CHAPTER XXIII: QUESTION 104 THE CONSERVATION OF CREATURES

[949] Heb. 1:3

[950] Acts 17:28

[951] Rom. 11:36.

[952] Col. 1:17

[953] Super Gen. ad litt., Bk. VIII, chap. 12

[954] St. Thomas offers examples from the ancient physics, according to which light belonged essentially to the sun; we now know that the sun is only one among innumerable similar stars. But there are other examples: heat is not only necessary to produce the expansion of metals but to maintain that expansion. Similarly, the good proposed by the cognitive faculty is not only necessary to excite the desire for it but also to maintain that desire

[955] cf. Summa Theol., Ia, q. 8, a. 1.

[956] Thus St. Thomas excels his commentators. Not only does he beget us intellectually but he also preserves us in his teaching, while the professor who transmitted to us the teaching of St. Thomas was only the cause of our formation with regard to the becoming, not directly with regard to the being. cf. Summa Theol., Ia, q. 117, a. 1: "Whether one man can teach another. The teacher is the cause of knowledge in the learner, since he reduces the learner from potency to act..... Every teacher, teaching on the basis of what the pupil knows' leads him to the knowledge of the things he did not know." But great geniuses, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas, not only propose the subject matter in a methodical way, but they also strengthen the intellect of the student since they had such a deep understanding of higher principles and of the things that are virtually contained in these principles. Thus they are in a way like the illuminating angels. cf. Summa Theol., Ia, q. 106, a. 1.

[957] cf. Aristotle, Post. Analyt., Bk. I, chap. 4, lect. 10

[958] cf. Summa Theol., Ia, q. 106-14, on the illumination of the angels, etc.

[959] Ps. 134:6.

[960] "Dieu n'est pas plus grand pour avoir cree l'universe."

[961] Eccles. 3:14

[962] H. Poincare, La science et l'hypothese, 112-19; cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu, son existence et sa nature (7th edition), pp. 774-79