“In the first sense, the final end of man is an increate good, to wit God, who alone with His infinite goodness can perfectly fulfil the wish (voluntas) of man. In the second sense the final end of man is something created existing in himself; which is nought else than attainment or fruition (adeptio vel fruitio) of the final end. The final end is called beatitude. If then man’s beatitude is viewed as cause or object, it is something increate; but if it is considered in its beatific essence (quantum ad ipsam essentiam beatitudinis) it is something created.”
Thomas next shows:
“... that inasmuch as man’s beatitude is something created existing in himself, it is necessary to regard it as action (operatio). For beatitude is man’s ultimate perfection. But everything is perfect in so far as it is actually (actu, i.e. in realized actuality): for potentiality without actuality is imperfect. Therefore beatitude should consist in man’s ultimate actuality. But manifestly action (operatio) is the final actuality of the actor (operantis); as the Philosopher shows, demonstrating that everything exists for its action (propter suam operationem). Hence it follows of necessity that man’s beatitude is action.”
The next point to consider is whether beatitude is the action of man’s senses or his intellect. Drawing distinctions, Thomas points out that
“the action of sense cannot pertain to beatitude essentially; because man’s beatitude essentially consists in uniting himself to the increate good; to which he cannot be joined through the action of the senses. Yet sense-action may pertain to beatitude as an antecedent or consequence: as an antecedent, for the imperfect beatitude attainable in this life, where the action of the senses is a prerequisite to the action of the mind; as a consequence, in that perfect beatitude which is looked for in heaven; because, after the resurrection, as Augustine says, from the very beatitude of the soul, there may be a certain flowing back into the body and its senses, perfecting them in their actions. But not even then will the action by which the human mind is joined to God depend on sense.”
Beatitude then is the action of man’s intellectual part; and Thomas next inquires, whether it is an action of the intelligence or will (intellectus aut voluntatis). With this inquiry we touch the pivot of Thomas’s attitude, wherein he departs from Augustine, in apparent reliance on the word of John: “This is eternal life that they should know thee, the one true God.” Life eternal is man’s final end; and therefore man’s beatitude consists in knowledge of God, which is an act of mind. Thomas argues this at some length. He refers to the distinction between what is essential to the existence of beatitude, and what is joined to it per accidens, like enjoyment (delectatio).
“I say then, that beatitude in its essence cannot consist in an act of will. For it has appeared that beatitude is the obtaining (consecutio) of the final end. But obtaining does not consist in any act of will; for will attaches to the absent when one desires it, as well as to the present in which one rests delighted. It is evident that the desire for an end is not an obtaining of it, but a movement toward it. Enjoyment attaches to will from the presence of the end; but not conversely does anything become present because the will shall delight in it. Therefore there must be something besides an act of will, through which the end may become present to the will. This is plain respecting the ends of sense (fines sensibiles). For if to obtain money were an act of will, the miser would have obtained it from the beginning. And so it comes to pass with respect to an end conceived by the mind; we obtain it when it becomes present to us through an act of the intellect; and then the delighted will rests in the end obtained. Thus, therefore, the essence of beatitude consists in an act of mind. But the delight which follows beatitude pertains to will, even in the sense in which Augustine says: ‘beatitudo est gaudium de veritate,’ because indeed joy is the consummation of beatitude.”
The supremely intellectual attitude of the Angelic Doctor, shows at once, and as it were universally, in his conviction of the primacy of the true over the good, and of knowledge over will. Sometimes he argues these points directly; and again, his temperamental attitude appears in the course of argument upon other points. For example, Quaestio xvi. of Pars prima has for its subject Veritas. And in the first article, which discusses whether truth is in the thing (in re) or only in the mind, he argues thus:
“As good signifies that upon which desire (appetitus) is bent, so true signifies that at which understanding aims. There is this difference between desire and understanding or any kind of cognition: cognition exists in so far as what is known (cognitum) is in the knower; but desire is as the desirous inclines toward the desired. Thus the end (terminus == finis) of desire, which is the good, is in the desirable thing; but the end of knowing, which is the true, is in mind itself.”
In Articulus 4, Thomas comes to his point: that the true secundum rationem (i.e. according to its formal nature) is prior to the good.
“Although both the good and the true have been taken as convertible with being, yet they differ in their conception (ratione); and that the true is prior to the good appears from two considerations: First, the true is more closely related to being, which is prior to the good; for the true regards being itself, simply and directly; while the ratio of the good follows being as in some way perfect, and therefore desirable. Secondly, cognition naturally precedes desire. Therefore, since the true regards cognition, and the good regards desire, the true is prior to the good secundum rationem.”
This argument, whatever validity it may have, is significant of its author’s predominantly intellectual temperament, and consistent with his conception of man’s supreme beatitude as the intellectual vision of God. Obviously, moreover, the setting of the true above the good is another way of stating the primacy of knowledge over will, which is also maintained: “Will and understanding (intellectus) mutually include each other: for the understanding knows the will; and the will wills that the understanding should know.”[582] Evidently all rational beings have will as well as understanding; God wills, the Angels will, man wills. Indeed, how could knowledge progress but for the will to know? Yet of the two, considered in themselves, understanding is higher than will—
“for its object is the ratio, the very essential nature, of the desired good, while the object of will is the desired good whose ratio is in the understanding.... Yet will may be the higher, if it is set upon something higher than the understanding.... When the thing in which is the good is nobler than the soul itself, in which is the rational cognizance (ratio intellecta), the will, through relation to that thing, is higher than the understanding. But when the thing in which is the good, is lower than the soul, then in relation to that thing, the understanding is higher than the will. Wherefore the love of God is better than the cognizance (cognitio); but the cognizance of corporeal things is better than the love. Yet taken absolutely, the understanding is higher than the will.”[583]
These positions of the Angelic Doctor were sharply opposed in his lifetime and afterwards. Without entering the lists, let us rather follow him on his evidently Aristotelian path, which quickly brings him to his next conclusion: “That beatitude consists in the action of the speculative rather than the practical intellect, as is evident from three arguments:
“First, if man’s beatitude is action, it ought to be the man’s best (optima) action. But man’s best action is that of his best faculty in respect to the best object. The best faculty is intelligence, whose best object is the divine good, which is not an object of the practical, but of the speculative intelligence. Wherefore, in such action, to wit, in contemplation of things divine, beatitude chiefly consists. And because every one seems to be that which is best in him, as is said in the Ethics, so such action is most proper to man and most enjoyable.
“Secondly, the same conclusion appears from this, that contemplation above all is sought on account of itself. The perfection (actus, full realization) of the practical intelligence is not sought on account of itself, but for the sake of action: the actions themselves are directed toward some end. Hence it is evident that the final end cannot consist in the vita activa, which belongs to the practical intelligence.
“Thirdly, it is plain from this, that in the vita contemplativa man has part with those above him, to wit, God and the Angels, unto whom he is made like through beatitude; but in those matters which belong to the vita activa, other animals, however imperfectly, have somehow part with him.
“And so the final and perfect beatitude which is looked for in the life to come, in principle consists altogether in contemplation. But the imperfect beatitude which may be had here, consists first and in principle in contemplation, and secondly in the true operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions, as is said in the tenth book of the Ethics.”
It being thus shown that perfect beatitude lies in the action of the speculative intelligence, Thomas next shows that it cannot consist in consideration of the speculative sciences—
“for the consideration of a science does not reach beyond the potency (virtus) of the principles of that science, seeing that the whole science is contained potentially (virtualiter) in its principles. But the principles of speculative sciences are received through the senses, as the Philosopher makes clear. Therefore the entire consideration of the speculative sciences cannot be extended beyond that to which a cognition of sense-objects (sensibilium) is able to lead. Man’s final beatitude, which is his perfection, cannot consist in the cognition of sense-objects. For no thing is perfected by something inferior, except as there may be in the inferior some participation in a superior. Evidently the nature (forma) of a stone, or any other sensible thing, is inferior to man, save in so far as something higher than the human intelligence has part in it, like the light of reason.... But since there is in sensible forms some participation in the similitude of spiritual substances, the consideration of the speculative sciences is, in a certain way, participation in true and perfect beatitude.”
Neither can perfect beatitude consist in knowledge of the higher, entirely immaterial, or, as Thomas calls them, separate (separatae) substances, to wit, the Angels. Because it cannot consist in that which is the perfection of intelligence only from participation. The object of the intelligence is the true. Whatever has truth only through participation in something else cannot make the contemplating intelligence perfect with a final perfection. But the angels have their being (esse) as they have their truth, from the participation of the divine in them. Whence it remains that only the contemplation of God, Who alone is truth through His essential being, can make perfectly blessed. “But,” adds Thomas, “nothing precludes the expectation of some imperfect beatitude from contemplating the angels, and even a higher beatitude than lies in the consideration of the speculative sciences.”
So the conclusion is that “the final and perfect beatitude can be only in the vision of the divine essence. The proof of this lies in the consideration of two matters: first, that man is not perfectly blessed (beatus) so long as there remains anything for him to desire or seek; secondly, that the perfection of every capacity (potentiae), is adjudged according to the nature (ratio) of its object.” And a patent line of argument leads to the unavoidable conclusion: “For perfect beatitude it is necessary that the intellect should attain to the very essence of the first cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as its object.”
There are few novel thoughts in Thomas’s conception of man’s supreme beatitude. But he has taken cognizance of all pertinent considerations, and put the whole matter together with stable coherency. He continues, discussing in the succeeding Quaestiones a number of important matters incidental to his central determination of the nature of man’s supreme good. Thus he shows how joy (delectatio) is a necessary accompaniment of beatitude, which, however, in principle consists in the action of the mind, which is visio, rather than in the resulting delectatio. The latter consists in a quieting or satisfying of the will, through the goodness of that in which it is satisfied. When the will is satisfied in any action, that results from the goodness of the action; and the good lies in the action itself rather than in the quieting of the will.[584] Here Thomas’s reasoning points to an active ideal, an ideal of energizing, rather than repose. But he concludes that for beatitude “there must be a concurrence of visio, which is the perfect cognizance of the intelligible end; the getting it, which implies its presence; and the joy or fruition, which implies the quieting of that which loves in that which is loved.”[585] Thomas also shows how rectitude of will is needed, and discusses whether a body is essential; his conclusion being that a body is not required for the perfect beatitude of the life to come; yet he gives the counter considerations, showing the conduciveness of the perfected body to the soul’s beatitude even then. Next he follows Aristotle in pointing out how material goods may be necessary for the attainment of the imperfect beatitude possible on earth, while they are quite impertinent to the perfect beatitude of seeing God; and likewise he shows how the society of friends is needed here, but not essential hereafter, and yet a concomitant to our supreme felicity.
The course of argument of the Liber iii. of the Contra Gentiles is not dissimilar. A number of preliminary chapters show how all things tend to an end; that the end of all is God; and that to know God is the end of every intellectual being. Next, that human felicitas does not consist in all those matters, in which the Summa theologiae also shows that beatitude does not lie; but that it consists in contemplation of God. He puts his argument simply:
“It remains that the ultimate felicity of man lies in contemplation of truth. For this is the sole action (operatio) of man which is proper to man alone. This alone is directed to nothing else, as an end; since the contemplation of truth is sought for its own sake. Through this action, likewise, man is joined to higher substances (beings) through likeness of action, and through knowing them in some way. For this action, moreover, man is most sufficient by himself, needing but little external aid. To this also all other human acts seem to be directed as to an end. For to the perfection of contemplation, soundness of body is needed, to which all the arts of living are directed. Also quiet from the disturbance of passions is required, to which one comes through the moral virtues, and prudence; and quiet also from tumults, to which end all rules of civil life are ordained; and so, if rightly conceived, all human business seems to serve the contemplation of truth. Nor is it possible for the final felicity of man to consist in the contemplation which is confined to an intelligence of beginnings (principiorum), which is most imperfect and general (universalis), containing a knowledge of things potentially: it is the beginning, not the end of human study. Nor can that felicity lie in the contemplation of the sciences, which pertain to the lowest things, since felicity ought to lie in the action of the intelligence in relationship to the noblest intelligible verities. It remains that man’s final felicity consists in the contemplation of wisdom pursuant to a consideration of things divine. From which it also is evident by the way of induction, what was before proved by arguments, that the final felicity of man consists only in contemplation of God.”[586]
Having reached this central conclusion of the Contra Gentiles, as well as of the Summa theologiae, Thomas proceeds to trim it further, so as clearly to differentiate that knowledge of God in which lies the ultimate felicity of intelligent beings from other ways of knowing God, which do not fully represent this supreme and final bliss. He first excludes the sort of common and confused knowledge of God, which almost all men draw from observing the natural order of things; then he shuts out the knowledge of God derived from logical demonstration, through which, indeed, one rather approaches a proper knowledge of Him;[587] next, he will not admit that supreme felicity lies in the cognition of God through faith; since that is still imperfect. This felicity consists in seeing[588] the divine essence, an impossibility in this life, when we see as in a glass. The supreme felicity is attainable only after death. Hereupon Thomas continues with the very crucial discussion of the capacity of the rational creature to know God. But instead of following him further in the Contra Gentiles, we will rather turn to his final presentation of this question in his Summa theologiae.
II
The great Summa, having opened with an introductory consideration of the character of sacra doctrina,[589] at once fixes its attention upon the existence and attributes of God. These having been reviewed, Thomas begins Quaestio xii. by saying, that “as we have now considered what God is in His own nature (secundum se ipsum) it remains to consider what He is in our cognition, that is, how He is known by creatures.” The first question is whether any created intelligence whatsoever may be able to see God per essentiam. Having stated the counter arguments, and relying on John’s “we shall see Him as He is,” Thomas proceeds with his solution thus:
“Since everything may be knowable so far as it exists in actuality,[590] God, who is pure actuality, without any mingling of potentiality, is in Himself, most knowable. But what is most knowable in itself, is not knowable to every intelligence because of the exceeding greatness of that which is to be known (propter excessum intelligibilis supra intellectum); as the sun, which is most visible, may not be seen by a bat, because of the excess of light. Mindful of this, some have asserted that no created intelligence could behold the essential nature (essentiam) of God.
“But this is a solecism. For since man’s final beatitude consists in his highest action, which is the action of the intelligence, if the created intelligence is never to be able to see the essential nature of God, either it will never obtain beatitude, or its beatitude will consist in something besides God: which is repugnant to the faith. For the ultimate perfection of a rational creature lies in that which is the source or principle (principium) of its being. Likewise the argument is against reason. For there is in man a natural desire to know the cause, when he observes the effect; and from this, wonder rises in men. If then the intelligence of the rational creature is incapable of attaining to the first cause of things, an inane desire must be ascribed to nature.
“Wherefore it is simply to be conceded that the blessed may see the essential nature of God.”
So this general conclusion, or assumption, is based on faith, and also leaps, as from the head of Jove, the creature of unconquerable human need, which never will admit the inaneness of its yearnings. And now, assuming the possibility of seeing God in his true nature, Thomas proves that He cannot be seen thus through the similitude of any created thing: in order to behold God’s essence some divine likeness must be imparted from the seeing power (ex parte visivae potentiae), to wit, the light of divine glory (which is consummated grace) strengthening the intelligence that it may see God. And he next shows that it is impossible to see God by the sense of sight, or any other sense or power of man’s sensible nature. For God is incorporeal. Therefore He cannot be seen through the imagination, but only through the intelligence. Nor can any created intelligence through its natural faculties see the divine essence. “Cognition takes place in so far as the known is in the knower. But the known is in the knower according to the mode and capacity (modus) of the knower. Whence any knower’s knowledge is according to the measure of his nature. If then the being of the thing to be known exceeds the measure of the knowing nature, knowledge of it will be beyond the nature of that knower.” In order to see God in His essential nature, the created intellect needs light created by God: In lumine tuo videbimus lumen. And it may be given to one created intellect to see more perfectly than another.
Do those who see God per essentiam, comprehend Him? No.
“To comprehend God is impossible for any created intelligence. To have any true thought of God is a great beatitude.... Since the created light of glory received by any created intelligence, cannot be infinite, it is impossible that any created intelligence should know God infinitely, and comprehend Him.”
Again he reasons; They who shall see God in His essence will see what they see through the divine essence united to their intelligence; they will see whatever they see at once, and not successively; for the contents of this intellectual, God-granted vision are not apprehended by means of the respective species or general images, but in and through the one divine essence. But in this life, man may not see God in His essential nature:
“The mode of cognition conforms to the nature of the knower. But our soul, so long as we live in this life, has its existence (esse) in corporeal matter. Wherefore, by nature, it knows only things that have material form, or may through such be known. Evidently the divine essence cannot be known through the natures of material things. Any cognition of God through any created likeness whatsoever, is not a vision of His essence.... Our natural cognition draws its origin from sense; it may extend itself so far as it can be conducted (manuduci) by things of sense (sensibilia). But from them our intelligence may not attain to seeing the divine essence.... Yet since sensible creatures are effects, dependant on a cause, we know from them that God exists, and that as first cause He exceeds all that He has caused. From which we may learn the difference between Himself and His creatures, to wit, that He is not any of those things which He has caused....
“Through grace a more perfect knowledge of God is had than through natural reason. For cognition through natural reason needs both images (phantasmata) received from things of sense, and the natural light of intelligence, through whose virtue we abstract intelligible conceptions from them. In both respects human cognition is aided through the revelation of grace. For the natural light of the intellect is strengthened through the infusion of light graciously given (luminis gratuiti); while the images in the man’s imagination are divinely formed so that they are expressive of things divine, rather than of what naturally is received through the senses, as appears from the visions of the prophets.”[591]
Natural reason stops with the unity of God, and can give no knowledge of the Trinity of divine Persons. Says Thomas:[592]
“It has been shown that through natural reason man can know God only from His creatures. Creatures lead to knowledge of God as effects lead to some knowledge of a cause. Only that may be known of God by natural reason which necessarily belongs to Him as the source of all existences. The creative virtue of God is common to the whole Trinity; it pertains to the unity of essence, not to the distinction of persons. Through natural reason, therefore, those things concerning God may be known which pertain to the unity of essence, but not those which pertain to the distinction of persons.... Who strives to prove the Trinity of Persons by natural reason, doubly disparages faith: first as regards the dignity of faith itself, which concerns invisible things surpassing human reason; secondly as derogating from its efficiency in drawing men to it. For when any one in order to prove the faith adduces reasons which are not cogent, he falls under the derision of the faithless; for they think that we use such arguments, and that we believe because of them. One shall not attempt to prove things of faith save by authorities, and in discussion with those who receive the authorities. With others it is enough to argue that what the faith announces is not impossible.”
Here Thomas seems rationally to recognize the limits upon reason in discovering the divine nature. In the regions of faith, reason’s feet lack the material footing upon which to mount. So Thomas would assert. But will he stand to his assertion? The shadowy line between reason and faith wavers with him. At least so it seems to us, for whom ontological reasoning has lost reality, and who find proofs of God not so much easier than proofs of the Trinity. But Thomas and the other scholastics dwelt in the region of the metaphysically ideal. To them it was not only real, but the most real; and it was so natural to step across the line of faith, trailing clouds of reason. The feet of such as Thomas are as firmly planted on the one side of the line as on the other. And now, as it might also seem, Thomas, having thus formally reserved the realm of faith, quickly steps across the line, to undertake a tremendous metaphysical exposition of the Trinity, of the distinctions between its Persons, of their properties, respective functions, and relationships; and all this is carried on largely in the categories of Aristotelian philosophy. Yet is he not still consistent with himself? For he surely did not conceive the elements of his discussion to lie in the lucubrations or discoveries of the natural reason; but in the data of revelation, and their explanation by saintly doctors. And was not he also a vessel of their inspiration, a son of faith, who might humbly hope for the light of grace, to transfigure and glorify his natural powers in the service of revealed truth?
Thomas’s ideal is intellectual, and yet ends in faith. His intellectual interests, by faith emboldened, strengthened, and pointed heavenward, make on toward the realisation of that intellectual beatitude which is to be consummate hereafter, when the saved soul’s grace-illumined eye shall re-awaken where it may see face to face.
III
Knowledge, then, supplemented in this life by faith, is the primary element of blessedness. We now turn our attention to the forms of knowledge and modes of knowing appropriate to the three rational substances: God, angel, man. The first is the absolute incorporeal being, the primal mover, in whom there is no potentiality, but actuality simple and perfect. The second is the created immaterial or “separated” substance, which is all that it is through participation in the uncreate being of its Creator. The third is the composite creature man, made of both soul and body, his capacities conditioned upon the necessities of his dual nature, his sense-perception and imagination being as necessary to his knowledge, as his rational understanding; for whom alone it is true that sense-apprehension may lead to the intelligible verities of God: “etiam sensibilia intellecta manuducunt ad intelligibilia divinorum.”[593]
The earlier Quaestiones of Pars prima, on the nature of God, lead on to a consideration of God’s knowledge and ways of knowing. Those Quaestiones expounded the qualities of God quite as far as comported with Thomas’s realization of the limitation of the human capacity to know God in this life. Quaestio iii. upon the Simplicitas of God, shows that God is not body (corpus); that in Him there is no compositeness of form and material; that throughout His nature, He is one and the same, and therefore that He is His Deitas, His vita, and whatever else may be predicated of Him. Next it is shown (Qu. iv.) that God is perfect; that in Him are the perfectiones of all things, since whatever there may be of perfection in an effect, should be found in the effective cause; and as God is self-existent being, He must contain the whole perfection of being in Himself (totam perfectionem essendi in se). Next, that God is the good (bonum) and the summum bonum; He is infinite; He is in all things (Qu. viii. Art. 1) not as a part of their essence, but as accidens, and as the doer is in his deeds; and not only in their beginning, but so long as they exist; He acts upon everything immediately, and nothing is distant from Him; God is everywhere: as the soul is altogether in every part of the body, so God entire is in all things and in each. God is in all things created by Him as the working cause; but He is in the rational creature, through grace; as the object of action is in the actor, as the known is in the knower, and the desired in the wishful. God is immutable (Qu. ix.); for as final actuality (actus purus), with no admixture of potentiality, He cannot change; nor can He be moved; since His infinitude comprehends the plenitude of all perfection, there is nothing that He can acquire, and no whither for Him to extend. God is eternal (Qu. x.); for him there is no beginning, nor any succession of time; but an interminable now, an all at once (tota simul), which is the essence of eternity, as distinguished from the successiveness of even infinite time. And God is One (Qu. xi.). “One does not add anything to being, save negation of division. For One signifies nothing else than undivided being (ens indivisum). And from this it follows that One is convertible with being.” That God is One, is proved by His simplicitas; by the infiniteness of His perfection; and by the oneness of the world.
“After a consideration,” now says Thomas, “of those matters which pertain to the divine substance, we may consider those which pertain to its action (operatio). And because certain kinds of action remain in the doer, while others pass out into external effect, we first treat of knowledge and will (for knowing is in the knower and willing in him who wills); and then of God’s power, which is regarded as the source of the divine action passing out into external effect. Then, since knowing is a kind of living, after considering the divine knowledge, the divine life will be considered. And because knowledge is of the true, there will be need to consider truth and falsity. Again since every cognition is in the knower, the rationes (types, essential natures) of things as they are in God the Knower (Deo cognoscente) are called ideas (ideae); and a consideration of these will be joined to the consideration of knowledge.”[594]
Thus clearly laying out his topic, Thomas begins his discussion of God’s knowledge (scientia Dei); of the modes in which God knows and the knowledge which He has. In God is the most perfect knowledge. God knows Himself through Himself; in Him knowledge and Knower (intellectum and intellectus) are the same.[595] He perfectly comprehends Himself; for He knows Himself so far as He is knowable; and He is absolutely knowable being utter reality (actus purus). Likewise He knows things other than Himself. For He knows Himself perfectly, which implies a knowledge of those things to which His power (virtus) extends. Moreover, He knows all things in their special natures and distinctions from each other: for the perfection, or perfected actuality, of everything is contained in Him; and therefore God in Himself is able to know all things perfectly, and the special nature of everything exists through some manner of participation in the divine perfection. God knows all things in one, to wit, Himself; and not successively, or by means of discursive reasoning. “God’s knowledge is the cause of things. It stands to all created beings as the knowledge of the artificer to the things he makes. God causes things through His knowledge, since His being is His knowing (cum suum esse sit suum intelligere).” His knowledge causes things when it has the will joined with it, and, in so far as it is the cause of things, is called scientia approbationis. God knows things which are not actually (actu). Whatever has been or will be, He knows by the knowledge of sight (scientia visionis, which by implication is equivalent to scientia approbationis). For God’s knowing, which is His being, is measured by eternity; and eternity includes all time, as present, and without succession; so the present vision (intuitus) of God embraces all time and all things existing at any time, as if present. As for whatever is in the power of God or creature, but which never has been or will be, God knows it not as in vision, but simply knows it.
God also knows evil.
“Whoever knows anything perfectly should know whatever might happen to it. There are some good things to which it may happen to be corrupted through evils: wherefore God would not know the good perfectly, unless He also knew the evil. Everything is knowable so far as it is; but the being (esse) of evil is the privation of good: hence inasmuch as God knows good, He knows evil, as darkness is known through light.”
Thomas now takes up a point curious perhaps to us, but of importance to him and Aristotle: does God know individuals (singularia), the particular as opposed to the universal? This point might seem disposed of in the argument by which Thomas maintained that God knew things in their special and distinct natures. But he now proves that God knows singularia by an argument which bears on his contention that man does not know singularia through the intelligence, but perceives them through sense; and as we shall see, that the angels have no direct knowledge of individuals, being immaterial substances.
“God knows individuals (cognoscit singularia). For all perfections found in creatures pre-exist in higher mode in God. To know (cognoscere) individuals pertains to our perfection. Whence it follows that God must know them. The Philosopher (Aristotle) holds it to be illogical that anything should be known to us, and not to God.... But the perfections which are divided in inferior beings, exist simply and as one in God. Hence, although through one faculty we know universals and what is immaterial, and through another, individuals and what is material; yet God simply, through His intelligence, knows both.... One must hold that since God is the cause of things through His knowledge, the knowledge of God extends itself as far as His causality extends. Wherefore, since God’s active virtue extends itself not only to forms, from which is received the ratio of the universal, but also to matter, it is necessary that God’s knowledge should extend itself to individuals, which are such through matter.”
And replying to a counter-argument Thomas continues:
“Our intelligence abstracts the intelligible species from the individuating principles. Therefore the intelligible species of our intelligence cannot be the likeness of the individual principles; and, for this reason, our intelligence does not know individuals. But the intelligible species of the divine intelligence, which is the essence of God, is not immaterial through abstraction, but through itself; and exists as the principle of all principles entering the composition of the thing, whether principles of species or of the individual. Therefore through His essence God knows both universals and individuals.”[596]
With these arguments still echoing, Thomas shows that God can know infinite things; also future contingencies; also whatever may be stated (enuntiabilia). His knowledge, which is His substance, does not change. It is speculative knowledge, in so far as relating to His own unchangeable nature, and to whatever He can do, but does not; it is practical knowledge so far as it relates to anything which He does.
Thomas concludes his direct discussion of God’s knowledge, by an application of the Platonic theory of ideas, in which he mainly follows Augustine.
“It is necessary to place ideas in the divine mind. Idea is the Greek for the Latin forma. Thus through ideas are understood the forms of things existing beyond the things themselves. By which we mean the prototype (exemplar) of that of which it is called the form; or the principle of its cognition, in so far as the forms of things knowable are said to be in the knower.”
There must be many ideas or (as Augustine phrases it) stable rationes of things. There is a ratio in the divine mind corresponding to whatever God does or knows.
“Ideas were set by Plato as the principles both of the cognition and the generation of things, and in both senses they are to be placed in the divine mind. So far as idea is the principle of the making of a thing, it may be called the prototype (exemplar), and pertains to practical knowledge (practicam cognitionem); but as the principle of cognition (principium cognoscitivum), it is properly called ratio, and may also pertain to speculative knowledge. In the signification of exemplar, it relates to everything created at any time by God: but when it means principium cognoscitivum, it relates to all things which are known by God, although never coming into existence.”[597]
Such are the divine modes of knowledge. Thomas proceeds to discuss other aspects of the divine nature, the life and power, will and love, which may be ascribed to God. He then passes on to a discussion of the Persons of the Trinity. This completed, he turns to the world of created substances; into which we will follow him so far as to observe the forms of knowledge and ways of knowing proper to angels and mankind. We shall hereafter have to speak of the divine and angelic love, and of man’s love of God; but here, as our field is intellectual, we will simply recall to mind that Thomas applies a like intellectual conception of beatitude to both God and His rational creatures:
“Beatitude, as has been said, signifies the perfect good of the intellectual nature; as everything desires its perfection, the intellectual [substance] desires to be beata. That which is most perfect in every intellectual nature, is the intellectual operation wherein, in a measure, it grasps all things. Wherefore the beatitude of any created intellectual nature consists in knowing (in intelligendo).”[598]
IV
Thomas regards the creation as a processio, a going out of all creatures from God. Every being (ens) that in any manner (quocumque modo) is, is from God.
“God is the prima causa exemplaris of all things.... For the production of anything, there is needed a prototype (exemplar), in order that the effect may follow a determined form.... The determination of forms must be sought in the divine wisdom. Hence one ought to say that in the divine wisdom are the rationes of all things: these we have called ideas, to wit, prototypal forms existing in the divine mind. Although such may be multiplied in respect to things, yet really they are not other than the divine essence, according as its similitude can be participated in by divers things in divers ways. Thus God Himself is the first exemplar of all. There may also be said to be in created things certain exemplaria of other things, when they are made in the likeness of such others, or according to the same species or after the analogy of some resemblance.”[599]
God not only is the efficient and exemplary cause, but also the final cause of all things (Divina bonitas est finis omnium rerum). “The emanation (emanatio) of all being from the universal cause, which is God, we call creation.”[600] God alone may be said to create. The function pertains not to any Person, but to the whole Trinity in common. And there is found some image of the Trinity in rational creatures in whom is intelligence and will; and in all creatures may be found some vestiges of the creator.
Thomas, after a while, takes up the distinction between spiritual and corporeal creatures, and considers first the purely spiritual, called Angels. We enter with him upon the contemplation of these conceptions, which scholasticism did not indeed create, but elaborated with marvellous logic, and refined to a consistent intellectual beauty. None had larger share in perfecting the logical conception of the angelic nature, as immaterial and essentially intellectual, than our Angelic Doctor. A volume might well be devoted to tracing the growth of these beings of the mind, from their not unmilitant career in the Old Testament and the Jewish Apocrypha, their brief but classically beautiful mention in the Gospels, and their storm-red action in the Apocalypse; then through their treatment by the Fathers, to their hierarchic ordering by the great Pseudo-Areopagite; and so on and on, through the earlier Scholastics, the Lombard’s Sentences, and Hugo of St. Victor’s appreciative presentation; up to the gathering of all the angelic matter by Albertus Magnus, its further encyclopaedizing by Vincent of Beauvais, and finally its perfect intellectual disembodiment by Thomas;—while all the time the people’s mythopoeic love went on endowing these guardian spirits with heart and soul, and fashioning responsive stories of their doings. For men loved and feared them, and looked to them as God’s peculiar messengers. Thus they flash past us in the Divina Commedia; and their forms become lovely in Christian art.
As we enter upon the contemplation of the angelic nature, let us not as of course regard angels simply as imaginative conceptions of Scripture and of the patristic and mediaeval mind. Thomas will show his reasons for their necessary existence, which may not convince us. Yet we may believe in angels, inasmuch as any real conception of the world’s governance by God requires the fulfilling of His thoughts through media that bring them down to move and live and realize themselves with each of us. Who, in striving to express, can do more than symbolize, the ways of God? What symbols truer than angels have been devised?