Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

The divine essence is one with the unity of singularity.

« From the demonstrated fullness of absolute perfection there follows that unity of the divine essence, so that its multiplication, and any number of gods, cannot be conceived in the mind without the notion of the same divine essence being subverted; rightly therefore the Fathers have said that polytheism is atheism. »

In Scripture and from the Fathers, the reason of the divine essence, which is Esse simply, has been declared, as shown in the preceding theses, to be the fullness of absolute perfection, and from this very thing unity is defined: so that, besides him who is יהוה ἄλφα and ὦμεγα, first and last, beginning and end, there is nothing of divine and absolute being. Now, from the fundamental doctrine of absolute perfection, and with the Fathers leading the way, we shall attempt to explain more distinctly the intrinsic repugnance of multiplication.

I. If the individual perfections are considered, for example truth, goodness, wisdom, and so on, it is easily understood that it is plainly repugnant for perfection which is perfection simply, that is, which comprehends the whole reason of perfection, to be multipliable and not wholly one. For who, thinking of wisdom, which is the whole reason of wisdom, ἡ αὐτοσοφία, does not clearly understand that it is as repugnant for two entire and distinct reasons of it to exist, as it is repugnant that the whole reason of absolute reality, or absolute totality, be conceived in the mind as twofold, one absolute totality distinct from the other? Now truth, goodness, wisdom, and perfection wholly, all that can be conceived in the whole reason of perfection and limited by no imperfection, are not, from what has been demonstrated, a merely abstract concept, but are by intrinsic necessity really existing¹; essence is not, and cannot be, only in an ideal state, but it is real Esse (Ego sum qui sum); he is יהוה, the true and infinite God. Therefore it is intrinsically repugnant that the divine absolute Esse be multiplied, or that there be some number of gods. « The very truth is one God, says St Fulgentius to Donatus c. 4; and just as, besides the one truth, there is no other truth, so without the one true God there is no other true God.... and so two true Gods cannot truly be spoken of, just as the one truth itself by its own nature (from the intrinsic nature of the thing) cannot be divided. »

Indeed, if you do not conceive in the mind (for that cannot be done) but state in words two infinite things which are the fullness of absolute Esse itself, you have said that one is infinitely perfect, lacking the infinite perfection which is in the other; and this other likewise you call the fullness of the whole absolute being, lacking the whole fullness of absolute being which is of another, infinite nature distinct from itself: therefore of each you affirm and deny at once the whole fullness of perfection. « For if there are several gods, each will lack as much as there is in the others » Lactant. Instit. 1. I. c. 3. Hence, « if there is something outside him (absolute and not depending on him), it is no longer the pleroma of all, nor does it contain all things; for the pleroma will lack, or the God who is above all things will lack, that which they say is outside him. And what lacks (that is, to which something is lacking), or is taken away from something, that is not the pleroma of all » Iren. l. II. c. 1. n. 2. Boethius expressed this same thing (de consolat. phil. l. III. prosa 10.), in words most apt for bringing the matter to light: « That goods which differ, that one is not the other, is plain; wherefore neither of them can be perfect, since to each the other is lacking. »

This is the inner reason why the multiplication of the divine essence is repugnant, and therefore why its unity is not such as the unity in number is, but is above unity (see above p. 168.). Whence, if anyone attentively examines, he will see that this argument is either presupposed or implicitly contained in all the others by which the Fathers are wont to demonstrate the unity of God from the very perfection of the divine essence: namely, that if there were two gods or more, none would be supreme²; that among several there could be no difference³; that several gods would be superfluous, since one suffices⁴. Likewise, where they demonstrate the unity from the reason of necessary being, this same argument from the fullness of perfection is deduced as a kind of middle term; for from the necessity of existing they infer the fullness of perfection, and from this the unity to which all multiplication is repugnant. « Moreover, thus Hilary writes of his own philosophy (de Trin. I. n. 4.): his mind held for certain that the divine and eternal is nothing but one and undifferentiated, because that which, being to itself the cause of what it was, had left nothing necessary outside itself that would be more excellent than itself; and thus omnipotence and eternity belong only to the one. »

II. Therefore the tritheists, who did not explicitly deny the infinity of the divine nature but taught that its unity was only specific and not of every kind of singularity, were in conflict no less with reason than with the principal foundation of revealed faith; nor could they defend their heresy without wholly perverting the very notion of the infinite perfection of God, which revelation teaches must be believed and which sound reason attains by understanding. But the Gentile worshippers of idols and of many gods, and those who usurped the Christian name, the Gnostics, Marcionites and Manichaeans, denied God by the very multiplication of gods, insofar as they affirmed gods; while they substituted for the supreme object of worship either a creature or some product of the mind, and « they were unwilling to know the God whom they could not fail to know »⁵ Tertullian says admirably: « If God is not one, he is not; for we believe more worthily that it is not, whatever has not been as it must be. But that you may know that God must be one, seek what God is, and you will not find it otherwise » Tertull. c. Marc. I. 3. Hence by St Paul, Eph. II. 12. the worshippers of gods are called ἄθεοι; and the holy Fathers say that the worship of many gods is the denial of God, that polytheism is atheism (τὴν πολυθεότητα ἀθεότητα εἶναι λέγομεν Athan. cont. gent. n. 24. 40.).