Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

St. Thomas, q. 4.

[You ask, first, whether God is perfect.

It must be noted that perfectum¹, according to that from which the name is imposed, is the same as wholly made, or wholly reduced from potency to act; but according to that for the signifying of which the name has been transferred, perfectum is that to which nothing is lacking according to the mode of its perfection. Here the question is about the perfect taken in this latter sense. Whence

I respond in the affirmative.

Proof.² God is the first principle of all things, not a material principle, but an efficient one. But this must be most perfect. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Just as matter, insofar as it is such, is in potency, so an agent, insofar as it is such, is in act. Therefore that which is the principle of all things, not material but efficient, is in no way in potency, but in act. But that which is in no way in potency, but in act, is supremely perfect; because, just as potency imports imperfection, so act imports perfection. Therefore. — This will be still more evident from the following resolution and from what is to be said concerning the infinity of God.

You ask, secondly, whether the perfections of all things are in God.

I answer in the affirmative³.

*It is proved, first, *from Scripture. Ps. 93, 9, it is said: He who planted the ear, shall he not hear, or he who formed the eye, does he not regard? Eccli., 24, 25: In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of truth. To the Romans, 11, 36: Of him, and through him, and in him are all things. And elsewhere.

Proof 2 by reason⁴. Whatever there is of perfection in the effect must be in its effective cause, either according to the same ratio, if it is a univocal cause, as man generates man; or in a more eminent mode, if it is an equivocal cause and of a higher order; thus formal heat produced by the sun is in the sun eminently and virtually, for no one gives what he does not have either formally or eminently. But God is the first effective cause of all things. Therefore.

Proof 3. God has every fullness of being. Therefore He has the perfections of all things. — The consequence is evident, because every perfection is a perfection of being, or every perfection is considered according to some esse: thus justice gives just being, goodness good being; and thus he who has the fullness of being has all perfections. — Proof of the antecedent. God is ipsum esse subsisting through itself essentially and from Himself, and has every fullness of being, since there is nothing by which He can be limited. Therefore.

Hence it is inferred that no creature can be similar to God according to the whole perfection of existing, because no creature can exist through itself, but is essentially a participated being. Nevertheless, because it too has existence, although participated, therefore creatures are similar to God, not according to the same specific or generic ratio, but according to a certain analogy, «in the way in which, says the Angelic Doctor⁵, those things which are from God are assimilated to him insofar as they are beings, to the first and universal principle of the whole of being.»]