Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

So great is the affinity and connection of the divine infinity with immensity, that the Holy Fathers have sometimes used the name of the one for the other to signify the incomprehensible perfection of God; for the word immense, from its primary usage, designates the same as that which has no measure; and so it coincides with the infinite. Nevertheless, the usage has already prevailed among the theologians, that the word Immensity is used to designate, as it were, a diffusion of the infinite substance of God, through which God exceeds on every side the limits of this universe, and has from himself the power of presenting himself present to whatsoever creatures, even to those to be produced to infinity, without any local change of himself; and by which it comes about that in fact he is, as it were, diffused, and intimately and penetratively present everywhere to all and each of the parts of the world.

Now, in regard to this divine Immensity, different men have erred in different ways; for not only was there the blind error of certain impious men who said, Iob. cap. 22. God walks around the hinges of the heavens, and does not consider our affairs: but the opinion of the ancient Philosophers also was that God is in the first Heaven, and in the Eastern part, so that the first Mover of all things might reside in that part, whence the celestial motion was to begin. Nor was that the only false opinion of the common crowd of Philosophers; nay, the Princes of Philosophy also stumbled into the same; for, as Justin Martyr observes in the Paraenetico, Aristotle, as one who had seen the things that are in heaven more accurately than Plato, did not, like that one, say that God is in a fiery substance, but asserted that he dwells in a certain fifth ethereal element.

Hence it is no wonder if the Poets, who impiously distributed the supreme Deity among many parts, assigned to each of the gods his own proper seat, so that Jupiter presided over the stars alone, Juno over the air, Vulcan over fire, Neptune over the waters, Ceres over the earth, and Pluto over the underworld, and held sway. — But I can scarcely wonder enough that the Jews, enlightened by the oracles of the Prophets, nevertheless so lost their senses, as to have judged God to be so present in the temple of Jerusalem, that, as St. Jerome reports on that passage of Isaiae 66. Heaven is my seat, etc., they would believe him to be substantially absent from the other parts of the world. — But of all, Augustine Steuchus Eugubinus seems to have erred the more shamefully; for although a Catholic man, and by no means unskilled in Theology, and moreover nourished in the bosom of the Roman Church, that is, in the citadel of Faith and Religion, nevertheless, in explaining this verse of Ps. 138.: Thou hast understood my thoughts from afar, that is, he says, from Heaven, than which no place is more remote from the earth, he judged this also most wonderful, and the greatest testimony of divine knowledge; for this also is wholly incredible and supremely to be wondered at, that God, whose station is farther distant from the earth than the east is from the west, standing there nonetheless, as is the consensus of all nations and of the most ancient men, as Aristotle says, should see whatever is done in heaven and on earth. The same author, explaining this verse: If I ascend into heaven, thou art there, says: As therefore the Sun is in heaven by body, and by its own position and station, but lights up the lands with its rays, seeing all things: such must we needs think God to be, who indeed is in heaven by essence and presence: but his Spirit, and his knowledge, and his science reaches everywhere. — But against this most grave error Christian Truth distinctly pronounces (says Cornelius Mutius in the book De Divina Historia:) God is everywhere, or he is not at all. If you deny him Immensity, you take away the Divinity. But in order that this truth may appear more evidently, it must be weighed in the following Questions.

Note 1. This is the distinction among the presence, ubiquity, and immensity of God: immensity is the infinite power and capacity of the divine entity by which God from his own nature has the power to place himself intimately present to all creatures, even if they existed infinite in number and species: ubiquity, however, is the very actual influx of God into all existing creatures, and, as it were, his substantial diffusion into each part of the world: but presence is not only that intimate substantial influx of God, but also his special assistance and operation somewhere. Thus 2. Machabaeorum, cap. 15. Judas, and his soldiers prostrated no fewer than thirty-five thousand, delighting magnificently in the presence of God.

Note 2. Since four grades and orders of beings can be distinguished, namely, nature, grace, glory, and divinity, so too a fourfold residence and existence in another, or presence, of God can be distinguished: The first is entitative, and is effected through the exuberant outpouring of his divine entity into each part of the world, as he himself says, Ieremia 23.: I fill heaven and earth. The second is sanctifying, which is effected through the diffusion of charity and grace, by which God inexists in just souls in a special way, as Christ says, Ioannis 14. If any one loves me.... My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. The third is beatifying, which is effected through the efflux of divine happiness and delight into all the Blessed; concerning which David, Ps. 5.: They shall rejoice forever, and thou shalt dwell in them. The fourth, finally, is divine, and is effected through the special inexistence of the divine Persons. This again can be distinguished as twofold: namely, personal, by which the divine Word is specially present to the humanity which he assumed through the hypostatic union; for in Christ, says St. Paul, ad Colossenses 2., dwelleth all the fulness of the Divinity corporally; but the other is essential, by which the divine Persons exist mutually in one another, as Christ says, Ioannis 14: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.

Note 3. Natural presence and residence can again be distinguished as threefold, according to the three ways in which God is customarily said to be in all existing things, namely, by Essence, Power, and Presence. These ways of existing St. Thomas so interprets, Prima parte, q. 8. art. 3., that God is said to be in things by Essence because he immediately gives being to all: by Power, however, because all things are subject to his power and command: finally, by Presence, because all things are naked and open in his sight, and nothing escapes him. He explains this with the example of a King, who is present by power in his whole kingdom, for all the inhabitants of the kingdom are subject to his command: he is present, however, by presence in the royal chamber, because all things that are done there lie open to his eyes: but he is present by essence and substance on his throne, for in it his whole substance resides. But Durandus and Aureolus not undeservedly reject this explanation; for if God's being in things by Presence were the same as having things in his sight, it would follow that God is in things not only when they exist, but also before they exist, since the divine intellect apprehends and calls the things that are not as though they were. Add that the thing known is in the knower, not, however, the knower in the thing known. The same must be said of Power, for it extends not only to present things, but even to future ones. This explanation is likewise rejected as regards the mode of existing by Essence, because for a thing to be substantially present to another is not only to communicate being to it, otherwise the Sun would be in all sublunary things to whose production it concurs, but beyond that the non-distance of substance is required. — Therefore, for God to be present to things by Essence is nothing other than to inexist substantially with all things: by Power, however, the same as to produce all things and to conserve them by a continuous influx: finally, by Presence, the same is to have all existing things in his sight and to penetrate them intimately through his knowledge. But whether God truly inexists in all things in this threefold way is to be resolved in this Question.

First conclusion. — God is truly immense, and present everywhere by Essence, Power, and Knowledge.

Part 1 is proved from Sacred Scripture: Ps. 138. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present, etc.; which words Anastasius Constantin. lib. 2. De incircumscriptione Dei rightly affirms are to be understood of the substance of God: For that Deity, he says, permeates and extends through all things, filling all things with the greatness of its nature. This God himself confirms, Ieremiae 23: Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord. Thus Isaiae 66.¹: Thus saith the Lord. Heaven is my seat, and the earth the footstool of my feet: what is this house that you will build to me? and what is this place of my rest? With this also agrees that saying of Solomon, lib. 3. Regum, cap. 8.: If the heavens of heavens cannot contain thee, how much more this house which I have built? The same Sophar Naamathites intimates, apud Iobum, cap. 11. He is higher than heaven, and what wilt thou do? deeper than hell, and how wilt thou know? the measure of him is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.

The holy Fathers inculcate the same, especially Augustine: God is everywhere wholly, he says, libro 7. De Civit., cap. 30., included in no places, bound by no bonds, divisible into no parts, changeable in no part; filling heaven and earth with a present power, not an absent, not a needy nature. And 5. De Trinit., cap. 1.: He is everywhere present without any position, containing all things without habit, everywhere wholly without place, everlasting without time. And lib. De Praesentia Dei ad Dardanum: Since God is by nature incorporeal and unchangeably living, he remains in himself with eternal stability, he is present wholly to all things and to each single one. Whence he rightly concludes in the same place: It must therefore be acknowledged that God is everywhere by the presence of the Divinity; but not everywhere by the grace of indwelling. The rest of the holy Fathers confirm the same opinion with various arguments, of whom — Some prove the Divinity from the immensity of the divine Persons. Thus St. Basil, in

the beginning of the Gospel of John gathers that the Father and the Son are truly God: Neither the Father, he says, nor the Son is contained in any enclosed or defined region: but the Father is immense, and the Son likewise immense: whatever whole you have grasped in your mind, and wherever you have penetrated in spirit, that very thing you will find full of God, everywhere at once you will find the hypostasis of the Son extended. With the same argument St. Athanasius, Epistola ad Serapionem, proves that the Holy Spirit is God: But if the Son, he says, for this reason that he is not in distinct places, but while he is in the Father is everywhere, and is outside all things, is not a creature; consequently, neither will the Holy Spirit be a creature, since he is not in distinct places, but fills all things, remaining outside all things; for so it is written: The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world. — Some gather from immensity that God is a Spirit: Thus St. Hilary, lib. 2. De Trinit., Because God, he says, is invisible, incomprehensible, immense; the Lord said that the time had come that God is to be adored not on a mountain, or in the Temple; because God is a spirit; and a spirit is neither circumscribed, nor held: because by the power of his nature he is everywhere, and is nowhere absent, overflowing all things in all things. — Some, from the substantial presence of God everywhere, demonstrate that the existence and union of the divine Word in the flesh of man has in it nothing shameful nor unbelievable: Thus St. Gregory Nyssenus, in the book Catechetico, cap. 25., when he had said: Who is of so childish a mind that, looking at the universe, he would not believe God to be in the universe: entering into it, and containing it, and sitting in it? For from that which is all things hang, nor can it happen that anything should exist which does not have being in that which is: he concludes: wherefore if all things are in him, and he is in all things, why are they ashamed of that mystery which is placed in the Incarnation, and which teaches that God dwelt among men, who is not believed even now to be outside man? For although the mode of presence by which God is in us is not the same as that one, nevertheless all confess this very being in us equally, both now and then. — Others, finally, gather that God is in all creatures, because he is the Maker of all: Thus St. Fulgentius, lib. contra sermonem Fastidiosi, cap. 4. From our God, he says, that is, from the holy Trinity itself, nothing can be locally separated, because the same supreme, true, and good God, just as he made all things, so he contains all things, and fills them being immense. And cap. 6.: But the Trinity, one God, just as it is eternal, and no times are co-eternal with it, so it is immense, whom no creature can enclose: and because it is immense, it is everywhere wholly, because it is neither contained by a place, nor stretched out, or contracted by space. To the same effect St. Ambrose, lib. 1. De Fide, cap. 4. et 7. God, he says, filling all things, is himself nowhere confused: penetrating all things, nowhere himself to be penetrated: everywhere wholly, and at the same time; present whether in heaven, or on earth, or in the lowest sea. With these agrees Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus, Catechesi, 6.: In no place, he says, is he defined, but the maker of places, existing in all things, and circumscribed by none: heaven is a throne to him, but he who sits exceeds and transcends it; and the earth is the footstool of his feet, but his power reaches even to the subterranean places. Whence he is everywhere present.

The second and third parts suffer no difficulty in their proof, for as St. Paul speaks, ad Hebreos 4., Neither is there any creature invisible in his sight, but all things are naked and open to his eyes; whence the Wise Man, Ecclesiasticus, cap. 23., mocking and reproving the impious man who says: Who seeth me? darkness compasseth me about, and the walls cover me, and no man seeth round about me; Whom do I fear? the most High will not be mindful of my sins; he subjoins: And he understandeth not that his eye seeth all things.... and he knew not that the eyes of the Lord are much brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men, and the bottom of the deep, and looking into the hearts of men, in the hidden parts. The same is evident also of the presence of power; since creatures can bring about nothing except with God co-acting, for God works all things in all, or, as Isaias speaks, Thou hast wrought all our works for us, O Lord; whence St. Paul rightly concludes, Actorum 7., that God is not far from every one of us, for in him, he says, we live, and move, and are. That is, as St. John Chrysostom explains, he is so near that without him one cannot live.... Just as the air diffused everywhere cannot be unknown, which is not far from every one of us, or rather is within us; so neither can the maker of all things. This comparison Anastasius Sinaita also employs, in the second of the contemplationum in Hexameron, As the air, he says, fills all things, and no place is empty of it, etc.; so also the God of all things fills all things, and no place is empty of him.

Second conclusion. — The immensity of God can also be proved by natural reason. This is against our Smisingus, who in Tractatu 2. Disput. 5. num. 56. affirms that the immensity of God is rather believed by faith than demonstrated by reason.

The conclusion is proved: The divine essence must be no less infinite and unlimited in its power and capacity of existing substantially everywhere than in itself and in its other perfections; for a property is commensurate with the nature: but in the others it is so infinite that it has absolutely no limits: therefore neither should it have limits in the capacity of existing everywhere. The minor is evident. The major is proved; both because no reason appears why one property of the divine essence should be infinite rather than another: and because if the divine essence were limited in its presence, it would not be infinite: for by this, says Anastasius Patriarcha Antiochenus, lib. De incircumscripta Dei essentia, that it is terminated by another declares the substance of him who is encompassed to be circumscribed; but it is certain that the divine substance is infinite and uncircumscribed; and that by natural reason, as we demonstrated above in treating of the divine Infinity: therefore in like manner it is established by natural reason that it is immense. — Then, it is clear to all that every perfection redolent of no imperfection is to be attributed to God, and that in the greatest and supreme degree: but for a thing to be present to another is a perfection, and God is deemed the more perfect the wider a place he occupies, whether by the extension of quantity, or by the diffusion and application of his power and operation: therefore the greatest presence is to be attributed to God. But ubiquity is the greatest of all presences: therefore it is to be attributed to God. — Finally, if God were not immense, but only in a determined place, he could be moved from place to place, and so would be mutable: but by natural reason it is established that God is not mutable: therefore it is established that he is immense.

He replies 1. That immensity cannot be concluded from infinity, except because a property must be commensurate with the essence, and the more perfect the essence is, the more excellent in like manner the property must be: but this principle, he says, is false; for although man excels brutes in essence, brutes nevertheless surpass men in properties; since the properties, or sensitive faculties, are far more excellent in some brutes than in men, for The boar excels us in hearing, the lynx in sight, the ape in taste, The vulture in smell, the spider in touch.

On the contrary: Infinity is related to the essence and divine properties in the same way as finiteness is related to the essence and created properties: but the latter so limits the properties of creatures that none is nor can be infinite: therefore in like manner infinity brings it about that no perfection of God can be finite: but his presence would be finite if it were not immense, as is evident: therefore etc. — Then, if the divine presence were not immense, the divine essence would not be infinite simply, but only secundum quid; for that is infinite only secundum quid which is not infinite according to every mode of it, and every perfection really identified with it: but the essence would not be infinite according to the perfection of presence, and of the capacity of existing in others: therefore it would be infinite only secundum quid. Nor do his arguments avail anything; since the sensitive faculties are not identified with the human essence, but are really distinguished from it; and since they depend on the disposition of the organs, it is no wonder if they are not commensurate with the perfection of the human essence. — Add that, although perhaps in created things the inference of a more perfect property from a more perfect essence would not hold, because since created things admit of more and less, one of them can have a greater perfection, another a lesser, even if they are really identified; for to a different diversity of perfection the formal distinction suffices: for the intellect, in the opinion of the Doctor, is more imperfect than the will, although it is really identified with it in the soul; but it is otherwise in divine things, where all things are infinite, and the infinite does not admit of greater or less; and accordingly from the infinite perfection of the one the infinite perfection of the other is rightly inferred.

He replies to the second argument, that a greater presence does not argue a more excellent perfection in a thing; for the rational soul and the Angels occupy a smaller place, and accordingly have a smaller presence than corporeal things, nor are they on that account more imperfect than corporeal things.

On the contrary: Greater presence argues greater quantity, whether of bulk or of power; although greater quantity of bulk does not always imply greater perfection — for man is more excellent than a mountain, even though he is smaller than it — nevertheless quantity of power points to a more perfect essence: therefore, since the Angels and the rational soul have a greater quantity and presence of power, it is rightly inferred as well that they are more excellent, and from their more excellent nature and power a greater presence is also rightly inferred.

They subsume: Indeed, a greater presence, and a diffusion of power and of activity, is rightly inferred from the greater quantity of power; but not of nature and of substance: and hence from this it would indeed be inferred that God, as being infinite, has power, but not substance, everywhere diffused.

On the contrary: From this it follows that a more excellent nature ought to have a more excellent and nobler mode of presence not repugnant to itself: but the mode of being present everywhere through the diffusion of substance and of power is more excellent than the presence of power alone; nor is either of these modes repugnant to God, but rather they most greatly ennoble Him: therefore both of these modes of being everywhere through essence and power are to be attributed to God. — The aforesaid reasons are confirmed: Either God is nowhere, or only somewhere, or everywhere: but it cannot be said that He is nowhere, nor only somewhere: therefore He is necessarily everywhere. The major is evident. The minor is proved as to its first part, both from that common saying of the philosophers, that what is nowhere, is not; and because being present to another is a perfection, and consequently is not to be denied to God. — The same minor is also proved as to its second part: What is only somewhere is there either by nature and necessarily, or by will and freely: but in neither way can God be said to be in some determinate place. Not indeed freely: otherwise He could move Himself from place to place; and thus He would be mutable. Nor necessarily and naturally; for some substance can be necessarily and naturally in a determinate place for only a threefold reason, namely, either that it may be conserved there and rest, or that it may be perfected in it, or that it may operate, and produce certain effects which it could not produce elsewhere; but in none of these ways can God be in some determinate place. Not indeed to be conserved, because since He is the first cause, He is altogether independent. Nor to be perfected, since He Himself is the fount and origin of all perfections. Finally, not to operate, because, as will be proved in the following Question, on the hypothesis that He were not in some place, He could nonetheless operate in it. Therefore, since God is neither nowhere, nor only somewhere, it is necessary that He be everywhere.

You will say 1. From St. Augustine, lib. 83. Quaestionum, q. 20.: in God all things are rather than He is anywhere: therefore if God is in all things, all things are in all things; and thus the same thing will be in itself; but this is absurd: therefore God is not immense.

I answer, that all things are in God in one way, but in another way God is in all existing things: for all things are in God, as effects in a cause, as the known in the knower, and as participated being in the most excellent and first being: but God is in things not as in a place, but through the real presence and indistance of His substance; and thus it does not follow that the same thing is in itself, because things are not in God in the same way as God Himself is in things. Whence Augustine adds in the same place: Yet they are not so in Him that He Himself is a place. For a place is in space, which is occupied by the length, breadth and height of a body; and God is not anything of the kind. And so all things are in Him, and He is not a place.

You will say 2. If God were in all things, He would be changed: but the consequent is against that saying of Malachi: I am God, and I change not: therefore He is not in all things. The sequel of the major is proved: Many things are newly produced and perish: therefore if God in-exists in them, He acquires and loses a new presence.

I distinguish the antecedent: That He would be changed wholly extrinsically, and only terminatively, I concede: intrinsically, and formally, I deny: for since He has no real respect to a place, nor to the things to which He is present, as creatures have, both corporeal and spiritual, therefore at the change of place, or of things, He is not really changed, but only the things are changed, which either begin or cease to be

present to God, no change nonetheless being made in God, in the manner in which He is called Creator without any real change in Himself.

You will say 3. If God were everywhere, it would follow that God is not only in foul places, but also in the demons and the damned: but the consequent seems absurd: therefore so is the antecedent. — I distinguish the consequence of the major: That He would be in foul places, so as to be defiled in them, and that He would be in the demons through the conferral of His grace, or of beatitude, I deny: that He would be through the indistance of His substance, I concede; For just as the rational soul, says St. Augustine, lib. De agone Christiano, cap. 18., is not defiled even in a leprous body, because it is a spiritual substance; much less can God, since He is set apart far from all matter, contract any filth from His presence in corporeal things. Or as St. Macarius answered, homil. 7., to those asking whether God was in Satan: Since the Sun, he says, although it be a creature, pours its light over muddy places, and is in no way harmed, much more can the divine numen so dwell with Satan that it is neither defiled, nor contracts any stain from him.

You will say 4. He who is said to approach or to withdraw, or to descend and to walk, to stand afar off and to know, is not to be deemed to be everywhere: but Sacred Scripture predicates all these things of God. Psalmo 9.: Why, O Lord, hast Thou withdrawn afar? Proverbiorum 13.: God is far from the impious. Genes. 3. the first Parents are said to have heard the voice of God walking in Paradise, etc. — I answer: All these things are to be understood metaphorically, and that Sacred Scripture, for the sake of easier instruction, exhibits God to us through these adumbrations, so as to teach us either how greatly God detests sin, or that He brings forth His sentence not with precipitate, but with temperate judgment, and with the cause known and examined: whence Augustine, Sermone 70. De tempore, See, he says, that you do not perceive ascent and descent as local. It is unworthy to think this of the incorporeal Substance, whole everywhere: but God is said to descend when He deigns to have care for human frailty. — Philo the Jew went in the same opinion, lib. De confusione linguarum, where, explaining those words by which God is said to have descended, to see the tower which the sons of Adam were building, he affirms that these things are written in human fashion, not from the truth of the matter; For who, he says, does not know that he who descends must leave one place, and occupy another? But God fills all things, encompassing, not encompassed; to whom it happens that He is everywhere, and nowhere; whence he concludes: Therefore none of the names which signify progression and motion befits God, such as above, below, to the right, to the left, before, behind; for in none of the things that have been said is He thought of, as one who, never changed, has turned his place.

You will say 5. God is said to be in heaven specially, by exclusion of His presence elsewhere. Thus Psalmo 113.: The heaven of heaven is the Lord's, but the earth He has given to the sons of men: therefore He is not everywhere. — I answer, that these things are to be understood not absolutely, but comparatively, or, says St. Athanasius, book contra Sabellianos, so that His infinite dignity might be more easily explained to rougher men from the majesty of His dwelling. Or that it might be suggested to the idolaters that heaven is not God, For heaven is called the house and throne of God, says Justin Martyr, in his response to q. 5. Graecorum, not because God has need of it for dwelling, or for sitting, as one who is in no way circumscribed, and needs nothing, but lest, looking to His amplitude of substance, and incorrupt essence, we suspect that God Himself, or one equal in honor, is God. Or, as Theodoret says in Psalmum 122.: God is said to dwell in the Heavens, not as circumscribed by place, but as conversing with the heavenly powers which inhabit the Heavens; or because, says Alcuin, lib. 2. De Trinit., cap. 5., there is in the Heavens a greater knowledge of that supreme majesty and essence, among the Angels, or in the holy souls of the Saints, than among the Saints dwelling on earth. Or finally, says St. Damascene, lib. 5. e. 16., God is said to dwell in the Heavens, because that place is more a partaker of His operation and grace. For in it are those who do His will.

You will say 6. Several of the holy Fathers judge that God is present in heaven alone in substance, but elsewhere only in knowledge and power; thus St. Clement of Alexandria, lib. 2. Stromatum: God, he says, "I am a God at hand," says the Lord: far indeed in substance: for how would that which is begotten approach the unbegotten? But He is near in power, by which He embraces all things in His bosom. And lib. 5., refuting the Stoics, who affirmed that God is a body and a spirit; they, he says, assert that God permeates every substance: but we say that He alone is the maker. Likewise Justin Martyr, in his response to the eleventh question of the Orthodox, says: Other things, which are said to contain something, are contained by this essence: but God alone contains this whole universe by His will. Lactantius agrees with them, lib. De Opificio Dei, cap. 16., where he seems to circumscribe God to Heaven: For the mind, he says, which holds the dominion of the body, seems to be established in the top of the head; as God in Heaven; therefore they judge that God is not everywhere. — I answer, that this was not precisely the opinion of the aforesaid Fathers: not indeed of Clement of Alexandria, since in lib. 7. Stromatum, speaking of the good and holy man, Such, he says, is he who is persuaded that God is present everywhere, and is not concluded within certain and definite places. Nor likewise was this the mind of St. Justin, both because he is not himself the author of the aforesaid book of questions and responses to the Orthodox, but some anonymous writer; and because it appeared above that he most constantly professes God present everywhere. Lactantius likewise can also be conveniently explained, as wishing only to overturn the stupid fiction of the Stoics, who asserted that the world is the body of God, and that He is diffused through the elements, and the other parts of the universe, as into so many members which He would move and animate: which that he might refute, he says that God is in Heaven, as the soul of man is in the brain. Not that he thinks the soul resides substantially in the brain alone, but only that it fulfills there its nobler operations: by which reason we also said above that God specially resides in Heaven.

You will say lastly. If divine immensity could be proved by some natural reason, it would not have escaped the more skilled Philosophers: but it wholly escaped them, as was said above: therefore it is not naturally known. — I answer by distinguishing the minor; that divine immensity escaped the more skilled Philosophers who misused the natural light, I concede: that it escaped those who used natural reason rightly, so as to uncover the divine perfections to the extent of their powers, I deny. For Pythagoras the Philosopher, says Salvianus, at the beginning of the first book De providentia, whom Philosophy herself received as her own teacher, discoursing on the nature and benefits of God, spoke thus: God is a mind passing through and diffused through all the parts of the world, from which even all the animals that are born receive their life. To the same effect is what Trismegistus says, when he says that God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere. Indeed Aristotle himself, book 1. De Anima, cap. 5., indicates that God is present everywhere, for he praises the saying of Heraclitus, who, when he had shut himself in a baker's oven in the wintertime, and saw that his arriving friends took it ill, and for that reason did not wish to come nearer to him, urged them to enter boldly, Since, he says, here too God is present. Those sayings of the Poet Virgil, Georgicorum 4, are also well worn: For God goes through all the lands, the tracts of the sea, and the deep heaven. And also that of Aratus: Jupiter is whatever you see: all things are full of Jupiter: or as St. Prosper sang more fittingly to piety and Catholic truth, in the book De providentia: But that God is nowhere is not; for whole He is everywhere. And free He penetrates and encompasses all the members of the world.

There is a celebrated and famous controversy between the Subtle Doctor and the Angelic Doctor, and their followers, concerning the resolution of the present question. For St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 8. art. 1., affirms that from the operation of God in all things His substantial presence in them is rightly and necessarily inferred: but the Subtle Doctor, in 1. dist. 37. q. unica, denies that this is a legitimate inference; and contends that if per impossibile God, for example, were present in Heaven only through essence, He could nevertheless operate in the other parts of the universe; and thus from His operation somewhere it does not follow by a formal consequence that He is there substantially and essentially present: and, that this dispute may be settled more evidently,

Note 1. Agents, considered according to their varying mode of operating, can be distinguished into two kinds. For some act upon both a proximate and a remote subject with the same potency and an undivided action; but more perfectly upon the proximate than upon the remote. Thus, for example, the Sun illuminates the celestial and sublunary bodies with the same diffusion of light and through the same illuminative power: but these less than those. There are, however, some which not only operate upon a proximate and a remote subject with a distinct action; but also with a distinct potency, one of which is so subordinated to the other that the latter does not act upon a distant object unless the former has first acted upon the proximate medium; thus, for example, the Sun through its illuminative power first fills the air with light: then through its substantial power it concurs in the production of living things, especially of certain imperfect ones, and also in the formation of minerals.

Note 2. An agent, by respect to the patient upon which it immediately operates and which it reaches, can again be distinguished as twofold; for one is immediate with the immediacy of power, another with the immediacy of supposit. The first is that which has from its own nature a power of acting proper to itself, and not begged from another. Thus the Sun obtains its illuminative power from itself; the other celestial bodies, however, borrow it from it. Hence it comes about that the higher an agent is, the more immediate it is with the immediacy of power; and therefore God is the most immediate agent, because He has the power of acting from Himself, and altogether independent, begged from none. — An agent, however, immediate with the immediacy of supposit, is that between which and the produced effect no other co-acting supposit mediates; from which it comes about that among created agents, the lower an agent is, the more immediate it is.

Note 3. Two diverse kinds of operations are distinguished in God, some of which are immanent, so named because the term produced by being remains outside the bosom of the divinity, such as the generation of the eternal Word, the spiration of the Holy Spirit, the divine intellections, volitions, etc.; others transient, so called because through them God produces something outside Himself; such as the creation of the world, its conservation, etc. The discourse here is not about the former, but about the latter, namely, whether from them it can be gathered by a formal consequence that God is present somewhere, because He operates there.

Only conclusion. — If per impossibile God were only essentially and substantially in Heaven, He could nevertheless operate with the immediacy of power in the other parts of the universe.

This is the teaching of the Doctor in the passage cited above.

It is proved first: A creature can act, and produce something, where it is not immediately, nor substantially present. Therefore much more could God operate where He would not be substantially present. The consequence is clear, for the power of God is greater than that of a creature. The antecedent is proved by various examples; for the Sun, although it resides substantially only in the fourth Heaven, nevertheless diffuses its power through all the parts of the world. Likewise the Magnet moves and attracts distant iron, Amber draws straws, the Basilisk kills distant men by its gaze, the Torpedo numbs the hand of the fisherman touching the net in which it is enclosed, and other things similar to these, by which in our Physica, Disputation, De causa efficiente, we proved that a created cause can act upon a distant object, without acting upon the medium with the same action, and we satisfied all these things that could be objected against the truth. Therefore, since from the operation of a created agent upon some patient its intimate presence according to substance does not necessarily follow; much less should the substantial presence of God be inferred by a formal consequence from His operation somewhere. — It is confirmed from the Doctor, ibid. n. 2.: A secondary cause therefore cannot act upon a distant object without acting upon the medium, either because there are in it two potencies and operations, one of which must be terminated at the medium before the other extends itself to the distant object; or because the same potency cannot produce a perfect effect in a distant object unless it has first produced a less perfect one in the nearer medium, as was said in Note 1: but in God there are neither those several subordinated potencies, one of which acts upon the remote, another upon the proximate; nor does He need, in order to produce the most perfect effect, to have first produced a less perfect one by way of disposition. Therefore, if He were not everywhere, He could act and produce upon a distant object, even by in no way acting upon the medium.

The adversaries reply: that an adequate cause has not been assigned in the major: for a cause cannot act upon a distant object without acting upon the medium, not only for this reason, that there is in it a subordination of potency and operation, but also for other reasons, to be assigned in the objections. But we shall solve them all in the responses.

Secondly: The omnipotence of God is His will itself, upon whose willing the production of the thing follows; For all things whatsoever He willed, the Lord has made in Heaven and on earth, says the Psalmist: or, as St. Paul speaks, He works all things according to the counsel of His will: but the will can will that something be done in a distant place, without willing that it be done in a nearer place: therefore God could act where He would not be; and thus from His operation His substantial presence cannot be formally inferred. The major is evident from the aforementioned places of Sacred Scripture, and will be more evidently established when treating of the Omnipotence of God. The minor is also evident, for if by my volition I could produce some thing, it is certain that I could will that it be made in a distant place, even if nothing were produced in the medium.

Thirdly: Before the production of the world, God was not present to any thing; but some thing had first to be produced by Him, before He would become present to it: therefore substantial presence to some thing is not a condition necessarily prerequired for the production of the thing itself: nor is it rightly inferred from it that God is substantially present to it. It is confirmed. By nature the creature first terminates the act of divine power, before God is present to it; for presence, since it is a relation, supposes a term and a foundation: therefore the production of a thing does not suppose the presence of the substance producing, nor is the latter legitimately inferred from the former.

Fourthly: The greater activity an agent has, the more it acts upon a distant object; for the greater fire is, the farther it diffuses its heat: but God is the most powerful agent, and of infinite power: therefore if per impossibile He were distant from some thing, He could act upon it no less, otherwise His power would be determined and limited to a place: and so it would not be infinite, nor divine.

They reply: That the major is indeed true, not absolutely but on this condition, that the agent first diffuses its power into the proximate rather than into the remote: thus, they say, fire does not diffuse its heat into a distant subject except by the benefit of the intervening air. — On the contrary: That mediation does not arise from the intrinsic notion of the agent, and inasmuch as it is an agent; but from one or other of those conditions which we assigned in the second Note; which conditions, since they have no place in God, do not prevent Him from being able to act upon a distant object independently of the medium. And since the Sun, for example, concurs in the formation of minerals and living things, which it does not form in the intervening air, it is evident that it has some action upon the remote object which it does not have upon the proximate subject. Therefore it is clear that the immediacy of subject and agent is not necessarily to be desired for the production of a thing. — All these aforementioned reasons are confirmed by the example of an Angel. One Angel can impress upon another some spiritual effect, even if they are distant from one another: but this impression is made independently of the medium, as being incapable of such a spiritual effect, because it is corporeal, as St. Thomas teaches, prima parte q. 107. art. 1. ad 3., where he affirms that Angels speak to one another, not only by willing that his own concept be made known to the other, but also, he says, by exciting the other to attend through some intelligible power impressed upon him, by which his intellect may be moved, just as the sense is moved by the sensible. Moreover, art. 2. ad 11., he teaches that Angels infuse knowledge into separated souls, by infusing, namely, intelligible species into them independently, he says, of a different medium: therefore at least an Angel, even in the opinion of the adversaries, can act upon a distant object without acting upon the medium; nor is it necessary that two spirits, speaking to one another, be so entirely immediate that not even an atom of air intervenes, as Suarez says in Metaphysica, Disputatione 18. num. 16., and consequently God could much more accomplish this, if He were absent from some thing.

You will object 1. Sacred Scripture gathers the divine presence from the operation of God somewhere: therefore it is rightly inferred from it. The antecedent is proved, first indeed from the words of the Psalmist, who, when he had said in Psalmo 138, Where shall I go from your spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? immediately infers, If I ascend into Heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present; and, opening the reason of God's ubiquity with these words, he adds: For there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me: but by the hand and right hand of God, His operation is frequently signified in Scripture: therefore Scripture gathers the presence of God in all things from His operation. — It is confirmed from Actuum 17. cap., where St. Paul, disputing with the Athenians, concludes that God is not far from each one of us, because, he says, in Him we live, and move, and are: or as Pagninus and others render it, for through Him we live, whence the gloss: because He operates in us that we live: therefore the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of David and Paul (says Molina here, Disputatione 2.) must have rendered the reason inept, and made an inefficacious argument for proving the presence of God in things: and so, he says, it must be confessed that from the immediate operation of God in some place the presence of God in things is concluded more than enough, and the contrary opinion not so. — I answer 1. by denying the antecedent, and to the first proof of it I say that the Psalmist intends there only that God is everywhere through knowledge and providence; so that there is no one who can escape His divine ordination and disposition. — To the confirmation I say that St. Paul wills only that, since we live, and move, and are in God, it follows that He is not so far from our knowledge that we cannot easily attain to the knowledge of Him. But the Apostle does not will that the substantial presence of God is rightly gathered from His operation. — I answer 2. that although Sacred Scripture and the Holy Fathers sometimes infer the substantial presence of God from His operation in things, this inference is not made through an intrinsic locus, but through an extrinsic one: namely, either because there is no greater reason that He operates everywhere than that He is present everywhere: or inasmuch as, given that it is established from elsewhere that He is present wherever He operates, it follows that He is everywhere, if He operates everywhere. And so that argument is from concomitants, such as this would be: God is infinitely powerful, therefore infinitely knowing: not that infinite knowledge directly follows from infinite power: but because knowledge and divine power, since they are perfections of the divine essence, identified with it, and hence infinite, it rightly follows that if divine power is infinite, divine knowledge is also infinite; namely, by reason of a third, that is, by reason of the divine essence, in which both agree. — Add that Sacred Scripture does not always produce an efficacious argument, but sometimes also a probable one for insinuating the truth; for it sometimes argues from human authority, which is only a probable means. Thus St. Paul in the same chapter proves that God is not like wood and stones, by the testimony of the Poet saying that we are the offspring of God: as if he said: from your authors, human nature, which is the image and offspring of God, is far more excellent than the wood and stones of which your idols consist: therefore much more does God far exceed these. Likewise to Titus, chapter one, he proves the vices of the Cretans by the very testimony of their own writer saying: The Cretans are always liars. — From these it is clear how utterly inept and ridiculous is the censure of Molina, with which he fulminates against the opinion of the Subtle Doctor; for although from the authority of Scripture it were inferred that the substantial presence of God is to be gathered from His operation, this inference would nonetheless not press the opinion of the Doctor: since the Doctor contends that the presence of God cannot be gathered from operation, because no natural reason can evince this; although perhaps some authority might persuade it.

You will object 2. The active and the passive are related as act and potency: but act and potency necessarily require presence and union in order to cause something: therefore also the agent and the patient require intimate and substantial presence. — I distinguish the major: they are related as act to be produced and productive potency, I concede: as informing act and potency to be informed, I deny. I distinguish the minor similarly; act to be produced and productive potency require intimate union and presence, I deny; for the power of creating, for example, has for its corresponding act a thing only in possible being; and hence it cannot be really present to it: informing act and potency to be informed require the presence of the act itself, because from their mutual union something one must be made, just as a physical body, for example, is made from the union of matter and form, I concede. And so this objection does not touch the present difficulty.

You will object 3. Just as being as such is related to operating as such, so being here is related to operating here: therefore just as operating as such implies a contradiction unless being as such is first supposed, so operating here implies a contradiction unless being here is supposed. — I deny the major, because being as such is related to operating as such as first act to second; but it implies a contradiction that there be a second act without the first being presupposed: but being here is not related to operating here as first act to second, because being here only signifies the relation of the presence of a thing in a place, which relation of itself is not active, nor a condition necessarily prerequired for operation, since a thing can exercise its power and produce something where it is not.

You will object 4. Action is a kind of motion: but it is repugnant that motion be in the extreme term unless it has first been in the middle, as is clear in local motion: therefore it is repugnant that any action be done upon a distant object unless it first be done in the medium. — The major can be denied: for not every action is motion; for motion supposes a movable subject, but creative action, for example, has no real subject which may be said to be moved and changed: but I deny the minor; for at least by divine power motion can be made in an instant, since motion is a passage from one extreme to the other extreme, and for this passage to occur here, it is absolutely not necessary that the movable be in the middle before it reaches the term.

The modern Thomists object 5.: An agent which operates in all things through a power not diffused from itself, but intrinsic to itself and identified with itself, must be present immediately and according to its substance in all things: but God operates in all things through a power not diffused from itself, but intrinsic to itself and identified with itself: therefore, etc. The major, they say, is supposed from 7. Physicorum, where it is said that the mover and the moved must be together: with this difference, however, that an agent acting through a power diffused from itself need not be present immediately and according to its substance to the subject upon which it acts: but only mediately, and by reason of the power which it transmits into it through some mediating supposit, as is clear in the Sun, which, since it acts through a power diffused from itself, is not substantially present in the bowels of the earth when it produces gold and other metals: but an agent acting through a power intrinsic to itself and not diffused from itself must necessarily become present immediately and according to its substance to the subject upon which it acts, and touch the patient itself suppositally; as is clear in fire, which although it acts upon a distant subject through heat diffused from itself, nevertheless through heat intrinsic to itself acts only upon the subject which it immediately touches. The minor, however, is proved: God in all things per se primo produces and conserves their being; for entity is that which is most intimate to any thing, and which inheres in all things most deeply, since it is formal with respect to all things which are in the thing: but He cannot reach that per se primo through some power diffused from Himself, but only through a power intrinsic to Himself and really identified with Himself: therefore God operates in all things through a power not diffused from Himself, but intrinsic to Himself and identified with Himself. The major is clear, both because being, since it is the most universal effect, must per se primo be reduced to the most universal cause, namely God; and also because, just as to ignite is the proper effect of fire, because fire is by essence fire, and therefore it belongs to it to make something ignited; so also, since God is being by essence, His proper effect is every participated being. — Add that since God can annihilate any created thing by the mere suspension of His influx, it is necessary that the influx of God per se primo reach the being of every created thing. The minor, however, is proved: a power which reaches being according to the proper notion of being must be creative and productive of the whole creatable being, and hence infinite, as is taught in the Metaphysica: but every power diffused from God is finite, as being caused by God and received in some subject: therefore God cannot per se primo cause and conserve being in individual things through some power diffused from Himself, but only through a power intrinsic to Himself and really identified with Himself, and consequently He cannot operate anywhere unless He essentially exists there. — I answer to the individual parts of the objection, and first indeed I distinguish the major: a corporeal and finite agent, which acts through influx, must be present immediately and according to substance to the things in which it operates, let it pass; a spiritual and infinite agent, which produces all things at the mere command and nod of its will, must be present in such a way, I deny; since, as we have already said, it can will that a thing be made in a distant place, just as it can will that it be made in a nearer place; but God is not a corporeal and finite agent, but infinite and spiritual; and consequently He does not require such presence. — To the proof of the minor I say that the entity of a thing considered precisely is not the only formal term of the productive action of God, but the thing itself total, and according to all the other predicates intrinsic to it; thus a man, who would be created immediately by God, would not be only the term of that creation according to the formal concept of being, but also according to the concept of animal, rational, risible, and of the others which concur to the integrity and constitution of man: and hence the doctrine of the Thomists, by which they contend that created being has the formal notion of term of divine production, seems less philosophical. — To the major, however, probative of that minor, I deny that created being is the most universal effect, and proper to the most universal cause alone; for any particular and secondary cause also truly produces its effect according to the formal notion of being, so that the being of that effect is attributed to the secondary cause as well as to the first. — To the minor, however, of that proof, I deny that the creative and productive power of creatable being must be infinite; for the power must be as great as the effect to be produced, and as great as the distance from the term a quo to the term ad quem; but no created effect is infinite, as is clear; likewise there is no infinite distance between nothing and created being, as the Doctor proves in 2. sentent., and hence the creative power need not be necessarily infinite.

Finally they object the authorities of several Holy Fathers, by which they gather the presence of God in all things from His operation in them. Thus Anastasius Sinaita, book 2, De rectis fidei Catholicae dogmatibus, has this: For as long as no one, if he is absent, works a work: therefore since God at no time does not effect whatever of those things which come to be, and governs and disposes all things by His continual conservation, it is wholly necessary to confess that God is in all things. Likewise Hugo Victorinus, lib. 7. Erud. Theolog., cap. 19., speaks thus: When we see that the effect of divine power is nowhere lacking, why do we doubt that the same power of God is in all things? But if the power of God is everywhere, since the power of God is not other than God, it is clear that God is nowhere lacking. Finally Anselm in Monologio, cap. 22.: Since, he says, nothing can be or be conserved without God, we are compelled to say that God is everywhere and always. — I answer that some of the Holy Fathers do indeed gather the presence of God in things from His operation; but through an extrinsic locus and a material consequence; not, however, through an intrinsic locus and a formal consequence. As if they said, God is everywhere, and therefore He operates everywhere; as has already been said.

Two things are proposed for resolution in the present Question. First, whether God is really so contained within the compass of this universe that He does not exist outside the world; second, whether, on the hypothesis that He is said to exist outside the world, He can for that reason truly be said to be present to the space which we feign and imagine beyond the heavens. But in solving this question there is a threefold opinion among the authors. For some affirm that God is really present to the imaginary spaces. Others, taking the opposite side, contend that He is so contained within the compass of the universe that He ought not to be said to be diffused and present outside the world. Finally, others, taking the middle way, affirm that indeed God is not truly present to the imaginary spaces, yet can be said to be poured out beyond the heavens, and not to be confined within the limits of the world: which dispute, that it may be settled the more evidently

Note 1. Not only among the theologians, but also among the ancient philosophers, there was a very great altercation about the diffusion and presence of God beyond the heavens; for, as Eusebius relates, lib. 15. De praeparatione Evangelica, the Pythagoreans and the Stoics affirmed that above the heaven there is a certain empty space, which they held to be infinite; Aristotle, however, in the first book De Coelo, cap. 3., says that neither can a body exist beyond the heaven, nor a place, nor a vacuum, nor time. Plato, moreover, in the Phaedrus introduces Stesichorus relating that above the heaven there is a certain most pleasant region, whose beauty cannot be explained in words: which opinion Cleomedes attacked; although the same man asserts that outside the world there is some empty space, filled with no body, but utterly void and lacking in things, and he proves this with several arguments, the investigation of which pertains more to philosophers than to theologians.

Note 2. By imaginary spaces nothing else is understood than certain empty and void intervals, which we conceive beyond the heavens after the manner of a place filled with no body; in almost the same way in which we imagine that, before the fabric of the world, there was a certain empty and void vastness in that same space which the world now occupies. Whether, however, God is really in those fictitious spaces through a true and real presence, this is what must be resolved here.

Note 3. God can be conceived to exist outside the world in two ways: namely, either negatively or positively. By the former way it is signified that God is not limited nor confined within the compass of the universe, because His infinite substance is circumscribed by no limits or bounds; by the latter, however, it is signified that God is positively and in the same way diffused through the imaginary and fictitious spaces beyond the heavens, in the way in which He is diffused and present throughout the whole world.

First conclusion. — God is truly not present to the imaginary spaces.

So the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 37. quaest. unica¹; and with him commonly the other scholastic doctors, both ancient and modern.

Proof: God cannot be said to be present to nothing; but the imaginary spaces are nothing; therefore God cannot be present to them. The minor is clear; for, as Aristotle says in 4. Physicorum cap. 2., That which is somewhere is always itself something, and there is something else outside it: the place in which something is must be truly real, and distinct from the thing which it contains: whence he infers in cap. 5. that the world is not somewhere, for that which is somewhere is itself something, and there must be something else in which it is contained: but beyond the universe and the whole there is nothing. The minor is therefore proved: those spaces beyond the world are either real, or wholly fictitious; but in no way can they be called real: for either they would be independent and unproduced by God, or produced by Him from eternity and before the creation of the world; but to assert either is heretical: for the first, indeed, the Nicene Creed condemns, affirming that God is the Creator and maker of all things visible and invisible; the second, however, is repugnant to the Lateran Council, affirming in the chapter Firmiter that God established all things in time, and thus that nothing was created from eternity: therefore it remains to be inferred that those unbounded spaces which are conceived beyond the world are wholly fictitious, and that God does not exist in them any more than in a chimera and a goat-stag: but no one would say that God is truly and really present to chimeras: therefore neither is He to the imaginary spaces. — It is confirmed by the authority of the holy Fathers, who teach with one accord: that God, before the fabric of the world, was not somewhere, but in Himself: thus Tertullian, in the book against Praxeas, cap. 5.: Before all things, he says, God was alone, and He Himself was to Himself both world, and place, and all things. Likewise St. Augustine, in the book De Fide contra Manichaeos, marvels at their folly, because they ask where God was before Heaven and Earth were made. For he answers that He was in Himself: but more clearly in Ps. 12.: Before God made Heaven and Earth, he says, where did He dwell? He dwelt in Himself, God dwelt with Himself, and God is with Himself: the same in Epist. 57.: How, he says, is He everywhere if He is in Himself? Everywhere, namely, because He is absent nowhere: but in Himself, because He is not contained by those to whom He is present, as though He could not exist without them. With them St. Bernard agrees, lib. 5. De Consideratione, cap. 6.: There is nothing, he says, that you should seek further, where God was: apart from Him nothing was, therefore He was in Himself; with which words he also brings forward the reason for the assertion, namely that God existed nowhere before the world was founded, because clearly there was nothing. To all of which the following ancient verses fit, which Denis the Carthusian relates on the first book, dist. 37. quaest. 1.: Tell me, where was He then, when apart from Him nothing was? Then where now, in Himself; since He Himself suffices to Himself. But this existence of God in Himself is to be understood not positively, as though He contained Himself after the manner of a space; but negatively, so that there is no place outside the world in which God exists; in that sense in which the holy Fathers say that God is the cause of Himself, not that He produced Himself, but that He acknowledges no producer of Himself.

You will say 1. Those imaginary spaces are a certain capacity for receiving any creature whatsoever which God can produce outside the world; but such a capacity really exists, otherwise God could not produce any creature outside the world; therefore God also exists in it. — I distinguish the major: They are a real capacity, really existing, I deny; a fictitious and imaginary one, I concede: for if that capacity were real, it would be either something positive or something negative: if it is something negative, certainly it is nothing, nor does it truly exist; for negations and mere privations are truly non-being, and to say that they actually exist is the same as to affirm that non-being is, and that the non-existent exists. If positive, it would be some creature really existing, or possible; if the former, then those spaces would no longer be imaginary, nor beyond the universe, since by the name of universe the collection of all creatures is signified: if the latter, it is certain that those spaces are nothing in act, nor, insofar as they are possible, do they signify anything other than the non-repugnance that God produce something after the manner of a place outside the world; but this possibility and non-repugnance imports nothing real in fact, and so God cannot be really present to it.

You will say 2. Actual presence outside the world is possible to God; therefore He has it in act. The antecedent is proved: if it were impossible, this would be most of all either because it simply repugns, or because it disgraces God. Not the first, because this impossibility would arise from the fact that actual presence says an essential order to an actual space: but this is false: both because actual presence can be given in a terminated vacuum, e.g., in a hall, if it were empty of air, and something were placed in its middle. Nor the second: for just as actual presence in the world does not disgrace God, so neither does actual presence outside the world disgrace Him, if it is possible. — I deny the antecedent: to its proof I say that presence outside the world repugns to God precisely because outside the world there is nothing to which God can be present; for it implies a contradiction that an actual presence of one thing to another be given — whether presence be something absolute or something relative — if there is not another thing to which the one can be present. To the confirmation I say that a presence cannot be given in a terminated vacuum which is terminated at the vacuum itself; although perhaps the presence of some thing could be given by respect to the circumference and parts of the hall itself in which there would be a vacuum; so that it would be true to say, such a thing is in this hall, but not elsewhere.

You will say 3. God has by reason of His immensity — and of the quantity of His power, as of bulk — that which an infinite body, if it were given, would have by reason of its quantity of bulk: but if an infinite body were given, its quantity of bulk would be so great that in fact it would not only be diffused through the whole world, but would also extend itself through the imaginary spaces; for if it were confined within the barriers of the universe, it would not be of infinite extension: therefore the quantity of power in God is also so great that in fact He is substantially diffused through all the imaginary spaces. — I distinguish the major: God has by reason of the quantity of bulk that which an infinite body would have by reason of the quantity of bulk, being disposed in the same way in order to place, I deny; being disposed differently, I concede the major: for an infinite body would be so diffused through the universe that it would exclude all other bodies through its impenetrability; God, however, although He penetrates all the parts of the universe, yet removes none from its place nor excludes it. I likewise distinguish the minor: An infinite body would be diffused beyond the universe positively, as though it had a real and true presence to the imaginary spaces, I deny; negatively, so that by reason of its infinity it would not be so contained within the world that it could not also extend itself to another world, if one were created, I concede. The same is to be said of God, and consequently the consequence is to be denied.

You will say 4. — From our opinion several absurd things follow, repugnant to God; therefore it is not to be admitted. For first, it follows that God can be changed: for He can produce some body outside this world and become present to it: but if He were not actually in the imaginary space in which such a body would be produced, God would acquire a new presence and would begin to be present where before He was not: therefore He would really be changed. Second, it would follow that God could be, as it were, divided from Himself: for if in the imaginary spaces He produced two bodies distant from one another, then either God would be in the middle of those bodies according to substance, or not; if the first, the point is had, because such a middle, in which He would be, is not real but imaginary: if the second, the divine substance would be divided from itself and, as it were, discontinuous, since it would be in those two bodies, but would not be in the middle. Third, it would follow that God can be moved per accidens: for to be moved per accidens is nothing else than to be moved at the motion of another, as the sailor is moved at the motion of the ship: but God could be moved at the motion of another; therefore He could be moved per accidens. The minor is proved: if God produced some body in the imaginary spaces, such a body could be moved in order to the world, and the world could be moved toward that body: therefore since God would be present to both, He would also be moved per accidens with either, just as the soul is moved per accidens at the motion of the body, and the body of Christ is moved at the motion of the species.

I answer to the first. — by denying the consequence: for just as God is not said to be changed when He produced the world and had a new presence to it, so neither would He be changed if He newly produced some body in the imaginary spaces and became present to it; for this whole change would have to be referred back to the effect itself, not to God; for remaining in Himself, says the Wise man, cap. 7., He renews all things.

To the second. — I deny the consequence: for if God produced two bodies distant from one another in imaginary space, He would not be in act, but only in power, in the space which is feigned to intervene between those two bodies; nor would His substance on that account be said to be distinct or discontinuous, both because there would truly be no real middle between His two presences, but only a fictitious one, and because when God becomes present to things, He does not come to them, but by drawing them out of nothing makes them present to Himself, as it were drawing them within the vastness and bosom of His immensity, and in this way, as it were, joining them to Himself and making them present, not otherwise than the sea draws all rivers to itself and receives them into its bosom; or as a sponge in a most vast ocean, as St. Augustine excellently noted, 1. Confessionum cap. 5.

I conceived of You, Lord, he says, encompassing me on every side and penetrating me, but infinite in every direction, as if the sea were everywhere, and on all sides through the immense infinite there were only sea, and it had within itself a sponge as large as you please, but finite nonetheless; the sponge would be full on every side, from every part of itself, from the immense sea: thus I thought the finite creature full of You, the infinite.

To the third. — I likewise deny the consequence: for in order that something be said to be moved per accidens at the motion of another, two things are required: first, indeed, that it be so in the body which is moved, circumscriptively or at least definitively, that it is not in another by which it is moved: second, that at the motion of the one it vary the distance which it previously had to the other. But both of these conditions would be lacking to God: for He would be present to both bodies, nor would He become less distant while one body approached the other.

You will say lastly. — God can place some body on high above the last and highest heaven, so that it has its feet placed upon the sphere of that last heaven, but its other bodily parts stretched out beyond and erect, or seated, as the Apostle seems in fact to hint that the body of Christ the Lord was carried up: for he says to the Ephesians, cap. 4.: He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens: but in this case that body would have several of its parts in the imaginary spaces, since above the last and highest sphere no other real space is given, but only a fictitious one. Therefore that body, and much more God, can be in imaginary space.

I distinguish the minor. — That body would have several parts present in the imaginary space through a true and real presence, I deny; through a negative and fictitious one, I concede. For since, as is supposed, that space is nothing, no body and no real being can become truly and really present to it.

Second conclusion. — God is truly outside the world, not indeed positively, but negatively.

The first part is proved. — not only from Sacred Scripture, Iob. 22.: Do you not think that God is higher than heaven, and is raised above the top of the stars? And 3. Regum, cap. 8.: Whom the heavens of heavens cannot contain. Cajetan gathers the same from those words of Christ, Ioan. 12.: I have come as light into the world, that is, within the totality of creatures, outside which He previously was according to His Divinity. By a similar reason others prove from that passage to the Hebrews 1.: When again He brought the first-begotten into the world, as if He were saying that He had previously been outside the earthly world.

The holy Fathers also prove it. For St. Dionysius, cap. 9. De Divinis Nominibus: God, he says, is poured out externally over all magnitude, and is spread out beyond. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Apologia prima: God is in the universe, and above the universe. Hilary, 1. De Trinit.: God is present to the world as interior, He exceeds it as exterior. Augustine, in the first sermon De verbis Apostoli: Who is the almighty God? what but inestimable, ineffable, incomprehensible, beyond all things, outside all things, besides all things? And St. Damian, in Opusculum 6. De Divina Omnipotentia: He Himself, he says, remains within all things, He Himself above all things, He Himself below all things. He is higher through power, and lower through sustenance, and exterior through magnitude, and interior through subtlety. — Athenagoras, Oratione pro Christianis: God is unbegotten, and all things that are His; but He so excels the world that He fills from every side whatever is above it, and leaves no place empty. St. Gregory lib. 2. Mor. cap. 12.

He Himself remains within all things, and outside all things; He Himself above all things, and below all things; higher through power, lower through sustenance, exterior through magnitude, interior through subtlety; ruling on high, containing below, surrounding without, penetrating within; nor higher in one part and lower in another, or exterior in any part and interior in another, but one and the same, wholly everywhere, sustaining by presiding and presiding by sustaining, penetrating by surrounding and surrounding by penetrating.

St. Isidore, lib. 1. De summo bono, cap. 2.: The immensity of the divine magnitude is such that we understand Him to be within all things, but not enclosed, outside all things, but not excluded, and therefore interior, that He may contain all things, and the same exterior, that He may conclude all things with the uncircumscribed majesty of His magnitude. By that, therefore, which He is exterior, He is shown to be the creator; by that which He is interior, He is demonstrated to govern all things. — William of Paris presses this argument in a wonderful way, in the book De Universo, section 2. part 2. cap. 68., where, after he had reproved those who judge that God is enclosed and bounded by the limits of the world, he adds:

But the wise men, and especially the Doctors of the Christian people, rather say that it should be said that the world is in the Creator, than that the Creator is in the world, and that the Creator contains the world, than that the Creator is contained by the world. In this, however, that they say the Creator has nothing of Himself outside the world, they do not seem to speak truly, since outside each and every part of the world He has His whole self. For in heaven one cannot designate any part outside of which the Creator does not have His whole self. For just as He is in one part of heaven, so also in any other, etc.

The second part. — is sufficiently clear from the preceding conclusion; for since God is not positively present to the imaginary spaces, it follows that He is only negatively outside the heavens.

You will ask 1. — whether immensity belongs to God alone. All the Doctors affirm it, since there can be no creature which from its own nature demands, and has the power to present itself present everywhere; for although some creature could by divine omnipotence be made present through a replication of presence in infinite places, if they were given, it would nevertheless not on that account be deemed immense, because it would not require this ubiquity from its own nature and through its innate power, in the way in which God requires that ubiquity from His immense and unlimited nature.

You will ask 2. — whether immensity is some special perfection of God. I affirm it against Smisingus, Tractatu 2. d. 2. n. 1., where he judges that God's immensity arises from His infinity and immutability, and does not differ from them; the contrary of which I prove thus: That perfection is distinct from the others which has an effect different from them: but constituting God present, as to His substance, is an effect formally distinct from the other perfections of God: therefore it proceeds from some special perfection. The major is established; the minor is proved: if the substantial presence of God in things proceeds from some other perfection, it does so most of all from infinity, as Smisingus himself admits; but it does not proceed from infinity. I prove it: for either it would proceed from the infinity of the attributes, or from the infinity of the essence. Not the first: for although God is conceived as infinitely wise, e.g., good, just, etc., He is not on that account conceived as present everywhere. Nor the second: both because the infinity of the divine essence signifies and imports nothing else than that the predicates belonging to the divine essence and constituting it have no term and limitation in essential perfection, but this does not make God formally present everywhere: and because if this presence proceeded from the infinity of the essence, this would be most of all because, says Smisingus, for God to be present to things is nothing else than for Him to be undistant from them, and His presence imports nothing else than a simple undistance from things, and consequently says nothing positive, and is only a negation, which therefore does not infer a special perfection: but this is false: and because our presence is something positive, since it is a relation coming from without: therefore God is also present through something positive, not indeed superadded, but intrinsic to Himself: and because a special negation founded in repugnance to the opposite necessarily follows from some special positive, for the negation opposed to wisdom, e.g., does not belong to the divine Essence formally because the divine Essence is; but by reason of the wisdom opposed to that negation, which wisdom if the divine Essence did not have, it would certainly have the negation of it: but distance, opposed to undistance, is not a predicate immediately opposed per se formally to any predicate of the divine Essence: therefore undistance and ubiquity does not precisely belong to God by reason of the divine Essence immediately, but through some special divine perfection, which is expressed by the name of immensity: therefore it must be a special perfection.

You will ask 3. — whether the presence of God in things is divisible.

I answer 1. — that the virtual presence, that is, the power which God has to be everywhere by reason of His infinite and immense substance, is indivisible; for since the divine Essence is wholly simple and spiritual, and has no parts, it cannot be in a place divisibly, namely in that way in which bodies have some of their parts above, others below, others to the right, others to the left: whence Isidore of Seville, lib. 1. De summo bono, cap. 2.

Nor, he says, does God fill all things in parts, nor is it in any way to be thought that God is in all things such that each thing takes Him in according to the magnitude of its position, that is, the greatest more, the least less, while rather He Himself is wholly in all things, or all things in Him.

— St. Damascene agrees with him, lib. 1. cap. 14.: It must be known, he says, that the Divine Numen has no parts, and is wholly from the whole everywhere, not a part in a part, so that it is divided after the manner of bodies, but whole in all things, and whole above everything. Whence St. Ambrose, lib. De dignitate hominis, cap. 2., places the image of God, with which the rational soul is endowed, in this, that just as the one God is always wholly everywhere, vivifying, moving, and governing all things, as the Apostle confirms, that in Him we live, and move, and are, so the soul in its body thrives wholly everywhere, vivifying it, moving, and governing it. For it is not greater in the greater members of its body, and less in the lesser, but wholly in the least, and wholly in the greatest.

I answer 2. — that the actual presence of God is as manifold as there are things in which God exists: for this inexistence is not something real and positive in God, but is either a negation of distance, or a relation of reason founded on the fact that things exist within the bosom of the Divinity, and are altogether undistant from it. Whence since the relations are multiplied according to the multitude of the terms, and the created things are various, from which the divine substance is undistant, and toward which it is conceived to have a relation of reason resulting from the fiction of the human intellect, it follows that there are as many actual divine presences as such relations and undistances can be conceived and feigned; but as many of these can be feigned as there are in fact creatures in which God exists: therefore the actual divine presence is manifold and divisible.

From all these things it is clear in what way, by reason of His immensity, God is said to be everywhere, and unplaceable, and uncircumscribed. For He is said to be everywhere because He is substantially present to every place, every space, and every existing thing whatsoever, so that there is no thing at all so vile and small within which God is not present according to essence. He is said to be unplaceable because He can be concluded by no place or space; for however great a maximum space is thought of, He wholly exceeds it. Finally, He is said to be uncircumscribed because He can be contained by no circumference of place. Hence St. Athanasius, in the rescript to Liberius, affirms that God is incomprehensible to place, and St. Damascene, lib. 1. De Fide, cap. 16., affirms that God is uncircumscribed, and is not in a place, but that He Himself is a place to Himself, because clearly He is circumscribed by no place, nor closed in.