity, to which multiplication is intrinsically repugnant.

Thirdly, therefore, the simplicity of being in common is negative, by abstraction from all determinate perfections; and therefore that simplicity is not and cannot be in real existence, but only in the apprehension of the mind. The simplicity of divine being is positive, by the infinite intensity of perfection in the very reason of absolute being, and therefore necessarily is in real existence; while we attain it by the apprehension of our mind only most imperfectly and through negations. « They did not consider (Amalric of Bena and his followers) that what is common or universal cannot be without addition (in act), but is considered without addition... although the universal is also thought without addition, yet it is not without receptivity of addition... But divine Esse is without addition, not only in thought but also in the nature of things, and not only without addition but also without receptivity of addition. Whence from this very fact, that it does not receive addition nor can receive it, it may rather be concluded that God is not esse commune, but proper.... In this also their reasoning fails, that they did not attend to the fact that what is found in us as most simple (by abstraction) is not so much a complete thing as some aspect of a thing; whereas simplicity is attributed to God as to a thing perfectly subsisting » S. Thom. cont. Gent. l. I. c. 26. n. 6.

Finally, fourthly, just as being determined by the manifold degrees of created perfection is a certain imitation of the divine essence, so also the reason of common being, considered abstractly, has in the divine essence its own exemplar and is a certain shadow of it, the more remote, however, the more universal and the less intense its perfection. Therefore the reason of being in God and in all things outside God is wholly diverse; and accordingly being is predicated of God and of all things that can be conceived outside God not univocally (not according to the same reason of being), but analogically, insofar as the reason of being in created things is a shadow of divine being. « Being predicated of all things is not the nature of the uncreated, because what is predicated of all is the first of created things, as the philosopher says, and being is mixed with all things and is something existing among all. But created and uncreated being are diverse; and being which is something of all those things of which it is predicated, and mixed with all things, and being which is essentially none of all things and unmixed with all, must be diverse. And if it is asked how they differ as distinguishing, it must be said that divine essence differs from all in itself, and its simplicity and perfection do not permit it to be mixed with anything so that it is of its being » Albertus M. Summae P. I. Tract. VI. q. 29. m. 1. a. 2. ad 1. (Cf. supra th. XXIII. n. III.)

Therefore they are greatly mistaken who think that esse, under whose aspect we conceive whatever we conceive by the intellect, and whose idea is the first of all, is in reality God, and must therefore be recognized and affirmed reflexively as divine Esse. For they confuse the reason of being which is most abstract with the most concrete; the universal with the essentially singular; the indeterminate, and of the least intensity of perfection of all that can be conceived, with the supremely determined and with the infinite intensity of perfection; and finally, being which, formally as it is conceived to be universal, cannot exist outside the mind, but when it is determined to this or that singular being, multiplied, is identified with those very singulars: they confuse it with a being singularly existing by intrinsic necessity and wholly different in its reason from all things that can be conceived apart from it. They confuse, I say, absolute Esse and Being from itself not only with participated being but with that being in which the participation of all is conceived to be least.

This huge fallacy, by which simple being through abstraction is substituted for simple Being through absolute perfection, is not only the principle and, as it were, the summary of pantheism in all its most diverse forms, and not only was the foundation of the Eunomian theory of the simplicity of God and of the intuition by which we understand the divine essence; but from the same confusion, or from a little attentive consideration of the all-round diversity between universal being and divine being, which is essentially singular in itself, there have arisen the false doctrines of some learned Catholics concerning being, which they hold to be the object of our first intellectual idea and of our immediate intuition, and which they contend is objectively and really God, although not yet known distinctly and reflexively by us under the aspect of absolute essence. In this opinion there is also contained a false doctrine of created being, and further a false theory of creation, whether these consequences are explicitly drawn, as we know has been done by some, or are refrained from by them.

The propositions which the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office pronounced on 18 Sept. 1861 « cannot safely be taught » all rest on this confusion of the being of our intuition with absolute being. Thus they were stated: « 1. Immediate knowledge of God, at least habitual, is essential to the human intellect, so that it can know nothing without it: since it is the intellectual light itself. 2. That Esse which is in all things, and without which we understand nothing, is divine Esse. 3. Universals, considered on the side of the thing, are not really distinguished from God. 4. Innate knowledge of God as simply being involves all knowledge in an eminent manner, so that through it we have implicitly known every being which is knowable under any respect. 5. All other ideas are nothing but modifications of the idea by which God is understood as simply being. 6. Created things are in God as a part in a whole, not indeed in a formal whole but in an infinite, most simple whole, which sets its parts, as it were, outside itself without any division or diminution of itself. 7. Creation can be explained thus: God, by that special act by which he understands and wills himself as distinct from a determinate creature (man, for example), produces the creature. » — « The most eminent and most reverend Lord Cardinals, having first heard the vote of the consultors, and having carefully weighed each and every one of the propositions set out above, answered the question proposed (whether they can safely be taught): Negative. »

Corollarium 1. Since a species consists in an essential perfection, which, being common to many individuals², constitutes those individuals as one nature and essentially different from all others; and a genus likewise consists in an essential perfection common to several species and distinguishing it from all others: hence being in common is outside every genus, because by reason of the least intensity of its perfection it distinguishes nothing from another, but is common to all; divine being is outside every genus, because by the infinite intensity of its perfection it is distinct in itself and different from all things that can be conceived apart from it, and has nothing in itself that could be common to any other.

Corollary 2. Those who ask whether there is more being with the creatures than God without the creatures speak more absurdly than one who would ask whether there is more art in the mind of Alighieri and the divine comedy computed together than if the art be considered in the mind of the poet by itself. For they do not notice, namely, that the name being, in relation to absolute being and participated being, is not univocal but analogous, and therefore those two cannot be counted together under one reason of being. Of absolute being there can be neither more nor less, since it is fullness, intrinsically and absolutely necessary; and therefore the essence and possibility of participated being is also absolutely necessary, which, however, apart from the divine essence itself, which is imitable outside it, is nothing of actual reality. But Esse actuale of a creature is contingent and not necessary, and therefore there can be more of it and less. Hence to the question whether there is more being after creation than before creation, the answer must be given by distinguishing: there is more being, if by this name you understand absolute being, I deny; there is more being, if you understand a being of a plainly different reason which can be conceived apart from the absolute, and which therefore admits with it not a numbering together but an analogical naming: I subdistinguish. There is more being, that is, more essences in the metaphysical order, I deny; more being, that is, more actual esse of participated being in the physical order, I grant.

It may be objected, however, against these things: being must be conceived by abstracting from absolute Esse and from participated esse; in this supreme abstraction there is comprehended under being, both divine being and participated being. Therefore it must certainly be asked whether (understanding being according to that abstract reason, and with no determination yet conceived to divine being or to participated being) there is more real being, or more esse in actu, after creation than before creation is supposed; and this must be affirmed, lest through a pantheistic error the reality of participated being, diverse from absolute being, be called into doubt.

Some things must be premised, for the explanation of this difficulty, about the analogical notion of being. The notion of being, already in that supreme abstraction where neither absolute nor participated being is distinctly named, is so constituted that it essentially requires application first to that which by intrinsic necessity is principally and in fullness is being, and secondarily to that which, by the very reason of its own entity, is only an imitation of absolute being, depends on it, and expresses a relation to it. Hence that notion of being is not abstract in such a way that one and the same reason of being is comprehended in two things (uncreated and created) which are distinguished from each other by other differences, as the reason of genus metaphysically is found the same in its subject species; but being is abstract in such a way that, although uncreated or created being is not expressed, nevertheless in the one the reason of being is plainly other than in the other. Therefore that notion of being is not generic but analogical; that is, fit to be applied to one principally, and to the others according to a diverse reason, with subordination and relation to that prior one: as, for example, art considered abstractly does not distinctly signify art in the mind of the artificer or art in the work, but can be applied to each according to a different reason (see Suarez Metaphys. disp. 28 sect. 3. n. 21.).

With these things laid down, the answer to the objected difficulty is easy. When it is asked whether after creation there is more being, it cannot be asked whether more being is contained in the abstract notion; just as one who asks whether after men have been created there is more humanity does not mean, if he is of sound mind, whether after creation more is contained in the abstract notion of humanity; for what is comprehended in an abstract notion can neither be increased nor diminished. The sense of the question, therefore, is whether, with creatures now existing, more things really exist in which the reason of real being, or esse itself in act, is verified, than the necessarily existing being alone. Therefore in this comparison the reason of being is already applied to diverse things, and divine being and participated being are conceived, which in the supreme reason of being itself differ wholly. Therefore the answer given above stands. For those which differ among themselves in the very reason of being cannot be numbered together; but it must be said that neither is there, nor can there be, more of divine being, which is Esse itself in absolute fullness; but there is more real participated being, or rather real participated being begins through creation and can increase, and can also be diminished by annihilation. Moreover this vindication of the diversity in the very reason of being between God and whatever can be conceived apart from God is necessary, and is the sole and sufficient exclusion of pantheism in every form.