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We give here the chief characteristics of the knowledge creatures may
have of God: first by the beatific vision; secondly by the analogical
knowledge we must be content with here below.
Article One: The Essentially Supernatural Character Of The
Beatific Vision [307]
The Deity, the divine essence as it is in itself, cannot be
naturally known by any created intelligence, actual or possible.
Created intelligence can indeed know God as being and First Being,
starting from the analogical concept of being as the most universal of
ideas. [308] But such knowledge will never lead to positive and
proper knowledge of the Deity as Deity. [309] No creature,
solely by its own natural powers, can ever see God without medium.
"No one has ever seen God." [310] "He dwells in light
inaccessible." [311] .
This impossibility, according to St. Thomas and his school, is an
absolute impossibility, resting, not on a decree of God's free
will, as some authors say, but on the transcendence of God's
nature. The proper object of the created intelligence is that
intelligible reality to which, as mirrored in creatures, it is
proportioned. For the angels, that object is mirrored by spiritual
realities, [312] for man by sense realities. [313] Thus
man's faculties are specifically distinguished by their formal
objects, [314] the human intellect, feeblest of intellects, by
the intelligible realities of the sense world, the angel's more
vigorous intellect by the intelligible realities of the spirit world,
the divine intellect by the uncreated reality of the divine essence
itself. [315] Hence, to say that created intelligence can,
solely by its own natural powers, positively and properly know the
divine essence, Deity in itself, can even see that essence without
medium, is equivalent to saying that the created intellect has the same
formal object as has the uncreated intellect. And that is the same
thing as to say that the intellective creature has the same nature as
uncreated intelligence, that is, is God Himself. But a created and
finite God is an absurdity, found in pantheism, which cannot
distinguish uncreated nature from created nature, which forgets that
God is God and creature is creature.
Further, if the created intellect can, by its own natural power, see
God as He is, then elevation to the supernatural order of grace
becomes impossible, since our soul, by its own spiritual nature itself
would be a formal participation in the divine nature, which is the very
definition of supernatural grace. Our natural intelligence would have
the same formal object as have infused hope and infused charity. Hence
these infused virtues would no longer be essentially supernatural.
Only accidentally could they be infused, as might geometry, if God
so willed. And this holds good also in the angels.
It is then an impossibility that a creature were able, solely by its
own powers, to know, positively and properly, the divine essence, or
even to see it without medium. And this impossibility is based on
objective reality, on the unchangeable transcendence of the divine
nature. Hence this impossibility is a metaphysical and absolute
impossibility. Sense objects, says St. Thomas, which come from
God as cause, are not the adequate effect of their cause. Hence, by
knowing the sense world we cannot know God's full power nor,
consequently, see His essence. [316] These conclusions are
equally valid in the world of spiritual realities. [317] .
According to St. Thomas and his school, then, the creature's
natural impossibility to see God, does not arise, as Duns Scotus
maintains, from a decree of divine liberty, but from the unchangeable
transcendence of the divine nature. According to Scotus, God could
have willed that human intelligence could see Him naturally, that the
light of glory and the beatific vision be properties of created nature,
human or angelic, but that in fact God did not so will. Thus the
distinction between the order of nature and the order of grace would
be, not necessary, but contingent, resting on a decree of God's
free will. [318] Hence, according to Scotus, there is in our
soul an inborn natural desire for the beatific vision. [319] A
vestige of this Scotistic doctrine appears in the "active obediential
potency" of Suarez. [320] .
Thomists reply as follows: An inborn natural appetite for the
beatific vision, and also an active obediential potency, would be, on
the one hand, something essentially natural, as being a property of
our nature, and, on the other hand, simultaneously something
essentially supernatural, as being specifically proportioned to an
object which is essentially supernatural. Thomists in general say
further that the natural desire to see God, of which St. Thomas
speaks, [321] cannot be inborn. It is, they say, an elicited
desire, that is, a desire which presupposes a natural act of
knowledge, and that, as elicited, it is not an absolute and
efficacious desire, but one that is conditional or inefficacious, to
be realized in fact only on condition that God freely raises us to the
supernatural order. Let us recall that, in 1567, the Church
condemned the doctrine of Baius which admitted desire of such exigence
that elevation to the order of grace would be due to our original nature
and not a gratuitous gift. Thus he confounds the order of grace with
the order of nature. [322] Any efficacious natural desire would
be exigent, grace would be due (debita) to nature.
St. Thomas, in speaking of conditional and inefficacious desire,
uses the term "first will," [323] meaning thereby that
attitude of the will which precedes the efficacious intention to attain
an end. To illustrate. The farmer desires rain, really but
inefficaciously. The merchant in a storm wills inefficaciously to save
his goods, but efficaciously he wills to throw them into the sea.
[324] St. Thomas finds this distinction also in God's will.
God wills all men to be saved. If God willed this efficaciously,
all men in fact would be saved. Hence we must admit in God an
antecedent will, not indeed fruitless, but conditional and
inefficacious. [325] .
This desire to see God, natural but inefficacious, arises thus:
Our intelligence seeks naturally to know the essence of the First
Cause. But its natural knowledge of this cause rests on analogical
concepts, many indeed, but all imperfect, which cannot make manifest
the nature of that First Cause as it is in itself, in its absolute
perfection and supreme simplicity. In particular, these limited
concepts (justice, say, as contrasted with mercy) cannot show us how
in God infinite mercy is identified with infinite justice, or
omnipotent goodness with permission of evil. Dissatisfaction with our
limitations leads to a natural inefficacious desire to see God without
medium, if He would deign, gratuitously, to elevate us to see Him
face to face.
Is this desire supernatural? Not properly and formally speaking, say
the Thomists, but only materially, because it is by the natural light
of the reason that we know this object to be desirable, and the object
we desire is the immediate vision of the Author of nature whose
existence is naturally known. The desire in question is not a
supernatural desire like that of hope and charity, which under the
light of faith carries us toward the vision of the triune God, the
author of grace. [326] Thus we safeguard the principle that
acts are formally distinguished by their object, which object must be
in the same order as the acts. This would not be so if the desire in
question were inborn, rising from the weight of nature, [327]
anteceding natural knowledge, and specifically proportioned to an
object formally supernatural.
This natural desire is indeed a sign that the beatific vision is
possible. It furnishes an argument of appropriateness for this
possibility, an argument very deep and inviting, but not an argument
that is apodictic. Such at least is the common view of Thomists,
since there is here question of the intrinsic possibility of a
supernatural gift, and what is essentially supernatural cannot be
naturally demonstrated. Mysteries essentially supernatural are beyond
the reach of the principles of natural reason. [328] We cannot
positively demonstrate the possibility of the Trinity. All that the
created intellect, human or angelic, can at its utmost show, is
this: not that the mysteries are possible, but that their
impossibility cannot be demonstrated.
This then is the proposition upheld generally by Thomists: The
possibility and a fortiori the existence of mysteries essentially
supernatural, cannot naturally be either proved or disproved; and
though they are supported by persuasive arguments of appropriateness,
they are held with certainty by faith alone. [329] .
The entire Thomistic school holds also that the gratuitous gift called
the light of glory is absolutely necessary for the immediate vision of
God. [330] Any created intellectual faculty, angelic or
human, since of itself it is intrinsically incapable of seeing God
without medium, must of necessity, if it be called to such vision, be
rendered capable thereto by a gift which raises it to a life altogether
new, to a life which, since it gives to the intellectual faculty
itself a supernatural vitality, makes also the intellectual act
essentially supernatural. [331] Here appears the marvelous
sublimity of eternal life, which rises not only above all forces but
also above all exigencies of any nature created or creatable.
[332] On this point Thomists differ notably from Suarez
[333] and from Vasquez. [334] .
The beatific vision, finally, excludes all mediating ideas,
[335] even all infused ideas however perfect. [336] Any
created idea is only participatedly intelligible, and hence cannot make
manifest as He is in Himself Him who is being itself, who is
self-subsistent existence, who is self-existent intellectual
brightness.
But this beatific vision, which without the medium of any created idea
sees God directly as He is, can still not comprehend God, that is,
know Him with an act of knowledge as infinite as God Himself. God
alone comprehends God. Hence the blessed in heaven, even while they
see God face to face, can still not discover in Him the infinite
multitude of possible beings which He can create. Their act of
intellect, which knows Him without medium, is still a created act
which knows an infinite object in a finite manner, [337] with a
limited penetration, proportioned to its degree of charity and merit.
St. Thomas [338] illustrates. A disciple can grasp a
principle (subject and predicate) just as well as his master. But
his knowledge does not equal that of the master in seeing all the
consequences which that principle contains virtually. He sees the
whole, but not wholly, totally.
Article Two: Analogical Knowledge Of God [339]
If the Deity as it is in itself cannot be known naturally, and not
even by the supernatural gift of faith, how can our natural knowledge,
remaining so imperfect, be nevertheless certain and immutable?
The answer to this question rests on the validity of analogical
knowledge. Here, as we said above, Scotists, and also Suarez, do
not entirely agree with Thomists. This lack of agreement rests on
different definitions of analogy. Scotus admits a certain univocity
between God and creatures. [340] Suarez [341] was
certainly influenced on this point by Scotus.
The teaching of St. Thomas appears in its most developed form in the
thirteenth question of the first part of the Summa. All articles of
that question are concerned to show God's pre-eminent transcendence.
They may be summarized in a formula which is still current: All
perfections are found in God, not merely virtually (virtualiter):
but in formal transcendence (formaliter eminenter).
What is the exact sense of this formula? Our answer, by citing
freely the first five articles, [342] will again show that St.
Thomas runs on an elevated highway between two contrary doctrines:
between Nominalism, which, accepting the opinion attributed to
Maimonides, leads to agnosticism, and a kind of anthropomorphism,
which substitutes for analogy a minimum of univocity.
Our saint, then, establishes three positions.
1. Absolute perfections, [343] which do not imply any
imperfection and which it is always better to have than not to have,
existence, for example, and truth, goodness, wisdom, love, are
found formally in God, because they are in Him essentially and
properly. They are found in Him essentially [344] because,
when we say "God is good," we do not mean merely that He is the
cause of goodness in creatures. If that were our meaning then we would
say "God is a body," since He is the cause of the corporeal world.
Further, these perfections are in God properly speaking, that is,
not metaphorically, as when we say "God is angry."
The reason for this double assertion is that these absolute
perfections, in contrast to mixed perfections, [345] do not in
their inner formal meaning [346] imply any imperfection,
although in creatures they are always found to be finite in mode and
measure. Manifestly the first cause of perfection must pre-contain,
in pre-eminent fashion, all those perfections which imply no
imperfection, which it is better to have than not to have. Were it
otherwise, the first cause could not give these perfections to His
creatures, since perfection found in the effect must be first found in
its cause. Hence no perfection can be refused to God unless it
implies attributing to Him also an imperfection. On this truth
theologians in general agree. Absolute perfections, then, we
repeat, are in God essentially and formally.
2. The names which express these absolute perfections are not
synonyms. Here Thomists, Scotists, and Suaresians are in
agreement, and hence opposed to the Nominalists, who hold that these
names are synonymous, distinguished only logically and
quasi-verbally, as "Tullius" is distinguished from "Cicero."
They argue thus: Since in God all these perfections, being
infinite, are really identified each with all others, we can
substitute any one of them (e. g.: mercy) for any other (e. g.:
justice): just as in a sentence about Cicero we can, without any
change of meaning, write "Tullius" instead of "Cicero."
Now this nominalistic position, which would allow us to say, for
example, that God punishes by mercy and pardons by justice, makes all
divine attributes meaningless and leads to full agnosticism, which says
that God is absolutely unknowable.
3. Absolute perfections are found both in God and in creatures, not
univocally, and not equivocally, but analogically. This is the
precise meaning of the term formaliter eminenter, where eminenter is
equivalent to "not univocally, but analogically." Let us listen to
St. Thomas: [347] .
"Any effect which does not show the full power of its cause receives
indeed a perfection like that of its cause, but not in the same
essential fullness [that is, in context, not univocally]: but in a
deficient measure. Hence the perfection found divided and multiplied
in effects pre-exists in unified simplicity in their cause." Hence
all perfections found divided among numerous creatures pre-exist as
one, absolute, and simple unity in God.
This text is very important. It contains precisely the saint's idea
of analogy, an idea to which Suarez did not remain faithful.
Suaresians often define analogy as follows: [348] The idea
conveyed by an analogous predicate ("being" [ens]: e. g.: in
the expressions "Deus est ens, creatura est ens") is, simply
speaking, one idea, and only in a sense diversified. Thomists, on
the contrary, speak thus: [349] The idea conveyed by an
analogous term (as above) is, simply speaking, diversified, and
only in a sense one, that is, one proportionally, by similarity of
proportions. [350] .
This formula agrees perfectly with the text just cited from St.
Thomas. In that same article he adds: [351] "When God is
called 'wise' and man is called 'wise', the idea conveyed by the
one word is not found in the same way in both subjects." Wisdom in
God and wisdom in man are proportionally one, since wisdom in God is
infinite and causative, whereas wisdom in man is a created thing,
measured and limited by its object. And what holds good of wisdom
holds good of all other absolute perfections.
This manner of speaking is entirely in harmony with the common teaching
in logic on the distinction between analogical and univocal. The genus
animal, animality, e. g.: is univocal, because it everywhere
signifies a character found simply in the same meaning, in all
animals, even in such a worm as does not have all the five exterior
senses found in higher animals. In contrast, take the analogous term
"cognition." It expresses a perfection, essentially not one, but
diversified, which, while found in sense cognition, is not found
there in essentially the same way as it is found in intellective
cognition. It is an idea proportionally one, in the sense that, just
as sensation is related to sense object, so the intellective act is
related to intelligible object. "Love" is similarly an idea
proportionally one, love in the sense order being essentially different
from love in the spiritual order.
Hence it follows that analogical perfection, in contrast to univocal,
is not a perfectly abstract idea, because, since it expresses a
likeness between two proportions, it must actually, though
implicitly, express the two subjects thus proportioned. Animality is
a notion perfectly abstracted from its subjects, expressing only
potentially, in no wise actually, the subjects in which it is found.
But cognition cannot be thought of without actual, though implicit,
reference to the difference between subjects endowed only with sense and
those endowed also with intellect. Hence the difficulty in so defining
cognition as to make the definition applicable both to sense cognition,
and to intellective cognition, and uncreated cognition.
If, then analogical perfection is only proportionally one, it follows
[352] that when we speak of God, there is an infinite distance
between the two analogues, that is, between God as wise, say, and
man as wise, although the analogical idea (wisdom) is found in each,
not metaphorically, but properly. Wisdom in God is infinitely above
wisdom in man, though wisdom in the proper sense is found both in God
and in man. This truth may surprise us less if we recall that there is
already an immeasurable distance between sense cognition and
intellective cognition, though each is cognition in the proper sense of
the word.
The terminology of St. Thomas and of the Thomistic definition of
analogy are in full accord with these words of the Fourth Lateran
Council: [353] "Between Creator and creature there can never
be found a likeness ever so great without finding in that likeness a
still greater unlikeness." This declaration is equivalent to saying
that analogical perfection is, in its analogues, simply diversified,
and only in a sense one, proportionally one.
Hence in the formula commonly accepted, viz.: absolute perfections
are in God formally, the word "formally" must be understood thus:
formally, not univocally, but analogically, yet properly, and not
metaphorically. The adverb "formally" thus explained, we now turn
to explain the second adverb, "pre-eminently."
4. From what has already been said we see that the infinite mode in
which the divine attributes exist in God remains hidden to us here
below. Only negatively and relatively can we express that mode, as
when we say "wisdom unlimited," "wisdom supreme," "sovereign
wisdom." Listen again to St. Thomas: "When this term 'wise'
is said of man, the term somehow circumscribes and encloses the thing
signified [the man's wisdom, distinct from his essence, from his
existence, from his power, etc. ]. But not so when it is said of
God. Said of God, the term presents the thing signified (wisdom)
as uncircumscribable, as transcending the meaning of the term."
[354] This is the meaning of "preeminently" in the term
"formally pre-eminently"; [355] but we must make that meaning
still more precise.
It is clear from the foregoing conclusion that Scotus is wrong when he
maintains that the divine perfections are distinguished one from the
other by a formal-actual-natural distinction. [356] This
distinction, as explained by Scotus, is more than a virtual
distinction, since it antecedes all act of our mind. Now such a
distinction, anteceding human thought, must be real and objective.
[357] Such distinction in the attributes of God is
irreconcilable with His sovereign simplicity, wherein all His
attributes are identified. "In God all perfections are one and the
same reality, except in terms that are relatively opposed."
[358] .
Distinction then among divine attributes must be but a virtual
distinction, even a minor virtual distinction, since each attribute
contains all others actually, but not explicitly, only implicitly,
while genus contains its species, in no wise actually, but only
potentially, virtually. Yet, on the other hand, against the
Nominalists, we must also maintain that the names applied to God
(e. g.: mercy and justice) are not synonyms. The distinction
between them is not merely verbal ("Tullius" and "Cicero").
Hence arises a difficult question: How can these perfections be
really identified with one another in God without destroying one
another? How can each remain in Him formally, that is,
essentially, properly, non-synonymously, and simultaneously be in
Him pre-eminently, transcendently, infinitely? We can easily see,
to illustrate, how the seven rainbow colors are pre-contained with
virtual eminence in white light, since white light, formally, is not
blue, say, or red. But the pre-eminent Deity is, not merely
virtually, but formally, true and good and intelligent and merciful.
To say that the Deity has all these attributes only virtually (just
as it is virtually corporeal because it produces bodies) is to return
to the error of Maimonides.
Let us repeat our question: How can the divine perfections be
formally in God, if in Him they are all one identical reality?
Scotus answers thus: They cannot be each formally in God unless they
are, antecedently to any action of our mind, formally distinct one
from another. Cajetan gives a profound answer to this difficulty, and
his solution is generally held by Thomists. He writes: "Just as
the reality called wisdom and the reality called justice are found
identified with that higher reality called Deity and hence are one
reality in God: so the idea (ratio formalis) of wisdom and the idea
of justice are identified with the higher idea called the idea of Deity
as such, and hence are an idea, one indeed in number, but
pre-containing each of the two ideas transcendentally, not merely
virtually, as the idea of light contains the idea of heat, but
formally. Hence the conclusion drawn by the divine genius of St.
Thomas: the idea of wisdom is of one order in God, of another in
creatures." [359] .
Hence Cajetan elsewhere [360] gives us the formula: An
analogical idea is one idea, not one absolutely (simpliciter): but
one proportionally. Thus we see that Deity, in its formal raison
d'etre, is absolutely preeminent, transcending all realities
expressed by being, unity, goodness, wisdom, love, mercy,
justice, and hence pre-contains all these realities, eminently and
yet formally. This is equivalent to the truth, admitted by all
theologians, that the Deity, both as it is in itself and as seen by
the blessed, contains, actually and explicitly, all the divine
perfections, which therefore are known in heaven without deduction,
whereas here on earth, where we know God merely as self-subsistent
being, which contains all these perfections, actually indeed, but
implicitly, we can know these divine attributes only by progressive
deduction.
Guided thus by Cajetan, we may now see the Thomistic meaning of the
two adverbs: formaliter, eminenter. Formaliter means: essentially
and not only causally, properly, and not merely metaphorically, but
analogically. Eminenter excludes formal actual distinction in the
divine attributes, and expresses their identification, better, their
identity, in the transcendent raison d'etre of the Deity, whose mode
of being, which in itself is hidden from us here below, can be known
only negatively and relatively. It is in this sense that we say there
is a transcendent world which, antecedently to the act of our mind,
excludes all real and formal distinction, so that in God the only real
distinction is that of the divine persons relatively opposed one to
another. [361] .
Let us listen to another passage from St. Thomas: "Now all these
perfections pre-exist in God absolutely as one unit, whereas they are
received in creatures as a divided multitude. Hence to our varied and
multiple ideas there corresponds in God one altogether simple unity,
which by these ideas is known imperfectly." And again: "The many
ideas expressed by these many names are not empty and nugatory, because
to each of them there corresponds one simple unity, represented only
imperfectly by all of them taken together." [362] .
In the transcendental pre-eminence of the Deity, therefore, all
these divine attributes, far from destroying one another, are rather
identified one with another. Each is in God formally, but not as
formally distinct from all others. [363] .
Further: these attributes, thus identified and in no way
self-destructive, find in God's transcendence their fullest, purest
perfection. Thus existence in God is essential existence. His act
of understanding is self-subsistent, His goodness is essential
goodness, His love self-subsistent.
This identification is rather easily understood when the perfections in
question are on the same level of thought, and are thus distinguished,
virtually and extrinsically, by reference to creatures. Thus the
faculty of intellect, and its act, and its object, three distinct
realities in the creature, are in the Creator manifestly identified,
since He is the self-subsistent act of understanding.
But when the perfections in questions are in different lines of being,
identification is less easily explained. Take intelligence and love,
for example, or justice and mercy. But that all such seemingly
opposite perfections are really identified in God is evidently clear
from the foregoing pages. And that this identification is commonly
accepted appears in phrases like the following: "the light of life,"
"affectionate knowledge," "the glance of love," "love awful and
sweet." When God is seen face to face, this identification becomes
clearly seen. But here below, in the light of faith only, even the
mystics [364] speak of the "great darkness." Overwhelming
splendor becomes obscurity, in the spirit still too feeble to support
that splendor, just as the shining sun seems dark to the bird of
night.
What distinction is there further between the divine essence and the
divine relation, or between the divine nature which is communicable and
the paternity which is incommunicable? This distinction is not formal
and actual, but virtual and minor. Listen to Cajetan: "Speaking
secundum se, not quoad nos, there is in God one only formal reality,
not simply absolute, nor simply relative, not simply communicable nor
simply incommunicable, but pre-containing, transcendentally and
formally, all there is in God of absolute perfection and also all the
relative perfection required by the Trinity. For the divine reality
antecedes being and all its differentiations. That reality is above
ens, above unum, etc." [365] .
We conclude. The divine reality, as it is in itself, transcends all
its perfections, absolute and relative, which it contains formally
preeminently.
Article Three: Corollaries
From this high doctrine of God's transcendent pre-eminence there
follows a number of corollaries. Here we shall notice only three of
very special importance.
1. Reason, of its own sole force, by discovering the transcendence
and inaccessibility of the Deity, can demonstrate thereby the
existence in God of a supernatural order of truth and life. But to
know that such supernatural truths exist is not the same thing as
knowing what those truths are. The Deity, the whatness of God,
manifestly surpasses all the natural powers of all created or creatable
intelligence. Thus St. Thomas, [366] having granted that
man can clearly know the existence in God of truths which far surpass
man's power of knowing them in their nature, goes on to show, a few
lines farther down, that the Deity as such is inaccessible to the
natural powers even of the angels. [367] .
2. Sanctifying grace, defined thus, "a participation in the divine
nature," is a participation, physical, formal, and analogical, in
the Deity as it is in itself, not merely in God conceived naturally
as self-subsistent existence, or as self-subsisting intelligence.
Hence sanctifying grace, when it reaches consummation, is the radical
principle of the beatific vision which knows Deity as it is in itself.
Is grace, then, a participation in divine infinity? Not
subjectively, because participation means limitation. But grace
does, objectively, proportion us to see the infinite God as He is.
Created analogical resemblances to God form an ascending scale:
minerals by existence, plants by life, man and angels by
intelligence, all have likeness unto God. But grace alone is like
unto God as God.
3. We cannot, as long as we are here below (in via): see clearly
the harmony between God's will of universal salvation and the
gratuitousness of predestination. That means we cannot see how, in
the transcendent pre-eminence of the Deity, are harmonized and
identified these three attributes: infinite mercy, infinite justice,
and that supreme liberty which in mercy chooses one rather than
another.
Theological contemplation of this pre-eminence of Deity, if it
proceeds from the love of God, disposes us to receive infused
contemplation, which rests on living faith illumined by the gifts of
knowledge and wisdom. This infused contemplation, though surrounded
by a higher and ineffable darkness, still attains that Deity, whom
St. Paul [368] calls "light inaccessible": inaccessible,
that is, to him who has not received the light of glory.
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