Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

How God is truth itself.

From the demonstrated plenitude of absolute being it is further understood that God is truth itself, the supreme source and measure of all truth.

We are treating of the absolute properties or perfections of God, whose analogues in creatures are the transcendentals (being, one, true, good); therefore, after declaring the reason of divine being and of divine unity, it remains that we speak of truth and goodness.

The true and truth are spoken of in three ways: a) formally truth is the adequation of intellect with the thing understood; b) fundamentally the true is the thing itself to be understood, whether it is being insofar as it is intelligible, or being with a connotation of intellect, in which there is or can be conformity to the thing itself, or formal truth; c) morally truth is in signifying (see S. Th. de verit. q. 1. a. 1.). As regards this last notion, namely moral truth, veracity and truth can be distinguished. Insofar as a will and an act manifesting it correspond to formal truth perceived, that is, to true knowledge, this can be called veracity; but in the manifestation itself (e.g. by a spoken or written word), corresponding to formal truth, which manifestation has its origin in veracity, there is moral truth¹.

To this place the question of divine truth would properly belong only in the second sense; for if formal truth is considered, it would have to be treated in that part where the divine intellect and the knowledge of God are discussed, an order which St Thomas followed in both Summas. Yet on account of the intimate connection between fundamental truth and formal truth, we shall consider both aspects here together; and if anything about veracity needs elucidation, it will be more conveniently understood where we are about to speak of goodness, insofar as it is holiness. We consider divine truth both in itself and absolutely, and in comparison with analogous and participated truth.

I. The true, considered in things, is nothing other than being itself with a connotation of the intellect, which is conformed to it or can be conformed to it; or, in the words of St Thomas: « the truth which is in the thing itself is nothing other than an entity adequated to the intellect, or adequating the intellect to itself » (S.Th. de verit. q. 1. a. 4.). Truth in this sense is therefore the aptitude of being that the intellect may be conformed to it, which can be said in one word: the true is being itself under the aspect of knowability. Knowability, however, when the intellect is considered absolutely, extends as widely as the very reason of being; whence Augustine (Soliloq. l. II. c. 5.) simply defines: « that is seen to be true which is. » Therefore the greater the intensity of being, or the greater the perfection, the wider is the knowability of being, or the more intense is its truth: « where greatness itself is truth, whatever has more greatness must necessarily have more truth » Aug. de Trin. l.VIII. c. 1.

Now indeed: a) God, from what has been demonstrated, is the plenitude of all absolute Existence; he is perfection and greatness, not by bulk but by infinite power. b) God, from himself and necessarily, from the intrinsic reason of his essence, is this absolute perfection. c) Therefore the divine essence is not only infinitely intelligible, but has from the intrinsic reason of itself that it is actually infinitely understood and comprehended; because it is Existence, which as it is infinitely intelligible is also infinitely intellectual. For God is the plenitude of nobility in the whole reason and breadth of being; and the highest nobility of being which we can conceive is intellectuality, although in God it is more eminent than can be understood by us. The divine essence is therefore so intelligible that it cannot fail to be actually comprehended in accordance with its whole intelligibility; and it is the primary object of the divine intellection, so that God in his essence comprehends every truth by the same act by which he comprehends it, of which matter we shall speak in its place. Finally, d) an infinite entity, in its infinite intelligibility, is not only adequated to an infinite intellect, but is identically one thing comprehended and comprehension, understood and understanding. Just as therefore participated and dependent existence is true insofar as it is apt that the intellect be conformed to it, so absolute, infinite, and necessary Existence is substantial truth itself, insofar as from its intrinsic essence it is the understanding and comprehension of itself. « Truth is in the thing, says St Thomas 1. q. 16. a. 5, according as it has existence conformable to the intellect. This however is found most of all in God. For his Existence is not only conformed to his intellect, but is also itself his understanding. »

II. We shall understand in some measure the eminence of divine Existence by considering the reason in which truth stands to it in creatures. Truth which is, or can be conceived, apart from God is to be considered threefold: actual truth in existing things; purely ideal truth in possibles; formal truth in created intellects. Now indeed the source and measure of all this truth is divine truth: this is truth through itself and first truth; the other is participated truth, derived from the first truth.

For, first, things actually existing are true in relation to the divine intellect insofar as they correspond to the divine ideas; for the things themselves do not determine the divine intellect, but the divine intellect, comprehending the divine essence as imitable, which in conjunction with the divine will is called the practical intellect, is the cause for the things themselves, that they be, and be in this way, in which they correspond to the divine ideas ²: not that things are the measure of the divine intellect, but it is the measure of them. « Natural things, from which our intellect receives knowledge, says St Thomas, measure our intellect.... but they are measured by the divine intellect, in which all created things are, as all artificial things are in the intellect of the artificer. Thus the divine intellect is measuring and not measured; the thing³ is both measuring and measured; but our intellect is measured, not measuring natural things but only artificial ones. A natural thing therefore, constituted between two intellects, is called true according to its adequation to each: for according to its adequation to the divine intellect it is called true, insofar as it fulfils that for which it is ordered by the divine intellect... But according to its adequation to the human intellect a thing is called true insofar as it is by nature fitted to form a true estimation of itself » (S. Th. de verit. q. 1. a. 2.).

Hence also, the creature that acts freely according to the moral order corresponding to the divine ideas and good wills is called truth in Scripture; what acts against this order is called, and is, a lie. « It is not in vain said that every sin is a lie, because one sins only by that will which is contrary to truth, that is to God » Liber Sentent. ex Aug. sent. 150. Therefore, as « all the commandments of God are truth », « his law is truth », « all his ways are truth » Psal. CXVIII. (119.) 86. 142. 151. as norm and measure: so we are bidden « to walk in truth » and « to do truth. » On the contrary, the apostate angel « did not stand in truth, and truth is not in him » Io. VIII. 44; and those who « make a lie » are excluded from the heavenly Jerusalem, Apoc. XXI. 27; XXII. 15.

2°. The metaphysical order itself, and the ideal order of purely possibles, and all truth in them, which properly speaking is not in itself but can be, depends on this: that the divine essence is imitable outside itself in these modes and according to these laws. The whole metaphysical order is therefore constituted by the necessary laws of essences, which laws are necessary because the divine essence requires them. Hence the divine essence itself, not by a free will but from its necessary perfection, is the source and measure of all truth also of the metaphysical order.

3°. Formal truth in created intellects is a certain participation in divine truth, either through the immediate intellectual conjunction with the very essence and substantial divine truth, as it is in the vision in the light of glory; or through a supernatural light of another order, derived from the first truth, which light is in every supernatural knowledge in diverse modes and degrees; or through the communication of the habit of knowledge and of ideas, as it is with the angels, and was the natural knowledge of the first man; or finally through the communication of the lowest of all, which in us is the intellectual light, from whose conjunction with truth in things there arises the conformity of the intellect with the thing, or formal truth. This light, moreover, is itself also a certain participation in the truth and wisdom of God, 'and, as the Fathers speak, the seminal word λογος σπερματικος, through which we are constituted the image of God (supra p. 96. 141. seqq.)⁴.

Finally, from participated formal truth is derived the truth in our signs and words.

It is therefore evident that every truth which is, and which can be conceived, apart from God depends on God insofar as he is truth through himself, as on its principle, exemplar and measure. God is therefore, in the same sense in which he is the first Esse, also the first absolute truth. See Lessius de divin. perfect. l. VI. c. 4.