Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

From the documents of revelation is declared the divine simplicity, and its proper reason, that God is pure act.

« The dogma of God's simplicity in every respect has in Christian doctrine not only always been held as most certain beyond controversy; but both in the Scriptures and in the doctrine of the Fathers there is also explicitly declared the intrinsic reason of divine simplicity, namely that in God both every perfection and, in particular, understanding and volition are really the very substance of God: whence simplicity is finally traced back to this, that the divine essence is pure act of perfection. »

I. As regards the profession of the dogma (setting aside its finer declaration), the Fathers first put it forward in many ways by explicit predication. They teach that God is most simple and most remote from all composition with Cyrillo Alex. Thesaur. XIII. 2; XIV. 1. 2; supremely simple with Augustine de Trinit. VI. 6; first and purest simple with Bernard in Cant. serm. 81; as simple as one, and if it can be said, most one with Bernard Consid. 1. V. c. 7; above all simplicity with Cyrillo Alex. dialog. I. de Trin.; one eminence of simplicity (ὑπερβολὴν) with Dionysius de div. nom. c. 5. Origen hands down that this is the truth from those things in which the whole Christian name has agreed, de Princ. I. n. 6; indeed, the very « whole human race confesses that God is simple, not composite, » as Cyrillo Alex. Thesaur. XXXI. testifies. Hence, although in denying and excluding composition they say that to think God composite is « the mark of a very stupid and dull man » Gregor. Nyss. cont. Eunom. I. p. 68; Basil. ep. 141; « the mark of supreme impiety » Damasc. Fid. orth. I. 12; « absurd and wicked » Maxim. centur. IV. de charit. c. 8; « blasphemous » Cyrill. Hier. catech. VI; « a new kind of blasphemy » Athanas. de Synod. n. 34.

2°. Frequently both the Fathers and the Councils take the dogma of God's simplicity in every respect as foundation and principle, from which they either prove and declare other revealed doctrines, or refute and condemn errors. Thus at the Council Later. IV., the unity of the divine nature in distinct persons, without a quaternity following from it as Abbot Joachim objected, was declared from the simplicity of the divine nature: because the three persons, and each of them, are that nature and essence; and so they are not one thing and another, but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are altogether the same, since the whole nature, not in part but entire, is common to the three persons « as being wholly simple » : and so, by reason of divine simplicity, the Fathers define that the persons are distinguished not from the nature but only from one another. By the same principle of simplicity, the doctrine of Gilbert of Poitiers was first condemned by the Bishops of Gaul, and then at the Council of Rheims, with the Pontiff Eugene III himself presiding. He taught that God is God by deity, yet deity is not God; and thus he thought of the attributes as forms in God, so that God is not each of the attributes that we distinguish, nor is any single attribute God. This doctrine, I say, was abolished on the principle that « the supreme and uncreated nature, which is the Trinity, God, claims for itself the pure and singular simplicity of its essence, so that there is not found in it one thing and another.... Far be it that the catholic Church should assent that there is some substance, or some wholly other thing, by which God is, and which is not God » (S. Bernard. in Cant serm. 80. n. 5-8, where he disputes against Gilbert). Hence the definition of the Council is understood, as Otto of Freising reports it, « lest any reason in theology should divide between nature and person, nor God be said to be divine essence by the ablative sense only but also by the nominative, » that is, not only God by deity but also deity.

Long before these controversies, when God's supreme simplicity was called into doubt directly « by heretics, not by dialecticians » (Bernard), the ancient Fathers Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Cyril, and others to be read in Petavius 1. II. c. 4. and 6. n. 9. seqq., used this same simplicity of God as a principle by which they attacked the Arian heresy. Athanasius or. V. adv. Arian.; Basil. contr. Sabell. hom. 27; Cyrillus Thesaur. XIV; Dialog. V. de Trin.; Damasc. Fid. orthod. I. 18. argue most truly and most subtly. The Son is called in the Scriptures wisdom, will, and power of the Father, while at the same time distinct from the Father: therefore, they infer, either he is subsisting wisdom, and then he is God; or he is a quality inhering in the Father, and then God is composite, which by everyone's admission is absurd¹. Moreover, Athanasius refutes the insidious confession of the Arians, who teach that « the Son is from the Father, but not from the substance (ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας) of the Father » (1. de Synodis and 1. de decretis Nicaen.), by driving the view to an absurdity of which even the Arians would be ashamed, namely to the denial of all simplicity in God; for if their profession were sincere, there would follow in the Father something other than the substance, distinct from it, and thus God would be composite. « You said the Son is from God; therefore you have already said he is from the substance of the Father »². Lastly, for the same reason of divine simplicity, the Fathers refute the Arian evasion by which some said the Son is like the Father, others unlike. For Athanasius in ep. ad Afric. and Basil in ep. 141 say that if the Son is not consubstantial with the Father, he could be called like or unlike the Father only by reason of qualities; but if you say there are qualities in God, you feign God composite: « far be it; for the substance is simple, in which no quality inheres »³. From the few things we have described, it is plain how certain was the profession of all Christian antiquity, that nothing is to be said of God that could carry a suspicion of composition, and how grave and cardinal the holy Doctors judged this dogma of divine simplicity to be.

II. In this thesis we are not so concerned with the thing itself, whether it is, as with its intrinsic reason, namely what sort it is divine simplicity; that is, how, according to the teaching of Scripture and the ecclesiastical explanation of preaching, it can be understood somewhat more distinctly by seeking understanding from faith.

1°. We here assume as manifest in itself that simplicity in God which excludes substantial parts, whether constituent or integral, such as are found in bodies or in things composed at least in part of some material element. For how could it not be self-evident that God cannot have absolute perfection constituted or completed by that which is imperfect by its own intrinsic reason, both in the grade and order of being considered in itself, and in the composition of the parts of which it consists? « That nature does not receive dull matters, nor is it made of diverse things so as to remain » S. Hilar. Trin. VI. Because of this evidence of the matter, in the Scriptures, even of the Old Testament, where greater caution might seem to have been necessary, anthropomorphic expressions, by which God's operations and relations to what is outside him are described, are used everywhere without danger. « God, who is everywhere and in all things, hears entirely, sees entirely, acts entirely, walks entirely... The power of God, which is equal and undivided (one, undistinguished), has names of offices and members: as the power by which he sees is eyes; the power by which he hears is ears; the power by which he acts is hands; the power by which he is present is feet; the diversities of offices being accomplished by the power of this one power » Hilar. in Ps. 129. n. 3. It is indeed strange that among Christians there could be found (the Audians and Egyptian monks of the fourth century) who, with an absurd horror of allegorical interpretation, insisting that such expressions in Scripture are to be taken in their immediate sense, ascribed a body to God altogether.

As for Tertullian (contr. Prax. c. 7; contr. Marc. II. c. 16.), who seems to speak of a body of God, or even to affirm more absurdly that God, by the opinion of all, is a body; and who in other places (de anima c. 7; de carne Christi c. 11; cont. Hermog. c. 35.) writes that whatever subsists is a body of its own kind: St Augustine (de haeres. c. 86.) says this can be understood in such a way that Tertullian called a body whatever is not empty and not merely an accident, but a substance subsisting in itself. Likewise Lactantius must be thought to have wished only to vindicate the divine Existence as singular, determinate, and personal against Stoic pantheism, when (de ira Dei c. 2.) he defends that God has some « figure and form ». Finally, to take in together the ambiguous sayings of the Fathers, Athenagoras (Legat. pro Christ. n. 23. coll. n. 24.) said that the good in God is by accident (κατα συμβεβηκος), in roughly that sense in which we have seen other Fathers considering the divine attributes which are « about God » (τα περι Θεον supra p. 128. 130. 150.). Since, namely, in our mode of understanding we distinguish many perfections in God, Athenagoras could call a perfection, which we as it were add to another by our concept, accruing or accident. For in what other sense could he, in n. 24, conceive essential Existence and unity (το ὄντος ὄν και το μονοφυες) together with goodness in God, as accidents, or rather accruings (επισυμβεβηκοτα)? Cf. Petav. 1. I. c. 12. n. 1.

2°. Setting aside this crude composition, whose exclusion contributes little to illuminating the intrinsic reason of divine simplicity, we conceive a more subtle composition, from which no creature can be free: insofar as composition in general is founded on imperfection together with the possibility of a further perfection, or in power to act. Every essence that can be conceived apart from God includes indeed an objective power to existence, but does not include in its intrinsic reason existence in act itself; and therefore in the preceding thesis we said that composition can be conceived between essence and existence, as objective power with act. For the same reason, participated existence, since it is not simply and absolutely Existence, as in every line and in the whole reason of being, does not, by the very fact that it is some existence, include the degree of being which is life. Therefore participated existence, from its intrinsic reason insofar as it is some existence, is not also life; but it is in receptive power to life: hence a living creature is said to have life, but not to be life. In the same way, participated life is in power to the higher degree of intellectuality. Further, a created substance that is living and intellectual is not absolute and simple intellect, but has intellect according to some degree of perfection; and so such an intellect, considered in itself, is in power to acts of understanding, in power to formal truth, to wisdom: and if it is in act of understanding, truth, wisdom, this cannot be except according to some degree together with a power to a further perfection. It will therefore be in act in one respect, and in power in others; but it cannot be pure act: whence it will have understandings, formal truth, and wisdom in a certain measure; but it cannot be absolute understanding itself, truth itself, wisdom itself. Likewise these things hold of the will and its perfection. In all these, therefore, there is some distinction with objective precision, so that one is not contained in the other; and hence there is conceived some at least metaphysical composition from power and act, or from the perfectible with another perfecting, and the power to a further perfection remains indefinitely, or (as is commonly said) act mixed with power.

But the essence which is Existence itself in full plenitude, or which by its intrinsic necessary perfection is absolute reality, is understood formally as this essence, pure act, without any potentiality either objective to existence or receptive of a more perfect existence. Hence there the essence is itself without any addition (for nothing can be added to absolute perfection), and its substance, without any quality that is not itself, is, just as Existence itself is, life itself, intellect itself, truth itself, wisdom itself, charity itself etc., and all these in absolute act. Accordingly, in the reverse order too, these individual perfections, and all together, are really that one most simple essence, which we understand inadequately by diverse concepts taken from the perfections of creatures. Therefore we cannot conceive in God, as in creatures, essence or Existence or perfection under any name as something imperfect and to be completed by something added to it; but we understand each perfection to be the very plenitude of absolute Existence, which by us, on account of the imperfection of our intellect, is conceived under diverse reasons, as the diverse created perfections correspond to that infinite and most simple exemplar.

We demonstrate from the Scriptures themselves that this notion of divine simplicity is genuine.

For in the sacred letters there is contained not only the foundation from which the simplicity of God, declared above, necessarily follows, namely that the divine essence is Existence itself and the plenitude of absolute Existence (th. XXII.); but the Scriptures explicitly exhibit God as one and the same with each of the perfections which we predicate of God, so that not only is perfection in him, but he himself is perfection, now one, now another, and consequently all together.

In particular, just as God is said to have life in himself, and life is said to be in God, Io. I. 4; V. 26; so God is life itself (ἡ ζωὴ) Io. I. 4; XIV. 6;1. Io. I. 2: whence he alone has immortality, 1. Tim. VI. 16. As there are « the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God » Rom.XI.33; Iob XII.13.16; Psal.CXLVII.5, and in God are « all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge » Coloss. II. 3; so God is wisdom itself Prov. I. 20; VIII; Sap. VII. 21. sqq.; Ecclesi. XXIV. 1; 1. Cor. I. 24: whence God alone is wise, Rom. XVI. 17. (and in the received Greek text, 1. Tim. I. 17; Iud. 25.). Likewise, as God is « full of truth » and from God is all truth; so God is truth itself (ἡ ἀλήθεια) Io. XIV. 6; 1. Io. V. 6. As he dwells in light, 1.Tim.VI.16; 1. Io. I. 7; so he himself is light, Io. I; III. 19; XII. 46; 1. Io. I. 5. As charity is from God and of God, so God is himself charity 1. Io. IV. 8. 16: whence « there is one good God » and « no one is good but God alone » Matth. XIX. 17; Marc. X. 18; Luc. XVIII. 19. Therefore the divine Existence itself, whose singular name is ὁ ὢν qui est, is expressed in the Scriptures not only as living and having life from himself, as having all wisdom, all truth, as dwelling in unapproachable light, as the God of charity, but as life itself, wisdom, truth, light, charity. Life itself, moreover, is not life through another life, but through itself; wisdom itself, truth itself, charity itself is not wisdom, truth, charity except through itself⁴. Therefore the divine Existence is as it were an infinite form⁵, which through itself, not through a quality distinct from itself, is all these things: « for justice (and the same holds of all perfections) is not through another virtue, but is itself virtue through itself » Clemens Alex. Paedag. I. 8. In these, moreover, the very denial of any composition is expressed, and the simplicity necessary from the intrinsic reason of absolute Existence. In the Scriptures, therefore, the doctrine of God's absolute simplicity is not only implicitly contained, but also principles are set forth by explicit declaration, from which its metaphysical demonstration is constructed.

3°. The holy Fathers supply this demonstration, most lucid, from the principles set forth in holy Scripture. We shall consider in the doctrine of the Fathers, first, the manner in which they declare the intrinsic reason of divine simplicity; then the manner in which the Fathers show, in particular, that those things which we conceive as actions of God are in God the very immutable substance.

a) As to the first, there are chiefly two modes of declaring it among the Fathers. First, from the absolute perfection of God they conclude that God himself is each of the perfections, and all together, which we can name: that God is in himself wholly both justice, and omnipotence, and wisdom, etc. Whence it follows that the perfections are distinguished neither from the essence nor from one another; but one most simple Existence must be understood, which by us is conceived truly but inadequately under these diverse notions of perfections, and is called by diverse names. « He is of many names and all-powerful, and yet the substance of one form. For not because he is called good, just, omnipotent, is he therefore different and various.... Not seeing in part and lacking sight in part, but he is wholly eye, and wholly hearing, and wholly mind, not as we, understanding in part and not knowing in part; for this speech is blasphemous and unworthy of the divine substance » Cyrill. Hier. catech. VI. n.7.⁶ Altogether similar statements are found in Irenaeus I. c. 12. n. 2; II. c. 12. n. 3; c. 28. n. 4; Clemens Alex. Strom. VII. p. 721; Gregor. Nyss. in Cantic. hom. VII. T. I. p. 570; Epiphan. in Ancor. c. 56; Maximus M. apud Euthym. Panopl. tit. 3. p. 80.

The second explanation differs from the former not in substance but only in form. God, they say, is that perfection which he is said to have. « God is therefore called simple because what he has, that is... In that which is said of itself and not of another, this is what it has; just as life is said of itself, having life indeed, and it is the same life he himself is » Aug. Civ. Dei XI. 10. and often elsewhere, as also other Fathers. In creatures, as we explained above, it is not by the mere fact that they are that their final perfection is already present; because their existence is participated, not absolute Existence: hence for them to exist is one thing, and to exist in final perfection is another. Hence created substances are not all their perfection; but they have perfections, by which, as accruing, they are perfected: for them, therefore, to be is one thing, to be thus is another; and hence composition of the perfectible and the perfecting follows. In God, however, on account of the opposite reason, since his essence is by itself necessarily every perfection, nothing can be perfectible in him (no passive power), and so nothing as a perfecting form, but the whole is perfect (pure act), and therefore no composition. « No one of men is truth, says Pope Leo the Great with many others (ep. 93. c. 5. ad Turribium), no one is wisdom, no one is justice; but many are participants in truth and wisdom and justice. God alone, however, has need of no participation, of whom whatever is worthily thought in any way is not quality but essence. For nothing accrues to the immutable, nothing is lost, because Existence which is everlasting is always proper to him. » Gregorius M. Moral. l. II. c. 27. has similar things. « Otherwise the light that illuminates, otherwise the light illuminated; otherwise justice justifying, otherwise justice justified. Wisdom is and is wise, and does not have existence other than being wise: but servants of wisdom can indeed be wise, yet they do not have this existence which is being wise; for they can exist and not be wise. Wisdom has life, but does not have it as something else, it is it; for to it to be is to live: but servants of wisdom, when they have life, are one thing and have another; for to them this very existence is not to live. »

Hence it is understood why God's simplicity is expressed most properly, as far as we can, by names of abstract form. Yet because the divine, which is expressed by those names, is self-existing and subsisting, we also use, by a certain necessity, names of concrete form to express this very thing. « In speaking of God we use concrete names, to signify his subsistence, because among us only composites subsist; and we use abstract names, so that we may signify his simplicity » S. Th. 1. q. 3. a. 3. ad 1; q. 13. a. 1. ad 2; q. 32. a. 2.

b) It remains to be said of the manner in which the Fathers teach that immanent acts, as we conceive them, are the very substance of God. As to the thing itself, so long as only whether it is is asked, there cannot be here a greater difficulty than in all the other divine attributes. For if the divine essence is by itself perfection in its whole plenitude, and if any perfection that we can distinguish by reason is really the divine essence and substance itself in the plenitude of absolute Existence: by that very fact the intellect, will, (active) power is not, nor can it be conceived as, a faculty to be perfected by an accruing act of understanding, of willing, or of efficiency; but the divine essence and substance itself is, as infinite intellect, infinite will, infinite power, without any lack of reality, so a substantial act understanding, willing, and effecting, by itself, not by anything accruing beyond the essence itself.

This follows as a necessary corollary from the very plenitude of being and from the simplicity of divine Existence declared so far; nevertheless the Fathers also declare it in explicit teaching. « It must be understood, says St Maximus on Dionysius de div. nom. c. 5. §. 6, that since the super-excellent goodness is itself mind and wholly act turned upon itself, it is in act and not in power, as if it were first not wisdom and then became mind in act. Hence also it is only pure mind, not having being wise superadded; but altogether it is wise from itself »⁷. The same explanation is given by Augustine (in Io. tract. 40.). « If what few understand is the simple nature of truth, this means that for the Son to be is to know. He therefore has from him that he knows, from whom he has that he is, not that he would first be from him and afterwards know from him. But as by begetting he gave him to be, so by begetting he gave him to know. For in the simple nature of truth, as has been said, to be and to know are not one thing and another, but this very same. » He repeats the same thing in very similar words about God considered absolutely, tract. 99. Cf. Cyrill. Alex. Thesaur. XXXI. pag. 267.

What is said of the act of understanding is plain to be no less true of the act of willing. But in the act of volition, which is freely directed outward, a special difficulty presents itself to our imperfect understanding, if we ask how it is. The teaching of St Gregory of Nyssa will smooth the way to some explanation, so far as it can be given by us. « Not as in other things, to which some power of acting is given by nature, is one thing considered in power and another in the completion of act (in God): for example, we always say that the power of ships belongs to the shipbuilder who has the art, but then he is in act, when he now puts his knowledge into the work itself. It is not so in that blessed life, but everything that is understood in it is act and action, while the will passes without any intervening means to the appointed end. »⁸ St Gregory of Nyssa says this in cont. Eunom. XII. p. 340. In God, therefore, the will is not a faculty of willing, which is now in act of volition, now not; now in this, now in another act of willing: but will is one act of willing, always the same in itself, since the divine essence and substance is itself, by itself, infinite substantial volition. For neither are essence and will distinguished as a subject to be perfected and a perfecting form, nor will (βούλημα) and volition (βούλησις) as faculty and act; but essence, will, and will in its act or volition are one in reality, and are distinguished only according to the consideration of our mind. « For as truly as you are, you alone know, who are immutably and will immutably. And your essence knows and wills immutably, and your knowledge is and wills immutably, and your will is and knows immutably » Aug. Confess. XIII. c. 16.

Now it is asked how liberty can exist in this same will, along with this identity of the act of willing with the divine essence, and therefore along with the full immutability and necessity of the act in itself. The explanation must be sought from the very infinity of the act. Just as the divine intellect is an actual infinite comprehension of the divine essence, infinite truth, with which the intellect itself is identified and in which all truth is comprehended: so the divine will is an actual infinite delight and necessary love of the divine essence as of infinite good, with which love itself is identified. Because the good in which love rests in full essential sufficiency and beatitude is infinite, that substantial act does not necessarily have some participated good as its object; yet that same infinite act of volition can regard participated goods, so that they have existence from that good, through it, and toward that infinite good. But this regard and this terminating in finite goods cannot be by a volition superadded and accidental; for this is repugnant to absolute, substantial, immutable volition: but only the substance itself under its formal reason, insofar as it is infinite will, can immediately, by itself (that is, with no other act of volition intervening), regard and as it were stretch out to a participated good, without any change in itself, just as one act of understanding is at once extended to all intelligible things. This is what St Gregory of Nyssa says: « without any intervening means will (substantive) passes to the appointed end » and as it were is stretched out (ἀμέσως τοῦ βουλήματος πρὸς τὸ κατὰ πρόθεσιν τέλος μεταδιαταμένου). It is clear, therefore, that in God, even when we consider free volition which has an outward term, there is not a power of acting and an act; but there is only act, whose term can be now this and now that, which adds something not to the act itself but to the object to which it reaches out. And so it is clear that no composition from a power of acting and free act can be conceived in God.

Hence from what has been said it follows how great is the difference between divine volition and our volitions, and between the reason of divine liberty and of ours, or of created liberty in general. Our volition is an accident and a modification of the substance, which can be or not be, and can be one thing or another. But while some determinate act of our will is present, its terminating in the object is intrinsic to it, necessary, not free. We are therefore free in our will only insofar as the volition itself is in our power, so that it be or not be, be this or that; but our liberty does not lie in this, that the terminating of an already posited volition toward its object depends on our choice. On the contrary, the act of the divine will, or divine volition, is substance and really the very essence of God; it is therefore in itself one substantive act, necessarily existing. The terminating of this act toward its object, indeed the chief object, namely the goodness of the divine essence with which it is identified, is absolutely necessary; but its regard for secondary objects, the participated good, is most free. Therefore the liberty of God does not lie in this, that the act of will can be or not be, or that in itself it can be one way or another; but in this, that the infinite substantial volition of infinite good can, without any change in itself, be as it were extended toward goods distinct from God, so that they be; or not be extended toward their existence, in which case, given that hypothesis, they will not be. In other words we can say this same thing. The one divine act of willing, which wills (loves) the infinite good of the divine essence and in this good rests with full beatitude, necessarily indeed wills this good in itself, but does not necessarily will it with imitation in participated goods, or without such imitation outward: freely, therefore, it wills both imitation, and this rather than another of its degrees, and its negation. The reason of this liberty is that analogical imitation of the infinite exemplar, whether it exists really or does not exist, adds nothing to perfection nor takes away. The reason of immutability, moreover, is that not another act but one infinite substantial act of willing the divine essence wills at once its imitation in participated goods, or the negation of imitation; and because this relation to one term or the other adds nothing to the substantial act itself, but all the diversity resides on the side of the term. Therefore the liberty of a creature is (active) indifference toward an act, which is an accident and not a substance; the liberty of the Creator is indifference of the termination in the act, which is substance necessary in itself and immutable. Cf. S. Th. cont. Gent. I. c. 82.

For a fuller explanation of the act of the divine will, which is directed ad extra, that is, to something distinct from God, three things may be considered: immanent act in itself, efficiency or the very becoming ad extra (transient action), and relation of the creature to God. Immanent act is really the divine substance itself, under the formal reason that it is infinite substantial volition, with a connotation of the thing willed outside God. This connotation adds nothing to God himself or to the infinite volition, yet from it the will is called, e.g., creating. Since, therefore, both the substantial will itself, as is self-evident, and the connotation of the work with respect to some temporal difference of the future, are from eternity, it is understood that the will, or the action, e.g. creative, in God is eternal⁹.

Transient action, or the becoming itself, is not formally in God, but is in the creature; and so it begins in time, or with time, and is something distinct from God no less than the creature itself. Hence, if it is ever read in the Fathers that the action of God is distinct from God, it must be explained: transient action is distinct, I concede; immanent action, I subdistinguish: it is distinct from the substance of God according to reason, I concede; it is really distinct, as it is in God, I deny. (Cf. PP. apud Petav. l. V. c. 12. coll. 13.)

Finally, concerning relation, it must be held thus. Relation is the order of one thing to another: therefore when two things are really ordered to each other, the relation is mutually real, as that of father (under the formal reason by which he is father) to son, and of son to father. But when one thing has a real ordering to another, yet this other does not thence receive any new order by something real superadded, but is only conceived as relative because the other is really referred to it, the relation is real in the one only; in the other it is called a relation of reason, that is, one which is conceived by us only, on account of the real order of the other. Thus knowledge in a created mind has a real order and relation to the thing actually known; but the thing known has only a relation of reason to the knower: for nothing is posited in that thing from the fact that it is and is said to be actually known; but it stands in the same way whether or not it is known. In this way, the creature, having in its whole existence a real dependence on God, has a real relation to God: God, however, is conceived only as having a relation to the creature because the creature is referred to him; but God does not in any way depend on the creature, nor is anything posited in God by which he is ordered to the creature; whence this relation of God to the creature is not real, but of reason only (cf. S. Th. de potent. q. 7. a. 10.).

Therefore no mutation, or metaphysical composition, much less a physical one, can be feigned in God from relations of this kind to what is outside him. St Augustine explains what these relations are, and how they are understood to induce no mutation, and therefore no composition, as follows. « How, then, shall we hold that nothing is said of God by accident, except because nothing accrues to his nature by which it would be changed; so that these are relative accidents which accrue together with some change in the things of which they are said: as a friend is said relatively, for he does not begin to be a friend unless he has begun to love. A coin, when it is called a price, is said relatively; yet it is not changed when it begins to be a price (the whole change, and the real relation, is in the men who value it). If, therefore, a coin can so often be called relatively without any change in itself, how much more easily must we understand of that immutable substance of God, that something is said relatively to the creature in such a way that, although it begins to be said temporally (e.g. creator, lord, etc.), nevertheless nothing is understood to have accrued to the very substance of God, but to that creature to which it is said » Aug. Trin. l. V. n. 17. (Cf. supra th. XXI. n. 2°.)