Article I. Attributes relative to the being of God

These attributes, as we have said, are those properties of being in general which are found in God in the highest possible degree of perfection. They are unity, truth, and goodness. Then come infinity which excludes all limitation of essence, immensity

• Cf, Met., Bk. II, ch. i, in which Aristotle states that divine things are more intelligible in themselves than all other things, although relatively to us they are dificult of apprehension, because they are beyond the reach of sense perception.

and ubiquity which exclude all spatial limitation, eternity which excludes any time limit. Finally, as regards our knowledge, the divine Being is invisible, incomprehensible, and nevertheless able to be known by analogy derived from created things.

46. Unity and simplicity; truth; perfection and goodness; infinity.

He who is Being itself is absolutely one and simple. Unity is the undividedness of being; every being, considered as such, is one or undivided. If it were divided, it would no longer be one being, but two beings (Ia, q. 11, a. 1). However, it is possible for a being to be divisible or to be composed of parts. We can distinguish in it either quantitative parts, as in the case of a material thing, or the parts constituting its essence (matter and form, body and soul), or the logical parts (genus and the specific difference: animality and rationality). We may also distinguish in it the abstract and the concrete (humanity and this man), substance and accident, or, finally, essence and existence.

Now there can be no kind of composition in the self-subsisting Being. As He possesses all the perfection of being, He must also have all the perfection of unity, since this latter is a property of being (la, q. 11, a. 4). Besides, every composite demands a cause.! Now Being itself is uncaused. In every composite, what belongs properly to the whole cannot be predicated of the parts, for these are less perfect than the whole. But everything in the self-subsisting Being is identified with this very Being, and there is no imperfection in Him (la, q. 3, a. 7). We may consider all the modes of composition, and not one of these can be applied to Him (Ia, q. 3).

There are no quantitative parts in Him, since He is not corporeal. He is not composed of matter and form, for these are merely imperfect and limiting modes of being. He is not composed of genus and differentia, since self-existing Being, tran-

scending the limits of all genera, is what properly constitutes Him. He is not a composite of essence and existence, since He is existence itself. We cannot distinguish in Him between what is abstract or universal (the Deity), and what is concrete or individual (God), since the concrete is opposed to the abstract by reason of its individualized material conditions and actual existence. Now the self-subsisting Being does not admit of individualized material conditions, and He is essentially actual existence. It is impossible to distinguish in Him between substance and accident, since His substance, supremely determined by itself, is incapable of further determinations.

The subsisting Being is therefore absolutely one and simple, and consequently ever unique of its kind. If there could be a multiplication of the Deity, we should be able to distinguish in each of the gods the abstract from the concrete, the divine essence common to all of them from their individualized conditions. There would be two divine existences. The Deity would no more then be existence itself, the self-subsisting Being (la, q. 11, a. 3).

He who is Being itself is the First Truth. Every being is true in so far as it is in conformity with its eternal type. Thus we say, when we notice that a metal is of the nature of gold, that it is genuine gold and not merely what passes for gold. Or again we say of a plant that it is a real and not an artificial plant, and of a man that he is a real savant. According to this primary acceptation of the term, truth is called ontological. We say also of a judgment that it is true, in so far as it is in conformity with the thing judged. This is called logical or formal truth (Ia, q. 16, a. 1, 2, 3).

The self-subsisting Being is not only in conformity with an eternal type known by the divine intellect, but, by reason of His absolute simplicity, He is the divine intellect itself always in act (Ia, q. 16, a. 4). He is therefore the First Truth, and in Him are identified ontological and logical truth, the real and the ideal.

Contrary to the testimony of conscience and to the principle of contradiction, Hegel identifies the idea of being in general with the reality of being in general, and ends in panlogism. The principle of contradiction or that of identity obliges us in each case to identify in God, but in God alone, the self-subsisting Being and the supreme Intelligible always actually known.

Without ending in panlogism, which means the negation of creative liberty and of human liberty, the fact remains that the First Truth is immutable and eternal, the cause and the supreme measure of all other truth, just as the self-subsisting Being is the principle of all other beings which are analogous reproductions of the perfections contained in this Being.

He who is Being itself is perfection and sovereign Goodness. Every being is good according to the degree of its being. Even if it possesses only substance, in spite of its deficiencies it has a certain goodness, the goodness of being. In it we find verified the laws of created being as such, thus revealing to us the existence of the primary being, and that itself is a real goodness. But we do not say of a thing that it is good, except when it has that perfection which is appropriate to its nature. Thus we speak of a stone as good for building purposes, of a good fruit, of a good servant, of a good horse. The goodness of a being is that perfection which makes it desirable and lovable, inasmuch as it has in itself the capacity of perfecting things, and of corresponding to some need or desire (Ia, q. 5).

Now the first cause of all beings, the source of all life in the universe, must possess all created perfections in an eminent degree. Moreover, since this cause is the self-subsisting Being, it has of necessity all the perfection which pertains to being, and consequently all absolute perfections which are but modes of being (la, q. 4, a. 2; q. 5, a. 2). God is thus essentially sovereign goodness, and there is no accidental or acquired goodness in Him. By His very essence He is His own end and that of every- thing else. Every creature tends toward its own perfection, which is a participated likeness of supreme perfection. Thus there is a corresponding proportion between the various agents and their respective ends.

From this it follows, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 60, a. 5), that “every creature is naturally inclined to love God in its own way more than itself. Thus in the human body the hand is, without deliberation, exposed to the blow for the safety of the whole body, of which it is a part. It belongs, indeed, more to the whole than to itself. Otherwise, it would follow that this natural inclination is perverse.” In free beings, liberty may be contrary to this natural inclination but cannot destroy it. It must follow this inclination after the manner of a known cause. It is clear that we must love the sovereign Good more than ourselves, since it is infinitely better than ourselves.

Since God is the sovereign Good, it follows that He cannot be the cause of evil as such. Evil is either physical or moral (Ia, q. 48, a. 5, 6). God can in no way will moral evil or sin, which is the result of preferring created good to the sovereign Good. God cannot prefer anything to the sovereign Good, which is Himself. He can only permit sin though disapproving it. Furthermore, only because He has a higher good in view, does He permit that the free will, which by nature is defectible, should fail to function properly, because He is good enough and powerful enough to draw good even out of evil. Thus persecution is permitted by God as the means of the martyr’s glory (Ia, q. 19, a. 10).

As to physical evil, such as our sufferings or those of animals, God cannot be said to will these directly, but only accidentally, as being the means of a higher good. Thus the death of a gazelle becomes the means of life for the lion; our sufferings enable us to practise patience; the punishments inflicted by God lead us to repentance and manifest His justice and the inalienable right of the sovereign Good to be loved above all things (Ia, q. 49, a. 2).

He who is Being itself is infinite in perfection. There is a kind of imperfect infinity which can be attributed to matter in that it is not determined. Matter receives its perfection from the form by which it is determined, just as the clay receives its perfection from the form of the statue. On the contrary, there is a formal infinity which consists in that perfection which is independent of all material limitations. Thus the ideal in the mind of the artist may be reproduced indefinitely and, before it becomes a reality limited to a certain locality in space and to a certain portion of matter, it is in a certain sense infinite. Now, of all formal perfections, the most perfect is that of being, which is the ultimate actuality of all things. The self-subsistent Being is therefore infinite, not as a corporeal or extended infinity, but as a spiritual infinity of perfection which surpasses not only all spatial and material limitations but even all limitations of essence. In Him existence is not received in an essence capable of receiving existence. He is eternally subsisting and unreceived existence itself.” Thus God is supremely determined; perfection in His case is without limitations. He is incomprehensible, “the infinite

2See St. Thomas, Ia, q. 7, a. 1: “A thing is called infinite because it is not finite. Matter is in a way made finite by form, and the form by matter; Matter, indeed, made finite by form, inasmuch as matter, before it receives its form, is in potentiality to many forms; but on receiving a form, it is terminated by that one. Again, form is made finite by matter, inasmuch as form, considered in itself, is common to many; but when received in matter, the form is determined to this one particular thing. Now matter is perfected by the form by which it is made finite; therefore, infinite as attributed to matter has the nature of something imperfect; for it is as it were formless matter, On the other hand, form is not made perfect by matter, but rather is contracted by matter, and hence the infinite, regarded on the part of the form not determined by matter, has the nature of something imperfect.

“Now being is the most formal of all things, as appears from what is shown above (la, q. 4, a. 1). Since therefore the divine being is not a being received in anything, but He is His own subsistent being (Ia, q. 3, a. 4), it is clear that God Himself is infinite and perfect.”

ocean of being.” Hence it follows that He is infinite in wisdom, in goodness, in power, and in all His perfections.

Thus the infinity which we deduce from the notion of selfsubsisting Being may also be proved a posteriori by considering that the production of finite beings as such presupposes an active and infinite power which is possessed only by an infinite and perfect cause. In fact, a finite cause cannot produce any effect whatever, except by the transformation of a pre-existing subject which is capable of this transformation. Thus the sculptor cannot produce a statue unless he has the required material. A teacher gradually molds the intelligence of the pupil, but he did not give him intelligence. Now the more destitute the passive potentiality is, which is a prerequisite of our activity, the richer and more productive must be the active potentiality. The most that we can say is that, when the passive potentiality is nothing more than a mere possibility or non-repugnance to existence, then the active potentiality must be infinite. It follows that, however low in the scale of being a finite being may be, to produce the totality of its being from nothing requires an infinite power which is found only in an infinitely perfect being. Therefore the first cause of all things which exist must be an infinitely perfect one.?

Pantheism objects to this as follows: but nothing can be added

3 This proof is given by St. Thomas (Ia, q. 45, a. 5 ad 3um) as follows: “The power of the matter is reckoned not only from the substance of the thing made, but also from the mode of its being made; for a greater heat heats not only more, but quicker. Therefore, although to create a finite effect does not show an infinite power, still to create it from nothing does show an infinite power: which appears from the preceding reply. For if a greater power is required in the agent in proportion to the distance of the potentiality from the act, it follows that the power of that agent is infinite (which produces something) from no presupposed potentiality; because there is no proportion between no potentiality and the potentiality presupposed by the power of a natural agent, and there is no proportion between not-being and being. And because no creature has simply an infinite power, any more than it has an infinite being, as appears above (q. 7, a. 2), it follows that no creature can create.”

to the infinite. If, therefore, the world is added as a new reality to the being of God, the being of God is not infinite.

It is easy to answer this objection. We agree that nothing can be added to the infinite in the same order. But the contradiction of Pantheism consists in adding finite modes to the infinite, in such a way that the infinite is at the same time finite. But reason does not reject the idea that in an inferior order something may be added to the infinite, just as the effect is added to the eminent cause producing it. To deny such a possibility would be refusing to infinite Being the perfection of causality, and hence He would be no longer infinite.

But Pantheism maintains that, after the production of created beings, there is more being than there was before. Thus we find ourselves maintaining what we imputed as an error to the Evolutionists, namely, that the greater comes from the less.

There is not more being or more perfection as a consequence of creation; rather there are many beings; just as when a teacher has trained a pupil, there is not an increase in the sum of knowledge, but an increase in the number of the learned. Yet this is but a faint analogy. No matter how excellent a teacher may be, he and his school are more perfect than he is alone. But if a cause is infinite, it already contains eminently all the perfections of its effects.

In the order of quantity, it is true to say that infinity plus one is still infinity. If we suppose that the series of days had no beginning, or that it is infinite æ parte ante (regressively), then the addition of other days is possible a parte post (successively). It is only from the finite point of view (in ratione finiti) that the series admits of increase, inasmuch as it is finite in one direction. Inasmuch as the series is infinite, it admits of no increase.

If we speak of the infinity of perfection (which means plenitude not of quantity or extent, but of being, of life, of wisdom, of love, of holiness), then with greater reason we must declare it to be evident that, as a consequence of creation, there is not more perfection, more being, more life, more wisdom, more holiness. But that presupposes that being is analogous and not univocal, Only on this condition do we find that the First Being contains within Himself the plenitude of being.

47. Immensity, immutability, eternity.

If we consider the self-subsisting Being as He is related to space, we attribute to Him immensity and ubiquity. When we say that He is immense, we mean that He is immeasurable, and able to be in every place. In attributing ubiquity to Him, we affirm that He is actually present everywhere. Before creation God was immense, but He was not actually present in all things, since things as yet did not exist. He is everywhere by His power, to which all things are subject; by His presence, since He knows everything, even to the smallest details; by His essence, inasmuch as He maintains all things in existence by means of His preservative act which is His very being. As God creates immediately and not through the medium of a creature or of an instrument, so His preservative act, which is the continuation of His creative act, extends immediately to the very being itself of all created things, to that which is innermost in each of them.‘

Thus, without being corporeal, simply by virtual contact, the supreme Being who is a pure spirit, is in every place and in all parts of space in which there are bodies. Moreover, He is present to all spirits, that type of being which is not subject to spatial limitations, preserving them in their being as He preserves all created things. This immensity and ubiquity have nothing material and quantitative about them, as Spinoza incorrectly thought to be so. There is not a grosser conception than to imagine God, who is Being itself, to have a body without limitations, as though

He were like a circle with its circumference everywhere and its center nowhere. Since He is pure spirit, He is above all considerations of space; and by His creative and preservative power He maintains all material bodies, somewhat as the sun is present to the rays emanating from it, as a principle is present to its immediate consequences, as a soul is present to the thoughts coming from it. Thus God is present to all beings, to all souls of which He is eminently the center. To be conscious of this presence is to approach Him and all creatures in Him. “For in him we live and move and are” (Acts 18:28).

He who is Being itself is absolutely immutable. He can acquire nothing, not being in potentiality for further determination, since He is supremely determined and pure act. Neither can He lose anything, since He is absolutely simple. This absolute stability of the divine being applies necessarily to His wisdom and will. All mutability, all progress in knowledge or in love presupposes imperfection. This immutability is not that of inertia or of death. On the contrary, it is the immutability of supreme life which possesses everything which it can and must have, there being no need of acquiring it and no possibility of losing it (Ia, q. 9).

Eternity consists in the uniformity of an unchangeable life which has neither beginning nor end, and which is possessed all at once. “Eternity is a simultaneously full and perfect possession of interminable life.” 5 It is said of Mozart that he always heard a melody, not successively, like other listeners, but “simultaneously,” in the law itself of its composition. Plato (Timaeus, 37, d) calls time “the mobile image of motionless eternity.” Even if time were without either beginning or end, it would none the less continue to pass. It never stops, it is fleeting. We necessarily distinguish in time between the past, the present, and the future.

5 Boethius, De consolatione, Il, 2. For an explanation of this, see St. Thomas, Ta, q. 10, a. 1.

It is the measure of motion, which presupposes a “before” and an “after.” We, too, reckon days according to the apparent motion of the sun.

Our life is a diversified one; in it hours succeed one another varied by work, prayer, fatigue, and sleep. Certain holy souls, who have reached the stage of almost continual union with God, rise above this variety and this flight of time. For these the time of work is still the time of prayer. We may say that theirs is a complete life of faith. Instead of leading a divided and scattered life, they have unified it. If, then, there is a life that never had a beginning and will never have an end, and that is also absolutely immutable and hence completely present to itself in one permanent instant, in one absolute “now,” this life . concentrates within itself in an eminent way all the various moments which succeed one another in time (Ja, q. 10). Such is eternity. It is the uniformity of an unchangeable and unlimited life, which is present to itself all at once. This contemplation of God causes us to pause at times in our reflections, and gives us some idea of the nature of this uniformity and plenitude of the divine life. “Join thy heart to the eternity of God, and with Him thou shalt be eternal,” says St. Augustine. “Join thyself to the eternity of God; with Him wait for those things which are beneath thee.”® On the contrary, whoever simply goes back in thought thousands of millions of years, multiplying this number again by itself, even inferring with Aristotle that there was no beginning to this series of days, such a one does not get beyond the range of passing time and does not at all arrive at the idea of motionless eternity. A man held captive by the senses may look upon this latter as death. But for one whose life is spent here on earth in the contemplation of God, it is time that seems to be an unceasing death, or a life such that the sole purpose of its realization is for it to end in death.

It is infinity which separates the “absolute now” from the “fleeting now,” the “standing now” from the “passing now” which is all that time really is (Ia, q. 10, a. 4). Time is the consummation of instability.

What are the points of resemblance between creative evolution and divine eternity? Some have endeavored to substitute the former for the latter. Creative evolution is the essence of inconstancy, seeking itself and fleeing from itself. How can it be said to create itself? To do so it would have to be already in existence, in fact it would have to be Being itself and not a becoming which is continually vanishing.

By way of objection we are told that creative action, such as we conceive it to be, since it must be eternal, can have only an eternal effect, and can produce nothing new. Once the cause is posited in act, the effect must follow immediately. If, then, the divine action is eternal, the effect must be eternal, too.

This difficulty arises from confusing necessary causes, whose operations take place in time, with a free cause of a higher order than time. Necessary and temporal causes, when in act, immediately produce their effects. A free cause, of a higher order than time, produces time itself as it produces movement, which is measured by time. This cause is free both as to the time and manner of the production, not having to come into action, since there can be no question of any succession in this cause.”

Eternity is still a mystery for us, though in itself it is more intelligible than time is. On first consideration, time seems to be something obvious, because we find it to be a fact attested by experience; but in itself, it may be very obscure, scarcely intelligible, on the border line of intelligibility, because it belongs to the outer confines of being. A thing is intelligible according to the degree of its actuality. “Everything is intelligible according as it is actual,” is St. Thomas’ frequently repeated quotation

T See Contra Gentes, Bk. Il, ch, xxxv.

from Aristotle, Eternity, which is the uniformity of the wisdom and life of the absolute Being, is obscure for us only because it is too bright a light for the feebleness of the mind’s eye.

48. Invisibility, incomprehensibility, knowableness.

Compared with our naturally acquired knowledge, whether of the sensitive or the intellectual order, the divine Being remains invisible, precisely because He is too luminous in Himself. “Everything is knowable according as it is actual,” says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 12, a. 1); “consequently God, who is pure act without any admixture of potentiality or imperfection, is in Himself supremely knowable. But what is supremely knowable in itself, may not be knowable to a particular intellect, on account of the excess of the intelligible object above the intellect. Thus the sun, which is supremely visible, cannot be seen by the bat by reason of its excess of light.” This comparison was a familiar one with Plato and Aristotle (Met., Bk. I, ch. ii).

Evidently God, who is a pure spirit, cannot be seen by bodily eyes which perceive only sensible things. Neither can He be seen by the merely natural powers of any created intellect. The proper object of this intellect, which is created being, must be proportionate to it. Moreover, the proper object of the human intellect, naturally united with a body, is the intelligibility of things sensible.® Hence it is only through the mirror of sensible

8 This doctrine of St. Thomas regarding the proper objects of human, angelic, and divine intellects, and regarding their common and adequate object, may be tabulated as follows:

divine ... proper object ... divine essence all ne + «+. proper object... angelic essence Being human ... proper object... essence of things f (adequate object) sensible

Intellect in general, like being in general, is analogous. The various analogates of the intellect correspond to the various analogates of intelligible being.

Thus we sce that the divine essence, such as it is in itself, exceeds the proper object of our intellect and cannot be known in a natural way. But it does not things that we can acquire a natural knowledge of God, just as we know causes through the perfections reflected in the effects. A created intellect, however elevated in the scale of being, even if it were the highest that we can think of in the angelic order, cannot acquire a natural knowledge of God except through the medium of spiritual beings (Ia, q. 12, a. 4, 12; q. 56, a. 3).

God Himself cannot give us any created idea which is representative in itself of His divine essence such as it actually is. This created idea could not be intelligible except by participation and so it would be incapable of representing the unparticipated Intelligibility, the ever actual and eternally subsistent Intellection, “the self-subsisting intellect” (la, q. 12, a. 2).

Yet there is no repugnance in the idea that God, by an absolutely gratuitous gift, by a purely supernatural light, should so fortify our intellect that it could see Him as He sees Himself. Although, to be sure, the divine essence surpasses the proper object of our intellect, it does not surpass the adequate object, which is “being” in all its amplitude. The divine essence, such as it is in itself, still belongs to the category of being. Although the formal concept of the Deity transcends the formal concept of being (super ens, above being), nevertheless this latter is formally contained in the eminence of the Deity. To see supreme Being as it actually is, without any admixture of potentiality or of imperfection, one must see the Deity (Ia, q. 12, a. 4 ad 3um).®

The natural desire that we have of seeing God’s essence is also a sign that it is possible for us to be elevated above our natural state so as to see God in the supernatural order. (See Ia, q. 12, a. 1; Ia Iae, q. 3, a. 8; Contra Gentes, Bk. III, ch. 1.)

Plato, toward the end of his dialectic on love, went so far as to say: “If there is anything which appraises this life at its true exceed our adequate object. Therefore we see no repugnance in the idea that we have been raised to see God in a supernatural way.

9 On this subject consult the commentators of St, Thomas, especially Cajetan, Bannez, John of St. Thomas, Gonet, and Billuart.

value, it is the contemplation of absolute beauty. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty, the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colors and vanities of human life? Would that be an ignoble destiny for us to have our eyes fixed upon it, finding our delight in contemplating such an object and holding converse with it?” 1°

It is this natural desire which we experience within us when we inquire into the close harmony prevailing between the divine perfections. Agnosticism confronts us with the objection that these perfections are irreconcilable. We do, indeed, solve the problems presented by the antinomies, and we avoid the conclusion that there is any contradiction between the various attributes, but the intimate mode of reconciliation between the attributes escapes us; it is only in a negative and relative way that we accomplish the reconciliation. Thus we speak of the eminence of the Deity. If it were possible to see the Deity as it is in itself, then there would be an end of all obscurity. Such a desire is natural in us. But this natural desire depends upon the condition that God give us the means of seeing Him as He sees Himself; for it is evident that our natural faculties are insufficient for this. Since this desire is conditional, it is inefficacious;?* we cannot say that it is an exigency, which is the mistake made by Baius and the Jansenists. It may truly be said to be a velleity which could be frustrated, though it could not be considered a loss for us. So-it would have been if we had been created in the purely natural order,

But, it may be said, how can a natural velleity have a supernatural object? Its object, however, is not formally supernat-

10 Plato, Symposium, 211, e (Jowett’s translation),

11 On this subject see the commentators of St. Thomas (Ia, q. 12, a. 1), especially John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, Gonet, Billuart, and Fer- rariensis on Contra Gentes (Bk. III, ch. li). Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione, l, 376-403.

ural,!* since only in a natural way is it known to be desirable. In other words, what we naturally desire to see is the divine essence inasmuch as it is the principle of the naturally knowable divine attributes, so that in this way we have intrinsic evidence of the complete harmony prevailing between these attributes. Our natural desire does not extend to the divine essence as the principle of the relations in the Trinity, or as constituting the foundation of the supernatural order of grace and glory. Presenting the case in simpler form, man can naturally desire to see the essence of God as the author of the natural order, and not the essence of God inasmuch as He is the author of the supernatural order, since the realities of this order are known to us only through revelation. But the divine essence is one and absolutely simple, and cannot be seen as the principle of the divine attributes, without at the same time being seen as the principle of the relations in the Trinity. Thus this velleity shows us? that it is possible for us to be raised to see God in a supernatural way.

Even for the elect who have been raised to the beatific vision, the divine essence remains incomprehensible. Their vision of it is immediate, without the intermediary of anything created or of any idea; yet their vision could not be a comprehensive one, such as God alone naturally has of Himself.

“To comprehend a thing, in the true sense of the word, is to know it so far as it can be known. One may know a geometrical proposition without comprehending it. Such is the case with those who admit it only because men say so, or because there are probable reasons for its being so. They know, indeed, the whole

12[t is so only materially, taking the word in its metaphysical sense. This means that it is a supernatural reality known from a natural point of view.

13 The Thomists in general admit that this proof has merely the force of a congruent or probable argument, like the reasons advanced in defense of the possibility of other supernatural mysteries. Cf, Billuart, De Deo, diss. 4, a 3, appendix, and Salmanticenses, la, q. 12.

proposition and each of its parts, the subject, the predicate, and the composition; but they do not grasp the truth by a scientific demonstration. They do not know it as it is capable of being known.” 14 Thus a disciple who knows his master’s teaching in all its parts, does not comprehend it as the master does. He does not penetrate so deeply into it, and perceives only in a confused manner how closely related each part is with the supreme principles, Thus the short-sighted person sees a whole landscape, though he does not see it as clearly as a person who has good eyesight.

The divine essence, which is the infinite Being, is infinitely knowable; and created intellects, raised to the supernatural order so as to be able to enjoy the beatific vision, cannot know the infinite except in a finite way, more or less perfect, according to the intensity of supernatural light which they receive. They truly see directly the whole divine essence, but not in its totality, not in that infinitely perfect way which belongs to God alone. They do not exhaust its infinite cognoscibility, and they do not perceive the innumerable multitude of possible beings that it virtually contains,

Invisible and incomprehensible as the nature of God is for us, yet it is naturally knowable in this life by the use of reason. This knowledge, which we have already considered at length (nn. 29, 33, 42), can be only analogical. We find the absolute perfections of God reflected in the mirror of created things. Thus we positively know Him in that He has something analogically in common with His effects, inasmuch as He is being, good, wise, or powerful. But we cannot express what it is that properly constitutes Him as He is, except in a negative and relative way by means of objects derived from sense experience. Thus we say of Him that He is the infinite Being, or the supreme Being (la, q. 13).

Unity, truth, goodness or perfection, infinity, immensity, immutability, eternity, invisibility, and incomprehensibility—these are the principal attributes relative to God’s being itself.

Since action or operation follows being, and the mode of operation follows the mode of being, we now come to discuss the attributes relative to the divine operations. The activity of a material body is corporeal, that of a spirit is spiritual. What must be our concept of the divine action, and what are its relations with the divine Being and with the world?