Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae
Charles René Billuart (1685–1757)
First published 1754
Charles René Billuart, O.P.'s Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae (Liège, 1754) is his six-volume abridgment of the larger Summa S. Thomae hodiernis academiarum moribus accommodata (1746–1751). It condenses Aquinas's order and teaching into a reference manual while retaining the Dominican's characteristic distinctions, scholastic proofs, and historical material. The compendium belongs to the eighteenth-century consolidation of post-Tridentine Thomist education and helped carry Billuart's influential reading of Aquinas into later schools. Schola presents the Latin text with an English translation from its public-domain source.
Proemium I: De natura et dotibus theologiae
Tractatus I: De Deo et Ejus Attributis
Dissertatio I: De Dei existentia
Articulus I: Utrum Deum esse sit per se notum
Articulus II: Utrum sit Deus, et quibus rationibus demonstretur?
Articulus III: De Atheismo
Articulus IV: Utrum possit dari ignorantia invincibilis de existentia Dei?
Articulus V: An existant athei theoretici?
Dissertatio II: De natura seu quidditate Dei et Ejus attributis in communi
Articulus I: Quodnam sit constitutivum divinae naturae?
Articulus II: De attributis divinis in communi
Dissertatio III: De attributis in particulari quae pertinent ad divinum esse
Articulus I: De simplicitate Dei
Articulus II: De perfectione Dei
Articulus III: De bonitate Dei
Tractatus I: De infinitate Dei
St. Thomas, q. 7.
[You ask whether God is infinite according to essence and according to the ratio of being.
Note 1. The infinite is said to be that which lacks an end or limit. Hence, if it lacks essential limits, it will be infinite in essence; if it lacks limits in a certain genus of attribute, for example of quantity or of quality, it will be infinite in that genus. Here St. Thomas treats of the infinity of God with respect to essence, or to the ratio of being.
Note 2. The limiting terms of essence are either extrinsic or intrinsic. An extrinsic limiting term is the efficient cause, which, granted that it could produce an infinite effect, if it is infinite, can also produce that same effect as limited. Intrinsic limiting terms are either metaphysical, namely genus and difference by which a thing is constituted in a determinate and finite species, or physical, namely form and matter, or a receptive subject comporting itself in the mode of matter.
I answer that God is infinite according to essence and according to the ratio of being1.
It is proved. God, as regards essence and the ratio of being, lacks every limiting factor. Therefore. — The antecedent is proved. He cannot be limited extrinsically by an efficient cause, because he is a se; nor intrinsically by genus and difference, or matter and form, because, as we proved above, he is the most simple being, devoid of every composition, whether from genus and difference, or from matter and form, or from essence and existence; because, as we said, he is essentially his own esse, so that esse or existing in God, since it is his very essence, is not received in it, nor receptive of any further act, since existence is the ultimate of all actualities. Therefore.
Hence you will infer, first, that nothing other than God is infinite through essence 2, because it is either composed of matter and form, or of genus and difference, by which it is limited to a determinate predicament, that is, it is enclosed within some highest genus; but if there be some form transcending all predicaments, such as existence, since nothing other than God is essentially its own esse or to exist, such existence in creatures is receivable in an essence and composes with it, and thus is limited by it; just as likewise essence, as receptive of existence, is limited by it, or at least by an order to it.