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Objection 1: It would seem that God did not rest on the seventh day
from all His work. For it is said (Jn. 5:17), "My Father
worketh until now, and I work." God, then, did not rest on the
seventh day from all His work.
Objection 2: Further, rest is opposed to movement, or to labor,
which movement causes. But, as God produced His work without
movement and without labor, He cannot be said to have rested on the
seventh day from His work.
Objection 3: Further, should it be said that God rested on the
seventh day by causing man to rest; against this it may be argued that
rest is set down in contradistinction to His work; now the words
"God created" or "made" this thing or the other cannot be explained
to mean that He made man create or make these things. Therefore the
resting of God cannot be explained as His making man to rest.
On the contrary, It is said (Gn. 2:2): "God rested on the
seventh day from all the work which He had done."
I answer that, Rest is, properly speaking, opposed to movement,
and consequently to the labor that arises from movement. But although
movement, strictly speaking, is a quality of bodies, yet the word is
applied also to spiritual things, and in a twofold sense. On the one
hand, every operation may be called a movement, and thus the Divine
goodness is said to move and go forth to its object, in communicating
itself to that object, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii). On
the other hand, the desire that tends to an object outside itself, is
said to move towards it. Hence rest is taken in two senses, in one
sense meaning a cessation from work, in the other, the satisfying of
desire. Now, in either sense God is said to have rested on the
seventh day. First, because He ceased from creating new creatures on
that day, for, as said above (Article 1, ad 3), He made
nothing afterwards that had not existed previously, in some degree, in
the first works; secondly, because He Himself had no need of the
things that He had made, but was happy in the fruition of Himself.
Hence, when all things were made He is not said to have rested "in"
His works, as though needing them for His own happiness, but to have
rested "from" them, as in fact resting in Himself, as He suffices
for Himself and fulfils His own desire. And even though from all
eternity He rested in Himself, yet the rest in Himself, which He
took after He had finished His works, is that rest which belongs to
the seventh day. And this, says Augustine, is the meaning of
God's resting from His works on that day (Gen. ad lit. iv).
Reply to Objection 1: God indeed "worketh until now" by
preserving and providing for the creatures He has made, but not by the
making of new ones.
Reply to Objection 2: Rest is here not opposed to labor or to
movement, but to the production of new creatures, and to the desire
tending to an external object.
Reply to Objection 3: Even as God rests in Himself alone and is
happy in the enjoyment of Himself, so our own sole happiness lies in
the enjoyment of God. Thus, also, He makes us find rest in
Himself, both from His works and our own. It is not, then,
unreasonable to say that God rested in giving rest to us. Still,
this explanation must not be set down as the only one, and the other is
the first and principal explanation.
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