Chapter 92 — How virtues are to be ascribed to God

In sequence to what has been said we must show how virtues are to be ascribed to God. For just as his being is universally perfect, in some way containing within itself the perfection of all beings, (Ch. 28.) so must his goodness in some way comprise the various kinds of goodness of all things. (Ch. 40.) Now virtue is a kind of goodness of the virtuous person, since in respect of it he is said to be good, and his work good. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106a15–23.) It follows, therefore, that the divine goodness contains in its own way all virtues.

Therefore, none of them is ascribed as a habit to God as it is to us. For it is not befitting God to be good through something else added to him, but by his essence, for he is altogether simple. (Cc. 18, 38.) Nor does he act by anything added to his essence, since his action is his being, as we have shown. (Cc. 45, 73.) Therefore, his virtue is not a habit, but his essence.

Again. Habit is imperfect act, a mean, as it were, between potency and act. Therefore, one who has a habit is compared to a person asleep. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.1.) But in God there is most perfect act. Hence act in him is not like a habit, as knowledge, but like “to consider,” which is an ultimate and perfect act.

Again. Habit perfects a potency, but in God nothing is potential but only actual. (Ch. 16.) Therefore, a habit cannot be in him.

Further. Habit is a kind of accident: and this is utterly foreign to God, as we have proved above. (Ch. 23.) Neither, therefore, is virtue ascribed to God as a habit, but only as his essence.

Now since it is by human virtues that human life is regulated, and since human life is twofold, contemplative and active, those virtues which belong to the active life, as perfecting it, cannot be becoming to God.

For the active life of man consists in the use of bodily goods: therefore, those virtues by which we use these goods aright regulate the active life. But these goods cannot be befitting God. Therefore, neither can these virtues, insofar as they regulate this life.

Again. The same virtues perfect man’s conduct in his civil life: hence they do not seem very applicable to those who have nothing to do with the civil life. Much less, therefore, can they be applied to God, whose conduct and life are far removed from the manner of human life.

Moreover. Some of the virtues that are concerned with the active life regulate us in regard to the passions. These we cannot ascribe to God. For those virtues which are concerned with the passions take their species from those very passions as from their proper objects: thus temperance differs from fortitude because the former is about desires, while the latter is about fear and daring. But in God there are no passions, as we have proved. (Ch. 89.) Neither, therefore, can these virtues be in God.

Again. These same virtues are not in the intellective part of the soul, but in the sensitive part, in which alone can the passions be, as is proved in Physics 7.3. But there is no sensitive faculty in God, but only intellect. (Cc. 20, 27.) It follows, therefore, that these virtues cannot be in God, even according to their proper signification.

Some of the passions about which these virtues are concerned result from an inclination of the appetite to some bodily good that is pleasant to the senses—for instance, meat, drink, and sexual matters. And in respect of the desires for these things there are sobriety, chastity, and speaking in a general way, temperance and continence. Therefore, since bodily pleasures are utterly removed from God, the aforesaid virtues neither apply to God properly, since they are about the passions, nor even are they applied to God metaphorically in the Scriptures, because no likeness to them is to be found in God as regards a likeness in their effects. (Cf. ch. 91.)

And there are some passions resulting from an inclination of the appetite to a spiritual good, such as honor, dominion, victory, revenge, and so forth: and there are fortitude, magnanimity, meekness, and other like virtues about our hopes, darings, and any acts of the appetite in respect of these things. These cannot be in God properly, because they are about the passions, but they are applied metaphorically to God in Scripture, on account of a likeness of effect. For instance: there is none brave like our God (1 Sam 2:2); and: seek the meek, seek the good (Zeph 2:3).