Chapter 12 — That relations said of God in reference to creatures are not really in God

These relations however which refer to his effects cannot possibly be in God.

For they cannot be in him as accidents in a subject, since no accident is in him, as we proved in the first book. (Bk. 1, ch. 23.) Neither can they be God’s very substance, because, since relative terms are those which essentially refer somehow to something else, as the Philosopher says in the Categories, (Aristotle, Categories, ch. 5, 2a12–b6.) it would follow that God’s substance is essentially referred to something else. Now that which is essentially referred to another depends in some way on it, since it can neither exist nor be understood without it. Hence it would follow that God’s substance is dependent on something else outside it: thus it would not be of itself necessary being, as we have proved in the first book. (Bk. 1, ch. 13.) Therefore, such relations are not really in God.

Again. It was proved in the first book (Bk. 1, ch. 13.) that God is the first measure of all beings. Therefore, God is compared to other beings as knowable things to our knowledge, since opinion or speech is true or false according as a thing is or is not, according to the Philosopher in the Categories. (Aristotle, Categories, ch. 4, 2a6–10.) Now, though a thing is said to be knowable in relation to knowledge, the relation is not really in the knowable, but only in the knowledge: hence, according to the Philosopher, in Metaphysics 5, the knowable is so called relatively, not because it is itself related, but because something else is related to it. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.15, 1021a26.) Therefore, the said relations are not really in God.

Further. The aforesaid relations are said of God not only with respect to those things that are actual, but also with respect to those that are in potency, because he both has knowledge of them, and in reference to them is called the first being and the highest good. But that which is actual has no real relation to that which is not actual but potential, otherwise it would follow that there are actually an infinite number of relations in the same subject, since potentially infinite numbers are greater than the number two, which is prior to them all. Now God is not related to actual things otherwise than to potential things, for he is not changed by the fact that he produces certain things. (Bk. 1, ch. 82.) Therefore, he is not related to other things by a relation really existing in him.

Moreover. Whatever receives something anew must be changed, either essentially or accidentally. Now certain relations are said of God anew (for instance, that he is Lord or governor of a thing which begins anew to exist). Therefore, if a relation were predicated of God as really existing in him, it would follow that something accrues to God anew, and consequently that he is changed either essentially or accidentally: the contrary of which was proved in the first book. (Bk. 1, ch. 13.)