CHAPTER XXI: QUESTION 47 THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS IN GENERAL


INTRODUCTION

After considering the production of creatures in being we proceed to the distinction of things. Why? Because the first property of being is unity, to which is opposed multitude, which implies the distinction of things. Hence we treat first in question 47 of the distinction of things. Here we do not institute a search, as in the fourth proof for the existence of God, but we proceed synthetically from first principles, considering that vast problem, discussed at great length by the Greek philosophers, especially by Plato, of how the multitude can proceed from the one, most simple, supreme principle. The Greek philosophers were not able to solve the problem, and it appears again in evolutionism. In question 48 we treat of the distinction between good and evil. Why? Because good is another property of being. In this question we are given the definition of metaphysical evil. Finally, in question 50 we consider the distinction between spiritual and corporeal creatures. In these three questions, then, we have a treatise on the properties of created being. As a complement to these considerations, we have the treatise on the angels, where St. Thomas also treats of the creature as such, that is, whether the created substance is immediately operative or whether it requires a faculty or an operative potency.[891]

In the Parisian Codex (in the National Library) question 47 has only three articles: 1. the multitude and the distinction of things; 2. their inequality; 3. the unity of the world. The Cassinese Codex, however, has a fourth article inserted between the second and third of the Parisian Codex, entitled, whether there is an order of agents among creatures. This article was written either by St. Thomas himself or by one of his disciples and it is based on what is said on this matter in the "Contra Gentes" (Bk. II, chap. 42). The Leonine edition gives this article in small type. At any rate, this article is a complement to the present question, serving as a preamble to the last article, and it contains the true teaching of St. Thomas.