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Objection 1: It seems that God is not called blessed in respect to
His intellect. For beatitude is the highest good. But good is said
to be in God in regard to His essence, because good has reference to
being which is according to essence, according to Boethius (De
Hebdom.). Therefore beatitude also is said to be in God in regard
to His essence, and not to His intellect.
Objection 2: Further, Beatitude implies the notion of end. Now
the end is the object of the will, as also is the good. Therefore
beatitude is said to be in God with reference to His will, and not
with reference to His intellect.
On the contrary, Gregory says (Moral. xxxii, 7): "He is in
glory, Who whilst He rejoices in Himself, needs not further
praise." To be in glory, however, is the same as to be blessed.
Therefore, since we enjoy God in respect to our intellect, because
"vision is the whole of the reward," as Augustine says (De Civ.
Dei xxii), it would seem that beatitude is said to be in God in
respect of His intellect.
I answer that, Beatitude, as stated above (Article 1), is the
perfect good of an intellectual nature. Thus it is that, as
everything desires the perfection of its nature, intellectual nature
desires naturally to be happy. Now that which is most perfect in any
intellectual nature is the intellectual operation, by which in some
sense it grasps everything. Whence the beatitude of every intellectual
nature consists in understanding. Now in God, to be and to
understand are one and the same thing; differing only in the manner of
our understanding them. Beatitude must therefore be assigned to God
in respect of His intellect; as also to the blessed, who are called
blesses by reason of the assimilation to His beatitude.
Reply to Objection 1: This argument proves that beatitude belongs
to God; not that beatitude pertains essentially to Him under the
aspect of His essence; but rather under the aspect of His intellect.
Reply to Objection 2: Since beatitude is a good, it is the object
of the will; now the object is understood as prior to the act of a
power. Whence in our manner of understanding, divine beatitude
precedes the act of the will at rest in it. This cannot be other than
the act of the intellect; and thus beatitude is to be found in an act
of the intellect.
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