Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

On the unity of simplicity in the divine nature.

« From the demonstrated absolute perfection of the divine essence a unity follows, just as the unity of God, which lies in the repugnance of multiplying the nature, follows; this unity is absolute simplicity, free from any composition in God himself, whether physical or metaphysical. This is demonstrated first from the intrinsic reason of composition itself, which necessarily presupposes imperfection. »

Because the explanation of the composite is easier for us than that of the simple, we explain the latter by means of the former as better known. In the composite a) there must be considered parts, whether each of them is in itself something physical really distinct from the other parts, and so the parts are real components of the whole—such as matter and substantial form, for example in man, integral parts in the body, and substance and its accidents, which are not mere modes; or whether the parts are not things distinct in the object itself, but are conceived, nonetheless, with objective precision one from the other, so that one, precisely taken, is understood to be imperfect and to be perfected by the other, and this contingently, not from the intrinsic nature and necessity of the thing. In this way we understand the composition of essence and esse (actual), of nature and hypostasis formally taken, and universally of subject and contingent modes properly so called, and finally of the metaphysical grades of genus and specific difference. Now whatever has parts is in some way multiple and not wholly undivided and indivisible in itself; but what has no parts is plainly undivided in itself, and this is called one¹. b) There must be considered the coming together of parts into one, from which the composite is formally produced, whose immediate and direct negation is simplicity. Hence one in itself (in the declared sense of unity) and simple are distinguished not in reality but only by mode of consideration; namely, one in itself is considered in opposition to the many of which the composite consists, simple in opposition to the composite that consists of many.

Hence it is further inferred that a composite approaches more nearly to the notion of the simple the fewer distinct realities its parts have, and the more closely they coalesce into one indivisible whole. In comparison, therefore, with bodily things, in which both the constituent and the integral parts are substantial, created spirits are wholly simple, in which there can be no other composition than of qualities, habits, and spiritual acts, which inhere in a substance free of substantial parts.² But if they are compared with pure act, where we set out to demonstrate that no such composition is or can be, created spirits are sometimes denied by the Fathers to be simple. After St Basil ep. 8. ad Caesar. n. 2. T. III. p. 82. demonstrated that there is substantial composition indeed in the world, in man, and accidental composition, from substance and adventitious holiness, in angels, and therefore that they are not simple, he adds: « wherefore also number designates everything that has been allotted a material and circumscribed nature (ἐνύλον καὶ περιγραπτὸν φύσιν), but monad and unity is the distinguishing mark of a simple and incomprehensible essence. »

The kinds of composition are usually enumerated: from matter and substantial form, from integral parts, from substance and accidents, from essence and esse, from nature and hypostasis, and finally from genus and difference. To define now the sense and declare the reason how and why all the compositions enumerated, some of which do not even seem to be real, are said to be repugnant in God, first the very reason of part must be considered. By the name of part is understood an imperfect thing which, by communicating with and uniting with another, receives perfection. Hence parts properly so called always mutually perfect one another by mutual communication, and the perfection of the whole composite issues from the union and mutual communication of all the parts. Whatever therefore has the reason of a part is conceived either in mere potency (objective potency) toward perfection, which the Greeks call ἐντελέχειαν and the Scholastics call act; or it is in act in some measure and in potency toward some further perfection arriving to it from the communion of another (receptive potency). A part therefore, as a part, is an incomplete being. From this intrinsic reason of parts it is understood how the diverse compositions usually enumerated are consequences and sure indications of limitation. Where composition is physical, from parts really distinct in the thing itself, whether the parts are already substantial or one is merely an accident, the cause is clear. For since each part, by the very fact that it is a part, is essentially a circumscribed being, by the negation of absolute perfection, the perfection of the whole that springs from the mutual communication of finite things cannot be absolute and infinite; because the finite and the infinite, perfection in a certain respect and absolute perfection, differ not by degree but by their whole intrinsic reason and essence.

Now indeed this same reason, which is drawn from the imperfection necessarily included in composition from parts, also applies to metaphysical composition, even though those things which are conceived as parts are not distinct in the object itself as thing from thing. We confess that our mind cannot understand essence in act and the existence, or esse, of this essence, as two distinct things. We think also that the substantial nature in created things, without any thing superadded with which it is physically compounded, is hypostasis, but only because it is wholly its own, and not a nature of a higher hypostasis by way of a part; concerning which matter we have argued at length in the treatise on the Incarnation. Finally we concede that the metaphysical grades of animal, for example, and of rational in man, are not compounded as two real parts into one whole, but are one thing, in which nonetheless, by objective precision, two are distinguished, so that what is understood by the concept of genus does not include that which is understood by the concept of difference. Therefore we defend that metaphysical composition is not repugnant in God because in it really distinct parts concur, which indeed in infinite perfection can be none, as we demonstrated a little before; but because, of the enumerated reasons of composition, we maintain that in the necessary and absolute Esse there can be no place, since this metaphysical composition is conceived, and can be conceived, only by reason of contingency and limitation, which is in the essence, in the nature, in the genus and species of creatures, and is expressed and understood by this very concept of composition.

First, because the essence of a creature is not necessarily really existing, but in itself is in the state of mere possibility, or in objective potency; therefore when esse of a determinate order, for example an angel, is created by God, we conceive the essence of the angel, to which esse in act is added. But this signifies nothing other than that we understand this essence, really existing, not to be necessarily existing. Yet in God essence is Esse itself, nor therefore can the divine essence be conceived to which divine Esse accedes; for if you understand the divine essence so that Esse accedes to it, it would be an equally or even more absurd invention, as if you wished to conceive the essence of some creature to which intrinsic possibility accedes. See above th. XXII. n. II.

2°. Again, although subsistence, or that by which a first, singular, complete substance is formally constituted as hypostasis, is not, even in created things, some distinct thing compounded with that substantial nature; but is the wholeness in itself of the substance itself³, that is, is one whole in itself, insofar as it is not communicated to another by way of a part: nevertheless this very thing, not being of another, is not essential to a finite nature, nor required by the necessity of its perfection; but a nature which is complete and actually existing can be by way of a part to be perfected by the nature of a higher person, at least a divine one, as is established by faith from the mystery of the Incarnation. Hence it was only from this mystery that Christian philosophers and theologians learned to consider created hypostasis as composed, as it were, of the nature itself and of the mode of subsisting through itself, which is not essential to it. Now this very thing follows from the limitation of the nature, and is the most certain indication of limitation. Wherefore the divine nature, from the very reason of infinite perfection, is in itself by intrinsic absolute necessity, so that it is wholly repugnant for it to be of another by way of a part, by the very fact that it is absolute Esse, to which no perfection can accede.

Therefore, although in God we distinguish, as the Fathers very often warn, the absolute nature and the three modes of subsisting (τρόπους τῆς ὑπάρξεως), this is not composition in God. It is not physical composition, as is evident of itself, since we deny physical composition even in the created hypostasis, and since « each of the three persons is substance, essence or divine nature, and that thing is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit » (cf. Conc. Later. IV.). Nor is it metaphysical composition of the kind we assert in the created hypostasis. For in creatures we can conceive the nature with objective precision from the mode of subsisting through itself, since this mode is not essential to the created nature; but in God we can, by our imperfect mode of understanding, conceive the nature only with formal distinction, not, however, with objective precision from the very mode of subsisting through itself; that is, we can think of the nature without expressly thinking of the mode of subsisting, but we cannot think of the infinite nature so that the mode of subsisting through itself is not included in the thing thought; because subsistence through itself is essential to such a nature, that is, it is by intrinsic necessity of infinite perfection. In creatures a nature can be thought and can be without the mode of subsisting through itself, and therefore this mode can be conceived as accruing, as a metaphysical grade superadded to the nature considered in itself; but the divine nature can neither be nor be thought without being a substance wholly in itself, in which very thing the reason of hypostasis lies; and therefore this reason of hypostasis cannot be conceived as some grade metaphysically superadded to the nature, although the formal reason of the nature or quiddity can be conceived without expressly conceiving the formal reason of hypostasis. Thus being can be conceived without expressly conceiving the reason of good; but because being by its own intrinsic reason is good, therefore the reason of good cannot be conceived as a metaphysical grade superadded to being, but only as a more explicit mode of being. (See above p. 160.)

These things would be clear if the divine person were one as the nature is one; but a greater difficulty can arise, because we know by faith that one nature subsists in a threefold mode of subsisting, and that one nature is in three persons really distinct from one another. For it seems that the nature must be conceived as not subsisting through itself, to which, as a further grade, at least in our mode of understanding, the relations of paternity, filiation and procession accede, by which the subsisting persons are constituted; and thus it seems that in the divine person there is metaphysical composition of nature and mode of subsisting, no less than in the created hypostasis. Moreover, three distinct persons might seem to constitute one God; but where things really distinct constitute some one, the composition is not only metaphysical but physical.

To the first: it must indeed be distinguished by reason, with a foundation in the thing, that one and the same supreme thing is both absolute and communicable nature, and is also one and the same thing as three relatives really distinct from one another: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But while absolute nature is conceived, it is not conceived as incomplete and in need of completion, as though by a further degree of paternity, filiation, and procession; rather, the same infinite thing, by its intrinsic and necessary perfection, is at once absolute (and under this reason, common nature) and at once relative (and under this reason, three mutually incommunicable, that is, distinct hypostases). Hence we truly need a double concept: to understand one thing as absolute nature, not indeed as something yet to be completed, but only by conceiving it, not yet expressly, under the reason of the relative; and then to understand that very same thing expressly under the reason of the relative, so as to be three distinct ones, by analogy with the way we said being, truth, and goodness are conceived: not by adding degrees of truth and goodness to being, but by a more expressed mode of being. In a word, because infinite nature cannot be conceived as completed by some superadded degree, and so cannot be conceived as a metaphysical part, no metaphysical composition can therefore be understood there. In form, the objection is answered: nature must be conceived as not subsisting per se, I distinguish: it must be conceived with objective precision from subsistence, that is, so that subsistence is not contained in the thing thought, I deny; it can be conceived with formal distinction, that is, so that the mode of subsisting is not expressly thought, I concede. What is added, that subsistence is conceived as an accruing further degree, must be denied. On these see Tract. de Trin. th. XXI. sqq.

The second objection, on physical composition, is far too absurd. The persons are not parts mutually perfecting one another so as to compose some whole. The three persons are one, insofar as both each one and all together are identically the divine nature itself, and so are not really distinguished from the divine nature; but where there is no real distinction, there can be no real composition. Insofar as, however, they are really distinguished from one another through the opposite relations of paternity, filiation, and procession, they are not joined so as to compose one thing. Therefore, in that in which they are one (in nature), they have no distinction; in that in which they are distinct (in their proper relations), they have no unity. Therefore they are not parts of one another, but each is subsisting per se; nor are they parts concurring to compose one nature, but each and all together are the very nature: the holy Trinity is one God (cf. Petav. de Deo l. II. c. 3. 4.).

3°. The last remaining composition is from the metaphysical degrees of genus and difference. In this case too, that the limitation of being must be presupposed as a necessary condition is clear from the reason by which we declared above, Coroll. 1. ad th. XXIV., why absolute Existence can have neither the reason of genus nor of difference. For under a generic degree we conceive a perfection which is in power to another perfection, namely a specific perfection, and which therefore involves limitation in its very concept. Likewise, under specific difference we conceive a degree of perfection which does not include the perfection of the genus, much less includes infinite perfection, but is limited by its own reason. Therefore both genus and difference are understood as something incomplete and as a part to be completed. Therefore, while we conceive a composition from a generic degree of being and from a specific degree of being, by that very fact we understand being to be limited under both the one reason and the other. Therefore, even though no distinction of perfections, if it is only according to reason and our mode of understanding, repugns the divine perfection and simplicity, nonetheless this distinction repugns through reasons limited by their intrinsic nature, such as are found in composition from genus and difference. Moreover, genus and species include in their formal reason a multiplication, or multiplicability, in individuals, so that the unity of genus and species is by its very concept a unity only logical and according to reason, whereas the multiplicability of the perfection and nature, whose notion is contained in genus and species, is ontological and according to the thing itself. But multiplicability and the negation of every kind of singularity are repugnant to infinite being. Therefore from this head too it is manifest that the reason of genus and species is essentially founded in the limitation of being. There is therefore no place in God, who is essentially one with the unity of singularity, for this distinction, and therefore also no place for this composition.

Corollary. Absolute simplicity is formally a perfection not by negation, namely that the simple has no parts; but by the positive intensity of perfection, namely that Existence itself is every absolute perfection, and therefore nothing can be conceived there as limited by the lack of a further possible perfection. This limitation, however, is the essential condition of a part and a quasi-part. Therefore, on account of the intensity of perfection, no part or quasi-part can be conceived there to be perfected by another part or quasi-part. Hence it can be said: simplicity is a perfection not in that the simple has no parts, but in that it cannot be a part or quasi-part⁴.

Hence also in creatures, whose simplicity compared with the divine is only in a certain respect, perfection formally does not lie in the negation of parts, but in the intensive reality of being itself. But since every created entity is limited by the lack of a further possible perfection and is therefore perfectible, a composition, physical or metaphysical, is required for the perfection of a creature, the greater the less the intrinsic entitative perfection is. « Among us, composites are better than simples, because the perfection of creaturely goodness is not found in one simple thing but in many; but the perfection of divine goodness is found in one simple thing » S. Th. 1. q. 3. a. 7. ad 2.

From what has been said, the dispute among the Scholastics is easily settled: some, with Cajetan, deny that simplicity is a perfection per se, others affirm it. If what is meant is an ontological perfection excluding composition, it is indeed a perfection per se and simply; if only the negation of parts is meant, this, per se and apart from ontological perfection, is not a perfection. Cf. Ludov. Molina in 1. q. 3. a. 7. disp. 2. It further becomes clear from what has been said what weight the argument drawn from the perfection of simplicity carries against the possibility of simple material beings, which are called simple insofar as they are supposed to consist of no integrating parts, and so to lack extension. Whatever you think of such beings, it is certainly ridiculous to deny their possibility on the ground that simplicity is a perfection.