Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

We have now explained, sufficiently and more than sufficiently, as much as has been vouchsafed to us from heaven, all those difficult and abstruse Questions which concern the nature of God and His intrinsic modes; now, however, we turn to scrutinize and lay open His properties, and the divine excellencies expressed by affirmative names. Proper to God alone, namely, are the virtues, operations, and endowments of the divine intellect and of the divine will: and since a special Treatise is wont to be instituted by theologians on these latter, treating namely of the intellect and of the will of God, hence the present Disputation will treat only of the former properties of God, and is to be resolved in three Questions.

It is certain, and already sufficiently proved, that God is so unique that the plurality of gods is judged no less impossible than the non-existence of any God; and hence it would be superfluous to dwell here on proving the unity of the Godhead, which we have openly demonstrated against the madness of the idolaters in the first Disputation of this Treatise. Three things, therefore, alone remain to be examined: first, indeed, in what way God is said to be one, that is, what is the source and origin of the divine Unity: second, how Unity belongs to God, whether in the manner of an essential predicate, or in the manner of a property affecting and illustrating the divine essence already quidditatively constituted: third, finally, whether this Unity so

restrains God from plurality, that He cannot enter into the society of any number, but must be called altogether innumerable. That these things may appear more evidently

Note 1. The philosophers rightly distinguish a threefold unity, namely transcendental, formal, and indivisible: the first is that by which any being whatsoever is undivided in itself; the second, that by which common and universal natures, both generic and specific, are said to be formally undivided in their inferiors; the third is that by which a singular nature is intrinsically and extrinsically indivisible into inferiors. The first unity befits every being; the second is proper to every universal nature, and to it alone; the third belongs to a singular nature alone. The first denies division, because any being that is one is undivided in itself; the second denies distinction, because universal natures in some inferior are not distinguished from themselves as they exist in other inferiors; the third, finally, denies plurality, for the singular and the individual excludes every multitude.

Note 2. Transcendental unity is rightly defined as the indivision of being from itself, and division from anything else. By these words is signified the twofold negation which this unity imports; namely, the negation of division in itself, when a being either includes the union of its parts; thus Peter is said to be one man; or the real identity of several formalities; thus God, although He involves several formally distinct perfections, is nevertheless truly called One; or the indivisibility of its concept; thus the concept of being is one, because it cannot be resolved into other concepts. Second, "one" also imports the negation of unity with another; and hence what is truly one must necessarily be distinguished from anything else. And so, that God be truly called one, He must be in Himself really undivided, and really distinct from anything else that is not God.

Note 3. According to the Subtle Doctor, in 1. d. 21. q. unica, three things are required for number: the first is that the unities which are the parts and principles of the number be of one and the same notion; for in numbering we do not say first Man, second Lion, third Stone: but the first substance is Man, the second Lion, the third Stone: or first man, second man, etc.: the second is that neither of the things numbered be included in the other, but that they be mutually distinct. The third, finally, is that the unities to be numbered be ordered to one another, and have potentiality and the notion of part with respect to the whole. For if any unity claimed for itself the actuality and perfection of the whole, it would also claim for itself the actuality and perfection of another unity contained in that same whole. Hence, although there might be several unities according to their formal notions, if nevertheless they eminently concurred in one, they would in no way constitute a number.

First conclusion. — The highest unity befits God on account of the various pre-eminences of the divinity itself.

And first indeed on account of the supereminent notion of being; for, says Plato in the Parmenide, of those things which are said to be one, each one is one in the way that its being is disposed: wherefore those which are less beings are said to be less one; but those which are more are also more one: therefore, since God is the greatest of all beings, He also claims for Himself the greatest and highest unity of being. This argument St. Augustine carefully weighs, lib. 1. De moribus Manichaeorum, cap. 6., where he thus discourses:

To be is nothing else than to be one; and so, in as much as each thing attains unity, in so much it is; for it is the operation, fittingness, and concord of unity, by which composite things are, in as much as they are. For simple things exist of themselves, because they are one; but those which are not simple imitate unity by the concord of their parts; and they are in so much as they attain unity.

Hence Boethius rightly, lib. 3. De Consolatione, prosa undecima: Everything that is, he says, endures and subsists as long as it is one: but it perishes and is dissolved at the same time as it has ceased to be one: and so, since God is the first of all beings, He also obtains the first unity.

Secondly, some holy Fathers gather this supreme unity of God from His highest simplicity, whereby it comes about that on account of His simplicity, which excels all things, He is named not only one, but also unity. This, throughout the whole theological treatment, says St. Dionysius, De divinis Nominibus, cap. 1.:

We thus see that that Divinity, the prince of all things, is celebrated by sacred preaching as both monad and unity, on account of the simplicity and singularity of its excellent indivisibility, and as unity for the expression of the supersubstantial fecundity which consists in the three Persons.

Whence, at the beginning of the chapter, he called God Unity, which makes every unity one. With him agrees St. Maximus the Martyr, in the Scholia on cap. 1. of the De coelesti Hierarchia, explaining those words of Dionysius: God is a monad, and a Unity subsisting in three: but that He is Unity and monad, he says, the impious Frugrius also confirms, writing thus in Centuriae secundae cap. 3.:

Since God is simple and indivisible, therefore He is a monad, for the monad too, to speak arithmetically, is simple and free from composition. He is called Unity, moreover, for this reason, that the holy Trinity is naturally united with Him, and He unites all those who draw near to Him; as it is written in the Gospel, that they may be one, even as we also are one.

But especially the root and reason of the divine unity arises from the Infinity of God; which, as we said in demonstrating that God is unique, supplies various arguments for proving the divine unity, both on the part of the infinite divine intellect, and on the part of the infinite will, of the infinite good, of infinite power, of the being infinite on every side, and of infinite dominion and virtue: for all these notions of divine infinity furnish so many valid arguments by which the divine unity, and God as unique, may be demonstrated, as we have already demonstrated.

Second conclusion. — Unity is not a quidditative predicate of God, but a divine property surrounding and illustrating the essence of God: both because the same seems to be the case with the entitative divine unity as with the created one; but created unity is not a quidditative predicate of the created being, but only its property: therefore by equal right the entitative divine unity is a perfection of the divine being, not truly a quidditative predicate of the divine essence: both because the divine essence can be conceived by a perfectly quidditative concept, and under the notion of infinite being, without the divine unity being conceived; and consequently unity does not have the notion of a constitutive predicate of the divine essence: finally, because unity itself arises from the essential notion, namely from the infinity of the divine being, and hence it itself does not enter into the essential notion of God.

You will say. Singularity is part of the quidditative concept of God: but unity is part of the concept of singularity; for the singular is that which is indivisible into several inferiors, as is plain in any individual nature: but this indivisibility is individual unity; and consequently unity must also be reckoned as part of the quiddity of God, and hence it is not His attribute.

I concede the major, but I deny the minor. For although in created things the formal notion of singularity is the same as that of numerical unity, it is not so in divine things; because in created things the indivisibility into several inferiors does not arise formally from the notion of the essence which is individuated, but from the individual difference itself; namely, it is the reason why the individual nature itself cannot be communicated to several inferiors; and hence in the individual nature itself the notion of individual unity is the same as that of singularity; because singularity and numerical unity formally arise from the individual difference. But it is otherwise in God, because the divine essence, from its precise concept, is such that indivisibility into several inferiors follows upon it: and consequently the foundation is different, and the notion of indivisibility and of singular unity is different in God and in a creature; although in both the entitative unity follows the essence, nor is it part of its formal concept.

Third conclusion. — Although God is supremely one, yet He cannot be said to be one by numerical unity.

Thus the Doctor, in 1. d. 24. q. unica, and St. Bonaventure, ibidem art. 1. q. 1. To these the holy Fathers lend their favor, especially Basil, who in Epist. 113., reporting the calumny of certain men who had objected to him the dogma of three gods, denies that God is one in number, but only one in nature. For whatever, he says, is said to be one in number, this is not truly one, nor simple in nature. But God by all confession is simple, and free from composition. God is therefore not one in number. With him agrees St. Cyril, in the excerpts of the commentaries, lib. 7. and 8. on John, where he traces back the cause of the multiplication of singulars to bodies: One, he says, is the definition of nature in all, and all are one by nature. But in that we are divided by bodies, we are no longer one, but many: which indeed cannot be said of the true and natural God. For He is without a body; although we understand the holy Trinity in its proper subsistences. With him agrees Boetius, lib. De Trinitate, where after he had set forth the threefold genus of unity, namely either one in genus, or in species, or in number, he removes those three from God, especially the last: because number is made by the difference and variety of accidents, he says, but in God there is no diversity, no plurality from diversity, no multitude from accidents; and therefore no number, but only unity. For when God is repeated a third time, when the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are named, three unities do not make a plurality of number in that which they are; if we attend to the numberable things, and not to the number itself. The other Fathers add the reason why number must be kept away from God, because namely in every number there is an order of prior and posterior, and a grade of first and second, etc. Since therefore in God nothing is prior or posterior, namely in nature and dignity, neither is there number in Him. Whence Paschasius, lib. 1. De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 6.: When you hear "one", he says, number does not begin here, but infinite perfection is gathered together. What is "one" but an incommunicable name, which receives neither a posterior nor a prior? What is "one" but a simple, uncompounded, and undivided substance? What is "one" but incommunicable and unequal, and always the same, which can never be diverse from itself? By these words he touched all the notions of the divine Unity, namely that God is one because He is simple, and does not consist of parts, and that there are not many and diverse; and that the same remains without any variety and change. Finally, that in Him there is no grade of first and second. These things the Bishop Cerealis also clearly unfolds, lib. Contra Maximum Arianum, cap. 15.

God is not numbered, he says, because He is not subject to numbers. Our God therefore is one; for since the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist, no Christian will be able to say three Gods; because in nothing does their nature differ from one another: number, to be sure, requires order; equality does not admit it. For one follows the first, to another the third is applied: but since grades cannot be made out of equals, which could be subordinated; how is He numbered? Therefore since He will be one, He has no second. The second, to be sure, holds the order of the lesser, and the lesser makes further; the one indicates the posterior, the posterior marks the unequal. Remove the distance, and you will have nothing to number.

But the Subtle Doctor already praised proves that God cannot be numbered either ad intra or ad extra, because, as we said in the third Note, three conditions are required for number, of which the first and second cannot fit God: and so neither the divine essence with the three Persons, nor the Persons themselves mutually, nor God with creatures will constitute a number simply and perfectly, since in these no single notion can be simply common. And since God eminently contains all things, He can have no potentiality, and hence no numberability.

You will say. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God: but those three Persons make the ternary number: therefore in God number must be admitted, and the divine unity does not exclude number.

It is confirmed. For St. Cyril, in 23. Thesauri, calls the Son another from the Father in number: and in the fragment of lib. 7., the one inheres in the other; and on that account they are not one in number. And St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratione 13., says that the monad was moved on account of its riches, and, having passed beyond the binary, ceased in the Trinity on account of perfection. And Eusebius, in the Creed, after he had said, that we say the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit one by one, this is because by the poverty of human speech we cannot express the three names together, not because we order them by three grades. Where the whole is one, there cannot be a third or a second. The whole therefore in the fullness of the Divinity is first, and that which seems last by the necessity of speech; he adds: In these three Persons number can be, order cannot be; for although the Trinity admits distinction, equality nevertheless knows no grade: therefore the highest unity of God does not exclude every number.

I answer. Indeed, by reason of the Persons, at least an imperfect number, which is made without any order of grade, can be conceded in God: nor do the holy Fathers deny this, who assert that a certain wonderful and ineffable commerce of unity and number is found in God: For although there is something ineffable, says St. Augustine, tract. 39. in Ioann., which cannot be explained in words, so that it is both a number and not a number. For see whether a number does not as it were appear, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a Trinity. If three; three what? number fails. So God neither recedes from number, nor is He captured by number: because they are three, as it is a number. If you ask three what, it is not a number. Think that the three are one. With him agrees St. Bernard, lib. 5. De Consid., cap. 7.:

Who will have this (so to speak) number without number? if three, how is it not a number? If one, where is number? Then, objecting to himself: Since those three Persons are that substance; and that one substance is the three Persons; who would deny number? He answers: For truly they are three: who would number them, however? for truly they are one. But if you think this easy to explain by saying three, tell me, what have you numbered? Natures? there is one. Essences? there is one. Substances? there is one. Deities? there is one. Not these, but the Persons I number, you say. Which are not that one Nature, that one Essence, that one Substance, that one Divinity. You are a Catholic; you will not grant this at all.

By which it is established that God excludes perfect number, and hence His divine unity is neither the principle nor the companion of number.

That God is true, no Catholic doubts; for it is established by an article of faith that the Son of God is true God from true God: whence not undeservedly the Royal Psalmist in Psalmo 88. O Lord God of hosts, who is like to thee? Thou art mighty, O Lord, and thy truth is round about thee: as if he would say, God is so true and veracious that He is, as it were, wholly surrounded by truth, and composed of truth; so that of Him, as St. Augustine said of Christ in his Sermon on the Decalogue, it may deservedly be said, God is wholly truth: first, as regards being, because He alone properly and truly is, who said, I am who am. Second, as regards the intellect, because He is His own understanding. Third, as regards knowledge, because God is the God of sciences, who can neither be deceived nor deceive. Fourth, as regards speech, according to that of Ioannis 17. Thy word is truth. Fifth, as regards promises, because God is faithful in all His words, and holy in all His works. There is therefore no reason for us to linger in proving the divine truth. Here only is it proposed for examination in what the divine truth consists, and in what manner it belongs to God, namely whether after the manner of an essential predicate, or only of an attributive one, which, so that it may be discovered more evidently

Note 1. The philosophers commonly distinguish a threefold truth, namely the truth of sign, of knowledge, and of being. The first is the conformity of our words with the inner concept of the mind: and this is the moral virtue opposed to lying. The second is the conformity of the intellect with the thing known, such as is the knowledge of divine faith and of human science, to which falsity, error, and opinion are opposed. The third, finally, is the formality of being, by which a thing is just as conceivable as it is according to its own nature: whence

Note 2. Entitative truth carries with it a habitude and transcendental relation of intelligibility to the intellect; for which reason the Doctor, in 1. dist. 49. q. 4. circa n. 11: perhaps, he says, neither true nor good, beyond being, express absolute notions — not that entitative truth is in reality in itself a solitary and simple transcendental relation, and an order which every being declares to the knowing intellect; but such that the concept of truth cannot be expressed without such an order to the intellect, of which it is the principal object. Just as, by parity, the good cannot be explained without an order to the appetite, of which it is the object and term: for the good is commonly said to be that which all things desire.

Note 3. From the Doctor in 2. Metaphysicorum number 8, entitative truth is such as being is:

For because, he says, truth is a property of being, therefore the being of a thing follows proportionally. So that each thing, in the mode in which it has being, also has truth: whence it happens that those things whose being is everlasting also have everlasting truth. Because also truth in the intellect arises from truth in the thing, therefore just as a thing has being, so also is it apt by nature to be known; whence it comes about that from the very being of the thing there always arises the conformity of truth, whether in the thing or in the intellect. Wherefore the Philosopher rightly concludes that each thing, just as it is disposed toward being, so it is disposed toward truth.

By these words the Doctor openly indicates that the truth of a thing is such as is its very entity: and so, if the entity be infinitely perfect, the entitative truth of the thing will likewise be such.

First conclusion. — The entitative truth of God is that supreme perfection of His, by which He alone is conceived to have the proper characters of the Godhead.

This is openly evident from what has been noted; for any being of things exists insofar as it has the characters proper to its entity, by which it is truly and intrinsically constituted in its being, and is distinguished from any other. Therefore for God to have entitative truth is nothing other than to claim for Himself the proper characters of the Godhead, by which He is separated and distinguished from the empty and false gods. Namely, that He is an infinite being, from Himself, necessarily existing by essence, produced by none, and productive of the rest. These words express the genuine characters of the true Godhead, by which the true God is distinguished from the empty and counterfeit deities of the nations. For all the gods of the nations are demons, says the Royal Prophet; and deservedly indeed, for the demons usurped certain counterfeit characters of the Godhead, namely the prediction and prophecy of future things, the stupendous and extraordinary working of signs and portents, the revelation of uncertain and hidden things, and other symbols of this kind of the true Godhead, which with rash use they claimed for themselves, so that they might be held by men as gods and be worshipped. Nor indeed, which is most to be lamented, was the labor of those proud and rebellious Angels vain and fruitless: for with these disguised signs of the Godhead they had so deceived men in the idols in which they dwelt, that they were held as gods.

This St. Paul openly confirms, 1. ad Corinthios 8., saying:

We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one. For although there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (since indeed there are many gods and many lords), yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him: and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.

By these words the holy Apostle assigns a twofold notion of the entitative truth of God, and two characters by which He is distinguished from the counterfeit gods. First, that the idol is nothing; not that the idol in reality has absolutely no entity at all: For there are also idols, says St. Augustine, 18. contra Faustum, but they are nothing for salvation: and he who worships a tree, not indeed by praying but by adoring, does not worship that which is nowhere, but that which ought not to be so worshipped. He alone is to be worshipped, who alone is the true God, and enjoying Him alone his worshiper is blessed, and not enjoying Him alone every mind is miserable, whatever other thing it may enjoy. But you, when you worship those things which are altogether not, but are feigned by the vanity of the other deceitful fables, hold the truth in injustice, you who change the truth of the divine being into a lie. Whence as often as Sacred Scripture attributes the name of God to certain creatures, it immediately adds some appellation by which they are distinguished from the true God. Thus when it is said, Psal. 81. God stood in the congregation of gods, and in the midst He judges gods: and a little after, I said: You are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High; it immediately adds, But you shall die like men: assigning a disparity not only between Angels and men, who are called gods, because Angels are immortal, yet creatures and therefore dependent on God, while men are likewise gods by grace, participation, and divine adoption, but mortal gods; but also separating both Angels and men, who are called gods, from the true God.

Likewise, as often as the same Sacred Scripture commemorates the false deities of the nations, it immediately explains their emptiness, namely that they have mouths and will not speak, they have eyes and will not see, etc. It attests the same thing more openly by saying: All the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens. That is, He is the supreme Creator and Arbiter of all things; which is the second notion and the other character by which St. Paul separates the true God from the false. Therefore the supreme entitative truth of God is nothing other than His divine perfection itself, by which He claims for Himself the proper characters of the Godhead, inasmuch as He is the supreme being, and the principle and moderator of other beings.

Second conclusion. — The entitative truth of God is not His essential and quidditative predicate; but an attribute perfecting His divine essence itself.

This truth is evident from what was said in the previous Question: for in the same manner, with proportion preserved, one must reason about the entitative truth of God as about His unity: but this, as has been proved, is not an essential predicate of God, but only a perfection of the essence: therefore the truth is likewise such. Add that the divine entitative truth is that perfection of God by which He is intelligible and conceivable as having the proper characters of the Godhead: therefore it is necessary that God first have those characters of the Godhead, at least by a priority of conception, before He be understood to have them; and so He is first conceivable under the notion of the Godhead than under the notion of the true Godhead: and thus that divine truth flows from His essence, and surrounds and perfects it.

You will say. God cannot be conceived as having the proper characters of the Godhead without being likewise conceived as true; for either He is conceived as having the proper characters of the Godhead, and thus He is conceived as the true God; or He is not so conceived, and thus He is not apprehended as God; nor consequently is He understood to have the true characters of the Godhead: so that entitative truth is to be counted among the essential predicates of the Godhead.

I distinguish the major. If God is conceived adequately, and according to all the formalities and perfections of the divine being, He cannot be understood as God without being likewise understood in the same concept as having the proper and genuine characters of the Godhead, I concede: if He is conceived only inadequately, and solely according to the notion of a being simply infinite, which are the two essential characters of the Godhead, He cannot be so conceived without being apprehended in the same concept as the true God, I deny: for first the intellect conceives God as an infinite being, then it apprehends that the notion of an infinite being is a genuine character of the Godhead, and thus afterwards it affirms that He is the true God, as one who has the perfect characters of the Godhead.

Note 1. Three kinds of goodness are customarily distinguished, namely natural, moral, and beneficence, which is also called kindness. The first is the perfection of a thing in its being, so that natural good is said of that which is perfect in itself in its kind, or to which nothing is lacking of those things that pertain to its perfection and integrity. Thus water is said to be absolutely good, because it has all its accidents and all the qualities due to it, namely color, taste, coldness, etc. But in order that something be judged good in this way, it must have three things, namely existence, the perfections due to it, and its ultimate end. The second is the conformity of human acts with the dictate of right reason: so that an act is judged morally good which is conformed to right reason and adorned with all the circumstances due to it. The third, finally, is the will's inclination to relieve the miseries of others and to bestow kindnesses. Only the former goodness will be discussed here; the others we will weigh in the following Treatise, where we will explain the characteristics and virtues of the divine will. For that will of God is good, well-pleasing, and perfect; and so it claims these three goodnesses for itself to the highest degree.

Note 2. From the Doctor, 18. q. Quodlibetica n. 3., a twofold natural goodness can still be distinguished: one indeed absolute, which he calls primary; the other respective, which he calls secondary. The first is the perfection of being, so that that is called absolutely good which is in every way perfect; and that indeed is called perfect which has everything to be desired for its completion. The second, however, is the suitability of being and its relation to that for which it is suitable. Each of these two goodnesses can again be distinguished as twofold. For the absolute is either quidditative, which is the gradual perfection of each nature, according to which one is more perfect than another, because it obtains more grades of entitative perfection: or it is purely entitative, which is the integrity and possession of all those things which naturally belong to being. Likewise the respective is again twofold: for any good thing either has a relation to that for which it is suitable, or to that which is suitable to itself. In the former way bread is said to be good for man, because it serves his nourishment: in the latter, it is said to be good for itself, because it has a taste suitable to itself.

Note 3. For the notion of natural good, it is required not only that it be perfect in itself, but also that it be diffusive of itself and perfective of others, and communicate itself to others. But something can be perfective of another in three ways, namely either after the manner of an efficient cause, by communicating to another a participation in its perfection and goodness: or after the manner of an exemplary cause, by forming something to its own image and conformity: or finally after the manner of a final cause, by drawing its appetite to the attainment of itself, and perfectly satiating and quieting it. These things being premised, three things are to be resolved in the present Question: first, whether the supreme entitative absolute goodness belongs to God: second, whether respective goodness, both quidditative and entitative, is suited to Him: third, what the difference is between the goodness of God and that of creatures: each of which is to be resolved in the three following Conclusions.

First conclusion. — That God is good with absolute entitative goodness is fully evident to all who have some notion of the Divinity.

This not only the holy Fathers, but also the pagan philosophers acknowledge, as Synesius elegantly indicates in the Oration de regno: all peoples everywhere on earth, both the wise and the unlearned, proclaim that God is good; and all profess this with mutual consent and with one voice: although in what pertains to other matters they differ in their various opinions about God, and divide His incorrupt and individual nature by the diversity of their opinions. Hence St. Dionysius, 4. cap. lib. De Divinis Nominibus, says: the appellation of good is wont to be attributed by the theologians, in a certain excellent manner, to the divine goodness hidden from all; so much so that the very existence of the divine principate is called goodness, as if to say that the names of God and of good are as it were synonyms, and that each properly expresses the Divinity. Christ the Lord Himself confirmed this very thing; for when He had been addressed by someone with these words, Good Master, Lucae 18., He answered thus: Why callest thou me good? None is good but God alone, as if to say, says August. in Psalmum 117.: If you wish to call me good, understand God also. Hence St. Leo rightly says: God, whose nature is goodness, and whose work is mercy. Tertullian likewise elegantly expresses this, lib. 1. contra Marcionem, saying, God is to be judged by goodness alone, as if to say that the divine goodness is the census and treasure of the whole Divinity, according to that saying of the Apostle: God, who is rich in mercy.

That this absolute divine goodness belongs to God is proved by reason. That absolute goodness consists in the integrity and perfection of a thing: but God is infinitely and on every side perfect: therefore He is also absolutely good. The major is evident from the second Note. St. Dionysius proves the minor, c. 13. De Divinis Nominibus, where he chiefly brings forward three reasons why God is called perfect: First, because He is αὐτοτελής, that is, perfect of Himself, and is not from any efficient or formal cause, but from His own most simple essence: whence His perfection does not arise from the accumulation of many things, as the perfection of creatures does, but from one most simple thing, which He Himself is. Second, because He is ὑπερτελής, that is, superperfect, superexcellent, and far exceeding every conceivable perfection: for nothing so great, so excellent, and so distinguished can be thought by a created mind, but that God is infinitely more excellent and superior, because His divine goodness and perfection can neither be increased nor diminished: whence St. Fulgentius, in the book De Fide ad Petrum c. 3.: God is not only supremely good, but is also the supreme and unchangeable good, because He is an eternal good, having no defect, because He was not made out of nothing: having no increase, because He has no beginning. Third, because He is superfull of all goods, so that, like an inexhaustible fountain, He may abound and overflow with a perpetual and unceasing outpouring of gifts upon all creatures, as St. Dionysius says, Overflowing with one unceasing and the same and superfull and undiminished outpouring, by which He perfectly perfects all things and fills each one full with a perfection suitable to it, according to that saying of Psalmi 103.: When thou openest thy hand, all things shall be filled with goodness; but when thou turnest away thy face, they shall be troubled.

From all of which it is abundantly evident that God is good with absolute goodness, since He is in Himself most perfect, and contains absolutely all conceivable perfections, either formally or eminently.

Second conclusion. — God is also good with respective goodness, or that of suitability: not indeed quidditative, but entitative.

The first part is evident; for God does not have various grades of perfection, according to which He could properly be said to be more perfect than other things that agree with Him in the same kind of perfection, and so He does not have quidditative and gradual perfection and goodness; unless perhaps you wish Him to be called quidditatively perfect, inasmuch as His divine quiddity and essence infinitely exceeds in perfection whatever grades of excellence and perfection are to be found in creatures. For in this way God could truly be called quidditatively perfect. But in this difficulty the whole dispute turns on the name, and therefore you may embrace whichever side you wish.

The second part is proved. For God not only has a perfection most suitable to Himself and necessarily lovable by Himself, but He is also good in general to all creatures, as their cause and end: and further, He is specially good and suitable to the just as a friend, to the blessed as the supreme good and eternal happiness, to the virtuous as the exemplar of all justice and holiness, to the penitent as the author of remission and of grace, according to that saying of Threnorum 3.: The Lord is good to them that hope in him, to the soul that seeketh him. And Psalmo 72.: How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!

Third conclusion. — God is supremely good with the goodness of an efficient cause.

Not only because all the things that He made are good, according to that saying of Genesis cap. 1.¹: God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good: but also because His divine goodness is the regulator and principle of all things whatsoever, as Plato elegantly explains in the Timaeus: let us seek, then, he says, the cause which impelled him who fashioned these things to seek the origin of things and a new undertaking: he excelled, namely, in goodness. With him Hierocles agrees in the aurea carmina of Pythagoras, saying: no other cause of the undertaking of all things, agreeable to reason, lies beneath it except the goodness of the substance; for whatever other causes besides goodness are brought forward for the fashioning of this universe suit human affections rather than God. St. Dionysius commends this same thing with a celebrated similitude, lib. De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 1.: just as, he says, the sun, led by no knowledge or choice, but by the sole fact that it is, illumines all things which can, according to their own notion, participate in light: so the good itself, which is above the sun, holds the excellent notion of the archetype, as it were a shadowed image only, and by its very existence sends forth to all things that exist, in a certain proportion, the rays of the whole of goodness. With him August. agrees, lib. 11. De Civit. c. 21.: If we ask, he says, who made the light: it is God. If by what He made it: He said, let it be made, and it was made. If why He made it: because it is good. Nor is there an author more excellent than God, nor an art more efficacious than the Word of God, nor a cause better than that good should be created by a good God. Plato also calls this the most just cause of founding the world, that good works should be made by a good God. Finally, Tertullian elegantly commends this very reason, lib. 2. adversus Marcionem cap. 63., where, inquiring into the reason for the establishment of the world, The first, he says, is the goodness of the Creator, by which God did not will to lie hidden forever; that is, He willed that there be something by which He might be known; he adds: and He committed the same to His supreme goodness as the negotiatrix of the good that was to appear: not certainly a sudden goodness, nor an adventitious one, nor one provoked by animation, as if it were to be esteemed from the time when it began to work.

Moreover, the divine goodness was not only the regulator of the creation of the world, but it is also its conservator and propagator. For out of goodness it preserves not only the creatures that serve it, but even the demons who rebel against it, as St. Augustine clearly shows in the Enchiridio cap. 27.: Certainly, he says, we see that the goodness of the Creator does not cease to supply to the evil Angels even life and living power, which supply, if it were taken away, they would perish: and to form the seeds of men, although born of a vitiated and condemned progeny, and to animate them, and to order their members through the ages of time, to quicken their senses through the spaces of places, to grant nourishment. Christ the Lord certainly commended this openly, Matth. 5., where, showing that God most abundantly bestows His goods not only on the good, but also on the impious and the wicked, He says: He maketh his sun to rise upon the good and the bad: and raineth upon the just and the unjust.

Nor does it commend this divine goodness little, that God bestows His benefits of His own accord, with no praise and glory even expected, as St. John Chrysostom elegantly indicates, Hom. 3. in Epist. ad Philemonem: God, he says, having need of nothing that is in our power, created us. But that He had need of nothing, He showed in that which He did afterwards. For if He had had need, He would have created us long ago. But if He was without us, and we were made in later times, He certainly did not make us out of need of us. To which St. Hilary most elegantly agrees, in Psalmum 2.:

God requires of us, he says, no service but that of innocence, Religion, and Faith. He demands that we love Him: not that He Himself receives any fruit of our love for Him for His own sake, but rather that by that very love we, who will love Him, may profit for the future. For He seeks to be loved by us and to be served by us for this reason, that it may be well with us: that we may be judged worthy of the gift of His beatitude and of His goodness through the merit of our love and service. But the use of goodness, like the splendor of the Sun, like the light of fire, and the odor of juice, profits not the one who provides it, but the one who uses it.

Finally, it is no small commendation of the supreme goodness of God that, as Guillelmus Parisiensis says in the Rhetorica divina cap. 31., his illustrious goodness bestows all things, not only liberally, but also willingly... for nothing more pleasing can be offered to him by us than prayer perfect in all its modes. The cause of this, moreover, is his most abundant goodness itself, by which he seeks in us occasions of always having mercy on us and of doing good to us: for it pleases him to give for this very reason, that he created all things for this. For he willed to have both that which he would give and those to whom he would give it. But he specially created the Angels and men in the end, that he might give himself to them: for which reason he also created them such that they would be capable of him. He adds, moreover, that for this reason humility also is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator, because it always furnishes him occasions of giving and of having mercy at the same time. Finally, in the last place, How great and what kind of good God is, says St. Prosper, is evidently shown even from this, that it is not well with anyone who departs from Him. Or as August. says, lib. 12. De Civit. c. 1.:

Because the cause of blessedness is to adhere to God, while the cause of misery, on the contrary, is to be understood to be not adhering to God: wherefore, if when it is asked why those are blessed, it is rightly answered, because they adhere to God: and also, when it is asked why these are miserable, it is rightly answered, because they do not cohere to God: there is no good of a rational or intellectual creature by which it may be blessed, except God.

etc., as the Royal Psalmist says: For me, to adhere to God is good.

So great is the society and connection of beauty with goodness, that among the Greeks they are expressed by the same word: for τὸ καλόν signifies both, both the good and the beautiful. It is therefore a consequence that, once the divine goodness has been delineated, beauty also should be in some measure adumbrated, so that its likeness may shine forth more clearly.

Note 1. Spiritual beauty can be delineated from corporeal beauty. Now corporeal beauty is, as Cicero says in 1. Tusculanarum: a fitting shape of the members together with a certain sweetness of color. In imitation of whom St. Augustine, lib. 22. De Civit. c. 10., says: All beauty of bodies is a congruence of parts together with a certain sweetness of color: but where there is no congruence of parts, either something offends for this reason, because it is small; or for this reason, because it is excessive: whence St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 39. art. 8., says that three things are necessary for beauty: First indeed, integrity, or perfection; for things which are diminished are by that very fact ugly: Second, due proportion or consonance: and again clarity; whence things which have a bright color are said to be beautiful. St. Ambrose embraces all these things in the second book of the Hexaemeron toward the end: For that is true beauty, he says, that there be in the individual members what befits, and in the whole: so that in the individual parts grace, in all the beauty of a fitting form may be praised. Whence it is clear that beauty no less than goodness consists in a certain congruence, though with the greatest difference between the two. And that this may appear

Note 2. The good is indeed that which is apt, and has a certain congruence; but in order to the supposit to which it belongs. Hence that is said to be good which all things desire. But the beautiful is that very congruence itself, which does not precisely regard appetite, but the true and genuine species and the absolute exemplar of itself, which the Platonists call an idea: for it is a certain perfect form of any thing whatsoever, complete and consisting in all its numbers and parts; which first inheres in the very mind of God; then secondly in the mind and intelligence of those endowed with reason; of which also some force and small part overflows into the senses themselves, especially the interior ones which are in man. Whence we call that man beautiful who has that conformation of mouth and countenance, and that figure and elegance of members, and finally that sweetness of color which the perfect species of the human body requires, of which sort we carry about in our senses and minds. And so, according as that form is diverse which we have inwardly conceived and expressed, so varied is the judgment of men concerning beauty. For the Ethiopians, for example, who prefer the black color of the body to whiteness, judge white bodies to be ugly; they judge black ones to be handsome. We think otherwise about the same matter, because we have been otherwise instructed. The Greeks, says Clement of Alexandria, 7. Strom., just as they make the gods like men in form, so also they set them subject to the same perturbations of mind as those by which they themselves are moved, and just as each one describes their forms as like to themselves, as Xenophanes says, the Ethiopians indeed black and snub-nosed, but the Thracians ruddy and with blue eyes, so also they liken their minds to those who fashion them.

Note 3. That just as the beauty of visible things consists chiefly in two things, namely in a due habitude, or a fitting proportion of the parts among themselves and to the whole; likewise in a congruent suffusion of color or of light informing and adorning the parts of the body: so the beauty of spiritual substances, which have neither parts nor color nor sensible light, is to be placed in due operation and in the right judgment of the intellect. For operation is related to the essence of the one operating as a member to the body, and it beautifies and illuminates the operation of intellectual knowledge, just as sensible light or a splendid color beautifies corporeal members or the parts of the body. Hence St. Augustine calls virtue the beauty of the soul, Epist. 222.: What else, he says, is justice, when it is in us, or any virtue whatsoever by which one lives rightly and wisely, than the beauty of the inner man? Now that this beauty of the soul is far more excellent than corporeal beauty, the Spouse sufficiently commends in Cant. 4.: How beautiful you are, my friend, apart from that which lies hidden within! as if he would say: the elegance of your body is indeed comely, but the hidden beauty of your soul far excels it. Thence in Canticles 6. he says again: As the rind of the pomegranate, so are your cheeks apart from the hidden things: elegance, but good to your eyes; signifying by this enigma that, just as the chief adornment of the pomegranate lies hidden within, so the beauty of the soul shines more sweetly than the form of the body: for the one shines outwardly, the other inwardly; the one is extinguished in a short time, so that it is found to have withered before it blooms, the other is perpetual and eternal; the one is most pleasing to human eyes, the other to divine eyes: Whence St. Ambrose, lib. 3. Hexam. cap. 13.: Who can esteem a beauty greater than the comeliness of her who is loved by the King, approved by the Judge, dedicated to the Lord, consecrated to God? This beauty does not wither nor fail: that is true comeliness, which does not seize alien eyes, nor wounds fragile minds; but acquires the judgments of all, destined to be a fraud to none, a praise to itself.

First conclusion. — God is most beautiful: indeed He is beauty itself.

Dionysius Carthusianus proves this conclusion by various reasons, lib. De Natura Dei art. 57. First, because the beauty of a spiritual substance is to be placed in due operation and in the right judgment of the intellect, as we said in the third Note: but the action of God, especially the immanent action, since it is everlasting and most fitting to God, connatural, consubstantial, and exceedingly delightful: likewise the knowledge of the divine intellect, since it is invariable, most splendid, and intuitive of all things with infinite activity and unchangeable light: it is evident that God is beautiful and truly most beautiful. Second, that is called beautiful which pleases the sight: therefore, since God is in Himself infinite goodness, most simply possessing the perfection of all goods, from whom come all truth and illumination and knowledge; it follows that He supremely pleases every interior sight of intellectual creatures; indeed He supremely pleases Himself with infinite complacency, and perpetually contemplates Himself, as the super-beautiful good, and as essential beauty. Third, things which appear more luminous and purer are called beautiful: but God is not only luminous, and pure, and splendid, but He is also eternal light itself, uncircumscribed and perfect, and consequently He is most beautiful. Fourth, beauty is the ray, the flower, and the purest emanation of divine goodness: but God is goodness itself: therefore He is also beauty itself. Fifth, that is beautiful which allures all things to itself, and which all desire: whence the Platonists call the love of beauty desire: but God converts all things to Himself, as the end of all things, the desire of the eternal hills, and the sweetest love of all: therefore He is most beautiful. Finally, God Himself makes all things beautiful, and is the principle of all beauty: therefore equally the center of beauty: whence the Royal Psalmist justly sings in the name of God: The beauty of the field is with me: or as the Septuagint reads: The splendor of the field is with me, as the fountain of all beautiful things, flowing forth in a perpetual outflow.

With these things Boethius agrees: Thee all things from a supernal Example thou leadest, thyself most beautiful, the beautiful World bearing in mind, and forming it from a like image.

One may gather this very beauty of His from His works:

For from the greatness of the works, writes St. Hilary, lib. 1., and from the beauty of creatures the Creator of the generations is consequently discerned. The Creator of great things is in the greatest, and the Maker of the most beautiful is in the most beautiful; and, since the work surpasses sense itself, so much the more must the Worker far exceed every sense: with a few words interposed: Is not the Lord of this very beauty necessarily to be understood as the most beautiful of all beauty, so that, although the species of His eternal adornment escapes the sense of every intelligence, yet the sense of the adornment does not leave the opinion of intelligence? And so God is to be confessed as most beautiful, so that He is neither within the judgment of understanding, nor outside the perception of those who understand.

As if he would say that from this the beauty of God is to be judged the more sublime, because it far transcends every sense and every created intellect. With this St. Augustine agrees, lib. 11. De Civitate Dei, cap. 4. Apart from the prophetic testimonies, he says, the world itself, by its most ordered mutability and mobility, and by the most beautiful species of all visible things, in a certain manner silently proclaims both that it was made, and that it could not have been made save by God, ineffably and invisibly great, and ineffably and invisibly beautiful. dorus, lib. 1. De Summo bono, cap. 4. That man may return to God by the very footsteps by which he turned away; so that, because through love of the beauty of the creature he withdrew himself from the form of the Creator, he may return again through the comeliness of the creature to the beauty of the Creator. By all these things, therefore, it is established that God is not only most beautiful, but also the center, the fountain, and the principle of all beauty.

Second conclusion. — The most excellent and preeminent beauty of God consists chiefly in the most ordered and most resplendent connection of all divine perfections, and in their supreme identity.

This is sufficiently evident of itself; and it is confirmed from a likeness taken from the corporeal and at the same time spiritual beauty of creatures. For we have said that the beauty of bodies is the most ordered conjunction of the parts of the body, together with the resplendent light of color: similarly, that the beauty of spirits is their most ordered operation and the union of their perfections; so that even divine beauty consists chiefly in the most ordered and most glittering union and identity of all the excellences of the Divinity.

Marsilius Ficinus discloses this same truth no less elegantly than subtly in the Convivio, Orat. 6. cap. 17., where he investigates and points out the diverse beauty of bodies, souls, Angels, and God in this way:

The form of the body, he says, consists in the composition of many parts, is constrained by place, slips away with time: but the Species of the Soul indeed suffers the vicissitudes of the body, and contains a multitude of parts, but is free from the limits of place. The species of the Angel, however, has number alone, and stands immune from the other two. But the beauty of God suffers none of these things. You see the form of the body, surely: do you wish also to behold the species of the soul? Take away from the bodily form the weight of its very nature, and the limits of places, leave the rest; you now have the species of the soul. Do you wish to uncover the beauty of the Angel? Remove, I pray, not only the spaces of place, but also the progress of times; retain the multiple composition, and you will at once obtain it. You desire also to discern the beauty of God! Take away in addition the multiple composition of those forms: leave wholly the simple form, and you will immediately attain the species of God. Moreover, the beauty of all bodies is that light of the Sun which you see, consisting in those three things, namely the multitude of forms, the space of place, the change in time. Take away its immaterial seat, so that besides place it retains the other two, and precisely such is the beauty of the soul. Take away from this the change of time, if you please, send away the rest; there remains a light most clear, without place, without motion, but engraved in the reasons of all things: and that is the Angel, and the beauty of the Angel. Take away finally that number of diverse ideas, leave one simple and pure light, like that light which remains in the very globe of the Sun and is not dispersed through the air; you now in some manner comprehend the beauty of God, which so far excels the remaining forms as that light of the Sun, pure and inviolate in itself, surpasses the splendor of the Sun scattered, cut up, and obscured through the cloudy air. Moreover, just as there is a certain shadow of the Sun in water relative to its clear light in the air, and the splendor in the air is a shadow relative to the light of the Sun refulgent in the Sun itself: so likewise is the comparison among those four, of the Body, the Soul,

of the Angel, and of God: for the beauty of the body is a shadow of the beauty of the soul: the species of the soul is a shadow of the form of the Angel; the form of the Angel, a shadow of the beauty of God. But He alone, just as He is true and most pure light, so He is most perfect beauty; so that He alone both enkindles and must terminate every created love.

Too much, therefore, are mortals to be lamented, who are charmed and detained by the vain, deceptive, and perishable beauty of corporeal things, and do not sigh for that immortal beauty, cleansed of every blemish. Hence any one of us can justly exclaim with Augustine, Soliloquiorum, cap. 31:

You have illuminated me, light of the world, and I have loved you; for no one loves you save him who sees you; and no one sees you save him who loves you. But late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new: late have I loved you! Behold, you were within, and I was outside, and I sought you elsewhere, and I rushed, deformed, upon those beautiful things which you made.

Whence likewise with the best right St. Bernard exclaims, Sermone de miseria humana: What then do you seek outside God? what do you desire besides Him? What pleases you without Him? He made all things, He has all things, He is everything; whatever good you desire, whatever beautiful you seek, you will find all in Him, and you will enjoy Him.

IMPRIMATUR: F. Albertus Lepidi O. P. S. P. A. Magister. IMPRIMATUR: Ioseph Ceppetelli, Archiepiscopus Myrensis, Vicesgerens.