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[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
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