Article 9 — Whether these relations between creatures and God are really in the creatures themselves

The ninth point of inquiry is whether these relations between creatures and God are really in the creatures themselves. (Parallel texts: ST I.13.7; I.34.3, ad 2; I.6.2, ad 1; I.28.1, ad 3; I.28.4, resp.; I.45.3, ad 1; III.2.7, resp.; In I Sent. 30.1; 37.2.3; On Truth, q. 4, a. 5. See above: q. 3, a. 3.)

Obj. 1: And it would seem that they are not. For there are certain relations which posit nothing real on either side, as Avicenna says of the relation between being and non-being. (Avicenna, The Metaphysics of the Healing 4.10.) Now, no relatives are further apart than God and the creature. Therefore, this relation posits nothing real on either side.

Obj. 2: We must not assert anything that leads to a progression into infinity. Now, if a relation to God is something real in a creature, we shall have to go on to infinity, since that relation will be something created, if it be something real, and therefore it itself will likewise bear another relation to God, and so on to infinity. Therefore, we must not assert that the relation to God is something real in a creature.

Obj. 3: Nothing has a relation except to one definite thing; thus, a double is not related to anything but its half; and a father is not related except to his son, and so on. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 4.6, 1011b7–14.) Therefore, according to the difference of the things that are related, there must be a difference of the things toward which the relation exists. Now, God is simply one being. Therefore, there can be no real relation in creatures to him.

Obj. 4: The creature is related to God inasmuch as it proceeds from him. Now, the creature proceeds from God as to its very substance. Therefore, it is related to God according to its substance and not according to any additional relation.

Obj. 5: A relation is a kind of mean between the related extremes. But there can be no real mean between God and the creature, created by him immediately. Therefore, a relation to God is nothing real in the creature.

Obj. 6: The Philosopher says that if all appearances were true, reality would follow our opinion and senses. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 4.5, 1010b1–1011a2.) Now, it is clear that all created things follow the judgment (that is, the knowledge) of their Creator. Therefore, all creatures are referred to God by their substance and not by an inherent relation.

Obj. 7: It would seem that the more things are distant from one another the less are they related. Now, there is a greater distance between the creature and God than between one created thing and another. But it seems that the relation between one creature and another is not a real thing, for since it is not a substance, it must be an accident and consequently must be in a subject and therefore cannot be removed therefrom without the subject changing; and yet we have asserted the contrary to be the case with relations. Therefore, the creature’s relation to God is not something real.

Obj. 8: Just as a created being is infinitely distant from non-being, so also is it infinitely distant from God. But there is no relation between created being and absolute non-being, according to Avicenna. (Avicenna, The Metaphysics of the Healing 4.11.) Neither, therefore, is there a relation between created being and uncreated being.

On the contrary (1), Augustine says: it is evident that whatever at some time begins to be predicated of God whereas it was not predicated of him before is said of him relatively—not, however, according to an accident in God (as if something had accrued to him), but clearly according to an accident in the thing in relation to which God begins to be predicated. (Augustine, On the Trinity 5.16 (PL 42:923–24).) Now, an accident is something real in its subject. Therefore, relation to God is something in the creature.

Furthermore (2), whatsoever is related to a thing through its change is really related thereto. Now, the creature is related to God through its change. Therefore, it is really related to God.

I answer that the relation to God is something real in the creature. To make this clear we must observe that, as the Commentator says on Metaphysics 11, because of all the categories relation has the feeblest existence, some have thought that it should be reckoned among the second things understood. For first things understood are the realities outside the soul, into the understanding of which the intellect is first carried. But the second things understood are called the “intentions” consequent on our mode of understanding; for the intellect understands this secondarily, inasmuch as it reflects on its very self and understands both its own act of understanding and the mode whereby it is understanding. (Averroes, Commentary on the Metaphysics 11, comm. 19.)

According to this view, then, it would follow that a relation is not in the realities outside the soul but only in the intellect, just as the intention of a genus, or a species, and secondary substances.

But this is impossible, because nothing is assigned to a category except a reality existing outside the soul. For the being of reason is divided against the being that is divided by the ten categories, as is clear from Metaphysics 5. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.7, 1017a22–b9.) But if relation were not in the realities outside the soul, it would not be asserted as toward-something, one genus of the categories. Moreover, the perfection and goodness that are in realities outside the soul are ascribed not only to something absolutely inhering in real things but also to the order of one real thing to another; thus, even the good of an army consists in the order of its parts, to which order the Philosopher compares the order of the universe. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 10.8, 1058a10–28; cf. 12.10, 1075a11–24.)

Consequently, there must be order in the realities themselves; but this order is a certain relation. Therefore, there must be relations in things themselves, by which one thing is ordered to another. Now, one reality is ordered to another either as to quantity or as to active or passive power, for on these two counts alone can we find something in one thing with reference to something extrinsic.

For a thing is measured not only by its intrinsic quantity but also by an extrinsic quantity. And also, each thing acts on another through an active power, and through its passive power it is acted on by another. But through its substance and quality a thing is ordered to itself alone and not to another—except accidentally: namely, inasmuch as a quality, substantial form, or matter holds the account of an active or passive power, and insofar as one may ascribe to them a certain account of quantity; thus, insofar as the one in substance makes the same, and the one in quality makes the like, and number or multitude causes the unlike and the diverse in the same things; and the unlike also insofar as one thing is considered as being more or less so than another, for thus, one thing is said to be whiter than another. Hence the Philosopher, in giving the species of relations, says in Metaphysics 5 that some are caused by quantity and some by action and passion. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.15, 1021a9–b8.)

Accordingly, things that are ordered to something must be really related to it, and this relation must be some real thing in them. Now, all creatures are ordered to God both as to their beginning and as to their end, since the order of the parts of the universe to one another results from the order of the whole universe to God, just as the order of the parts of an army is on account of the order of the whole army to its commander, as is clear in Metaphysics 12. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.10, 1075a13–1076a4.) Therefore, creatures are really related to God, and this very relation is something real in the creature.

Reply Obj. 1: That between one creature and another there is a relation that posits nothing in either extreme is not due to the distance between them; rather, it is due to the fact that certain relations are based not on any order in the realities but on an order which is only in our intellect; but this does not apply to the order of creatures to God.

Reply Obj. 2: The relations themselves are not related to something else through any further relation but through their very selves, because they are essentially relations. It is not the same with things whose substance is absolute, so this does not lead to an infinite process.

Reply Obj. 3: The Philosopher concludes that, if all things are related to the supreme good, the supreme good must be infinite in its species, (Aristotle, Metaphysics 11.10, 1066a35–1067a37; 12.7, 1072a26–1073a13; 12.8, 1074a17–37; 12.10, 1075a36–39, 1075b24–1076a4.) and accordingly, an infinite number of things can be related to that which is infinite in its species. Such is God, since the perfection of his substance is not confined to any genus, as we have stated above. For this reason, an infinite number of creatures can be related to God.

Reply Obj. 4: The creature is related to God according to its own substance as according to the cause of the relation and according to that very relation formally; thus, a thing is said to be like in quality causally speaking and like in likeness formally speaking. And due to this the creature is denominated “like.”

Reply Obj. 5: When it is said that the creature proceeds from God immediately, we exclude an intermediate creative cause but not the intermediate real relationship, which latter arises naturally from the creature’s production; just as equality results immediately from the production of quantity in an indeterminate way, so too a real relationship follows naturally the production of created substance.

Reply Obj. 6: Creatures depend on God’s knowledge as an effect depends on its cause, not as the proper account of their existence, such that nothing else is a creature’s existence than its being known by God. But this was the view of those who contended that all appearances are true, and that the reality follows opinion and sensation, such that to exist would be nothing but to be sensed or opined.

Reply Obj. 7: The very relation that is nothing but the order of one creature to another holds one thing insofar as it is an accident and something else insofar as it is a relation or order. For insofar as it is an accident it has that it is in a subject, but this is not so insofar as it is a relation or order; for in this way it is merely toward-another, something passing, as it were, to another and in a certain way existing-toward the thing related. Accordingly, a relation is something inhering but not by the fact that it is a relation; just as action as action is considered as from the agent but as an accident is considered as in the subject acting. Therefore, nothing prevents such an accident from ceasing to exist without any change in its subject, because its own account is not completed insofar as it is in the subject itself but insofar as it goes across to something else; and if this be removed, the account of this accident is removed as regards the act but remains as regards its cause; just as also if the matter be removed, the heating is removed, even though the cause of the heating would remain.

Reply Obj. 8: There is no order of created being toward non-being, but it does have an order to uncreated being; hence the comparison fails.