Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

The essential properties of beatitude are especially love, impeccability, and perpetuity or inamissibility.

You will ask 1° whether those who see God love him necessarily, with a necessity as to exercise.

I answer Upon the beatific vision there follows a happy necessity of loving, even as to exercise. This is the more common opinion, against the Scotists.

Proof There is a necessity of exercise when there does not remain in the will the faculty of suspending the act. But in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain in the blessed the faculty of suspending love toward him. Therefore. — The minor is proved. There does not remain in the will the faculty of suspending the act when there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning that act; for the will is a blind power following the lead of the intellect, in whose indifference its freedom is rooted. But in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning him and the exercising of love toward him. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Through the clear vision of God the intellect proposes God to the will as the highest good, supremely lovable, and love of him as the embrace and enjoyment of a good so great and infinite: nor can it represent it otherwise, since it is immune from error, so that neither in the object nor in the love of it can there appear even a shadow of evil, or of tedium, or of weariness, or of anything in any respect unfitting, or that would impede a greater good. Therefore in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning him and love of him.

You will ask 2° whether the blessed are impeccable intrinsically.

It is certain that the blessed neither sin nor will sin any more. But the question is whether they also lack the faculty of sinning, and whence this impeccability arises. Scotus, with his followers, says that it arises from without, namely from the will and help of God protecting and preserving the blessed from sin. St. Thomas, with his followers, and more commonly, says that it arises from the intrinsic nature of beatitude, namely from the vision and love. With whom

I answer The blessed are absolutely impeccable intrinsically, namely both from the vision of God and from love of him¹.

Proof of the first part. 1° There cannot be sin in the will unless there is in the intellect a defective dictate, either from error, or from ignorance, or from inconsideration, by which it proposes to the will something to be willed here and now which in reality is not to be willed, as being contrary to or falling short of the right and true end. But an intellect clearly seeing God cannot have this defective dictate. Therefore. — The minor is proved. An intellect seeing God clearly sees the highest and total good, necessarily to be loved here and now. But, given such a vision, the intellect cannot apprehend and propose to the will any lovable good against or outside God, that is, without subordination to him and with deficiency from him: otherwise it would no longer apprehend God himself as the highest and total good, since it would apprehend some lovable good outside him; nor would it apprehend him as necessarily to be loved, but with indifference, such that he might be loved or set aside through an incompatible love of some extraneous good deficient from him. Therefore.

Proof of the second part of the answer. Through beatific love, man is turned by a continuous act toward God as toward his ultimate end, and is inseparably united and adheres to him; but through sin, he is actually turned away from God as his ultimate end, or at least deflects, if the sin is venial. But an actual aversion or defection from God cannot stand together at the same time with an actual conversion and adherence to him. Therefore.

From these arguments you have that not only the sin of commission, but also of omission, is incompatible with beatitude, since for this no less than for that a defective dictate is required, and each is against or apart from God.

You will ask 3° whether beatitude, once obtained, is intrinsically perpetual and inamissible.

It is of certain faith, against the error of Origen, that beatitude will endure without end into perpetual eternities. So the Scriptures testify everywhere. Sap., V, 16: But the just shall live for evermore. Ioann., X, 28: I give them life everlasting. Matth., XXV, 46: And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting. And elsewhere many times. And this has been defined in the Lateran Council, under Innocent III, in the chapter Firmiter de SS. Trinit., and all the faithful profess in the Creed « to believe in life everlasting. »

But the question is, as in the foregoing, whether this perpetuity belongs to beatitude intrinsically and from its own nature, as St. Thomas and the Thomists hold; or only intrinsically, from God's concurrence preserving it, as Scotus and the Scotists hold.

I answer The beatitude of the saints is intrinsically perpetual and inamissible. This is the more common opinion, with the Author².

Proof 1°. Beatitude is of itself perfectly satisfying and quieting of man's desire. But man naturally desires to retain the good which he has, and to have the faculty of retaining it. Therefore.

Proof 2°. The beatific vision has of itself no cause by which it could lose its being. Therefore of itself it demands inamissibility. — Proof of the antecedent. The beatific vision can cease only from a threefold cause: 1° on the part of the subject seeing God, because he no longer wishes to see; 2° on the part of God withdrawing that vision; 3° on the part of some created cause corrupting it through the introduction of a contrary form. But it cannot cease: 1° on the part of the seeing subject; because, since that vision actually joins the soul to the fount of all good, the will cannot find in it any insufficiency, or any inconvenience, or any note of evil, by which it might be moved to cease from it; 2° nor on the part of God; because, although God could absolutely annihilate it, yet since the withdrawal of a beatitude once given judicially as a wage and reward is the greatest punishment and the greatest loss, God, according to the exigency of things and his ordinary power, does not inflict any punishment, especially the greatest, except on account of some fault, which, as we proved above, the blessed cannot commit; 3° nor finally on the part of a created agent; because, since through that vision and union which is immediate to God, the mind is raised above all created agents, there is nothing that could act upon it. Therefore.

Seek many other things concerning the beatific vision in Tract. de Deo uno.